Tickets :: [#3502] procmail forwarding may cause mail loops

6.0.0-beta1

7/13/25

Summary	procmail forwarding may cause mail loops
Queue	Ingo
Queue Version	1.0.2
Type	Enhancement
State	Resolved
Priority	2. Medium
Owners	Horde Developers (at) , jan (at) horde (dot) org
Requester	joshkel (at) gmail (dot) com
Created	02/17/2006 (7086 days ago)
Due
Updated	05/23/2006 (6991 days ago)
Assigned	05/23/2006 (6991 days ago)
Resolved	05/23/2006 (6991 days ago)
Milestone
Patch	Yes

05/23/2006 07:22:47 PM	Chuck Hagenbuch	Comment #14 State ⇒ Resolved	Reply to this comment
Committed, thanks!

05/23/2006 07:19:49 PM	Chuck Hagenbuch	Deleted Original Message

05/23/2006 07:19:37 PM	Chuck Hagenbuch	Deleted Original Message

05/23/2006 03:49:45 PM	Jan Schneider	Comment #13 State ⇒ Assigned Priority ⇒ 2. Medium	Reply to this comment
Perfect.

05/23/2006 03:31:43 PM	joshkel (at) gmail (dot) com	Comment #12 New Attachment: vacation_loop.patch	Reply to this comment
Here's the patch, finally. Is this format okay? Sorry it took me so long to take care of this.

05/23/2006 04:25:02 AM	Chuck Hagenbuch	Comment #11	Reply to this comment
Are you going to update the patch?

04/24/2006 12:51:59 PM	Jan Schneider	Type ⇒ Enhancement State ⇒ Feedback Priority ⇒ 1. Low

04/18/2006 09:53:51 AM	Jan Schneider	Comment #10	Reply to this comment
OK, can you please update my version of the patch to include the source of the code and the permission to redistribute it in the comments?

04/17/2006 09:58:33 PM	joshkel (at) gmail (dot) com	Comment #9	Reply to this comment
We received permission, so it should be okay to proceed with the current patch. From further discussion by mail: From: Jari Aalto <jari.aalto@cante.net> To: Josh Kelley <joshkel@gmail.com> Date: Apr 17, 2006 9:49 AM Subject: Re: Licensing question - sharing Apache and GPL code (pm-lib/Ingo/Horde) \| On 4/4/06, Jari Aalto <jari.aalto@cante.net> wrote: \| > The licensing issues are complex matter and I would rather suggest to \| > make an informed decision: \| > \| > - practical; just take the code and quote me \| > in the project files: "The Ingo project \| > has the permission to use Procmail Library code \| > under Apache licence v 1.x or any later version. \| > Permission obtained 2006-04-04 from Author Jari Aalto." \| \| Since the Horde developers have said that they prefer this approach, \| is it okay if we proceed with it? \| \| Thank you for all of your time spent on this. Sure, please go ahead, Jari

