Re: The FreeRDP fork

On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 1:11 AM, Peter Åstrand <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>> Well, Cendio has not agreed to this license change. If you think that all
>>> of
>>> our code has been replaced, why are Cendio developers still listed in the
>>> AUTHORS file? Assuming that the GIT version is the correct one...
>>
>> The plan from the beginning was to remove Cendio code.  Remember Peter
>> it is because of you that FreeRDP exists in the first place.
>
> No, I don't remember that. In fact, I haven't seen any motivation why the
> FreeRDP project was created in the first place. I've looked at
> http://www.freerdp.com but I don't see any background information there
> either. IMHO, if you were unhappy about any aspect of the rdesktop project,
> I think it would have been much better to discuss this *before* creating a
> fork. I also fail to understand why it was an explicit goal to "remove
> Cendio code".

We definitely wanted to remove the seamless code and the channel plugin code.
The rest of the Cendio code I want to remove because I knew you would
not accept the license change and I just don't like you.

I tried to talk to you about the plugin issues and got the answer "We
don't feel it's necessary to discuss this further"
Who is "We" and how can you be so disrespectful to ME?

I have seen you disrespect several people over the years.  You have
even publicly called Matt a "moron"

You tell people not to advertise on the mailing list but you do.

Cendio has taken over this project and the community is lost.

>> We have made some amazing progress in FreeRDP.  We have some of the
>> hardest working, talented developers I've ever worked with.
>
> Sad that you/they do not want to contribute to rdesktop then. With two
> projects, I think we are duplicating efforts. In general, unless the goal of
> two projects are fundamentally different, I think you can achieve more by
> working together.
>
> The license question could be such an issue, but again, I haven't seen the
> motivation. Things would have been much clearer if FreeRDP had announced
> itself with an Open Letter or something like that, like we did with
> TigerVNC: http://article.gmane.org/gmane.network.tight-vnc.general/8610/
>
>
>> I'm the longest running contributors to open source RDP software via
>> rdesktop, xrdp, and FreeRDP.  From my experience, this is a necessary
>> change.  The GPL does not work well in the situations an RDP client needs to
>> run.  The rdesktop plugins design is one example, running FreeRDP as a web
>> browser plugin is another.  The OpenSSL exception is another. The list goes
>> on and on.
>>
>> I want to develop the best RDP client possible and the GPL does not allow
>> that.
>
> I don't agree. Wrt plugins, there's really no reason why these cannot run
> out of process. Running native code such as RDP clients as browser plugins
> is IMHO generally a bad idea, but I don't think that GPL would prevent this.
> Compare with VLC, which is also GPL. We can also deal with OpenSSL. I mean,
> this is not a new problem. There are tons of GPL code out there that needs
> encryption. This can be handled. Saying that "we cannot use GPL because we
> need encryption" seems strange to me.

rdesktop has a special clause to link to OpenSSL.  The GPL is
incompatible otherwise.  You need a special cause for any GPL
incompatible library.  Plus once to add the clause, is it then
incompatible with GPL software without the clause?
It's funny you mention VLC as it recently got pulled from istore
because it's GPL.
It is a GPL violation to distribute VLC as a firefox / opera plugin.

> I think that GPL is the best license for a rdesktop-like project. rdesktop
> unfortunately has a history where many people and organizations are using
> the code, but very few give something back. Many terminal vendors, for
> example IGEL, and shipping a heavily modifed version of rdesktop. They are
> not contributing these changes back to the rdesktop project, but due to the
> GPL license, end users *are* able to retrieve the source and modifications.
> With an Apache-style license, the development done by such vendors will
> never be released and thus will never reach the upstream / Open Source
> project. I fail to see how helps you to "develop the best RDP client
> possible". Instead, you will end up with not just one but multiple more or
> less incompatible forks, one from every vendor.

The plugin design is a perfect example of why the GPL does not work.
Running the plugin out of process takes a performance and memory hit.
Plus what is even worse than that is that it's a different interface
than what MTSC uses.
We want to make the port from Windows to Linux as easy as possible.
FreeRDP uses the exact same interface that MSTSC uses.

Matt even said the plugin design should be a technical decision, not a
license decision.

The license should not be a obstacle.
You will never be able to create the best RDP client possible using an
out of process plugin design.

Jay

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