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XFree86 4.4 Released
puriots0 writes "XFree86 version 4.4 is finally out! Grab it while it's still hot, if you don't mind the recent licensing changes... And if you don't care about the license, but the maintainers of your distribution do, this might be the only way to get it for the moment." The XFree86 people seem very eager to claim that the new license is nothing bad; see their FAQ. However, people who have reviewed it, such as RMS and Branden Robinson, think differently. It looks as if the XFree86 people have a short timespan to either rethink their license changes or be dropped from every/almost every Linux distribution in favor of a forked codebase.
Its not just linux, the BSDs are against these changes too. Ironicly too, since their licence used to be like this one.
found here
No, in a little while they will prove that nomatter what companies/organizations do it will continue fine without them....
The great thing about free software is that you can only be in control as long as you don't piss off a critical set of developpers.
Jeroen
Secure messaging: http://quickmsg.vreeken.net/
Here's the deal.. if the new license isn't such a big deal, why doesn't the XFree group revert ot the old one? There is something in the new license that is really important to them, so its not exactly a minor wording change. If this were a lot of trouble over nothing, they would have backed off to a license they've _been_ releasing code under for years. I'll stick with the version that people with more legal experience than me say is best. I thank RMS and the distros for watching out for me by keeping up with these licensing issues.
Sure, it seems bad while it's happening, but in the end you get a better product. Often projects get way too political and forking is a way to bypass that bureaucratic nightmare.
Divide and conquer...
We're fighting ourselves on this issue. Not until this licensing problem is sorted out will big companies be able to take deploying Linux based desktop machines seriously...
It's apparent that IP laws are more and more important to people who job is to write software.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
no, this is a good move from the distro side. x11 needs to be gpl compatible. it is madness to rewrite all the progs using it. I really hope freedesktop shows there head in this round. they truly have a great potential.
I don't see linux being hurt by this, only XFree86.
In my opinion, the sooner Linux drops XF86, the better it will be for Linux.
No, it's an advantage. If MS suddenly changed the MSHTML license that said it couldn't be used by free programs what would happen? The only choice would be to get a new HTML renderer like Gecko, because XFree is open source we can take the code that is still under the free license and fork a new copy under a free license.
This is the first version of X that many of its end packagers (linux distros, bsds, etc) have explicitly rejected. What will be the motivation to pursue further development that no one is using? This group just (xFree) 86'd themselves with petty sqaubbling. Thanks for the memories but I think its goodnight Vienna for XFree86.
What happens when closed source developpers stop developping? What if they get another job?
If the company doesn't wan't to develop anymore your screwed, otherwise they would have to hire new programmers....
The free software alternative is better:
No matter what the original author does, you can always do (or have done) it yourself. And that is just asuming you are the only one that cares.
If the project is really interesting someone will eventually pick it up or replace it.
A rational person that doesn't see that is blind.
Jeroen
Secure messaging: http://quickmsg.vreeken.net/
I think part of the concern is over long-term intent. Mr. Dawes says applying the license to client-side libraries is "deferred", implying that it might be applied sometime later, though it appears that he thinks GPL compatibilty for the client-side libraries is somewhat important.
Apache used to have an advertising clause and dropped it, yet people still know about Apache. Moreover, the number of people who will even notice these "advertisements" are fairly few -- how many ordinary folk are going to read and understand these lists of attributions? If they want XFree86.org to be on everyone's lips (for positive reasons), they'll need something more than this clause.
The Busy Coder's Guide to Android Development
Can we get rid of the X11R6 subdir? (once again, stop thinking X is a world to itself)?
Just two suggestions for the post-XFree86 era.
It prevents you including GPL-licensed code in an X server derived from XFree86; that is enough reason for Debian to avoid the new release, it seems.
Huh? It is well known that you cannot freely mix BSD (old 4 clause or new 3 clause) licensed code with GPL code in the same code base. You would have to make it entirely GPL, which is the 'viral' nature of GPL that BSD fans complain about.
