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.

Comments

From the FAQ

[Space cowboy]

What about GPL-compatibility?

The 1.1 license is not GPL-compatible. To avoid new issues with application programs that may be licensed under the GPL, the 1.1 licence is not being applied to client side libraries.

So, it seems that the main reason for a fork is no longer an issue ? No-one is going to be writing a new X-Server (well, I guess some of the embedded folks might, but that's about all I can think of), and they state that there's no issues with any client programs that you link with ... No problem for most of us then, unless it's for political reasons.

My position is that if you write/own the code you get to say how it's used. I don't think there's *any* argument against that, and I can see why they want to promote themselves in this world where perception is all. The issue is that all decisions have consequences - which may be why client-programs are not part of the deal :-) I seriously doubt that XFree86 *want* a code fork, and I think that freedesktop.org will give them a serious run for their money if the fork goes ahead.

I wonder if the forking argument itself (please say that correctly :-) has gathered sufficient momentum to cause the predicted split though - that would be a pity if so. For all that KDE and Gnome are competing desktops, and they have both co-evolved to their benefit over time, I think two competing windowing-system standards might have a harder time co-evolving... If they didn't, you'd have to wonder why there were 2 in the first place!

Simon.

Re:From the FAQ

[Nuclear Elephant]

No-one is going to be writing a new X-Server

On the contrary, FreeDesktop.org is writing one, and it's A. much more promising (supports some neat things too like drop shadows and translucent menus), and B. based on the original XFree86 libraries.

Re:From the FAQ

[Ianoo]

Xouvert is dead. If you don't believe me check their mailing lists.

Re:From the FAQ

[pe1rxq]

They should stop complaining about it.....
I find it ironic that they choose a license that specificly allows relicensing and brag about its abilities and at the same time complain when somebody actually does it.....

BTW since microsoft used the BSD license ip stack doesn't that make their EULA just as viral by this logic?

Jeroen

Re:From the FAQ

[Guspaz]

Yep, the resolver link is pretty obvious just by the file structure used alone;

c:\winnt\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

And under *nix:

/etc/hosts

Gee, a bit of a similarity there, you think?

Re:From the FAQ

[Nuclear Elephant]

If Linux is going to even have a chance at breaking through to the desktop world, it has to stop looking like crap. With a little customization, and FreeDesktop, I was able to make my desktop look like this: http://www.nuclearelephant.com/images/screenshot.j pg which could compete with a crappintosh any day...but little features and ATTENTION TO DETAIL (something that's missing in Linux) is one of the big reasons the average non-tech individual's going to want to use it. I'd love to see hover expansion and other features too....while I agree stability and functionality is more important, an aesthetically pleasing interface is critical to desktop assimilation.

What other alternatives?

[brainkiller]

What other alternatives are there to Xfree?

Xserver

[MooKore 2004]

Maybe its time to get more people looking at Xserver?

Re:Xserver

[Nuclear Elephant]

I'd switch to FDO if they would write some GLX extensions and add a few more user interface features. As of now it looks awesome, is architected well, but it's a tad slow and useless without GLX. (I'm using the ATI version)

It's time for a redesign, anyway.

[Sheetrock]

The average person is greatly confused by the myriad issues involved with X, such as fonts, the third mouse wheel, TV-Out, printing, and the jillion interfaces available via desktop shells (for which there is no analogue in the Windows world).

Maybe a simpler and GPLed implementation is in order. There's got to be a bunch of tweaks for speed available for the X86 platform that would be possible in something not intended to run in safe mode all the time.

Question

[Anonymous Coward]

The XF86 project is distributing the 4.4 code under only the new license.

Have any of the individual XF86 *contributors* come forward and said their portions of 4.4 may be used under the previous license at the user's option?

Oh REALLY?!?!?

[ZuperDee]

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.

Am I the only one here who thinks it is possible that license change or not, some distributions are getting ready to dump XFree86 in ANY case, due to the other problems it has, like the general arrogance of the core developers, and the lack of a truly open development community, which is largely their doing?

Seriously, I don't think the license change is the major reason, but simply the right occasion for dumping XFree86. Even if they were to revert the license change tomorrow, I for one would still favor seeing forks like Freedesktop.org's server make it into distros, because I believe the license change is only one of MANY indications that XFree86 has far deeper problems that I'm not so sure can be fixed so easily. Just like many organizations and projects in real life, the PEOPLE behind the project are the greatest asset, and I think the XFree86 core team has failed to recognize this. Unless the core team gets a total attitude makeover, I doubt this will ever change.

And XFree86 Inc. has shown to be willing to talk

[Anonymous Coward]

The XFree86 Inc. (that is their board) has shown to be willing to discuss actual issues and concerns. If you look at the first reply to RMS's message in the XFree86 Forum, it is from David Dawes of XFree86 and his willing ness to discuss concerns about the license change.

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.

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.

Hurting DESKTOP linux?

[xanthines-R-yummy]

This may not hurt "real" linux users, but what about granny who's just getting into linux? How will the new liscensing issues affect distros like Lindows and Lycoris whose main target demographics are noobs and windows converts?

This isn't rhetorical! I'd really like to know!

Just Wondering If This Is What Dawes et al. Want?

[judmarc]

I noticed when Googling around about Dawes that (besides the fact that apparently he lives rather close to me) he is running a business based on X, offering stuff like automagic configuration (at least some of which has made it into the X CVS). Could dropping the latest X from the major Linux distros leave Dawes as the only game in town for enterprises seeking the most enterprise-ready solution? And he wouldn't have to take responsibility for pulling it from his competition....

