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A new XFree86 license
David Dawes has sent out an
announcement for version 1.1 of the
XFree86 license, which will take effect with the 4.4 release. Says
David: "The purpose of these changes is to strengthen the 'except claim you
wrote it' clause of the Project's licensing philosophy regarding binary
distributions of XFree86." To achieve this goal, the license now
includes something that resembles the old BSD advertising clause. (Thanks
to Andres Salomon and Paul Sladen).
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A new XFree86 license Posted Jan 30, 2004 8:59 UTC (Fri) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link] This is not like the advertising clause at all. It only applies to "end-user documentation" or "in the software itself", and (by my reading) only applies if you are also acknowledging others. The advertising clause applied to "all advertising materials" which was truly an onerous requirement.
A new XFree86 license Posted Jan 30, 2004 9:13 UTC (Fri) by piman (subscriber, #8957) [Link] However, it is a requirement that is not encompassed within the terms of the GPL, and as such the new license is not GPL-compatible. This means one can no longer distribute GPLd code linked to X libraries under this license, unless one has a licensing exception from one or both copyright holders.
A new XFree86 license Posted Jan 30, 2004 9:27 UTC (Fri) by james (subscriber, #1325) [Link] I'm confused by this. The GPL says:... provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty... It seems to me that if XFree86 merely asked for an appropriate XFree86 copyright notice, this bit would be thoroughly GPL-compatible. By fulfilling the requirements of the GPL, you would have fulfilled the requirements of the new clause. I don't think that the request for an exact wording is GPL-compatible though. Which is a pity.
A new XFree86 license Posted Jan 30, 2004 9:45 UTC (Fri) by jeroen (subscriber, #12372) [Link] The line you quoted from the GPL is about the source code. This was already covered by the old XFree86 license and isn't really a problem. But the new license talks about documentation and that is clearly GPL incompatible.
A new XFree86 license Posted Jan 30, 2004 10:40 UTC (Fri) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] But the new license gives a choice: either put the notice in the documentation or "in the software itself, in the same form and location as other such third-party acknowledgments." If mere inclusion of the XFree86 copyright notice itself in source code suffices, then there would appear to be no GPL conflict.
A new XFree86 license Posted Jan 30, 2004 10:55 UTC (Fri) by piman (subscriber, #8957) [Link] > If mere inclusion of the XFree86 copyright notice itself in source code suffices, then there would appear to be no GPL conflict.But it doesn't, so it is.
A new XFree86 license Posted Jan 31, 2004 1:21 UTC (Sat) by csamuel (subscriber, #2624) [Link] I hate to contradict, but the license says that it can appear in eitherthe documentation *or* the software. Thus only putting it in the software does suffice the new license.
A new XFree86 license Posted Jan 31, 2004 5:20 UTC (Sat) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] You haven't contradicted anyone. The discussion was about "source code", you've responded by talking about "software".If the license said that a notice had to be maintained in the source code, everything would be fine, but it doesn't, it says software, so binaries have to display the XFree86 credit string whenever they acknowledge another third party. (and if this point has to be stated explicity every time: yes, there is also an option of maintaining a notice in the docs)
A new XFree86 license Posted Jan 30, 2004 11:09 UTC (Fri) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] If I distribute a binary, everytime I thank a third party, I have to acknowledge xfree86. The easiest way to comply is to never thank anyone, and this will become much worse if other projects adopt similar licenses.People trying to hide credit will find many ways to render this license clause irrelevent anyway, either by creditting no one, or creditting everyone in the back end of a long license spiel that no one reads anyway. Only the good guys will be affected by this inconvenience. The lack of provisions for translation will cause all non-english thank-you notes to be forced to append a string of seemingly random characters. Using legal force to get credit isn't very friendly anyway, and being incompatible with the GPL is just creating a pain for other developers. Hopefully they'll rethink this, or hopefully xourvert.org will take off.
A new XFree86 license Posted Jan 30, 2004 14:07 UTC (Fri) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link] The GPL makes an exception for system libraries, and I think one can quite reasonably argue that XFree86 libraries are part of the system. It is quite legal to link GPL code to the X libraries on a Solaris machine (or, for that matter, to libc on that machine) though those are not free software at all.