Y Windows is currently under heavy development and not yet suited for end-users -- and is unlikely to be so for a while.
Linux will get nowhere in the consumer market for as long as any user-- anywhere-- has to be aware of the existence of the XF86Config file.
You're always dependent on some developers, not necessarily the same developers as you've always had.
What happens if the developers just stop developing?
What happens if the developers just stop developing a closed-source product?
With an abandoned closed-source product, you've got nothing to do except look for an alternative, use the old version, or write one yourself from scratch.
With an abandoned open-source product, you can get new devs on your team, or the code can be forked. No open source project is truly abandoned if there is continued interest in developing it.
live(free) || die;
BTW since microsoft used the BSD license ip stack doesn't that make their EULA just as viral by this logic?
Yes, you cannot take any Microsoft changes to the BSD tcp/ip stack and re-introduce them back into BSD code bases, since the EULA prevents that.
It is KDE and Gnome that affect them, and they are both working hard to be freindly to them. Granny doesn't know about Xfree86, all she sees is the freindly K icon to launch her programs. XFree86 4.3 is already good enough, Lycoris and Lindows don't even use the latest versions (KDE 2.2 for Lycoris and KDE 3.0 for Lindows.
found here
RMS designed the GPL to be hard to work with. It seems a bit myopic to now act all surprised that it is working as designed and to try to blame everyone else for its inflexible nature.
That the GPL can't coexist with other licenses was a design goal of the GPL. It's unreasonable to be upset with deverlopers using other licenses for this fact which is beyond their control.
grep through the sources and you'll see it was incompatible before.
I don't see the problem with the new "Give us credit where you give others credit" license.
And not having the need for this backing is the great thing. The moment this backing dissapears for a closed source program you have no option what so ever. If that happens to an open source program than you can still use it, make legal copies of it and can even improve it.
You see software as a product, you should regard is as infrastructure. Somehow a society manages to build and support a road system.... and its not by magic.
When the original builder is gone you can still use the road, and if you don't know how to fill a hole you get somebody to do it for you. And if you are really lucky you will get some community of road users to do it collectivly (something like a government perhaps?)
Jeroen
Secure messaging: http://quickmsg.vreeken.net/
Ironicly too, since their [BSD] licence used to be like this one.
It seems that experience is a good teacher after all...
The GPL is much more encumbered than the XFree license. Who are you to say which emcumberments should be allowed and which are "stupid"?
Either you believe that programmers should be free to license their code as they see fit, or you don't. It's not Freedom if the community is going to deny the legitimacy of licenses that RMS didn't write.
Instead of freaking out, we as a community just drop 4.4 out the window, and stick with 4.3 until a viable alternative X server comes out.
As long as someone still develops drivers for 4.3, its not the end of the world. ( yes, its a major speed bump and makes the OSS world look stupid for the bickering.. but its not a show stopper )
And remember its just the XF86Free implementation that is hosed up now, not the X11 protocol..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Perhaps it's best to list the main changes or include a link to the changelog.
I think that the reason this is coming up now is BECAUSE of all the threats of forks. I think these people want to make everything else seem like a complete fork.
These licensing problems and forks will turn out to be the downfall of Linux.
I'd call forking natural selection... and while it can be painful, I would say it makes things stronger. Projects that head out into the weeds loose mind share (developers, users, 'buzz' if you will..) and disappear. The beauty of Linux is you get to scratch your itch. Often others share the same problem, and may share a solution. Someone running the project goes off into a wild tangent, good for them. Might be a little pain as you switch to something that is more aligned to what you were after, but odds are you can.
A personal example? I let myself get lulled into the RPM package management and really felt like I got the shaft when RH dropped the 'non-enterprise' user who did not have mad cash for per machine/per year subscriptions. All the packaged distros seemed to share the same Achilles heel (in my mind). Hunkered down and went Gentoo rather than putting energy into Fedora. If ebuilds fade away, I'll look at the app-get thing...
