Slashdot Mirror
XFree86 4.4: List of Rejecting Distributors Grows
Bootsy Collins writes "Yesterday, we
discussed
Mandrake's
decision to
revert their release-in-development from XFree86 version 4.4 back to version 4.3 because of issues with the
new XFree86 license.
To update this, the list of OS distributors opting out of
XF86 Version 4.4, and future releases, based on licensing concerns continues to grow.
While Fedora seems to be
"preparing to support multiple X11 implementations",
Red Hat has explicitly stated
that they have no plans to ship XFree86 v4.4
under its current license. Also add to the growing list
list
Debian,
Gentoo,
and OpenBSD."
Why is the new liscence being rejected?
Steve
Won't rejecting this actually hinder the linux desktop movement? Xfree is a huge factor in using linux, at least for a lot of the gamers, and we need the best support we can get.
**It runs through my veins like radioactive rubber pants! Do not deny my veins!**
With this shift back a version, does it mean we'll lose a bunch of features, stability, etc? It seems like this is petty squabbling for squabbling's sake. This reminds me of the PHP fiasco with MySQL. Hardcore PHPers are sticking with the sluggish MySQL 3 family because of the licensing on MySQL 4.
Reading their 'diff' of the new and old licenses is a waste of time, as it's pretty much:
- all the old license
+ all the new license
So could someone break down the basic point of the changes? As far as I make it out, it's a simple case of 'we want to have everyone who contributed be credited with every copy', or is it somewhat deeper than that?
Perhaps distros should distribute XFree86 4.4 as source only and have it compile in a 'firsttime' sort of system when you boot Linux up after installation. From what I read in the XFree86 license, this would work. Could this turn into a BSD-like 'build all' for Linux?
This could be a good thing. If this continues to be a problem, it could drive a lot of people to the freedesktop.org XServer implementation. This looks like it will come to be a much better implementation anyway, and will almost certainly develop faster in the future, given the same resources as XFree86. If a considerable number of developers/distributions worked on getting the XServer up to speed, with proper driver support, it would probably be better for everyone.
If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
Comparing the old and new license it appears all they added was the requirement to place the copyright in the documentation of binary releases, include an acknowledgement of the XFree86 project, and forbid the use of "he name of The XFree86 Project, Inc" in advertising. It's not like they're closing the source, so what exactly is the problem the distros have with the new license? The only thing I can think of is a general resistance to cahnging licenses mid-stream, regardless of the nature of the change.
I'm no XFree86 expert, but surely any changes committed by developers prior to the license change will be still under the previous license and therefore a good starting block for any forking.
afaik your 100% right there. And the question isn't if someone will fork ist but when. (unless they change the license back in time)
I haven't been keeping up... what's wrong with the new license?
If the new license is bad, what's gonna replace it? Another type of X?
Agile Artisans
So, is *anyone* going to use it?
I guess they have no choice but to change the licence back with very red faces all round!
Mind you, X is an integral portion of desktop *nix - could someone have set this up on purpose?
So doesn't this mean that whoever comingled GPL'ed source code with non-GPL'ed source code broke someone's copyright?
Because either he/they broke the GPL terms, OR they performed in unauthorized GPL'ing of the other, non-GPL-using contributors' source code.
The license only requests proper attribution in software and/or documentation like other third parties are getting.
:)
The license doesn't request attribution, it requires it. That is the problem. Can you see what would happen if every time I started my computer, it printed out the names of all the people and organisations that were involved in making it? It could take days to boot
It's just vanity.
So I take a look at the new license. I'm thinking "What the hell is the problem?"
So I read some comments and see this reference to a mailing list post about some of the licensing issues. In there I see things that don't exist in the license on the XFree86 site (like a reference to clause 6 even though the XF86 license only has 4 clauses).
So what's up?
The ratio of people to cake is too big
WTF is wrong with the XFree86 guys? At a time when the project's existence is at its most debatable, they change their license (why?) to enable most disties to drop the latest version. They may be technically smart, but they seem politically naieve.
