Re: License issues

On Wed, Mar 10, 2004 at 10:11:45AM -0500, mark kandianis wrote:
> At 06:37 PM 3/8/2004 +0100, you wrote:
> >On Sat, Mar 06, 2004 at 06:21:16PM -0600, Ryan Underwood wrote:
> >>
> >> On Sat, Mar 06, 2004 at 02:14:27AM +0100, Sven Luther wrote:
> >> > >
> >> > > There was nothing changed.  It was a clarification of existing 
> >policy.
> >> >
> >> > Sorry, but this is simply not true.
> >>
> >> What has changed?  If you were using the X server in a GPL project, you
> >> were already violating the GPL.  Making the license that applied to
> >
> >But unknowingly so. We were lead to believe that the advertizing clause
> >had been droped from that part of the code which was covered by the BSD
> >licence.
> >
> >> parts of the X server apply to the whole of it has changed nothing.
> >
> >This licence has never before applied to parts of the X server.
> >
> >> > The concerns are about xlibs and the other client side libraries. As i
> >> > understand, apart from the licence faq mention, XFree86 has not made a
> >> > definitive commitment to not change this in the future, and this 
> >creates
> >> > some concern. This may be comming after a future meating of the XFree86
> >> > deciding comitee or whatever though.
> >>
> >> It doesn't matter if they haven't committed to not change the license in
> >> the future.  We can argue theoretical cases all day long (What if
> >> XFree86 was bought by MICROSOFT??!?!?) but what good does this really do
> >> anyone?  Right now, the xlibs issue is moot, as it has always been.
> >> When the evil David Dawes and his cronies concoct some plan to take over
> >> the world and change the xlibs license to something GPL-incompatible
> >> later, that would be the time to be concerned about it.  By that time,
> >> maybe the GPL is revised, or dynamic linking has precedent in court to
> >> not cause a work to be a derived work.  Who knows?
> >
> >What are you speaking like that to me ? I am taking enough heat already
> >from trying to defend the new licence in the outside world without
> >needing to get such BS from you.
> 
> i can't see why you would be taking "heat" since you are not supporting
> this license.  perhaps you should clarify this comment, as i can't see
> how that could be true.  what could somebody possible be angry at?
> i think you've made your positions very very clear.

Because i supported it in the debian comunity naturally, despite not
being necessarily convinced of it myself. What i believe would be best
practice does in no way influence the fact that it is the right of the
XFree86 Project to change the licence as they did, and that it was not
as dramatic as was initially claimed.

It was a somewhat inconfortable position i was in, taking the heat of
the most vocales of my fellow debian developers because i supported the
XFree86 Project, and taking the heat here because i voiced my opinion on
the licencing issue, and tried to warn that it was a bad move, and tried
to avert possible negative effects.

Friendly,

Sven Luther