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Ian Goldby
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 18, 2004 9:08 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I don't think I see your point. Why does it matter that you don't care who wrote the software? If the person who wrote it wants their input acknowledged, why shouldn't they have proper acknowledgement? That doesn't make you wrong for not reading the acknowledgements. It's simply that everyone should have the opportunity to do so.
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 18, 2004 2:06 pm    Post subject: More distro's rejecting new license Reply with quote

Here is another good read. Contains a list of distro's disapponted with new license. http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/02/18/131223&mode=thread&tid=104&tid=189
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Ian Goldby
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 18, 2004 3:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I wouldn't rate it as much of a read, although if you sift through the links, you do eventually find the root of the problem.

It's not that the new license is incompatible with the GPL. Many packages with incompatible licenses, including Apache, PHP, etc, are included in mainstream Linux distributions.

It is really down to politics and a personality clash with some of the Xfree developers. Pity really. I would have expected better of the major Linux distributors. Gentoo as well.
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 18, 2004 4:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ian Goldby wrote:
I wouldn't rate it as much of a read, although if you sift through the links, you do eventually find the root of the problem.

It's not that the new license is incompatible with the GPL. Many packages with incompatible licenses, including Apache, PHP, etc, are included in mainstream Linux distributions.

It is really down to politics and a personality clash with some of the Xfree developers. Pity really. I would have expected better of the major Linux distributors. Gentoo as well.
Ah, but how many GPL programs link to Apache vs how many link to XFree86?
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 18, 2004 4:10 pm    Post subject: Big Fuss over Nothing. Reply with quote

All I see in this license debate is just another dumb conflict that divides the open source community and makes the closed source industry laugh at our efforts. Let's get over these trifles and get back to work making free quality software.
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 18, 2004 4:33 pm    Post subject: Re: Big Fuss over Nothing. Reply with quote

deepwave wrote:
All I see in this license debate is just another dumb conflict that divides the open source community and makes the closed source industry laugh at our efforts. Let's get over these trifles and get back to work making free quality software.


That's all well and good, but one of the goals of Free and Open software is that you get to share the source, get to distribute, etc. and keep everything nice and legal.

Some jerk is making this impossible as far as XFree is concerned. So long, XFree; it was nice knowing you.
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 18, 2004 5:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

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Ah, but how many GPL programs link to Apache vs how many link to XFree86?


This is the crux of the problem. It's not that it can't be done, it's more of all the extra work it would take the distro programmers. And if you take into account how many apps link to / use Xfree, this would be a real pain in the ass for Red Hat, Mandrake, Suse, even Gentoo. (well, not sure about Gentoo since it source based)
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 18, 2004 5:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

gurke wrote:
great news? maybe. i personally think, that it will take ages, till we have an nvidia, ati support in fd.o. it took nvidia forever, to do their jump to the 50 series with their xfree driver, so i guess it will take even longer for a completly new driver.


According to nVIDIA, only a small percentage of their driver software is platform-specific(5% if I remember correctly) so designing a new driver shouldn't be that hard, especially considering the similarities between XFree86 and the fd.o xserver.
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 18, 2004 5:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

just saw: nvidia is hiring new driver developers, for their linux drivers. so maybe, ... ?
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 18, 2004 6:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
I don't think I see your point. Why does it matter that you don't care who wrote the software? If the person who wrote it wants their input acknowledged, why shouldn't they have proper acknowledgement? That doesn't make you wrong for not reading the acknowledgements. It's simply that everyone should have the opportunity to do so.


I personally don't care who wrote the software. I'm just glad that so many have been willing to donate their efforts for the rest of us. Since I can't program my way out of a wet paper bag, I donate time filing bug reports and money when I can.

That being said, there is a practical problem with specific acknowledgements to individuals and organizations. As more and more people decide that they want their contributions recognized, the list quickly becomes far too long to be easily displayed. It also becomes a real nightmare to make absolutely sure you've identified everyone that you need to acknowledge.

The *BSD guys already ran into this issue over a decade ago. They finally gave in about 5 or 6 years ago and withdrew the requirement for individual acknowledgement. This led to a much more widespread adoption of parts of their codebase (if not the entire OS.)

Then there's the question of whether or not this change to the license is even legal. Several contributors to the XFree86 project (Alan Cox was one name I recognized) have stated that they oppose the change to the license. Have all of those contributors assigned over their copyrights to the XFree86 organization? Have they released their copyrights completely?

