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  • From: Casey Harkins <charkins AT upl.cs.wisc.edu>
  • To: Hamish Greig <hgreig AT bigpond.net.au>
  • Cc: sm-discuss AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [SM-Discuss] license of xfree86
  • Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 16:48:18 -0600 (CST)


While I am not siding with the xfree86 team here, I think RMS's is
incorrect. This is from the faq on xfree86.org:

"What about GPL-compatibility?

The 1.1 license is not GPL-compatible. To avoid new issues with
application programs that may be licensed under the GPL, the 1.1 licence
is not being applied to client side libraries."

The license doesn't apply to the client libs, so any apps linking to these
libs are safe. I'd also argue that linking against these libraries doesn't
constitute a derivative work, and therefore isn't subject to the
acknowledgement clause.

-casey



On Sat, 21 Feb 2004, Hamish Greig wrote:

> On Fri, 20 Feb 2004 02:44, Ladislav Hagara wrote:
> > The XFree86 Project, Inc. changed license of Xfree86 from 1.0 to 1.1
> > http://www.xfree86.org/legal/licenses There are some problems with it.
> > Developers of Linux distributions refuse to include new xfree86 to their
> > distributions. For example Debian
> > http://freedesktop.org/pipermail/x-packagers/2004-February/000003.html or
> > RedHat
> > http://freedesktop.org/pipermail/x-packagers/2004-February/000004.html or
> > Mandrake http://archives.mandrakelinux.com/cooker/2004-02/msg04636.php
> >
> > - lace -
>
> I read these posts but didn't fully understand the significance, until
> today
> when I found a brief interview with Richard Stallman.
>
> http://lwn.net/Articles/72053/ and
> http://www.ofb.biz/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=297
>
> This is a real problem. I don't think it matters if we are building from
> source or not. It appears that because their new license conflicts with the
> GPL, then linking GPL applications to their code violates the GPL.
> I think it means in good faith we shouldn't distribute the updated version
> of
> our spell. Every person that uses it will be violating the GPL .
>
> Hamish
>




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