Re: [Savannah-hackers] submission of Peer Agent - savannah.nongnu.org

[Elfyn McBratney]

Hi,

I'm evaluating the project you submitted for approval in Savannah.

On Thu, Sep 09, 2004 at 11:24:50AM -0400, address@hidden wrote:
> A package was submitted to savannah.nongnu.org
> This mail was sent to address@hidden, address@hidden
> 
> 
> Bob Fischer <address@hidden> described the package as follows:
> License: lgpl
> Other License: 
> Package: Peer Agent
> System name: peeragent
> Type: non-GNU
> 
> Description:
> Peer agents are executable object-oriented email components exchanged between
> users as a basis of communication for distributed applications. They are
> strongly typed and are dispatched to user-installable trusted handlers based
> on their type. The type mechanism provides the flexible trust management
> needed to implement secure distributed applications over store-and-forward
> networks. Peer agents address a number of contemporary problems in distributed
> systems. They allow users with low-grade or intermittent Internet access to
> provide and consume interactive services that typically requrie a web server
> hosted by a trusted third party. By eliminating the need for the trusted third
> party, privacy is enhanced. Peer agents also allow an initiator to adopt new
> standards without requiring prior agreement with others involved in the
> communication. 

Please reply and include an (temporary) URL pointing to the source code.
The description you gave when registering will not be read by the general
public. If you are still concerned with privacy, however, you can forward the
code to me by email (address@hidden).

We wish to review your source code, even if it is not functional, to catch
potential legal issues early.  

For example, to release your program properly under the GPL you must include
a copyright notice and permission-to-copy statements at the beginning of
every file of source code.  This is explained in
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-howto.html.  Our review would help catch
potential omissions such as these.

> The current status of the software is pre-alpha.  Code exists but has not yet
> been distributed.  Possible Free Software issues include:
>
>  1. This system is written in Java, including Swing.  I have every reason to
> believe it will work with Kaffee/Classpath when that system's Swing
> implementation is finished.  This kind of work, due to the need for 
> architecture
> independence and mobile code, must be done in a sandboxed bytecode 
> environment.
> Unfortunately, the Kaffee website claims that Kaffee does not yet provide the
> bytecode verification necessary to ensure safety with mobile code.  Hopefully,
> this will change in the future.  Mono would be the other possible base system,
> but Mono is still young and this is already written in Java.

You must determine whether your project can run on a Free Software Java suite
(see http://www.gnu.org/software/java/ for more information).  

We recommend you to test your project against GCJ+Classpath, and ensure that
your Java code runs on this Free Software Java suite.  If it does not run with
a free Java suite, we cannot host your project, as it would have non-free
dependencies.

GCJ is the GNU Compiler for Java, part of the GCC (GNU Compiler Collection).
The Classpath project aims to develop a free and portable implementation of
the Java API (the classes in the 'java' package).  More information at
http://gcc.gnu.org and http://www.gnu.org/software/classpath/.

Please provide us with more information about this point.

>  2. A variety of non-free libraries are used at this point, all of which can 
> be
> replaced by free libraries:
>    a) JavaMail --> GNU's JavaMail (or Risotto, in its upcoming release which
> should be GPL-compatible).
>    b) BCEL --> I have a "roll your own" thing that works well enough.

How and where will you make this BCEL replacement available?  Will it be
distributed with peeragent?

If you are willing to make the changes mentioned above, please provide
us with an URL to an updated tarball of your project.  Upon review, we
will reconsider your project for inclusion in Savannah.

Regards,

-- 
Elfyn McBratney
beu on irc.freenode.net/savannah.[non]gnu.org

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