Public SourceMage Discussion List

[Casey Harkins <charkins AT upl.cs.wisc.edu>]

I think for us to continue distributing xfree86 the way we have been will
be entirely within the terms of their new license.  The new license
essentially adds 4 conditions which must be met in distributing it. The
first applies to source distribution and is essentially the same as the
only condition in the old license.

1.0: "The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be 
included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software."

1.1: "Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 
notice, this list of conditions, and the following disclaimer."

The second condition applies to binary distribution, so it doesn't apply
to smgl, unless "binary distribution" infects client programs. In the FAQ
on xfree86.org regarding the license changes, they state "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 third condition requires acknowledgement in end user documentation in
the same place as other "thirdy-party acknowledgements". The FAQ clarifies 
what "third-party" means with a relevant example for smgl, "if you receive 
XFree86 from any place other than from an XFree86.org site or one of its 
mirrors, you are receiving XFree86 as third party software." So long as 
the source is downloaded from XFree86.org or one of its mirrors we should 
be safe. In addition, no end user documentation is distributed other than 
that which comes in the source packages, so mirroring their unmodified 
source should also be safe. 

The real question is whether we want to make a political statement about 
this change. While I fail to see any reasonable justifications for their 
changes and many xfree86 contributors are against it, as long as it is 
still legal for us to continue distributing new versions, why shouldn't 
we? Even if it is left in the grimoire, spells could still be added for 
any other alternative X servers/libraries that are or will be available in 
the future.

Like I've said before, I don't really care which way you all decide to go 
with this.