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X11: Where do we go from here?
The XFree86 license
change announced by the XFree86 project has caused a great deal of fuss
in the development community. One month later, the new shape of things is
beginning to come into focus. Unless something happens in the near future,
the XFree86 Project's time as the custodian of the X Window System has come
to an end, but X development will continue in a new home.
Ostensibly, the new license was to be applied as of the third XFree86 4.4.0 release candidate, but, according to longtime X developer Keith Packard, project leader David Dawes first checked in code under the license last September and updated the list of XFree86 licenses to include the license without any prior notice. Then the announcement that the new license was to be the "official" license for code copyrighted by the XFree86 Project was made by David Dawes at the end of January. The new license does not affect all code distributed by XFree86, but it touches enough code to create a major backlash among vendors and projects that are using and distributing XFree86. The new license is a valid open source license, but it is a BSD-style license with an "advertising clause" that many find objectionable. The license is not GPL-compatible, which some say is a sure way to make a project irrelevant. Criticism of the new license is not limited to advocates of the GPL, however. It also seems to offend some ardent supporters of the BSD license, including Theo de Raadt:
Like other projects, we will not be incorporating new code from
David Dawes into the XFree86 codebase used in OpenBSD. All such
changes have to be skipped, rewritten, or you can contact the
XFree86 group and place your own efforts to repair this damage.
This leaves the community at an impasse. With XFree86 sticking to the new license, and a large number of projects rejecting said license, other solutions must be sought. In the short term, many projects and vendors are planning on shipping XFree86 4.3 rather than using 4.4. Frederic Lepied, CTO of MandrakeSoft, says that Mandrake has reverted to XFree86 4.3 for the short term. Joseph Eckert, VP of corporate communications for SUSE, also confirms that SUSE will not be utilizing code licensed under the XFree86 1.1 license. However, utilizing an older version of XFree86 is not a long-term solution. Daniel Stone, a Debian Developer, is one of many predicting a fork of the project to solve the long-term issues:
More than ever before, XFree86 has backed itself into a hole. The challenge
now lies with the community to dig X out of the hole it's now
in. Unfortunately, as kdrive and other solutions are not yet mature enough,
it is my firm belief that this will only come about through a fork of
XFree86. Sad, especially when you consider that that's how XFree86 came
about; X.Org relicensed X, XFree86 got upset, and forked. We may be about
to watch just a little bit of history repeating.
Keith Packard made it clear at FOSDEM that he believes this fork has already taken place; it was done by David Dawes when he changed the license. So now the "trunk" development effort is moving to freedesktop.org. According to Packard:
X.org and various Linux vendors are busy putting together a copy of the
XFree86 sources from before the license change and are planning on making
that available for developers to work on in producing X releases in the
traditional fashion -- a monolithic release of the entire tree. The goal
of this process is to ensure continuity of the window system implementation
and allow people to get an X server capable of supporting more recent
hardware.
Packard also says that the freedesktop.org folks are working on improvements to the X architecture:
A related project that we're also working on is to take the monolithic X
build architecture and splitting it into pieces. Libraries, fonts, servers
and applications will be released separately. Periodically, released
versions of the individual packages will be collected together and bundled
as a unified release. The goal is to promote rapid development of some
portions of the system (like video drivers) without requiring a rapid
release schedule for the entire project.
As Stone said, we may be watching history repeat itself. Barring a change of heart on behalf of the XFree86 Project, it seems that projects and vendors making use of XFree86 will be looking elsewhere. The question is whether or not vendors will unify behind an X Window System produced by freedesktop.org, or another group -- or if the fork ends up creating several splinter projects. With X.org and several of the key developers behind it, freedesktop.org looks well placed to become the new home of X development. (Log in to post comments)
Couple points... Posted Feb 26, 2004 3:30 UTC (Thu) by yodermk (subscriber, #3803) [Link] The XFree license FAQ says that the client libraries will retain the old license. So I really don't see why this is such a big deal. It is like MySQL -- the server has been GPL but the client libs have been LGPL so proprietary products could use it. Now under MySQL 4.0 with the client libs GPL, that is no longer the case. With XFree, since the client libs remain under the old GPL compatible license, there really shouldn't be a problem linking to GPL code.Having said that, and this is probably going to get me drawn and quartered, this saga, along with other recent events, are starting to make me think that the GPL is not a good license. Philosophically it is fine, but its "viral" nature has caused more than its share of grief in the OSS/FS community. We have Free code that cannot be linked to other Free code. This can't be good for anyone. My proposed solution: Have a license that is a cross between the GPL and the LGPL. It should allow linking to any other code whose license falls under any generally accepted Free Software definition. That would guarantee that the code would not be exploited commercially, but it would avoid some of the anality of license conflicts that we are currently experiencing. What do you think?
