On Thu, Apr 08, 2004 at 01:07:45AM -0700, Nathan England wrote: > I haven't paid much attention to this. Can anyone give a short > description? Recently, XFree86 changed their license, and the new license is GPL-incompatible. After a community outcry over the practical implications, it was announced that xlibs would remain under the old license (although for how long is anybody's guess). Also, a few other libraries (I can do some research later today and name names if you'd like) are under the new license. Basically, the license change[1] appears to be very similar to the old BSD advertising clause, although not as obnoxious. Specifically, the third clause, requiring a certain notice in the documentation. This requirement is not in the GPL[2] and therefore conflicts with section 6: "You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein." Because xlibs is currently under the old license, the problem is not that bad *yet*. But suppose, for example, you want to use a driver or module that doesn't come with XFree86 and it's GPL. You would then be "combining" the two works (at least according to RMS, but I'm not going to go there), and that's not allowed. It's not that the new license is "bad" or that XFree86 is "less free" than it was before. It's that the practical implications of the GPL-incompatibility are not good. > What are the drawbacks/advantages of each system? At this point, the licensing issues are the main thing. X.Org 6.7 and XFree86 4.4 are binary-compatible. In fact, X.Org 6.7 is forked from XFree86 4.4RC2. But distributions have already announced that they won't be shipping XFree86 4.4, and with the announcement of the X.Org released, they've announced that they *will* be shipping it instead. (See Kevin Brown's reply.) > Are they both being actively developed? Well, many of the major former XFree86 developers have moved to X.Org, including Keith Packard, who some say has been the major driving force behind XFree86 development for the last few years. David Dawes, who is head of the XFree86 project, has assured everyone that XFree86 is going to continue on just fine, thank-you-very-much. Many vendors are throwing their weight behind the new X.Org. Really, from what I understand, this fork was a long time coming (growing dissatisfaction, etc.) and the license change only accelerated the process by a few months. > Do you really think distros will drop XFree for X ? See above. Many already have. I bought a Radeon 9200 last summer, and while it's supported by later versions of X (I'm not sure if it's 4.2 or 4.3 -- 4.3, I think), the support is still immature, so I decided to switch to Gentoo for the sole purpose of being able to track the development versions of X more easily. Just a few months after I did that, all this licensing stuff happened and Gentoo announced that XF86 4.4 and later, as long as they were under the new license, would never be in Gentoo. I was irritated. When the new fork was announced, I got excited. :) To reiterate, the two systems are basically equivalent, but I forsee most distributions moving to X.Org in the future. There was already momentum (due mostly to the political structure of XFree86 and resulting slowness of development, in many cases) for a fork, and the license change simply accelerated the process. [1] http://www.xfree86.org/legal/licenses.html [2] http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html -- Bill Jonas * bill@billjonas.com * http://www.billjonas.com/ "It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your front door. You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to." -- Bilbo Baggins