From: m...@acs.itd.uts.EDU.AU (Jas (Matthew K))
Subject: Licensing charges for X11R6.4
Date: 1998/04/01
Message-ID: <6ft5un$mlv$1@woodstock.socs.uts.EDU.AU>#1/1
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For those of you who havent heard, X11R6.4 is not free anymore. Some
people will be getting is free, but other wont and the language doesnt
appear to be very clear. If you wish to check out the details and the
like, wander over to
http://www.camb.opengroup.org/tech/desktop/ordering/x.price.list.htm
and have a look. I will leave the debate of the politics to others
more erudit and knowledgable than myself. But none the less I will say
this much, I am dissapointed. In the days when the likes of Netscape
release software for free it could hardly seem possible that something
like X could be turned for profit after so many years. One wonders if
this might have happened under the auspices of the X Consortium, who
knows?
I and probably many before and after me will call for the OpenGroup to
reverse this seemingly poor decision, or at the very least offer a
plausible reason for their actions. I for one await that day.
Matt
From: ken...@nojunk.rahul.net
Subject: Re: Licensing charges for X11R6.4
Date: 1998/04/01
Message-ID: <6fu0ut$3d9$1@samba.rahul.net>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 339907541
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Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
In article <6ft5un$ml...@woodstock.socs.uts.EDU.AU>,
Jas (Matthew K) <m...@acs.itd.uts.EDU.AU> wrote:
>I will leave the debate of the politics to others
>more erudit and knowledgable than myself. But none the less I will say
>this much, I am dissapointed. In the days when the likes of Netscape
>release software for free it could hardly seem possible that something
>like X could be turned for profit after so many years. One wonders if
>this might have happened under the auspices of the X Consortium, who
>knows?
People who do work hard and do good work deserve to get paid. In the
past the X Consortium was funded by contributions from its sponsors.
These have likely decreased significantly over the years as the market
has changed and many of the original sponsors have fallen on hard
times. If you want the software to be free, I think you're going to
have to drum up new sponsors to pay for the work. Complaining might
change things if their profit levels were very high, but I suspect
they'll have a hard enough time just breaking even.
--
Ken Lee, http://www.rahul.net/kenton/
From: Alex Hornby <ahor...@plasma.ddns.org>
Subject: Re: Licensing charges for X11R6.4
Date: 1998/04/01
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>>>>> "kenton" == kenton <ken...@nojunk.rahul.net> writes:
kenton> In article <6ft5un$ml...@woodstock.socs.uts.EDU.AU>, Jas
kenton> (Matthew K) <m...@acs.itd.uts.EDU.AU> wrote:
>> I will leave the debate of the politics to others more erudit
>> and knowledgable than myself. But none the less I will say this
>> much, I am dissapointed. In the days when the likes of Netscape
>> release software for free it could hardly seem possible that
>> something like X could be turned for profit after so many
>> years. One wonders if this might have happened under the
>> auspices of the X Consortium, who knows?
kenton> People who do work hard and do good work deserve to get
kenton> paid. In the past the X Consortium was funded by
kenton> contributions from its sponsors. These have likely
kenton> decreased significantly over the years as the market has
kenton> changed and many of the original sponsors have fallen on
kenton> hard times. If you want the software to be free, I think
kenton> you're going to have to drum up new sponsors to pay for
kenton> the work. Complaining might change things if their profit
kenton> levels were very high, but I suspect they'll have a hard
kenton> enough time just breaking even. -- Ken Lee,
kenton> http://www.rahul.net/kenton/
I can't help thinking that the open source development model of Linux
et al would give greater improvement more quickly. A project such as X
with a large user base, many of whom are programmers, is ideal for
open development.
I believe that the reason X has not progressed amazingly fast is that
the process has been too "Cathedral" like with memberships of this and
that organisation required to contribute.
Alex.
From: David Koski <dko...@mediaone.net>
Subject: Re: Licensing charges for X11R6.4
Date: 1998/04/01
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I have to laugh at how funny this whole thread is. Redhat and the alike
make a profit
by distributing code. The Open Group is protecting there code and there
profits
by not allowing this anymore. I certainly would do the same if I was
developing
a product that someone else was making a profit off of. This whole thing
is plain
and simple. If your selling the software your gonna in turn pay a fee for
the right to do
so, otherwise its free to those who want to download it and use it for
there own personal use. I can't believe how people are going off half
cocked about all this. X is
still free just not to those who generate a profit. Seems like a darn
good move by
the Open Group to me. Provide a non-commercial darned good product, and
stop
people from selling it. Darn good move. Its always seemed kinda dumb to
me to pay for free source code off the net, but so many people do it.
David
Jas (Matthew K) wrote:
> For those of you who havent heard, X11R6.4 is not free anymore. Some
> people will be getting is free, but other wont and the language doesnt
> appear to be very clear. If you wish to check out the details and the
> like, wander over to
>
> http://www.camb.opengroup.org/tech/desktop/ordering/x.price.list.htm
>
> and have a look. I will leave the debate of the politics to others
> more erudit and knowledgable than myself. But none the less I will say
> this much, I am dissapointed. In the days when the likes of Netscape
> release software for free it could hardly seem possible that something
> like X could be turned for profit after so many years. One wonders if
> this might have happened under the auspices of the X Consortium, who
> knows?
>
> I and probably many before and after me will call for the OpenGroup to
> reverse this seemingly poor decision, or at the very least offer a
> plausible reason for their actions. I for one await that day.
>
> Matt
From: cbbro...@news.brownes.org (Christopher B. Browne)
Subject: Re: Licensing charges for X11R6.4
Date: 1998/04/02
Message-ID: <slrn6i6c61.mu7.cbbrowne@knuth.brownes.org>#1/1
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On 01 Apr 1998 21:58:43 +0100, Alex Hornby <ahor...@plasma.ddns.org> posted:
>>>>>> "kenton" == kenton <ken...@nojunk.rahul.net> writes:
>
> kenton> In article <6ft5un$ml...@woodstock.socs.uts.EDU.AU>, Jas
> kenton> (Matthew K) <m...@acs.itd.uts.EDU.AU> wrote:
> >> I will leave the debate of the politics to others more erudit
> >> and knowledgable than myself. But none the less I will say this
> >> much, I am dissapointed. In the days when the likes of Netscape
> >> release software for free it could hardly seem possible that
> >> something like X could be turned for profit after so many
> >> years. One wonders if this might have happened under the
> >> auspices of the X Consortium, who knows?
>
> kenton> People who do work hard and do good work deserve to get
> kenton> paid. In the past the X Consortium was funded by
> kenton> contributions from its sponsors. These have likely
> kenton> decreased significantly over the years as the market has
> kenton> changed and many of the original sponsors have fallen on
> kenton> hard times. If you want the software to be free, I think
> kenton> you're going to have to drum up new sponsors to pay for
> kenton> the work. Complaining might change things if their profit
> kenton> levels were very high, but I suspect they'll have a hard
> kenton> enough time just breaking even. -- Ken Lee,
> kenton> http://www.rahul.net/kenton/
>
>I can't help thinking that the open source development model of Linux
>et al would give greater improvement more quickly. A project such as X
>with a large user base, many of whom are programmers, is ideal for
>open development.
>
>I believe that the reason X has not progressed amazingly fast is that
>the process has been too "Cathedral" like with memberships of this and
>that organisation required to contribute.
If new licensing arrangements for new versions of X result in it no longer
being freely redistributable, then it is entirely likely that the past
theory that "X is dead" may ultimately come true.
Suddenly applying licensing fees when they have not in the past been
applicable would substantially *prevent* the distribution of X for use with
OSes like Linux. (Or at least post-X11R6.3-versions...)
If, for instance, a $20/copy royalty were applied for commercial use. That
is, I would note, a fairly nominal amount that appears not unreasonable.
Unfortunately, everyone that distributes Linux CDs on a commercial basis is
readily argued to be using X for a commercial purpose (that being to sell
copies of it).
$2 CDs immediately go away.
And a separate "development tree" begins in not unlike fashion to how:
- There are three "free" BSD projects (FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD)
- There are two Emacs editors (GNU Emacs, XEmacs)
- Two development "trees" for Netscape Navigator (one held privately by
Netscape Communications, and the other recently opened up for public
participation for anyone with *LOTS* of free disk space...)
In effect, there might be, in the near future, two implementations of X, the
"free" one (probably under the auspices of The XFree86 Organization) and a
"purely commercial" one that may die off as a result of disinterest from
UNIX vendors that make more of their money selling headless servers.
The real point being that it doesn't matter very much if the people at the X
Consortium did good work and deserve to be paid for it (which I'd certainly
think is the case) if there isn't a business model that will provide them
with suitable revenues.
Good technologies from good people commonly are buried by inferior
technologies built by scoundrels that happened to have better marketing or
an economic model that allowed the scoundrels to pay for their marketing
efforts.
--
Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly.
-- Henry Spencer <http://www.hex.net/~cbbrowne/lsf.html>
cbbro...@hex.net - "What have you contributed to Linux today?..."
From: Marcus Sundberg <e94_...@e.kth.se>
Subject: Re: Licensing charges for X11R6.4
Date: 1998/04/02
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David Koski wrote:
>
> I have to laugh at how funny this whole thread is. Redhat and the alike
> make a profit
> by distributing code.
Redhat does not make profit by distributing X code!
They make profit by distributing support, manuals and CD's
(which happens to contain X code, but as it's also available
from Redhat's FTP-servers they do not make any profit by
putting X on the CD too)
What redhat does is extremely important to the Linux world.
They are making Linux easily available to a lot of people
who might not have the the time or knowledge to get source
packages of the net and build a working Linuxsystem.
And this in turn creates a broader market for commercial
products, which means that in the future I might not have to
boot into win* to read the latest M$ Office formats or
play the latest games. And companies may not have to
run an NT or commercial UNIX server to run an Oracle database.
I might add that I don't know if this whole thing will affect
Linux distributors. But IF Redhat and others will be forced
to pay the Open Group to distribute X on their CDs, they have
made a big misstake.
//Marcus
--
-------------------------------+------------------------------------
Marcus Sundberg | WWW: http://www.e.kth.se/~e94_msu/
Royal Institute of Technology | This space for rent...
