Re: Antialiased Nedit, UTF8 now a possibility

Du__an Peterc wrote:

> I don't like OpenMotif license. But to say that it is not open source is an
> exaggeration, no matter who says it.
> You have the source, you can make the changes, and the process of
> posting/accepting fixes is open.
> http://openmotif.cvs.sourceforge.net/openmotif/
> http://www.motifzone.net/
> http://bugs.motifzone.net/show_bug.cgi
> http://openmotif.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/openmotif/openmotif/lib/Xm/?sortby=date#dirlist
> 
> OpenMotif's license is an open license with strings attached - you can not
> use it on operating systems whose kernel is not open source.
> But GPL also puts claims on your code, it asks you to release your other
> source against which you link, as GPL.
> To me, GPL is more limiting than OpenMotif license.
> So I would not disqualify OpenMotif based use or development based solely on
> the license.

I'm afraid you don't see the differences. Perhaps this is because of
the silly "open source" phrase, which naturally anyone understands
like you get the source code. In this sense, anything would be fine.

The problem is OpenMotif is not free software.  The string attached
disqualifies OpenMotif's license by contradicting against one of the
elementary freedoms.  One can't disallow to use software depending on
whether one likes the respective platform.  You shouldn't claim this
would be comparable to the GPL, which ensures the software to stay
(truly) free software in any respect.  This different "string
attached" was coined as copyleft, which is a pun to copyright.
Essential it means that software should have no owners right from the
start.  But since one can't change the copyright law, the trick is to
use the very same copyright to declare software "ownerless" once and
for all. This isn't a string attached in the real sense IMO.

Now, if this sounds too theoretical, you got a practical example right
away with NEdit. NEdit was developed on a Unix system, and till today
it is most commonly used on Unix systems. This is allowed, since NEdit
is free software. If the old Motif on Unix systems could be replaced
with its follower OpenMotif then maybe you would have more developers
listening...

Cheers,
Jörg


-- 
NEdit Discuss mailing list - [email protected]
http://www.nedit.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss