[GNUz] Isn't Clark Connect non-Free?

[Jim Cheetham]

On Fri, Apr 07, 2006 at 08:04:53PM +1200, Rik Tindall wrote:
> >I'm surprised that their site says next to nothing about licensing, as
> >far as I can see. There's a tiny mention[1] of the GPL on their FAQ
> "Source code is available for download. You can find the source code in 
> the sources directory for each version. To save disk space, only 
> differences from the previous version are included.  In other words, the 
> source code for your version might be located in an earlier version" [1]

This sounds possible under the GPL - no-one said you have to be able to
download just one file to get the sources. However, if the full chain of
sources are not available, that's a problem.

> "Most Open Source Software (OSS) is licensed under the GNU General 
> Public License (GPL). ClarkConnect is no different in this respect in 
> that our source code is freely accessible to anyone. However, one of the 
> biggest misconceptions of the GPL and term 'free software' is that the 
> word free means no charge. This is not true..."[2]

[2] is completely correct; however there is an expected limitation on the charge,
which is usually defined as 'the cost of copying' -- but the gpl itself
makes no limitation in clause 1: "You may charge a fee for the physical
act of transferring a copy, and you may at your option offer warranty
protection in exchange for a fee."

> So where we are now is to match CC's functionality - for Don's project 
> purposes - with Free and/or Open alternatives. At present we're likely 
> to compare FreeBSD first off, and, as the project requirements become 
> clearer, explore other distros too.

Really?
The functionality of clark connect is :-
    * Internet Gateway
    * Firewall
    * VPN
    * E-mail
    * Bandwidth and P2P Manager
    * Intrusion Prevention
    * Web and FTP Servers
    * Antispam/Antivirus
    * Content Filtering
    * File and Print Services
    * Data backup

All of this is provided best-of-breed from standard open source stuff
under Linux; however it's non-trivial to tie it all up together into a
single management utility (and I don't count Webmin as such a beast,
although in many ways it's the closest there is in the general outside
world)

FreeBSD is a nice distro (I run about three FreeBSD machines in the UK)
but I don't think it has a significant advantage over Linux; on the
other hand, OpenBSD has an extreme focus on security and reliability --
don't choose distros on just how cool they sound :-) choose them on
their precise functionality benefits.

Match CC with ...
    * Internet Gateway ; Linux as a router
    * Firewall ; iptables
    * VPN ; openvpn or openssh
    * E-mail ; postfix or exim
    * Bandwidth and P2P Manager ; iptables and l7 module
    * Intrusion Prevention ; iptables, logcheck, denyhosts, snort
    * Web and FTP Servers ; apache, proftpd
    * Antispam/Antivirus ; amavid|mailscanner, clamav, spamassassin
    * Content Filtering ; squid
    * File and Print Services ; samba
    * Data backup ; rdiff, rsync, unison

-jim