Stockholm, Sweden | E-Mail: e94_...@e.kth.se
From: Navindra Umanee <navin...@cs.mcgill.ca>
Subject: Re: Licensing charges for X11R6.4
Date: 1998/04/02
Message-ID: <6g0md0$2qs@sifon.cc.mcgill.ca>#1/1
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Wow, it's not an April Fool's. So we win Netscape and lose X. I
guess all is not lost given the license we have for X11R6.3 (would GPL
have been better?). This kind of thing probably shows the importance
of having "fresh" projects like Berlin --
<URL:http://slashdot.org/articles/9841102444.shtml>
THIS SUCKS
by Derry Bryson (de...@ta1.reno-onramp.com) on 01:28:56 04/02/1998
http://www.berlin-consortium.org
Well, this sucks! On the other hand, maybe its good. No need
to wait for the "Open Group" to make fixes or enhancements. X
could now progress at the rate Linux does.
For an alternative to X you might want to check out the URL
attached to this message. This is the home page of a project
to provide a replacement for X. It is based on the concepts of
X (network server/client) but utilizes CORBA and GGI. Perhaps
its time for everyone who's just sitting around with nothing
to do to jump in and contribute to Berlin.
From: Chris Mikkelson <mikk0...@maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Subject: Re: Licensing charges for X11R6.4
Date: 1998/04/02
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Navindra Umanee <navin...@cs.mcgill.ca> writes:
> Wow, it's not an April Fool's. So we win Netscape and lose X. I
> guess all is not lost given the license we have for X11R6.3 (would GPL
> have been better?).
GPL would not have been better. The Open Group holds copyright on
most (if not all) of X, and can release it under any terms they
choose. Even if they had released it under the GPL, they still would
have the legal right to make it non-free.
The GPL may have even hurt X. X11 was released long before any of the
Free PC Unixes (well, 4 or 5 years). If the sample implementation had
been released under the GPL, the proprietary Unix vendors like IBM,
Sun, DEC, etc. would not have gone with X11. They would have gone
with their own incompatible, proprietary windowing systems, killing X
before it could really catch on.
> This kind of thing probably shows the importance
> of having "fresh" projects like Berlin --
> http://www.berlin-consortium.org
Another incompatible windowing system. And this one seems to be Linux
specific, to boot! I'll stick with XFree, thank you. Or MGR. Or
load up Plan9 and use 8-1/2.
I may not like the current implementation of X, but the concept is
still quite sound and useful, so I don't want to give that up quite
yet. If you want to have a little retro-computing fun, download the
sources to X version 10. X10R4 is still available from ftp.x.org. It
only has display code for suns, and one other type of device, so you
probably won't be able to try it out.
The amazing thing about X10 is that full sources, clients, Xlib, CLX
(Common Lisp interface to X), manuals, and papers come in a 3M
tarball. At the time (or so I hear), it was regarded as quite an
elegant system.
A lot changed with X11.
<wishful-thinking>
My Ideal Windowing System would probably be very much like X in
design. It would still be based on a protocol over a reliable data
stream, and it would still hold on to "mechanism, not policy" since
that is the right thing to do(tm).
What I'd change would be as follows:
-- ditch "real" backward compatibility in favor of emulation of X11.
-- add some more drawing primitives, addressing the Berlin people's
complaints. e.g. Splines, antialiased text, etc.
-- take some of the things currently done in extensions (double
buffering, shaped windows) and integrate them into the core
protocol.
Any takers?
</wishful-thinking>
-Chris
From: b...@ecst.csuchico.edu (Brian 'Beej' Hall)
Subject: Re: Licensing charges for X11R6.4
Date: 1998/04/02
Message-ID: <6g16kk$avf$1@hubble.csuchico.edu>#1/1
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In article <slrn6i6c61.mu7.cbbro...@knuth.brownes.org>,
Christopher B. Browne <cbbro...@hex.net> wrote:
>If, for instance, a $20/copy royalty were applied for commercial use. That
>is, I would note, a fairly nominal amount that appears not unreasonable.
Thank God it's not what they're charging. If you sell over 7,500 units,
the cost is between $1 and $0.14 per copy. (Even less if you sell
truckloads of truckloads.) These are the non-member expensive prices.
(http://www.camb.opengroup.org/tech/desktop/x/xlicensefaq.htm)
Is it really such a bad thing? Needing to purchase the software makes a
lot of people feel better. "Real Licensed X11 Technology included!"
Redhat already bundles software that costs a lot more than X (BRU,
Motif(?)). What is the yearly volume of Redhat sales that bundle
XFree86? Say it's 250,000 CDs. The non-member fee for this is $42,500.
That's $0.17 per copy. I'll take it! Hell--I'm generous. Take $0.50.
I agree that isn't not as good as free, but it nearly is. When what you
get are people that are paid to improve X, I think it can't be all bad.
Remember that the X team is not for-profit--they just need to support
their developers.
-Beej
From: torva...@transmeta.com (Linus Torvalds)
Subject: Re: Licensing charges for X11R6.4
Date: 1998/04/02
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In article <87k99751zq....@x115-105.reshalls.umn.edu>,
Chris Mikkelson <mikk0...@maroon.tc.umn.edu> wrote:
>Navindra Umanee <navin...@cs.mcgill.ca> writes:
>
>> Wow, it's not an April Fool's. So we win Netscape and lose X. I
>> guess all is not lost given the license we have for X11R6.3 (would GPL
>> have been better?).
>
>GPL would not have been better. The Open Group holds copyright on
>most (if not all) of X, and can release it under any terms they
>choose. Even if they had released it under the GPL, they still would
>have the legal right to make it non-free.
GPL _would_ have been better.
The Open Group has been the copyright owner of X11 only for a fairly
short time. A more protective license would have made it impossible for
the Open Group to do what they are trying to do.
>The GPL may have even hurt X. X11 was released long before any of the
>Free PC Unixes (well, 4 or 5 years). If the sample implementation had
>been released under the GPL, the proprietary Unix vendors like IBM,
>Sun, DEC, etc. would not have gone with X11. They would have gone
>with their own incompatible, proprietary windowing systems, killing X
>before it could really catch on.
Agreed. However, I think that if the Open Group doesn't change their
policy wrt X11, then the free Unixes will probably fairly unanimously
stick with X11R6.3. And I think that under those circumstances it would
be better if any further development on R6.3 was done under the LGPL or
similar that would protect the intellectual rights of the developers
better than the original X11 license does.
A _lot_ of people have worked on making X better on PC's for the last
few years, and most of those probably did so on the assumption that X11
would continue to be free.
>What I'd change would be as follows:
> -- ditch "real" backward compatibility in favor of emulation of X11.
> -- add some more drawing primitives, addressing the Berlin people's
> complaints. e.g. Splines, antialiased text, etc.
> -- take some of the things currently done in extensions (double
> buffering, shaped windows) and integrate them into the core
> protocol.
We may get that, if the Open Group forces a split of X. But it will be
painful, and I sincerely hope the new free X will be protected from
idiots like the Open Group by a better license.
Linus
From: torva...@transmeta.com (Linus Torvalds)
Subject: Re: Licensing charges for X11R6.4
Date: 1998/04/02
Message-ID: <6g184a$783$1@palladium.transmeta.com>#1/1
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In article <6g16kk$av...@hubble.csuchico.edu>,
Brian 'Beej' Hall <b...@ecst.csuchico.edu> wrote:
>
>Thank God it's not what they're charging. If you sell over 7,500 units,
>the cost is between $1 and $0.14 per copy. (Even less if you sell
>truckloads of truckloads.) These are the non-member expensive prices.
>(http://www.camb.opengroup.org/tech/desktop/x/xlicensefaq.htm)
>
>Is it really such a bad thing? Needing to purchase the software makes a
>lot of people feel better. "Real Licensed X11 Technology included!"
It really is such a bad thing. It makes it harder to enter the market.
Sure, people like Red Hat etc could cough up the money. This year.
What guarantees do you have that the price won't keep going up? The Open
Group is _starting_ with a base price that looks reasonable, but I'd be
surprised as hell if there weren't people already planning future
prices.
>I agree that isn't not as good as free, but it nearly is. When what you
>get are people that are paid to improve X, I think it can't be all bad.
>
>Remember that the X team is not for-profit--they just need to support
>their developers.
A very small part of the fees may help development. Most of the fees
will go to maintaining a badly organized not-for-profit company that has
no incentive to help the free software market (and has a lot of
incentive to try to kill off free unixes - most of their funding by far
comes from companies that are in direct competition, and losing).
A _lot_ of the real development has gone on inside XFree86, for example.
And they haven't been paid by the Open Group, quite the reverse. They
had to pay to get in.
Linus
From: "Kaleb S. KEITHLEY" <k.#nojunk#keith...@opengroup.org>
Subject: Re: Licensing charges for X11R6.4
Date: 1998/04/03
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Marcus Sundberg wrote:
>
> David Koski wrote:
> >
> > I have to laugh at how funny this whole thread is. Redhat and the alike
> > make a profit
> > by distributing code.
>
> Redhat does not make profit by distributing X code!
I don't believe that for a minute.
>
> I might add that I don't know if this whole thing will affect
> Linux distributors. But IF Redhat and others will be forced
> to pay the Open Group to distribute X on their CDs,
They're not forced to do anything. They can ship X11R6.3 forever.
--
Kaleb S. KEITHLEY
From: fort...@aquarel.fr (Patrice Fortier)
Subject: Re: Licensing charges for X11R6.4
Date: 1998/04/03
Message-ID: <6g2ccn$94a@news.u-bordeaux.fr>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 340472701
References: <6ft5un$mlv$1@woodstock.socs.uts.EDU.AU> <m3lntp5ke4.fsf@plasma.ddns.org>
<slrn6i6c61.mu7.cbbrowne@knuth.brownes.org> <6g16kk$avf$1@hubble.csuchico.edu>
<6g184a$783$1@palladium.transmeta.com>
Followup-To: comp.windows.x,comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.linux.x,
comp.os.linux.development.system
Organization: CRIBX1 , Universite de Bordeaux I , France
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x,comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.linux.x,
comp.os.linux.development.system
Linus Torvalds (torva...@transmeta.com) wrote:
: <...>
: What guarantees do you have that the price won't keep going up? The Open
: Group is _starting_ with a base price that looks reasonable, but I'd be
: surprised as hell if there weren't people already planning future
: prices.
