The Internet Virus--Another issue

[Brian Holt]

In article <1988Nov19.235026.29419 at utzoo.uucp> henry at utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>In article <2490 at aplcomm.jhuapl.edu> trn at aplcomm.jhuapl.edu (Tony Nardo) writes:
>>I don't wish to pick on SUN alone.  It would sure be nice if vendors could
>>maintain a system on the network, reachable via anonymous ftp, containing
>>the patched sources/objects/binaries for bugs found in their operating
>>systems...
>
>There would be some small licensing problems with this, given that not
>everybody on the network is licensed for the same stuff.
>-- 
>Sendmail is a bug,             |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
>not a feature.                 | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry at zoo.toronto.edu

Not to mention that most of the vendors are on the DARPA Internet
portion of the internet, which explicitly disallows commercial 
use except for the support of Defense Advanced Research Projects
or DoD contracts.  Those that aren't directly on the DARPA section
are on a connected network (such as NSFnet) which has agreed to abide
by DARPA's rules.  An argument could be made that providing patched
sources/objects/binaries via anonymous ftp is in support of
DoD contracts, but I suspect most vendors aren't willing to 
push that fine gray line too far.

I'm not a lawyer, and I don't even play one on TV, so don't quote
me on any of this.

		=brian
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