Re: errno-patch (Re: Email servers)

Charlie Brady <[email protected]> wrote:
> Exception: You are permitted to distribute a precompiled var-qmail package
> if
>  (1) installing the package produces exactly the same /var/qmail
>   hierarchy as a user would obtain by downloading, compiling, and
>   installing qmail-1.03.tar.gz, fastforward-0.51.tar.gz, and
>   dot-forward-0.71.tar.gz;
> (2) the package behaves correctly, i.e., the same way as normal
>   qmail+fastforward+dot-forward installations on all other systems; and
> (3) the package's creator warrants that he has made a good-faith attempt to
>   ensure that the package behaves correctly.
> ...
>
> There are 3 conditions here, the only one which might be in question being
> 2).

(1) is also in question - "download, compile, and install" doesn't
obviously include "edit".  Now, the same effect as your edit could be
produced without editing by using a "cc" wrapper script, but such a
script could make arbitrarily large changes, which in general could
potentially make qmail misbehave; and a user would probably not use a
qmail-patching wrapper script normally (i.e., for anything but qmail).

Just as a guess, I doubt Dan would sue anyone for distributing a
binary qmail that was changed only to fix the errno problem.  But by a
strict, paranoid reading of dist.html, I'd say it's prohibited: if
qmail fails to compile, that's wrong behavior, and: "If there's
something about a system (compiler, libraries, kernel, hardware,
whatever) that changes qmail's behavior, then that platform is not
supported, and you are not permitted to distribute binaries."  Of
course, it could be argued that failure to compile is not qmail's own
behavior, but some other behavior.  We are forced to guess about DJB's
intent, since dist.html is not explicit on this point.


paul