Considering that when the X cons. came into the Open Group they said
that this wouldn't change anything for the next version, I can't
agree more with you :(.
From: "Kaleb S. KEITHLEY" <k.#nojunk#keith...@opengroup.org>
Subject: Re: Licensing charges for X11R6.4
Date: 1998/04/03
Message-ID: <35250202.1CFBAE39@opengroup.org>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 340478293
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
References: <6ft5un$mlv$1@woodstock.socs.uts.EDU.AU> <m3lntp5ke4.fsf@plasma.ddns.org>
<slrn6i6c61.mu7.cbbrowne@knuth.brownes.org> <6g16kk$avf$1@hubble.csuchico.edu>
<6g184a$783$1@palladium.transmeta.com> <6g2ccn$94a@news.u-bordeaux.fr>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Organization: The Open Group
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x,comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.linux.x,
comp.os.linux.development.system
Patrice Fortier wrote:
>
> Linus Torvalds (torva...@transmeta.com) wrote:
> : <...>
> : What guarantees do you have that the price won't keep going up? The Open
> : Group is _starting_ with a base price that looks reasonable, but I'd be
> : surprised as hell if there weren't people already planning future
> : prices.
>
> Considering that when the X cons. came into the Open Group they said
> that this wouldn't change anything for the next version, I can't
> agree more with you :(.
There's not one shred of truth to that statement.
--
Kaleb S. KEITHLEY
From: e...@dodo.eng.uci.edu (Edwin Lim)
Subject: Re: Licensing charges for X11R6.4
Date: 1998/04/03
Message-ID: <6g2fkc$22i@news.service.uci.edu>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 340484219
References: <6ft5un$mlv$1@woodstock.socs.uts.EDU.AU> <3522FE9C.CB683888@mediaone.net>
<35237ECC.167E@e.kth.se> <35247DFB.167EB0E7@opengroup.org>
Organization: University of California, Irvine
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
In article <35247DFB.167EB...@opengroup.org>,
Kaleb S. KEITHLEY <k.#nojunk#keith...@opengroup.org> wrote:
>Marcus Sundberg wrote:
>>
>> I might add that I don't know if this whole thing will affect
>> Linux distributors. But IF Redhat and others will be forced
>> to pay the Open Group to distribute X on their CDs,
>
>They're not forced to do anything. They can ship X11R6.3 forever.
And then all the famous trade rags will make the free unices look real
good (to the suits) with "our commercial Unix ships with the latest
X11R6.x, x > 3, while these free unices are stuck with older and
inferior X11R6.3."
Red Hat, or the free unix world for that matter, will not ship X11R6.3
forever. A split development is more likely to happen, with the free
version tracking the Open Group (which sounds less aptly named now :-))
version. I.e., the Open Group is not likely to make significant more
money from the free unix crowd, plus they stand the chance of losing
the free advocacy that is gaining lots of momentum day by day.
Why hasn't the X world standardized on Motif? Why is there a KDE
or some such instead of CDE on all desktop? It is the license.
By creating these kinds of licenses, the commercial X/Unix entities can
perhaps pay the programmers now. At least that seems to be the hinted
explanation. OTOH, this kind of license alienates the free unix crowd,
and to the outsiders this looks like confusion, then new converts will
be harder to get, and the commercial X/Unix entities might find
themselves pushed more and more into a niche market in the future.
I, for one, would still be using Windows and not be working as a
sysadmin for a bunch of Suns if not for the free unices. I am sure
that many can testify to the same. Those free unices are making a
good name for X/Unix, and they are in the arena that that is
probably lost by the commercial X/Unix anyway. I doubt if without
those free unices, SCO, Solaris x86, etc., would have gained many more
sales in their places. The free unices are making many people look
again at unix, an advocacy that the commercial X/Unix has pretty much
failed to do. Making life hard for the free unices can mean making
life hard for the commercial X/Unix entities (who can make money and
pay their programmers, unlike the free unices :-)).
I guess the freeware world will cope with this unfortunate turn of
events. Sometimes a little pissed-offness is good for getting lots of
work done. :-P But the new X11 license, to me, is analogous to firing
into the crowd to make way for the procession of the city officials.
The citizens becomes unhappy and the neighboring city doubles over in
laughter.
e.
P.S. I hope that it is understood that the state of affairs of X is
strongly tied to the state of affairs of Unix, even though X
is OS independent.
--
_______________________________________________________________________________
Edwin _Lim_ Aun Whei | Two roads diverge in the woods and I --
e...@eng.uci.edu | I took the one less travelled by. - Robert Frost
From: "Kaleb S. KEITHLEY" <k.#nojunk#keith...@opengroup.org>
Subject: Re: Licensing charges for X11R6.4
Date: 1998/04/03
Message-ID: <35252331.7DE14518@opengroup.org>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 340501020
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
References: <6ft5un$mlv$1@woodstock.socs.uts.EDU.AU> <3522FE9C.CB683888@mediaone.net>
<35237ECC.167E@e.kth.se> <35247DFB.167EB0E7@opengroup.org>
<6g2fkc$22i@news.service.uci.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Organization: The Open Group
Mime-Version: 1.0
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Edwin Lim wrote:
>
> In article <35247DFB.167EB...@opengroup.org>,
> Kaleb S. KEITHLEY <k.#nojunk#keith...@opengroup.org> wrote:
> >Marcus Sundberg wrote:
> >>
> >> I might add that I don't know if this whole thing will affect
> >> Linux distributors. But IF Redhat and others will be forced
> >> to pay the Open Group to distribute X on their CDs,
> >
> >They're not forced to do anything. They can ship X11R6.3 forever.
>
> And then all the famous trade rags will make the free unices look real
> good (to the suits) with "our commercial Unix ships with the latest
> X11R6.x, x > 3, while these free unices are stuck with older and
> inferior X11R6.3."
In a world where IBM and Sequent still ship R5, and HP, Digital, and SGI
still ship R6.0, and Sun ships R4 on SunOS and R6pl11 on Solaris, I
don't see it as a major failing if XFree86 ships something based on R6.3
for a couple of years.
>
> Red Hat, or the free unix world for that matter, will not ship X11R6.3
> forever. A split development is more likely to happen, with the free
> version tracking the Open Group
I predict that it'll be mighty difficult to track The Open Group code.
Not without contaminating the "other" code. :-)
> version. I.e., the Open Group is not likely to make significant more
> money from the free unix crowd,
"more money" would imply that there ever was any money from the "free
unix crowd." There never was money from the "free unix crowd" and
getting "more" from them was not the impetus for the licensing.
>
> Why hasn't the X world standardized on Motif?
But they have. And the "have-nots" if you'll excuse the expression, want
it so bad that they're doing LessTif.
> Why is there a KDE
Ditto.
>
> By creating these kinds of licenses, the commercial X/Unix entities can
> perhaps pay the programmers now.
Okay, don't pay the programmer now. Either way your going to be stuck
with R6.3 forever. Tell me how this changes anything.
> At least that seems to be the hinted
> explanation. OTOH, this kind of license alienates the free unix crowd,
As opposed to alienating the programmers when you lay them off.
> and to the outsiders this looks like confusion,
You mean the outsiders who are paying for a commercial quality product?
They know the story. They aren't confused.
> then new converts will
> be harder to get, and the commercial X/Unix entities might find
> themselves pushed more and more into a niche market in the future.
R6.3 is just as much X as R6.4 is. New converts can use R6.3-based
XFree86, and whatever innovations XFree86 puts in. They're no more of a
niche than SunOS users are who are still using R4.
> I guess the freeware world will cope with this unfortunate turn of
> events. Sometimes a little pissed-offness is good for getting lots of
> work done. :-P But the new X11 license, to me, is analogous to firing
> into the crowd to make way for the procession of the city officials.
> The citizens becomes unhappy and the neighboring city doubles over in
> laughter.
Or the city that taxes its residents to build roads, subways, parks,
water treatment plants, and schools -- and grows; versus the city that
doesn't and remains a provincial little village where nothing ever
happens.
--
Kaleb S. KEITHLEY
From: fort...@aquarel.fr (Patrice Fortier)
Subject: Re: Licensing charges for X11R6.4
Date: 1998/04/03
Message-ID: <6g2nlr$boh@news.u-bordeaux.fr>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 340504412
References: <6ft5un$mlv$1@woodstock.socs.uts.EDU.AU> <m3lntp5ke4.fsf@plasma.ddns.org>
<slrn6i6c61.mu7.cbbrowne@knuth.brownes.org> <6g16kk$avf$1@hubble.csuchico.edu>
<6g184a$783$1@palladium.transmeta.com> <6g2ccn$94a@news.u-bordeaux.fr>
<35250202.1CFBAE39@opengroup.org>
Followup-To: comp.windows.x,comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.linux.x,
comp.os.linux.development.system
Organization: CRIBX1 , Universite de Bordeaux I , France
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x,comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.linux.x,
comp.os.linux.development.system
Kaleb S. KEITHLEY (k.#nojunk#keith...@opengroup.org) wrote:
: Patrice Fortier wrote:
: >
: > Linus Torvalds (torva...@transmeta.com) wrote:
: > : <...>
: > : What guarantees do you have that the price won't keep going up? The Open
: > : Group is _starting_ with a base price that looks reasonable, but I'd be
: > : surprised as hell if there weren't people already planning future
: > : prices.
: >
: > Considering that when the X cons. came into the Open Group they said
: > that this wouldn't change anything for the next version, I can't
: > agree more with you :(.
: There's not one shred of truth to that statement.
Arg. As usual with the newsgroups, I've been misunderstood (my fault).
When the announce was made that X cons was going to the Open Group, a
thread like this one happened. The guys at X cons. (or Open Group, I
don't remember and I don't care) said that this wouldn't change anything
at least for the next version (X11R6.3). I hope you agree with that,
otherwise you should take a look at DejaNews...
