License

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qmail is copyrighted by the creator and is not distributed with a statement of users' rights. However, he outlines what he thinks your rights are under U.S. copyright law (http://cr.yp.to/softwarelaw.html), and he grants the right to distribute qmail source code (http://cr.yp.to/qmail/dist.html). Binary distributions are also allowed (http://cr.yp.to/qmail/var-qmail.html).

The bottom line is that you can use qmail for any purpose, you can redistribute unmodified qmail source distributions and qualifying var-qmail binary distributions, and you can distribute patches to qmail. You cannot distribute modified qmail source code or non-var-qmail binary distributions.

Is qmail free software? Yes and no. It's available to anyone who wants it for free. Once one has it, one can do whatever one wants with it, including modifying the source code—except one can not redistribute modified qmail source code or binary qmail distributions that don't qualify as var-qmail packages.

These redistribution restrictions anger some free software activists who are used to being able to modify software as they see fit for their favorite Linux or Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) distributions, but Bernstein feels strongly that they're necessary for two reasons:

  • His reputation is at stake if someone distributes a qmail distribution with modifications that introduce reliability, security, or efficiency bugs.

  • qmail should look and behave the same on all platforms. For example, the file structure shouldn't be modified to conform to the file-system hierarchy adopted by a particular operating system distribution.



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The Qmail Handbook
The qmail Handbook
ISBN: 1893115402
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2001
Pages: 186
Authors: Dave Sill

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