I would like to discuss the following topics:
1. Bacula Release Status
2. The FSFE and licenses
1. Bacula Release Status
As probably know, the latest release of Bacula is 7.0.5. This release has proved quite stable but there are a few bugs open on it, and I am working on them. I am also working on back porting bug fixes and new features from the Bacula Enterprise version 8.2.0. I hope this work will be complete sometime in June so that I can make a new release (7.2.0) in June or July of this year.
In addition, Bacula Systems has hired a new IT Administrator who will begin in May. Part of his time will be devoted to improving the Bacula community web site as well as providing binary packages for the community. Providing binary packages for the community has been an ongoing project of mine, which has been delayed due to lack of man-power. By the way, the new IT Administrator has been working with Bacula for a long time and is well known to the community.
2. The FSFE and licenses
I would like to report that the FSFE has posted a notification of changed relations between the FSFE and myself. You can find the statement at the following link:
http://fsfe.org/news/2015/news-20150414-01.en.html
As many of you know in 2006, I signed a Fiduciary License Agreement (FLA) that gave the FSFE the exclusive copyright for the Bacula.org software. That means that they had the responsibility to protect the software. In 2006, I felt that the Bacula project needed protection and guidance of the FSFE and their FLA process, and I was pleased to have their help. As the project has grown and become more global and solid, I feel that I can more efficiently manage this responsibility myself, and I thank the FSFE for their help over the years.
The Bacula.org software that has been released will always remain Free Software, and it is not possible for anyone to change that fact. I have been writing and releasing free software and open source software since 1972, and as I have stated many times, I am and will remain a very strong supporter and creator of open source software, and future Bacula.org community software will always be open source.
My goal is to have the Bacula.org code covered by FLAs (or their equivalent) that are clear and consistent. In fact, due to significant FLA updating work I did last year and early this year with lots of help and understanding from the Bacula contributors (thank you), I believe that all known issues are already resolved and I continue to work FSFE.
If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to either post them to the bacula-users list if they are general or directly to me at kern (at) sibbald (dot) com if they are specific to you or you prefer to keep them private.
Best regards,
Kern