Now, we are at version X11R6.4, which is _not_ free software (I mean,
as X11R6.3 and before) anymore.
Currently X11 isn't expensive, but the main step has been done: You have
to pay for commercial use (my InfoMagic Linux CD _is_ a commercial use).
I really can't see why the Open Group wouldn't raise its prices for the
next (X11R6.5 ?) version as the "psychological step" (free/not-free) is
being done.
'hope I've been more precise this time.
Yours,
Lokh.
From: "Kaleb S. KEITHLEY" <k.keith...@opengroup.org>
Subject: Re: Licensing charges for X11R6.4
Date: 1998/04/03
Message-ID: <3524FB9B.3FD3@opengroup.org>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 340530492
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
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<slrn6i6c61.mu7.cbbrowne@knuth.brownes.org> <6g16kk$avf$1@hubble.csuchico.edu>
<6g184a$783$1@palladium.transmeta.com> <6g2ccn$94a@news.u-bordeaux.fr>
<35250202.1CFBAE39@opengroup.org> <6g2nlr$boh@news.u-bordeaux.fr>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Organization: The Open Group
Mime-Version: 1.0
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x,comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.linux.x,
comp.os.linux.development.system
Patrice Fortier wrote:
>
> : >
> : > Considering that when the X cons. came into the Open Group they said
> : > that this wouldn't change anything for the next version, I can't
> : > agree more with you :(.
>
> : There's not one shred of truth to that statement.
>
> Arg. As usual with the newsgroups, I've been misunderstood (my fault).
>
> When the announce was made that X cons was going to the Open Group, a
> thread like this one happened. The guys at X cons. (or Open Group, I
> don't remember and I don't care) said that this wouldn't change anything
> at least for the next version (X11R6.3).
The then current version was X11R6.3. The promise was that R6.3 would
remain the same, and it did, and it still remains exactly the way it was
released by the X Consortium.
> I hope you agree with that,
> otherwise you should take a look at DejaNews...
>
> Now, we are at version X11R6.4, which is _not_ free software (I mean,
> as X11R6.3 and before) anymore.
R6.4 is free to the free community. You can take it, modify it, give it
to your friends, print it out and shred it, do what ever you want with
it -- just don't sell it. Once someone sells it they should expect to
contribute a very small amount back to The Open Group for it's
maintenance and development.
> Currently X11 isn't expensive, but the main step has been done: You have
> to pay for commercial use (my InfoMagic Linux CD _is_ a commercial use).
>
> I really can't see why the Open Group wouldn't raise its prices for the
> next (X11R6.5 ?) version as the "psychological step" (free/not-free) is
> being done.
I can't predict the future, can you? Anyone that's worried about the
price going up is just inventing excuses to not like the new license.
--
Kaleb
From: cad...@ro.com (Chris Adams)
Subject: Re: Licensing charges for X11R6.4
Date: 1998/04/03
Message-ID: <6g30im$58l$1@news.ro.com>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 340536691
References: <6ft5un$mlv$1@woodstock.socs.uts.EDU.AU> <35250202.1CFBAE39@opengroup.org>
<6g2nlr$boh@news.u-bordeaux.fr> <3524FB9B.3FD3@opengroup.org>
Organization: Renaissance Internet Services
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x,comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.linux.x,
comp.os.linux.development.system
According to Kaleb S. KEITHLEY <k.keith...@opengroup.org>:
>R6.4 is free to the free community. You can take it, modify it, give it
>to your friends, print it out and shred it, do what ever you want with
>it -- just don't sell it. Once someone sells it they should expect to
>contribute a very small amount back to The Open Group for it's
>maintenance and development.
So if Red Hat used an R6.4 derived X, they have to pay The Open Group
for every CD they sell, but they don't have to pay for copies downloaded
via FTP? What about people like Cheap Bytes, that download Red Hat, put
it on a CD, and sell it? Or if R6.4 was in any of the Linux archives
that people dump to CD and sell, do they have to pay?
--
Chris Adams - cad...@ro.com
System Administrator - Renaissance Internet Services
I don't speak for anybody but myself - that's enough trouble.
From: b...@ecst.csuchico.edu (Brian 'Beej' Hall)
Subject: Re: Licensing charges for X11R6.4
Date: 1998/04/03
Message-ID: <6g33fl$ghu$1@hubble.csuchico.edu>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 340552232
References: <6ft5un$mlv$1@woodstock.socs.uts.EDU.AU> <35250202.1CFBAE39@opengroup.org>
<6g2nlr$boh@news.u-bordeaux.fr> <3524FB9B.3FD3@opengroup.org>
Organization: California State University, Chico
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x,comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.linux.x,
comp.os.linux.development.system
In article <3524FB9B.3...@opengroup.org>,
Kaleb S. KEITHLEY <k.keith...@opengroup.org> wrote:
>I can't predict the future, can you? Anyone that's worried about the
>price going up is just inventing excuses to not like the new license.
How do you answer Linus Torvalds' charges?
Linus wrote:
#It really is such a bad thing. It makes it harder to enter the market.
#
#Sure, people like Red Hat etc could cough up the money. This year.
#What guarantees do you have that the price won't keep going up? The Open
#Group is _starting_ with a base price that looks reasonable, but I'd be
#surprised as hell if there weren't people already planning future
#prices.
#
#[...]
#
#A very small part of the fees may help development. Most of the fees
#will go to maintaining a badly organized not-for-profit company that has
#no incentive to help the free software market (and has a lot of
#incentive to try to kill off free unixes - most of their funding by far
#comes from companies that are in direct competition, and losing).
#
#A _lot_ of the real development has gone on inside XFree86, for example.
#And they haven't been paid by the Open Group, quite the reverse. They
#had to pay to get in.
Just curious,
-Beej
From: "Kaleb S. KEITHLEY" <k.keith...@opengroup.org>
Subject: Re: Licensing charges for X11R6.4
Date: 1998/04/03
Message-ID: <35253E6F.5311@opengroup.org>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 340611334
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
References: <6ft5un$mlv$1@woodstock.socs.uts.EDU.AU> <35250202.1CFBAE39@opengroup.org>
<6g2nlr$boh@news.u-bordeaux.fr> <3524FB9B.3FD3@opengroup.org>
<6g30im$58l$1@news.ro.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Organization: The Open Group
Mime-Version: 1.0
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x,comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.linux.x,
comp.os.linux.development.system
Chris Adams wrote:
>
> According to Kaleb S. KEITHLEY <k.keith...@opengroup.org>:
> >R6.4 is free to the free community. You can take it, modify it, give it
> >to your friends, print it out and shred it, do what ever you want with
> >it -- just don't sell it. Once someone sells it they should expect to
> >contribute a very small amount back to The Open Group for it's
> >maintenance and development.
>
> So if Red Hat used an R6.4 derived X, they have to pay The Open Group
> for every CD they sell,
... every CD they sell, ...
> but they don't have to pay for copies downloaded
> via FTP?
They wouldn't be "selling" those, would they?
> What about people like Cheap Bytes, that download Red Hat, put
> it on a CD, and sell it?
... sell it?
> Or if R6.4 was in any of the Linux archives
> that people dump to CD and sell, do they have to pay?
... and sell, ...
The magic word is "sell." If you say the magic word, the duck will fly
down, and you have to have a license.
Anyone who sells X11R6.4 has to have a license. Plain and simple.
Q: What if I write a program that's linked with R6.4, do I need a
license?
A: No.
Q: What if I want to use R6.4 at my company/school, but I'm not going to
sell it, do I need a license?
A: No.
Q: Can I give the source to a friend?
A: Yes.
Q: Can he sell it?
A: With a license, yes. Without a license, no.
Q: What if I make a press run of 1,000,000 CDs and give them away free
at Fry's, Microcenter, CompUSA, Computer City, etc., etc.
A: You can do that.
Q: Why did the licensing terms change?
A: To provide for the ongoing maintenance and development of the Sample
Implementation.
Q: Why can't I just keep using R6.3?
A: You can.
--
Kaleb
From: jer...@netcom.com (Jeremy Allison)
Subject: Re: Licensing charges for X11R6.4
Date: 1998/04/03
Message-ID: <jeremyEquosL.Cxn@netcom.com>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 340582401
Sender: jer...@netcom13.netcom.com
References: <6ft5un$mlv$1@woodstock.socs.uts.EDU.AU> <3522FE9C.CB683888@mediaone.net>
<35237ECC.167E@e.kth.se> <35247DFB.167EB0E7@opengroup.org>
<6g2fkc$22i@news.service.uci.edu> <35252331.7DE14518@opengroup.org>
Organization: Netcom On-Line Services
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Here's a copy of a letter I just sent. I urge all
OpenSource developers to respectfully request the
Open Group to reconsider this decision.
Jeremy Allison,
Samba Team.
------------------------------------------------------
Subject: The licensing decision for X11R6.4
Date: Fri, 03 Apr 1998 10:25:39 -0800
From: Jeremy Allison <jalli...@whistle.com>
Organization: Whistle Communications
To: d.kn...@opengroup.org
Dear Mr. Knorr,
I am writing to express my extreme concern
with the Open Groups decision to make the X11R6.4
distribution of the X Window System a non-free product.
I am a free software developer, and one of the leading
developers in the Samba Team, who produce OpenSource(tm)
software for the benefit of all. I am funded by a commercial
company, Whistle communications, who donate my time to
the development of Samba (the leading file and print servicce
integration tool for UNIX and Microsoft Windows) in order
to gain commercial benefit, but they also see the advantage
of making this technology freely available to all in order
to advance it.
I find this decision to be short sighted and very damaging
to the united front that vendors of UNIX technology must
present in order to remain viable vendors in the face of
Microsoft monopoly competition.
The main beneficiaries of this decision will be in Redmond,
WA., as the development of the X Window System will become
fragmented, for the OpenSource community must act to take
over development based on the last free release (X11R6.3).
Please reconsider this action.
Yours respectfully,
Jeremy Allison,
Samba Team.
--
--------------------------------------------------------
Buying an operating system without source is like buying
a self-assembly Space Shuttle with no instructions.
