Flexfax / Hylafax 1993-1994 - authored by Sam Leffler, etc

Julian H. Stacey jhs at berklix.com
Wed Feb 5 03:20:52 UTC 2014


Hi J. Curtis Edmondson
cc: freebsd-questions at freebsd.org & others,

"jcedmondson at edmolaw.com" wrote:
http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions/2014-February/255988.html

> Tim and Matt,
>
> Thanks for the links.  I am in the process of downloading and reviewing.  You
> guys have been a great help.

I Julian H. Stacey ( jhs at freebsd.org --> jhs at berklix.com )
created /usr/ports/comms/hylafax/ for FreeBSD 1995, & was first maintainer. 
(Maintainer now is dinoex at FreeBSD.org cc'd FYI)
Author of generic operating system neutral hylafax source: Sam Leffler
	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_J_Leffler
	https://plus.google.com/116533070411840754940/posts
(I bcc'd SJL as I dont know if his old addresses may bounce.)


>From J. Curtis Edmondson earlier:
> I am working on a patent litigation case where it appears the flexfax/hylafax
> source from the 93-95 time frame may serve a prior art.

I assume you want FreeBSD's copy of hylafax to serve as prior art
to defeat some software patent claim, so I have researched what
was published & in use when, so I can attest to if you want:


> Would you
> happen to have a copy of that source available and/or know someone who does?

Yes - but MD5 verification of distfile fails.
May or not be significant, I'm working on it, see below:

FreeBSD SVN repository:
  http://svnweb.freebsd.org/ports/head/comms/hylafax/Makefile?view=log&log_pagestart=100
  Added Sun May 21 22:37:50 1995 UTC (18 years, 8 months ago) by jhs
  A new import based on Sam Leffler's Hylafax V3.0pl0.   Flexfax is now obsolete.

Prior to your enquiry I already had the following generic OS independent source 
distfiles:
  4.11-RELEASE/hylafax/hylafax-4.2.0.tar.gz
  6.4-RELEASE/hylafax-4.4.4.tar.gz
  8.3-RELEASE/hylafax-6.0.5.tar.gz
  10.0-RELEASE/hylafax-6.0.6.tar.gz
  10.0-RELEASE/tkhylafax-3.2beta.tar.gz

FreeBSD 4.11 release was released January, 2005, long after your 93-95 interest.
For dates:	http://www.freebsd.org/releases/

FreeBSD 4.10 release (May, 2004) has ports/comms/hylafax/
  (found with svn export file:///usr/svn/ports/tags/RELEASE_4_10_0 )
  # Date created:         16 May 1995
  # Whom:                 Julian Stacey <jhs at freebsd.org>
  # MAINTAINER=     tdv94ped at cs.umu.se

The archives of generic os-neutral hylafax is at
    ftp://ftp.hylafax.org/source/
  I just dowloaded all in that directory except
    BETA -> testing, CVS, CVS.deprecated

If we match MD5s in dated releases ports/comms/hylafax/distinfo
file to distfiles from eg ftp://ftp.hylafax.org/source/ we can be
sure what was used when by FreeBSD. (However do remember Sam Leffler
will at times have published newer code than I was working on for
the FreeBSD port).

Earliest source version I see on hylafax site: 
  ftp://ftp.hylafax.org/source/hylafax-4.1.1.tar.gz
  ftp://ftp.hylafax.org/old-releases/hylafax-4.0/source/hylafax-v4.0pl0-tar.gz

>From further above I see I started with 3.0pl0 so distfile name was
	hylafax-v3.0pl0-tar.gz

I searched & fetched from ftp://ftp.carnet.hr/misc/fax/hylafax-v3.0pl0-tar.gz
-rw-r--r--  1 jhs  staff  1064756 Apr 25  1996 hylafax-v3.0pl0-tar.gz
MD5 (hylafax-v3.0pl0-tar.gz) = aaa2ccf961e1a1fd5d8994f24520a2ab
(See below, not expected MD5)

Taking your 93-95 interest, & http://www.freebsd.org/releases/
    2.2.1 (April, 1997) Release Notes
    2.2 (March, 1997) Announcement : Release Notes
    2.1.7 (February, 1997) Announcement : Release Notes
    2.1.6 (December, 1996) Announcement : Release Notes
    2.1.5 (July, 1996) Announcement : Release Notes
    2.1 (November, 1995) Announcement : Release Notes
    2.0.5 (June, 1995) Announcement : Release Notes
    2.0 (November, 1994) Announcement : Release Notes
    1.1.5.1 (July, 1994)
    1.1.5 Release Notes
    1.1 (May, 1994) Release Notes
    1.0 (November, 1993)

To get distinfo files for MD5s to validate distfiles I did:
  http://svnweb.freebsd.org/ports/tags/
  	No tags for RELEASE_1
  
  http://svnweb.freebsd.org/ports/tags/RELEASE_2_0/
  	just Mk/
  
  http://svnweb.freebsd.org/ports/tags/RELEASE_2_2_1/comms/hylafax/
  http://svnweb.freebsd.org/ports/head/comms/hylafax/distinfo?view=markup&pathrev=2369
    Fri Oct 27 22:05:16 1995 UTC (18 years, 3 months ago) by pst
    File size: 132 byte(s)
    Update to 3.0pl1
    Approved by:	asami and jhs
    1 	MD5 (hylafax-v3.0pl0-tar.gz) = 014ec8a64ea7493d26c50c61b5ef3111
    2 	MD5 (hylafax-v3.0pl0-patch01.gz) = ed7b8aa6a6ae5d2843624f86478a0f8c
  
  I am running an extract with 
  	svn export   file:///usr/svn/ports 
  to find if earlier tags exist - but output will be Big, results
  not available till tomorrow at earliest. (If someone on
  <questione at FreeBSD.org> may know more about tag to use, please say.
  
