jschauma writes "It appears that, unlike many other Open Source projects, NetBSD did not find any serious problems
with the much-debated license change of XFree86 4.4.0: it was just imported
into the tree."
Re:Explain
by
Via_Patrino
·
· Score: 5, Informative
I don't know very well since it (what's covered or not) changes all the time, the major problem is with linking.
With the new version you can't make link to GPL programs using Xfree86 As most of the programs (even on *BSD projects) are GPL you can't not run them (I think an exception is when you compile yourself). I'm not sure that problem was resolved.
The other problem is with code reutilization. A lot of people don't want to contribute to a project where code won't be possible to be used in other projects that use GPL (don't know about BSD) because they're incompatible licenses.
Ok, you usually hold copyright for your own code, but, in a project, code often mix so much with other people code. And you don't just code: you debug, test and improve existing code.
Those people aren't interested in making that effort to a code that will be just used by projects (compatible) with that license.
Dude, you are so far out in left field, you may as well start planting daisies.
The new license does *NOT* apply to any of the XFree86 libraries. Hence, there *ARE NO CHANGES* in the way things work, regarding linking to XFree86 libraries. IOW, NOTHING HAS CHANGED, in this regard.
The reason for the bruhaha is nothing more than laziness on the part of the various distros. They don't want to take the time to put "This project includes software from the XFree86 Project." into any of the end-user documentation. IOW, nobody wants to give credit to the XFree86 Project, yet they all want to use software from the XFree86 Project.
Re:Explain
by
Via_Patrino
·
· Score: 4, Informative
All right, I said before I wasn't sure. That's why I didn't give myself karma. But since other people tagged me informative/interesting or they knew very little about the subject (I'm not so far) or there's some real stuff in my comment.
Probably the license on the libs didn't changed, but the news about it did (there was a lot of confusion when the license changed).
Then I prefer to link to what Branden Robinson and Theo de Raadt say. Theo (from this and other posts) and other members of the openbsd team seen to be concerned about wording, future legal problems and making openbsd less free.
Re:Duh
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Actually you wouldn't expect any of the Linux distros to have a problem either, since the XFree86 libraries are NOT under this new license.
They were when this whole mess began.
But I guess it's just too much fun waging holy wars...
Yes, Mandrake and other distributions intentionally dropped a new version with new features and better driver support because it was fun. Either that or they couldn't tolerate a last-minute license switch that wasn't discussed and they weren't warned about.
Re:Explain
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 2, Informative
"The community" is welcome to fork the project and do what they want with it.
*You* are personally contributing to this new effort, right? *You* are personally cranking out gpl-safe code for freedesktop.org, right?
What's that? You're not? Then get over the religious license noise and give credit where credit is due: to the xfree86 people who have put actual real honest to god time into making something totally for *free* for all the useless lazy non-contributors such as yourself and only want a lousy "xfree86 wrote some of this" stuck in the same place where all the other third party people get credit.
"The community" has no right to expect anything from anyone that "the community" isn't paying for.
I'm so sick and tired of all you whiners out here putting all your tedious demands on people who are donating their time, skill, and experience so you can have free stuff. Talk about looking a gift horse in the mouth....
yeah theo can show and put their hands where his mouth is.
WE want to see that XFree86 openbsd fork.
Add to that an Apache fork either.
OpenBSD imported the latest release candidate of Xfree86 with the old license (minus a few files with new license) for use in the upcoming OpenBSD 3.5. So this could be considered a fork.
The Apache httpd server (1.3.29 + patches of about 4000 lines) is in maintenance mode, and Apache httpd 2.0 won't be in OpenBSD anytime soon, with or without the new license.
the XFree86 libraries are NOT under this new license.
Sure, Xlib isn't under the new XFree86 license, but some of the other client libraries such as the one for XRender support are, which makes XRender of XFree86 4.4 incompatible with GPL apps.
FreeBSD
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 5, Informative
According to a FreeBSD-x11 thread, XFree86 4.4.0 will definitely be integrated to FreeBSD's ports collection too.
It looks like the license is only a problem for some Linux distros and Theo.
Oh swweet! It's just like like "Where's Waldo"!