--------------------------------------------------------
From: "Kaleb S. KEITHLEY" <k.keith...@opengroup.org>
Subject: Re: Licensing charges for X11R6.4
Date: 1998/04/03
Message-ID: <35254870.6AD@opengroup.org>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 340623183
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
References: <6ft5un$mlv$1@woodstock.socs.uts.EDU.AU> <35250202.1CFBAE39@opengroup.org>
<6g2nlr$boh@news.u-bordeaux.fr> <3524FB9B.3FD3@opengroup.org>
<6g33fl$ghu$1@hubble.csuchico.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Organization: The Open Group
Mime-Version: 1.0
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x,comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.linux.x,
comp.os.linux.development.system
Brian 'Beej' Hall wrote:
>
> In article <3524FB9B.3...@opengroup.org>,
> Kaleb S. KEITHLEY <k.keith...@opengroup.org> wrote:
> >I can't predict the future, can you? Anyone that's worried about the
> >price going up is just inventing excuses to not like the new license.
>
> How do you answer Linus Torvalds' charges?
I don't. I'm not going to dignify this sort of thing with a response.
--
Kaleb
From: Theo de Raadt <dera...@zeus.theos.com>
Subject: Re: Licensing charges for X11R6.4
Date: 1998/04/03
Message-ID: <czpi2skk6.fsf@zeus.theos.com>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 340623184
References: <6ft5un$mlv$1@woodstock.socs.uts.EDU.AU> <3522FE9C.CB683888@mediaone.net>
<35237ECC.167E@e.kth.se> <35247DFB.167EB0E7@opengroup.org>
<6g2fkc$22i@news.service.uci.edu> <35252331.7DE14518@opengroup.org>
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
"Kaleb S. KEITHLEY" <k.#nojunk#keith...@opengroup.org> writes:
> In a world where IBM and Sequent still ship R5, and HP, Digital, and SGI
> still ship R6.0, and Sun ships R4 on SunOS and R6pl11 on Solaris, I
> don't see it as a major failing if XFree86 ships something based on R6.3
> for a couple of years.
Well, I think you can expect that. I will do everything I can to
support the XFree86 project if they decide to keep their source code
free. "Free" is part of their name after all, isn't it. It would be
a mockery of their policies for them to change to the new Closed Group
software.
> > Red Hat, or the free unix world for that matter, will not ship X11R6.3
> > forever. A split development is more likely to happen, with the free
> > version tracking the Open Group
So OpenBSD will never ship with an X11R6.4 based distribution. The
CDROMs that we ship are 100% free software. There's just no way we
are going to ship anything with that kind of a license. It is
completely impossible.
> I predict that it'll be mighty difficult to track The Open Group code.
> Not without contaminating the "other" code. :-)
It's amazing what people can clone in a very short time. Perfectly
legally. Of course you work for the Open Group, and they believe in
patents too, right? Sure, that's one way the Open Group might be able
to stop development of competing X11 groups.
> > version. I.e., the Open Group is not likely to make significant more
> > money from the free unix crowd,
>
> "more money" would imply that there ever was any money from the "free
> unix crowd." There never was money from the "free unix crowd" and
> getting "more" from them was not the impetus for the licensing.
So what's the issue then? Leave it free for the free crowd. Where is
is this plan hoping to extract money from?
The Open Group is so damned inscrutible, isn't it. It even shows with
the standards that they write. I see nothing "Open" about the Open
Group, and sometimes I find myself quite disgusted at having to share
that word with them (for our name).
> > Why hasn't the X world standardized on Motif?
>
> But they have. And the "have-nots" if you'll excuse the expression, want
> it so bad that they're doing LessTif.
Right. But lesstiff is free software, and what the Open Group is now
offering is NOT free software. You can't make such a comparison,
unless you are implying that the XFree86 group can pull a Lesstiff on
OSF's Motif.
> > By creating these kinds of licenses, the commercial X/Unix entities can
> > perhaps pay the programmers now.
>
> Okay, don't pay the programmer now. Either way your going to be stuck
> with R6.3 forever. Tell me how this changes anything.
Well, it doesn't. I predict that the new X group is going to be
completely stillborn.
I sincerely hope that the XFree86 group recognizes that this is as an
opportunity to become an even more important X11 force by splitting
off completely from X Consortium development, continuing to keep their
sourcess free, and thus ensuring that the largest software development
community in the world (the free one) works on their code rather than
yours.
> > At least that seems to be the hinted
> > explanation. OTOH, this kind of license alienates the free unix crowd,
>
> As opposed to alienating the programmers when you lay them off.
So get more money from the vendors that sell X. Trying to extract
per-use licensing at such a low level is pathetic. Projects like
OpenBSD could never pay your fee, we barely survive as it is. (and
that's entirely besides our objection to this bullshit you guys are
pulling).
Perhaps the X11 development process was wrong from the start. Perhaps
something like the X Consortium or the new incarnation just shouldn't
have existed in the way it did for the last few years. I could argue
that just the existance of XFree86 as a seperate distributor shows
that the X Consortium has done the job it was designed to do... the
job of stifling development in the free world, quite possibly at the
`request' of the commercial interests that fund the Open Group.
--
This space not left unintentionally unblank. dera...@openbsd.org
www.OpenBSD.org -- We're fixing security problems so you can sleep at night.
(If it wasn't so fascinating I might get some sleep myself...)
From: r...@netcom.com (Munagala V. S. Ramanath)
Subject: Re: Licensing charges for X11R6.4
Date: 1998/04/03
Message-ID: <ramEquyx3.Lv5@netcom.com>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 340646707
Sender: r...@netcom16.netcom.com
References: <6ft5un$mlv$1@woodstock.socs.uts.EDU.AU> <35250202.1CFBAE39@opengroup.org>
<6g2nlr$boh@news.u-bordeaux.fr> <3524FB9B.3FD3@opengroup.org>
<6g33fl$ghu$1@hubble.csuchico.edu> <35254870.6AD@opengroup.org>
Organization: Netcom On-Line Services
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x,comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.linux.x,
comp.os.linux.development.system
"Kaleb S. KEITHLEY" <k.keith...@opengroup.org> writes:
>Brian 'Beej' Hall wrote:
>>
>> In article <3524FB9B.3...@opengroup.org>,
>> Kaleb S. KEITHLEY <k.keith...@opengroup.org> wrote:
>> >I can't predict the future, can you? Anyone that's worried about the
>> >price going up is just inventing excuses to not like the new license.
>>
>> How do you answer Linus Torvalds' charges?
>I don't. I'm not going to dignify this sort of thing with a response.
The concerns are very real and there is no reason to deem them
"undignified".
After much reflection, I find myself turning time and again to the
following paranoid train of thought; I hope everybody distributing
Linux or other free Unices will think very, _very_ carefully before
swallowing this "commercial license" bait.
<paranoid mode on>
Assuming that the controlling entities at the Open Group are
the vendors of commercial Unices (I do not know this to be a
fact but others have made this claim and it seems plausible),
this "commercial license" is nothing more than an attempt to
stem the rising tide of Linux adoption in the commercial world.
It is the thin edge of the wedge, an attempt to get first a
toe-hold, then a foot-hold, then finally a strangle-hold on the
distributors of Linux.
Consider how important Slackware, Red Hat, Yggdrasil, Caldera,
etc. are to the growth of Linux in the commercial arena. A
distribution without X (or similar window system) would be
worthless. What better way to gain control of the growth of
Linux than to wrest control of a key component ?
Once these distributors get hooked on a "commercial license",
it is only a matter of time before the per-unit fees rise
rapidly. A fee of around $50/unit is enough to severely
decelerate Linux growth in the corporate world but it would
probably make little no difference at all to the vendors of
commercial Unices. Growth of Linux in the "home" market is
likely of little or no interest to them since it does not
threaten their market. But commercial penetration is critically
important to achieve the commendable Linux goal of "World
Domination" and here the distributors are a key element.
It seems transparently obvious that any distributor signing on to
this "commercial license" is surrendering to a deadly embrace.
</paranoid mode off>
Now I leave you with Andy Grove's much quoted reflection that only
the paranoid survive.
Ram
>--
>Kaleb
From: of...@sgi.com (Nhi Vanye)
Subject: Re: Licensing charges for X11R6.4
Date: 1998/04/03
Message-ID: <6g3sok$9lifp@fido.asd.sgi.com>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 340673216
References: <6ft5un$mlv$1@woodstock.socs.uts.EDU.AU> <6g33fl$ghu$1@hubble.csuchico.edu>
<35254870.6AD@opengroup.org> <ramEquyx3.Lv5@netcom.com>
Organization: Silicon Graphics Inc., Mountain View, CA
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x,comp.os.linux.x,comp.os.linux.development.system
[removed *.advocacy--- Get A Life, OS advocacy is for people who put
computers before the mother of their children.]
$ from r...@netcom.com -#114167 | sed "1,$s/^/> /"
>
>
>"Kaleb S. KEITHLEY" <k.keith...@opengroup.org> writes:
>
>>Brian 'Beej' Hall wrote:
>>>
>>> In article <3524FB9B.3...@opengroup.org>,
>>> Kaleb S. KEITHLEY <k.keith...@opengroup.org> wrote:
>>> >I can't predict the future, can you? Anyone that's worried about the
>>> >price going up is just inventing excuses to not like the new license.
>>>
>>> How do you answer Linus Torvalds' charges?
>
>>I don't. I'm not going to dignify this sort of thing with a response.
>
> The concerns are very real and there is no reason to deem them
> "undignified".
>
> After much reflection, I find myself turning time and again to the
> following paranoid train of thought; I hope everybody distributing
> Linux or other free Unices will think very, _very_ carefully before
> swallowing this "commercial license" bait.
>
> <paranoid mode on>
>
> Assuming that the controlling entities at the Open Group are
> the vendors of commercial Unices (I do not know this to be a
> fact but others have made this claim and it seems plausible),
The Open Group is funded by its members, yes most of these are Unix
vendors, but anyone can join. If more people did then they wouldn't need
to charge for it.
I, am of course tainted by having to earn a living in the real world by
writing proprietry code, but from my point of view what have RedHat[1]
contributed towards the future of X ? The big Unix vendors contribute
engineering resource and money, Xfree86 contribute engineering
resource. RedHat makes money from X (albeit indirectly) and yet they
don't contribute to the future of it ? That doesn't seem fair to me.