If the answer is no to both questions, then Dave Dawes' unilateral action may very well be illegal under US and international copyright law because he will not have secured the necessary permissions. This makes the entire XFree86 codebase susceptible to legal action by the rightful copyright holders. Why? Because without fulfilling one of those two conditions, the XFree86 organization has no right to distribute their code, nor does anyone else.

It's these two legal issues that are probably driving the distributions to give up on XFree86. They really don't have a choice if they want to stay out of that legal mine field.

And THAT's why this is such a big deal.
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Ian Goldby
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 18, 2004 6:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

sgtrock wrote:
As more and more people decide that they want their contributions recognized, the list quickly becomes far too long to be easily displayed. It also becomes a real nightmare to make absolutely sure you've identified everyone that you need to acknowledge.

That's not what the new Xfree license says. You don't have to acknowledge every contributor. This is the acknowledgement that is required:

"This product includes software developed by The XFree86 Project, Inc (http://www.xfree86.org/) and its contributors"

You don't even have to display it. You just have to include it in a readme file somewhere in the distribution.


Last edited by Ian Goldby on Wed Feb 18, 2004 6:55 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Ian Goldby
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 18, 2004 6:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

MathFreak wrote:
Ian Goldby wrote:
I wouldn't rate it as much of a read, although if you sift through the links, you do eventually find the root of the problem.

It's not that the new license is incompatible with the GPL. Many packages with incompatible licenses, including Apache, PHP, etc, are included in mainstream Linux distributions.

It is really down to politics and a personality clash with some of the Xfree developers. Pity really. I would have expected better of the major Linux distributors. Gentoo as well.
Ah, but how many GPL programs link to Apache vs how many link to XFree86?
That's not the issue in dispute. If it violates the GPL to link to any of these incompatibly licensed packages, then it is a license violation. How many times you violate the license is not relevant. Clearly no one is suggesting that these other packages should be withdrawn.

In any case, you only have to look at the modification to the license to see that it is nothing at all to do with what can link to what. All this wrangling about GPL violations is no more than FUD-mongering.
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 18, 2004 7:16 pm    Post subject: Re: Big Fuss over Nothing. Reply with quote

deepwave wrote:
All I see in this license debate is just another dumb conflict that divides the open source community and makes the closed source industry laugh at our efforts. Let's get over these trifles and get back to work making free quality software.

All the political infighting with closed source is hidden behind the their doors. Stupid either way.
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Ian Goldby
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 18, 2004 7:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ok, I get it now.

Clause 6 in the GPL effectively says that the GPL is withdrawn if you impose any restriction on the distribution of a program that goes beyond what the GPL itself stipulates.

The acknowledgement clause in the Xfree license could be seen as such a restriction.

Therefore, if a GPLed program links against an Xfree library, the Xfree license demands you acknowledge the name of Xfree, and the GPL says, "Ok, that's an extra restriction that we don't impose. We therefore withdraw your license to distribute this program under the GPL."

The Xfree people just need to provide an exemption for linking to Xfree libraries and everyone would be happy. The Xfree libraries are presumably not useful without an X server, and the X server would have with it the acknowledgement that they want.

Presumably the reason why the other GPL incompatible licenses are not a problem is that none of them (nowhere not no how, no exceptions) are used for libraries that are linked to from GPLed code. Not that I'm about to check up :wink:
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 18, 2004 9:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Guys, I read the new Xfree license. Twice, comparing it with the older one. From what I see, it only requires more notifications, without restricting the usage of code. What am I missing? How does/would these requirements conflict with the GPL or the concept of free software? Enlighten me, please!
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 18, 2004 11:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
That's all well and good, but one of the goals of Free and Open software is that you get to share the source, get to distribute, etc. and keep everything nice and legal.

Some jerk is making this impossible as far as XFree is concerned. So long, XFree; it was nice knowing you.

It's funny. I've read and re-read the XFree86 1.1 license many times and I can't see anywhere in it that makes distributing the source or binaries or linking against them illegal, immoral or even difficult. There's nothing in there that says if you link against it you have to provide information about XFree. There's also nothing in there that states XFree86 would be anything other than absolutely free. In fact, the only difference I can see is that if you distribute XFree86 4.4 then you must give them credit for their work. That's it!

Now, could someone please explain to me how this destroys the world of open source?
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 18, 2004 11:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Likewise, I'm not sure what the problem is. Having to acknowledge a project in its man page is not really a big deal - right?
Perhaps it means that anyone linking to or using xfree has to similarly acknowledge them, but that's not how I read it.
Any help would be appreciated!
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 19, 2004 2:20 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

jbc28 wrote:
Likewise, I'm not sure what the problem is. Having to acknowledge a project in its man page is not really a big deal - right?