Remember XFree...

[sla291]

XFree is dying, maybe.

Most say that it sucks. I say it's not perfect but check this website : http://www.lynucs.org/

and you'll see that X can really make your desktop very eye-candy. (well, perhaps you already knew ;)

Don't blame XFree too much.. we're pretty all using it, even it may be the time to move on.

What's the license change?

[Lothsahn]

I've been reading through the slashdot stories/posts, and I cannot seem to find anywhere what the problem with the new license is. The fact that xfree86.org is down doesn't help either.

Could someome tell me:
a) What is the license change?
b) Why it is so harmful?

Re:What's the license change?

[Anonymous Coward]

The sibling poster said simply that they added an advertising clause. This may not explain why everyone is in such a furor about it, so I'll explain.

The advertising clause simply requires that people who use the software give credit to the XFree86 organization where other credit is given. If you don't give credit to anyone, then just including the license (which I believe is required anyway) is enough.

Now, why is this such a big deal? Lots of people on Slashdot are wondering this. Why not give credit where it is obviously due? The truth is, nobody is upset about giving credit where credit is due. People are upset about GPL-compatibility.

See, BSD 3-clause licenses and the old X license were GPL compatible, which means that they can be relicensed under the GPL. That means that if I write a program and put it under the GPL, and I also want to use X libraries, I don't have any problems. As you probably know, much of what makes X11 usable on the desktop is GPL'd.

So basically, the problem isn't actually the advertising clause, the problem is that, if, for example, libXext is licensed in a way that is GPL-incompatible, then every GPL program that uses it suddenly can't use it anymore (this is all of GNOME, for example.)

So the problem is much more than just the advertising clause. It's about making X legally incompatible with most of the X apps used on linux today.

And from the BSD side of things, even OpenBSD (who hates the GPL with a passion) is critical of the new license, because it's wording isn't similar enough to legacy BSD licenses.

Re:From the FAQ (re GPL + APL-2.0)

[H4x0r Jim Duggan]

I'm not sure, but I think the Apache 2.0 license has been revised further to make it more clear that it is GNU GPL compatible

Unfortunately not. Instead of fixing the problem, the Apache group made a public statement to say that the incompatibility doesn't exist. - The problem arose from the press release of the Apache License-2.0, in which they gave "GPL compatibility" as a justification for the new license. Note that if you combine a GPL'd and an APL'd work, it's the GPL'd works license that is infringed, so the decision isn't up to the Apache group. The Apache guys might need a good clothes line.

From FSF's license list: The Apache Software License, version 2.0: This is a free software license but it is incompatible with the GPL. The Apache Software License is incompatible with the GPL because it has a specific requirement that is not in the GPL: it has certain patent termination cases that the GPL does not require. (We don't think those patent termination cases are inherently a bad idea, but nonetheless they are incompatible with the GNU GPL.)

RMS doesn't like it?

[EvilAlien]

Someone should tell the XFree86 people, because they seem to think otherwise. The bit on the XFree86 Project License Modification says:

The XFree86 Project, Inc is announcing that it has made a change to its license effective with the Third Release Candidate for the 4.4.0 series. This licence, like our previous, is fully free, (how do we know this? no less than the world authority on free software, RMS, has said so) and it's the hope of the XFree86 Project to no longer allow non-free licences into our tree so we can become a fully free-software compliant X product.

Whatever the issue is, Open Source is going to suffer for this squabble. The GPL acting as a roadblock to integration of new technology for the desktop is just going to prove Microsoft's point that the license is eeeeevvuuuuull. I think this may do more real damage to "The Cause" then the fiaSCO.

Really?

[mindstrm]

Whether the GPL says you have to keep copyright notices or not, stripping copyright notices without permission is already illegal under copyright law. So is fraud.

Claiming someone elses work as your own can constitute fraud. Stripping copyright notices can get you in trouble with the authors as well.

Note that I'm talking about the source here, not the output of the program itself. If the output used to have a banner that said who made it.. that does not need to be kept.

Remember, the GPL only licenses you to do some stuff.. it does not remove copyright law.

In fact, being forced to keep a list of contributors in the source of copywritten code should be just FINE, and in fact, encouraged, by everyone...

Are you for real?

[bonch]

as Linux desktop adoption has surpassed Apple's

Ahahaha...you're referring to that debunked Slashdot article, aren't you?

Even if Linux DID surpass OS X, it's doing extremely poorly considering OS X kicks Linux's ass in the apps department.

XFree86/freedesktop-kernel interaction?

[0x0d0a]

Alan,

I dunno how much you dabble with the related code, but how likely is a fork of X going to be to cause issues with the fact that X interfaces with kernel modules...say, freedesktop.org wants to go one way, and XFree86 wants to go another...which supporting code goes in the kernel, or is that a non-issue? I know that it's already caused fun for the Red Hat packagers, who never really expected to have to support multiple XFree86-libs-style packages...

Re:XFree86 and licensing

[leandrod]

> back in 1998 The Open Group (now known as X.org) changed the licensing of X R6.4 to be proprietary, and only backed down when XFree86 and David Dawes explained exactly what they could with their proprietary server.

Not quite. I had a sideline participation at the time, emailing the X folks and putting them in contact with RMS.

In fact RMS and X were working out an agreement to GNU GPL the whole shebang, thus keeping it free while preserving The Open Group's interests, but XFree was adamant against it.

That move at the time would have preserved X.org, which today is basically a non-entity.