Re: Mission statement and 1.1 license issues

[Dr Andrew C Aitchison <A.C.Aitchison@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 25 Mar 2004, John Bradford wrote:

> Maybe the real issue is in fact with the mission statement of the
> XFree86 project, rather than it's license.
> 
> The mission statement of the XFree86 project says nothing directly
> about serving the existing user-base of the XFree86 project.

I wonder how developers would feel if the XFree86 project mission
statement was changed to one of "service"?
I for one wouldn't have volunteered if that had been the mission.

> In practice, I think that this is an unwritten goal of many, if not
> most, free, open source projects.  For example, note the generally
> strong reluctance to break anything that is actively used by even a
> small percentage of the user-base, in Linux kernel development.
> 
> I have always assumed that the XFree86 project would adopt a similar
> 'unwritten rule'.  Note that the mission statement does specify some
> non-goals, and providing continuity for the existing user-base is not
> one of those non-goals.

We did drop support for a large number of cards (mostly based on S3
chips) when we moved from 3.3.x to 4.0, so in the absence of a statement,
our history might have been suggestive.

> For example, in my opinion, it would be a good service to the existing
> user-base to go through and audit all the code, and either remove and
> replace code which is under very restrictive licenses, or ask the
> copyright holders to re-license it.
> 
> Of course, this doesn't fit in with the stated goals in the mission
> statement.

Maybe it is just not a very interesting task for current developers ?
Have you asked whether such work would be accepted it submitted ? 

> If the mission statement was not followed so aggressively, what it says
> might not be as important, but - in my opinion unlike many, or even most
> other free, open source projects - the XFree86 project seem to stick
> VERY closely to their mission statement, even when it appears to be
> detrimental to many of the existing user-base.

For its size and complexity, XFree86 has a very small active
developer pool.
My impression is that it is the other way around:
the mission statement was written to match the interests of those
who do the work, and it only *appears* that developers and management
stick rigidly to the mission statement ?

> I urge users of XFree86 to read the mission statement, and decide
> whether you want to rely on this project or not.

I'm happy with that, but remember than Richard Stallman proposed that
software development be free and software support should cost,
since developers get their kicks from writing new interesting code,
but only support programs if given a more tangible incentive.

Maybe the user has to chose between a free non-"service" project
driven by the interested of the developers,
and paying for some other, X server product, more directed at their needs.

-- 
Dr. Andrew C. Aitchison		Computer Officer, DPMMS, Cambridge
A.C.Aitchison@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx	http://www.dpmms.cam.ac.uk/~werdna

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