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."

Comments

Free Software

[Anarke_Incarnate]

Doesn't 'sell' well when it isn't free ;)

What is the issue?

[beforewisdom]

Why is the new liscence being rejected?

Steve

Re:What is the issue?

[Llanfairpwllgwyngyll]

It is incompatible with GPL licensed code which links with it. It's actually the GPL'd bit which gets its licence broken.

They will have to revert or face a fork IMHO

Re:What is the issue?

[bartjan]

Believed to be not compatible with the GPL.

The license itself is probably Open Source, but distributors would break the license of every GPL'ed program that links with XFree86.

Re:What is the issue?

[Ubi_NL]

The really interesting bit is that there is a lot of GPL-ed code in XFree. Chunks have been copied from the linux kernel, and people like Alan Cox submitted patches. As this code is GPL, XFree must also be GPL in order to use it, or the Xfree teasm must rewrite these parts. I understood Alan Cox opposes his contributions to be placed under the new licensing scheme.

Re:What is the issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

Among other things, it is not compatible with the GPL. That means that would be a GPL violation if a distribution chooses to supply GPL software linked with xlibs.

Lots of desktop apps are affected.

See the incompatibility with the GNU GPL and more practical problems

Re:What is the issue?

[Vaakku]

Here is a thread where you can read about why distro makers think that new XFree license is evil.

Re:What is the issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually the OpenBSD people (who fight license battles more than just about any other OS/distro -- even Debian) don't think it is equivalent to a BSD license either (the original license was equivalent to the BSD licence in case anyone is wondering: XFree was never GPL'd). David Dawes thinks still thinks it is. If he believes that, I hope he will change the wording back so everyone else believes it too....

Re:What is the issue?

[nickos]

Taken from a usenet post by Paul Cannon from linux.debian.legal on 2004-01-30:

The new license has a reworded disclaimer, and a numbered list of terms instead of the terms simply being stated. It goes farther than the old one in specifying that the conditions apply to binary distributions as well as source.

The change that causes problems is the addition of the third condition:

"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."

Several posters on slashdot and elsewhere have mentioned the similarity between this and the old, obnoxious BSD "advertising clause":

"3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software must display the following acknowledgement:
This product includes software developed by the University of California, Berkeley and its contributors."

The FSF is quite clear (see here and here) in that they do not consider licenses with the advertising clause to be compatible with the GPL. In addition, the same reasons they give appear to apply also to the clause added by the XFree86 folks. That is, one cannot distribute something under the GPL with added restrictions like the one above quoted.

Re:What is the issue?

[ookaze]

I do not think there is any GPLed code in XFree86, I thought there was one licence for all of the project. OpenSource code perhaps, but not GPLed.
I say this, because RMS warned several years ago, I think, that putting your code under XFree licence (so it must have been mandatory) was putting it at odds, and was very dangerous, in case the project behaves badly.
That's just what happened.

You say there is chunks of code that have been copied from the linux kernel. I think you are talking about DRM, and I would say that was the other way around : DRI/XFree code was copied into the kernel.
XFree is so important, even I am considering contributing the little time I have to XServer sooner than I thought, if it does not see a flood of developpers in the two coming months (if this fiasco is not canceled, I mean).
I say "even I", because I have so little time on my hand, not for any other reason.

Re:What is the issue?

[Snags]

How is this different from the license for libjpeg? From jpeg-6b/README: "(2) If only executable code is distributed, then the accompanying documentation must state that "this software is based in part on the work of the Independent JPEG Group"."

Re:What is the issue?

[beforewisdom]

"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." Several posters on slashdot and elsewhere have mentioned the similarity between this and the old, obnoxious BSD "advertising clause":

I'll admit I am ignorant on this subject and I apologize.

Why is this obnoxious?

What is the big deal about a few lines of giving credit where credit is due? I'm guessing from your response that it goes beyond that?

Steve

Re:What is the issue?

[Gadzinka]

No, the code in question was sumbitted by its authors to XFree86 under the XFree licence. Remember, the author owns the code and he can licence it as many times as he wishes, every time with different licence.

So it doesn't make XFree86 ``gpl derivative''.

But those people who sumbitted those patches oppose changing the XFree licence on their code to something GPL incompatible. At least I've heard that Alan opposes, but I don't believe they asked all contributors if they agree to licence change.

Robert

Re:What is the issue?

[stph]

I understand the philosophical disagreement with this new clause in XFree86 4.4, but I don't think it should be confused with the old BSD "advertising" clause. The latter posed a severe financial impact on each and every advertisement a company might want to deploy. This is simply asking for acknowledgement in the consuming product's documentation. It is a pain to keep track of, but no worse what any author and publisher has to deal with when using the works of others. I don't think acknowledgement in the docs in an unfair expectation.

My two cents.... for all it's worth.

Stph

Re:What is the issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

Notice the word "only".

Re:What is the issue?

[fnj]

Both the new XFree86 clause and the original BSD clause are simple vanity clauses. Fixating on these as "restrictions" sounds pretty foolish to me. Can it possibly be that the GPL is foolishly crafted to go to war with such simple requirements, which have absolutely no bearing on whether the end product is either free beer or free speech?

Re:What is the issue?

[plcurechax]

The really interesting bit is that there is a lot of GPL-ed code in XFree.

I take it you mean FreeType which is included under a dual-license of GPL and BSD-like.

Chunks have been copied from the linux kernel, and people like Alan Cox submitted patches

Alan Cox submitted patches are not under the GPL, but he wished to remain compatible with GPL applications (by using the old XFree86 license). The transfer actually has been from XFree86 to the kernel (fbdev).

Re:What is the issue?

[squiggleslash]

I don't personally think it's obnoxious in spirit, but it does force a redistributor to put in extra effort in materials outside of simply recompiling the software and passing it on.

The GPL, for instance, also has a "credit where credit's due" clause, but you'd have to actually go out of your way to modify an already GPL'd program to break it:

2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion of it, thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1 above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions:

• c) If the modified program normally reads commands interactively when run, you must cause it, when started running for such interactive use in the most ordinary way, to print or display an announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and a notice that there is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide a warranty) and that users may redistribute the program under these conditions, and telling the user how to view a copy of this License. (Exception: if the Program itself is interactive but does not normally print such an announcement, your work based on the Program is not required to print an announcement.)

By comparison, the XFree86 license is requiring that redistributors of XFree86 modify their documentation and/or files containing credits. That can affect you even if all you plan to do is put a copy of XFree86 on a CD for someone else and include a note saying "Here's how to install it".

I'm not 100% there's no workaround that satisfies both parties, and it's notable that XFree86 is a stand-alone package, so it can safely be distributed on the same CD as, say, GNOME (though it may be necessary to include an additional X server that's unambiguously GPL compatable in addition to XFree86 4.4) without breaking the licensing for GNOME.

In general, XFree86 has made a mistake in that most authors should try to use an existing license that's a known quantity and is as compatable with as many licenses as possible. The new license appears to break this principle.

Re:What is the issue?

[iangoldby]

I'm not sure then what they mean by 'incompatible with the GPL'. I've just read the references you gave.

They mention only 'practical problems' - that is, the problem of what to do if your product includes very many components, all under different old-style BSD-style licenses (with the acknowledgement clause) - that you end up having to include rather a lot of acknowledgements in all your publicity material.

