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Perhaps at some point, Apple will open up even more, and release the source to its X11 server...

FYI, The X11 server included in OS X 10.3 is based off XFree86.

Yaz.

you can't program sh*t on a windows install without buying separate software.

• TECHNICAL - things that are difficult-to-impossible for MS-Windows without "special equipment". Stuff like Xnest and User Mode Linux, which are boons for testing end-user and kiosk style applications, or the so-called Backstreet Ruby console project, which allows multiple independent users on one piece of hardware (e.g. two users on a multihead Radeon card). Stuff like "Terminal Services" and DAVfs being intrinsic to the system.
  
• POLITICAL - things like the absence of spyware, a licence agreement which says "if you break it you own both pieces" rather than one which says "your computer is now My Computer", being invented everywhere rather than in [insert name of favourite foreign imperialist infidel country here] - if The Boss drives a Citroën, start with "Where does it come from? France, Finland, Australia, [blah blah long list of places blah]. Oh, and did I mention France?" You can update piecemeal, or more or less at your own speed; since you have all of the pieces, a sizeable organisation could easily afford to settle on a distro and maintain it themselves ad infinitum by updating versions or patching at their discretion.
  
• FINANCIAL - Pretty dang obvious. Pay per user, per cpu, per port, or just for the support you need? Hmmm... let me think, this is a toughie...
  
• ANYTHING BUT MICROSOFT - sad but true. Probably 10% of conversions have this as their primary justification.
  
• CUSTOMISABLE - dislike a feature? Don't just disable it (only to have a user figure out a bypass later), get out your handy-dandy software saw and lop that horrid thing right off!

Sites wanting to deliver a richer interface could just use remote X applications.

available from this link Buffalo Linux.
JoLinux
Plamo Linux
Slax Live Linux

>XFree86.org changes a few words in their license, and within
>four months almost every major Linux distribution and BSD
>has dumped it.

I think I'd change "almost every" to "every." NetBSD does not an ecosystem make.
XFree86 Distro Support page. Most of the rest of those names are likely there through inertia, and will drop XFree as time passes and changes trickle down (lots of them are Slackware-derived, for example, and now that Slackware proper has given XFree the boot...).

This is only a controversy in Slashdot-land, where lots of people with only half-formed opinions like to sound off (and there's nothing wrong with that - I love Slashdot). In the real world, the world of the actual developers and distributors dealing with this issue, this isn't controversial at all. It's a slam dunk. A done deal. Finished and over with. They've welcomed their new X.org overlords with open arms, and moved on -- months ago.

Folks, this didn't happen because of a few words in a license. This was a long time coming - for years, XFree has been a mess, with a nearly closed development process, important changes never checked in and left to bit-rot, lack of support for those few people - like Keith Packard - who've been doing the grunt work of dragging X kicking and screaming into the 21st century, and so on.

The license change was more than just the straw that broke the camel's back; it was a "scorched earth" or "Hitler's Bunker" move by David Dawes _after_ it was already clear that XFree's missteps had cost them serious developer and distro buy-in. Things were already moving, rapidly and irrevocably, against the incompetence of the XFree gang - we saw the Xwin.org effort to somehow, someway, heal the problems, and we saw how XFree's reaction to this focused on booting the "troublemakers" rather than making even a single important change to XFree. After that failure, the work to rebuild X.org as an organization and a codebase began.

Dawes' virtual gunshot to the head - the license change - just pushed it all over the top. I think he was hoping to start a license war, but when even the BSD's are jumping ship I think it's very, very clear that the XFree problems had little to do with licensing, and a great deal to do with incompetent leadership.

Luckily, X.org puts us in a better position than ever. The organization in charge of the standard is now in charge of the reference codebase. Great. They've got significant buy-in across the board from distros and developers - who have left XFree in droves; in fact I think it's fair to say that -every- significant XFree developer has left. The code itself is just a branch of XFree pre-license change, which means compatibility is going smoothly. And the new, more open development process means we're going to see advanced new features in X sometime before the year 3120, when XFree was scheduled to start accepting important patches.

The reasoning for why the new license sucks has absolutely nothing to do with the GPL, despite the uninformed ramblings of the Slashdot crowd.

