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XFree86 Alters License
kinema writes "According to the XFree86 announcement starting with XFree86 v4.4.0-RC3 there will be a new license. There are some worries that these changes might be incompatible with the GPL." The FSF has a good page about the problems with BSD-style advertising clauses, which ironically uses XFree86's old license as an example of one to emulate.
too many licensing schemes out there.
K.I.S.S and you shouldn't have any problems eh?
Whateva
Sent from your iPad.
the source is still out there, worst case scenario - the license isn't gpl, and they don't change it to be so - some of the developers split off and recruit noobs, and we end up with a renamed X that everyone uses - that takes a little while to ramp back up to full speed.
It's not the end of the world, but it (could) be annoying, that's for sure. I think thorough investigation is needed (e.g. try reading the license)
cyn, free software and *nix operating systems enthusiast.
Will this affect the popularity of the GPL?
XFree86 is using a different license, as is Apache... will this put off others using the GPL, and encourage them to use a license of their own creation that best suits their needs?
This isn't a troll, but seriously, why should it be GPL compatable? The only way to be GPL compatable is to have a licence where the software can re-licensed under the GPL. The GPL states it can only be linked with other software under the GPL (or under a licence which basically means the same thing)
If the GPL is unwilling to be compatable with anyone else, why should anyone be too worried about being compatable with the GPL.
Remember. Open source =\= GPL.
Combination - fun iPhone puzzling
Programming can be fun again. Film at 11.
The new license contains an advertising clause. I wonder if their recent merger has something to do with this...
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
This only seems to concern documentation, not ads, so the problems described on the FSF page are not quite as bad - full page of credits on ad may be bad, but full page of credits among hundreds of other pages of documentation isn't nearly as big deal.
Anyway this seems to be rather stupid move, XFree86 seems to have enough problems (infighting, resulting diverting and forks...) already without any license trouble. If it ends up incompatible, all the more reason to concentrate on those, if the XFree86 folks want to shoot themselves to foot and slowly bleed to death, it's their choice - very stupid one but it's their nevertheless.
OH WHY have they done this? What a stupid thing to do, take a perfectly good license and make a few stupid insignificant changes that make it more difficult for everyone else.
Not to mention that they ought to get the permission of all the contributors first.
What's with the Spinal Tap reference? Is trolling all about free association now?
Back in the day it was all about causing the most offence. I miss those days.
Also goatse.
The requirement to add an acknowledgement (often called the "advertising clause") is something that's not present in the GPL. The GPL states that GPLed code may only be distributed if further requirements or restrictions above and beyond the GPL are not made. It's therefore impossible to satisfy the terms of both licenses simultaneously, and therefore the extra clause makes the new XFree license GPL incompatible.
Now, why's this a problem? The XFree project doesn't include GPLed code itself, so there are no concerns from that point of view. However, if any of the code in the X libraries falls under this new license, then the FSF's interpretation of the GPL means that you wouldn't be able to link any GPLed program against the X libraries and distribute it. That's fairly bad.
On the plus side, the freedesktop.org x libraries were branched from XFree before the license change - as a result, we can pretty much guarantee that there will be libraries available that can be used with GPLed code. The end result would probably be to reduce the amount of XFree code in a distribution, rather than to increase the credit that the XFree project wants. It's almost certainly a counter-productive move.
I do not really see why this is a particular problem, why shouldn't they say that you can not use their name for adverting even if it might not be GPL?
Version 1.1 of XFree86 Project License.
Copyright (C) 1994-2004 The XFree86 Project, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions, and the following disclaimer.
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: "This product includes software developed by The XFree86 Project, Inc (http://www.xfree86.org/) and its contributors", in the same place and form as other third-party acknowledgments. Alternately, this acknowledgment may appear in the software itself, in the same form and location as other such third-party acknowledgments.
4. Except as contained in this notice, the name of The XFree86 Project, Inc shall not be used in advertising or otherwise to promote the sale, use or other dealings in this Software without prior written authorization from The XFree86 Project, Inc.
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE XFREE86 PROJECT, INC OR ITS CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
Is there a way to post a babelfished link? Does google do tranlation stuff yet?
Anyway... enjoy.
=-=-=
Does XFree86 GPL become incompatible?
Sent of demon at the Fr, 30 January 2004 around 10:21
Durch a change of the license regulations will will become the coming version of XFree86 incompatible to the well-known GPL and a linking of GPL applications to XFree86 "problematic".
Hardly the turbulences in the XFree86-Lager grew silent, seem a further controversy from the fence to to break. As David Dawes of the XFree86-Projekt communicated, the XFree86-Projekt changes its license on a new version 1.1. A change of the license represents no point at issue in the reason still, became nevertheless already in the past restrictive licenses of liberals. This time the situation seems to be however more problematic, because XFree86 becomes more restrictive.
As license can be taken further very much from the liberal, can be changed, driven out and applied all programs under the "XFree86 License 1,1" without publication of the source code. Again was added however a clause, which means that each distribution and each product, which contain XFree86 must attach a note either in the documentation or in the application on XFree86 ("This product includes software developed by The XFree86 Project, Inc. (http://www.xfree86.org/) and its contributors"). That is problematic, as the Free software Foundation already meant in another case.
The organization had not GPL compatibly classified the first version of the BSD license in the past as and had expressed substantial doubts against a linking of GPL- and BSD applications. The famous "BSD advertising clause" does not make the license unfree, cause however practical problems, including an incompatibility with the GNU GPL, so the Foundation. In the past the Free software Foundation guessed/advised to use the straight XFree86-Lizenz because it was to a large extent with the BSD license compatible and the notorious clause does not contain. Thus conclusion might probably be, because a determination of the BSD clause as "GPL incompatible" makes automatically also the new XFree86-Lizenz for GPL applications "problematic".
Which follows from the earlier declaration of the BSD license, could extensive consequences both for the Distributoren as well as for other manufacturers have. Thus GPL applications may be linked against an GPL incompatible library, this require however a note in the source code - a condition, which will fulfill hardly an application. If this note is not contained, linking is not permitted.
Thus either if XFree86 should not change their license or the Free software Foundation their declaration, then the current version of XFree86 will be probably also last release delivered by the Distributoren. Because it is questionable whether Distributoren get involved in a "problematic" use. Options during a non--change might be either freedesktop.org, Xouvert or a new Fork. Not completely averse would be also the developers. As pro Linux from KDE Entwicklerkreisen experienced, also they are not with XFree86 content and think ever more frequently about one transferred to freedesktop.org. (thanks at Rene.)
Rhonda Clarke is persecuting my religion!!!!
"some worries" would require a trip here to read it in (semi-)English?
Here's the original BSD clause:
And here's the new XFree86 clause:
The problem with the original clause 3 of the BSD license is that it could lead to massive lists of acknowledgements tacked on to an advertisement meant to be fairly compact (e.g. a leaflette, banner ad, sign, billboard, whatever). This isn't the case with the new XFree86 license clause 3, where it only requires acknowledgement in the documentation or the software itself. While keeping track of those acknowledgements might prove difficult at times, it has nowhere NEAR the practical problems that the original BSD license had.