[1] I love RedHat, I run it at home, but I'm just using it as an example.
> this "commercial license" is nothing more than an attempt to
> stem the rising tide of Linux adoption in the commercial world.
> It is the thin edge of the wedge, an attempt to get first a
> toe-hold, then a foot-hold, then finally a strangle-hold on the
> distributors of Linux.
Its prompted because we (big unix vendors) aren't paying enough money
to TOG. If they don't find some other way of paying their bills they'll
have to close shop, whether you consider this to be a Good Thing[TM]
or a Bad Thing[TM] depends (probably) on which side of the fence you
sit. But before you all go and say "thats okay we'll use Xfree86",
thats only half of X....
"Ahhh... in that case I'll use <fill in the name of a yet another
window system>, since I believe that philosophy is more important that
interoperability and practicality."
Go ahead, but that wont help Linux enter the commercial arena where
interopability and familiarity scores as more important than whether I
have to pay an extra $5 to get a working graphics terminal.
Yes, life is unfair. Tough. If you want to play in the big world, you
have to play by big-world rules.
>
> Ram
>
>>--
>>Kaleb
#include <stddisclaimer.h>
richard.
--
Richard M. Offer Widget FAQ --> http://reality.sgi.com/widgetFAQ
MTS-Core Design (Motif)
___________________________________________http://reality.sgi.com/offer
From: Theo de Raadt <dera...@zeus.theos.com>
Subject: Re: Licensing charges for X11R6.4
Date: 1998/04/03
Message-ID: <cd8ey79ad.fsf@zeus.theos.com>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 340673217
References: <6ft5un$mlv$1@woodstock.socs.uts.EDU.AU> <6g33fl$ghu$1@hubble.csuchico.edu>
<35254870.6AD@opengroup.org> <ramEquyx3.Lv5@netcom.com> <6g3sok$9lifp@fido.asd.sgi.com>
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x,comp.os.linux.x,comp.os.linux.development.system
of...@sgi.com (Nhi Vanye) writes:
> But before you all go and say "thats okay we'll use Xfree86",
> thats only half of X....
When we use XFree86 on the 9 OpenBSD architectures it runs on, what
half of X are we missing?
Just what is it that I am missing?
--
This space not left unintentionally unblank. dera...@openbsd.org
www.OpenBSD.org -- We're fixing security problems so you can sleep at night.
(If it wasn't so fascinating I might get some sleep myself...)
From: of...@sgi.com (Nhi Vanye)
Subject: Re: Licensing charges for X11R6.4
Date: 1998/04/04
Message-ID: <6g40hv$9rros@fido.asd.sgi.com>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 340684471
References: <6ft5un$mlv$1@woodstock.socs.uts.EDU.AU> <ramEquyx3.Lv5@netcom.com>
<6g3sok$9lifp@fido.asd.sgi.com> <cd8ey79ad.fsf@zeus.theos.com>
Organization: Silicon Graphics Inc., Mountain View, CA
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x,comp.os.linux.x,comp.os.linux.development.system
$ from dera...@zeus.theos.com -#114180 | sed "1,$s/^/> /"
>
>
>of...@sgi.com (Nhi Vanye) writes:
>
>> But before you all go and say "thats okay we'll use Xfree86",
>> thats only half of X....
>
>When we use XFree86 on the 9 OpenBSD architectures it runs on, what
>half of X are we missing?
The client side libs. Xfree86 is mainly concerned with the Xservers for
PC graphcis cards, the client side libraries are still mainly XC/TOG
code [I say mainly to cover my posterior, I think its all XC/TOG code,
but I could be wrong].
>
>Just what is it that I am missing?
>
richard.
--
Richard M. Offer Widget FAQ --> http://reality.sgi.com/widgetFAQ
MTS-Core Design (Motif)
___________________________________________http://reality.sgi.com/offer
From: torva...@transmeta.com (Linus Torvalds)
Subject: Re: Licensing charges for X11R6.4
Date: 1998/04/04
Message-ID: <6g43tn$fk7$1@palladium.transmeta.com>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 340694909
References: <6ft5un$mlv$1@woodstock.socs.uts.EDU.AU> <6g3sok$9lifp@fido.asd.sgi.com>
<cd8ey79ad.fsf@zeus.theos.com> <6g40hv$9rros@fido.asd.sgi.com>
Organization: Transmeta Corporation, Santa Clara, CA
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x,comp.os.linux.x,comp.os.linux.development.system
In article <6g40hv$9r...@fido.asd.sgi.com>, Nhi Vanye <of...@sgi.com> wrote:
>
>The client side libs. Xfree86 is mainly concerned with the Xservers for
>PC graphcis cards, the client side libraries are still mainly XC/TOG
>code [I say mainly to cover my posterior, I think its all XC/TOG code,
>but I could be wrong].
Have they been evolving much? I've seen occasional fixes to xterm etc,
but it seems that the reason XFree86 hasn't worked on the X libraries is
not because it has been something the TOG has been very good at, but
because the libraries haven't been under very heavy development by
_anybody_.
Which is as it should be, don't take me wrong. But I wonder whether this
is a red herring,
Linus
From: torva...@transmeta.com (Linus Torvalds)
Subject: Re: Licensing charges for X11R6.4
Date: 1998/04/04
Message-ID: <6g447f$fu8$1@palladium.transmeta.com>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 340699532
References: <6ft5un$mlv$1@woodstock.socs.uts.EDU.AU> <cd8ey79ad.fsf@zeus.theos.com>
<6g40hv$9rros@fido.asd.sgi.com> <6g43tn$fk7$1@palladium.transmeta.com>
Organization: Transmeta Corporation, Santa Clara, CA
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x,comp.os.linux.x,comp.os.linux.development.system
Sorry, I hate to follow up on myself, but noticed that it may not have
been clear that I don't consider "Motif" to be part of the X libraries.
Motif is not part of any core X distribution due to even earlier
licensing issues.
Motif is in fact a great example of why X11 should _not_ ever have any
licensing restrictions. And yes, Motif was/is not developed by XFree86,
for some very obvious reasons.
Linus
In article <6g43tn$fk...@palladium.transmeta.com>,
Linus Torvalds <torva...@transmeta.com> wrote:
>In article <6g40hv$9r...@fido.asd.sgi.com>, Nhi Vanye <of...@sgi.com> wrote:
>>
>>The client side libs. Xfree86 is mainly concerned with the Xservers for
>>PC graphcis cards, the client side libraries are still mainly XC/TOG
>>code [I say mainly to cover my posterior, I think its all XC/TOG code,
>>but I could be wrong].
>
>Have they been evolving much? I've seen occasional fixes to xterm etc,
>but it seems that the reason XFree86 hasn't worked on the X libraries is
>not because it has been something the TOG has been very good at, but
>because the libraries haven't been under very heavy development by
>_anybody_.
From: mas...@darkflame.ml.org (Scott Wood)
Subject: Re: Licensing charges for X11R6.4
Date: 1998/04/04
Message-ID: <slrn6ibld7.113.master@darkflame.ml.org>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 340747163
Sender: mas...@sawst46.s.resnet.pitt.edu
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<slrn6i6c61.mu7.cbbrowne@knuth.brownes.org> <6g16kk$avf$1@hubble.csuchico.edu>
<6g184a$783$1@palladium.transmeta.com> <6g2ccn$94a@news.u-bordeaux.fr>
<35250202.1CFBAE39@opengroup.org> <6g2nlr$boh@news.u-bordeaux.fr>
<3524FB9B.3FD3@opengroup.org>
X-what-sucks: Microsoft, rap, webtv, idiots, bureaucracy, and censorship
X-newsgroup: comp.os.linux.advocacy
Organization: University of Pittsburgh
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x,comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.linux.x,
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On Fri, 03 Apr 1998 10:09:15 -0500, Kaleb S. KEITHLEY
<k.keith...@opengroup.org> wrote:
>R6.4 is free to the free community. You can take it, modify it, give it
>to your friends, print it out and shred it, do what ever you want with
>it -- just don't sell it. Once someone sells it they should expect to
>contribute a very small amount back to The Open Group for it's
>maintenance and development.
A very small amount? If you happen to sell massive quantities, then
yes, it is small _per copy_. But what if I just want to sell a handful
of CD's to a few friends, for the cost of the CD's?
I would have to pay $5,000 to the Open Group to become a member of the
X Project Team, or $7,500 for a license. Hardly small if I'm only
selling on the order of 10 CD's. And I'm not even making a profit from
it, since it's just to cover my costs, but the license does not discern
between distributing for profit and accepting money for distribution.
--
Scott Wood, alt.atheism atheist #1000
Stop Micro$oft Now! http://darkflame.ml.org/teamhates/
"Hey, what's popen("/usr/games/pom","r"); doing in the compiler's
optimization routines???"
From: "Kaleb S. KEITHLEY" <k.#nojunk#keith...@opengroup.org>
Subject: Re: Licensing charges for X11R6.4
Date: 1998/04/04
Message-ID: <35266041.6EEA4806@opengroup.org>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 340790561
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
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<35250202.1CFBAE39@opengroup.org> <6g2nlr$boh@news.u-bordeaux.fr>
<3524FB9B.3FD3@opengroup.org> <slrn6ibld7.113.master@darkflame.ml.org>
To: Scott Wood <mas...@darkflame.ml.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
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Scott Wood wrote:
>
> On Fri, 03 Apr 1998 10:09:15 -0500, Kaleb S. KEITHLEY
> <k.keith...@opengroup.org> wrote:
>
> >R6.4 is free to the free community. You can take it, modify it, give it
> >to your friends, print it out and shred it, do what ever you want with
> >it -- just don't sell it. Once someone sells it they should expect to
> >contribute a very small amount back to The Open Group for it's
> >maintenance and development.
>
> A very small amount? If you happen to sell massive quantities, then
> yes, it is small _per copy_. But what if I just want to sell a handful
> of CD's to a few friends, for the cost of the CD's?
You're picking nits now.
