Re: LYNX-DEV SSLynx

[David Woolley]

> 
> Does anyone have a compiled Lynx 2.7.2 for Linux, preferably with SSL 
> already put in it?  Same for BSDI.  I'd like to give them to my Linux and 

Providing an SSL binary of Lynx to a third party would be illegal as it would
have to include RSAREF, which is not freely distributable for both commercial
and non-commercial use, which is a violation of the GPL.  Basically you 
have two conflicting licence terms, and the GPL is very explicit on this point;
if you can't meet all the GPL terms, you cannot distribute.

> BSDI ISPs, with or without SSL, but already compiled and ready to run.

Giving any RSAREF code to an ISP could constitute commercial use, which is
not permitted for (royalty free) RSAREF code.  (I would say just putting it
on their site, for downloading, wouldn't be commercial use, although
you should double check if they make any download charges.  I would say
that the ISP using it to verify pages or providing telnet access would
be commercial use.)

In any case you would be taking on a (criminal law) legal responsibility
to ensure that the ISP didn't allow anyone outside the USA, or people
in the USA without permanent resident status, to have access to the
the RSAREF derived code.

Moreover, a large proportion of support questions from Linux users arise from
people using binaries that aren't actually suitable for their distribution of
Linux (directory names, installed libraries and versions, locking conventions,
etc.), so I would generally discourage the distribution of Linux binaries 
except by the Linux distribution packagers themselves.  (Of the changes I
had to make to get Lynx to compile and run properly on my Linux, only one
was necessary to get it to compile; the remaining ones (see recent article)
where all because of differences in the run time environment between 
distributions).

> 
> What are the chances SSL, ftp, telnet and gopher, as well as the ability 
> to e-mail, will be added to Lynx for DOS?
> 

How much time have you got to develop them?  Basically this questions depends
on how important they are to the people who are motivated to work on 
developing them.  In any case, only someone actually working on them could
answer this question.

Having said all the above, if you are still determined to have a precompiled
binary, I can give you 2.7.2, linux-ncurses, Slackware 3.1, bug fixes to 
25th January, no SSL, no anonymous email, line drawing characters used,
although, to meet the five year source availability rule, I'd have to supply
you with the bug fixes zip I used and probably the base source code.