On Thu, Feb 26, 2004 at 02:03:47PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: > On Thu, Feb 26, 2004 at 12:59:19PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: > > On Sun, Feb 22, 2004 at 11:43:24PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: > > > * David Dawes, President of The XFree86 Project, Inc., claims that a > > > a decision to apply the X-Oz license to any "client side library" code > > > shipped by that organization has been "deferred".[1] This statement > > > is a lot weaker than a guarantee that it never will happen. > > > > Yeah, but i believe this is more politicking than anything else. > > Branden, do you know the real story behind this whole stuff anyway ? > > No. I suspect there's only one person who does, and he appears to be > adamant that there's nothing more to know.
Yeah, i suspect there is more than one though. > > > * Code that forms part of the XFree86 SDK, a driver development kit > > > (which there has been some work to package for Debian) *is* under the > > > X-Oz license, and would prohibit the development of GPL-licensed > > > drivers for the XFree86 X server. > > > > Mmm, i would like to look into this, and see if i can manage to get > > those files changed if needed. Also, you only would need to dual-licence > > those drivers under the GPL and the X-Oz licence, which would not be an > > all that bad thing politically. > > If you could: > > 1) identify all files shipped by the SDK affected by the relicensing; > > and > > 2) a) get them relicensed under the previous license; or > b) get them dual-licensed under the GNU GPL; > > and > > 3) get a statement from the XFree86 Project, Inc., that any file shipped > as part of the SDK in the future will be handled the same as the ones > that are part of it today > > ...then I'd be very appreciative! I think many people in the community > would be as well. Yeah, will look at this, but am a bit doubtful i will achieve this. > > > * I have argued to the debian-x mailing list that the X-Oz license is > > > actually not even a Free Software license, because, at the least, it > > > fails clause 9 of the Debian Free Software Guidelines in two distinct > > > ways. If you're interested, you may wish to read my message[2] to > > > that list. (It is worth noting that the debian-legal subscribers have > > > not formed a strong consensus one way or the other regarding the > > > DFSG-freeness of the X-Oz license; the matter is still pending.) > > > > Your main argument seems to be that this is failing DFSG 9, because it > > places restriction on other software on the same media. I believe that > > XFree86 interpretation of this, as expressed in their legal FAQ which > > should accompany the licence, clearly state that this is not the case, > > that it will only apply to derived works, and that providing credit to > > XFree86, inside the Release notes document for example, should be > > enough. > > I tried to follow a link to the FAQ from here: > > http://www.xfree86.org/xnews/#license > > But it didn't work. > > Not Found > > The requested URL /xnews/legal/licenses.html was not found on this > server. It is here : http://www.xfree86.org/legal/licenses.html I guess the xnews part is oo much. Friendly, Sven Luther
