Posted by: Anonymous Coward
on January 19, 2007 02:45 AM
I wanted to thank the linux.com editors for informing us about the availability and features of this forum software. The free software zealotrism present in some of the above comments shouldn't act as an obstacle for creating articles about this kind of software.
The guys behind SMF offer us a gratis solution for online forums, with code you can read, learn from, modify for your own needs and tell other people how you modified the code (patches?). You can get in contact with the development team and suggest new features, send them patches, inform them of security problems, etc.
The only drawback is not being able to redistribute the software without prior written permission. And you probably can if you ask. Are you a distribution maintainer? Explain them how you are going to distribute their package and they'll probably give you permission.
Granted, this is not free software, and may or may not be open source software by the OSI definition (probably not), but this is truly related to Linux in the sense that most people who use SMF will do it on Linux. It's like rejecting to have an article about The Gimp because it can also be run on other platforms. The availability of the source code, the free cost and freedom to modify it for your own needs is very acceptable for many of us. Remember many people are using qmail under similar licensing conditions.
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Posted by: Anonymous Coward on January 19, 2007 02:45 AMThe guys behind SMF offer us a gratis solution for online forums, with code you can read, learn from, modify for your own needs and tell other people how you modified the code (patches?). You can get in contact with the development team and suggest new features, send them patches, inform them of security problems, etc.
The only drawback is not being able to redistribute the software without prior written permission. And you probably can if you ask. Are you a distribution maintainer? Explain them how you are going to distribute their package and they'll probably give you permission.
Granted, this is not free software, and may or may not be open source software by the OSI definition (probably not), but this is truly related to Linux in the sense that most people who use SMF will do it on Linux. It's like rejecting to have an article about The Gimp because it can also be run on other platforms. The availability of the source code, the free cost and freedom to modify it for your own needs is very acceptable for many of us. Remember many people are using qmail under similar licensing conditions.
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