Forking thins the hurd (-1, terrible joke)
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
Maybe now linux can get a modern desktop architecture. Hopefully XFree86 won't fork... It's time to start from scratch and look towards the future.
These guys are wanting some attention, so they whine a little and get nothing. Then they force the issue and get the wrong sort.
Seems to me, credit is given where credit is due. If they actually were doing something worth really knowing about, wouldn't they actually get it? We have been seeing little spats happen for long enough now to raise a few eyebrows. Personally, I suspect some deeper problems behind this.
We need an active X development group that does everything it can to enable *nix systems to continue to develop. We don't need these petty squabbles.
Those of us who know what X brings to the table are happy using X. Replacing it really should not be an option at this point; however, I see plenty of folks not happy with X as it is today.
This is exactly why they are not getting the attention they crave. The job is not being done well enough plain and simple.
Fork or no, this is going to continue to be a problem until a group forms that can step up to the plate and hit a few home runs. Will it be the XFree guys or somebody else?
Whoever gets X development moving as it needs to will get all the attention they need. Stupid license clauses won't cut it.
Blogging because I can...
The discussion right here on the page you are reading clearly demonstrates that in the minds of many people XFree86 should not have this freedom. I see more people who are distressed because XFree has chosen a license which is not the GPL than I see people who are distressed over the actual terms of the Xfree86 license. It seems that that choosing a non-GPL license is an untenable and damnable offense in the eyes of some who are now calling for the prejudicial abandonment of XFree86 for strictly dogmatic reasons.
It's one thing to not accept a license because headstands are uncomfortable. It's an entirely different and worse thing to denounce a developer for choosing a license that isn't the one you favor. I see far more of the latter going on here than I see the former.
Finally, The GPL does demand more than your vague perception of it appears to encompass. However, that's not really relevant to my point.
And why on earth is that promising? Where, oh where are you trying to take Linux? I thought Linus said this was the year Linux is going to break through to the desktop - if so, I think we should mainly focus on finishing up the user interface and making it more robust, not on stupid interface modification like shadows and transparency that only make it more difficult to do anything remotely useful, but look cool.
just wondering, why do you think many of the windows 2000 folks upgraded to XP? because it had a shiny happy interface. it might not be a good reason to upgrade, but it is a fact that 99% of the users love eye candy over stability/usability/security whatever. I myself think kde and such have enough eye candy already. I really can't care is they use real or fake transparantie. I agree with you that it is time to work on creating stable good code. there is allready enough candy for everybody.
I think there may be a licence incompatibility in that any work derived from the BSD code must give credit in docs and help screens, but the GPL does not have any such restriction, so if you tried to distribute the work under the GPL then you would have lost the restriction about giving credit, and (by some legal theory I don't understand and which may or may not exist) the people who get the code from you and try to exercise their rights under the GPL would be infringing the copyright on the BSD-licensed code.
Similarly, if I had some code that said 'you can use this but only while doing a handstand' and tried to combine it with GPL'd code, I couldn't distribute the resulting work under the GPL because people receiving it wouldn't know about the handstand condition. I would have to distribute it under 'GPL plus handstand' - but then this wouldn't be allowed by the GPLd code I started with, since you're not allowed to add extra restrictions.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
Advertising clauses are a nightmare to manage and for anything with a UI really the wrong way to get noticed.
An XFree86 logo during the X server startup would get noticed!
Maybe a simpler and GPLed implementation is in order.
Simpler. That means none of the complex stuff that confuses newbies. If you need TV-out, screw you. If you need printing, screw you. If you need that third mouse wheel, screw you. Truetype only, so go away you smelly unwashed Type1 font user!
