XFree86(tm) Project Mission Statement [LWN.net]

Another response - but is it enough?

Posted Apr 22, 2003 22:21 UTC (Tue) by alspnost (guest, #2763) [Link]

Well, it's good to see that XFree86 has responded in several ways to the recent furore over Keith Packard's split. They have obviously taken on board at least some of the criticisms.

However, I suspect that this doesn't really go far enough. The cat is out of the bag, and Keith & co are already taking things in a new direction. Whatever happens next, may we all hope that good old competition stimulates more rapid progress in this crucial component of all open source operating systems....

Another response - but is it enough?

Posted Apr 22, 2003 22:57 UTC (Tue) by frodoballs (guest, #10827) [Link]

No, this sucks. It changes nothing and recognizes no outside input. XFree86's leadership
still thinks this is all just a big misunderstanding, a communications/image problem. The
"mission statement" just describes essentially what they thought they were doing all along.
Havoc and Owen should get off the pot and promote an EGCS-style fork, instead of trying to
find a way to solve this by consensus. Sometimes you have to show people what you're
talking about, otherwise they just won't get it.

It doesn't say ANYTHING about governance

Posted Apr 24, 2003 14:24 UTC (Thu) by cbbrowne (guest, #10867) [Link]

It does not indicate how XFree86 Inc is to be responsive to anyone at all.

It does not indicate anything about how "members" are defined, and how those "members" vote for either the establishment of policies, or for "officers" or other representatives to be appointed that have the power to establish policies.

All it really does is to provide a set of documentation of what are the political structures in and around the organization.

If they intended to become "organizationally more responsive," they would have provided a document defining, in legal terms, who, formally, are the "members" of XFree86, and how those members guide the organization's operations.

The document never uses the word "members" or "officers" or any of the other sorts of terms associated with governance.

They have taken down the legal documents that used to provide public documentation about the *actual legalities* of the organizational structure, so that the actions are really most consistent with outright denial of the criticisms.