RMS On 'Open' Motif

martin writes: "It seems RMS is not impressed by the Open Group's recent release of Motif into the community, according this email sent out on Saturday."

Comments

Why?

[AstroJetson]

He might be 100% right on all points, but it would be nice if he went into a little more detail and explained why he comes to this conclusion. For example, he could state exactly how he feels their definition of open source is different. Or maybe give some examples or something. I'm honestly not RMS-bashing here, but it just sounds like He has delivered His judgement and we're just supposed to accept it without further explanation. R..M..S has spoken...oken...oken...oken....

Correlation between liking Motif and license?

[AJWM]

On a quick read of the above messages, there seems to be a fairly high correlation between one's opinion of Motif and one's opinion of the OpenMotif license. Those that think the license sucks seem (with exceptions) to also think that Motif is ugly, dead, etc. Well, they obviously aren't going to use it anyway, so who cares what they think?

Personally, I like Motif. I've developed with it (and LessTif) for nearly a decade (on and off), it has mature GUI builders, a UIL, is Xt-based (so it cooperates with other Xt-based toolkits, unlike GTK and Qt), and there's already a patch (in alpha) to OpenMotif to make it themeable (using GTK themes). If it's so ugly, why do other toolkits copy its look? (Granted, the defaults are poorly chosen, but who uses the defaults?) And while I would like to see the OpenMotif license more open that it is, Stallman seems oblivious to the subtleties of the license. As I wrote elsewhere:

"they have not made Motif available within the free software community; instead, they have invited the people in the free software community to leave the community by using Motif." -- RMS

This is where he's wrong. To that part of the free software community that only uses free software, Open Motif is indeed free in all senses. It's only if folks have already chosen to leave the free software community by using a non-free OS that OpenMotif becomes non-free.

Motif is hardly dead -- too many existing projects out there use it and there's too big an expertise pool of existing Motif developers (on the proprietary Unix side) for that.

Reply from the Open Group

[Russ Nelson]

The ownership of Motif does NOT reside with The Open Group. It resides with the seven sponsors of the OSF Motif PST Agreement. The lawyers of most of these companies working in conjunction with The Open Group's lawyers created the license at the end of 1999. Getting the lawyers from several different companies to agree on the words was a long enough task. It was very late in the release process that it was raised as an issue that the words defining Open Source were inconsistent with the OSI definition.

However, we should state, as we do in the FAQ, that there is no intent to be anything other than consistent with the OSI Open Source definition. Indeed, I have already started working with the legal people within the various companies to request permission to change the words in the license to explicitly reference the OSI Definition. We were unable to complete this task prior to the release date, and decided not to delay the release any more for this problem with the definition.

I cannot say how long it will take to correct the license but we are making progress with the lawyers. I already have approval for the change from two companies.

Re:Reply from the Open Group

[Bruce Perens]

TOG contacted me some time before the release of Motif. They said they were releasing un-named software and showed me the license. At that time, I asked them to make it entirely compliant with the OSD, and they said they could not do so yet. So, we agreed on FAQ language that explicitly stated the software was not Open Source.

I wasn't aware that they "redefined" Open Source and would have objected to that.

Frankly, I don't think Motif is all that relevant these days, given the progress on GNOME/GTK and KDE/Qt. Thus, given their expressed intention to make it Open Source eventually, I don't think there's much point in having a big to-do about it now.

Thanks

Bruce

Re:Amazing backlash!

[cpt kangarooski]

One other question for the crowd: Why is it that people obessed with making money are never called zealots?

Well, if I remember right, the Zealots were a fanatical religious group in Roman-occupied Judea who were trying to get rid of the Romans. (and didn't really do so well - the Romans were powerful and determined to stay)

So I'd say that while any group of fanatics can be labeled zealots it's most appropriate for religious (and religious-like) oriented fanatics.

Besides, people obsessed with money are already called greedy. And if they don't utilize their money, but instead just keep it around (uncommon now, but more common when usury was generally criminal) they're miserly too.

Re:Another attack on open source from RMS

[Chalst]

RMS thinks freedom can be measured by the bucket? On the contrary RMS
is very systematic in the criteria he uses to distinguish open source
from not open source.

I entirely agree with RMS on this one. Restrictions on use are
obnoxious and aginst the spirit of free software.

Motif Sauce Rools

[GC]

Well,

Motif has always been available in source code version to students and from certain unknown russian ftp sites.

Haven't checked recently but ftpsearch.lycos.com will probably produce something.

I agree with Richard, if Lesstif works: use it, if it doesn't: code it.

Thanks

Before the inevitable Stallman bashing starts ...

[scrutty]

Please note that he's not being a pedant here. Similar in position to defending a trademark,everything he says about the Motif licensing is true. Itis incompatible with the philosophies of the FSF, and the term open-source is becoming increasingly polluted.

I see RMS as forced to comment every time some organisation/company hijacks the free software, open source hype attached to some press release, which is bound to attract plenty of press coverage ,and reach eyeballs who aren't particularly clued up about the issues behind some of this wonderful "free" software they keep hearing is taking the world by storm..

Usage restrictions unacceptable?

[Ed Avis]

* The license is restricted to use on certain operating systems, those which fit a category they call "open source". Both the Free Software Movement and the Open Source Movement consider use restrictions unacceptable.