GPLed implementation. If you think the current license controversy is worrisome, wait until you get X libraries under the GPL! NOTHING can be an X application unless it's under the GPL, because the GPL is not compatible with anything but itself. That means no Blackbox (and most of its derivatives). No KWin or Kicker for KDE. Nothing that's under the Artistic, BSD, MIT, MPL, etc. licenses will be allowed. If you can't understand why this is a problem, stop drinking the FSF Kool-Aid and wake up!
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
many people feel that it's stupid for xfree86 people to do this because for practicalitys sake most people can't start using it(4.4) 'right'. they knew it too, they knew that it would be an issue and would hinder it's adaptation, yet they chose to ignore that fact. it's little things like that why the distros are looking elsewhere for alternatives(and are likely to jump boat as soon as they can).
of course if they just want to keep(turn it back into) it as an academic research project then by all means changing the license this way is a great move(nah, even for that there would be better ways).
what you're supposed to do when you see somebody doing something that you think is very stupid? tell them that "YOU RULE!!! GO GO GO GO!!!"? or make a blunt statement that their actions don't seem to make sense?
gpl demands more, that is true, but more projects use it (and have chosen it) and gpl compatibility seems to be quite an issue!
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
You're free to write code with any license you want, and you're equally free to let code with a license you don't like languish in disuse and obscurity. That's freedom.
Don't drop the soap, Tommy!
If I write a GPLed library, I DON'T WANT some selfish asshole of a developer linking against it to develop his proprietary application.
If said developer wants exclusive proprietary control over his code... he can write his code his f*king self.
which predates the OpenSource movement, and all this other Free licenses
It predated the name "Open Source", but it did not predate all other Free and Open Source licenses. The BSD and MIT licenses are two that predated the GPL. In addition, the idea of Free Software predates the GPL by at least two decades, though it was RMS who first insisted on the capitalization of the term.
if you Beleive in Free Software, there is no real reason to use a license other than the GPL.
If you believe in Democracy, there is no real reason to vote for any but the Democrat Party candidate! Now be a good citizen and vote like I tell you to vote...
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
over his code... he can write his code his f*king self.
He does write *his* code himself, he just uses yours as well. If you didn't want it used, you wouldn't have released it as OSS would you?
I think the GPL would be fine if it said that the GPL code you use must be redistributed, and open, but that your code that *you* write can be licensed anyway *you* want it.
Its not free source code if you demand payment *in any form* for it. That's why its not Free as in beer. And I think it should be - if I write free code, I want it to be like a gift to others.
Eh? Linux isn't going to have "even a chance" if it doesn't have gumdrop widgets, translucency, drop-shadows and other visual frills which add NOTHING to productivity?
Ah yeah, because Windows 95 never had a chance did it? Not MacOS before X? You have no idea what you're talking about. Desktop success comes via a strong application base, reliability, ease-of-updating and other factors.
It's in no way "critical", as other OSes have shown. Besides, your "even a chance" is nonsensical, as Linux desktop adoption has surpassed Apple's. It's still small, but it's growing rapidly.
Please back up your outrageous claims with some real data. I, for one, upgraded to XP only because the IT folks told me I had to. I'm not sure why they decided everyone needed to upgrade, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't because they wanted everyone to have more eye candy. And when I did finally upgrade, I immediately turned off all the silly PreSkool fluff and made it look like Win95/2000 again.
And besides, even if you're right, Linux is in a different place in the "hierarchy of needs" than Windows right now. Windows users haven't had to worry about lack of useful documentation or easy configuration for years, so they can afford to obsess over eye candy more than poor Linux users who have enough trouble just getting their printing to work
More effort should be going to providing more usable and better documented GUIs, not making more eye candy. But this is open source, and people work on what they want to work on. And people don't want to work on making things usable. There's no fun in that. You can't post to Slashdot saying "hey! i was just up programming all night -- check out my new highly usable CUPS setup wizard". No one will care, because the folks reading Slashdot all got CUPS working ages ago. What do they care if it's now easier to do? But you can post "check out these super new transparent menus!" and all the 14-year olds will gasp in awe and amazement and call you a h4X0r 60D.
you might have noticed already, but Xfree itself is hardly suited for end users.