  I built a CVS tree (from my cvs-cur.19300xEmpty.gz)
  & saw in /usr/cvs/ports/Makefile,v 
	symbols
	...
   	RELEASE_2_2_1:1.30
        RELEASE_2_2_2:1.33
        ports_2_0:1.1.1.1
        ports:1.1.1;
  & ran
	cvs -R export -r RELEASE_2_2_1 ports
  which produced ports/comms/hylafax/distinfo
	MD5 (hylafax-v3.0pl0-tar.gz) = 014ec8a64ea7493d26c50c61b5ef3111
	MD5 (hylafax-v3.0pl0-patch01.gz) = ed7b8aa6a6ae5d2843624f86478a0f8c

  Note this MD5 is Not the same as comes from
    ftp://ftp.carnet.hr/misc/fax/hylafax-v3.0pl0-tar.gz

  I am still running:
	cvs -R export -r ports_2_0 ports
	cvs -R export -r ports ports

  I am half through fetching:
    http://ftp-archive.freebsd.org/mirror/FreeBSD-Archive/old-releases/i386/ISO-IMAGES/FreeBSD-2.0.5-RELEASE/cd1.iso
    http://ftp-archive.freebsd.org/mirror/FreeBSD-Archive/old-releases/i386/ISO-IMAGES/FreeBSD-2.0.5-RELEASE/cd2.iso
     ftp://ftp-archive.freebsd.org/mirror/FreeBSD-Archive/old-releases/i386/ISO-IMAGES/FreeBSD-2.1-RELEASE/cd1.iso
     ftp://ftp-archive.freebsd.org/mirror/FreeBSD-Archive/old-releases/i386/ISO-IMAGES/FreeBSD-2.1-RELEASE/cd2.iso
     ftp://ftp-archive.freebsd.org/mirror/FreeBSD-Archive/old-releases/i386/ISO-IMAGES/FreeBSD-2.1.5-RELEASE/cd1.iso
     ftp://ftp-archive.freebsd.org/mirror/FreeBSD-Archive/old-releases/i386/ISO-IMAGES/FreeBSD-2.1.5-RELEASE/cd2.iso
	which will have distinfo files, possibly even a distfile/

Possibly our send-pr patch/ bug log might comment on MD5 change, but
   http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr-summary.cgi?category=ports&severity=&priority=&class=&state=&sort=none&text=hylafax&responsible=&multitext=&originator=&closedtoo=on&release=
  but it doesn't go back before 1999, well after my first work & your
  interest in 1993-1995.

Mail Lists:
  I might have mentioned a change of MD5 in mail lists, but if so
  havent looked:

  I created a hylafax mail list @freebsd.org I recall, but can't
  find trace of list on freebsd.org site, I recall it expired as
  low traffic.  It no longer exists now,
    http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo
  it's maybe in archive on freebsd.org site somewhere.
  
  Our freebsd.org archive of our oldest mail list hackers@ only
  to go back to March 2003 (using the Mailman interface)
   http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-hackers/
  ports@ (where I probably posted to prior to commit) ditto March 2003
   http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-ports/
  
  However our other browse interface (when presumably we were using
  majordomo & not mailman) goes back earlier:
    http://docs.freebsd.org/mail/archive/1995/freebsd-hackers/
    http://docs.freebsd.org/mail/archive/1995/freebsd-ports/
  
  http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/getmsg.cgi?fetch=34164+0+archive/1995/freebsd-ports/19950514.freebsd-ports
   I wrote
    Date:      Sun, 14 May 1995 22:30:45 +0200
    To:        asami at CS.Berkeley.EDU
    Cc:        ports at FreeBSD.org
    Subject:   Re: hylafax
  
    ...
    It compiles ok, but there are permission problems,
    I had assumed I couldnt commit as the freeze was on, norw I realise
    that's src only as always, so I'll try to do it RSN.
    Julian S

See also the Wayback machine of http://www.archive.org
  https://web.archive.org/web/*/ftp://ftp.hylafax.org	->
  https://web.archive.org/web/20050208003538/http://ftp.hylafax.org/
  https://web.archive.org/web/20000124003254/http://ftp.hylafax.org/download.html
But that's web pages not an ftp archive.

My remnant public directories re hylafax here (FWIW):
  http://www.berklix.com/~jhs/src/bsd/fixes/FreeBSD/ports/jhs/comms/hylafax.no_customise
  http://www.berklix.com/~jhs/src/bsd/fixes/FreeBSD/src/gen/libexec/getty/main.c.hylafax.REL=ALL.diff
The 2nd URL most probably has nothing of interest to defeating a patent claim,
just listed for completeness from a FreeBSD perspective.

I may have notes re. hylafax off line, I haven't looked.

I can use CVS to explore the MD5 state more.
It may help if you jcedmondson at edmolaw.com focus me more on a particular date.

I hope this will help you defend against a software patent claim, please
let me know if so, it would make my day, I really dislike software patents.

Some results not yet in. Feel free to contact by list, email or phone.
	http://www.berklix.com/~jhs/contact/ 
Time zone is Europe, Do not call in European morning, see live world map:
http://www.berklix.net/cgi-bin/date

Cheers,
Julian
-- 
Julian Stacey, BSD Unix Linux C Sys Eng Consultant, Munich http://berklix.com
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