I don't think it can be 'incompatibility' that is causing the current fuss. All of the following licenses are considered by the GNU to be incompatible with the GPL:

The original BSD license
The OpenSSL license
The Apache Software License, version 2.0
IBM Public License, Version 1.0
Common Public License Version 1.0
The Mozilla Public License (MPL)
The FreeType license
The PHP License, Version 3.0

Yet we don't see Linux distributers refusing to include products with those licenses.

If RedHat have a problem inserting the required acknowledgements into their publicity and packaging material in time for their next release, that is quite understandable. In that case they should talk to Xfree and come to an arrangement. Perhaps the Xfree people will allow them an exemption this time around.

Personally, this smells to me like politics and personality disputes. The major Linux distributors ought to be above such things.

Re:What is the issue?

[Bootsy Collins]

Why is this obnoxious?

What is the big deal about a few lines of giving credit where credit is due? I'm guessing from your response that it goes beyond that?

My understanding (which could be wrong) is this: it's not that that clause is morally or ethically a bad thing. It's that that clause makes the license incompatible with the GPL, which explicitly rules out putting additional restrictions on the redistribution of the code beyond those already in the GPL. It doesn't matter whether you or I or anyone else thinks the additional restrictions are reasonable; additional restrictions make the license incompatible with the GPL.

A problem with the GPL, then? I don't think so. How do you write a license that, in advance, imagines every possible restriction on redistribution of code and takes care of allowing reasonable ones while forbidding unreasonable ones? The ostensible purpose of the GPL is to preserve freedom, so that's the side the FSF wanted to err upon; so "no more restrictions."

So what if the new XF86 license is incompatible with the GPL? Well, that means that the redistribution of any GPL'd software that links against XF86 software (such as xlibs) is a license violation, and therefore illegal. So the redistribution of e.g. GNOME, KDE, etc., under these circumstances would be illegal.

So people are not upset that the XF86 folks (or, specifically, David Dawes) are making an unreasonable demand for credit for their work. They're upset that he's created this unsolveable license conflict where, previously, up until January 30th, none existed . . .a license conflict because of a license change which seems to be provoked by nothing (who, exactly, wasn't giving XF86 credit for their work), and which will likely take a lot of time and work (developing a new X server under a different license) to solve.

That's my understanding. If it's wrong, I hope someone who knows more about this will chime in.

Re:What is the issue?

[johnnyb]

I think the problem is that if a third-party _adds_ documentation, they would also have to add the line. If you combined code from multiple sources, you would have to comb through each source file to find the appropriate references just to write documentation that you ship with the product. With the GPL, you only have to not mess with the existing copyright info to be okay.

Imagine you are a distributor who writes documnetation that ships as part of their distribution. With this new license, they would have to search out and find every attribution to include in their documentation.

Re:What is the issue?

[oohp]

The OpenBSD group has done great work in the past taking ipfilter out of the code base and replacing it with something better -- packet filter. I hope this great work gets integrated in every BSD out there.

Theo mentioned forking -- it has already happened. While the XFree86 codebase is huge, I guess it's better that they don't fork it themselves, but rather join one of the groups that forked XFree86 already (either Xouvert or the freedesktop.org team) and merge efforts. It's a question of objectives and the OpenBSD team is well known for doing things themselves. But then again, three X forks is too much and no vendor will support all of them -- they scarcely support Xfree86 anyway.

It's good that the distributions reject this kind of David Dawes style sabotage licensing bullshit. This kind of sabotage didn't work in the past and will never work. It just adds more nails into the Xfree86's coffin.

Re:What is the issue?

[cgreuter]

Why is this obnoxious?

I think what's going on here is that there's some confusion about what's a derived work.

The new license applies to XFree86 and anything based on it. This sounds fair until you realize that if you write a program that just uses XFree86, you are, technically speaking, combining your code with theirs by linking to the xlibs and including the header files. This means you need to credit them. For Mandrake to use XFree86 4.0, they'd have to go through the documentation for every app and library that uses the xlibs and add the attribution.

It violates the GPL because it adds extra restrictions on what may be done with GPL'd code. The GPL allows you to distribute a GPL'd program without the XFree86 attribution but the new XFree86 license doesn't.

My take on this is that it's unintentional. I suspect that someone didn't think through the implications and that in a couple of days, the XFree86 team will amend the license to say that just connecting to the server or linking against the xlibs doesn't constitute a derived work. At least, that's my hope. Otherwise, it could take years for a new de-facto X implementation to emerge.

Re:What is the issue?

[nestler]

Yet we don't see Linux distributers refusing to include products with those licenses.

You seem to imply that the Linux distributors don't care about those licenses and their GPL interactions, which is not true. The problem is that GPL programs cannot be linked to code (like libraries) that has advertising clauses.

I know that at least Debian is very careful to respect this restriction (GPL Ethereal is not linked with OpenSSL even though it loses functionality).

The real issue why this is a problem is that a lot of XFree86 is in the form of libraries (xlib). So any app that needs to link xlib cannot be GPLed. This screws up Qt, KDE, and many other things (basically any GPL app with a GUI).

It isn't as much of a problem with the things you name for a few reasons. A lot of old BSD licensed code got a licensing change (from the Regents) that removed the advertising clause. More importantly, a lot of the things you name (Apache, Mozilla) are not libraries so you don't have as much of a problem there.

This is a big problem and David Dawes and company have just made themselves irrelevant. They will have to back down (revert the license) or their project will be ignored from here on out. Distros will adopt other projects or do their own work on XFree 4.3.

Re:What is the issue?

[Rich0]

Also - if 20 works down the road I am copying and pasting and accidentally miss contributor #3 I can now be sued for copyright infringement.

It won't be a big deal at first, but if everyone contributor to a project required a personal acknowledgement any time you acknowledge anyone else, it would be a pain.

Note that the clause says you have to mention XFree wherever you mention someone else. That is like holding your boss at fault because he contgratulated publicly two memebers of a project team without mentioning every person who had five minutes of involement in the project - leaving somebody out isn't always meant as an insult. The whole idea of open source is collaboration - if we want to make software which can build on existing software we can't design the licenses so that each version has to tack on all the restrictions of every preceeding version and then add two of its own.

Re:What is the issue?

[Znork]

"Yet we don't see Linux distributers refusing to include products with those licenses."

It's no problem as long as you arent shipping any GPL applications linking with the incompatible code.

There are a whole bunch of GPL licensed applications that link to the X library code. The desktop environments, for starters.

So the choice is between not shipping the new version of X or not shipping any GPL licensed applications that use X. So you can have new X but no Gnome or KDE, or you can have the older revision of X and KDE and Gnome. Which would you prefer?

It's not that Redhat and the others have to insert acknowledgements, it's that they're not allowed to distribute GPL licensed components linked to code that requires them to insert acknowledgements.

Of course, there are ways around the problem. One I've seen would be to distribute the X libraries of a forked X linked with the GPL applications, and distribute the new X server as a completely standalone X server (which is how you can distribute commercial X servers with GPL applications). That would require double installs of a lot of things but it would probably be legal.

Re:What is the issue?

