Mandrake Blocked By XFree86 4.4 License

Linzer writes "A mailing-list message posted by Mandrake Linux's main developer on the Cooker mailing-list states that the development version of the distro is about to revert from XFree86 4.4 to the 4.3 version because of XFree86's recent license change. Mandrake contributors have started asking for justifications from MdkSoft. Many point out features of XF86 4.4 [an 'an open source X11-based desktop infrastructure'] they can't live without, including support for some not so uncommon hardware. A later Cooker mailing-list post extends a bit on the reasons."

Comments

Good for them

[be-fan]

Its nice to see the XFree86.org folks making the transition to the freedesktop.org smoother by making themselves irrelevent to users. Nice going guys!

Re:Good for them

[quixoticsycophant]

This could be a great opportunity.

To the *nix users out there, have you ever considered that XFree86 ... sucks?

Yes, it gets the job done. Yes, it's the most popular, it supports a plethora hardware, it is open source, etc. etc. But, all trolling aside, the thing does indeed suck.

As a longtime linux user, I can say that every single linux machine I've had, including the current latest-and-greatest, has miserably failed my Window Drag Test(TM).

To perform this test, start with a good web browser (firefox, mozilla, konqueror, galeon, whatever). Enable the equivalent of "Opaque Window Moving" on your window manager. Open a browser window and drag it to the bottom-left corner. Now drag it back. What happens? Open two windows. Drag one across the other. What happens?

What happens is smearing. Gross. Ugly. Unacceptable. Call me picky, but I don't care how much hardware you support, or how popular you are, or whatever -- if your graphical system isn't good at *drawing graphics*, then it sucks.

And this is what people notice when they first sit down in front of a linux machine. And it's killing us. Whatever the shortcomings of Windows and Macs, neither have this problem.

So this licensing issue is good news, if it can galvanize the community to pull more resources into developing alternatives to XFree86 (because it sucks!).

Re:Good for them

[Haeleth]

Whatever the shortcomings of Windows and Macs, neither have this problem.

Maybe not that one, but they have other similar problems. For example, boot up a Mac with OS X. Open a window. Now resize that window. Notice how beautifully swift and smooth that operation isn't?

And on my Windows box, whenever I move a window it takes half a second to blank the thing and redraw it before beginning to drag. Although I suspect that one's something to do with my graphics drivers, as I haven't seen it on any other machines.

Re:Good for them

[Fnkmaster]

Okay, every time we talk about fixing it and proposing ideas, we get flamed out of existance. Keith Packard has been working on implementing those exact ideas, and some of us have been supporting his work for years (I have written HOWTOs and guides for using XRender/Xft and Fontconfig, and hacked on some FreeType rendering code over the years).

It definitely doesn't help when every conversation about how to improve X and fix its major flaws devolves into a bunch of zealots proclaiming how perfect it is and that they see no performance issues that might VASTLY hinder adoption of X as a desktop windowing system. Not saying that you are such a zealot, but you could at least admit the flaws and stop taking it as some sort of personal affront against your honor.

Enter the GNU

[jvmatthe]

Many point out features of XF86 4.4 [an 'an open source X11-based desktop infrastructure'] they can't live without

And what would RMS say? If you're willing to compromise for what you want at the price of freedom, well you've already lost. :^) Ah, the luxury of being a man of principle.

Note: I don't actually speak for RMS, but I am reminded of his doctrine every time someone says "I need this non-free software". ;^)

Re:Enter the GNU

[hexene]

And what would RMS say? If you're willing to compromise for what you want at the price of freedom, well you've already lost. :^) Ah, the luxury of being a man of principle.

Just to point out, the new XFree86 licence is not "non-free". The issue is that in the eyes of many (including, almost certainly, the FSF) it is not compatible with the GPL.

Not to spell doom...

[hermeshome.se]

...to XFree86 but I don't see them making any new friends by doing this kind of thing. As soon as
alternatives are more mature, XFree86 will feel the heat.

And as for the Free in XFree86... Hmm..

Wither X?

[MrChuck]

Grrrr. I've used X for 12 years now, regularly. It was *ok* on a Sun 3, if you opened a window and waited a while. It's gotten better.

But in the last several years it really just hasn't moved.

18 years ago the Mac // came out. We stole a vid card from one and put it in another. 4 seconds later, we had 2 screens showing one continuous desktop. Windows and X Windows finally now can do that if you kill a chicken at the full moon.

The X Consortium kept X down for critical years - backing off from coming close to dictating look at feel. As a result, doing things like Exiting an App was a Tower of Babel proposition (frame != lotus != xv != wordperfect != anything else).

Gnome and KDE was developed by folks used to Windows and Mac as kids who demanded a style guide. Too late?

X11R6/Broadway was released and, as far as I can discern, mostly development has stopped. Sure we have drivers to take advantage of cards and 3D engines and such, but it's pretty well unchanged from 1994.

Where is my easy Log Back in and have it give me my desktop I left back (start up the apps I had with cursors in the places I had them)?

Where is my ability to snapshot and env, give up the machine, move to another and restart it?

What's moved FORWARD except drivers in the last couple years?

Why do we care about .. releases.

License?
I have faith that it will be worked out with everyone happy. This reminds me too much of the IPF flameup over a license in a beta of darren's code. It caused PF to be written, but that was mostly schoolyard maturity at work on that one.

Re:Wither X?

