Re: SGI Free SW license 1.1 compatability with Xfree86 style license
>> Henning Makholm <henning@makholm.net> writes:
> Scripsit "Marcelo E. Magallon" <mmagallo@debian.org>
>
> > Attached is a text version converted using mswordview,
>
> It looks mostly OK to me at first read.
Would it be worth to contact SGI and ask for clarifications?
And on the hardware implementation issue, this is SGI's
interpretation (from the SI FAQ[1]):
| Is SGI implicitly licensing any intellectual property by doing this?
| We are granting rights to claims in SGI patents embodied in the
| Sample Implementation, but onlyd for software drivers. We are not
| granting rights to those patents for use in hardware, and SGI will
| vigorously defend our IP against any IHVs who make use of these
| patents in their hardware without executing a patent license with
| SGI.
Regarding the other issues you mentioned:
| Why didn't SGI simply apply a license such as BSD, X, or Mozilla,
| with which the open source community is already familiar?
| Actually, the SGI Free Software License B is closely modeled after
| the BSD, X, and Mozilla licenses. Among other effects, the "B"
| license enables code derived from the Sample Implementation to be
| distributed as part of the reference implementation of X or as part
| of Xfree86. SGI is, of course, a publicly held corporation, with
| certain minimum responsibilities to its shareholders, to protect its
| own software and the corporation. SGI used the minimum "legalese" to
| accomplish this in the license, and did its best to make the license
| as clear and concise as possible. This accounts for the greatest
| amount of difference between the SGI Free Software License B and
| Mozilla. One way in which the SGI Free Software License B is like
| BSD (and other similar licenses) is that it allows the user to use
| and modify the software in practically any way it likes - including
| even making commercial products from it.
Hmmm... the GLX License[2] (which lives at hearth of XFree86 4.0's GL
implementation, alongside with Mesa) contains similar clauses to those
you pointed out...
Thanks,
Marcelo
[1] http://oss.sgi.com/projects/ogl-sample/faq.html
[2] http://www.sgi.com/software/opensource/glx/glxlicense.txt
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