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X Operating Systems GUI BSD

NetBSD Imports XFree86 4.4.0 83

Posted by michael from the eh dept.
jschauma writes "It appears that, unlike many other Open Source projects, NetBSD did not find any serious problems with the much-debated license change of XFree86 4.4.0: it was just imported into the tree."
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NetBSD Imports XFree86 4.4.0 More

NetBSD Imports XFree86 4.4.0

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  • And the rest of us ... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Via_Patrino ( 702161 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @06:12PM (#8480436)
    And the rest of us will use XOrg [freedesktop.org]

  • Duh (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Bistronaut ( 267467 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @06:31PM (#8480612) Homepage Journal
    Well, since the dispute was about weather or not the new XFree86 licens was GPL-compatable, and NetBSD isn't under the GPL, you wouldn't expect them to have a problem.

    • Re:Duh (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Brandybuck ( 704397 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @06:35PM (#8480660) Homepage Journal
      Actually you wouldn't expect any of the Linux distros to have a problem either, since the XFree86 libraries are NOT under this new license. But I guess it's just too much fun waging holy wars...

      • Re:Duh (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Actually you wouldn't expect any of the Linux distros to have a problem either, since the XFree86 libraries are NOT under this new license.

        They were when this whole mess began.

        But I guess it's just too much fun waging holy wars...

        Yes, Mandrake and other distributions intentionally dropped a new version with new features and better driver support because it was fun. Either that or they couldn't tolerate a last-minute license switch that wasn't discussed and they weren't warned about.

      • Re:Duh (Score:5, Informative)

        by tepples ( 727027 ) <.tepples. .at. .gmail.com.> on Saturday March 06, 2004 @10:08PM (#8488858) Homepage Journal

        the XFree86 libraries are NOT under this new license.

        Sure, Xlib isn't under the new XFree86 license, but some of the other client libraries such as the one for XRender support are, which makes XRender of XFree86 4.4 incompatible with GPL apps.

      • But I guess it's just too much fun waging holy wars...

        Nah, it's too stupid to be a "holy war," even. Pissing contest, more like.

    • Re:Duh (Score:5, Interesting)

      by platipusrc ( 595850 ) <erchambers@gmail.com> on Friday March 05, 2004 @06:39PM (#8480695) Homepage
      At least one BSD [openbsd.org] is unhappy about the prospect of the new license and is threatening to fork [deadly.org]. Hopefully everyone can get together and have a single fork with a license like the older X license if it does end up coming to a fork.

  • Explain (Score:4, Interesting)

    by JustinXB ( 756624 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @07:18PM (#8480995)
    Can someone explain why open source projects are rejecting the new XFree86 license? I looked it over and it looked OK to me, at least for BSD-licensed projects.

    • Re:Explain (Score:5, Informative)

      by Via_Patrino ( 702161 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @08:04PM (#8481269)
      I don't know very well since it (what's covered or not) changes all the time, the major problem is with linking.

      With the new version you can't make link to GPL programs using Xfree86 As most of the programs (even on *BSD projects) are GPL you can't not run them (I think an exception is when you compile yourself). I'm not sure that problem was resolved.

      The other problem is with code reutilization. A lot of people don't want to contribute to a project where code won't be possible to be used in other projects that use GPL (don't know about BSD) because they're incompatible licenses.

      Ok, you usually hold copyright for your own code, but, in a project, code often mix so much with other people code. And you don't just code: you debug, test and improve existing code.

      Those people aren't interested in making that effort to a code that will be just used by projects (compatible) with that license.

      • Re:Explain (Score:4, Informative)

        by phoenix_rizzen ( 256998 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @10:24PM (#8482026)
        Dude, you are so far out in left field, you may as well start planting daisies.

        The new license does *NOT* apply to any of the XFree86 libraries. Hence, there *ARE NO CHANGES* in the way things work, regarding linking to XFree86 libraries. IOW, NOTHING HAS CHANGED, in this regard.

        The reason for the bruhaha is nothing more than laziness on the part of the various distros. They don't want to take the time to put "This project includes software from the XFree86 Project." into any of the end-user documentation. IOW, nobody wants to give credit to the XFree86 Project, yet they all want to use software from the XFree86 Project.

        • Re:Explain (Score:5, Informative)

          by Via_Patrino ( 702161 ) on Saturday March 06, 2004 @12:11AM (#8482667)
          All right, I said before I wasn't sure. That's why I didn't give myself karma. But since other people tagged me informative/interesting or they knew very little about the subject (I'm not so far) or there's some real stuff in my comment.

          Probably the license on the libs didn't changed, but the news about it did (there was a lot of confusion when the license changed).

