Columbia University Ending the Kermit Project

An anonymous reader writes "Columbia University has announced that the Kermit Project will be ended in July 2011, after more than 30 years in existence. Open Kermit (C-Kermit) will remain available, but without any support or ongoing development. Kermit-95, which cannot be open-sourced, will remain available for license purchases but without support or maintenance."

Re:Is anyone using kermit anymore?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it is used a lot in the embedded world. One of the few tools available to recover a bricked RS232-only based device. Used on things like the gumstix, beagleboard, and lots of other SBC like ARM based embedded devices. If you make/order custom versions or your own shipping product does not contain alternatives like MMC/SD card boot capabilities, c-kermit is one of the few things out there to allow you to boot, load code, and then go to console all from one tool on such devices. Saved my (and my employers) ass many times on bricked or buggy embedded devices.

What could be Kermit's most interesting legacy

[Coeurderoy]

I miss Kermit like I miss my old Kreidler motobike, found memories but I'd probable wouldn't really like it if I would need it again...

But what I would really appreciate from columbia would be a clear and detailled explanation of what parts or "kind of parts" of kermit-95 and why ? cannot be open sourced ?
Are there pieces of code written by Open Source adverse copyright holders ?
Or "lost coypright holders" that have rights but cannot be located
Or legally "challenged" copyright holders (childs who are too young to "agree" to anything but are the sole heir of some copyrights ? for example ?)
Backdoors mandated by some three letters authority that cannot be released under an open source licences :-)
code that implement something patented and the patent holders do not authorise the inclusion in open source code ..
Or contracts with former clients prohibiting "unfair compétition"...
or, or, ....

I know that the value of an Open Source Kermit-95 would be very law, it might be better on Windows than C-Kermit for some values of "better"...
but it's unlikelly that any futur use would be better served with an update of K95 rather than a modificiation of CK.

But the lesson on "freeing" code would be very interesting, and after all Columbia as a quite proheminent law school... so it would be interesting...