[bartjan]

GPL, section 6:

" 6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the
Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the
original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to
these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further
restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein.
You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to
this License."

The combined works of GPL'ed code plus code under this new X license has the further restriction of not being able to distribute it without those advertisements. So linking GPL code to XFree86 4.4 means you are breaking the GPL.

Re:What is the issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

DRM is the Direct Rendering Manager (which I think is in the kernel). DRI is the Direct Rendering Infrastructure, which is the whole thing. The DRM is part of the DRI.

I can understand but..

[Ymiris]

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.

Re:I can understand but..

[Ewan]

XFree 4.3 is not dramatically different from 4.4, and if the 4.3 fork were to gain momentum you'd find very quickly that people who had contributed code to 4.4 would simply resubmit it to the fork, on the basis that whoever wrote the original code can resubmit it to anyone they want unless they transferred the copyright to the Xfree project.

Ewan

Re:I can understand but..

[dnoyeb]

The Linux desktop movement is based in an idea of Freedom. To accept a less than 'free' desktop for the 'free' desktop movement would not make sense.

(admittidly its not just any form of freedom the GPL is pushing)

Re:I can understand but..

[fsmunoz]

Well, XFree is pretty important, no doubt about that. But, as I see it, there are two different problems here that ultimatly will affect XFree86 more than the distros:

1) The version that falls under this new license in not very different from the previous one. There are improvements (and to some people they are big, e.g. support for they card) but it's not like it's a totally different codebase, most people with supported cards would probably not even notice the need. This is important because this makes things very easy to fork, and that is an option under consideration (read Theo's mail, for example). Couple that with freedesktop.org xlibs (see RedHat post) and you have the basis of a new X without this licencing problems (read Branden's (Debian) mail about more specific licencing issues).

2) I keep hearing reactions from X contributors that "XFree86 is not about Linux", basicaly asserting they would be fine or even better withour all this Linux distros bitching about their work. Well, if GNU/Linux and the BSD's drop the new X who exactly is going to use as a standard installed part of the system? Solaris x86 users? XFree86 importance and relevance is directly related to the widespread use of the Free Unices.

I would like to had that I'm quite happy about the rejection of the new licence being transversal across distributions and OS's; Mandrake, Debian, RedHat, Gentoo, OpenBSD, probably more will come once they reach a decision. This consensus is important because when it's just the FSF and Debian taking a position people dismiss it as "political rubish". Browse the previous discussions on this issue and you'll see people saying that this licence is only wrong for the FSF and Debian and that their will include the new XFree86 because they are pragmatics bla,bla,bla. This widespread agreement in rejecting the new licence shows that this issues *are* important and that in the long run *more* important that having a new graphic card supported.

I am, of course, very grateful to the XFree84 Project for their work. The fact that this licencing change was made in such an ungraceful mode does not affect that.

Re:I can understand but..

[Lussarn]

If you followed the discussion you would notice that they can't ship XFree 4.4 because they would need to toss out alot of GPL apps from the distributions if they did. Bye bye KDE.

This move is just stupid. It sets back the *nix desktop 10 years. If they don't change Freedesktop is the way to go.

Re:I can understand but..

[Asmodai]

Because XFree86 changed the license it cannot be shipped? Don't fool yourself.

Ever looked at the rest of the sources? Allow me to quote:

xc/src/lib/FS: ``* Copyright 1990 Network Computing Devices;
* Portions Copyright 1987 by Digital Equipment Corporation
*
* Permission to use, copy, modify, distribute, and sell this software
* and its documentation for any purpose is hereby granted without fee,
* provided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and
* that both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear
* in supporting documentation, and that the names of Network Computing
* Devices or Digital not be used in advertising or publicity pertaining
* to distribution of the software without specific, written prior
* permission.''

``Copyright 1987, 1994, 1998 The Open Group
Permission to use, copy, modify, distribute, and sell this software and its
documentation for any purpose is hereby granted without fee, provided that
the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that both that
copyright notice and this permission notice appear in supporting
documentation.''

And these are just two examples.

By the way xc/src/lib/GLw/README.html is fun to read as well to see an example of how the knife cuts on both sides.

So how is this different? It was never GPL compatible to begin with. Clearly the above conflicts to clause 6 as well.

Re:I can understand but..

[bobv-pillars-net]

From xc/lib/GLw/README.html:

THIS SECTION CONTAINS MY PERSONAL OPINIONS AND DOESN'T REPRESENT AN OFFICIAL POSITION OF THE XFree86 PROJECT.

The first incarnation of this version of libGLw used eight header files from LessTif, four for each Motif version. LessTif is covered by the GNU Library General Public License (LGPL) whose terms are not compatible with the XFree86 licensing policy. Since the copyright holder of LessTif is the Free Software Foundation (FSF), I asked Richard Stallman, president of FSF and so called "leader of the Free Software movement", permission to redistribute a copy of those eight headers under XFree86 terms, still maintaining the FSF copyright.

Observe that I was not asking him to change the license of LessTif as a whole, but only to allow me to distribute copies of some header files containing function prototypes, variable declarations and data type definitions. Even so, Stallman said no because the files contained "more than 6000 lines of code". Which code? The LessTif headers are mostly copies of the Motif ones and don't contain any original GNU "code"! I can't still imagine a reason for Stallman's negative answer except for paranoia. He seems to ignore what Motif is and that LessTif's API is simply a copy of Motif's one.

After spending some time, I made my own headers, that became much smaller than the previous ones because I included only a subset of the Motif API and merged everything into four files: 417 lines instead 6000. Humm, perhaps I should be grateful to Sallman too :-).

Re:I can understand but..

[Unregistered]

They legally can't disribute it, though. All gpl code that links against xfree would need to be made compatable with the new xfree liscense which would in turn violate the GPL. That's why this is such a big deal.

Re:I can understand but..

[PhilHibbs]

The XFree86 people that made this decision have no right to expect that their code will be used by anyone. No-one is shafting them by deciding not to use their product, in the same way that no-one is shafting any company by not using their product.

If Red Hat were shipping XFree86 4.4 without crediting every contributor, then they would be stealing code.

The Question

[TwistedGreen]

I suppose that the question here is: why? Is the new licence really that bad? Is this reaction warranted?

However, if this does become a serious dispute, I can see it being a good thing for the desktop. Development will have the branch from the last version of XFree86 4.3 into some new direction which, hopefully, will make for a better X in years to come.

Re:The Question

[richie2000]

On its face, the new license seems both reasonable and fair -- however, it also seems to create a lot of questions regarding how it should be interpreted and this is causing all the noise. My guess (and sincere hope) is that a clarification from, and possible minor re-write of the license by the XFree Project, Inc will clear this all up.

Re:The Question

[ogre57]

Short answer, yes, for binary distribution it is that bad. For more than you want to know ..

Re:The Question

[Asmodai]

There are already some forks.

The license was changed on some files owned by the XFree86 Project.

One of the major nits, as can be seen on the mailing list, is that code flows from XFree86 to say the Linux framebuffer project, which can incorporate the code, but it can never flow back due to it being GPL (viral nature and such).

The license only requests proper attribution in software and/or documentation like other third parties are getting.

Nothing spectacular if you ask me. Only thing that's getting people in a knot is that it is incompatible with the GPL's 6th clause (funny how people actually rate a 3 clause license with the only requirement proper attribution to be more restrictive than the god knows how many clauses GPL, but that's another discussion).