Couple points... Posted Feb 26, 2004 4:08 UTC (Thu) by frazier (guest, #3060) [Link] You'll notice that with MySQL the problem wasn't due to the LGPL or GPL, but rather a licensing change fencing in some existing MySQL users to either be tied to licensing fees and stick with MySQL or migrate to another database.With XFree86 it's a similar deal, a licensing change caused a problem. Neither of these issues are the fault of the GPL or LGPL but rather the change in licenses elsewhere. My proposed solution: Have a license that is a cross between the GPL and the LGPL.Yet Another License will introduce more licensing problems.
Couple points... Posted Feb 26, 2004 5:19 UTC (Thu) by yodermk (subscriber, #3803) [Link] With both MySQL and XFree, the reasons distros aren't shipping with the new version is because the new licenses are incompatible with some of the other software included. The point is that the license of the client libraries are all that really matters.If a distro ships a non-GPL application using MySQL, it cannot upgrade to 4.0. With XFree, if indeed the new license covered the client libraries, then distros could not ship it because it would violate the GPL license of included programs which link to XFree clients. And THAT is what I hear people complaining about. But since the client libs are apparently still under the old license, I really don't see the problem. > Yet Another License will introduce more licensing problems. Why? My proposed license would solve quite a few problems IMHO. The only disadvantage would maybe be a bit more confusion.
Couple points... Posted Feb 27, 2004 16:21 UTC (Fri) by frazier (guest, #3060) [Link] With both MySQL and XFree, the reasons distros aren't shipping with the new version is because the new licenses are incompatible with some of the other software included. The point is that the license of the client libraries are all that really matters.I think the real point is that if XF86 and MySQL hadn't changed licensing terms, the current license incompatibility breaks wouldn't have occured in the first place.
Couple points... Posted Feb 27, 2004 23:41 UTC (Fri) by yodermk (subscriber, #3803) [Link] What license incompatibility breaks? Since XFree did apparently not change the license of its client libs, I don't think there are any!
Couple points... Posted Feb 26, 2004 7:19 UTC (Thu) by akumria (subscriber, #7773) [Link] > Have a license that is a cross between the GPL and the LGPL.There are plenty of projects that have 'exception' clauses to allow linking with problematically licensed libraries & such. Quite a lot of KDE programs used to have say "This program is GPL and additionally you can link this program to libraries under the QPL". However "anality of license conflicts" is actually a good thing. It'll encourage more people to think carefully about their licences. You very rarely see people complain about modified-BSD, GPL and LGPL. But almost everyone who thinks up a new licence (newX11, MPL, etc.) seems to decide that being incompatible with the vast bulk of existing software is a good thing.
Couple points... Posted Feb 26, 2004 9:50 UTC (Thu) by MathFox (guest, #6104) [Link] The problem with the new X license is the "(obnoxious) advertising clause". I do remember logging in on a (commercial) Unix system and getting a screen-long list of "some parts (c) Copyright bla, bla, bla", just for the core OS. Imagine how long such a list could get for the average Linux distribution: "Provides 'The GIMP' (c)...", "Uses Qt technology, ...". Debian has (four thousand, six thousand) thousands of packages.It is good to draw a line in the sand for the first such clause. Producing a MoLGPL (More or Less GPL) will not help this particular problem.