--
This sig is inoffensive.
What's with the people making these announcements? I read the comments by XFree86's David Dawes a while back - he only wrote about 2 lines or so, and hardly replied when people started asking for clarification.
Then Theo of OpenBSD in this thread writes a quick response rejecting the whole thing, again with absolutely no explaintation as to why, and what the specific problems are.
Then check out the posts in that thread from Darren Reed, getting shot down as a troll straight away for inquiring what the problem with it actually is!
This kind of discussion and attitude floating around turns me off OSS a little. The last thing I want to see is multiple implementations of X servers in wide use, different ones on different distributions, some doing some things, others doing things a little differently. And of course yet more duplication of effort, re-writing code, etc. Seems a shame. Seems like we just have more fragmentation to look forward to.
Its not really a matter of tryin' to force people into using the GPL. This is done to avoid things like this: from: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/bsd.html "When people put many such programs together in an operating system, the result is a serious problem. 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. This might seem like extrapolation ad absurdum, but it is actual fact. NetBSD comes with a long list of different sentences, required by the various licenses for parts of the system. In a 1997 version of NetBSD, I counted 75 of these sentences. I would not be surprised if the list has grown by now. " There are other reasons, but this one is good enough to justify the clause. The FSF has a bit of a problem because of its amazingly idealist vision. From what I could tell, Richard Stallman has fully embraced that vision...its truly amazing. ^_^ Anyways, there are plenty of licenses out ther that are neither GPL nor bring problems with it.
I am a speak english. Do you not? - Saroto
What about people that use nvidia cards? This makes things problematic for those of us that use their proprietary drivers because the open ones suck.
I've been using debian unstable for the longest time now and I don't even remember 4.3 being available I thought the highest version they have on the official sites was 4.2? I had to go and find some deb files to install 4.3 (I was trying to get the ATI driver to work for my new video card, took forever and then I replaced it with a GeForce FX anyway, and the drivers don't work on my other computer, damn I wish ATI had better linux support.)
It's kind of like Libya saying, "Hey we're gonna stop our nuclear weapons program"
"But sir we don't have one..."
"So, no one needs to know that!"
The advertising clause is considered a further restriction.
Now personally, I do not believe that attribution is any more burdensome than having to make source code publicly available or agreeing to automatically allow your software to be covered by a future revision of the GPL.
Judging by Mr. Stallman's ravacious vanity and thirst for attribution (ie. GNU/*), I find it ironic that the FSF would discourage compulsory attribution.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
except freedesktop does not do 3D accleration of NVidia cards yet ..
which is (given that Im doing a lot of 3D stuff) really what I need.
If the problem is with programs which link with the XFree86 code, doesn't this mean that the libraries are the problem, not the server? IANAE, but presumably a client compiled with any implementation of the client libs will work with any implementation of the server. So why not just ditch the XFree86 libs in favour of the freedesktop xlibs, and use the XFree86 server. This way you still get the hardware support of XFree86, but no license compatability problems. The freedesktop xlibs are supposed to be mature enough, appart from still requiring XFree86 to build them, but this can't be a big problem to solve, surely.
If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
I understand the intent behind the new license, but it isn't practical for the distros. They made their case, and if the license isn't changed then they won't use the product. Isn't that how licensing should work? That is better than the distros saying "Sorry, we can't abide by these terms, but we are going to use your software anyway." At first I thought there might be bullying here by the distros, but XFree made the licensing change, the distros are the ones who have to choose whether to abide by it or not. Seems like the little guy has the power here.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
The basic problem is that there is no convention for listing contributors. You would think that it was not beyond the intellect of FOSS developers to come up with something suitable.
For instance:
If the standard was that the flag -contrib listed contributors, and dedications, together with the name of the program, then it would be simple to gather a list. And the work of gathering a list is what teh complaint is about.
Once you have the list, it's not difficult to display it on request or put it in a file.