Probably it wouldn't be. But as stated the GPL forbids to impose such restrictions on GPLed programs. And as the GPL even works when linking to a library theres a conflict between them.
IMHO the whole problem isn't about anything _real_. It wouldn't be a problem to include the note. The whole problem is two paragraphs telling contrary things and unfortunaly that's the reason for this whole discussion.

/me wonders what made the XFree people change the license...
a. "Let's piss of the GPL people"
b. Someone just liked the statement and didn't think it through
c. ?
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 19, 2004 8:51 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

TriPhoenix wrote:
[I] wonder what made the XFree people change the license...
a. "Let's piss of the GPL people"
b. Someone just liked the statement and didn't think it through
c. ?

c. Perhaps it is just the reason given in the announcement: 'This license review was prompted by a desire to ensure that XFree86 and its contributors are receiving due credit for their work... The purpose of these changes is to strengthen the "except claim you wrote it" clause of the Project's licensing philosophy regarding binary distributions of XFree86. While the original license covered this adequately for source code redistribution, it has always been lacking where binary redistribution was concerned.'

There's no need for a conspiracy theory.
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Ian Goldby
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 19, 2004 8:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Just as a parenthetical node, what really irritates me is that the GNU people seem to consider the GPL to be the daddy of all open-source licenses. Effectively their clause 6 (stating that you can't put any other restrictions on GPLed code other than that required by the GPL itself) makes all other 'compatible' licenses subsets of the GPL. What arrogance.
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 19, 2004 10:20 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ian Goldby wrote:
TriPhoenix wrote:
[I] wonder what made the XFree people change the license...
a. "Let's piss of the GPL people"
b. Someone just liked the statement and didn't think it through
c. ?

c. Perhaps it is just the reason given in the announcement: 'This license review was prompted by a desire to ensure that XFree86 and its contributors are receiving due credit for their work... The purpose of these changes is to strengthen the "except claim you wrote it" clause of the Project's licensing philosophy regarding binary distributions of XFree86. While the original license covered this adequately for source code redistribution, it has always been lacking where binary redistribution was concerned.'

There's no need for a conspiracy theory.

Thats exactly my point b. They probably wanted to include something like that but didn't think it through, because atm a lot of distros is dropping xfree 4.4, if they just wanted to ensure some more credit for the xfree people's work I doubt that they saw the problem coming. If they knew the consequences in advance this would really be strange...no conspiration in that point at all :)
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 19, 2004 2:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

it has been my impression for a long while now that the XFree team was as cloesed and as slow as M$ in adding features, and so on and so forth. there was a lot a-do about commit and a lot of yack yack yack and personality clashes with the XFree group. Still seems to me that they are doing a lot of sabre rattling over there.

but i think it comes down to the code itself. how much is really needed? what can be thrown away? so on and so forth. in the scheme of things X is a bloated pig, not very fast.. how many of you remember Linus pitching a fit about having to renice the X process so it ran well? Personally i think that X at least as it exists today needs to go away. The question always has been wait to you replace with (one of the options didn't fair to well, i can't even remember what it was called?).

the thing is X has you coming and going right now, because it's the only "good" solution. i'd love to give a suitable X replacement a go.
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 19, 2004 4:50 pm    Post subject: Re: Xfree no longer free ? Reply with quote

Robe wrote:
Just read this article on www.Slashdot.org http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/02/16/2030207&mode=thread&tid=106&tid=147&tid=185&tid=187
and was wondering how the Gentoo folks think about it. Personnally I can't wait for www.freedesktop.org to come out with their beta version so I can make the switch. IMHO xfree86 hasn't really changed to much in the last 2-3 years. (At least as far as the naked eye can see for speed) What do you think ?


No, it's free
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 19, 2004 5:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ian Goldby wrote:
Just as a parenthetical node, what really irritates me is that the GNU people seem to consider the GPL to be the daddy of all open-source licenses. Effectively their clause 6 (stating that you can't put any other restrictions on GPLed code other than that required by the GPL itself) makes all other 'compatible' licenses subsets of the GPL. What arrogance.

What I'd like to know is, where in the XFree86 1.1 license are there any restrictions on GPL'd software? Everyone's up in arms about this, but I have yet to see how this license change effects other software in any way.
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 19, 2004 5:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

"The details of the requirement conflict with the GNU GPL," Stallman explained, "anyone linking GPL-covered applications with that XFree86 code would be violating the GPL."

http://www.ofb.biz/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=297
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