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SGI Releases OpenGL As Free Software

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the let-my-graphics-go dept.

StoneLion writes "Since its release, the OpenGL code that is responsible for 3-D acceleration on GNU/Linux has been running on licenses that were accepted by neither the Free Software Foundation (FSF) nor the Open Source Initiative. Today, however, the FSF has announced that the licenses in question have been rewritten, the problems resolved, and the code freed. Peter Brown, executive director of the FSF, says, 'This represents a huge gift to the free software community.'"

3 of 167 comments (clear)

  1. How does this effect the OpenGL patents? by Black+Art · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There are still a number of patents covering portions of the OpenGL functions. Does this grant a license for use or are we stuck with partial implementations?

    --
    "Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."
  2. The important lesson here is. by LWATCDR · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Don't be a jerk about it. From the article.

    "Someone came to me on IRC and asked if people should start sending angry faxes to SGI, telling them to please clean up their licenses. And I was like, 'No, that's not the right message right now.' We were trying to avoid that kind of reaction, because among the people in the GNewSense community, there was a visceral reaction initially, and it took some time for people to realize that we needed to give them a chance. And it really paid off. SGI was very willing to work with us throughout the entire process.""

    --
    See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
  3. Re:Good news? by apathy+maybe · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The code was already "free" for a given definition of "free", however, three problems were identified.

    The old licences:

    • "forbid the distribution of code that infringes on somebody else's intellectual property rights"
    • distributors of the code are required to obey any export laws that might apply
    • require users to inform the distributor if they learn of any potential intellectual property infringement of code releases under the licenses

    As such, it was easy to modify the code, but it wasn't free or open enough by the standards of either the Free Software Foundation or the Open Source Initiative.

    OpenGL is a standard, just like Java is. The fact that there are many implementations of those standards doesn't mean that there is a problem. Besides which, it doesn't really matter, most people will code for the reference implementation (Sun Java and SGI OpenGL).

    --
    I wank in the shower.