Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (2271 mails)

[Sid Boyce <sboyce@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Carlos E. R. wrote:

> On 2004-04-11 09:28, Curtis Rey wrote:
>
> > It is my hope that X.org will be able to rectify some of these
> > dificiencies - though to a degree XF86 has addressed these as well -  
> > but not to the degree that is could be and I believe that the  
> > political arena at XF86 is the primary reason that we are seeing 
> > this  (excuse my bluntness) "Brain Dead" license clause that has the 
> > rest  of the community up in arms.
>
>
> Excuse my ignorance O:-)
>
> What is that license problem, in brief?
>
> (If there is a link explaining that, and why the X project has 
> divided,  I'm interested).
There was an explanation on a number of sites, lwn.net, slashdot.org and 
linuxtoday.com etc. A good place to start is
http://www.newsforge.com/software/04/01/30/1433253.shtml. The distros 
including BSD were not happy with the license change and even Alan Cox 
asked them not to distribute any of his contributed stuff. The BSD guy 
said he tried talking to them, but they stuck to their guns and 
eventually refused to talk to him. X.org and another group had already 
split off because they didn't like XFree86's attitudes and management, 
e.g they thought they should be open to suggestions from KDE and GNOME, 
but they were intent on doing their own thing and to hell with everyone 
else - XFree86 seems a closed group and couldn't care what difficulty 
they cause. Membership seemed to be closed and decisions taken without 
consultation with key members, so some guys left, they disbanded and 
reformed - just like  foxes in the hen house swearing not to kill any 
more chickens I suppose.
Regards
Sid.


--
Sid Boyce .... Hamradio G3VBV and keen Flyer
Linux Only Shop.