>
>Another fundamental requirement is that BITNET and NetNorth should not have to
>suffer from the political nonsense that is going on in EARN. The only solution
>I found so far would be to "split" the product, giving EARN something they can
>work on and providing continuing service to BITNET+NetNorth, unaffected by the
>EARN changes. I would like to hear your opinion on the following proposal:
>
>The LISTSERV  product would be  "forked" into  two separate branches,  each of
>which would  originally be the EXACT  SAME CODE (with cosmetic  changes to the
>configuration files).
>
>1. The first  one would retain the  name of LISTSERV, and would  have the same
>   attributes as today's product. I  would keep developing and maintaining it,
>   free of charge, in the way that I have been doing since the very beginning.
>   This new LISTSERV would be available (both code and support) free of charge
>   to BITNET and NetNorth ONLY.
>
>2. The  second one would be  renamed to, say,  LISTEARN, and I would  issue an
>   unlimited,  network-wide   license  to  EARN.  The   conditions  would  be,
>   basically, that EARN is allowed to distribute the LISTEARN code to any EARN
>   site and to use it for as long  as the sun shall rise, that EARN is allowed
>   to make changes  to this code and  to distribute them in  the same fashion,
>   but  that they  are  not allowed  to  sell  any of  the  code or  otherwise
>   distribute it  to institutions outside  EARN. As  a matter of  principle, I
>   would ask EARN for  some reasonable amount of money in  return, but this is
>   irrelevant at this point. LISTEARN would be "owned" by EARN (with the small
>   restrictions I mentioned above), maintained  by EARN through the EARN staff
>   budget (not by me), and available free of charge to all EARN sites.
>
>I would like to  insist on the fact that, when the "forking"  is done, the two
>products are identical. That is, at t=0, LISTSERV == LISTEARN.
>
>Another important  thing is that  I would  support LISTSERV but  not LISTEARN.
>This should be very clear: any  question, problem or bug report about LISTEARN
>would be sent back to its originator, with instructions to send it to whomever
>EARN chooses  to maintain  LISTEARN. Whatever  happens to  LISTEARN is  not my
>business, and if users are not satisfied with the quality of the product, they
>should  complain  to   their  BoD  member  (who  is  the   normal  channel  of
>communication for this kind of problems).
>
>As far as  backbone and peering is concerned, LISTEARN  would be a "different"
>type of  list server, in  much the  same way as  the BITNIC LISTSERV  was. The
>LISTSERVs would not know about the  LISTEARNs, which might in fact evolve into
>something that is no longer compatible with LISTSERV. Similarly, the LISTEARNs
>will not  know about the LISTSERVs,  and we will have  two separate backbones:
>one in the US+Canada, one in Europe. This  is of course not very good from the
>technical point  of view, but  then that is exactly  what will have  to happen
>anyway when EARN migrates to OSI  protocols, or when BITNET migrates to domain
>naming, etc.
>
>I am open to  suggestions on this topic. However please keep  in mind that any
>solution you may propose has to meet the following requirements:
>
>- Little or no impact to the LISTSERV service presently provided to BITNET and
>  NetNorth; this includes continued LISTSERV maintenance and development.
>
>- Ability for EARN to make whatever changes  they want to make to LISTSERV, in
>  their  time  scale,  without  being  subjected  to  uncontrollable  external
>  elements like the "so-called volunteers".
>
>- Complete  removal  of my  involvement  and  responsibility insofar  as  EARN
>  changes to the software are concerned.
>
>- Respect of the results of the survey, which will be available on the 18th of
>  february and on which we can only make assumptions for the time being.
>
>Thanks for your time and involvement, Eric
>
>PS: Remember - all future discussions to be held on LSTSRV-L only.
 
It seems to me that one important requirement has been omitted from this list.
EARN sites who wish to run the supported LISTSERV at its current supported
version should not be excluded from doing so.  I mean it to be understood that
such sites should run this code either unmodified, or only with agreed special
features and packages.
 
I have to say that I would find it inappropriate and objectionable that
someone, whilst availing of the EARN infrastructure to develop and to
distribute any code, should then even consider refusing to make that code
available within EARN.
 
Best Regards.
Niall