1. What is this page?

This is the Rescued Interlink Source Code page.

Interlink is a UXP-based and XUL-com­pat­i­ble fork of Thunder­bird that Matt Tobin work­ed on.

Tobin's practice was to illegally withhold the project source code. Tobin went so far as to use the threat of DMCA to per­suade Github to take down a repo even though he had no standing to do so. This may have been a pro­se­cu­table crime on Matt's part.

This page distributes the repo that Matt Tobin illegally took down. There's a re­la­ted note to Matt at the bottom be­low.

The source code is also avail­able in build-able form as part of the UXP Browser Bundle.

The repo includes source code for both Interlink and Borealis Navigator, a re­la­ted program that Tobin has stated can't be separated cleanly and easily from Interlink.

2. A few more details.

At the same time that Matt Tobin was withholding the Interlink source code, he threatened and/or raged at other devel­op­ers who were so bold as to use public source code for Pale Moon, a re­la­ted project. In Matt's life, as in so many others, irony abounds.

Matt's defense for his con­duct was that he was willing to send source code to peo­ple who requested it by email. However, he admitted pub­lic­ly, and peo­ple in the Pale Moon com­mun­i­ty were aware, that this was a false state­ment.

Matt usually sent source code only to peo­ple that he trusted not to redistribute it. The others were refer­red to, in his circle, as “traitors”. It was an odd per­spec­tive for a FOSS project.

3. Abode of the code.

3.1. This is an unmodified copy of a 7Z file that I received:

binoc_central.git.7z

It's 36MB packed and 60MB unpacked. The contents are a “git” repo where the top commit is dated August 19, 2021.

3.2. To get ready-to-build copies of the source trees as part of the UXP Browser Bundle, click here.

3.3. A live “git” repo based on the 7Z archive will probably be hosted either here or at:

https://git.minetest.org/

3.4. I've re­ceived the fol­low­ing TBZ tarball separately:

mail-7899.tar.bz2

The per­son who sent me this one may or may not have been Matt himself.

This tarball seems to contain an incomplete copy of the Interlink code. Matt Tobin might claim that it's complete enough if one knows what to do with it. However, it isn't enough to establish license compliance on Tobin's part due to the fact that he didn't give out the source code to everybody.

4. Note to Matt Tobin.

Matt, you can't continue as you have. I be­lieve what you told me in 2016, it's 7 years later, you're starting to age, and it's sim­ply not going to go well down the road.

It's difficult to tell what you've been thinking. The rage stuff is re­la­ted to your cond­i­tion but the games you play with FOSS licenses are calculated and poorly so.

If you'd like to have any type of future in FOSS, or to have a worthwhile legacy at the end, rethink things.

Legal and re­la­ted points:

* You lied about distribution of the source code
* You admitted this pub­lic­ly
* Pale Moon peo­ple are able to back up the point
* The Feodor2 story had the potential to go viral
* Viral wouldn't have gone well for you
* You had no standing to talk to Github about DMCA
* That may have been a pro­se­cu­table crime on your part
* This site is now hosted in a no-DMCA juris­dic­tion
* I under­stand that there is some DDoS protection as well
* I'll for­ward any threats from anybody to Mozilla Legal
* The forwards will include plenty of annotations
* The codebase stays up regard­less

We good now?

Matt, this said, you're invited to talk if you're able to do so in a sane manner.

You know that I've always proceeded as reasonably as pos­si­ble with you. This doesn't mean that I have time left to waste. You need to decide if your cond­i­tion will or will not permit you to continue in FOSS.

The offer to talk is lim­it­ed to you. Your lover was pretentious and silly. If he's still in the picture, it's polite­ly suggested that he remain out of sight.

I should add that I'm not as nice in some respects as I was 7-odd years ago. The years, months, and days are counting down. It affects one's per­spec­tive.

Borealis Navigator can now be built as well.