On Fri, 24 Aug 2007, Shentino wrote:
Oh, well in that case I agree with you, at least to a point. Can't
say I agree with xfree86's licensing, nor can I say I disagree. What
does bother me is that the FSF would be so abruptly hardassed about it
instead of trying to negotiate.
I was curious if there might be something from xfree86's point of view
that wasn't given any light, hence my post here on "getting the inside
scoop". What I found about "gpl incompatibility" was colorful dialog
between the FSF and XF86, but didn't give me any solid info. Either I
read the wrong thread or I suck at reading.
No. It's just that you are more likely to find such things because that's
predominantly what's out there.
Alright, I'll bite...
Those who believe the fork was caused by the licence change have their
chronology completely backwards. Those who promote that view have a vested
interest in doing so. As I've said before, the license change was used as a
smokescreen to tie up otherwise idle minds, distracting them from figuring
out what was really going on and coming up with their own, more informed,
opinions. In fact, the argument that the 1.1 license is incompatible with
the GPL is a circular one, relying on its own assertion to "prove" its own
truth. You either believe, or you don't.
No, the fork in question here pre-dates the license change by a long shot.
In retrospect, there were signs of it even back in the late nineties. But
forks, especially one of the size this project once had, take time, people,
leadership and financial resources to organise themselves enough to get off
the ground. We never opposed forks. In fact, we can't do so, because they
have existed, in one form or another, since day one. For examples, look at
the *BSD's and every single Linux distribution out there, that have
distributed our code base but kept their changes to it largely to themselves.
When there's gobs of money to be made, commercial interests have a nasty
habit of waltzing into a project and start dictating to it. Some volunteers,
understandably, don't take kindly to this behaviour. The license change was
our answer. That they rejected the new license simply means that ours is the
only copyright that, to this day, they refuse to acknowledge to their end
users. We knew that they would reject the new license in spite, because we
told them, in effect, to take a flying leap, insisting that the project
remain in the hands of the volunteers who contribute to it. That, in itself,
ensured the XFree86 Project would continue to exist, free(-er) of hidden
agendas.
_That_, my friend, is the biggest difference between a Free Software Project
and an Open Software Project. It is also, unfortunately, a natural
consequence of this dog-eat-dog world of computing.
...btw...
Anyone know who's bright idea it was to put penises in the GLsnake
screensaver? I certainly hope it wasn't any of you guys...lol...
Not guilty. We've dealt with enough snakes already.
Marc.
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