[wplug] Is XFree86 4.4 worth it?

[Dave Neuer]

The issue is just that the license is incompatible w/
the GPL (because it adds extra conditions -- the
advertising clause); there's no difference between
this and the old BSD advertising clause. UCB or
whoever was "in charge" of the BSD license agreed
after a while that it was onerous enough and/or a
problem that it couldn't be linked w/ GPL'd software,
that they took the advertising clause out.

Also, advertising clauses are just annoying. Imagine
if you used "old-BSD library", some XFree86 4.4 libs,
some old apache libraries and 5 other software
libraries w/ "old-BSD style licences" in a product,
and wanted to take out a quarter-page ad in
LinuxJournal for your product, but one half of your
quarter-page ad read:

"This software includes software developed by the
Regents of the University of California, Berkely.

This software contains software developed by the
Apache Software Foundation.

This software contains software developed by the Bob
Group.

This software contains software developed by the Fred
Software Consortium" etc, etc.

Not much left of your quarter-page to toot your own
horn, eh?

I don't see why this controversy is controversial. I
personally won't run an X server than can't legally be
shipped w/ GNOME, my desktop environment of choice.

Anyway, the stuff Keith Packard and Jim Gettys are
doing over at Freedesktop.org is probably the future
of X anyway -- no more imake build system, modular
code AND releases, amazing compositing capabilities,
OpenGL behind it all to allow for better use of
hardware...

Anybody who's done graphics programming should stroll
to freedesktop.org and take a look at what's going on.
I know Jim and Kieth are looking for people to help
out (I don't know diddly about graphics programming).

In the meantime, of course, people can use whatever
software license they want for their own software, and
users can choose to use whatever software they want if
they are willing to accept the license terms, even if
they stipulate that you have to amputate your left
arm. But don't expect your vendor to ship you software
that they legally cannot.

Dave (and his 2 cents).

--- Bill Moran <wmoran at potentialtech.com> wrote:
> Vanco, Don wrote:
> > Look at me!  Reporting on OpenBSD!  
> > 
> > Not really.  Pretty harsh words below - but RH has
> made a statment that they
> > too are "investigating" and will likely not
> support anything non-GPL.
> 
> This whole thing is pretty incredible.
> 
> Have any of you actually _read_ the new license?  I
> can't believe it's causing
> a stir.  The license is basically a BSD license
> (which has been considered a
> valid OSS license since the invention of the term)
> with the following specifics:
> The clauses that require due credit be given insist
> that such credit be located
> "in the same form and location as other such
> third-party acknowledgments."
> This doesn't seem unreasonable to me.
> 
> Personally, this won't change my use of X.
> 
> > ----- Forwarded message from Theo de Raadt
> <deraadt at cvs.openbsd.org> -----
> > 
> > From: Theo de Raadt <deraadt at cvs.openbsd.org>
> > 
> > Subject: XFree86 license
> > 
> > To: misc at openbsd.org
> > 
> > Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 14:27:47 -0700
> > 
> > Like other projects, we will not be incorporating
> new code from David Dawes
> > into the XFree86 codebase used in OpenBSD. All
> such changes have to be
> > skipped, rewritten, or you can contact the XFree86
> group and place your own
> > efforts to repair this damage.
> > 
> > I've tried to negotiate with David Dawes, and show
> him that his new license
> > is not acceptable, and he has been hostile and it
> has gone nowhere. He keeps
> > insisting that his license is a standard BSD
> licenses, yet, he won't use the
> > same words that Berkeley used; if his words were
> intended to be compatible
> > to the Berkeley spirit then he would be happy to
> use the same words; but he
> > is not, and insists on different words which a lot
> of the community has
> > trouble with.
> > 
> > It seems like every 8 years or so we have to go
> through some period where
> > someone tries to take free software and makes it
> less free because they
> > don't feel they are getting enough credit.
> > 
> > This is final; if that license stands, there will
> be forking.
> > 
> > And if you don't like that, don't bother telling
> me. Tell them.
> > 
> > ----- End forwarded message -----
> > 
> >  
> > 
> >  
> > 
> > -----Original Message----- 
> > From: wplug-admin at wplug.org on behalf of Jonathan
> S Billings 
> > Sent: Mon 3/1/2004 10:25 AM 
> > To: wplug at wplug.org 
> > Cc: 
> > Subject: Re: [wplug] Is XFree86 4.4 worth it?
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > I know I've heard that RMS has declared that the
> new XFree86 license is
> > not GPL compatible, and that the debian folks are
> looking into it.  I
> > haven't read it, since most license politics gives
> me a headache. 
> > 
> > I know that this release will be very useful to
> me, since I support a
> > couple systems that have the Intel 845 chipset,
> which is kind of broken
> > in 4.3.  Most of the changes I see (listed here:
> > http://www.xfree86.org/4.4.0/RELNOTES2.html#2
> > <http://www.xfree86.org/4.4.0/RELNOTES2.html#2> )
> aren't features that the
> > user might notice, if they were upgrading from an
> already-working X
> > server.
> > 
> > jonathan
> > 
> > On Sun, 2004-02-29 at 22:30,
> chris at thistlethwaite.net wrote:
> > 
> >>Is anyone excited about the new release of
> XFree86??  I
> >>was going to DL it today, but I wanted to see if
> anyone
> >>else tried it out.  I'm just not sure if its worth
> a
> >>couple hours on the phoneline.  Also, what's the
> deal
> >>with the new licensing?  Everyone is freaking out
> about
> >>it, I read through the changes and didn't see
> anything
> >>that would make me not use it.  There are a
> handfull of
> >>distros dropping 4.4 and just using 4.3.
> >>Thanks,
> >>Chris
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Bill Moran
> Potential Technologies
> http://www.potentialtech.com
> 
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