I am going to make a little history. A few months ago I send few messages to contribs.org offering my expertise to enhance the SME Server.
I don't know where you sent your offer, but it did not come to me. I'd be absolutely delighted to work with you to enhance the SME Server.
At that time I only request some documentation, the Mitel site and the contribs.org only offer some vague information about how the system works.
If you'd asked any of your questions on the devinfo list (which was established nearly six years ago for exactly such questions) then I would have tried to help you with your understanding.
In my humble opinion SME should be a business server with all the modern tools available in the Open Source community.
The main thing we need to achieve that is to have a sufficient number of developers working together towards that aim.
We need to keep in my that the SME Server or any other Linux Server are in competition with the Windows Servers, and we need to provide quality and easy to handle tools to entice users to migrate to Linux. In the end everybody will benefit.
Indeed. Each of us working alone, however, has no chance of making any significant dent in Microsoft's dominant position. We don't need lots of little vendors with "their" SME Server distribution, each with their own advantages and flaws, we need one polished and constantly improving offering.
First:
All the copyrights are intact. I did not remove any copyrights from no one.
The server manager screenshots contained in user-kuadra-features.pdf show "Copyright Kirux Technology Solutions, inc", where my Mitel SME server shows a Mitel Copyright assertion. I presume that that is what people are talking about.
Second:
I provide all the source code with my modifications to kirux customers. As obligated by the GPL license.
Third:
Under GPL Licence I am not obligated to publish all my work to the general public, only to the recipients of the work.
Although you correctly quote the *minimum* requirements of the GPL, it's worth noting that none of the software components which have allowed you to build your server appliance have been distributed under those conditions. The source code to all of them is freely published for all to use. Let's just list a tiny subset of those components:
- the linux kernel
- GNU libraries and utilities
- the RedHat installer anaconda
- the Apache web server
- perl
- samba
- postfix
- cyrus-imap
- clamav
- php
- imp, horde, turba
- mambo
- CM Simple
- Sugar CRM
- Mitel SME Server
What would you be offering your customers if all of these projects were hidden from public view?
If you go to the kirux site it is a FREE Software section for Windows users. That shows my willingness to contribute to the community.
I don't see any contributions from you there. All I see are you redistributing the work of others.
Ok guys what is next. How I can help. Greg Swallow: Thank you for your email.
The next step is for you to actively participate with the developers on the sourceforge mailing list.
You've raised some questions here as to what you feel are essential changes, e.g. replace qmail with postfix. Let's discuss the pros and cons of making that change.
Share your code with us, as we have shared our code with you. Allow others to improve your work, as you have improved on the work of others.
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