Re-homing of RAToolSet to RIPE NCC

On Thu, 2001-10-04 at 11:20, Ray Plzak wrote:

> But it doesn't ensure that you will incorporate them either.
> The bottom line is that where the resource controller makes the final
> decision based upon the organization's resource availability and its
> impact on the contributors to that resource, that will be the primary
> consideration and not necessarily those of the global users of the
> product.

These issues would probably go away if a GNU-like license were applied.
Maybe it's an idea to copyleft the whole bunch?  The current license on
(almost all) source files says:

    ... use, copy, modify, and distribute this software ... for lawful
    non-commercial purposes and without fee is hereby granted, ...

The copyright owner is USC.  Now, I don't think anybody has ever given
much thought about the "lawful non-commercial" use, but unless I am
mistaken it clearly prohibits the majority of ISPs to use this software.

An explicit copylefting of this project would allow anyone to modify and
distribute the package, keep the sources available and open, and hence
allow a fair degree of democratic control over its evolution.  If, for
example, enough people want a set of changes that (hypothetically
speaking) RIPE NCC weren't willing to implement, these people could take
the sources, create their own modifications and make it available to the
community again. Yes, we might see diverging implementations, but at
least everyone will have the opportunity to see their need-to-have
features implemented.

Cheers,
Steven