>
> I would have to pay $5,000 to the Open Group to become a member of the
> X Project Team, or $7,500 for a license. Hardly small if I'm only
> selling on the order of 10 CD's. And I'm not even making a profit from
> it, since it's just to cover my costs, but the license does not discern
> between distributing for profit and accepting money for distribution.
Get real.
--
Kaleb
From: Bill Gribble <g...@cs.utexas.edu>
Subject: Re: Licensing charges for X11R6.4
Date: 1998/04/04
Message-ID: <87g1jtaauv.fsf@firetrap.csres.utexas.edu>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 340826427
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<6g184a$783$1@palladium.transmeta.com> <6g2ccn$94a@news.u-bordeaux.fr>
<35250202.1CFBAE39@opengroup.org> <6g2nlr$boh@news.u-bordeaux.fr>
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<35266041.6EEA4806@opengroup.org>
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Organization: The University of Texas at Austin
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"Kaleb S. KEITHLEY" <k.#nojunk#keith...@opengroup.org> writes:
> > I would have to pay $5,000 to the Open Group to become a member of the
> > X Project Team, or $7,500 for a license. Hardly small if I'm only
> > selling on the order of 10 CD's. And I'm not even making a profit from
> > it, since it's just to cover my costs, but the license does not discern
> > between distributing for profit and accepting money for distribution.
>
> Get real.
Lots of folks are concerned about not using software in violation of
the license they received for it. That's one reason why I have free
Linux software installed on my machine and not pirated Microsoft
stuff. Redistributing 10 CDs with X software on them isn't legal
unless you take the steps required of large commercial redistributors.
How is that picking nits?
Bill Gribble
From: boeke...@tfh-berlin.de (Jost Boekemeier)
Subject: Re: Licensing charges for X11R6.4
Date: 1998/04/04
Message-ID: <6g5ijo$cs3$1@mamenchi.zrz.TU-Berlin.DE>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 340826428
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<6g184a$783$1@palladium.transmeta.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
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In article <6g184a$78...@palladium.transmeta.com>,
torva...@transmeta.com (Linus Torvalds) writes:
> Sure, people like Red Hat etc could cough up the money. This year.
> What guarantees do you have that the price won't keep going up? The Open
None. But if the price gets too high, you can always download the
sources and compile it yourself. You can also pass this over to your
friends.
As I understand the license, X11R6.4 *is still Free Software*. But the
authors request money from those who make money with the authors software.
> A very small part of the fees may help development. Most of the fees
Irrelevant.
> will go to maintaining a badly organized not-for-profit company that has
> no incentive to help the free software market (and has a lot of
> incentive to try to kill off free unixes - most of their funding by far
Hmm, "a badly organized non-for-profit company"; are you talking about
the FSF, the company you work for or about the Open Group here? :)
What do you think is better, to work for a project half a day and let
others make their money with your work or to work full time on a project
and request that those who distribute your work and make money with it
should pay your checks.
> A _lot_ of the real development has gone on inside XFree86, for example.
> And they haven't been paid by the Open Group, quite the reverse. They
> had to pay to get in.
They [the members of the Xfree Project] get payed by companies like Suse.
Jost
From: "Kaleb S. KEITHLEY" <k.#nojunk#keith...@opengroup.org>
Subject: Re: Licensing charges for X11R6.4
Date: 1998/04/04
Message-ID: <35269C4C.1B37ADEA@opengroup.org>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 340841172
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<slrn6i6c61.mu7.cbbrowne@knuth.brownes.org> <6g16kk$avf$1@hubble.csuchico.edu>
<6g184a$783$1@palladium.transmeta.com> <6g2ccn$94a@news.u-bordeaux.fr>
<35250202.1CFBAE39@opengroup.org> <6g2nlr$boh@news.u-bordeaux.fr>
<3524FB9B.3FD3@opengroup.org> <slrn6ibld7.113.master@darkflame.ml.org>
<35266041.6EEA4806@opengroup.org> <87g1jtaauv.fsf@firetrap.csres.utexas.edu>
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Organization: The Open Group
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Bill Gribble wrote:
>
> "Kaleb S. KEITHLEY" <k.#nojunk#keith...@opengroup.org> writes:
> > > I would have to pay $5,000 to the Open Group to become a member of the
> > > X Project Team, or $7,500 for a license. Hardly small if I'm only
> > > selling on the order of 10 CD's. And I'm not even making a profit from
> > > it, since it's just to cover my costs, but the license does not discern
> > > between distributing for profit and accepting money for distribution.
> >
> > Get real.
>
> Lots of folks are concerned about not using software in violation of
> the license they received for it. That's one reason why I have free
> Linux software installed on my machine and not pirated Microsoft
> stuff.
The non-commercial license specifically says you can give it away for
free.
You DON'T need a commercial license to copy it.
You DON'T need a commercial license to give it to a friend.
You DON'T need a commerical license to use it on one, ten, 50, 100,
1000, 10,000, 100,000 machines in your company or school.
We want you to do all of those things. You can do all of those things
for FREE.
You only need a commercial license if you're going to SELL it.
> Redistributing 10 CDs with X software on them isn't legal
> unless you take the steps required of large commercial redistributors.
> How is that picking nits?
A couple of buddies swapping CDs for the price of a CD-R blank is one
thing. Walnut Creek selling 300,000 copies of Slackware and 300,000
copies of FreeBSD is another thing. Do you think we're going to try to
hunt down and "kill" every guy who burns a few CDs and asks his pals to
reimburse him for the price of the CD-R blanks? Get real -- of course
we're not -- we don't care about that.
--
Kaleb
From: inva...@homo-sapiens.org (Brian Mueller)
Subject: Re: Licensing charges for X11R6.4
Date: 1998/04/04
Message-ID: <35267b8e.6440670@nntp.ix.netcom.com>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 340877328
References: <6ft5un$mlv$1@woodstock.socs.uts.EDU.AU> <35250202.1CFBAE39@opengroup.org>
<6g2nlr$boh@news.u-bordeaux.fr> <3524FB9B.3FD3@opengroup.org>
<6g30im$58l$1@news.ro.com> <35253E6F.5311@opengroup.org>
Organization: homo sapiens
X-NETCOM-Date: Sat Apr 04 10:38:24 AM PST 1998
Reply-To: inva...@homo-sapiens.org
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x,comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.linux.x,
comp.os.linux.development.system
Kaleb S. KEITHLEY wrote:
>The magic word is "sell." If you say the magic word, the duck will fly
>down, and you have to have a license.
Well GPL is a license but doesn't require people to pay the FSF.
The Open Group shouldn't require people to pay either. That's
rediculous.
----
Brian Mueller
E-mail: mulder78 at ix dot netcom dot com
20 year old male, in Morgan Hill, California, USA
(ten miles south of San Jose, California)
From: jer...@netcom.com (Jeremy Allison)
Subject: Re: Licensing charges for X11R6.4
Date: 1998/04/04
Message-ID: <jeremyEqwn6w.Dq0@netcom.com>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 340889546
Sender: jer...@netcom13.netcom.com
References: <6ft5un$mlv$1@woodstock.socs.uts.EDU.AU> <m3lntp5ke4.fsf@plasma.ddns.org>
<slrn6i6c61.mu7.cbbrowne@knuth.brownes.org> <6g16kk$avf$1@hubble.csuchico.edu>
<6g184a$783$1@palladium.transmeta.com> <6g2ccn$94a@news.u-bordeaux.fr>
<35250202.1CFBAE39@opengroup.org> <6g2nlr$boh@news.u-bordeaux.fr>
<3524FB9B.3FD3@opengroup.org> <slrn6ibld7.113.master@darkflame.ml.org>
<35266041.6EEA4806@opengroup.org> <87g1jtaauv.fsf@firetrap.csres.utexas.edu>
<35269C4C.1B37ADEA@opengroup.org>
Organization: Netcom On-Line Services
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x,comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.linux.x,
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"Kaleb S. KEITHLEY" <k.#nojunk#keith...@opengroup.org> writes:
>A couple of buddies swapping CDs for the price of a CD-R blank is one
>thing. Walnut Creek selling 300,000 copies of Slackware and 300,000
>copies of FreeBSD is another thing. Do you think we're going to try to
>hunt down and "kill" every guy who burns a few CDs and asks his pals to
>reimburse him for the price of the CD-R blanks? Get real -- of course
>we're not -- we don't care about that.
Whether you care about it or not is *irrelevent*.
Your new license makes this practice strictly against
the law.
Now some people may have no respect for the law, so long as
they don't get caught (after all, no-one 'cares' about that),
but some people do.
Mainly *honest* people.
Your new license is a disaster for X and the UNIX
community in general. Please reconsider.
If the X programming team needs funds there are
other ways to achieve this, other than taking
the technology non-free (and by this I mean
freedom, not price).
Regards,
Jeremy Allison,
Samba Team.
From: ta...@atom.forensic.sa.gov.au (Michael Talbot-Wilson)
Subject: Re: Licensing charges for X11R6.4
Date: 1998/04/05
Message-ID: <slrn6iebgn.47f.talmg@atom.forensic.sa.gov.au>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 341013844
References: <6ft5un$mlv$1@woodstock.socs.uts.EDU.AU> <35250202.1CFBAE39@opengroup.org>
<6g2nlr$boh@news.u-bordeaux.fr> <3524FB9B.3FD3@opengroup.org>
<6g30im$58l$1@news.ro.com> <35253E6F.5311@opengroup.org>
<35267b8e.6440670@nntp.ix.netcom.com>
Organization: Camtech (SA) Pty Ltd Customer
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x,comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.linux.x,
comp.os.linux.development.system
In article <35267b8e.6440...@nntp.ix.netcom.com>, Brian Mueller wrote:
>Kaleb S. KEITHLEY wrote:
>
>>The magic word is "sell." If you say the magic word, the duck will fly
>>down, and you have to have a license.
>
>Well GPL is a license but doesn't require people to pay the FSF.
>
>The Open Group shouldn't require people to pay either. That's
>rediculous.
There are several important utilities that are used without
complaint (even, one hopes, with gratitude) by Linux users and
administrators that have a licence something like this:
"This thing I wrote is free, and you may freely redistribute it, but if
you are going to make a lot of money out of it, I want a share".