A GPL inkompatibel XMoose86 once bit my sister... No realli!...Mynd you, XMoose86 bites Kan be pretty nasti...
The new XFree86 license requires a statement in end user documentation, which is completely different. You can't really argue that adding a bunch of disclosures about where the modules you're using to your documentation is a huge burden. It doesn't add a substantial cost to your documentation, even if it's distributed in a printed form, unlike the cost of adding a page of disclosures to an ad.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
...whether certain recent high-profile disputes over code ownership might have changed a few people's attitudes to the importance of attribution?
That is, if every file has a mandatory 75-line list of copyrights, would it be harder to accuse it of being stolen?
Now in reality, the Linux kernel source code has a fair bit of copyright information plastered all over the headers, so in practice the litigious bastards such as those I alluded to above wouldn't pay any attention to details like that. But different people think differently.
Unlikely, but, you know.
These sigs are more interesting tha
If I had a quarter for every time I said that, I'd ...I'd ...I wouldn't have any quarters. And I still have laundry to do.
This is the major problem with open-source software. All the project decide to make their own license so they can set special terms. This will only cause problems. If they would all agree on one license (GPL or not) then it would be much easier to get excited about using open-source software because I wouldn't have to read all the licenses to make sure they are compatible with each other. I also wouldn't have to worry about using a particular piece of software in an illegal manner because I would learn from Project A that I can't do certain things with it and then I would know that the same will be true for Porject B.
"But I'm still right here, giving blood and keeping faith. And I'm still right here."
IMHO, you're posting a story in English to an English-language website, you should be posting English links. Substitute any language you want in the previous sentence, as long as you substitute it three times.
If the GPL is unwilling to be compatable with anyone else, why should anyone be too worried about being compatable with the GPL.
... unless you are someone who feels threatened by free software in general, or people who differ from your vision of free software in particular, and therefor prefer fragmentation over cooperation.
The GPL has been THE reference license since probably before you were born (tongue in cheek).
BSD and GPL are the two original free software licenses. The BSD folks have made an effort to insure that the BSD license is compatible with the GPL not because they share the GNU philosophy (they don't), but to avoid fragmenting the free software world through stupid licensing incompatibilities. FreeBSD changed their license to make it GPL compatible, and GPL v. 2 was changed likewise to be compatible with a wider range of interests (including commercial interests that are shared with the BSD community).
The GPL is the only license many enterprises will consider releasing their erstwhile proprietary code under, as it protects them from having competitors snatch up their code and incorporate it into a competing proprietary product (in their view, competing GPLed products are not an issue, as they can reincorporate the best improvement into their GPLed product). Many of us who write code will not consider a BSD style license because we do not want our code used by freeloaders who incorporate it into non-free, proprietary products.
There are enough (perhaps a majority, even) free software and open source developers who feel this way that the GPL is, if not the majority license, a sufficiently large piece of the OSS / FSS pie that being incompatible with it means losing a huge portion of the community's input and integration.
FreeBSD, as vehement as their disagreement with the GPL is, chose to deliberately modify their license to make it compatible with the GPL for exactly these reasons: because there is room in the community for both views, but no reason whatsoever to fragment the community over those views.
After all, if one licenses under a *BSD style license, and if therefor one doesn't mind having their code placed into a proprietary product, why should one mind having it incorporated into a GPLed product (unless one's goal is simply to fragment the free software world and undermine the cooperation that makes it so effective).
Which makes one wonder about the motives of someone who would post such an inane comment actively encouraging such small minded thinking ("we don't use their license, we don't like them, so why should we cooperate!")
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
The Xfree86 project is an "Organization of one", and as such the loan dictator and self proclaimed founder of the project is free to do as he pleases.
If they go with a more proprietary license, they should probably also change their name to Ex-Free86. :P
http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/urltrurl? url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pro-linux.de%2Fnews%2F2004%2F 6414.html&lp=de_en&tt=url
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Does XFree86 GPL become incompatible?
Sent of demon at the Fr, 30 January 2004 around 10:21
Does a change of the license regulations will will become the coming version of XFree86 incompatible to the well-known GPL and a linking of GPL applications to XFree86 "problematic".
Hardly the turbulences in the XFree86-Lager grew silent, seem a further controversy from the fence to to break. As David Dawes of the XFree86-Projekt communicated, the XFree86-Projekt changes its license on a new version 1.1. A change of the license represents no point at issue in the reason still, became nevertheless already in the past restrictive licenses of liberals. This time the situation seems to be however more problematic, because XFree86 becomes more restrictive.
As license can be taken further very much from the liberal, can be changed, driven out and applied all programs under the "XFree86 License 1,1" without publication of the source code. Again was added however a clause, which means that each distribution and each product, which contain XFree86 must attach a note either in the documentation or in the application on XFree86 ("This product includes software developed by The XFree86 Project, Inc. (http://www.xfree86.org/) and its contributors"). That is problematic, as the Free software Foundation already meant in another case.
The organization had not GPL compatibly classified the first version of the BSD license in the past as and had expressed substantial doubts against a linking of GPL- and BSD applications. The famous "BSD advertising clause" does not make the license unfree, cause however practical problems, including an incompatibility with the GNU GPL, so the Foundation. In the past the Free software Foundation guessed/advised to use the straight XFree86-Lizenz because it was to a large extent with the BSD license compatible and the notorious clause does not contain. Thus conclusion might probably be, because a determination of the BSD clause as "GPL incompatible" makes automatically also the new XFree86-Lizenz for GPL applications "problematic".
Which follows from the earlier declaration of the BSD license, could extensive consequences both for the Distributoren as well as for other manufacturers have. Thus GPL applications may be linked against an GPL incompatible library, this require however a note in the source code - a condition, which will fulfill hardly an application. If this note is not contained, linking is not permitted.
Thus either if XFree86 should not change their license or the Free software Foundation their declaration, then the current version of XFree86 will be probably also last release delivered by the Distributoren. Because it is questionable whether Distributoren get involved in a "problematic" use. Options during a non--change might be eith
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
Any good copy left license will require sublicensing by that license as a requirement for compatibility. It is too hard to capture the concept of copy left in any other way.
... but lots of people like that aspect, and there is plenty of worthwhile GPL software out there some of which even the XFree developers use. It is the choice to suddenly change to an incompatible which needs the justification IMO.
GPL keeps source open, that might not be everyone's definition of open source
"If XFree86 doesn't back out, it could spell doom for the project as a whole,..."
Hmmm...do I smell Xouvert? or perhaps freedesktop ?
Regards,
Steve
mmm XFree86-Lager
Can somebody explain why this new 1.1 license is necessarily incompatible with GPL2 / LGPL? True, it is an annoying licence change as the FSF article explains, and may not be a smart move for the project. But annoying doesn't make it incompatible. And no one even said (that I can determine) that original flawed BSD license was in fact incompatible; just undesirable.
