Re: [XBoard-devel] installer

[Tim Mann]

On Sun, 04 Oct 2009 22:39:04 +0200, "h.g. muller" <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
> >What do you all think?
> 
> I think this is ridiculous. The WinBoard installer has always contained 
> timeseal.
> We would have to remove all old WinBoard installers.

The GNU folks weren't aware of this before.  We are indeed supposed to
remove old WinBoard installers that contain timeseal and timestamp from
the gnu.org site.

> There are good reasons for wanting timeseal to be closed source,
> and good reasons for wanting to distribute it without Winboard.

[I assume you meant to write "with WinBoard" there.]

I agree fully, but unfortunately, the FSF is very strict that
everything "promoted" by its web site (including being on its ftp site
or linked directly from its web site) has to be free software.

I had a discussion with Karl Berry of the FSF to see if there could be
a way to make timestamp and timeseal acceptable free software -- say,
by opening up all the source except for the encryption key -- but we
could not come up with anything that would work.  One of the FSF's
basic free software tenets is that everything needed to regenerate the
binary from source has to be provided, which means leaving out the
encryption key would not work.  Neither of us could come up with
anything that would work, and I think it's pretty clear that that's
impossible -- if someone gets the complete source for a timestamp
program, it's trivial to modify it to make one that cheats, and that's
exactly what the chess servers are trying to make difficult.

> Who is threatening to throw us off the GNU site if we refuse to remove 
> timeseal
> from the package? I say we just leave things as they currently are, and ignore
> them. If they insist on stricty enforcing policy, they can alway change 
> policy.

They won't change, I can tell you that for certain.  No one is
threatening to throw us off at this time, because Arun and I said we
would adhere to the policy, but it could come to that if we go back on
that.

> If not, I propose we move the project site to another host, and cease to be
> a GNU project. Who wants GNU if they make life difficult, in stead of easy?

I'm not deeply committed to GNU, but I'd rather not break with them
over this issue.  Karl seems to be OK with the compromise of having the
gnu.org site not host or linking directly to the installer that
contains the timestamping programs, but still linking to the top page
of the WinBoard Forum (which is free to host the installer).

-- 
Tim Mann  address@hidden  http://tim-mann.org/