* Jerry A! (jerry@thehutt.org) [030508 13:24]:
On Thu, May 08, 2003 at 10:08:52PM +0200, Philipp Thomas wrote: : "Berge, Harry ten" <berge@hitt.nl> [Thu, 8 May 2003 09:11:24 +0200 ]: : : >I don't understand why this isn't the default ksh instead of the : >pdksh that comes with SuSE. : : It's mostly the complicated license that's prevented inclusion.
I don't think it's all that complicated. Check it out: http://www.research.att.com/sw/license/ast-open.html
Basically, it says: don't pass off our work as yours, send patches our way, if this is a derived product show our copyright, and the ever-present "it's not our fault if it breaks something."
If only it were that simple. From what I recall (this was 2-3 years ago so this is an approximation) the part that concerned the legal department was 4.1: If you distribute Build Materials (including if you are required to do so pursuant to this Agreement), you shall ensure that the recipient enters into and duly accepts an agreement with you which includes the minimum terms set forth in Appendix A (completed to indicate you as the LICENSOR) and no other provisions which, in AT&T's opinion, conflict with your obligations under, or the intent of, this Agreement. The agreement required under this Section 4.1 may be in electronic form and may be distributed with the Build Materials in a form such that the recipient accepts the agreement by using or installing the Build Materials. If any Additional Code contained in your Build Materials includes Software you obtained under license, the agreement shall also include complete details concerning the license and any restrictions or obligations associated with such Software. The second to last sentence sounds like that by you installing the package and our sticking a copy their license in /usr/share/doc/packages everything would be satisifed but since it's AT&T it was decided that it really wasn't worth the risk. Afterall, if you know what ksh is you most likely won't have any trouble building it yourself.
For what it's worth, Slackware does include ksh93 as their default ksh implementation, and all the BSD's have it available in their ports collections.
The BSDs aren't quite the same thing but I'm surprised about Slackware. Then again, RH and Mandrake distribute the ltmodem driver without having the user explicitly accept the license (which is required) so maybe we're just especially paranoid. -- -ckm