04/12/2006 10:30:13 PM	Jan Schneider	Comment #8	Reply to this comment
From further discussion by mail: Hi Josh, Jari, Zitat von Josh Kelley <joshkel@gmail.com>: [Show Quoted Text - 62 lines][Hide Quoted Text] I've been in contact with the author of pm-lib regarding using his code as part of the fix for http://bugs.horde.org/ticket/?id=3502. Here's his latest reply. As the Apache 2.x license is compatible with the GPL (or at least will be once GPL 3 is released), he had presented using that as one possible solution to the licensing discrepancy; you can read the rest of the dialog below. I think that we need input from the Horde developers at this point, so I'm forwarding to you. Josh Kelley ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Jari Aalto <jari.aalto@cante.net> Date: Apr 4, 2006 1:16 PM Subject: Re: Licensing question - sharing Apache and GPL code (pm-lib/Ingo/Horde) To: Josh Kelley <joshkel@gmail.com> \| On 4/4/06, Jari Aalto <jari.aalto@cante.net> wrote: \| > \| If my understanding of the incompatibilities is correct, then may I \| > \| have permission to include some pm-lib code, under section 10 of the \| > \| the GPL? \| > \| > You have my permission, but the problem is that it would not be \| > legally valid. I propose the following (Ingo/Horde people CC'd). \| \| Why would it not be legally valid? As the author of pm-lib, you may \| choose to license your code however you wish and make it available \| under separate two licenses if you wish. Section 10 of the GPL \| specifically permits authors of GPL'ed code to make the code available \| for free software projects not under the GPL if they so desire. I explained too tersely. I meant that in the light of the license parties' undertanding (Apache foundation and FSF), the Apache 1.x license and GPL does not seem to be compatible. As for multiple licensing, which I have to politely decline, I have my reservations, because they easily adds complexity that I'm unable to handle and properly comprehend. I feel multiple licensing is for Organizations and foundations that have the resources to know what they are doing. The GPL in my view has advantage of being tested in court, whereas the other licenses to my knowledge have not yet. When I referred to "it would not be legally valid", I meant: - I can give written permission to copy the code to other projects. - but whether it would be legally okay, I do not know. What if the code is again distributed to other projects and with BSD license? (I'm would not be in favor of BSD type commercial/closed/ allowance licenses). The licensing issues are complex matter and I would rather suggest to make an informed decision: - practical; just take the code and quote me in the project files: "The Ingo project has the permission to use Procmail Library code under Apache licence v 1.x or any later version. Permission obtained 2006-04-04 from Author Jari Aalto." This seems like the easiest way to go. We are talking about less then ten lines of procmail recipe code (iirc) which is not really rocket science. This would of course be a completely different story if we were about to include large parts of, or the complete pm-lib. And it's similar to how we did handle inclusion of other third party code or algorithms with written permission by the author. I can pgp sign the wording as needed. You can also suggest wording that we can agree on. - Long route; take the issue to the development team (upstream; Ingo, Horde devel) and have a discussion to persuate them to move to Apache 2.x licence or have them add wording "Apache 1.x lincence or at your option any later version" as GPL does. This seems impratical. I'm not sure if this an issue of GPL only or with any licence like ASL here. But since contributors don't explicitely hand the copyright over to the Horde Project (which doesn't exist as a legal entity anyway), we probably can't simply change the licence without the permission of each single contributor. Jan.

03/31/2006 03:22:52 PM	Jan Schneider	Comment #7 New Attachment: vacation_loop.diff	Reply to this comment
It's even worse because Ingo is under the Apache license. Yes, please ask the author or find a different solution. Attached is my cleaned up version of you patch with several coding standards fixes. Please continue from there.

03/31/2006 03:14:59 PM	joshkel (at) gmail (dot) com	Comment #6	Reply to this comment
The comments say "Code taken from pm-lib.sourceforge.net." What exactly does this mean? I needed the "from" address, to pass as the -f option to sendmail. pm-lib.sourceforge.net contains a procmail snippet for determining the from address without making an extra call to formail, so I used it. (This makes up the 13 lines or so of code that set OUTPUT.) I just realized that pm-lib is GPL'ed and Horde is LGPL'ed, so maybe it wasn't appropriate to do this; if you'd like me to rework the patch or contact pm-lib's author for permission, please let me know. (Sorry, I'm not very familiar with the process for including code snippets from one open source project in another.)

03/30/2006 09:49:02 PM	Jan Schneider	Comment #5 Assigned to Jan Schneider Taken from ben State ⇒ Feedback	Reply to this comment
The comments say "Code taken from pm-lib.sourceforge.net." What exactly does this mean?

03/30/2006 07:25:32 PM	Chuck Hagenbuch	Assigned to Horde Developers

03/30/2006 02:28:18 PM	ben	Comment #4	Reply to this comment
Looks good to me.

03/30/2006 09:18:28 AM	komanek (at) natur (dot) cuni (dot) cz	Comment #3	Reply to this comment
I am using it for a few weeks with no problems, at least I have no more message looping since I patched with this, so thanks a lot for this patch and I vote to make it a part of official code.

03/28/2006 03:44:16 PM	Jan Schneider	Comment #2	Reply to this comment
Ben, if you have the time to take a quick look at the patch, I can take care of committing it.

02/17/2006 05:00:12 PM	Jan Schneider	Assigned to ben State ⇒ Assigned

02/17/2006 04:57:06 AM	joshkel (at) gmail (dot) com	Comment #1 Priority ⇒ 2. Medium State ⇒ Unconfirmed New Attachment: ingo-forwards.patch Queue ⇒ Ingo Summary ⇒ procmail forwarding may cause mail loops Type ⇒ Bug	Reply to this comment
Procmail forwarding recipes created by Ingo contain no protecting against mail loops if the forwarded-to address is bad or if it forwards back to this address. The attached patch should fix the problem. The patch still has one bug, described in the comments. I'm no procmail expert, but we've been running this patch for a few months with no complaints.