A new XFree86 license Posted Jan 30, 2004 14:23 UTC (Fri) by piman (subscriber, #8957) [Link] That exception only applies if you aren't also shipping the system libraries yourself. Like all major GNU/Linux distributions do.
A new XFree86 license Posted Jan 30, 2004 15:21 UTC (Fri) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link] That's the point, you ship the system libraries yourself (otherwise it's not a system library).If you are claiming that this precludes the system distributor from distributing GPL software: I doubt that very much. Sun, DEC, and others have shipped gcc, emacs and other GNU tools as part of their unix systems.
A new XFree86 license Posted Jan 30, 2004 16:11 UTC (Fri) by piman (subscriber, #8957) [Link] What you think doesn't matter; what other people have done doesn't matter either; what matters is what the GPL says:"[The] source code distributed need not include anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component itself accompanies the executable." This is pretty clear - If the component (XFree86) accompanies the executable (Qt / GNOME / the Synaptics driver / whatever), the exception does not apply. Sun, I know, has previously taken special precautions by distributing the GNU utilities on a separate CD. Debian takes this clause seriously; it's why we can't distribute OpenSSL-using applications under the GPL without a license exception, because Debian distributes both the application, and OpenSSL.
Only two possibilities: license revision or a fork Posted Jan 30, 2004 11:50 UTC (Fri) by stevenj (subscriber, #421) [Link] Practically speaking, there's no way that people are going to make license changes in all GPL software for X. Either XFree86.org will revise the license again to make it GPL-compatible, or it will get forked. It doesn't matter whether you think the new license is reasonable or not, it is simply not realistic.Given the recent fractious history of XFree86.org, mass migration to a fork seems more and more likely. The freedesktop.org X server seems the most likely candidate because of the participation of longtime X hacker Keith Packard. I get the impression that Xouvert, on the other hand, is little more than a web page and wishful thinking.
Only two possibilities: license revision or a fork Posted Jan 30, 2004 12:03 UTC (Fri) by allesfresser (subscriber, #216) [Link] I sure hope you're wrong... which particular release would serve as the base of the fork--4.3? Unfortunately my particular video card (a Radeon 9200 variant) is only (fully) supported in the 4.4 code. :-( The 4.4 release candidates run splendidly on my card; I'd hate to have to go and hack around in 4.3 to try to get it to work (barely)...
Only two possibilities: license revision or a fork Posted Jan 30, 2004 12:17 UTC (Fri) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] well, 4.4-rc2 is still free software, so the xouvert guys, or others, could work from there.Losing good developers would be bad, but a fork isn't bad in itself. Maybe a better run fork would attract more good developers than the current xfree86 group are.
Only two possibilities: license revision or a fork Posted Jan 30, 2004 14:01 UTC (Fri) by tjc (guest, #137) [Link] well, 4.4-rc2 is still free software [snip]Are you suggesting that 4.4-rc3 is not free software?
Only two possibilities: license revision or a fork Posted Jan 30, 2004 14:25 UTC (Fri) by piman (subscriber, #8957) [Link] I might go that far. The requirement for the notice to be in documentation affects a separate (non-derivative) work, which means the XFree86 license goes outside the bounds of normal copyright law. Ditto for the BSD advertising clause.
Only two possibilities: license revision or a fork Posted Jan 31, 2004 1:24 UTC (Sat) by csamuel (subscriber, #2624) [Link] The acknowledgement can be in the software and *not* the documentation,from my reading.
Only two possibilities: license revision or a fork Posted Jan 30, 2004 15:29 UTC (Fri) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] It's open to the same class of problems as those caused by the the BSD advertising clause. The xf86 clause is a little bit worse than the BSD clause because it requires people to maintain a notice in their software, not just in advertisements. If I give you a copy of my software including some xf86 code, I can choose whether to include their notice in the docs, or in the software. If I choose to include it in the docs, you can't give the software to others, without also giving them the docs. What if the docs are printed? you'd have to give them your copy, or photocopy/scan the docs for them. If that's not possible, you have to get the source, hack the notice into the software, etc. It's a silly license really. There is also ambiguity in the license. I highly suspect it was written by an amatuer.