The most visible bloat in software today is the combination of KDE and Xfree. Kill it quick, before it spreads!
No, from what I'm told, the main reason to fork is the attitude taken by some members of the XFree Core Team.
More than simple attitude, the 1.1 license is a bold declaration that you can't trust them.
RMS also claims that the new licensing policy will "eliminate the (GPL) incompatibility with applications".
No, the page you pointed to does not say that. Read the fucking
page again.
Actually I think the unfortunate thing is that people have spent a year being pseudo-nice to each other instead of just forking the tree when Keith got kicked out. Thats probably done more harm than good.
...)
The problem with the license is one of changes. You can't go around springing new licensing suprises on people without expecting them to be upset - whatever the license (as MS themselves have found
Now its over everyone can back to work sanely and Dave Dawes can go and do his own thing in Dawes-space, or throw in the towel and contribute to the X.org tree. I still hope the latter because I don't think Dave Dawes did anything maliciously or without belieiving he was doing the right thing for X, he just seems to have been wrong.
Alan
Alan
It is not clear why XFree86 has to modify their license to suit a Linux distribution, which is suppose to be a compilation of Free/Open Source Linux software, not a dictator of Open Source.
Of course they don't `have to' do anything. But whether they (or you) like it or not, Debian and other distros have a fair amount of influence, and if they all move to some other system, the XFree86 project could end up being marginalized, and I doubt they want that.
If these arm chair lawyers are so concerned about GPL, why don't they write a new X Window System from scratch, and release it for free/Free under the GPL.
Because they don't have to -- they can just take XFree86 4.3.xxx and fork it. Easy!
[and thus the beauty of free software is illustrated.]
We live, as we dream -- alone....
Isn't MS laughing over this whole affair?
Graphics card makers refuse to release info allowing Open Source drivers to take full advantage of their hardware; heck, people gush over the major proctalgia of NVidia's driver that you get to recompile every time there's a kernel upgrade.
Now XFree86 decides to change its license in a way that is incompatible with GPL, so that Linux distributions refuse to use XFree86 4.4. The free alternatives (freedesktop.org, Y, etc.) need rewritten drivers. Does anyone think the hardware vendors will write multiple drivers when it's hard enough to pry one out of them?
PCI Express is on its way, and the claim is that it will kill AGP. How long will one be able to survive with a free X, or XFree86 4.3? (Not a rhetorical question; I don't know enough about the hardware to say, and really would like an answer.)
You are absolutely correct, but the fundamental support for certain functions needs to be there in order to code these things into higher-level applications. Presently it is not - when FDO did its shadowing completely software-rendered (no hardware acceleration) it was too slow to use.
OK. Enough talking about licence changes. How about talking about the new release and what new exciting things it provides? I browsed through the entire release notes and could not find a single thing that will get me excited about trying out the new release. Nothing like, xrandr in 4.3 release or sub-pixel anti-aliased fonts in 4.1/4.2. In fact, nothing other than bug fixes that would benefit X for desktop user. I guess Keith Packard's absense is being felt in this release notes. Am I missing something that you noticed?
Debian will probably switch to freedesktop.org packages much quicker than previous XFree86 packages due to upstream finally maintaining them properly. XFree86 was monolithic, freedesktop.org is not. XFree86 never cared about non-x86 architectures, it appears freedestkop.org will. XFree86 was a closed development model, freedesktop.org isn't...
Fedora, Mandrake, OpenBSD and others have also "no thanksed" the new licence.
XFree86 has been willing to talk, but not (quoth Theo deRaadt) to "use the same words" as every other advertising-clause BSD licence. Talk the talk, yes, but walking the walk hasn't happened much.