It appears that the X11R6.4 licence is pretty similar to that. If
so, perhaps the degree of anger that is being expressed goes beyond
what is called for.
--Mike
From: torva...@transmeta.com (Linus Torvalds)
Subject: Re: Licensing charges for X11R6.4
Date: 1998/04/05
Message-ID: <6g8s02$kvu$1@palladium.transmeta.com>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 341158202
References: <6ft5un$mlv$1@woodstock.socs.uts.EDU.AU> <35253E6F.5311@opengroup.org>
<x73eft4vuz.fsf@frobozz.unixperts.com> <35268518.7D55368C@opengroup.org>
Organization: Transmeta Corporation, Santa Clara, CA
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x,comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.linux.x,
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In article <35268518.7D553...@opengroup.org>,
Kaleb S. KEITHLEY <k.#nojunk#keith...@opengroup.org> wrote:
>
>I want the 2.0.34 kernel released on April 15th. I have a list of 15
>kernel bugs and 25 libc bugs I want fixed. I want it all tested and I
>want the set of tests that were used so that I can verify it for myself.
>I only want experienced people working on it -- I definitely don't want
>a bunch of freeware hackers working on it.
"I want to go to the moon -- I only want experienced people working on
it -- I definitely don't want a bunch of rocket scientists working on
it".
Kaleb, I hate to burst your bubble, but if I wanted to find some good
programmers, the Open Group wouldn't be the first place I'd be looking.
It wouldn't even be the second.
Don't throw stones in glass houses.
Linus
From: torva...@transmeta.com (Linus Torvalds)
Subject: Re: Licensing charges for X11R6.4
Date: 1998/04/05
Message-ID: <6g8snj$lfg$1@palladium.transmeta.com>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 341162597
References: <6ft5un$mlv$1@woodstock.socs.uts.EDU.AU> <35253E6F.5311@opengroup.org>
<35267b8e.6440670@nntp.ix.netcom.com> <slrn6iebgn.47f.talmg@atom.forensic.sa.gov.au>
Organization: Transmeta Corporation, Santa Clara, CA
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x,comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.linux.x,
comp.os.linux.development.system
In article <slrn6iebgn.47f.ta...@atom.forensic.sa.gov.au>,
Michael Talbot-Wilson <ta...@atom.forensic.sa.gov.au> wrote:
>
>There are several important utilities that are used without
>complaint (even, one hopes, with gratitude) by Linux users and
>administrators that have a licence something like this:
>
>"This thing I wrote is free, and you may freely redistribute it, but if
>you are going to make a lot of money out of it, I want a share".
Yes. The above kind of license actually makes some sense. It may not be
the best license, but I have no trouble with it.
>It appears that the X11R6.4 licence is pretty similar to that. If
>so, perhaps the degree of anger that is being expressed goes beyond
>what is called for.
No, the X11R6.4 license is closer to
"This thing somebody else wrote for free, and we just picked up the
pieces. You may freely redistribute it, but if you are going to make
money doing so we want a share. Even if you've been a large part of
the development process."
which I find to be rather immoral. Wouldn't you agree?
Linus
From: torva...@transmeta.com (Linus Torvalds)
Subject: Re: Licensing charges for X11R6.4
Date: 1998/04/05
Message-ID: <6g8trj$m01$1@palladium.transmeta.com>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 341167180
References: <6ft5un$mlv$1@woodstock.socs.uts.EDU.AU> <6g16kk$avf$1@hubble.csuchico.edu>
<6g184a$783$1@palladium.transmeta.com> <6g5ijo$cs3$1@mamenchi.zrz.TU-Berlin.DE>
Organization: Transmeta Corporation, Santa Clara, CA
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x,comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.linux.x,
comp.os.linux.development.system
In article <6g5ijo$cs...@mamenchi.zrz.TU-Berlin.DE>,
Jost Boekemeier <boeke...@tfh-berlin.de> wrote:
>In article <6g184a$78...@palladium.transmeta.com>,
> torva...@transmeta.com (Linus Torvalds) writes:
>
>> Sure, people like Red Hat etc could cough up the money. This year.
>> What guarantees do you have that the price won't keep going up? The Open
>
>None. But if the price gets too high, you can always download the
>sources and compile it yourself. You can also pass this over to your
>friends.
How about the people in places without internet access? Yes, they still
exist.
One MAJOR reason for having CD's is that there's an incredible amount of
bandwidth there, and it is portable. The internet doesn't even come
close, even if you have access to it, and if you can't easily access the
internet at all the things is very clear.
I use pre-compiled Linux distributions myself, despite the fact that I
have a pretty fast internet connection and I obviously have the
technical experience required to type "make".
A CD is a real timesaver. It's a metter of being easy and quick to
install, and the new X11R6.4 license takes that away.
>> A very small part of the fees may help development. Most of the fees
>
>Irrelevant.
Not irrlevant - go back to the discussion I was answering. People
claimed that paying TOG would help development. I claim that paying TOG
_hinders_ development, because it makes X less accessible to a lot of
people.
>> will go to maintaining a badly organized not-for-profit company that has
>> no incentive to help the free software market (and has a lot of
>> incentive to try to kill off free unixes - most of their funding by far
>
>Hmm, "a badly organized non-for-profit company"; are you talking about
>the FSF, the company you work for or about the Open Group here? :)
Why do you think I work for the FSF? Transmeta, the place I work for, is
an extremely well organized commercial company, and I wouldn't want to
have it any other way. In comparison, TOG is a complete disaster that
spends most of its energy on pure politicking.
Get your facts straight.
>What do you think is better, to work for a project half a day and let
>others make their money with your work or to work full time on a project
>and request that those who distribute your work and make money with it
>should pay your checks.
What do you think is better: paying somebody to do the work for you, or
paying a organization that spends 90% of the money on politics and 10%
on the money on paying somebody to do the work for you?
In short, I'd be a lot happier paying XFree86 than paying TOG. At least
XFree86 has shown itself to be technically adept, and not spending their
"not-for-profit money" on other things than paying for engineers.
>> A _lot_ of the real development has gone on inside XFree86, for example.
>> And they haven't been paid by the Open Group, quite the reverse. They
>> had to pay to get in.
>
>They [the members of the Xfree Project] get payed by companies like Suse.
Sure. But SuSe pays XFree86 because XFree86 _works_. SuSe pays for
(and gets) results. That makes sense to me - you pay for work being
done.
If you pay TOG, you pay for (and get) other things than actual code
quality. You pay for work that has already been done by others. Does
that make you feel good? You're paying the wrong guys, and you aren't
getting much of a return.
Linus
From: "Kaleb S. KEITHLEY" <k.keith...@opengroup.org>
Subject: Re: Licensing charges for X11R6.4
Date: 1998/04/06
Message-ID: <35293FBD.7FA@opengroup.org>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 341476478
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<x73eft4vuz.fsf@frobozz.unixperts.com> <35268518.7D55368C@opengroup.org>
<6g8s02$kvu$1@palladium.transmeta.com>
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Linus Torvalds wrote:
>
> In article <35268518.7D553...@opengroup.org>,
> Kaleb S. KEITHLEY <k.#nojunk#keith...@opengroup.org> wrote:
> >
> >I want the 2.0.34 kernel released on April 15th. I have a list of 15
> >kernel bugs and 25 libc bugs I want fixed. I want it all tested and I
> >want the set of tests that were used so that I can verify it for myself.
> >I only want experienced people working on it -- I definitely don't want
> >a bunch of freeware hackers working on it.
>
> "I want to go to the moon -- I only want experienced people working on
> it -- I definitely don't want a bunch of rocket scientists working on
> it".
Yeah, I want to go too. Tell you what, let's have a race. Money is no
object. I'm going to have my people work on my rocket full time. You get
your people to work on yours here and there in their spare time.
Who do you think is going to win?
You seem to have assumed that by "freeware hackers" that I meant
something derogatory. I didn't.
> Kaleb, I hate to burst your bubble, but if I wanted to find some good
> programmers, the Open Group wouldn't be the first place I'd be looking.
> It wouldn't even be the second.
Yeah, there was nothing in that that was meant to be taken personally,
was there?
>
> Don't throw stones in glass houses.
Ditto.
>
> Linus
--
Kaleb
From: torva...@transmeta.com (Linus Torvalds)
Subject: Re: Licensing charges for X11R6.4
Date: 1998/04/07
Message-ID: <6gc1da$8bp$1@palladium.transmeta.com>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 341554042
References: <6ft5un$mlv$1@woodstock.socs.uts.EDU.AU> <35268518.7D55368C@opengroup.org>
<6g8s02$kvu$1@palladium.transmeta.com> <35293FBD.7FA@opengroup.org>
Organization: Transmeta Corporation, Santa Clara, CA
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x,comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.linux.x,
comp.os.linux.development.system
In article <35293FBD....@opengroup.org>,
Kaleb S. KEITHLEY <k.keith...@opengroup.org> wrote:
>Linus wrote:
>> "I want to go to the moon -- I only want experienced people working on
>> it -- I definitely don't want a bunch of rocket scientists working on
>> it".
>
>Yeah, I want to go too. Tell you what, let's have a race. Money is no
>object. I'm going to have my people work on my rocket full time. You get
>your people to work on yours here and there in their spare time.
>
>Who do you think is going to win?
Didn't we try this experiment already?
We had OSF (now "the open group" - renaming the organization to hide
past failures is a favourite excercise in management) and we had Linux.
By just about any measure, Linux already won that race.
So there is no need for a gedanken-experiment, we can just go by past
performance.
>You seem to have assumed that by "freeware hackers" that I meant
>something derogatory. I didn't.
Whatever. Your postings don't make much sense, but it certainly sounded
like you tried to be derogatory.
_I_ on the other hand, have been intentionally derogatory. I'm not
ashamed to mention the fact that I trust the XFree86 organization a lot
more than I trust TOG _both_ from a political _and_ a technical
standpoint. You can call their work spare time or whatever, but they've
certainly made a lot more of a positive difference then the Open Group
ever has.
I'm not arguing politics here. I'm just arguing results. The freeware
community has historically been doing a lot better job of it than the
open group has (or X/Open, or OSF, or whatever you want to call them).
Why do you think that is?
Linus