Re: License issues

On Tue, Mar 09, 2004 at 09:52:32AM +0000, John Bradford wrote:
> 
> That is a really misleading post.
> 
> Most other posters seem to be discussing the fact that the V1.1
> license is being applied to some code for which the project holds the
> copyright, and was previously under the V1.0 license.

Right.  As a subset of that discussion, there are three big debates
happening:
1) What this means for GPL-licensed software who reuses X code or links
dynamically or statically to X libraries
2) Whether the credits clause is a good idea for the long-term viability
of the Project or not
3) The problems that both the GPL issue and the credits clause raise for
distributors who wish to package XFree86 for their distribution

There are a lot of different viewpoints to all of these debates.  Mine
are probably different from yours.  But what is immutable are the facts,
and I have noticed that there is an awful lot of flaming and wishful
thinking going on without much checking into the actual state of things.

> On the other hand, you raise an interesting point about distributors
> being in violation of some of the existing licenses, and suggest that
> the new license makes things clearer to them.

I think it was a wake-up call in general.  I don't know if that is what
David intended, but it was something that was sorely needed IMHO.  There
is too much handwaving and not enough footwork being done to ensure that
license problems don't bite us in the ass down the road.  The XFree86
Licenses page provides us with a pretty clear picture of the problems
that either need to be worked around or replaced in the long run.  It
has to be done, or we will go around and around the same old license
merry-go-round which gets in the way of things really getting done, and
additionally tends to get lawyers really excited.

> Just because legacy code has advertising clauses, it doesn't make it
> any less obnoxious to add them to new code.

No, I believe I haven't made my point clearly enough, at least judging
from some other response(s) that I'm not quite in the mood to reply to.

I *personally* find an advertising clause obnoxious.  But is it really
a show-stopper for a distributor who ostensibly benefits greatly from
XFree86 being in their distribution?  People railed on and on about the
GPL issue being a show-stopper, and some very salient points were made
(generally regarding the inflexibility of the GPL with respect to
interfaces).  Thus, the xlibs didn't become covered by the updated
license (yet).  Now, having run out of steam on that one, the complaints
turn to the credits clause.  Have you seen anyone make an honest
point about how the credits clause will affect their distribution?  I
haven't (yet).  But I'd like to know the real problems with it, if there
are any.  It's _not_ an advertising clause.  It is a credits clause.
Credit must be given in "End-user documentation" or "the software
itself", not "advertising materials".  Big difference.

The code that is under XFree86 license can also be changed back to
whatever they wish at some future point.  If XFree86 really is dying
(like *BSD is always dying), then it is always an option to change it
back later.  This is not a permanent, set-in-stone course of action.

> So, whilst your views may well be accurate, I find it difficult to see
> what they have got to do with what we were discussing.  Unless you are
> making the claim that all of the code which has been moved from the
> 1.0 license to the 1.1 license was already linked to code which had an
> advertising clause already, that it should never have been linked with
> code under the 1.0 license in the first place, and that there was no
> real choice but to move to a 1.1 style license.

No, only that effectively nothing has changed from the point of the
distributor.  Contributors were allowed to demand credit before, and now
the XFree86 license demands it on their behalf since it seems nobody was
paying any attention up till now.

Personally, I find other licenses included in the XFree86 tree, such as
the GLX license, a bigger problem.  Did you know you can't link to libGL
without violating the GPL?
http://www.xfree86.org/current/LICENSE3.html#6

There are similar problems with xft, I believe.  I'm curious how the
freedesktop.org people are getting around these issues, especially
because they are using the GPL not only on the client side but applying
it to their server side code (AFAIK).  I guess they can specifically
make a GPL exception for their own purposes, but it sounds awful hairy.

I think there are a lot of problems that were being ignored up until
this point that are now in our face and we have to deal with.  But the
XFree86 1.1 license I don't currently see as one of them.  I don't speak
for anyone but myself.

-- 
Ryan Underwood, <[email protected]>

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