In fact, this seems to be less restrictive than the GNU FDL license for documentation. It's not the same as past famous GPL-incompatible licenses, such as an old version of the Python license.
They may not care, but if they start distributing X under a GPL-incompatible license, it will rapidly lose popularity. Developers will flock to freedesktop.org's xserver/xlibs, and users will do the same. I'm not worried, because I think xserver will eclipse XFree.
That being said, one would hope that the continued work on the next generation of GPL will consider whether or not "advertising clauses" will really result in GPL incompatibility. The mission of the FSF and the GPL is to make sure that the code can be freely used and reused. It's unclear how requiring positive attribution would interfere with that. Aren't there options for that sort of thing in FSF's Free Documentation License?
Admittedly, it's a slippery slope -- imagine a license with a clause requiring binaries be accompanied by a message advocating a particular political position. Or a particular sexual position, for that matter...
The Busy Coder's Guide to Android Development
Nice link there. All in German. Thanks.
The bulk of the linux market is backing freedesktop.org for the future. XFree86 has made itself irrelevant by not adapting to the times - people want high-performance eye-candy, and XFree86 won't deliver, whereas freedesktop.org and xouvert already are!
...NOT!
"Can there be a Klein bottle that is an efficient and effective beer pitcher?"
Contributors: You said the code would be left in the CVS under our supervision!
XFree86: We are altering the license. Pray we don't alter it any further.
Part A:
All previous terms and conditions remain in effect, with the exception of addendum 1
Addendum 1:
If you're Darl McBride, bite my shiny, metal ass!
Imagine if a software system required 75 different sentences, each one naming a different author or group of authors. To advertise that, you would need a full-page ad.
Christ. And I was worried about Iraq, gun control and third-world starvation for a moment there.
Bow, nigger. h
Read the openssl license sometimes.
The author of that license seems to hold a deep grudge against the GPL, and specifically coded his license to make it incompatible (explicitly!!).
Anecdotally, it actually seems very common for BSD advocates to hate on the GPL. GPL users have no problem incorporating most BSD stuff with compatible licenses, because the product is GPL'd its not going to bother them.
The BSD crowd dont seem to be afraid that proprietary interests will advance the code such that the free version atrophies, but they do seem concerned that a rebadged GPL version could do just that: become the new "official" version. That would preclude any more commercial forking they had planned.
Personally, I thought the commercial fork pipe-dream was last used successfully by bill joy. I dont know why it still has so many adherents- proprietary is clearly not the wave of the future.
BSD type licenses are like BSD derived OSs ... they fork all over the place :) Copyleft by its very nature seeks to consolidate though, I dont see that changing.
Here is a human-translated version of the german article:
The upcoming version of XFree86 is, due to a change in the licensing agreement, incompatible with the well-known GPL, and linking GPL applications with XFree86 will present itself as "problematic."
The troubles in the XFree-86 camp have just died down, but a further problem is beating at the gates. As David Dawes from the XFree-86 Project shared, the XFree-86 Project is changing its license to a new version 1.1. A change in the license does not, in principle, present a reason for causing problems, restrictive licensces have become more liberal in the past. The situation is, however, this time more problematic - the XFree86 license is getting more restrictive.
The license can still be seen as very liberal - all programs under the "XFree86 License 1.1" can be used, published, and advertised without the publication of the source code. A new addition, however, is a clause which states that every distribution and every product that contain XFree86 must affix a remark, either in the documentation or in the application ("This product includes software developed by The XFree86 Project, Inc (http://www.xfree86.org/) and its contributors"). This is problematic, as the Free Software Foundation has remarked in another case.
The organization has classified the first version of the BSD license as not GPL-compatible in the past, and expressed doubts reguarding the linking of GPL and BST applications. The famous "BSD Advertising Clause" doesn't make the license non-free, but causes ither problems, including an incompatability with the GNU GPL, and for that reason the foundation [GNU] has asked the Free Software Foundation in the past to use the XFree86 license, because it is largely compatible with the BSD license and does not include the feared advertising clause. And with that may be the end, because assigning the BSD-clause as "GPL incompatible" makes the new XFree86 License for GPL applications automatically problematic.
The resolts of the earlier BSD License's declaration could have far-reaching effects for the distributors as well as for other manufacturers. GPL applications are allowed to be linked to a GPL incompatible library, with the need for a remark in the source code - a condition that will be met by very few applications. When the remark is not present, the linking is not allowed.
If XFree86 doesn't change its license, and the Free Software Foundation doesn't change its declaration, then the latest version of XFree86 will also be the last release rolled out by the distributors, because it is questionable whether distributors will get involved with a "problematic" use of the software. When the license is not changed, the options will be either freedesktop.org, Xouvert, or a new fork. Developers could be not entirely dissatisfied. As Pro-Linux from KDE-developer circles experienced, the developers are also not entirely satisfied with XFree86 and are still thinking about changing to freedesktop.org (thanks to rene.)
The original OSNews guy (Zab Ert) said that
1. He does not want NVCorp to close his drivers
2. He wants it to be under a XFree compatible license, so Debian can distribute it (*)
3. Maybe his drivers are derived from GPL'd software (so license cannot be changed) (and this I am speculating, now)
(*) I am supposing, too, that his drivers include alterations in XFree's code, so just the "dynamic/static link" is no excuse. To merge it with XFree, he needs the licenses to be compatible.
Final result: one less great FS/OSS hardware driver to the community.
Did you get it now?
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
If the new license is generally seen to be GPL incompatible, this could make things more difficult for GPL projects such as fbcon, DirectFB or even mplayer's output drivers that are based on drivers from XFree86.
...Write your own code.
Ive heard that said so many times to people who have expressed a desire to use GPL code but dislike the GPL license. Why doesnt that apply here? It doesnt have to be GPL compatable, and if anyone dislikes that, they are free to extend the GPL compatable version, or write their own implementation.
Many X implementations are proprietary (although they stem from the MIT code base). There has never been a problem linkingGNU software with these libraries. They are part of the operating system, and there's a special exception in the GPL for such libraries.
I don't see any moral difference between RMS insisting that you call the operating system "GNU/Linux" and the XFree86 people insisting they get credit for their work. (Technically I see a difference, as there's nothing forcing you to call it GNU/Linux. But morally it's the same thing.)
Get rid of the moronic, freedom-strangling GPL. The new X license is more sane than GPL.
--Brian
Actually the GPL section 1 requires you to: publish on each copy an approriate copyright notice
This applies to both source and binary distribution. While this is not a real a advertising clause it does require you to acknowledge the original author of the program. So even with the GPL you have the problem of many copyright sentences in combined programs.
There were licensing problems a few years ago that held up the entire XFree86 v4 project for ages. There were probably two years lost when nothing got coded due to such problems - it's sad that they haven't learnt from their mistakes, but very good that XFree isn't our only option for much longer. Here's hoping XOuvert and fd.o get their servers nice and stable as soon as possible so that we can all make it clear to XFree what a bunch of assclowns they are being.