Richard Stallman interprets the license as GPL-incompatible. Is he also uninformed? I wouldn't say so.

Some people on the XFree86 Forum list claim it's the vendors using Xorg for their own interests.

And like in many failing projects I've seen once the rats leave the sinking ship strange loudmouths turn up who in a rage of hurrying obedience defend their masters against all accusations (including imagined and perceived ones).

No, it's because the distros that are switching are "business interests" who "have chosen to discriminate against XFree86" because they want to "exploit and manipulate *volunteers*." In other words, "just another name for slavery."

(Quotations from David Dawes, President of XFree86.)

Tom.

The X11 licence didn't change, xfree86's licence changed.

There are open drivers in XFree86 for the Radeon series of cards. The newer cards are 2D-only, and some older cards (Radeon 9200, 9000) have 3D support as well.

The 3D accel isn't supposed to be nearly as fast as ATI's closed drivers, but its supposed to be functional.

Details about specific cards and chipsets are on the XFree86 Radeon driver page

Hope this helps.

-molo

One of the things the XFree86 tyrant touted was that Slackware still used his 'stuff' - i wonder what he'll do now.
If you look at the current page of distros using XFree86 you'll be hard pressed to find one that is in common usage - pretty sad considering that until the moron decided to mess around with license it was the defacto standard on every Linux distribution
Goes to show you...don't mess around with licenses....Freedom is Freedom and that's what FOSS is all about.

Dipshit.

Hmm. I don't have an IGP, but my understanding is that it should work properly with the dri-trunk-sid packages even though there have been some recent fixes. You did build the drm-trunk-module package and install it right?

You might also try here or here.

Or use "DontVTSwitch" and "DontZap" in XF86Config.

Since /. decided to post this story, I guess they really badly want to know what software I use. So here goes.

I only use operating systems that will run the bulk of software developed for Linux and/or *BSD. I'm assuming that compiler toolchain (cc, make, ld, etc.), net utils (ping, ftp, etc.), ssh are installed.

screen (terminal multiplexer)
netcat (tcp and udp from the command line)
elvis (lightweight vi clone*)
Some X11 implementation (usually XFree86)
WindowMaker (window manager with efficiency)
Mozilla Firefox (great web browser)
mutt (fast and versatile mail client)
Gaim (multi-protocol instant messenger)
wget (download over http or ftp)

* I personally think vi is a prime example of horrible interface design, but it proved hard to find a text editor that is similarly efficient and powerful as elvis. I only with they would get rid of the HTML (and Latex?) view mode and just show me the source so I can edit it.

I'm using a Matrox G550. I know, not the latest greatest 3D card, then again, I don't play games, and don't care to compete with the FPS figures of other people. Of course, there are uses for 3D graphics other than games.

If you want get a video card that has open source drivers, have a look at the list of video cards supported by the XFree86/Xwin project, and the DRI project.

Last time I looked, the ATI 9200 series of cards where the latest supported with fully open DRI drivers. Again, not the latest and greatest, still they are still available new, so they a probably adequate.

We are in a bit of a dark period at the moment with drivers. People want fast, yet the vendors aren't releasing programming specs for them. Their "Linux support" is really just lip service.

Sorry, I know it's screwey to reply to yourself, but looking over their website some more they look to be even deeper in denial than I thought over this, and I don't see any better place to post this than here.

The Xfree86 homepage proudly trumpts the following:

4.4.0 now Stable After tremendous testing and community feedback, the 4.4.0 Release is now available for twenty (yep that's the number 20!) popular platforms. Distros that have integrated it are: NetBSD, Slackware Linux, Conectiva, and many others. See our distro support page for the full breakout.

But checking up on it, that doesn't seem to be true.

NetBSD?

XFree86 upgraded to version 4.3.0 for those architectures which use XFree86 version 4.

SlackWare?

- XFree86 4.3.0

My Portugeuse is a bit rusty and I gave up trying to find what version Connectiva is shipping, but I found it astonishing that they would claim NetBSD and Slack are using 4.4 when they aren't. Is anyone shipping Xfree86 4.4?

I think (as a casual observer) the licence change was more like the 'last straw'. Unhappiness within XFree86 has been percolating for some time.

