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FAQ: Add items about forms and contracts. 

We occasionally get requests to fill in compliance forms and to sign
contracts. Add items for those.

Move the name change question to a historical intrest section.
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Gerald Combs 2021-08-24 14:09:21 -07:00 committed by Wireshark GitLab Utility
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@ -28,33 +28,7 @@ unsupported and has known security vulnerabilities.
For more information, please see the
https://www.wireshark.org/about.html[About Wireshark] page.
=== What's up with the name change? Is Wireshark a fork?
In May of 2006, Gerald Combs (the original author of Ethereal) went
to work for CACE Technologies (best known for WinPcap). Unfortunately,
he had to leave the Ethereal trademarks behind.
This left the project in an awkward position. The only reasonable way
to ensure the continued success of the project was to change the name.
This is how Wireshark was born.
Wireshark is almost (but not quite) a fork. Normally a "fork" of an
open source project results in two names, web sites, development teams,
support infrastructures, etc. This is the case with Wireshark except for
one notable exception -- every member of the core development team is
now working on Wireshark. There has been no active development on
Ethereal since the name change. Several parts of the Ethereal web site`
(such as the mailing lists, source code repository, and build farm) have
gone offline.
More information on the name change can be found here:
* https://www.prweb.com/releases/2006/6/prweb396098.htm[Original press
release]
* https://www.linux.com/news/ethereal-changes-name-wireshark[NewsForge article]
* Many other articles in https://www.wireshark.org/bibliography.html[our
bibliography]
[[wheretogethelp]]
=== Where can I get help?
Community support is available on the
@ -139,6 +113,19 @@ We recommend keeping Wireshark and your product completely separate,
communicating over sockets or pipes. If you're loading any part of
Wireshark as a DLL, you're probably doing it wrong.
=== Can you help me fill out this compliance form so that I can use Wireshark?
If you need help filling out individual items in the form, you’re certainly free to <<wheretogethelp,ask the community>> for help.
If you want someone within the project to fill out the form for you, we simply can’t help you.
Wireshark is developed by a team of volunteers, and while we try to make sure that it’s as easy as possible to obtain and use, filling out a form would mean taking precious time away from other aspects of the project.
=== Can you sign this legal agreement so that I can use Wireshark?
Probably not.
As with the previous question, we really do want you to be able to use Wireshark.
However, while we've been fortunate enough to have developers, educators, and networking experts volunteer their time, so far we haven't had any attorneys volunteer to review contracts for us pro bono.
Asking us to sign a contract is asking us to spend time reviewing that contract and/or paying for an attorney to do so that you can use Wireshark for free.
=== What protocols are currently supported?
There are currently hundreds of supported protocols and media.
@ -1068,3 +1055,32 @@ Note that Wireshark was not designed to be an intrusion detection
system; you might be able to use it as an IDS, but in most cases
software designed to be an IDS, such as https://www.snort.org/[Snort] or
https://www.prelude-siem.org/[Prelude], will probably work better.
== Questions Which Are Still Notable Even Though They Aren’t Asked Much Any More
=== What's up with the name change? Is Wireshark a fork?
In May of 2006, Gerald Combs (the original author of Ethereal) went
to work for CACE Technologies (best known for WinPcap). Unfortunately,
he had to leave the Ethereal trademarks behind.
This left the project in an awkward position. The only reasonable way
to ensure the continued success of the project was to change the name.
This is how Wireshark was born.
Wireshark is almost (but not quite) a fork. Normally a "fork" of an
open source project results in two names, web sites, development teams,
support infrastructures, etc. This is the case with Wireshark except for
one notable exception -- every member of the core development team is
now working on Wireshark. There has been no active development on
Ethereal since the name change. Several parts of the Ethereal web site`
(such as the mailing lists, source code repository, and build farm) have
gone offline.
More information on the name change can be found here:
* https://www.prweb.com/releases/2006/6/prweb396098.htm[Original press
release]
* https://www.linux.com/news/ethereal-changes-name-wireshark[NewsForge article]
* Many other articles in https://www.wireshark.org/bibliography.html[our
bibliography]