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about xfree86 and Stallman's comment

about xfree86 and Stallman's comment

Posted Jun 18, 2006 7:36 UTC (Sun) by ringerc (subscriber, #3071)
In reply to: about xfree86 and Stallman's comment by coriordan
Parent article: Behavioral standards in the free software community

The license was certainly the last straw - it forced x.org, interested people and vendors to pull together and start doing real work. Freed from the constrictions of the XFree86 board and politics, they were able to start tackling some of the real problems with XFree86.

My understanding is that the fact that they responded so quickly and effectively was due in no small part to the web of connections that Keith Packard had been building already, plus the work he'd been doing on Kdrive. People were already dissatisfied and had either jumped ship or were in the process of doing so. The XFree86-forum mailing list had been created, and failed, further demonstrating that XFree86 just wasn't viable anymore. The license change just provided the push that got everybody moving in the same direction.

At least, that's how it happened from my recollections and impressions. I'm not involved in X11 so I'm at best an interested observer.


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