• Steven: What other companies have contracted Precision Insight to write DRI drivers? Are you working on drivers for any other cards?
  Daryl: The only companies that have announced anything publicly are 3dfx, ATI and Intel.

• The XFree86 4 driver was funded by ATI and was donated to The XFree86 Project by:
• 
  Precision Insight, Inc.
  Cedar Park, TX
  USA
  

Well, if anyone's interested in helping out, the XFree86 nv driver needs a few good developers.

The other reason not to use XFree86 is that all of their best developers jumped ship before the license change ever happened.

Look at the XFree86 website. They feel the need to justify themselves, by showing us what distributors picked up XFree86 4.4! First they mention NetBSD, which is the most respectible, and the only one on the list that you are likely to have heard of. Then, they mention a few no-nane Linux distributions, like "Ark Linux"... It used to be, XFree86 wasn't so desperate, and didn't HAVE to tell you that some bumfuck Linux distro was using their wares.

The future is not looking good for a 4.5 or 5.0 release of XFree86.

According to this, four distros are continuing to use XFree86 despite the license change. They are Ark Linux, OpenNA Linux, Plamo Linux, and NetBSD. Does anyone know of any others or is everyone else switching?

Ok kids, here's the quick summary to get everyone up to speed.

XFree86 and FreeDesktop.org's X server are both X11R6-compatible X servers. The FreeDesktop.org server (herein known as XOrg) is a fork of an old XFree86 project called the KDrive.

The KDrive was a tiny X server implementation originally designed for PDAs and such. When you compile it the binary comes out to about 700kB and it requires hardly anything else to function. The author of the KDrive took (read: forked) it from XFree86's tree and started adding onto it, and it became XOrg.

So X11R6 applications and libraries work almost exactly the same under XOrg. The XFree86-specific extensions to drivers and shit need to be ported but most apps don't use those.

Gentoo, RedHat, I think SuSE and Debian and soon to be more Linux distros are all slowly switching to XOrg. Until then they'll be shipping XFree86 4.3.99.902 and below as those are the ones without the evil licensing changes.

This has been in the works for some time people, so it's not a rumor or a guess.

Note: XOrg isn't the real name of the server, I just call it that cuz im lazy. XOrg is the name of a foundation that puts out this FD.O Xserver. Info here.

Compare Apache license in OpenBSD cvsweb with the XFree 86 4.4 license and clue me into what's the difference between these except for the organization name and URL?

So why are other companies able to provide their drivers as Open Source? Do you think the developers of for example XFree86 were not capable to do a good job?

Anyway I like Open Source drivers. BTW: Don't forget to sign the Intel Support of Centrino Under Linux Petition. See more details about Linux on Centrino laptops.

Or search for XFree86 Windows and the 1st choice is XFree86(TM): Home Page

Interestingly, if you search for xfree86 xfree86"you get the xfree86 home page
No sign of porn.

Since it's about to get Slashdotted, here is the mirror list section from the xfree86.org site:

Web Mirrors

Our web site is very busy and often causes timed out connections. The following sites have been verified as being both accurate and reliable in their mirroring process, and so we recommend these for the best access:

Costa Rica
Copenhagen, Denmark
Paris, France
St. Denis, France
Berlin, Germany
Dortmund, Germany
Athens, Greece
Seoul, Korea
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Bucharest, Romania
London, United Kingdom

Not posting as AC 'cause the troll potential would be too high...

The XFree86 Project, Inc is announcing that it has made a change to its license effective with the Third Release Candidate for the 4.4.0 series. This licence, like our previous, is fully free, (how do we know this? no less than the world authority on free software, RMS, has said so) and it's the hope of the XFree86 Project to no longer allow non-free licences into our tree so we can become a fully free-software compliant X product.

RMS also claims that the new licensing policy will "eliminate the (GPL) incompatibility with applications".

No, the page you pointed to does not say that. Read the fucking
page again.

The furor over the license is generated by commercial interests and little else. Look at where the criticism of the license comes from. Is it a vendor that has sold repackaged XFree86 as a product for years and stands to benefit from calling it their own product?

Once you filter out FUD from vendors, what issues are left?

Even RMS claimed that the new "license requirement qualifies as free software".

