KERMIT 95 SOURCE FILES

Frank da Cruz
fdc@columbia.edu
Wed Jul 20 10:28:38 2011

As part of the cancellation of the Kermit Project, the source code for Kermit 95 (K95 for short, the Kermit software for 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Microsoft Windows and for IBM OS/2, which previously was available only as a commercial product) is being published for the first time under the open-source Revised 3-Clause BSD License so that anybody who wants to can download, build, customize, embed, package, redistribute, or do anything else with it that is legal and permitted by the license. It is hoped that this will result in the Open Source community creating a new and free version of Kermit 95. In the meantime, those who still need a ready-to-run Kermit 95 application can obtain it from the retailers listed on the Kermit 95 page, and those who need bulk licenses can obtain them from Columbia Technology Ventures.

The new k95source directory in the Kermit software archive now contains the source files for Kermit 95 2.1.3, released 1 January 2003, with updates by Jeffrey Altman through 2007, which are listed HERE.

This source code does not include the various libraries with which K95 is linked, notably MIT Kerberos and OpenSSL. Those libraries have undergone considerable change and development since K95 2.1.3 was released, and any new release of K95 should be adapted to the current releases (use buttons above).

The modules which are shared with C-Kermit for Unix, VMS, and other platforms (ckc*.*, cku*.*) correspond to those of C-Kermit 8.0.207 (which was never formally released), but with updates either from the main C-Kermit development branch, or K95-specific by Jeff. No attempt has been made to reconcile these sources with those of C-Kermit 9.0; that would be a big job indeed (but one that is worth doing if a new Open Source Kermit 95 release is to be created). Only the minimum changes to convert the K95 source code to an Open Source license have been made:

• A new COPYING.TXT file.

• New copyright notices in ckcmai.c (the K95 main program module).

• Elimination of restrictive license text from all files that are Copyright Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York (these files have 19 July 2011 modification dates). The COPYING.TXT file applies to all files in this directory bearing a Columbia University copyright.

• Exclusion of any module whose license prohibits open distribution (there was only one, p_omalloc.c; see below).

No attempt has been made to compile or link these source files on Windows or OS/2 or anywhere else.

Any new version of K95 will have to deal with the following considerations:

• A new (non-Installshield) installer is needed.

• Many bugs need to be addressed. They are listed HERE and HERE.

• Assorted ideas (mine) for a new release are HERE.

• Large file support (K95 uses 32-bit C Library APIs for file access). C-Kermit itself supports large files so it's "just" a matter of changing the file i/o routines in ckufio.c (?).

• All registration, serial number, and license enforcement code should be removed.

• There can be no Dialer unless a new one is written from scratch. The Dialer was built using a commercial GUI-builder called Zinc; that company ceased to exist many years ago. Columbia had a source license to Zinc and made modifications and bug fixes necessary to build the Dialer. But Columbia does not have the right to distribute Zinc nor any patches to it.

• If there is no Dialer, the Dialer activation button should be removed from the K95G.EXE Toolbar.

• The Console version for Windows is obsolete since later Windows versions do not support it; only the GUI version (K95G.EXE) should be built. Also there is probably not much reason to carry forward support for Window 95, 98, and ME.

• The XYZMODEM protocol code was contributed from Finland. All of the modules but one have an open license:

  /*****************************************************************************/
  /*             Copyright (c) 1994 by Jyrki Salmi <jytasa@jyu.fi>             */
  /*        You may modify, recompile and distribute this file freely.         */
  /*****************************************************************************/
  

  But one module, p_omalloc.c (a "more friendlier interface to OS/2's DosAllocMem and DosFreeMem API calls"), has this, and is therefore excluded from the distribution (since the copyright holders can no longer be located):

  /*****************************************************************************/
  /*                                                                           */
  /*              Copyright (c) 1995 by Oy Online Solutions Ltd.               */
  /*                                                                           */
  /*   Distribution of this source code is strictly forbbidden. Use of this    */
  /*   source code is granted to the University of Columbia C-Kermit project   */
  /*   to be distributed in binary format only. Please familiarize yourself    */
  /*   with the accompanying LICENSE.P file.                                   */
  /*                                                                           */
  /*****************************************************************************/
  

  The p_omalloc module has only two entry points, p_omalloc() and p_ofree(), which are replacements for the regular malloc() and free() functions, but with more arguments, whose usage can be inferred from the invocations that appear in other p_*.c modules.

• The SSH code contains known security weaknesses that need to be fixed. K95's SSH module was adapted from a 2002 version OpenSSH, but OpenSSH itself has changed so much since then that a new SSH module should be developed from scratch.

• Other security code (Kerberos, SSL/TLS, and SRP) needs to brought up to date with current releases of those libraries.

• To take advantage of all the new developments in C-Kermit since 2007 and to return to a common code base for C-Kermit and K95, K95 should be integrated with the C-Kermit source files (ck[cu]*.[ch] and ckcpro.w).

K95 was last built with Microsoft SDK November 2001 / Visual Studio 6.0. Some adaptation may be required to build it with current Microsoft developers tools.

K95-specific source files have names starting with "cko" and "ckn". These files were not written to be read by the public so in some cases comments might be inexistent, sketchy, or misleading.

The makefile is ckoker.mak. Before running it, it's necessary to set the "include" and "lib" environment variables for the external libraries K95 is linked with (such as OpenSSL, SRP, and Kerberos), for example [each of these is one long line broken for readability]:

    set include=%include%;c:\src\kermit\k95;
  c:\src\openssl\0.9.7\inc32;
  c:\src\srp\include;
  c:\src\pwsdk\inc32;
  c:\src\kerberos\kfw-2.2-beta-2\athena\wshelper\include;
  c:\src\superlat\include;
  c:\src\kerberos\kfw-2.2-beta-2\athena\auth\krb5\src\include;
  c:\src\kermit\k95\kui;
  c:\src\zinc\include;

    set lib=%lib%;c:\src\kerberos\kfw-2.2-beta-2\target\lib\i386\rel;
  c:\src\zinc\lib\mvcpp500

Note that Zinc is not included in this distribution, nor Meridian Technologies SuperLAT, support for which was included in K95 under license. Any -DSUPERLAT definition should be removed the makefile. I'm not sure how avoid Zinc. Once the lib and include environments are defined, the makefile can be invoked something like this:

  SET PLATFORM=NT
  SET K95BUILD=K95
  nmake /nologo /e /f ckoker.mak msvc |& tee comp.out.nt | list /s

In the source code and makefile you will see many references to "KUI". This was a 100% graphical version of K95 that was never completed. The sources contain a fair amount of vestigial KUI code.

The principal authors of Kermit 95, Jeff Altman and Frank da Cruz, no longer have jobs at Columbia University and may or may not be available for advice due to the exigencies of real life.