Here is what you are looking for(part not in apache):
"and in the same place and form as other copyright, license and disclaimer information."
And here is the complete section from the XFree86 License V1.1:
"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."
The argument is that if everyone requires them to place their information everywhere that there is a copyright, etc... that this could get out of control.
The apache license is vague enough to allow you to place the license in a file included with with the binary instead of everywhere in your distro.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know very well since it (what's covered or not) changes all the time, the major problem is with linking.
With the new version you can't make link to GPL programs using Xfree86 As most of the programs (even on *BSD projects) are GPL you can't not run them (I think an exception is when you compile yourself). I'm not sure that problem was resolved.
The other problem is with code reutilization. A lot of people don't want to contribute to a project where code won't be possible to be used in other projects that use GPL (don't know about BSD) because they're incompatible licenses.
Ok, you usually hold copyright for your own code, but, in a project, code often mix so much with other people code. And you don't just code: you debug, test and improve existing code.
Those people aren't interested in making that effort to a code that will be just used by projects (compatible) with that license.
Dude, you are so far out in left field, you may as well start planting daisies.
The new license does *NOT* apply to any of the XFree86 libraries. Hence, there *ARE NO CHANGES* in the way things work, regarding linking to XFree86 libraries. IOW, NOTHING HAS CHANGED, in this regard.
The reason for the bruhaha is nothing more than laziness on the part of the various distros. They don't want to take the time to put "This project includes software from the XFree86 Project." into any of the end-user documentation. IOW, nobody wants to give credit to the XFree86 Project, yet they all want to use software from the XFree86 Project.
All right, I said before I wasn't sure. That's why I didn't give myself karma. But since other people tagged me informative/interesting or they knew very little about the subject (I'm not so far) or there's some real stuff in my comment.
Probably the license on the libs didn't changed, but the news about it did (there was a lot of confusion when the license changed).
Then I prefer to link to what Branden Robinson and Theo de Raadt say.
Theo (from this and other posts) and other members of the openbsd team seen to be concerned about wording, future legal problems and making openbsd less free.
Actually you wouldn't expect any of the Linux distros to have a problem either, since the XFree86 libraries are NOT under this new license.
They were when this whole mess began.
But I guess it's just too much fun waging holy wars...
Yes, Mandrake and other distributions intentionally dropped a new version with new features and better driver support because it was fun. Either that or they couldn't tolerate a last-minute license switch that wasn't discussed and they weren't warned about.
"The community" is welcome to fork the project and do what they want with it.
*You* are personally contributing to this new effort, right? *You* are personally cranking out gpl-safe code for freedesktop.org, right?
What's that? You're not? Then get over the religious license noise and give credit where credit is due: to the xfree86 people who have put actual real honest to god time into making something totally for *free* for all the useless lazy non-contributors such as yourself and only want a lousy "xfree86 wrote some of this" stuck in the same place where all the other third party people get credit.
"The community" has no right to expect anything from anyone that "the community" isn't paying for.
I'm so sick and tired of all you whiners out here putting all your tedious demands on people who are donating their time, skill, and experience so you can have free stuff. Talk about looking a gift horse in the mouth....
OpenBSD imported the latest release candidate of Xfree86 with the old license (minus a few files with new license) for use in the upcoming OpenBSD 3.5. So this could be considered a fork.
The Apache httpd server (1.3.29 + patches of about 4000 lines) is in maintenance mode, and Apache httpd 2.0 won't be in OpenBSD anytime soon, with or without the new license.
the XFree86 libraries are NOT under this new license.
Sure, Xlib isn't under the new XFree86 license, but some of the other client libraries such as the one for XRender support are, which makes XRender of XFree86 4.4 incompatible with GPL apps.
According to a FreeBSD-x11 thread, XFree86 4.4.0 will definitely be integrated to FreeBSD's ports collection too.
It looks like the license is only a problem for some Linux distros and Theo.
The argument is that if everyone requires them to place their information everywhere that there is a copyright, etc... that this could get out of control.
The apache license is vague enough to allow you to place the license in a file included with with the binary instead of everywhere in your distro.