RMS also claims that the new licensing policy will "eliminate the (GPL) incompatibility with applications".

It seems pretty clear once you filter out the noise....

The furor over the license is generated by commercial interests and little else. Look at where the criticism of the license comes from. Is it a vendor that has sold repackaged XFree86 as a product for years and stands to benefit from calling it their own product?

Once you filter out FUD from vendors, what issues are left?

Even RMS claimed that the new "license requirement qualifies as free software".

RMS also claims that the new licensing policy will "eliminate the (GPL) incompatibility with applications".

It seems pretty clear once you filter out the noise....

Or even better, wait until there's at least one mirror accepting connections.. *sigh* no mirror seems to have been updated.. Here are the release notes.

torrent anyone?

that by posting it on slashdot, you just ruined what might have been "the only way to get it for the moment", don't you?

But if we have to f'up the server right, how about linking to the release notes?

The XFree86 Inc. (that is their board) has shown to be willing to discuss actual issues and concerns. If you look at the first reply to RMS's message in the XFree86 Forum, it is from David Dawes of XFree86 and his willing ness to discuss concerns about the license change.

It is not clear why XFree86 has to modify their license to suit a Linux distribution, which is suppose to be a compilation of Free/Open Source Linux software, not a dictator of Open Source.

If these arm chair lawyers are so concerned about GPL, why don't they write a new X Window System from scratch, and release it for free/Free under the GPL.

So, it seems that the main reason for a fork is no longer an issue ? No-one is going to be writing a new X-Server (well, I guess some of the embedded folks might, but that's about all I can think of), and they state that there's no issues with any client programs that you link with ... No problem for most of us then, unless it's for political reasons.

I think part of the concern is over long-term intent. Mr. Dawes says applying the license to client-side libraries is "deferred", implying that it might be applied sometime later, though it appears that he thinks GPL compatibilty for the client-side libraries is somewhat important.

...I can see why they want to promote themselves in this world where perception is all.

Apache used to have an advertising clause and dropped it, yet people still know about Apache. Moreover, the number of people who will even notice these "advertisements" are fairly few -- how many ordinary folk are going to read and understand these lists of attributions? If they want XFree86.org to be on everyone's lips (for positive reasons), they'll need something more than this clause.

Make the web sites look better!

Silly ignorant clueless troll. Your ad-hominem attacks will get you no where.

First, take a dump of your video bios: dd if=/dev/mem of=video-bios.bin bs=1 count=65535 skip=786432

Secondly, take a gander through it strings video-bios.bin | less

Thirdly, note how there is no resolution matching what your screen has.

Now, you can go read this http://www.xfree86.org/~dawes/845driver.html

Now die

I downloaded RC3 and see Alan's name on cyrix_helper.c, r128_state.c, some versions of videodev.h, and cyrix.h. None of it is licensed under the GPL. XFree in fact cannot contain GPL code because of the "XFree86 Project Licensing Policy" which states in part

Others must be permitted to distribute binary-only forms of the code if they which (sic) to do so.

This is found in one of the "LICENSE" files.

"LICENSE" also notes that files "without an explicit copyright" are covered by the XFree86 license, which explicitly permits sublicensing.

To your credit, the files Alan clearly owns do not explicitly permit sublicensing, so thanks at least for making me research this. Uhh IOW "you got the reasons wrong but you still win". The videodev.h files are a rip from video4linux and do permit sublicensing.

Mozilla went through a license change and they had to get approval from each and every code author...

That is just one of the differences between the MPL and XFree86 license.

This is not mean to be a troll, honest. But wasn't the whole purpose of Debian Unstable to be really up to date? I mean, when people complain that debian is way too far behind, debian fans are quick to point out that debian has three distros and that unstable is really quite stable and as up to date as other distros. Now, XFree86 4.3.0 was released on the 26th of February last year - Why did it take a whole year for it to be included in unstable?

Actually, it is. From the new license:

Permission is hereby granted ... to deal in the Software without
restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy,
modify, merge ... copies of the Software ... subject to
the following conditions: ...

2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above
copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following
disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials
provided with the distribution, and in the same place and form
as other copyright, license and disclaimer information.

3. The end-user documentation included with the redistribution,
if any, must include the following acknowledgment: ...

(Elided text marked--see the original for the missing bits.)

