Re: License furor

["William M. Quarles" <walrus@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dr. Rich Murphey wrote:
> A bit of history explains what you are asking about.
>
> There's a reason that a public forum is the only way to get hold of David.
> There have been far too many people (including the self-proclaimed
> greybeards) who simply lie on a continuing basis.  Regardless of the merits,
> it became impossible to hold any meaningful discussions privately.
>
> Add to that the fact that such people use any public statements as
> ammunition for hidden agendas and you have the current situation.

I'm admittedly no greybeard, but I'm not corporate either, nor do I have 
anything to gain in this situation, hence noo hidden agenda.

> It's simply amazing what some people will do for a development contract.
> It's unsurprising what vendors will do under the table with such contracts.
> In fact, vendors will tell you that the community has no right to question
> such actions.  Don't ask too many questions about which X.org organizers or
> developers are getting paid by which vendor when a conflict of interest
> occurs, that's none of our business according to X.org organizers.
>
> Talk is cheap in this context.  Don't trust what you hear but rather the
> actions taken.
>
> X.org is just another incarnation of a vendor consortium constructed to meet
> vendor's needs cloaked in rhetoric about 'giving back to the community'.
> Open source has changed.  Vendors have figured out how to buy developers and
> subvert 'public service' for their business strategy.
>
> So here we are.

A lot of what I have read on the Fedora list is pointing the finger at 
XFree86's actions.  They say that totalitarian CVS access, repeatedly 
ignoring good programming contributions and patches, and generally 
trying to keep stiff control of the X11 protocol caused "the fork." 
(Then again, it seems all forks are basically over the same issue.) 
They say that the dissolution of the core team only happened in response 
to "the fork," and was merely for show (like you said, talk is cheap). 
They say that XFree86's actions repeatedly show that they are trying to 
make the project progressively less open, and the license is just 
another sign of that.  Just thought I'd put forth a little balance on 
the wobbly table here.

I wasn't around for all of this hooplah, but even if The XFree86 Project 
made some mistakes in this situation, I think that it is important to 
keep alive, and X.org looks a lot more like "The Man" than The XFree86 
Project ever could.

Peace,
William
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