          Then I prefer to link to what Branden Robinson [debian.org] and Theo de Raadt [google.com] say.
          Theo (from this and other posts [google.com]) and other members of the openbsd team seen to be concerned about wording, future legal problems and making openbsd less free.

        • Re:Explain (Score:5, Insightful)

          by kundor ( 757951 ) <kundor@nOSPam.member.fsf.org> on Saturday March 06, 2004 @06:47AM (#8484082) Homepage
          In the words of David Dawes, they "deferred" applying the license to the client libraries. They still intend to eventually.

          Beyond that, it's indicative of an attitude and motivations that simply don't mesh well with what the community expects.

          I certainly wouldn't mind seeing freedesktop.org replace the xfree86 project.

          • Re:Explain (Score:2, Informative)

            by Anonymous Coward
            "The community" is welcome to fork the project and do what they want with it.

            *You* are personally contributing to this new effort, right? *You* are personally cranking out gpl-safe code for freedesktop.org, right?

            What's that? You're not? Then get over the religious license noise and give credit where credit is due: to the xfree86 people who have put actual real honest to god time into making something totally for *free* for all the useless lazy non-contributors such as yourself and only want a lousy "x

        • Re:Explain (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Mekanix ( 127309 ) on Sunday March 07, 2004 @08:15AM (#8490316)
          Hmm... let's see if I got this right.

          RMS is mad at the XFree86-people because they want some credits?

          But's it's ok for RMS to force everyone and their mother to call linux for GNU/linux?
          • RMS doesn't force, he only suggests. He doesn't tell us to call the system Stallmanix ;).
          • But's it's ok for RMS to force everyone and their mother to call linux for GNU/linux?

            For the record, RMS merely kvetches endlessly on this topic. He has never, as far as I know, tried to make "GNU/Linux" a legally binding requirement of the use or redistribution of the GNU tools -- a legal move like that is literally against his religion.
          • Stallman's desire is not incorporated in the GPL, nuff said. It is simply his very strong opinion.

        • Re:Explain (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Shanep ( 68243 )
          The reason for the bruhaha is nothing more than laziness on the part of the various distros.

          Talk about far out in left field!!!

          People are talking about backporting and forking and you believe such bruhaha is because they are simply lazy?

          Who the hell moderated this up to 5 Informative?

          You think coders are too lazy to print a single string?

          Absurd.

          • Well, there is a good reason to avoid 4.4, if it really touches commonly used client libs. It is a hassle and sets a precedent.

            I don't want to administer an OSS project that has to make dozens of these lines to each every stupid tool, and check them for each release or import.

            It's like those freeware postcard licenses, the originators aren't evil, but in practice it simply puts too much of a break on usability the of the projects source.

    • Re:Explain (Score:1, Interesting)

      by vesamies ( 240247 )
      I also looked at the license, looks OK. Maybe it's a practical matter, that with the old license you don't have to do anything. But with the new license you have to remember to say "This product includes..." blaa. I think this practice is already a problem, see for example this blaa blaa blaa [netbsd.org]. Since NetBSD also does that blaa, I don't think they mind XFree86 doing that too... I totally understand all projects rejecting new license, since they can spend less time on blaa blaa blaa.

  • FreeBSD (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 07, 2004 @03:18PM (#8492302)
    According to a FreeBSD-x11 thread, XFree86 4.4.0 will definitely be integrated to FreeBSD's ports collection too.

    It looks like the license is only a problem for some Linux distros and Theo.

    • Re:FreeBSD (Score:3, Interesting)

      by BattleBlow ( 633941 )
      However, this is a completely different situation than NetBSD importing it.

      NetBSD and OpenBSD both distribute X as a distribution set, that is, as part of the main operating system. They maintain a separate source tree for X inside their main repositories.

      This is quite different from being part of the FreeBSD ports collection which houses a diverse collection of third party software, much of which would never be incorporated into FreeBSD itself due to license incompatbilities. So, the question of wh

  • FreeBSD will too, probably (Score:5, Interesting)

    by marcovje ( 205102 ) on Tuesday March 09, 2004 @07:51AM (#8508645)

    I saw several comments on the freebsd-ports list that the FreeBSD troops see no problem in the adoption either.

    The reason was also the same, clientside libs seem to go free.
  • Some of the things I noticed:

    Someone compared the Apache and the XFree86 license. This is not valid. Apache is a program, like many others, that can be perfectly run on a GNU/Linux or BSD platform, without being GPL-compatible. X11 is part of a modern UNIX/Linux infrastructure on desktop PCs, and changes to its license or the license of its libraries have far more consequences, because a lot of programs link to it (and of course there are extensions to it, too).

    People tell, in their most impolite manner,

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