X11R6.7 Release Notes [LWN.net]

License issues

Posted Apr 7, 2004 17:03 UTC (Wed) by rfunk (subscriber, #4054) [Link]

Maybe the stuff that was dropped didn't have an acceptable license? I
know the new license that everyone hated started appearing in September.

License issues

Posted Apr 7, 2004 17:41 UTC (Wed) by allesfresser (subscriber, #216) [Link]

A lot of the stuff that's mentioned as being dropped was also dropped in the XFree86 4.4 release (like PEX, etc.), mostly because it was obsolete. Only a few files in the XFree86 codebase had the widely disliked new license.

On the other hand, there's other updates in this new x.org release that (I believe) are not in XF86 4.4 (the freetype, xft, etc. updates for example). I could be wrong about that though, as it's from memory (of compiling the XF86 4.3.99.90[23] releases) several weeks ago.

CIE

Posted Apr 7, 2004 18:47 UTC (Wed) by Ross (subscriber, #4065) [Link]

Do you mean color management has been removed? I agree that it was mis-
designed but I know quite a few applications use it if only to allow users
to specify colors in different colorspaces.

XIE, not CIE

Posted Apr 8, 2004 6:23 UTC (Thu) by eru (subscriber, #2753) [Link]

Do you mean color management has been removed?

Sorry, I mistyped, the rekevant part of the release notes was:

* The remains of XIE and PEX extensions were removed completely. Similarly, libxml2's remains were removed, as it is not used at all in the distribution.

XIE appears to be (or have been) "X Image Extension", for server-side handling of images. One reference I found is Developing Imaging Applications with XIElib. Sound useful, I wonder why it got deprecated?

I guess if every X11 served did not have XIE, any image manipulation program would have to have a replacement code in itself anyway to be portable, and so software authors naturally had little motivation to rely on it in any way. But the same reasoning works against any other X11 extension, and yet some of them get used.

X11R6.7 Release Notes

Posted Apr 7, 2004 22:17 UTC (Wed) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

PEX, for one, was long dead (I think XFree86-4.2.x ditched it). This just ditches some remnants.

X11R6.7 Release Notes - note the dropping of the 1.1 license.

Posted Apr 7, 2004 21:55 UTC (Wed) by dwheeler (guest, #1216) [Link]

Note that one of the key enhancements is that "only files without the new XFree86 1.1 license are included in the X11R6.7.0 release." We are finally seeing the results of David Dawes' extremely controversial switch to a GPL-incompatible license. Distributors are now abandoning XFree86, and it looks like X.org will be (at least in the short term) the new home of X. I've updated my essay on GPL compatibility with a discussion on this. My essay has said for years that GPL compatibility is important for open source software / Free Software; this is an extraordinarily clear example of that.

X11R6.7 Release Notes - note the dropping of the 1.1 license.

Posted Apr 8, 2004 1:41 UTC (Thu) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]

Yeah, isn't that funny. He wanted more recognition and now he's going to get less recognition. Looks like XFree86 is going nowhere fast. It is sad that developers with heaps of experience are lost over such trivial matters.

Recognition and David Dawes

Posted Apr 9, 2004 10:02 UTC (Fri) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link]

.. Of David Dawes..
> He wanted more recognition and now he's
> going to get less recognition.

I don't know.. I do know that the name "David Dawes" has more name
recognition HERE now than it used to.. Of course, it's /infamous/,
not /famous/, recognition, much like, say, Daryl McBride, right now, only
not /quite/ to the same extent. <g>

Duncan