XFree86 License Change

[Mitch Wiedemann]

Good points.

Open source/Free software is rather like a river:  the water rushes 
around obstacles, getting a bit turbulent, but never stops going where 
it's going.  With enough time and force, the obstacle gets washed away.

And to continue this rather silly analogy:
A certain SCO executive could be seen as a beaver (with lots of other 
lawyer beavers) trying to build a dam...

Jason Dixon wrote:

>On Wed, 2004-02-18 at 11:20, Rodolfo J. Paiz wrote:
>  
>
>>At 09:36 2/18/2004, you wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>Read this morning on Slashdot that other distros are not going to support 
>>>4.4 due to this problem.  I think Debian is backing out of 4.4 and going 
>>>back to 4.3.
>>>      
>>>
>>Anyone care to comment on the consequences and implications for the 
>>end-user? I am not particularly license-literate, so while this raises a 
>>great deal of concern I am not sure quite what to make of it.
>>    
>>
>
>None, so far as I see.  This can be a good thing, no matter how it turns
>out.  If it means forking X, or perhaps quicker adoption of
>freedesktop's X, great.  If all the pressure from distributors
>continues, and XFree86 backs down to their pre-4.4 license, great.  On
>one hand we get an organization with a better grasp of the end-user.  On
>the other, we see the strength of the OSS community.  Mind you, this
>isn't a Red Hat issue.  It's not even a Linux issue.  There are a LOT of
>projects out there that depend on a free X.  That's a lot of weight to
>bear for one Mr. Dawes.
>
>I mean, it's not like we don't have alternatives.  It's not like X just
>matured yesterday.  Anyone can take 4.3 and fork.
>
>Nothing to see here folks, just my $0.02.  Please move on.
>  
>