It might also be a good idea to have a standard comments format (easily parseable) at the top each source file with the same info. You might need to define a format per language. I'd imagine something like
I've used an XML style above, but don't get hung up on that - it's a detail that doesn't matter right now. It could be
And guess what.. if you have the list in the source in a standard format, you can easily create the code for the contrib flag.
Really it's plain old good fashioned courtesy. If someone creates something that you are using then you should be acknowledging it.
And now for a political subtext... The whole issue with the naming GNU/Linux vs Linux is about attribution. To my mind it's unreasonable on the one hand to campaign for recognition in this way, and on the other to have a GPL that is incompatible with giving credit where it is due. It seems to me that there is a strong streak of not-invented-here at work.
Bozo.
Red Hat distributes Apache, OpenSSL, xinetd, all with GPL-Incompatible, Free Software Licenses What is weird is Apache claims their license is compatible. What i'm really asking is why are all these projects able to get away with it?
I suspect you couldn't be more wrong if you tried :-)
Firstly I think XFree86 will fall off the face of the earth. If distributions don't package it but instead go with X from freedesktop.org, XFree86 will die in weeks as developers will move over to the new, freer codebase (Keith Packard has said he wants the freedesktop.org release to be DFSG-free).
Replacing X cleanly on a package managed system has always been one of the more tricky things around, why do you think this will change? And what do you think will be the desire for people to support an organisation which the distributions have all turned their back on? I don't think the distributors only problem is distributing it themselves, I cannot see any good reason for them to help people use XFree86, it only slows development of their chosen system, and unless they release with a major showstopper (like no 3d and I don't see that happening) what will be the justification for doing the work?
This isn't just about gaming, it's about X! But to address what most people seem concerned about, binary drivers (this is why I try and pick hardware based on the Free driver support) the death of XFree86 will be a fait acompli if freedesktop.org can get the hardware manufacturers who currently supply binary drivers to announce that they will be shipping freedesktop.org drivers (and preferably not be shipping XFree86 4.4 drivers). If the hardware manufacturers won't do that then XFree86 may well become the closed binary drivers X, and freedesktop.org the Free one, in which case perhaps someone like transgaming would take on the work of providing a system for people to use XFree86. This is why it has always and will always be vital for people to work on Free drivers, even when binary drivers exist, otherwise you remain in the hands of the hardware manufacturers.
I think a bright future is ahead for X, and I just hope XFree86 don't reverse their position and possibly ruin it! The Free X development is probably about to come right out into the open, rejoice and stop worrying!
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
Yes, it's a new restriction, and no, it's not a flaw in the GPL. Anyone who doesn't want to use the GPL can easily create their own modified version which does allow additional restrictions, and those who release code under the GPL generally do so _because_ they don't want additional restrictions placed on their work... certainly I do.
How is mandrake and RH distributing XFree86 with their build requiring others to include acknowledgements?
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
There has been talk about alternative Window systems in the past. The only thing that has been preventing the acceptance of any of these newer, faster systems is the current momentum of XFree.
Given the mass rejection of the current XFree (4.4) it would seem that not only should 4.3 be used, but also options for other window systems as well.
Making such significant changes is always a pain at first... or perhaps it's not the pain everyone thinks it might be.
I enjoy the interest in Linux I inspire at work when I bring my laptop in. They see that it doesn't behave significantly different from Windows and when I point out that it currently does every function that WindowsXX does for them with the possible exception of games, it makes them all the more curious to try it in light of the fact that it makes them VERY immune to email-born viruses and the like.
I draw this as a parallel to the reluctance that still exists in switching from XFree to another graphical environment.
Maybe you should check the stats on the freedesktop X server. It's smaller in file size and memory footprint. It will be faster when hardware acceleration is supported.
Why is more verbose a good thing? What matters is readability, and XML is a lot less readable than the format that XFree86 uses.
In fact, the XF86 config file would probably be better suited to XML than what it currently uses: XML is for structured data - have you read an XF86Config file lately? notice the structure?