"'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'"
- JRR Tolkien.
This isn't the case with the new XFree86 license clause 3, where it only requires acknowledgement in the documentation or the software itself. While keeping track of those acknowledgements might prove difficult at times, it has nowhere NEAR the practical problems that the original BSD license had.
You are right, it isn't as immediately bad as the original BSD clause, but it does appear nevertheless to be incompatible with the GPL, and therefor with a huge volume of free and open source software development. This in and of itself is a problem (c.f. my other post on this subject regarding fragmentation of the open source / free software community).
But, more to the point, this is a practical problem.
Consider: one of the long term unbeatable strengths of free software (and the real reason entities like Microsoft are so desperate to destroy it at any cost) is that free software can be built upon and improved indefinitely.
No need to reinvent the wheel every five, ten, fifteen, thirty, fifty, or one hundred years. Incremental evolution can and largely has replaced gutting and starting over from scratch.
Which means we could be using an unrecognizably (but incrementally improved and altered) version of GNU/Linux, XFree, or what have you a century from now. And, lest you think this is far fetched, consider that the concepts in UNIX (and Linux) date back over thirty years, and that COBOL code written even longer before that is still deployed in many legacy installations. Incremental improvement and modification is almost always preferred over revolutionary "rip out everything and start over" (indeed, the best reason for doing the latter is to get out from under the Yoke of proprietary software lockin and move toward a model -- free software -- that allows incremental, long term gradual improvement instead of triannual reinvention of the wheel a la Microsoft and, to a lesser degree, Apple).
Think of how many attributions your documentation (or your bloated code) is going to have to contain after ten years. Twenty or thirty years. Fifty.
We're talking hundreds of names at least, and by the end of half a century, probably thousands. All of that bloats the code, and, over an indefinite time frame, will probably mean a seperate volume of documentation just for the attributions!
It is, long term, as unworkable as the BSD clause. The only real difference is that scalability isn't as immediate an issue. The curve of the function is the same shape, it is merely the coeffecient that is different, and while the bloat may coming in years instead of months, it is coming nevertheless.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
If you read the FSF rant about the "advertising clause" you will see that the problem is with an old clause requiring advertisement of software including said code required a sentence acknowledging its authorship. And if several sources of code had similar clauses, advertisement would become unduly burdensome. Requiring acknowledgement of authorship to be passed on within the source is part of GPL, BSD, CreativeCommons and mostly any copyright license out there.
Jesus Christ, could you GPL zealots be a little more melodramatic? An advertising clause is an annoyance, nothing more.
All these idiotic posts claiming that this will be the end of Xfree, or that for some inscrutible reason all of the GPLed libraries can no longer be used with it. What rubbish! We routinely use GPLed libraries on Macs or Windows PCs, are you guys really trying to tell me the Microsoft EULA is compatible with the GPL but this new X license isn't?
The dumbest part is you people apparently linked to your GNU philosophy page without actually reading it. While RMS appears to find the BSD-style licenses quite personally annoying, nowhere within does it call for a copyleftist jihad against them, or claim that they are incompatible with the GPL in any way.
In fact, a quick glance at the philosophy pages find that he appears equally unhappy with the old X license, calling it a trap.
Honestly, you act like people shouldn't be allowed to license their own software however they want, is that really what you're trying to say?
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Karma is slightly below max, mostly for saying things like "Maybe you shouldn't kill innocent people" when those people really, really wanted to kill innocent people
This will only affect contributors to XFree itself. XFree isn't the only X implementation and therefore stuff that links against X libraries can't be considered a derived work of XFree any more than it can be considered a derived work of a commercial X server or of XOuvert or fd.o's X server.
"'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'"
- JRR Tolkien.
So what is the Free Software Foundation going to do?
Right now, to complain that "License X is not compatible with the GPL" and not bother to work to make the GPL compatible with other licenses shows the GPL advocates people who want things their way, or they will go and pout and whine like a 4 year old who hasn't learned basic socialization skills.
Which means nothing if you aren't licensed to share or modify it. Merely being able to see source code is insufficient. Fortunately the new XFree86 license doesn't restrict sharing or modification (it still allows sublicensing too).
Digital Citizen
This does not appear to be an onerous or unusual request. If you use someone else's work then credit them.
For example Internet Explorer to this day credits the work on Mosaic from National Centre for Supercomputing Applications.
Netscape 4 used to have a similar credit. I think Opera still does.
Mozilla has portions of software credited to University of California, the Japan Network Information Centre and a company called SupportSoft.
I wonder why they would insist upon this new clause. They're free to do it - it's their software after all, able to be licensed any way they wish, but I don't understand the motivation.
"So what?", I hear you ask again. This matters, because according to the FSF, linking against a library- even if the library is shared- creates a derived work. Not everyone shares this view- I certainly don't- but the FSF's published opinion on the license they wrote would probably weigh heavily in court. See this GPL FAQ and others for their stated opinion.
More specifically, this means you can't redistribute a program that uses both licenses, or has pieces of both XFree86 code (under the new license) and GPL'd code.
That's bad enough in itself, but if the FSF's interpretation of derived work is applied again, then this would mean you also couldn't use both an XFree86 library and a GPL'd library in your code, at the same time, no matter what your license was. That would effectively prohibit anyone from using Qt, for example, since it's GPL'd and uses Xlib.
The amount of beauty required to launch 1 ship: 1 Millihelen
I don't believe RMS has said anything about the XFree license, so I humbly submit that it is you who is the Rush Limbaugh of Slashdot.
X 4.3 is GPL compatible. Any app developed for X 4.3 can be GPL'ed. Unless X 4.4 includes such an advancement as Xv (XFree86? advancement? before the next century?) that the application author wants to use, the apps can just use the 4.3 API and be safe. So this does not mean immediate doom to Qt, GTK, etc., as long as they use 4.3 xlibs.
As for using the X 4.4 with GPL'ed apps, I think there's nothing precluding users from doing that. Both licences are clear in "the user can do whatever he fucking wants with the code, as long as he does not distribute it in any form (binary or source)". Both only impose restrictions over distribution, if you don't distribute, you're safe.
For the user, all the licences are regarding _distribution_, not use. The user can use GPL'ed code with X 4.4 as long as noone distributes the two together.
The only problem would be for distros, which could not legally distribute the GPL'ed apps linked with X 4.4, or, maybe, not even distribute the two together...
It need not be, but the new license does allow sublicensing. Very few people ask for XFree86 to be GPL-compatible. So long as XFree86 is free software, it will continue to be a valuable contribution to the free software community.
When the GPL was written, apparently nobody else had the idea of preserving the freedoms of free software for derivative works by leveraging the power of copyright. Copylefting was not as popular as it is now and plenty of developers were content to contribute to corporations as if they were charities. Simply not contributing code without analyzing why this occurs is a remarkably shallow examination of the situation.
