[nmglug] XFree86's new license?

[Sam Noble]

> Isn't it true that the BSD clause addresses advertising, and this
> is not an advertising clause (it is a documentation clause, rather)?

Yes exactly Gary,
That seems to the case.

> It's confusing to me that Debian Weekly News refers to it as a
> "BSD-style advertising clause".  I understand the "BSD-style" part,
> but not the "advertising clause" part.

And DWN's labeling is basically wrong. But the clause is so
'reminiscent' of the infamous advertising clause that it's easy to see
where they come from.

However, even though this new licensing is not nearly as onerous as the
older BSD license, and in fact on close inspection seems quite
reasonable. It may still be problematic due to it's incompatibility with
the GPL.
The GPL's appendix states:

"You may not impose any further
restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein."

And the new X clause can be construed as a 'further restriction' I
believe.
The FSF categorizes certain licenses as being compatible with the GPL:

"(This means you can combine a module which was released under that
license with a GPL-covered module to make one larger program.)"

I'm neither a coder nor a lawyer so I don't know what effect this will
have on real-life projects. But one ironic effect will be the reworking
of many FSF pages regarding licensing issues, because the X license is
used repeatedly as 'the' example of a Free, non-copyleft,
non-problematic (due to lack of 'practical restrictions' such as the
original BSD licenses advertising clause or indeed the new 'X
Documentation Clause') and GPL compatible license.

Presumably once the FSF digests what XFree has done the 'modified X
license' will appear further down the page
(http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html)
in the GPL incompatible Free Software licenses section. :sniff:

How this plays out, or even whether it's really an issue, is yet to be
seen. But personally I hope it doesn't wind up 'forcing' a fork to X or
any other path that causes the Free Software community a time and effort
wasting setback.