Mission statement and 1.1 license issues

Quote from Mark Vojkovich ([email protected]):

> > The mission statement of the XFree86 project says nothing directly
> > about serving the existing userbase of the XFree86 project.
> 
>    I for one do not consider myself to be a public servant.
> XFree86 is a hobby of mine.  I work on the parts that are
> interesting to me, and do not feel obligated to work on things
> that are of interest to other people.  I believe that, with few
> exceptions, the people who have contributed the most to the
> XFree86 project are of the same opinion.
> 
>    I belive that XFree86 has gotten much criticism from some
> parties (Linux distributions, in particular) who feel that the
> XFree86 project should be serving their needs.  The XFree86
> project isn't an industry consortium and isn't likely to ever
> be.  If people want an industry consortium, they can talk to
> X.org.

My choice of the word 'serving' has left me open to a lot of
criticism, despite the fact that I am _not_ suggesting that anybody
become a public servant who doesn't want to, _nor_ that anyone should
provide any kind of 'support' free of charge.

What I _was_ referring to was the kind of continuity and reluctance to
hurt existing users which I strongly suspect that most users and
contributors to free, open source projects take for granted, and don't
expect to have to see spelt out in 'mission statements' and the like,
to be able to rely on them.

The XFree86 project claims that the project is freely-redistributable
Open Source.  This is true, but it is certainly a very different
implementation of 'free' and 'Open Source' than I am used to, and I
suspect, what most users are used to.  This is not the fault of the
XFree86 project, but now that it has become obvious to me, I want to
make it known to users who are likely to suffer as a result of it,
either as a result of this license change, or because of future changes.

This difference is not something which I think is made obvious in any
license agreement contained in the 4.3.0, (which is fine, as it is not
a licensing issue).  Whether it is obvious from your mission statement
or not depends on whether readers assume that the statement
supplements or replaces what I consider to have become the normal,
unwritten rules and standards by which the free, open source community
operates.

John.