I fail to see what people are making a fuss about.

Re:The Question

[markbthomas]

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.

Re:The Question

[JohnnyCannuk]

Thanks for that link.

I've been going through this story and the previous one looking for the exact reason everyone is pissed and the answer was on the XFree86 site.

After reading that, I would say the licence issue is a tempest in a teapot. The gang at XFree86 seems to be debating and willing to change the wording so the new licence is NOT incompatible with the GPL (as evidenced by some of the solutions in the above mentioned post).

It seems to me the REAL issue here is a personality conflict between certain members of the XFree86 team (mostly David Dawes) and the rest of the community. So much so that we now have possible forks and alternatives springing up. Well guess what, this is nothing new in the open source world. Remember JBoss? It is well known in Java open source circles that Marc Fluery and a few others in the current JBoss organization are twats and thoroughly disliked by a large number of developers. So much so that a large chunk of the original JBoss team broke away and formed their own company and there are now real viable alternatives to JBoss springing up (Geronimo from Apache). But none of that means the code is bad, or the product is bad or the licence is wrong. Like it or not XFree86 is still the only real alternative to a commerial XServer right now, just as JBoss is the only real alternative to commercial J2EE servers.

I say, let them work it out like adults. If they can't, when XOuvert or freedesktop are mature enougth to be a real alternative, use one of them and move on.

Re:The Question

[Asmodai]

``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.''

Yes, if you have end-user documentation it asks you to have a tiny line about how there's code from the XFree86 Project.

So where you get the idea from that it should be spit out during boot is beyond me. Yes, I know it can also be done in software. But that's done where normal attributions are normally kept, say an about box, or -EEK- perhaps /COPYRIGHT. And note that the software requirement is a MAY, not MUST.

Let me phrase a question back at you lot: "What is against giving credit where credit is due?" Because it looks like some common courtesy seems farfetched with a lot of people at the moment.

And by the way, it is similar to zlib's license, which is not mandatory, granted, but how many of you have actually credited Mark Adler and/or Jean-loup Gailly for their work?

Re:The Question

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing against giving credit where credit is due, but the GPL does not allow any additional restrictions. Since combining XFree-new-licensensed software with GPL licensed software would add this requirement, it is a new restriction, and thus YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO DISTRIBUTE AT ALL.

Which is why Mandrake and RedHat don't distribute XFree 4.4. Not because they don't want to give credit, but because they are not allowed to require others to give credit.

Re:The Question

[spiritraveller]

I suppose that the question here is: why? Is the new licence really that bad? Is this reaction warranted?

It is warranted.

Whether it's "that bad" doesn't matter so much as "is it really incompatible with the GPL."

If distributors would violate the GPL by linking GPLed programs to XFree4.4, they could be liable for statutory damages under copyright law.

One would hope that no author (of a GPLed program) would sue Debian (or others) for linking to XFree4.4. But hope doesn't pay the bills. Distributors need to comply fully with the licenses of the software they distribute.

Other than Debian, the distributors that have made this decision are businesses. It is not that they are GPL nazis... they are just dotting their Is and crossing their Ts.

Re:The Question

[Gothmolly]

The license says none of that kind. Did you even *read* the new license?

You're new here, aren't you?

Re:The Question

[squiggleslash]

Hi Kev,

Here's the CD containing Wurzel Linux 2.0, I grabbed it from isos.org. They rock! I was getting transfer rates of 2.5kbps! Only took a month.

Anyway, just boot from the CD, and follow the prompts.

Oh yeah, before I forget: This product includes software developed by The XFree86 Project, Inc (http://www.xfree86.org/) and its contributors.

Let me know if you have any problems,

Squiggy.

Re:The Question

[Gadzinka]

Only thing that's getting people in a knot is that it is incompatible with the GPL's 6th clause (funny how people actually rate a 3 clause license with the only requirement proper attribution to be more restrictive than the god knows how many clauses GPL, but that's another discussion).

Simple doesn't have to make it better. And the problem with advertising clauses was discusses over and over, to the effect that some BSD projects changed their licences to avoid it.

``More restrictive'' or ``more free'' is stupid criteria if you ask me. Most important, it's not true.

BSD and GPL licensing have their purpose.

If you can live with the fact that businesses can use your gratis work without even giving back their contribution, bugfixes etc, that's fine, use BSD licence.

But if you want your contribution to the society to stay open, with all the enhancements, use GPL.

That's author's decision, his view of the world. It has nothing to do with more free, or more restrictive. I mean, if it really was about ``more free'', and not some religious debate about a pet project, than all BSD OSes would be published as public domain, wouldn't they?

Robert

Re:The Question

[Nothinman]

That's the opinion of a few people in the GNU project, the GPL says nothing about what projects containing GNU tools have to be called.

Re:The Question

[Jason Earl]

The problem, as you say, appears to be personal. The folks at freedesktop.org have basically told the folks at XFree86 that they are tired of trying to work with them, and so now the XFree86 folks (David Dawes) have changed the license to make it more difficult for the freedesktop.org folks to simply use their source code.

The worst bit about this is that the XFree86 core haven't really been active developers for some time. In fact, most of their work predates Linux.

You can't pretend, however, that the licensing issue isn't important. Licensing issues generally turn out to be more important than technical issues. This change might not be *that* problematic, but who is to say that the next change won't be disastrous.

freedesktop?

[peterprior]

Looks like KeithP's freedesktop.org xserver is looking more attractive all the time..

Re:freedesktop?

[Ianoo]

If the worst comes to the worst, we can always stick around on XF4.3 for however long it takes him to make XServer production-ready code. With Red Hat, Debian, Gentoo and OpenBSD potentially looking for alterative solutions, it seems there might be sufficient clout to persuade nVidia and ATI to write new drivers for the new server, too.

Here's hoping. This will damage the Linux-on-the-desktop movement, but it's very good fortune that an alternative is nearly ready to step in to the fray.

Forking hell?

[byolinux]

What are the chances someone will take 4.3 and fork it, and carrying on development as free software?

Hopefully, eventually, XFree would realise how much they borked their userbase, and stop this sillyness.

I'd like to bet that a good proportion of their userbase comes from Distros, and if the distros drop 4.4, they're going to be hit rather badly.

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.

Re:Forking hell?

[kevin_ka]

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)

Re:Forking hell?

[Ubi_NL]

You can even start from the 4.4 beta as that is the last GPL-ed version. All you then have to do is read the changelog / bug reports (not the code!) to get it into 'true' 4.4

Will we be stuck behind the times?

[Larry David]

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?

Re:Will we be stuck behind the times?

[thelasttemptation]

except if you notice that openbsd and gentoo, both source only compiles won't include it. The problem is the licence is simlar to bsd's but requires extra credit to be placed all over the distro. Anything that links to the xfree code that is gpled or uses a bsd licence is breaking the gpl/bsd licence because of the extra stuff they need to do in order to link to the libarys. In order to make a distro with 4.4 included, you would need to rewrite every app that links to X to the X licence, else you are breaking the gpl and as a distro maintainer, you'd be responcable for the breaks.

NVIDIA?

