Re: XFree86 license difficulties
On Fri, Jan 30, 2004 at 12:31:44PM -0700, paul cannon wrote:
> Since this issue has made it to slashdot [1], it may be the appropriate
> time for some discussion here. I haven't seen any here yet, but I may
Mentioning slashdot in the first line of a post isn't a good way to gain
credibility. :)
> To summarize, an announcement [2] by David Dawes from last night indicates
> that the XFree86 Project, Inc. intends to release version 4.4.0 with a
> different license than the one it had before.
Well, it was nice for a while, being able to say the "X11 license" and have
everyone know what you meant: the simplest commonplace permissive license
available.
> The change that causes problems is the addition of the third condition:
>
> ] 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.
>
> Several posters on slashdot and elsewhere have mentioned the similarity
> between this and the old, obnoxious BSD "advertising clause":
>
> ] 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this
> ] software must display the following acknowledgement:
> ] This product includes software developed by the University of
> ] California, Berkeley and its contributors.
Requiring an acknowledgement in the documentation (README) isn't comparable
to requiring it in advertising (banner ads).
I believe it's still GPL-incompatible. See "The Phorum License, Version
1.2" on http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html .
--
Glenn Maynard
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