Re: XFree86 4.4.0 RC3

On Wed, Feb 18, 2004 at 09:30:35AM +0000, Aidan Kehoe wrote:
> Ar an 18ú lá de mí 2, scríobh David Dawes :
>
> > Lets face it: Your real objection is to giving credit to XFree86 and its
> > contributors.  GPL-incompatibility and FUD about FSF-freeness(*) of the
> > modified licence is just a poor excuse.
>
>I think it's unfair to assume that, David, especially since there have been
>severl reasoned disagreements with your position from people who have been
>active, useful contributors to XFree86. 

The most reasoned disagreement I've seen so far is "change is bad."

Claiming that the new license fits neither the FSF Free Software definition
or the Open Source Definition when the offending clause is close to that
in the Apache 1.1 licence, and milder than that in the original BSD
license, both of which are both FSF-free and OSI-open, is not a reasoned
disagreement.  It is FUD.

The GPL-compatibility issue is also FUD because XFree86 has always had
code under GPL-incompatible licences.  There are more serious problems
when it comes to strict GPL-compatibility than the modified XFree86
licence.

My point all along has been that the XFree86 licensing policy has not
changed.  If it is bad now, it was bad before.  Why wasn't anyone
complaining before?

>There have been almost no expressions of support for this change, and
>coherent objections from many of those whose contributions matter to the
>project. I'm surprised you're still going ahead with it. 

I can't speak for why the XFree86 board that voted unanimously for the
change, (and some of whom were advocating more radical changes), have
hung me out to dry on this.  I also can't speak for why some developers
have privately supported the change, but won't do so publicly.  But then
taking the heat on things like this comes with the job.  And I have very
thick asbestos undies, but boy do they itch :-)

David