[pyr0]

This brings up a concern about NVIDIA drivers to me. Say NVIDIA only continues to release new drivers compatible with xfree86 4.4 and up. That's *really* going to put pressure on the linux distributions to include 4.4. I wonder how hard it would be for the recent X forks to maintain NVIDIA driver compatibility?

Re:NVIDIA?

[gukin]

It is _VERY_ unlikely nVidia will cut off support at 4.4 and above. nVidia makes very nice chipsets but more importantly makes excellent drivers that work with M$, Linux, FreeBSD etc. They are out to make money, they make money by selling products people want AND PRODUCTS RECOMMENDED BY OTHERS; this is where Linux support is important. Linux users are geeks, people ask geeks what kind of HW to get. I enjoy gaming (especially under Linux) so when someone asks me what kind of video card to get, I recommend nVidia. If nVidia told the Linux base to "stuff it", they would lose sales. They've done an excellent job of keeping the drivers for their products up to date, easy to use , fast and stable. I doubt they are going to change.

Sorry if I sound like a fanboy but video _is_ important and nVidia cards are the best supported and work the best under Linux for just about everything; I will continue to purchase and recommend their products.

Re:NVIDIA?

[Perl-Pusher]

Your assuming too many ifs. If this isn't worked out in a year. If there isn't a fork that works. If NVIDIA is woried about Xfree86 and not about an actual installed base of linux and BSD's. NVIDIA already supports more than one version of X, no reason to think they won't continue to. Remember they want to sell cards, not Xfree86.

Re:NVIDIA?

[bfree]

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!

Every cloud has a silver lining

[kinnell]

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.

Re:Every cloud has a silver lining

[cozziewozzie]

The fdo xserver looks truly mouthwatering, but I believe that all the drivers will have to be rewritten to truly take advantage of it. If that is the case, not only will all the great free XFree DRI drivers have to be ported over, but ATI and nVidia would have to be convinced to rewrite their drivers to this new architecture.

Yeah, let's all start holding our breaths. At the moment, the fdo xserver is completely hardware unaccelerated and until the drivers are written, it will stay that way, negating any of its advantages. I really hope this project succeeds, but things like these make me worry.

Re:Every cloud has a silver lining

[kinnell]

According to the gentoo list linked in the article, there is an effort to write a compatability layer for XFree86 drivers underway, so this should at least make it useable, if a little clunky. In any case, all the necessary information for writing drivers should be in the XFree drivers, so porting them should be a lot easier than writing drivers from scratch for someone who understands the code. I think it's more a matter of mindshare than anything else.

Why do they have a problem?

[pacsman]

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.

Re:Why do they have a problem?

[evilviper]

so what exactly is the problem the distros have with the new license?

For one thing, any additional restrictions make a license incompatible with the GPL... That's enough to stop most everyone right there.

Re:Why do they have a problem?

[Trurl's Machine]

The new license requires you to place acknowledgement "This product includes software developed by The XFree86 Project, Inc (http://www.xfree86.org/) and its contributors", and requires for it to be "in the same place and form as other third-party acknowledgments". Innocent as it sounds, it's actually a helluva loophole for lawyers that could sue your pants off for simply advertising, say, "with full iTunes DRM compatibility" on the cover of a boxed edition of your distro. Unless you really want to write "with full iTunes DRM compatibility and this product includes software developed by The XFree86 Project, Inc (http://www.xfree86.org/) and its contributors".

Re:Why do they have a problem?

[Waffle Iron]

So its OK for the GPL to impose restrictions, but not for other licenses to?

It's OK for any license to impose any restrictions that they want. Certain combinations of restrictions can't be mixed, but that's OK, too. These two licenses can't be mixed because of the interaction of both their restrictions.

The deal in this case is that this new XFree86 license covers one point release of one work of software, whereas the GPL covers thousands of works produced over the past couple of decades.

If, in a reverse of the situation, all of today's GPLed software had been actually released under the new XFree license, and the XFree86 project had just invented the GPL for their new 4.4 version, the outcome would be exactly the same: People would be dumping XFree86 4.4 because it was incompatible with the more commonly used license.

Version Changes

[loserbert]

Why the hell did they pick 4.4 to make this change on?

Don't major changes usually happen on whole numbers? Shouldn't they at least wait until 5.0 to change the license.?

Use Xouvert or FreeDesktop

[julie-h]

Use Xouvert or FreeDesktop and it is the end of the story.

If I remember correct then is Xouvert an early fork of X 4.4.

FreeDesktop is of course a long term better choice, but I don't think there is a working version yet.

Re:Use Xouvert or FreeDesktop

[Anonymous Coward]

Given that Xouvert is practically dead, this really leaves FreeDesktop as the only other alternative.

If you think this is flamebait, visit the projects' websites and take a convince yourself of the facts.

Re:Use Xouvert or FreeDesktop

[IntergalacticWalrus]

"But the FreeDesktop libraries will be LGPL whish is much much worse, because then we will have ZERO comertial applications." No. GTK and GNOME's libs are all LGPL, yet we see plenty commertial (sic) apps. The problem is with GPL libs, ie. Qt. "Free software faggots probably wont mind, but for those of us who work for a living the FreeDesktop initiative is really worrysome." Plenty of people make a living on Free Software, you know.

This sucks...

[jarich]

The card in my laptop had support coming in 4.4!

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?

Re:This sucks...

[squiggleslash]

Well, you can always download it and compile it yourself.

Perhaps that's the workaround - include XFree86 4.3, and an installer that automatically downloads XFree86 4.4 if you want it and it compiles it. Sure, the bandwidth demands on ftp.xfree86.org would be astronomical, but...

Text of License

[Bouncings]

Announcement: Modification to the base XFree86(TM) license.

After a thorough re-examination of the XFree86(TM) license and reviewing
how it fits in with the Project's long-stated licensing philosophy ("You
can do what you like with the code except claim that you wrote it."),
The XFree86 Project, Inc. has made some changes to its base license.
This license review was prompted by a desire to ensure that XFree86 and
its contributors are receiving due credit for their work. The text of
the modified license can be found at
http://www.xfree86.org/legal/licenses.html.

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.

This modified license falls easily within the long-standing XFree86
licensing policy, and so there has been no change to the classes of
licenses acceptable for code contributed to XFree86. In fact, some
contributions to XFree86 were covered by a similar license already.
Contributors to XFree86 remain free to retain copyright on the code they
contribute, and can also choose the license for their code within the
long-standing XFree86 licensing policy.

The license change applies to the base XFree86 license, and to source
files that explicitly carry a copyright notice in the name of The XFree86
Project, Inc. Copyrights and licenses in the names of others will not
be affected by this change. Furthermore, only a subset of such files
with an explicit copyright notice in the Project's name will initially
carry the modified license, which is the core XFree86 components, and
the source files where there is no explicit author list. The license
in the remaining files with an XFree86 copyright will only be changed
with permission from the listed authors.

The license change will be fully effective as of the 4.4.0 release.
The initial draft of the changes will be included in 4.4.0 RC3
(4.3.99.903). A source diff showing the initial draft of the changes
is being made available for review with this announcement, and can be
found at . All XFree86
contributors are invited to review the changes, and notify us of errors
and omissions so that they can be corrected before the 4.4.0 release.
Such notifications, as well as comments about the licensing changes
should be directed to the Forum@XFree86.org list. XFree86 contributors
are also encouraged to review the license change, and let us know if
they wish to make similar changes to licenses in their name.

