Couple points... [LWN.net]

Couple points...

Posted Feb 26, 2004 10:17 UTC (Thu) by Duncan (guest, #6647)
In reply to: Couple points... by yodermk
Parent article: X11: Where do we go from here?

> 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

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