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XFree86 Release 4.4.0
Version 4.4.0 of XFree86
has been announced.
Changes include updated video and input drivers, IPv6 support,
X Server updates, client and library updates, I18N and font updates,
and more. See the
release notes
for more information.
(Log in to post comments)
XFree86 Release 4.4.0 Posted Mar 2, 2004 23:01 UTC (Tue) by chip (subscriber, #8258) [Link] Don't forget the new license, which has resulted in most distros deciding not to use it.
XFree86 Release 4.4.0 Posted Mar 3, 2004 7:55 UTC (Wed) by dmantione (guest, #4640) [Link] I don't understand both parties. I don't understand XFree86 because claiming that something is yours which it is not is a criminal act (punishable with up to 3-5 years of jail in my country), you do not need a license to prevent that. In other words, the whole licensing change is nonsense.And I do not understand the rest of the community. Ok, the license does not allow you to remove the copyright message. Since removing a copyright message from a GPL product can be just as illegal (not by license, but by law), it can be questioned wether the XFree license imposes an additional restriction. I'm not a lawyer, but all I want to say is that I seriously question the GPL incompatibility. Second, it would be a very bad idea to remove copyright notices at all, because the original author is the only person in the world who can enforce the license. Third, the XFree group has acommodated for the possible linking incompatibilities, by excluding the X libraries from license changes. And for the fourth point, there has allways been code with an advertising clause license in XFree86 and nobody has ever complained. Now I hope people will really soon concentrate on more important matters, GPL violations enough, as this kind of stuff is really counterproductive to the open source community.
XFree86 Release 4.4.0 Posted Mar 3, 2004 13:55 UTC (Wed) by koriordan (guest, #3490) [Link] I believe the problem is that a distro will be required to flash up the Xfree86 licence during installation and have the user agree to it. If everyone software package started applying this style of licencing then we'd be days trying to install our distros!
XFree86 Release 4.4.0 Posted Mar 3, 2004 18:30 UTC (Wed) by jdthood (subscriber, #4157) [Link] The chief maintainer of XFree86 for Debian did some research which led him to the conclusion that the new license is not free according to the Debian Free Software Guidelines. The license is subject to different interpretations. Some people interpret it to be harmless. Others interpret it (as Branden Robinson does) to be unacceptably restrictive.How people interpret the license depends upon how they interpret the intentions of the author of the license, David Dawes. Since some people mistrust David Dawes they also mistrust the license and therefore reject it. The reason for your mystification may be that the problem is to a considerable extent political.
GPL incompatibility Posted Mar 3, 2004 22:19 UTC (Wed) by dwheeler (guest, #1216) [Link] For many, the problem is this one-sided switch to a GPL-incompatible license. See this paper for why many believe GPL incompatibility is a serious problem for open source software programs.
GPL incompatibility Posted Mar 3, 2004 23:06 UTC (Wed) by dmantione (guest, #4640) [Link] A GPL incompatibility is no for problem for me or you, nor is it a problem for aLinux distribution. It's a problem for XFree86 developers, which they should decide for themselves. And again, it can be questioned wether the licenses are indeed incompatible.
XFree86 Release 4.4.0 Posted Mar 4, 2004 7:31 UTC (Thu) by ekj (subscriber, #1524) [Link] The problem is not that Xfree86 wants to make sure noone claims that they wrote it, when infact they didn't. (That would, as you say, be illegal in most jurisdictions anyway, license or not.)The problem is that Xfree86 insists that a spesific phrase is printed in the same manner or place as any other acknowledgments, if any. This has various problems. For example, if a Linux-distributor includes even a single acknowledgement on the packaging "Now with Linux-kernel 2.6 !", they would *also* have to include Xfree86 in the same location. Now, imagine if all packages did that. The end result would be you couldn't mention a single one of the packages in your distro, or you'd have to mention them all, and that doesn't fit. Or, let's say a distro scrolls some acknowledgement over the screen at boot-time. (Would "Welcome to Mandrakelinux 10.0" qualify?) They'd then have to scroll Xfree86 too. Again, imagine if everyone demanded that. My box would have to scroll `rpm -qa | wc -l` = 2793 acknowledgements, plus all the stuff I compiled from source offcourse, completely spamming the environment. Do we really want a "free software" future where you'll get in legal trouble for sure if you print on your packaging: "Includes tons of great software like OpenOffice and the award-winning Gimp" I don't know about you, but that's not exactly my idea of "freedom".
Clarification Posted Mar 4, 2004 7:35 UTC (Thu) by Ross (subscriber, #4065) [Link] The problem isn't removal of copyright notices, it's the requirement tomention them in ads and anywhere credits are listed. This is an annoying requirement which affects parts of a distribution having nothing to do with X11. And it's also incompatible with the GPL (though as others have mentioned that aspect isn't too horrible at the moment since headers and userspace libraries do not carry the new license).
XFree86 Release 4.4.0 Posted Mar 3, 2004 1:14 UTC (Wed) by stuart2048 (subscriber, #6241) [Link] In the Known Problems page of the release notes, I found the following text:
XFree86 Release 4.4.0 Posted Mar 3, 2004 13:59 UTC (Wed) by austinchuck (guest, #15358) [Link] If a tree falls in the woods but no one includes it in their distro, does it really fall?
XFree86 Release 4.4.0 Posted Mar 3, 2004 16:01 UTC (Wed) by dps (subscriber, #5725) [Link] According to the XFree86 people the old licence still applies to the libraries, so GPL applications should be able to use those anyway. Even if this was not the case, I would switch to GPL with the special exception that linking to X client libraries was also allowed.I can see distros having trouble because the thicket of things included with "parts copyright XYZ" advertising clauses could eat up vast amounts of space. Adding XFree86 to the already lengthy list is not something linux needs. The proliferation of "GPL with the exeception ..." licences will also not help. I can also appreciate people not liking the GPL because I have a job developing non-free software on linux. Things like getopt_long are a problem because on everything except linux it might GPL the code. I doubt there is enough interest in telephone billing or electricity quotation systems to justify a GPLed release.
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