Couple points... Posted Feb 26, 2004 18:48 UTC (Thu) by qmark (guest, #11394) [Link] Actually, the last time I ran dselect and did the update, it mentioned something about 14,200+ packages (in unstable).SRC
Couple points... Posted Feb 26, 2004 10:17 UTC (Thu) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link] > What do you think?I think you might be missing the forest for all of the trees, to use a cliche. Several points, here, some of them from the Gentoo discussion lists (tho I'm currently a Mdk user) as referenced in the latest Gentoo Weekly Newsletter as in turn posted here on LWN. They all relate to the situation in the pragmatic sense, but may or may not be legal issues per se. Point one, you say the FAQ states that the libraries will continue under the GPL compatible 1.0 license. I haven't found anything specifically stating that, and I've looked. What I HAVE seen is mention that the *CURRENT* rc status libraries remain licensed under the GPL compatible 1.0 license. There is no statement that such a situation will change, but then, there isn't one saying it won't, either. Given the current lead's penchant for divisive license changes, and his publicly specified preference, /who/ /knows/ what sort of status changes remain in the future for the project and libraries as a whole. Point two. XFree has become one of the central pillars of the modern graphical Linux distribution. In this way, as mentioned previously in an LWN comment I read, the dispute is not unlike that of RMS with his "GNU/Linux" theme, That's been argued for some time, but are we now to have to load the politically correct descriptive string up further, to be XFree86/GNU/Linux? Where does it end? In the KDE camp there's been some talk of "KLX", KDE/Linux/XFree, with some mentioning it should be KGLX, inserting the politically correct "GNU" in there. That begs the point of.. Point three. This sets an unhealthy precident. At some point, should this be allowed to stand and others therefore be encouraged to insert their own requirements, pretty soon well have a name a page and a half long just for the NAME of the thing! Citing all the legally required credits could soon take a small book all its own, and in the cases of small programs, the text for the about box, let alone the similar documentation credits, could easily be larger than the code of the program itself. That's worth restating, because it's the major objection in many cases. The example this sets if allowed to stand, if it becomes popular, will create a situation in which the required credits of a program may well be larger than the entire rest of the code of the program! Point four is related, and simply extends the effects on programs to entire distributions or platforms. It is, I believe, that of Theo de Raadt and Open BSD (which obviously doesn't need to worry so much about the GPL). As he stated it, if XFree86 believes this to be so similar to the standard BSD license, why aren't they content to leave it AT the standard BSD license? This produces platform distribution (both Linux and other open source) all around, as yet another legal headache to ensure conformance with. A distributor must now check to ensure any required products include the new credit wording, and while this one instance could be worked around, as can any single instance for the most part, the flood that follows soon becomes impossible to cope with except at great legal expense to make sure everything is fully complied with. (This, BTW, is the problem alluded to by the other respondent.. more licences unavoidably complicate the situation regarding conformance for distributors, regardless of whether they may seem desirable in other ways, and thus are generally to be discouraged, even if the intent is laudable. Again citing other posters replying to previous articles, check out this article for a good explanation: Make Your Open Source Software GPL-Compatible. Or Else , which in its latest incarnation now mentions the current XFree86 debate.) Point five is simply political. David Dawes is attempting to do something simply /not/ politically acceptable in the free source community. While it /does/ happen, a license change of this nature, particularly for a major component of a system such as X (in the generic sense now) is, almost ALWAYS results in a fork and political division, often with, as we see here (unless it splits further) the main "trunk" migrating to the fork, for continued development. The trend, save for the contrarians every few years, would seem to be in the OPPOSITE direction, as pointed out in the "GPL-compatible or else" article above. Thus, given all the above, as the comments on the Gentoo list (as referenced by the recent Gentoo Weekly News posting here on LWN, which I read for the insight, despite the fact that I'm running Mandrake, not Gentoo) point out in the discussion of /their/ decision, while the current libraries could be used to "work around" the problem, that simply isn't politically practical, and I know of no one that has affirmatively chosen to do so, while the list