Re: License issues

[David Dawes <dawes@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, Mar 10, 2004 at 12:18:49PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote:

>Now, what policy i would like to see, well, the previous one is fine,
>but i guess that GPL compatibility would be a must, at least on those
>parts who have vocation to be linked with GPLed code. The client side
>libraries at least, and you have said you will not apply the licence
>change to those. the SDK is also problematic, but to a lesser amount,
>and well, if someone is willing to write a driver for xfree86, then he
>is welcome to do it in a licence xfree86 can also use.
>
>So, all in all, a stronger and official commitment that the client side
>libraries will not be GPL incompatible in the future would be a good
>addition to the policy.

So you would not prevent so-called "probematic" licences, acceptable
under the long-standing policy, from being used elsewhere.  These
very same problematic licenses that you previously said would be
"freed, replaced or riped (sic) out."  Now I'm not really sure where
you stand.

>But what you did is a change, a change that is problematic, and there is
>really no reason why you should deny it.

You cannot have it both ways.  Either licences of this type are
acceptable (outside the client libraries) under the licensing policy
or they are not.  So either the change is within the policy, or it
is not.  I don't believe the change to be problematic.

My basis for that belief and for my surprise at the reaction to
the change, is

   1) The change clearly fits within long established policy,

   2) Similar licences were in use in XFree86 before the change,

   3) Those licences were clearly published in our licence document
      for all to see, and

   4) All of the above was widely accepted as evidenced by the
      absence of complaints about it.

The big surprise to me was just how widely the existing licensing
was apparently being ignored.  Are you really arguing that this is
a valid reason for claiming the changes to be "problematic."  What
is "problematic" is that past licensing abuses and policy
inconsistencies elsewhere have been exposed, and that it is harder
for them to continue now that this is public knowledge.

[The SDK issue is, BTW, a red herring.  A plain GPL driver could
not, under the strictest GPL interpretation, be linked/loaded into
the XFree86 server before or after the recent licensing changes.
It would be dishonest at worst, and misleading at best, to imply
otherwise.  That makes GPL compatibility of the SDK irrelevant.]

David
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