* XFree86 is a trademark of The XFree86 Project, Inc., and is pending
registration.

Xfree86 -- Dustbin?

[Anonymous Coward]

Looking at the list of distributions who say they are not going to entertain using Xfree86 with the v1.1 license, it would seem that all of the major distros are represented (except Suse?).

If that's the case, usage of XFree86 will simply stop at rev 4.3.mumble or go away entirely. I'd be pretty surprised if the XFree guys didn't back down. The alternative is a slow spiral into obscurity.

Isn't this the end of the story, then?

[DoofusOfDeath]

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.

Re:Isn't this the end of the story, then?

[Lussarn]

Alan cox can do pretty much what he wants with his own source, it is not GPL just because it is in the kernel and Xfree (It becomes more like dual licenced).

And as the last Xfree licence was a BSD style one the Xfree team can change the licence to pretty much what they want, including an MS EULA one, the BSD licence is pretty loose.

Re:Isn't this the end of the story, then?

[DarkMan]

No, because it's perfectly possible to have code under two liscencesin the same program.

The problem arises when you want to change that liscence. Actually, it's two problems:

1) The contributors must all agree to the liscence change. If they don't, you have to back out thier code, or not change the liscence. That's the fundemental protection of copyright.

2) The new liscence is incomplatable with the GPL. Thus, you can't mix GPL code with code under the new XFree86 liscence. You could with the old liscence. This a result of the wording of the two liscences.

Neither problem existed prior to the liscence change.

Oh great, here we go...

[Anonymous Coward]

Although this license issue is a pain, we'll see all sorts of people claiming that "XFree86 sucks anyway" and "freedesktop.org's X server will be much better". What problems do people have with XFree86, that transparency and other superficial redundancies are going to solve?

God forbid we have a windowing system that:

1) Puts out well-tested, stable releases
2) Generally sticks to a solid release schedule
3) Doesn't depend on a zillion other libraries
4) Will still work happily on 486s

XFree86 has been a very good project. The freedesktop.org X server, though, will be very difference once the GNOME and KDE folks get involved. The nice, clean config file will be replaced by some arcane XML format. Features will be piled in on a whim, without long-term planning. It'll require libfoo-1.6.1pl3 but not any earlier or later. It'll take twice as long to start up, and need 64MB RAM to work.

Look at what's happening to GNOME and KDE (overengineering, bloat, chasing Moore's law). Now imagine what'll happen when these same developers start working on an X server. Aaargh.

Note: this is NOT flamebait; it's a serious issue. XFree86 has been a flagship open source project, and still values elegance, efficiency and sane releases.

Re:Oh great, here we go...

[OmniVector]

I'm sorry, but whether you like or not advancement will occur. The simple truth is XFree86 is not capable of the features one should expect from a modern display system. Take one look at Mac OS X's Quartz Extreme in a CompUSA to get a good example as to why XFree86 (NOT X11, that isn't the problem) needs to shape up it's act.

It's one thing to want to keep compatability with older systems, it's another to outright deny the forward progress of utilizing modern hardware for the greater benefit. X11 is a protocol, and as such it will remain implementation neutral. Let the ludites running 486's keep their XFree86, and let us get on with our lives using a modern X11 implementation with real features like true transparency, vector scaling, and GPU acceleration.

Re:Oh great, here we go...

[abdulla]

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.

Re:Oh great, here we go...

[pavon]

IMHO, is much more verbose than what you see in the current XF86 config file.

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 is

Section "Screen"
Driver "svga"
Device "My Video Card"
Monitor "My Monitor"
Subsection "Display"
Depth 32
Modes "640x480"
EndSubsection
EndSection

less readable or less expressive than this:?

<section name="Screen">
<option name="Driver" value="svga"/>
<option name="Device" value="My Video Card"/>
<option name="Monitor" value="My Monitor"/>
<section name="Display">
<option name="Depth" value="32"/>
<option name="Modes" value="640x480"/>
</section name="Display">
</section name="Screen">

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.

How exactly...

[randomencounter]

is the advertising clause incompatible with the GPL?

Yes, I know the FSF say it is, but it is a simple assertion that I have been unable to find explicit justification for. The only justification given in their statement is that it is awkward and impractical when in common use, this does not make it incompatible, it just means they don't like it.
Not the same thing.

I can see their point about not liking it, and not wanting to use it, I just don't see an explicit incompatibility.

Re:How exactly...

[bdeclerc]

is the advertising clause incompatible with the GPL?

Answer : Yes

More specifically: it is incompatible with clause 6 of the GPL, part of which reads:

You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein.

Since their advertising clause is "imposing further restrictions" it is incompatible with the GPL.

Even more, Clause 2 of the GPL itself forbids redistribution of GPL'd code as part of a "Program" which also contains parts with licenses incompatible with the GPL.

Since parts of the current XFree86 are actually licensed under the GPL, the Xfree86 guys have two options :
a) remove all GPL-licensed code from XFree86
b) get approval from all authors of GPL-licensed code in XFree86 for a re-licensing of their code.

Considering that Alan Cox has already clearly indicated he will not accept relicensing of his code under something other than the GPL, legally the FXree86 people are already obliged to remove all Alan Cox's code from their relicensed XFree86 before distributing it...

The GPL isn't viral, if they release something which contains parts that are GPL'd, and other parts that are incompatible, those incompatible parts don't become GPL, but they do have to either remove the GPL'd parts, or relicense the incompatible parts under a different, compatible license (which may or may not be the GPL itself).

If they don't, they open themselves up for a lawsuit from the copyright-holders of the GPL'd code (which will probably be the FSF in many cases).

And this is why the Distro's don't want to touch XFree86 4.4, as soon as they distribute it, they themselves are doing the same, illegal, thing that XFree86 itself would be doing, and they would be open to lawsuits...

Re:Doesn't seem as ugly as TeX's license

[gowen]

Well, the major difference is that TeX is as close to bug free as I expect I'll ever see a major piece of software to be.

And Don Knuth is a nice man, where as David Dawes went to the "Theo de Raadt Scholl Of Charm."

It's the advertising clause stupid!

[bsdnazz]

The xfree86 V4.4 license adds

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.

vs.

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/bsd.html

WTF...

[perly-king-69]

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.

Strange behaviour...

[phrasebook]

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.

Re:So let me get this straight...

[0123456]

"They're having a hissy fit over a license that requires you to acknowledge if/when you use xfree86 and that tells you to incluse that acknowledgement in the same place you include other acknowledgements about your software?"

Yes. Because if every app required that then the back of the box would be filled with 0.01 point fonts listing every single piece of software that was included in the distribution. It's just silly.

Also, as has been pointed out, there's probably GPL-ed code in XFree86. Now, I don't really care what people do with the GPL code I've released, _OTHER_ than change the license on me. Anyone who takes my GPL code and tries to release it under a different license -- particularly, like this, a more restrictive license -- would deserve a swift kick in the ass.

Re:So let me get this straight...