of those reverting to 4.3 temporarily and "switching horses" longer term seems to be continually growing. Some additional points.. Point six. Apache is usually offered as the most prominent example of non-GPL compatible open source community software. However, three things make the difference there. One, the packages which are derivative works of it are far fewer and much easier to compartmentalize and control re monitoring compliance. Two, its license always HAS been that way, so nothing new and not getting WORSE. Three, there has, I am told, been an informal agreement to, and work toward, dual licensing the portions which are GPL incompatible either under the GPL directly, or to at least bring them into compatibility compliance, again, in line with the general trend as previously mentioned toward GPL compatibility. ("I am told" means I'm simply citing what I've read at face value without attempting to verify it, so take this sub-point as you will. Regardless, the status quo is peaceful coexistence.. NOT a direct moving away from compliance.) That's why apache doesn't cause the rift the new XFree86 (or should that now be X-unFree86??) moves are causing. Point seven.. simply observation.. **NOW** we know what all the discord has been about the last few months.. why Keith Packard leaving was an omen of what was to come, why the "core" voted to disband (it apparently couldn't function any longer with David D insisting on license changes the others couldn't abide), what the mixup with the supposed merger of XFree86, X.org, and Freedesktop.org was all about and why XFree86 so quickly denied it, etc. The picture is MUCH clearer now, tho the final outcome isn't so clear yet, whether it be a (looking rather unlikely) recant of the license changes by XFree, everybody throwing their support behind FreeDesktop.org, one of the (currently, politically speaking, anyway) lesser candidates (Y, xouvert, fresco/berlin, etc.) taking the lead, or a splintering all DIFFERENT ways and the loss of momentum that would cause. Interesting times we live in, certainly. Given the stiffness of the old XFree political and social development structure as compared to the more open structure of most large dynamic projects today, in a year or two.. we'll probably look back and say it was for the best, but that doesn't lessen the pain of dealing with it today, unfortunately. Duncan
Couple points... Posted Mar 5, 2004 9:18 UTC (Fri) by dvdeug (subscriber, #10998) [Link] It's relatively easy to say what is and is not GPL compatible. It's hard and often a source of controversy what is free software. And "generally accepted" are not words that are well liked in a license. If Debian accepts it as Free, does that make it generally accepted? What about the Open Source group? What if a license goes from being generally accepted to not generally accepted?
X11: Where do we go from here? Posted Feb 26, 2004 6:24 UTC (Thu) by daniels (subscriber, #16193) [Link] I was barking up the wrong bush with my metaphor: try 'dug itself into a hole'.That'll learn me to write email late at night.
X11: Where do we go from here? Posted Feb 26, 2004 10:29 UTC (Thu) by james (subscriber, #1325) [Link] Well, it's not one of those over-used, hackneyed metaphors that infest the English language, but neither is it one of those mixed metaphors that make no logical sense whatsoever. I rather like the imagery: XFree86 backs away from the traditional X license, not spotting the huge hole behind them until it's too late. Do we have a cartoonist in the house?
James
X11: Where do we go from here? Posted Feb 26, 2004 14:42 UTC (Thu) by branden (subscriber, #7029) [Link] Daniel,Did LWN quote you correctly? XFree86 did not get started when The Open Group relicensed X (with the X11R6.4 release). They had already been around for years. To my knowledge, the XFree86 Project got started as a fork of X386, which initially used the MIT/X11 license but then went proprietary. This goes back to 1993 or so. At least, that's the history as I remember seeing it regurgitated in bits and chunks over the years on various mailing lists. I wasn't around for the actual events.
X11: Where do we go from here? Posted Feb 26, 2004 20:11 UTC (Thu) by daniels (subscriber, #16193) [Link] Nothing you've said about TOG/X386/XFree86 is incorrect. I just expressedmyself when I was trying to say that XFree86 became more or less the canonical X effort, largely replacing TOG.
X11: Where do we go from here? Posted Feb 26, 2004 22:42 UTC (Thu) by daniels (subscriber, #16193) [Link] 'expressed myself badly'. sigh.
X11: Where do we go from here? Posted Feb 26, 2004 17:48 UTC (Thu) by tjc (subscriber, #137) [Link] Well, at least you didn't paint yourself up a tree without a paddle. :-)
But GPL programs work on non-GPL libs... Posted Feb 26, 2004 13:46 UTC (Thu) by NAR (subscriber, #1313) [Link] I don't get something. Currently I'm using KDE on Solaris. The (GPL'd) KDE binaries are linked to a proprietary libc and to proprietary X libs with some license. If it works, why can't any GPL program work on top of XFree86?