Only two possibilities: license revision or a fork Posted Jan 31, 2004 1:32 UTC (Sat) by csamuel (subscriber, #2624) [Link] 1) It does not require you to put the acknowledgement in the software,you can choose whether it goes in the end user docs *or* the software. 2) The license says you *cannot* use the name XFree86 in your advertisments without prior written consent. This is the opposite of what you seem to imply (that you must put it in).
Only two possibilities: license revision or a fork Posted Jan 31, 2004 5:12 UTC (Sat) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] ok, I thought my meaning was clear in it's context, but to clarify:1) A person can "choose whether to include their notice in the docs, or in the software" (quoting the first line of my third paragraph) With that aside, back to the point. "The XFree86 Project" have erected a legal barrier within the Free Software community, and it is very similar to a legal barrier that used to exist. This is a revival of an old problem. An LWN comment is too small to list all the problems with this license (the idea and the implementation), so I'll stop here.
A third possibility Posted Jan 30, 2004 16:22 UTC (Fri) by stevenj (subscriber, #421) [Link] Actually, of course, there is a third possibility: a Qt-like fiasco where you have large numbers of people blithely ignoring the GPL compatibility problem, with resulting endless flamewars and clouds of legal uncertainty surrounding GNU/Linux distributions. But I think this is inherently unstable, as it was with Qt, and will result in a license change (as with Qt) or a fork (as was impossible with Qt).Whom do we have to thank for this brilliant move, since the core team was disbanded?
A new XFree86 license Posted Jan 30, 2004 12:21 UTC (Fri) by brouhaha (subscriber, #1698) [Link] So what huge problem existed that prompted this change?
someone has their head screwed on Posted Jan 30, 2004 12:28 UTC (Fri) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] Alan Cox on xfree86-forum list:For code owned by me (Alan Cox) please keep the original license and do not change it, as I wish my code to be usable by forks of the XFree86 codebase that allow GPL drivers (like AlanH's VNC driver and the new touchpad drivers) as well as linking with GPL code. It's a small saving, but every bit helps.
someone has their head screwed on Posted Jan 30, 2004 22:29 UTC (Fri) by nexex (guest, #14202) [Link] i see where this is headed, different versions of the same file will have different licenses, half the files will use one license, the other half will use a different one. oh this is going to get messy! Hopefully this will convince xf86 to see the error in their ways.
someone has their head screwed on Posted Jan 31, 2004 1:39 UTC (Sat) by csamuel (subscriber, #2624) [Link] As the followup to Alan's message said:No worries. License changes apply only to code where "The XFree86 Project, Inc" is the copyright holder (and a subset of that, in fact). Inc" is the copyright holder (and a subset of that, in fact). XFree86 contributors remain free to choose which license applies to their code, within classes of licenses that are listed in our LICENSE document <http://www.xfree86.org/current/LICENSE.html>. The original license is still acceptable for contributions. This list includes the original X license, without the advertising clause.
Is anything broken with the old license? Posted Feb 1, 2004 2:06 UTC (Sun) by lilo (guest, #661) [Link] I'm unclear as to the real problem with the old X license. It would be unfortunate if a desire to enhance the license in some way, resulted in incompatibilities with existing FOSS licenses. Is the old license really broken? If not, it seems to be waste motion to try to fix it.
Isn't it like Apache Posted Feb 2, 2004 7:09 UTC (Mon) by otro_mas (guest, #6820) [Link] http://www.apache.org/LICENSE-1.1
Isn't it like Apache Posted Feb 4, 2004 20:17 UTC (Wed) by stevenj (subscriber, #421) [Link] ...which the FSF has already described as incompatible with the GPL. Except that Apache doesn't have larqe quantities of pre-existing GPL code that link to it, so there's no huge practical problem, unlike X.
Apache is changing to be GPL-compatible. GPL-compatible is critical Posted Feb 4, 2004 23:26 UTC (Wed) by dwheeler (subscriber, #1216) [Link] But Apache is going through great agony to change its license so that it will be GPL-compatible; at least, that's one of their intents. Python, vim, and Mozilla have all gone through wrenching licensing changes to become GPL-compatible.This announcement goes completely against the grain of all other open source software projects, who generally take pains to be GPL-compatible. I highly recommend that any open source software license be GPL-compatible, at the very least. See my paper, Make Your Open Source Software GPL-Compatible. Or Else for a detailed discussion as to why. This can only lead to an unnecessary fork.
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