[forum] [XFree86] Announcement: Modification to the base XFree86(TM) license.

[Sven Luther]

On Mon, Feb 02, 2004 at 04:44:48PM -0500, David Dawes wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 02, 2004 at 06:45:33PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote:
> >On Mon, Feb 02, 2004 at 12:14:27PM -0500, David Dawes wrote:
> >> On Mon, Feb 02, 2004 at 05:46:27PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote:
> >> 
> >> >> I would like to understand what the GPL folks reasons are for being
> >> >> incompatible with a licence that quite reasonably requires credit be
> >> >> given to the authors.
> >> >
> >> >Well, they have some explanation about this, and it has to do with
> >> >size of such acknowledgement becoming immensely huge over time. How
> >> >would you feel if every past XFree86 Contributor now decided to want to
> >> >have their full name in the acknowledgement ? How would this be
> >> >practical for a in-software about popup ? And how much pages would it
> >> >add to end-user documentation ?
> >> 
> >> I would have no problem with that.  The XFree86 release notes now
> >> has a credits section with the names of everyone who contributed
> >> to a particular release.  I would be very happy to extend that to
> >> all past releases.
> >
> >Well, notice the difference between a release note, which is just a
> >file on a CD or on the disk, and hardly ever get printed, to a end-user
> >documentation which is in printed form, or the limited space in the
> >about popup window.
> 
> If other third-party acknowledgements are included in this limited
> printed end-user documentation, then why shouldn't ours?  Condition
> 3.  of the licence does not request special treatment, only treatment
> equivalent to other third-party acknowledgements.

Ok. This sounds fine to me. So the acknowledgement are only needed if
there are third party acknowledgement. Could it be possible to rephrase
the clause 3) so this is more evident ? 

> >> It did and does happen.  Whether you were aware of it or not is
> >> another matter.  The licence has been displayed in our copyright/license
> >> document, which is part of the XFree86 user documentation, for some
> >> time.  It was not hidden, and as I said, even the FSF's licence
> >> web pages pointed to it.
> >
> >And, where files of the libraries affected by this licence ? This is the
> >problem at hand here.
> 
> Whether or not this is the only apparent problem at hand depends
> on who you listen to.

Well, i think this is the only problem we have to care about. By making
the libraries GPL incompatible, you screw all users of these libs that
were doing GPL programs, maybe some that are already existing since a
long time. There are no such problems with the rest of the code base, as
it is never linked with other code. Maybe the DRI project would need
proper examination, but i guess this can easily be solved or even is no
problem already.


> >> So your complaint is that it is a matter of degree?  It's OK for
> >> this licence to apply to small amounts of code, but not large
> >> amounts?  The modified license only applies to a relatively small
> >> percentage of the whole source tree as it is.  Where do you draw
> >> the line?
> >
> >No, but it may well happen that licence conflicts may have been hidden
> >or missed true error. Once such problems are found and publicly exposed,
> >you cannot ignore them anymore.
> 
> XFree86 has not hidden this fact.

Did i say so ? But this disussion has brought this whole issue to light,
so it cannot be ignored anymore.

> >> >But let's come back to the real problem at hand.
> >> >
> >> >Suppose i write a piece of software, let's say a graphical mail client
> >> >or something such. Is it your intentions or not that this graphical mail
> >> >client, by virtue of linking with the xlibs from the XFree86 Project,
> >> >needs to show an acknowledgement to the XFree86 Project in its about box
> >> >or end-user documentation ? 
> >> 
> >> Not by virtue of linking with the xlibs, of course not.  If the
> >> xlibs were covered by the modified licence, whoever distributed
> >> those xlibs would need to make an appropriate acknowledgement.
> >
> >Ok, so since this is clarified, please tell that in the licence
> >explicitly. It may not solve the GPL problem, but it may be a good think
> >to claim that explicitly.
> 
> Clarifications can be considered, or course, but neither the previous
> license or the BSD license (original or revised) make such explicit
> statements.

Yeah, but remember, it is you who can sue people over breach of
licencing, so it is nice to make things as clear as possible, so people
will not interpret it badly because of fear of that.

> >Next step then. It is the claim of the GPL folk that this licence is
> >incompatible with the GPL, and in particular, if this licence does apply
> >to the X libraries (i think 15 or so files are affected, libs, include
> >files, and some manpages). You may disagree with that, but i think you
> >don't disagree that this is effectively what the GPL people claim, even
> >if you say it is a problem in the GPL.
> 
> I agree that there are people claiming that there is a problem
> here, and that they are effectively saying that "Open Source" is
> no longer good enough and everything must be a subset of the GPL.
> People claim lots of things.

I guess the FSF has always been opposed to the whole "Open Source"
thing, from its begining, and prefer to call it "Free Software", this is
not a new development like you imply here.
> 
> >Now, this does mean that, due to this licence change, an existing
> >application which was licenced under the GPL cannot anymore be linked
> >with the X library you distribute. Do you think this is a bad thing, and
> >would need to be solved, or do you think that it is the fault of the
> >GPL, and you don't really care ? 
> 
> I think that the whole notion of a license crossing API boundaries
> is absurd.  If people really do want to place such restrictions on
> what is behind APIs that their software uses, then they should do
> so fully preprared to live with all of the consequences, not just
> the benefits.  I understand that the GPL makes at least some
> exceptions in this area, I guess because some of the consequences
> were couldn't be lived with.  Exceptions lead to anomolies.  Either
> it should be pure with no exceptions, or it should abandon the
> absurd attempt to cross API boundaries altogether.

Ok. So, are you on a GPL bashing course or not ? If a solution is
proposed, that allows you to get full credit, which is what you want
after all, but still remaining GPL compatible, would that satisfy you ? 

> >Again, if it was not a problem, it was by ignorance, but now that this
> >matter has come to light, it cannot be ignored anymore. Ask your legal
> >advicer about this issue if you don't believe me.
> 
> Do you expect me to believe that Branden didn't go through every
> licence in the XFree86 source tree, or at a very minimum those in

What do i care. Branden doesn't speak to me, and i don't speak to him.
At least not nowadays.

> our LICENSE document?  He has contacted me about some obscure ones
> in the past, but not about this type of licence, as far as I recall.

Yeah, i believe he has. Maybe this means that no file which was built in
the XFree86 libraries was covered by a problematic licence upto now ?
You are the one claiming that there are such files. I didn't have time
to look at the files myself though, maybe i should.

Friendly,

Sven Luther