[plug] Y-Windows project back in gear

[James Devenish]

In message <20040218103536.GI1893 at patrick.wattle.id.au>
on Wed, Feb 18, 2004 at 06:35:36PM +0800, Cameron Patrick wrote:
> In other news, it sounds as though XFree86 4.4 isn't going to be
> distributed by Debian, Mandrake, Red Hat or OpenBSD for [licensing]
> reasons

In message <1077153763.40340fe3c1ab0 at mail.iinet.net.au>
on Thu, Feb 19, 2004 at 09:22:43AM +0800, sscott at iinet.net.au wrote:
> Was this prompted by XFree86's license mods? I saw that a lot of the major 
> distros arent shipping 4.4 due to this.
> 
> What's the big deal anyway? Are people having problems with the notion that 
> they cant claim they wrote XFree86, or is this a more technical licensing issue?

In message <39677.203.19.158.22.1077163211.squirrel at webmail.swiftdsl.com.au>
on Thu, Feb 19, 2004 at 12:00:11PM +0800, chris.griffin at swiftdsl.com.au wrote:
> Is someone having trouble with the "Free" part of XFree86?

I have read that the new XFree86 licence is incompatible with the GPL.
If non-GPL software is linked with GPL software, the view of the FSF is
that the distribution of that software must be done under the terms of
the GPL (I think the claim is that the combined work is considered to be
a "derived work"). Only GPL-compatible software can satisfy this
requirement.

As for OpenBSD, it is fairly strict about licences: they must be
sufficiently free, they must be explicit and unambiguous. BSD licences
satisfy this. In the case of the new XFree86 licence, it is not a BSD
licence and it is somewhat of a "backward step" for OpenBSD: it involves
the introduction of a new advertising clause. This makes it undesirable.
In the case of undesirable, ambiguous or missing licences, the normal
course of action is to contact the copyright holder to seek repairs. (If
this is not possible, the software needs to be removed.) Having tried
this, the situation for OpenBSD boils down to something simple: Theo de
Raadt doesn't like the licence. You will note that the new licence
contains the following clause:

  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. 

One problem is very simple: OpenBSD is a small project in many regards,
and restrictions such as (3) are not the sort of thing with which people
are comfortable. It means the developers, documenters, distributors,
etc. have to keep this out-of-the-ordinary exception in mind. That's
something they've been trying to phase out.