Actually, the GPL is the most popular so-called "open source" license. But it's still far better to credit the GPL as a free software license because the open source movement had nothing to do with the creation of the GPL and the open source movement's philosophy is not the same as the philosophy behind the GPL. Merely placing a license on an approved list of licenses does not compare with writing a license.
By the way, before the XFree86 license switch, RMS encouraged people to contribute to the XFree86 project under the previous XFree86 license. He explained why a GPL fork of XFree86 would not be beneficial for GNU. I believe that his opinion was based on XFree86 being free software, not GPL-compatibility, so I expect he will continue to tell people to contribute to the project under its license rather than making another fork, so long as XFree86 remains free:
Digital Citizen
And, frankly, I can understand why some people are a little pissed of, even if I don't share their feelings. From the point of view of a developer using a BSD-style, permissive license, GPLed code is just as impossible to integrate as proprietary code is, so there already is a schism in "the community". Cooperation between GPL and BSD (or rather, copyleft and permissive) projects is effectively a one-way street.
I, frankly, do not understand why the BSD-License zealots (which are a tiny fraction of the BSD folks) get so pissed off.
They have made a conscious choice in the working of their license to allow their code to be arbitrarilly relicensed, even with draconian, proprietary restrictions and have taken the stance that by doing so, they have maximized the freedom of the downstream (derivative) developer. Which, by definition, must also include other free software developers whose specific views a freedom differ slightly, or even a great deal, as well as those who do not believe in freedom at all (ie. proprietary developers). Then, with the next breath, the zealously anti-GPL crowd would add "but not another FREE license we happen to disagree with."
It is hypocracy in the extreme to make a claim to freedom, then with the next breath to decry those who practice freedom differently than oneself while claiming it is perfectly okay to remove that freedom completely. Thankfully, that is a form of hypocracy the vast majority of the FreeBSD folks, including the leadership, do not engage in at all (and in fact, have purposly avoided by making their license GPL compatible).
It is not a hypocracy certain BSD-License zealots have avoided at all, or those who enter the community as agent provocatuers seeking to stir up conflict where none really exists, quite probably at the behest (and paid for) by certain interests who feel threatened by free software of whatever variety.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
This is probably going to be very unpopular, but it's my opinion so I'll stand by it.
...well, it looks like we've got a standoff. There's GOT to be some kind of compromise here that's not going to look like someone's abandoning their ideals.. but I don't see it happening.
This whole situation is just so INCREDIBLY STUPID. I can see both sides of this issue-- the XFree people aren't asking for anything that's really all THAT onerous (personally, I think the requirement makes sense! Maybe the GPL should INCORPORATE the idea!), and the GPL people have an adversion to ANYTHING that would block standard GPL freedoms..
Unfortunately, we've got a case here where both sides are right but since it doesn't look like the GPL side is going to budge even an inch and I don't expect the XFree guys to falter any time soon...
That's a good reason for the GPL. That's the place the GPL makes sense.
But, what if your first priority is widest possible influence? For instance, you are trying to propagate a new protocol far and wide. In that case, I believe, that you would be wise to BSD the reference implementation.
Absolutely! The Ogg-Vorbis folks did this very thing.
Perhaps I didn't make it as clear as I intended. Both licenses have their place, both are good, and fragmenting the community through incompatabilities because one doesn't like the GPL would be a disservice to both the GPL and *BSD communities (as both do cross-polinate one another, with ideas and code).
Dual licensing is appropriate in some cases. BSD licensing is appropriate in some cases, and GPL is apporpriate in some cases.
What isn't appropriate is to advocate allowing folks to make free software proprietary, and with the next breath decrying folks who wish to take the same software and relicense it with vastly less draconian restrictions, but nevertheless more restrictions than it had originally (i.e. the GPL).
Choice is important, and the best way to maximize people's choices is to keep our free licenses as compatible as possible, and compatability withh the GPL, as one of the two fundamental reference licenses of the free software community (FreeBSD being the other), and as the license under which a large portion of the free software in the world is licensed under, is a very important part of that.
The FreeBSD folks, much to their credit, recognized that a long time ago. Alas, some of the more zealos folks in their ranks (along with some of the more zealous folks in the GPL ranks, and certainly the numerous agents provocateurs folks like Microsoft have seeded our ranks with), will probably never recognize (or at least never admit) as much.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Sorry, I didn't make myself clear. I also do think that people who deliberatly try to make their licenses non-GPL-compatible (or generally have a problem with their code ending up in an GPLed project) are nuts. What I can understand is being annoyed by the public outcry when some project uses a license that is not GPL-compatible, as if the GPL would somehow be the one holy license all others have to play nice with.
Programming can be fun again. Film at 11.
You have RMS' intentions spot on, sir.
;)
The difference between you and I is that I applaud and support him. The GPL is, perhaps, one of the most successful acts of corporate sabotage in human history... the IWW would be proud
RMS has made revolutionaries of people who'd otherwise be... I don't know, fighting each other over stock options, or something. Free software is the T.A.Z. of the information society.
And I don't give a whit what ESR has to say about that--nor the drones who follow him down the soulless, libertarian revisionism that free software has had no significant effect beyond more efficient markets.
It's refreshing to see the the good guys winning for a change.
Has anyone else noticed that it's been 20 FREAKING YEARS since Stallman promised the HURD?
We've celebrated the 20th anniversary of the IBM PC, the 20th anniversary of the Macintosh, and the Altair is coming up on the big 3-0, but no one has even mentioned that 20 years ago, Stallman promised us all a free, Unix-looking, microkernel OS. Let's rent a hall and throw a party for THAT. We can invite a panel of experts, who can regale us with tales of 20 years of waiting, 20 years of EMACS, and 20 years of "Oh, well, we switched from a monolithic kernel to a microkernel, and that REALLY slowed us down."
With each convert to Linux, BSD, even TRON, Stallman decends deeper into trival lunacy. He's been reduced to the guy whose demands that we call Linux "A GNU System with Linux Kernel" we all ignore, and who generally rants against utterly unimportant crap.
Who freaking cares about the advertising clause? Is this why there's no HURD? Do hundreds of pages of advertising clauses fill the HURD CD, leaving no room for the actual code?
I love EMACS as much as the next guy. I actually like writing macros in Lisp. Yes, nothing would be possible without GNU tools. Fine. Yes, Copyleft will save us all. Great.
But I don't want to hear, read or otherwise waste another brain cycle on another word from RMS until he either finishes the HURD or admits it's a failure and ranting is now his full-time job.
Stallman, you're not the only nut who can rant. Oh, and stick around, a free gold brick for each of you will drop out my butt any minute now...
Now, maybe someone, anyone, can tell me what's wrong with the "advertising clause"? I can't see any problems with it.
That RMS doesn't want anyone to know that his code is inside, well, that's his choice. Strange, but not my problem. I can see however that many coders would like to have their work and names seen clearly, even if the code is to be used freely by 3rd parties. That's good thing IMAO.
