Pine Legal Issues
It depends on how that term is defined. Source for Unix Pine is
provided to allow users and system administrators to customize and adapt
Pine for their own requirements. UW's
Pine license allows anyone to download source code for Unix Pine and
make modifications for their own local use without asking permission.
Anyone can also create and distribute patch files to implement bug fixes
or minor enhancements without asking permission. However, redistribution
of a modified version of Pine requires explicit permission from the
University of Washington.
No. License wording has changed
from time to time, but the owner's intent has not. When it was discovered
that some individuals were misinterpreting the intent of the University,
the license wording was clarified.
In particular, the earliest Pine licenses included the words:
"Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software... is
hereby granted," but some people tried to pervert the meaning of that
sentence to define "this software" to include derivative works of "this
software". The intent has always been that you can re-distribute the UW
distribution, but if you modify it, you have created a derivative work and
must ask permission to redistribute it. There has never been implicit or
explicit permission given to redistribute modified or derivative versions
without permission. The license wording was therefore changed to clarify
this point.
Yes. Distribution of patch files "to accomplish bug fixes, minor
enhancements, or adaptation to new operating systems" are permitted
and encouraged. (For more extensive changes, check with the UW.)
No; currently a less restrictive license is used for those
libraries. See the University of
Washington's Free Fork License on the IMAP Information Center Web
site.
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Modified: January 4, 2002
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