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XFree86 Alters License

Posted by michael on from the two-steps-forward-three-steps-back dept.

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.

6 of 430 comments (clear)

  1. It's a problem by Em+Emalb · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    too many licensing schemes out there.

    K.I.S.S and you shouldn't have any problems eh?

    Whateva

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    1. Re:It's a problem by lorien420 · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      The problem with the BSD license is exactly what you said, it's just an open source license. For those of us that are more interested in free software, this is unacceptable.

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      "[We'll be] really getting inside your head and making it an unpleasant place to be" -- Trent Reznor
  2. Re:Pointless by October_30th · · Score: 0, Flamebait
    Perhaps some hardware manufacturers have requested these changes?

    I'd rather accept a license that's restrictive than suffer reverse engineered drivers.

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    The owls are not what they seem
  3. Re:Why shouldn't it be? by radja · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    the way I see it: GPL lessens personal freedom by forcing you to give freedom to others, which increases freedom. I see this as analogous to murder: by decreasing personal freedom (you cant just go around killing people willy-nilly), you increase the freedom in society.

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  4. Shooting themselves in the foot by sirReal.83. · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    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.

  5. When Free Software FUDs other Free Software by jasonditz · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    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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