Yes and the XFree86 file format is perfectly capable of representing structured data. How isless readable or less expressive than this:?XML is not the best data representation for human edited files, and on linux there is the unwritten policy that while we try to not require the user to edit files directly, we certainly want to make it easy if they choose to do so.
Even in OS X where XML is king, there are two supported formats for plists, and it is standatd convention to use XML for files that are primarily meant to be edited by the computer, and the other c-struct (old Next-Step?) style format for files that are primarily meant to be edited by humans.
Though it's quite likely that the original poster was implying that XML is inherently arcane, "some arcane XML format" only explicitly states that it is probable that the new config file that uses XML will be arcane on its own merits.
Also, having to mentally parse out the valuable info -- "ZAxisMapping = 4.5" -- from the surrounding detritus -- " -- is tiring on the eyes and mind, and all that extra tag junk makes it hard to format all the information in such a way that makes it easy for the eyes to flow over it as you can fit less info that matters per line.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Indeed. I got a mail today from someone using evilwm saying that if they use Gnome with it, things like the panel, etc. end up in weird places. Best I can guess is that Gnome apps are using new-fangled fd.o _NET_MOVERESIZE_WINDOW messages to position their windows rather than old-fangled ConfigureRequest events, assuming the window manager will send the correct events for it! Shouldn't the Gnome libs see that I don't support their method and fall back to the one everyone else uses? I think so, but apparantly they don't, which means I'm going to have to implement the new stuff at some point. Bah!
Yeah, XML is fine, but for an X config file it's OVERKILL. That was my original point. Look at what's happening in the Linux desktop world now: the hundreds of millions of machines running Win98 or NT4, boxes with 32 or 64 MB of RAM, are completely useless thanks to the bloat of KDE, GNOME, Mozilla and OpenOffice.org. You need AT LEAST 128 MB to be anything less than sluggish.
Sure, there's IceWM and AbiWord etc., but they're not supplied as the default desktop in any user-friendly, major distro.
The Linux desktop is one of the worst examples of over-engineering in history. I'll still use it, but it's becoming so slow, so bloated, day by day, cutting out 3rd world countries and millions of older systems.
Ack.
Thread here:
here
A blog I run for the wealth
Rest assured we can legally continue to provide
even binaries of these, left alone the ability
to install them by means of MirPorts.
Hint: we are distributing the advertising clause,
and we need not care about licence compatibility
as long as neither licence explicitly forbids
that linking.
My Karma isn't excellent, damn it! (And
Regarding Linus, I presume you're talking about BitKeeper, but that is different as he is not redistributing it.
Doesn't look that hard to read or that excessively verbose (except for the end tags) to me.
Oh, and you can't have attributes in end tags so your example XML wasn't valid XML anyway.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
The XFree86 contributors should come off of their high horse and GPL the code while they are at it. The original contributions of Keith Packard and the original X team dwarf those of the Johnnie Come Lately "Core Team."
Might Xouvert.org become the preferred X branch now that XFree86 has gone rogue?
an ill wind that blows no good
SCO's interpretation is truly viral in every sense of the word. It takes your code, effectively kills it and makes it into SCO code. The GPL doesn't do anything near as bad as that. If you GPL your code you still have copyright on it and can relicense it however you want. Look at TripWire and GhostScript.
You know the more I think about it, the more the GPL seems like a wildflower. The seeds get cast out, blown about, some take root, some don't and occassionally you get these blooms that people can't agree on whether it's a flower or a weed. Yeah, that's it. Linux, the dandelion of the operating system universe. Let the wine jokes begin.
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
Is this really a problem? You cannot statically link GPL-incompatible software to GPLed libraries, because that makes the result a derived work. However, in this case, the linking works the other way around, making GTK and Qt derived from xlib, whose license does not have the viral nature.
Even if the GPL somehow prevents GTK and Qt linking to a GPL-incompatible xlib, an exception clause could be made. IIRC, bison and flex use such a clause to allow the code they generate to be used in non-GPLed projects.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.