Re: Question on X and new license...
On Thu, Feb 26, 2004 at 02:03:47PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 26, 2004 at 12:59:19PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote:
> > On Sun, Feb 22, 2004 at 11:43:24PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote:
> > > * David Dawes, President of The XFree86 Project, Inc., claims that a
> > > a decision to apply the X-Oz license to any "client side library" code
> > > shipped by that organization has been "deferred".[1] This statement
> > > is a lot weaker than a guarantee that it never will happen.
> >
> > Yeah, but i believe this is more politicking than anything else.
> > Branden, do you know the real story behind this whole stuff anyway ?
>
> No. I suspect there's only one person who does, and he appears to be
> adamant that there's nothing more to know.
Yeah, i suspect there is more than one though.
> > > * Code that forms part of the XFree86 SDK, a driver development kit
> > > (which there has been some work to package for Debian) *is* under the
> > > X-Oz license, and would prohibit the development of GPL-licensed
> > > drivers for the XFree86 X server.
> >
> > Mmm, i would like to look into this, and see if i can manage to get
> > those files changed if needed. Also, you only would need to dual-licence
> > those drivers under the GPL and the X-Oz licence, which would not be an
> > all that bad thing politically.
>
> If you could:
>
> 1) identify all files shipped by the SDK affected by the relicensing;
>
> and
>
> 2) a) get them relicensed under the previous license; or
> b) get them dual-licensed under the GNU GPL;
>
> and
>
> 3) get a statement from the XFree86 Project, Inc., that any file shipped
> as part of the SDK in the future will be handled the same as the ones
> that are part of it today
>
> ...then I'd be very appreciative! I think many people in the community
> would be as well.
Yeah, will look at this, but am a bit doubtful i will achieve this.
> > > * I have argued to the debian-x mailing list that the X-Oz license is
> > > actually not even a Free Software license, because, at the least, it
> > > fails clause 9 of the Debian Free Software Guidelines in two distinct
> > > ways. If you're interested, you may wish to read my message[2] to
> > > that list. (It is worth noting that the debian-legal subscribers have
> > > not formed a strong consensus one way or the other regarding the
> > > DFSG-freeness of the X-Oz license; the matter is still pending.)
> >
> > Your main argument seems to be that this is failing DFSG 9, because it
> > places restriction on other software on the same media. I believe that
> > XFree86 interpretation of this, as expressed in their legal FAQ which
> > should accompany the licence, clearly state that this is not the case,
> > that it will only apply to derived works, and that providing credit to
> > XFree86, inside the Release notes document for example, should be
> > enough.
>
> I tried to follow a link to the FAQ from here:
>
> http://www.xfree86.org/xnews/#license
>
> But it didn't work.
>
> Not Found
>
> The requested URL /xnews/legal/licenses.html was not found on this
> server.
It is here :
http://www.xfree86.org/legal/licenses.html
I guess the xnews part is oo much.
Friendly,
Sven Luther
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