[Sancho]

No, they're having a hissy fit because they can no longer distribute binaries of GPL'd software linked to xfree86. This is because the GPL and the new xfree86 license are incompatible. The GPL clearly stipulates that additional restrictions on the distribution of the software is not allowed. Requiring attribution, as minor as this is, is an additional restriction.

keithP was right.

[7-Vodka]

This shows, that keith Packard and all of the other xfree86 developers that were involved in that minor altercation last year were right.

This license change can only mean one thing:
The people in charge of the xfree86 project are totally out of touch with the users AND the developers of the project they purport to run.

Oh well, now we can smack our foreheads, realize we should just have thrown all our support behind the guys who were voicing this opinion and do it now. Hopefully the new license for the alternative xfree86 version we will all start using will be gpl.

XFree86 has never been GPL

[ink]

It used the old XFree86 license, which has historically been lumped in the BSD-ish license category. You could re-distribute the code as long as you kept source attribution and the license in place.

X server vs xlibs

[kinnell]

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.

And to be really really save

[EachLennyAPenny]

Debian decided to stay with XFree86 4.2.1.

lenny@benny:~$ apt-cache show xfree86-common | grep Version
Version: 4.2.1-16

/me awaiting discussions about XFree86 4.4 licenses not until 2006-02-18. ;)

Support vendors with non-sucking free drivers!!

[Curtman]

which branch does nvidia take

Ahhh, the song of the proprietary victim.

#include

Is the GPL license a problem?

[n0dez]

I just don't get it... there are lots of GPL incompatible licenses and nobody says anything about it. In fact, most Linux distributions ship that software. It seems that the only problem is the GPL license... am I wrong?


GPL Incompatible Licenses:

The original BSD license, the OpenSSL license, the Apache License, the Mozilla Public License, the Netscape License, the PHP license, the Apple Public Source License, ...

GPL Incompatible Licenses

Re:Is the GPL license a problem?

[forlornhope]

It is only linking between software with these licenses that is the problem. With most of the licenses above there are ways of getting around it. The problem with the new xfree86 license is that you have gpled software such as gtk and qt that are going to be directly linking with xlib. These plus the various window managers and other applications that link with xlib and are gpled are probably 99% of the use of xlib. I havnt verified this, but Im willing to bet that only 1% of the software that currently links with xlib in debian could keep doing that with this new license. That is why all these distributions will not be shipping xfree86 4.4. They couldnt use it and it would be a waste of packaging.

Re:Is the GPL license a problem?

[dgatwood]

Umm... go read the FSF's website again. All of the licenses mentioned meet FSF's definition of free (early versions of the APSL notwithstanding). None of them are GPL-compatible, however.

There's a separate bucket for licenses that don't meet their defintion of free....

Vanity clauses

[freeweed]

Maybe they could call it GNU/Xfree86 and keep everyone happy? :)

(There's something sickly ironic about a vanity clause being an issue towards any license dreamed up by Stallman).

On the practical side, however, you're entirely correct of course. Again with the irony, this being the reason I refuse to start calling the OS I run GNU/Xfree/KDE/Linux.

Its Larger Than That

[EXTomar]

The problem with "the contributor clause" applied at the license level is that it is very pervasive. After all, why use a license that isn't pervasive?

So XFree has to list contributors. Anyone who writes an extention to XFree now has to list these contributors plus any contributors to make there extention work. Depending on how another developer uses that extention, they might have to carry all of those contributor forward as well. But a month has gone by since the original extention was released and more contributions have been made. To keep up to date not only do you have to sync source but sync contributors.

As for the GPL, the reason for incompatibility is that to use the GPL you must not put any more restrictions on the code no matter how innocent or benign you think they are. Sacrificing the freedom of the code just to make sure someone's name is plastered in the right spots is selfish. There are proper places to site contributsion. Just not at the license level.

This is the reason why it was a good thing that BSD abandoned this thing. I'm all for giving credit where credit is due but not at the license level. It gets to be a meta-maintaince nightmare to adhere to the license.

XFree86 isn't that bad.

[0x0d0a]

The simple truth is XFree86 is not capable of the features one should expect from a modern display system. Take one look at Mac OS X's Quartz Extreme in a CompUSA to get a good example as to why XFree86 (NOT X11, that isn't the problem) needs to shape up it's act.

Really? Specifically what problems do you have with XFree86, or are you just talking about the most common themes in XFree86 desktop environments?

Let the ludites running 486's keep their XFree86, and let us get on with our lives using a modern X11 implementation with real features like true transparency

You know, one of the things that people like about Linux is that it doesn't have crazy hardware requirements. Unlike OS X, or, to a lesser extent, Windows.

Transparency can be nice, but honestly, it adds very little functionality to a desktop environment. Antialiased text was a different story -- it allows a user to be given more data, by using gray levels. Plain old window transparency isn't good for a lot other than eye candy. And that eye candy is largely novelty ("look, I have transparent windows!"), and not necessary a long-term draw. I've tried working with transparent windows, and never been too impressed. Generally, interfaces are fairly modal at the window level -- I'm working with a single widget, and don't need to see what's behind it, and I'd rather devote the pixels composing that widget to making the widget easily recognizable, instead of giving some information about what's behind it. It just makes it harder to see what's being worked on. The reason windows are draggable is so that you can drag them into a configuration where you can see both windows that you're working with for the rare occasions when you need to have multiple windows visible at once.

There are a few cases for transparency. It's nice for onscreen display type elements -- if someone wants to display song titles from their player, for example, they might be into displaying it transluencly. Frankly, though, the desktop metaphor is not a transparency-oriented one, and I've yet to see good improvements suggested to it that require translucency.

vector scaling

XFree86 can do vector graphics via OpenGL.

and GPU acceleration.

XFree86 has extensive support for both 2d and 3d acceleration.

10 years my *ss

[A nonymous Coward]

It sets it back to 4.3. That's hardly 10 years.

Your mother told you a million times not to exagerate.

BSD licenses not broken

[RdsArts]

BSDed code is not in any way subject to being 'broke' by this license. GPL is because it specifically breaks the (IIRC) 3rd clause of the GPL, by added extra encumberment to the distribution of the software. BSD-style license do not have any similar such clause.

What's the big deal? READ THIS

[Anonymous Coward]

For God's sake people, stop asking the same question over and over. Read this:

[forum] [XFree86] Announcement: Modification to the base XFree86(TM) license.
Sven Luther forum@xfree86.org
Sun, 1 Feb 2004 17:48:57 +0100

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On Thu, Jan 29, 2004 at 11:58:38AM -0500, David Dawes wrote:
> Announcement: Modification to the base XFree86(TM) license.

Hello,

As discussed with David, i am taking discussion concerning the
problematics aspects of this licence change here. I think i understand
somewhat the reasons behind the licence change, but i wonder if all the
consequences of it have been thought of before doing the change.

Also, there are some confusing wording in one of the clause, which i
believe would best be clarified as to what the interpretations of them
by the XFree86 project are.

Also, first notice that my position is actually quite inconfortable,
since i am here mentioning the concerns of wider community and criticize
the new xfree86 licencing, in other forums, i usually do the opposite,
and take xfree86 side on this, so please do not react badly, and let's
have a rationale conversation about this, so that things can all be
resolved to everyone's satisfaction.

1) Possible confusion.