The moon is not fully subjugated. I demand a second assault wave preceded by a massive nuclear bombardment.
Let me lend you a .
/. each day) like yours.
One thing has always bothered me about explanations (thousands of which are posted to
You say "the GPL is not viral" and then justify that statement by describing how the GPL is, in fact, viral.
It's like saying "That house is not white" and going on to prove your statement by saying, "It's colour is merely comprised of all visible colours."
That the GPL is viral is not in dispute. I have never understood why people feel they need to somehow refute the claim in order to "defend the honour" of the GPL. There's nothing wrong with the fact that the GPL is viral. The entire point of the GPL is that it has viral applicability. Nobody at the FSF would deny this.
The problem is that "viral" is used as an epithet (like "zealot," maybe) and people like to say, "Hey, don't call me that!" when they feel the brunt of the slur. But, it's a technically correct slur -- and, as supporters of the GPL, we should be praising and defending that the GPL behaves this way (just as you have, in your roundabout way--it's not a white house, etc. etc.)
From here, it looks like it's just a matter of :
- GPL says (to paraphrase) "anything you redistribute must have the same terms and no additional requirements"
- Xfree86New license says "you are additionally required to include a short statement somewhere"
It's not that there's anything "bad" about the new XFree86 license, it's just 'letter-of-the-law' incompatible with the GPL "no further restrictions" terms, which means "letter of the law" problems trying to legally redistribute XFree86-derived GPL projects.Heck, a requirement saying "licensee also agrees never to rape a dead puppy and make a stew of its head to serve to Ukrainian males between the ages of 28 and 29" would have the same problem, despite almost never becoming a real-world issue...
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
As I discuss in Make Your Open Source Software GPL-Compatible. Or Else , it is extremely important that OSS projects choose a GPL-compatible license. You don't need to use the GPL - not even the Free Software Foundation (FSF), the developer of the GPL and its most avid proponent, claims that absolutely all software must be GPL-licensed. But choosing a license incompatible with the GPL is generally a bad idea if you're developing open source software.
If a project isn't GPL-compatible, it may not receive enough support from other developers to sustain it. Many developers prefer the GPL; the majority of open source software (as counted by packages or lines of code) are GPL'ed. See my paper, there's lots of quantitative evidence for this. Developers who prefer the GPL will work with non-GPL'ed programs, but usually only if they're GPL-compatible. Several high-profile projects have undergone great agony to become GPL-compatible (vim, Python, Mozilla, Qt). Apache just made a change to its license saying that one reason was to make it GPL-compatible. Multiple major projects don't undergo painful license changes unless they have a reason to do so.
If this isn't resolved, the likely outcome is a fork, with the version under the modified license eventually losing. I don't see that this license change is worth such an outcome. They could resolve this with a dual license with the GPL, or just continuing to use the original license, or some variation.
- David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
Not gonna happen. In the Apache discussion, they wer quoted as basically saying "People adjust to deal with us; we don't adjust to deal with anyone." RMS is a zealot (said as a statement, with no judgment on good or bad). He has his agenda, and writing code is more of a means to it rather than the end itself. What you say means that he changes what his end goals are, and zealots don't do that.
Reading the comments here, I am pretty stunned. (This is not a troll) Many people are talking about worrying about incompatibilities with the GPL. Well that is exactly why they shouldn't use GPL. Because the GPL's restrictive licensing, I do not believe that it is a "Free" license. Actually, I think the GPL is a step below close-source. What I would like to see is the open source community stop forcing people to contribute to the open code.
That's not to say that I haven't seen better implementations of GPL like licenses. But the BSD license (aside from the advertising attribution) is a great license. It is "Free" in the true sense of the word. So if X11 wants to use a more BSD style license, what's so bad about that? If you have problems with the advertising attribution, then complain about that. Don't complain because it's not GPL.
And of course, coders can do what they want with their code, but it just seems weird that people defend the GPL so much, when it is no nearly as "Free" as they think.
The BSD license is "Free" - freely distributed, free to do what you want with it.
What I read in the new XFree license is that they want an acknowlegement stated somewhere. This seems fine and reasonable. As someone pointed out, it could simply be a file in the
"With this whole license disorder I can vibrate only with the head."
That's OK, honey, just keep going.
what's to prevent me from ignoring it (the way I do with most of my docs now :)? I can see it being a bit troublesome for developers to keep track of all those licenses, but it's still a relatively small part of the package management process. I really think the bloat's been blown out of proportion here.
/. post kinda made it seem like the sky was falling, which in fact it is not.
On the other hand, if I was a company looking at Linux it might be a tad inconvenient to have to check 70+ licenses and 2000+ programs to make sure none cause any legal problems. In general this isn't too big an issue (most distros do a good job of checking for you and most infractions can be solved without lawyers and money changing hands). But for a large product rollout it'd increase my legal costs. I do agree that the added restrictions are incompatible with the GPL, but it's hardly irreconcilable. The original
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
like for instances ... doggy style?
Well, the likely result in this case is a fork that ends up being GPL, and which has more development effort put into it than their original path does. The result would then be a branching toward the future with different design decisions, leading to incompatible extensions. And more users using the GPL version. Which in turn means that the extensions on the GPL fork are the ones that get code written to. Which in turn means an increasing number of programs that will only work under the GPL fork. Which means that the various BSD distributions will need to find some way to make that code work with their code. Which means...
Which ends up meaning, eventually, that the non-GPL fork is dropped.
This strikes me as a poor strategy. The current XFree86 version is working well enough now and won't go away, so this is not going to coerce any program to switch to their fork unless it's compatible with Linux. (Some might choose to because of a preference... but predicting that most developers will choose the BSD license has been wrong ever since the period when the BSD Unicies were much superior to the Linux competition.)
In short, a poor strategic move, no matter WHAT your purpose. Unless you have some quite short term advantage in mind.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Notice clause #2 above? Redistributions must include the copyright notice. This is in fact equivalent to the third clause in the new X license - credit must be given when redistributing binary versions of the code.
Since this seems to be fine with RMS, I don't see how this new X license would be any less OK.
(I'm not sure if I'll be modded way down because of this, but for an example of how this clause is handled by commercial companies, take a look at the Microsoft Windows XP release notes.)
Perhaps the solution to this problem is just to not include any end-user documentation and to not include any third party acknowledgement.
Books on use and installation of Linux would have to be purchased separately. (Possibly some small, free version made available to consumers to overcome the reluctance to buy a book just to be able to use their shiney, new OS.)
Developers are familiar with the code/test/revise cycle, which recently combined "release" with "test", following Netscape's revolutionary "beta" test program. Now we're working in the ultimate social engineering: coding legal documents, licenses for our code. And we're releasing them into the wild for testing, then revising them after getting real world feedback. The XFree86 license v1.1 is a product of this process in action. Now that "viral licenses" like GPL, BSD, XFree86, MIT, etc are working like software in the human social networks, engineers have a chance to move from our success with machines to greater success with computers. If we do it right, the 2nd Millennium scourge of lawyers might give way to a more participatory 3rd Millennium of legal engineers.