I would personally be happy to add a splash screen or whatever, but not to be required to so do.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Windows users haven't had to worry about lack of useful documentation or easy configuration for years, so they can afford to obsess over eye candy
Hmmm, where is this `useful documentation' you speak of? The windows documentation I'm familiar with (not happily, but sometimes you gotta do unpalatable things) is for the most part completely useless, e.g., it simply restates what is already obvious, without giving any deeper insight or addressing common problems...
We live, as we dream -- alone....
...at least 99% of known squabbles. (-:
I find it much more productive to start from the premise that I'm wrong, even if it goes squarely against my nature.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Such Unix intellectual property do not belong to anybody, it is pretty obvious that Linux doesn't own that intellectual property. BSD is funded by American tax dollars, thus any American company has the right to use such public information. It doesn't even make sense to criticize an American company from using the intellectual property funded by their own tax dollars. So let's shut up and do something useful for Linux, if that's your real concern.
Keith and other motivated devs couldn't get anything into X in the first place, that is why they left.
And THAT is why there is nothing big in this release.
If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. - James Madison
NOTHING can be an X application unless it's under the GPL, because the GPL is not compatible with anything but itself. That means no Blackbox (and most of its derivatives). No KWin or Kicker for KDE. Nothing that's under the Artistic, BSD, MIT, MPL, etc. licenses will be allowed. If you can't understand why this is a problem, stop drinking the FSF Kool-Aid and wake up!
BZZT, sorry, you lose. The GPL is compatible with many licenses, in particular, many of those you mention.
I agree that a GPLed X server would be a bad idea, but because there are many applications that are offered under GPL-incompatible licenses, not because everything is incompatible with the GPL. The vast majority of Free Software is compatible with the GPL.
Two reasons why the GPL shouldn't be changed:
* One: the GPL covers *far*, *far* more software than XFree86. The XFree86 codebase, large as it is perhaps a hundredth of a percent of the GPLed software out there.
* Two: This is not about the license so much as political crap about XFree86. Some people have wanted to fork for a while and are just looking for a reason.
Frankly, I think XFree86 is a lousy thing to fork, because it's the sort of software that's a bitch to maintain, but if KP is up to it, freedesktop.org may be worthwhile. He certainly has the backing of a lot of people, and RH's been making moves towards switching to freedesktop.org for a while.
May we never see th
The problem isn't about not wanting too put the Aurthor's name(s) in the documentation, the problem is that the GPL doesn't allow you too be forced too do so (that isn't free). And you're right the GPL is a little inflexible when it comes too freedom, and changing the GPL would defeed the purpose of that licens. With that said, I do however believe that it is the authors right (and freedom) to choose which licens his/hers software is released under.
And I'm sad by this imcompatibility, and strongly hope that the problems will be resolved, and NO forking isn't the solution.
No. One of the nice things I like about the Linux world is the software respects me the user, instead of trying to control me. I avoid software that doesn't respect me. Now SCO incompatibilies won't effect me, but I will boycott such software on principle.
Now, if someone decides they don't want to put in the time and effort to make their code compatible with SCO software, that is an entirely different matter. That I have no problem with. But neither will I criticize hackers for maintaining compatibility.
From what I've heard, SCO stuff is already outdated, and given the recent direction of the company, they don't need help in driving their customers away.
The furor over the license is generated by commercial interests and little else.
I've heard Theo deRaad and Branden Robinson come out against this license, and neither of them are connected to commercial interests. The furor comes from someone creating yet another license with the obnoxious, unliked, BSD advertising clause (which NetBSD and OpenBSD has worked to remove from their systems, and Berkeley removed from all the original BSD code) and applying it to an ancient codebase that has always been licensed under the most liberal of terms.
Sure, but still, you can link BSD-licensed code with a GPL-licensed library.
Only if the resulting executable is licensed under the GPL. Since the FSF considers dynamic linking to be derivation, I am FORBIDDEN to distribute any BSD licensed work that links to GPL libraries.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!