[be-fan]

Stuff is racing forward at freedesktop.org. They are planning (and already have a lot of code for):

- A fully double-buffered window system
- Vector graphics library (Cairo)
- Fully accelerated drawing via OpenGL
- X-independent OpenGL subsystem

Those features would put X ahead of MacOS X (as it is now) and on a par with Longhorn. And they've made real progress so far --- you can download the FD.O X server today and see the first two features in action.

Those features I can't live without

[FattMattP]

Many point out features of XF86 4.4 [an 'an open source X11-based desktop infrastructure'] they can't live without

They lived without them before 4.4. What's so special about these features?

The Glory Days of X

[jonabbey]

Actually, in case you hadn't noticed, these are the Glory Days of X, man. I don't consider that era when you had to worry about 8 bit color palette collisions to be anything like a time of glory. TrueColor displays, KDE, Gnome, XRender, Xft.. these are some of the ingredients of a glorious new age for X. Happily, Keith and Jim are still involved.

Incompatibility.

[s4m7]

People are saying this license change is "incompatible" with the GPL... however under the wording of the change it is still acceptable for individual files to be copyrighted, and included in the XFree86 base as licensed under the GPL. You're really RMSing if you are going to noodle about having to include an extra copyright notice in your documentation.

This has little to do with anything other than the fact that Mandrake team realizes it's not a valuble use of their time to go through adding all these new copyright notices when you're in RC1 state. Not sure how it compares with rolling back to 4.3 in terms of actual labor, but obviously the CBA came out on the side of rollback.

The biggest joke here is that people are crying about losing the features of 4.4, in a distribution that doesn't do anything to stop you from DOWNLOADING AND INSTALLING THE BLEEDING EDGE FROM SOURCE whenever you feel like it. for crying out loud, people. DIY!

Re:Other peoples' code, other peoples' license!

[offpath3]

Why? Just because the XFree86 people decided to make their license terms incompatible doesn't mean that we can't use their older versions. Heck, we can even fork their last good version. That's the _entire_ point of using open source. Had XFree86 been propriatary, we'd be screwed in this case, but now it's just an inconvenience.

xfree86 digging its grave

[oohp]

Well I guess this is the first step at digging Xfree86's grave, isn't it? Distros will stop shipping it, people will stop using it, what's left of the developers at xfree86.org will lose interest in developing it and the whole project will head towards a slow death.

It's a bit early to draw conclusions but if all the distros will drop it one by one, it's just what will happen. I'll theink we'll be better off with the alternatives (Xouvert & the X server at freedesktop.org) anyway.

You have to Wonder

[ortcutt]

You really have to wonder about the judgement of the XFree86 team. The justification of the change was the following

The purpose of these changes is to strengthen the "except claim you wrote it" clause of the Project's licensing philosophy regarding binary distributions of XFree86. While the original license covered this adequately for source code redistribution, it has always been lacking where binary redistribution was concerned.

First, I don't understand what problem they take themselves to be remedying. Does anyone really think that if Redhat and Mandrake didn't put the notice in their documentation, that anyone would think that they had written the code. I mean that would be really amazing, if both Redhat and Mandrake and all of the other distributions had all each written XFree86. I think the XFree86 people aren't correctly understanding their own principle. It says "you can do anything you want, except claim you wrote it". When someone distibutes binary software, that is not a claim, explicit or implicit, that they wrote the software. However, instead of seeing that the advertising clause does not even fit their stated principle, they go on to make it more odious by requiring all distributors to get permission from XFree86 to use the name XFree86 outside of the notice required by the licence agreement. The text of the licence is as follows:

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 will likely have two effects. Distributions may decide that it isn't worth their while, and they simply won't promote their products as containing Xfree86, even if they do include XFree86 4.4. Or, they may decide, as Mandrake has done, that XFree86 4.3 is good enough for them and they can wait for freedesktop.org to mature. In either case, I don't see what XFree86 has gained, even relative to their stated goal, since in the first case, they miss out on the free publicity, in the second, their new license doesn't have any effect because it simply turned users away.

I'm not going to run it. Everyone who writes software has a right to decide on their own licence, but everyone also has a right to choose not to use it.

Well, then...

[dot-magnon]

Noone else is demanding recognition for their work. They're a part of the global community and have accepted the terms. It all works nicely.

But that's not what stuns me the most about your post. It's your way of thinking - HOW, i say, HOW on earth could X be more important than Linux to Linux? There is a reason that Mandrake is Linux, not just because IT IS BASED on the Linux kernel in the way it works as of today, but also because this is the way one use and contribute to the GPL community. And it's named Mandrake Linux. That's why it's sold, downloaded and used. Jesus.

In the end, X is nothing without what's on top. Which is a lot of GPL. If GPL distributors refuse to use XFree4.4, but only distribute GPL compatible software, someone would have to create everything BUT X. With X licensing. Great.

Project competition

[CalCudahy]

There always seem to be people on Slashdot who ask why so much work is "wasted" on two projects to solve the same problem. The most notable example is KDE vs. Gnome. Well, I think this is a perfect example of why that's a great thing. The XFree guys haven't had serious competition in years and now we're all begging for the freedesktop.org guys to come to the rescue. All of the "wasted" effort does have a purpose, it keeps people from trying these kinds of shenanigans.

Re:What about a fork?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why bother forking 4.3.x, when you can fork 4.4.0 RC2?

From xfree86.org (emphasis added): "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."

Did somebody say loophole?