But GPL programs work on proprietary-ware... GPL exception clause.. Posted Feb 26, 2004 14:45 UTC (Thu) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link] On Solaris and other proprietary-ware platforms, KDE and other GPLedapps are INDEED linked to proprietary-ware libs. You are correct. However, the GPL specifically allows this sort of linking IF THE PROPRIETARY LIBS ARE NOT DISTRIBUTED WITH THE GPLED APPS IN QUESTION. Thus, since Solaris ships with its libs as part of the OS, while KDE and other add-ons are generally shipped separately, either downloaded separately or at minimum on a physically separate CD, it doesn't violate the license due to the specific exception allowing that. As well, few proprietary-ware providers, particularly those providing OS platforms such as Sun, aren't to likely to be very enthusiastic about co-mingling their proprietary-ware directly with software libre anyway, as the possible confusion works both ways and it'd be to easy for folks to inadvertently break the proprietary-ware license when they copy off the software libre portions. Thus, this division benefits both parties. The problem for libre-ware distributions should by now be obvious. They generally ship co-mingled disks and serve combined downloads, with space or installation order the primary factors in deciding what gets on what disk, and little attention paid to separating the variously licensed packages onto different media by license. Certainly, every X-based Live-CD out there would have to seriously change how it works, as would most major distribs, tho those shipping as multiple CDs already wouldn't have /quite/ the practical issues that single CD distribs would. Duncan
But GPL programs work on proprietary-ware... GPL exception clause.. Posted Feb 26, 2004 18:33 UTC (Thu) by NAR (subscriber, #1313) [Link] I think I see the problem. But to make sure that I understand this clause in GPL: suppose that I create a great GPL application that does some magic with Oracle databases. Also suppose that the Oracle libraries I use are not GPL, but free (as in free beer). Then I wouldn't be able to distribute my app with the Oracle libs, right? Similarly, one can't distribute his GPL Visual Basic application together with the necessary VB DLL files, right?Also, it would make illegal to include the NVIDIA kernel and X modules on the same distribution CD with an GPL-compatible X server.
But GPL programs work on proprietary-ware... GPL exception clause.. Posted Mar 3, 2004 14:17 UTC (Wed) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link] Yes, you have it basically right.Note that your example of Nvidia closed source modules with a GPLed XServer fall a bit close to something some distribs, including Mandrake (my current distrib) do currently. Mandrake only distributes the NVidia package with its "value added" sets, NOT the "download edition". They do, however, ship a separate CD with all the commercial packages, and offer the package on Mandrake club for download as well. I'm not sure what they do with the single DVDROM edition they offer, tho that could get sticky, but not based on XFree86 (old licensed edition), but on the GPL licensed stuff like the kernel. I do know that one of the potential XFree alternatives, this one entitled "Y", was discussed on /. some time ago, before the current XFree license fiasco. (I found the /. article while googling for X alternatives for an earlier reply.) One of the things pointed out there was that because Y was specifically GPL licensed, it would have serious problems with the NVidias and etc. of the world. The NVidia kernel module is status gray, but for Linus' specific policy stating that modules that do not use symbols specifically marked as GPL-Only exported aren't violating, and further because Nvidia, as many others, has chosen to incorporate an open "glue" layer between the proprietary object and the GPL code it indirectly uses. Still, the GPL-EXPORT status for symbols is there specifically because some kernel developers don't take the liberal position Linus has, and it has been said that NVidia and others have only avoided legal action due to deference to Linus, and the enormous amount of respect he has within the community. Were Linus to be hit by a bus or something, Linux would no-doubt continue, but certain proprietary module providers would likely be forced to either open-source or quit providing them at all. Duncan
X11: Where do we go from here? Posted Feb 26, 2004 13:48 UTC (Thu) by ballombe (subscriber, #9523) [Link] I would point out that there have been concerns that the new _non_advertising_close was not phrased the same way as the BSD one, and could very well being nonfree. It seems that the introduction of the _advertising_ close distracted people to spot this problem in the first place.