The problem is that "merging" clause.

If your program includes any of the X include files, you've now
merged it with those files, which are released under that license.
This is also the case if you've statically linked to any of the
libraries and probably also if you're dynamically linking to shared
libraries. (You might be able to make a "fair use" case for that, but
the headers will get you regardless.)

If we were talking about just the server, the above wouldn't be a
problem. However, major parts of XFree86 need to be merged with other
programs to be useful so, whether that was their intent or not, the
license as it stands is viral.

To accept a less than 'free' desktop for the 'free' desktop movement would not make sense.

Richard Stallman regards both the new license and some of the old licenses used in the X Server as GPL incompatible but still free. Recently he successfully suggested a compromise with XFree86, which ensures that at least the the client side libraries stay GPL compatible.

The new license is nevertheless problematic because it requires distributors to change the end user documentation and all "other materials provided with the distribution". These changes require a lot of time, which can be spend better by improving one of the forks.

To accept a less than 'free' desktop for the 'free' desktop movement would not make sense.

Richard Stallman regards both the new license and some of the old licenses used in the X Server as GPL incompatible but still free. Recently he successfully suggested a compromise with XFree86, which ensures that at least the the client side libraries stay GPL compatible.

The new license is nevertheless problematic because it requires distributors to change the end user documentation and all "other materials provided with the distribution". These changes require a lot of time, which can be spend better by improving one of the forks.

To accept a less than 'free' desktop for the 'free' desktop movement would not make sense.

Richard Stallman regards both the new license and some of the old licenses used in the X Server as GPL incompatible but still free. Recently he successfully suggested a compromise with XFree86, which ensures that at least the the client side libraries stay GPL compatible.

The new license is nevertheless problematic because it requires distributors to change the end user documentation and all "other materials provided with the distribution". These changes require a lot of time, which can be spend better by improving one of the forks.

-1, wrong:
They're changing their license, even though XFree contains GPL code.

Where? Find one snippet, I challenge you! Incorporating GPL'ed code into Xfree86 under the Xfree86 licenses. (both 1.0 and 1.1) would be illegal.
Thus speaks the GPL:

You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.

..that you can't add additional restrictions to it?

Only the restrictions RMS endorses.
</flamebait>

Seriously, the issue is with linking GPL applications with X11 libraries (-L/usr/X11R6/lib -lX11)

David Dawes and others do want to resolve this issue, and has expressed this to RMS and others...

The goal was to clarify:
"You can do what you like with the code except claim you wrote it".

Because as a BSD-like license, it allows binary-only distribution, which is very desireable for embedded developers, and it may not be obvious to the end-user / customer that the embedded product contains XFree86 code. I believe that it where they wanted to clarify ownership of XFree86, not create some sort of advertising burden on Linux distributions or GPL applications.

Sidenote: freedesktop.org's work is not ready for production usage, it's a developer's play area, although a very cool play area, and Xovert seems to be more talk than actual work AFAIK.

..that you can't add additional restrictions to it?

Only the restrictions RMS endorses.
</flamebait>

Seriously, the issue is with linking GPL applications with X11 libraries (-L/usr/X11R6/lib -lX11)

David Dawes and others do want to resolve this issue, and has expressed this to RMS and others...

The goal was to clarify:
"You can do what you like with the code except claim you wrote it".

Because as a BSD-like license, it allows binary-only distribution, which is very desireable for embedded developers, and it may not be obvious to the end-user / customer that the embedded product contains XFree86 code. I believe that it where they wanted to clarify ownership of XFree86, not create some sort of advertising burden on Linux distributions or GPL applications.

Sidenote: freedesktop.org's work is not ready for production usage, it's a developer's play area, although a very cool play area, and Xovert seems to be more talk than actual work AFAIK.

The really interesting bit is that there is a lot of GPL-ed code in XFree.

I take it you mean FreeType which is included under a dual-license of GPL and BSD-like.

Chunks have been copied from the linux kernel, and people like Alan Cox submitted patches

Alan Cox submitted patches are not under the GPL, but he wished to remain compatible with GPL applications (by using the old XFree86 license). The transfer actually has been from XFree86 to the kernel (fbdev).