We would do well to learn from the "public beta" experience. The worst excess of that model is dispensing with the "private beta", going straight to a release (even with the flimsy disclaimer of naming it "beta"). One reason the Unix convention of "user/group/world" distinctions has persisted is because people really do participate in software development along those lines. So a revision discipline of "alpha = developer", "beta=development group", "release = public" is the most accurate model we've got. Rather than just publish the beta, and solicit feedback for the "release", the beta should be tested by people in the group not participating in the spec/design/implementation work. When it's released, the feedback currently received by "public beta" should just be applied to the next version, whether patch, minor version, or otherwise. Otherwise, we'll pollute the legal environment worse than we ever treated the Internet.
--
make install -not war
Opera 7.23 does not credit Mosaic anymore, but it does credit a large number of third parties (see here in case you're using Opera), including the OpenSSL project and the University of California (BSD). The whole credit string is a total of 1370 bytes, more than half of which is made up by one huge "limited warranty" style disclaimer for one particular set of libraries (number-to-string/string-to-number) by Lucent.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
You remember the advertising-clause BSD stuff? It was ridiculous--it got to the point, with added clauses as people contributed, that you couldn't talk about BSD without 70+ lines of attributions. It's painful, it's pointless, and in the long run who cares?
If you're writing software for recognition, well, if it's good everyone will know you wrote it. Seriously. Imagine someone else trying to claim authorship of EMACS. Or vi. Or even fetchmail.
If you're writing software to increase the pool of usable software, why the fuck do you care if you're properly attributed?
"America has done some terrible things. But I know that Americans don't cheer when innocents die." -Dave Barry
You also must not link the new libraries with GNOME or KDE - so they arent much ****ing use are they.
Fortunately Freedesktop.org has already forked and autoconfed the X libraries, and now just needs to fork the X server DDX and the game is complete
Its not about credit, its about working as part of a community.
As the new licence is incompatable with the GPL you no longer have the right to use GPL'ed software that links to X.
Say goodby to anything based on QT, i.e. kde (the free edition is GPL) and a big chunk of GNOME.
Say goodbye to the graphical desktop, all becasue a few people have poor self esteem.
If all you read was the Slashdot intro article, then you can't possibly debate this issue.
The XFree86 license did NOT add an "obnoxious advertising clause".
According to the LINKED Stallman article, the "obnoxious advertising clause" is one that says that the author of the software must be ACKNOWLEDGED IN PRODUCT ADVERTISING.
Naturally, I can understand that you wouldn't want to have 100 attributions to different software authors in your magazine or televsion ADVERTISEMENT.
BUT THAT'S NOT WHAT THE NEW XFREE86 LICENSE REQUIRES!!!
The new XFree86 clause only says that XFree86 must be given acknowledgement in the product DOCUMENTATION.
There'ss a BIG FUCKING DIFFERENCE, PEOPLE.
THIS ENTIRE SLASHDOT ARTICLE AND ALL THE DISCUSSION IS NEXT TO WORTHLESS SINCE NOBODY KNOWS WHAT THE FUCK THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT.
It seems pretty reasonable to me for a software author, especially one WHO IS NOT REQUIRING THE SOURCE OR MODIFICATIONS TO BE REDISTRIBUTED, to at least ask for acknowledgement in the product documentation!!
Just because the old BSD license required acknowledgement in product ADVERTISEMENT does not mean that the new XFree86 one does. Just because the two licenses look simiar at first glance DOES NOT MAKE THE NEW ONE GPL INCOMPATIBLE.
Read it for yourself, folks, it's VERY fucking reasonable. The XFree86 license specifically says:
The end-user documentation included with the redistribution, if any, must include the following acknowledgment: "This product includes software developed by The XFree86 Project, Inc (http://www.xfree86.org/) and its contributors", in the same place and form as other third-party acknowledgments. Alternately, this acknowledgment may appear in the software itself, in the same form and location as other such third-party acknowledgments.
The BSD gives you something that the GPL doesn't: The ability to put your project code in closed releases after it has been around for awhile.
Being that most open source projects aren't composed of millions and millions of developers, but a core group that does most work plus many more that do only a little, this isn't unreasonable.
If you GPL your project, you can't release a closed version, because you violate the rights of every developer who contributed a patch.
MySQL, for example, requires you to attribute the rights to all contributions to them, then THEY release your contribution under the GPL... because they own your contribution, they can also use the code in closed source projects.
PostGreSQL using BSD achieves the same thing.
The difference is, any contributor can use PostGres code in their closed project, but if you contribute to MySQL and want to put the MySQL DB code in your closed product, you have to pay.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
The GPL makes an exception for libraries that are part of the system, and I think XFree86 qualifies as that. Similarly, it's legal to link GPL code against the Solaris X libraries, or for that matter the Solaris libc, though those aren't even free software.
To quote:
Plainly, nobody actually distributes XFree86 libraries, in either source or binary form, with their own code.
X is one of the areas in Linux systems, that can really use either great improvement, or replacement, maybe this will spur on the development of that.
This is not an advertising clause. It merely requires the addition of what could be construed as a copyright notice into the "End-user documentation" If you consider the program's own output "End-user documentation", the GPL already provides for this!
Are you stupid or what? Did you read it?
Xfree8 software is truly free. No GPL software is free as in speech, because it puts clauses that force speech
GPL is like a prion, anything it touches is meant to turn into itself.
Sorry, but if you combine BSD code and GPL'd code, the BSD'd code REMAINS UNDER THE BSD LICENSE!
I'm dealing with this exact situation right now. I've got an app that is mostly under a BSD-like license, but which has one optional module (an emacs link) that is GPL'd. Guess what? Delete that module, and the whole damn thing instantly reverts to its BSDish license!
BSD fanatics (I'm a fan but not a fanatic) are fond of saying that proprietary derivatives are ok because the original code remains BSD'd. Well guess what, bubba? The same is true for GPL'd derivatives! Maybe even more so.
The whole objective of GPL is deliberately and explicitly to prevent commercial exploitation.
Hogwash! And even if that were its objective (and it's not), it would fail miserably, because it explicitly doesn't prevent commercial exploitation at all! It's easy to make a license that prevents commercial exploitation -- I've dealt with several in my career (e.g. early versions of infozip). The GPL is clearly NOT in that category. Heck, as the examples of Trolltech and MySQL show, it doesn't even prevent proprietary exploitation! (Though that is closer to its actual intended goal.)
Whatever your beef with RMS personally, the fact remains that the GPL has been extremely successful, and is in widespread use, and has NOT caused the sky to fall, or western civilization to collapse, and it's pretty obvious that it's not going to!
