Re: Where is the qmail Licence?

> Apart from all of this, I'd really like to know the rationale behind
> Dan's position.

 That one's an easy one.

 - Reliability of the qmail setup.
 DJB is absolutely sure that qmail works as intended. He's so certain
it has no security holes that he offers a cash guarantee. However, he
can only guarantee software that _he_ has written, and that is working
under the setup _he_ has chosen.
 Patches might be broken ; installation in /usr or anywhere else than
/var might not work for obscure reasons ; etc. etc. And since DJB
wants "qmail" to just work, then "qmail" should only be the approved
one.
 Of course, the flip-side is that DJB should correct problems himself
as soon as they are discovered, and we all agree that qmail-1.04 is
definitely needed.

 - Centralization and efficiency of support resources.
 From what I've seen, when somebody has a problem with some piece of
software, 90% of the time it's a configuration problem - including
packaging mistakes from some third-party packager.
 If people go around and distribute their own modified qmail version,
anything can happen, anything can break anywhere, and people who're
trying to help won't be able to debug things at all, because there are
too many possibilities. Ever seen a sendmail support list ? On the
other hand, if qmail has the same setup everywhere, then it's much
easier to reproduce problems, to track them down, to find bugs if
there are, etc. etc.

 I'm not saying DJB's choices are the only ones that achieve those
goals. I'm only saying that they do achieve them in a way that no
other software I know does. And it would be all the better if DJB
would 1. explain this more clearly than I or his webpages do ;
2. release more often when there's a need.

-- 
 Ska