Re: License issues

At 11:55 AM 3/9/2004 -0600, you wrote:

>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.


i agree and i think that this issue (licensing breaking by the distros)
and the adjoining one of 'partial' open source projects really has to be 
addressed.
you know those licenses that are 'free' and 'open-source compliant' but the
real meat of the work is subsumed under a proprietary banner.  i really 
don't think
that those licenses should be called 'free' at all.  this licensing issue 
is really a rot,
a cancer if you will, that will destroy free and open source software from 
within.
it's really gotta stop.

i agree with you totally Ryan, this is a clarion call, like the shot that 
was heard 'round
the world fired at  Lexington Massachusetts on april 19, 1775.  we got a 
'regular'
paul revere, ala david dawes, right here sounding the call.



mark.