X11: Where do we go from here? Posted Feb 26, 2004 15:09 UTC (Thu) by branden (subscriber, #7029) [Link] ...according to longtime X developer Keith Packard, project leader David Dawes first checked in code under the license last September and updated the list of XFree86 licenses to include the license without any prior notice. I don't think this is correct. I believe the first use of the new license was the application of the auto-configuration code of the XFree86 X server, applied to XFree86 upstream CVS on 8 October. (It also appears as entry 486 in the CHANGELOG file.) The SGML source for XFree86's LICENSE file, however, was not updated to include the X-Oz license (now also known as the XFree86 1.1 license) until 12 December. Also, on the Debian legal mailing list, I have suggested that the X-Oz license might not be a Free Software/Open Source license after all. I invite people to read my analysis and draw their own conclusions.
X11: Where do we go from here? Posted Feb 26, 2004 18:04 UTC (Thu) by tjc (subscriber, #137) [Link] Assuming that X development does move more toward freedesktop.org, I wonder what will become of twm? I've thought for some time that XFree86 would be better served with a default window manager with more mainstream behavior.The default window manager is probably used primarily by sysadmins setting up servers without the resources to run Gnome or KDE, and if twm is the UI that greats sysadmins new to Linux, its probably not a Good Thing from an advocacy point of view.
X11: Where do we go from here? Posted Feb 26, 2004 22:42 UTC (Thu) by daniels (subscriber, #16193) [Link] We already have xlibs, xserver (now with 100% more interesting bits) and xappsat freedesktop.org. Some people still like twm, so we'll import it. The general attitude is that we generally import stuff which people are willing to take responsibility for (obviously this changes for things like XFree86 drivers), so if someone stands up for twm, we'll import it.
X11: Where do we go from here? Posted Feb 26, 2004 23:28 UTC (Thu) by tjc (subscriber, #137) [Link] [snip] if someone stands up for twm, we'll import it.So if someone doesn't stand up for twm, then there will be no default window manager?
X11: Where do we go from here? Posted Feb 27, 2004 4:05 UTC (Fri) by daniels (subscriber, #16193) [Link] Well, it won't be twm ... we don't have a default per se, right now.
X11: Where do we go from here? Posted Feb 27, 2004 23:06 UTC (Fri) by daniels (subscriber, #16193) [Link] Well, it won't be twm ... if no-one stands up for it and imports it.
X11: Where do we go from here? Posted Feb 26, 2004 20:35 UTC (Thu) by wolfrider (guest, #3105) [Link] [[ Packard also says that the freedesktop.org folks are working on improvements to the X architecture:A related project that we're also working on is to take the monolithic X build architecture and splitting it into pieces. Libraries, fonts, servers and applications will be released separately. Periodically, released versions of the individual packages will be collected together and bundled as a unified release. The goal is to promote rapid development of some portions of the system (like video drivers) without requiring a rapid release schedule for the entire project. --I *REALLY* hope they don't screw this up. KDE does things this way, and updating KDE is a frelling NIGHTMARE. Even with Debian. Rather than go thru the hassle, I just leave KDE at whatever version it was when I installed (from knoppix.)
X11: Where do we go from here? Posted Feb 26, 2004 21:06 UTC (Thu) by ballombe (subscriber, #9523) [Link] Your problem is caused by the Knoppix packages. That has nothing to dowith Debian or KDE. Upgrading the official KDE Debian packages is painless. Knoppix does not claim to be upgradable to Debian.
X11: Where do we go from here? Posted Feb 26, 2004 21:46 UTC (Thu) by obvious (guest, #18367) [Link] We've seen comments from a lot of people about how to deal with this, but not much from the XFree86 people. On their Web page is just a comment that it is still Free (of course it is, but that was never the problem), and a broken link to a FAQ about it. How are they responding to this backlash?
X11: Where do we go from here? Posted Feb 27, 2004 0:57 UTC (Fri) by zonker (subscriber, #7867) [Link] Mainly by acting as if it doesn't exist. I e-mailed several XFree86 board members for this piece and received no response at all. I sometimes wonder if Dawes is deliberately trying to sabotage XFree86. The license change coupled with the extremely cryptic announcement regarding the dissolution of the XFree86 "core team" makes me wonder whether Dawes has any interest in XFree86 remaining a going concern.
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