Er, that would mean that Qt is not open source, since the QPL tells you what you may and may not 'use' the software for. (Whereas with the GPL and other licences, using the software is not restricted, but distributing copies of it may be.)

Okay, the QPL's statement of what you may use Qt for seems to cover all the bases - developing, compiling and linking programs, and developing new free programs - but technically it would count as non-free, since there may be some use which is not mentioned and thus implicitly disallowed. In fact the condition that programs must be 'legally developed' is a bit worrying - eg if DeCSS were ruled to be illegal, you couldn't link it with Qt even in some more liberal country where use of DeCSS were allowed.

He's got a point with this one...

[Millennium]

The restriction to Open-Source operating systems is a problem. While you can get away with quite a lot of things under the Open-Source banner, this one violates pretty much every guideline set and "example license" out there. GPL and BSD, the two most popular "example licences" out there, certainly don't allow this. It violates the discrimination clauses of the Debian Free Software Guidelines and the Open-Source Definition. And on top of that, it's just plain not fair to those who choose to use other operating systems.

I never much liked Motif anyway. It was a great piece of work for its time, but it had too much inertia going for it; it eventually seems to have stopped evolving. When that happened, the other toolkits grew to surpass it. It's a shame, but it happens to every piece of software in time. It's the nature of the beast; when software stops evolving, it is ruthlessly cut out of the marketplace by faster-evolving software, which in turn will eventually be cut themselves.

Amazing backlash!

[ilkahn]

What the hell? There are 7 comments on this story and already all that I hear are complaints about RMS complaining too much, or whining too much, etc... etc... etc... What is wrong with you people? Although I agree it may sometimes appear like this man is an extremist, that is what it takes to move and motivate a movement! If it were not for his zeal and his amazing drive, we would all still be using commercial software, without the source, without any hope of openness, without ANYTHING.

A lot of people feel that the movement has gotten to the point where we can now sit back, and that all of the benefits of an open software / free software world will come to us... we have not even begun to scratch the surface! Attitudes have barely changed, we do NOT live in a society where the average IT person understand the concept of free software (be it beer or speech!) We need someone to be a constant reminder, an unwavering word that reminds us that this fights isn't just about having the k-radest desktop at the office, or how fast our website is on Apache/Linux as compared to IIS/NT. It's about the freedom to chose, it's about the freedom to modify and to understand. It's about the freedom to not be tied to one vendors word, one commercial, closed, propietary solution. Yeah, he may sound like he is complaining and whining... it's because a great many people are getting lazy, fat, and complacent... and he sees this, and he will not give up, and he will not stop reminding us what the ideals were all about.

Re:Er, this is RMS here

[Uruk]

You don't have to follow what he says. For that matter, you're free to not listen to anybody. You're free to take the source to the linux kernel and start your own OS project. You can do whatever you want to do. That's one of the whole thrusts of free software in general.

The fact that he has written more software than you and I combined will ever write suggests that you don't have to care about or follow what he says, but it might be a good idea to listen. RMS is the reason why you're here spouting this on slashdot, since this site was written by a person influenced by his software and running on Debian GNU/Linux.

He's not any "better" than you or I - but you shouldn't simply dismiss him just because it's currently en vogue in the slashdot community to put Stallman down.

Re:Before the inevitable Stallman bashing starts .

[Uruk]

open-source is becoming increasingly polluted.

Right on brother. Not many people see this, but it is happening. I think one of the major points where it started was with the APSL. Sure, it's been renegotiated, and we're told everything is getting better, but in the end effect, open source is about popularity. In that respect, it's succeeding quite well.

People still wonder about why RMS is so sore about Open source - it's because they have dissimilar goals. Open source and ESR is all about "world domination" and popularity. Sure, they're fun, but if you have to bastardize what got you to that point for that popularity, it isn't worth it IMHO. I was a happy linux user before open source was popular, and I'll be a happy user whether or not it's popular. Well, I may not be so happy in a few years when linux gets flooded with pseudo-open source garbage that trades popularity for freedom.

Re:Before the inevitable Stallman bashing starts .

[Chakotay]

Well, I may not be so happy in a few years when linux gets flooded with pseudo-open source garbage that trades popularity for freedom.

All the more reason to use Debian GNU/Linux. One of Debian's priorities is to keep GPL clean, guaranteeing in truly Free Operating System. This is exactly the reason that Debian is dumping KDE by the side of the road: distributing KDE binaries would be a breach of GPL due to a licencing glitch.

In the current Linux world, where I see more and more distros go more and more commercial, I'm really glad there's at least one distribution that stays true to its source (yes, pun intended). This is probably part of the reason why I'm so mysteriously attracted to Debian. Its packaging system and great abundance of packages are two other charms, ofcourse, but the fact that it's truly Free is also a large part of it.


)O(
the Gods have a sense of humour,

"Open Source" is trademarked, IIRC

[jd]

Either way, if your lawyers are going to spend ages over the legalese, but do a rush-job of putting the whole thing together, the companies involved would be advised to seek other legal firms for such work, in future.

No company should be asked to spend a significant sum of money on (essentially) an unfinished product. You don't buy a car that has no engine.

IMHO, your licence is therefore "unfit for the purpose for which it was obtained". Whilst computer software is exempt from this, under the "Digital Millenium Copyright Act", the licence, and the legal process by which it was obtained, is not.

I suggest you ask for a refund.