As I said I no longer make public comments on what EARN does, unless I am
being attacked or directly involved. This is the case here, so I am answering.
>I hope, everybody is proud and happy now to have a stable situation and some
>more signed (and still to be signed) paperwork.
EARN is the one which insisted to get something signed from the very
beginning. I kept refusing, as it was clear that their purpose was to take
LISTSERV out of my control and stick a glossy "EARN-developed" label on it,
but they kept insisting. I am sure some EARN official will immediately reply
that this is not true, at least stopped being true when the President changed,
and you are free to believe who you want. Personally I would have been happy
not to have to carefully write a dangerous (for me) contract and sign it; I am
not particularly proud of having a piece of paper bearing the signature of our
President, but I am sure glad to have got out of the situation I was in. I am
glad, among other things, that my boss will no longer be privately contacted
by the President of EARN to discuss my case.
>What I have heard about Listserv's future, however, reminds me more on
>commercial non-disclosure contracts to protect trade secrets.
There is no non-disclosure contract. If you want to write a LISTSERV for
OS/XYZ based on what you know the VM version does, you are free to do so. If
however you want to give *my* work (I mean the code) away to someone else
without my permission, you are not free to do so. I don't see anything about
non-disclosure or trade secret here. If you give me a copy of a superb picture
you took for my own use, and I publish it in a magazine without your
permission (maybe even under my name), you will probably be angry at me, which
doesn't mean the picture is a trade secret.
>Furthermore I don't understand what an "EARN site" is. What's the definition?
A member of the EARN association in one of the EARN countries.
>Does this mean a European Internet (or UUCP) node will qualify for the BITNET
>version of Listserv?
I don't ship copies of the code to nodes which are not reachable via NJE,
because it's too much work for me (I'd have to UUENCODE files, etc). I guess
that solves the problem.
>Furthermore I don't understand why I have to sign a license agreement for
>software I already have obtained under valid terms in a legal way.
You don't have. From what I understand, EARN will offer you support for
LISTSERV provided you accept the terms (still to be defined) of their license
agreement. If you don't want to accept them, you don't have to. I can't (and
don't want anyway) to cancel your license, you are not forced to accept
EARN's, so things can remain as they are today.
By the way Thomas, if you have any constructive suggestion about what I should
do, please do suggest. But don't forget that it's easy to judge people's
reactions to attacks and pressure when *you* are not the subject of the
pressure.
Eric
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