The following clause is the most problematic of all the licence, and as
such it would be nice to clarify it before starting a polemic about it.

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.

Ok, what does this mean exactly ? If there is a end-user documentation,
but it contains no third-party acknowledgement part, do you still have
to put the acknowledgement or not ? Also, is the choice between putting
the acknowledgement in the end-user documentation or the software a
choice that is free to make, or is the second an alternative only if
there is no enduser documentation. And what do you mean by in the
software itself ? If this software is a linux distribution for example,
would a file on the CD which is copied to the disk be enough ?

2) GPL incompatibility.

This selfsame clause is also the one which clashes with the clasue 6) of
the GPL.

6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the
Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the
original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to
these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further
restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein.
You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to
this License.

And in the 'you may not impose any further restrictions' part. Since the
GPL does not force you to add acknowledgement in the end-user
distribution, then the clause 3) of the 1.1 XFree86 licence is indeed a
further restriction, which cause an incompatibility with GPLed software.
Now this is again modulated with the exact interpretation that is given
in the above point.

3) Where is the derivative work boundary ?

The problem is further muddled by the place where the boundary for
something being considered a derivative work. The GPL, contrary to the
LGPL, considers that everything linked with a another binary is a
derivative work

App Licenses must be compatible with their libs

[FreeUser]

Red Hat distributes Apache, OpenSSL, xinetd, all with GPL-Incompatible, Free Software Licenses What is weird is Apache claims their license is compatible.

Because they aren't linked together into one application.

Every XFree applications either links to an X library, or links to a library that links to an X library (insert as many levels of indirection as you wish).

Now that the x library licenses are no longer GPL compatible, every GPL X application is no longer legal for use with XFree 4.4. Which is the death of XFree, as we aren't about to throw out Enlightenment, Gnome, Mozilla, etc.

Far easier and more sensible to start using Xouvert or FreeDesktop than to dump millions of man-hours of contributed work simply to appease the vanity and anti-GPL zealotry of a few, regardless of how great their contribution was in years past.

In other words: License compatability between independent apps isn't an issue (each app's license can be adhered to independent of the others). License compatability between apps and the libraries they link to is absolutely critical, and XFree 4.4 breaks this with most of the applications that link to it. Which means Sianara XFree 4.4.

Re:Distro Maintainers making my decisions for me n

[Bootsy Collins]

While I can see the point of some of this, surely it isn't up to distro maintainers to decide which licences I can and can't accept for me.

No, but it is up to the distro maintainers to not break the law, which they would do if they distributed GPL'd software linked against libraries which are under a license that explicitly conflicts with the GPL. As has been explained by several people, multiple times in this thread.

layman's version

[Theatetus]

IAAL(ayman)

From the new XFree license (emphasis added):

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.

The GPL pretty much says that the only restrictions you can place on redistribution are the restrictions in the GPL. You can't add any other restrictions, however harmless they seem -- I guess the argument is that it's the start of a slippery slope, and IIRC some of the old UNIX systems had to have 3 screens worth of notices like that one.

I guess I can see RMS's point: if you let XFree require this notice, maybe Apache will want a notice too. And maybe Wall would want a similar notice for Perl. OK, that's annoying but we could live with it, even if we end up back in the UNIX days of multi-screen credit notices.

But then suppose NVidia releases a driver and says that you have to include an advertisement (not just a credit) for NVidia if you distribute it with the kernel -- or rather, they specify a credit message that many people would consider an advertisement. Well, now we've clearly crossed a line most Linux developers don't want to cross, but it's not exactly clear where that line was in the scenario I just mentioned. NVidia would say "all the other developers got to come up with their own credit text, why can't we say what we want to? If you don't let us have our free speech the terrorists have already won!"

And they'd have a point: if you let some people dictate terms to the GPL you don't have much grounds to keep others from dictating terms, and however innocent the first terms may seem, somebody will find a way to screw it up.

So, you have to kick the camel in the nose while that's still all he has in your tent.

Project leadership

[adrianbaugh]

Is it just me, or does David Dawes sound like an entirely unsuitable person to be entrusted with the leadership of a big project like XFree? I have no idea how l33t a coder he is, and it doesn't really matter. To be a good leader of a project you need to have enormous regard for the stability of the development effort. Cases in point: Linux and GNU. The Linux development effort has changed very little since the early days (the biggest change I can remember was moving to BitKeeper). The license has remained the same; everyone knows what the score is and how to get things done. It works. GNU: everyone knows what license is used for GNU software. For many of the tools the development process seems a bit arcane (maybe I just don't know as much). But everything keeps running nicely. The only occasion I can remember was the gcc/egcs split a few years ago and that wasn't really due to instability in the development effort, rather due to a wish by some people to have a livelier development tree. Eventually all was merged back together and everything went merrily on its way. Again, stability.

Now consider XFree. Code can be licensed under one of several licenses; the whole kaboodle is also licensed under an additional license. This changes every so often, apparently without much notice or reason given. It's no wonder the distributions have finally had enough - now there are other X implementations approaching readiness I bet quite a few are getting ready to leave the sinking XFree ship. Now all we need is nVidia drivers for od.o...

Re:The reason OSS isn't taken seriously...

[amRadioHed]

OSS isn't taken seriously? Maybe someone should tell all these poor suckers relying on it.

Re:nvidia

[forlornhope]

Redhat and the other distributors are not going to stay with 4.3 for the next 5 years. If the license situation is not resolved you will see a fork or see the distributions going with previous forks or the fdo xserver.

I personally see the distributions going with the fdo xserver because a few have already stated that they are switching to the fdo xlibs. I personally predict there will be a fork of xfree4.3 that will basically do mantinence and update drivers and keep it stable till the fdo xserver is ready for prime time. There is a lot of work going into making the fdo X11 distribution much cleaner than that of xfree86. I personally think this switch would have happened in the next year or two anyway, this license change just speeds things up and will only result in xfree86 losing developers much faster.

Maybe these guys should write a HOWTO

[Ryan Amos]

... on becoming irrelevant in the Linux community in 7 days. They did a hell of a job at it. :)

Re:Only to idealogues

[PhilHibbs]

The rest of the computing world doesn't care about the community's "idea of Freedom."

That's like saying "The rest of the world doesn't care about copyright, they just want their free MP3s", which is equally true. However, it's contrary to the law.

Regarding Linus, I presume you're talking about BitKeeper, but that is different as he is not redistributing it.

Re:The reason OSS isn't taken seriously...

[gaijin99]

...is because of issues like this. Idealistic licensing issues.

This is why Propriatary Software isn't taken seriously, because of all the idealistic licensing issues (see SCO vs. IBM, MS vs Everybody, etc).

There is nothing more idealistic about "we want source in exchange for source" than there is about "we want money in exchange for source". Both approacches have problems, both approaches have benefits. The hassles arise when people try to take the source without the payment (the propriatary folks call it "piracy" and everyone nods and agrees that its horrible. Open Source says "licensing violation" and folks like you sneer and lecture about our fruitless idealism). Nice double standard there.

Re:The reason OSS isn't taken seriously...

[Flower]

Hey, you brought up SCO and didn't elaborate on their license. Basically they say, any modifications you make are owned by you but due to the licensing agreement you may only incorporate that code into our products unless you get permission from SCO first.

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.