On Wed, Sep 15, 1999 at 05:10:33PM +0200, Nils Lohner wrote:
> Someone has patches to allow XF86 to be built under Windoze
> with cygwin, and the XF people are reluctant to let them in due to
> commercial interestes, i.e. the finished X server binaries can't be bundled
> with other software. Where do I find a clue bat large enough to change
> this thinking? Please have a lok at the mail below and let me know what I
> can possibly do.
Yes, I saw the gigantic flamewar on xfree86-devel about this, which was
hopelessly entagled with what I'm sure is the thousandth iteration of a
BSD vs. GPL licensing flamewar on that list.
> My thinking: the patches do not force you to use cygwin to compile, but
> rather just enable it for those who want it, and so I don't see any reason
> why the XF people should object to the patches. They enhance and do not
> limit in any way. If someone else wants to posrt it to a compiler with a
> different license, noone is stopping them.
That's true.
> This is really frustrating me, people being this narrow minded (what's the
> politically correct term for that? :) and I'm hoping people here will have
> some useful suggestions.
Uh, this mailing list is brand new and pretty limited in scope. (See the
charter at <http://www.debian.org/~branden/>.)
If some folks here want to form or join a coalition about this, I don't
care, but I personally have too many irons in the fire as is and don't have
much personal interest in such a thing (though you can be sure I'd use it
if it saw the light of day).
Ultimately I think the best way to change XFree86's mind on things like
this is:
1) Make very sure all these cygwin changes are MIT-licensed. I don't see
why this should be such a big deal as the X source base already
supports tons of proprietary compilation environments already.
2) If they don't listen, fork. The sound of moving feet is a powerful
motivator. When interests diverge, this is often the best thing to
do.
Point 2 has problems with the XFree86 membership agreement, though,
especially if the current patches are based against the CVS version of the
XFree86 code. Then again, with 3.9.16 out, how different can it be?
I don't really have much more advice than that. I also don't feel this
topic is terribly germane to this list, so if interested parties from this
list would consider mailing each other about I'd appreciate it.
Sorry to sound so uninterested but I really just have too much on my plate
to concern myself with XFree86 for Windows. I hope you can sympathize.
--
G. Branden Robinson | You don't just decide to break Kubrick's
Debian GNU/Linux | code of silence and then get drawn away
branden@ecn.purdue.edu | from it to a discussion about cough
cartoon.ecn.purdue.edu/~branden/ | medicine.
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