I've met RMS, and I don't agree with him on a lot of points, but RMS is not the GPL. The GPL is a license that is in wide use, and has been found acceptable by large corporations like IBM (who have more lawyers on retainer than most software companies have employees). Trying to make XFree86 incompatible with the GPL at this late date is a completely stupid move, and will do nothing but guarantee a fork, backed by everyone from Debian to IBM and Novell (to cover both ends of the fanaticism spectrum).
Before setteling licence issues for good,
... please wait 12:37 hours to compile some software")
MPlayer was distributed as source only.
Any binary distribution would have been illegal
due to incompatible licences of the used libraries.
A source distribution however was fine, and building
it locally was also fine.
However, it isn't the nicest way of distributing software.
I use gentoo and therefor have compiled X anyhow,
but some people simply cant avoid binaries.
The most prominent example would be Knoppix who has to be binary by design.
("Booting
:-P
What's with the Spinal Tap reference? Is it good or is it whack?
In Soviet Russia, back in teh spoke, the most offence is causing you! What a country!
It is the GPL is incompatible with the MIT and BSD licenses.
The GPL is the license that creates the compatibility obstacle, with certain overbearing requirements that deny software makers the choice to use components with diverse licensing, providing the package how they choose, not the BSD/MIT licenses.
Have you read the GPL? It requires you to distribute RMS's political message: the "Preamble" of the GPL.
You know, some people (like me - but I'm not alone) like to see their name on the stuff they write. That doesn't mean we are against sharing it or giving it away. We frequently write stuff with the intention of sharing/giving.
Hell, if you look in the Linux kernel docs you'll find a contributors list, some modules also print similar things when loaded/activated. Did it hurt anyone? I don't think so. Did it make some people feel appreciated? I'm sure it did.
And not everyone's work will necessarily be so famous that everyone will know who wrote it. EMACS, vi, kernel, they are quite exceptional in their fame, compared to hundreds of other popular packages and thousands of less popular ones.
The moon is not fully subjugated. I demand a second assault wave preceded by a massive nuclear bombardment.
Mike said "Richard, I heard a rumor about your house burning down".
Richard chimed back, "Yes, but where you work, I expect you'd have heard about it in advance!"
Here's a picture of Devon climbing onto the roof of said house, before it burnt down. (No, Devon wasn't breaking in to set the fire on behald of UniPress Software -- Devon lived there too.)
-Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
I'm suprised i havn't seen any comments upon what this really is and why XFree86 have done this.
They are changing there licence so any forks of Xfree86 (like a few which are underway at the moment) must retain the xfree86 name, so hence they will have some leverage over the break-away forks.
This isn't a good thing as it doesn't embraces the ideals of the gpl where forking and compition are key elements to its success. Its trying to create a single monoply on the X archecture.
2 things:
1) IF is don't want to share youre code with others use Microsoft and Apple and other Company software (embedded stuff included).
2) If you want to share youre source en benefit from other peoples source use GPL.
The GPl thing is in my honest opinion the best thing that ever happened in IT.
Do you realy think that you can invent code that no one used of thought of already, come on and share the damn code!
If you are troubled about not making enought mony youre either a lousy hacker that shoudend be in IT anyway.
Thanks,
M
I don't get it, if up until recently XFree86 was GPL-compatible and now it suddenly isn't, why not just somebody roll back their local mirror of the CVS a week and fork it while maintaining GPL compatibility?
I have no problem with giving people credit and use XFree86. But if everybody did this any distro would suddenly get bloated with liscenses and anybody who's not a lawyer would suddenly have to start wasting a lot of time making sure it is legal, every time they do anything, forever! -That or be a scoflaw, which then makes it harder to protect the GPL.
XFree86 people must think they are superior or more critical to the open source community than other projects, or that they have no responsibility to people who have contributed thinking it would remain GPL, or that their new request is so minor that people will comply and kid themselves that it isn't important.
Now I am not an expert on XFree86 nor have I done more than read every post over 3 this time. Sorry. So, if it really was GPL, the question is how fast is a fork going to appear? I believe if you download software under a certain liscense then it cannot be changed out from under you.
Just as the parent points out:
The big difference between GPL and BSD is that developers that use GPL for their work take the right to demand that (re)distribution of possibly altered work permits the same rights to users of the distribution as of the original where BSD license adopters do not.
Geek rants since like... 2000 or something.
If they released XFree86 with all the acknowledgements they want in the documentation, and even a splash screen that came up as X started with their names all over it in lights, chances are that 99% of GNU/Linux distributions would leave all that in there (provided the splash screen was not too obnoxious and could be disabled by the user once they'd seen it once). Any derivatives would probably also give credit where credit was due, just out of respect. By explicitly putting this in the license, they are making it incompatible with the GPL, and XFree86 is going to die and be replaced by another free X server. I think the XFree86 developers haven't thought this through properly.
Sorry to tell you, but this is simply wrong.
The GPL says:
"However, as a special exception, the source
code distributed need not include anything that is
normally distributed (in either source or binary
form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the system on which the executable runs, unless that component itself accompanies the executable."
Or otherwise to speak: With this clause, an operation system might eighter ship X or gpled programms, but not both...
To define freedom:
freedom ( P ) Pronunciation Key (frdm) n.
1. The condition of being free of restraints.
To define liberation:
liberation ( P ) Pronunciation Key (lb-rshn) n.
1. The act of liberating or the state of being liberated.
Now that the terms have been defined, it is quite clear that freedom says absolutely *nothing* about "maintaining freedom," though liberation *clearly* reflects what GNU is trying to achieve with the GPL.
I'm not certain why potential lack of "GPL compatability" is of concern to anyone. I don't see anyone criticizing the GPL for "lack of BSD, MIT, and Public Domain license compatability," which I find to be a serious problem.
I find it apalling that slashdot has the audacity to state that "The FSF has a good page about the problems with BSD-style advertising clauses." So, let me get this straight, a site/post that highlights the problems with copyleft in the GPL is a troll, and a site/post that highlights the problems with attribution in the BSDL is insightful? Definitely /. bias here.
On a practical level, the advertising clause shouldn't be an issue, (it never has been, with Internet Explorer, Mozilla, or Mac OS X) as far as practical use is concerned. Also, advertising clauses are not anti-copyleft. It is simply a matter of the GPL deciding to break compatability with such licenses. GPL-like licenses such as the MPL I believe have no such restriction.
Simply put, the only real problem with advertising clauses is that RMS doesn't tolerate them.
hint to modders, this comment: "-1 True".
Well, I reiterate--if your software is good, and you're talented, the people who care about such things will know you were involved, with or without a copyright clause in the license.
"America has done some terrible things. But I know that Americans don't cheer when innocents die." -Dave Barry
point 3 and 4.
You might want to dispute the neutrality of this article on copyleft, methinks.
Wikileaks, no DNS
I'm having trouble imagining a free software license advocating a sexual position. And now that I've heard "RMS" and "sexual position" mentioned in close proximity, I'll have to go wash my brain out with steel wool.