Re: Proposal: Motif Widget set
"Julie" <jockgrrl@ix.netcom.com> writes:
> > > ISV's that are coding to the current UNIX standards aren't going
> > > to use a backlevel version of Motif. If we are going to attract
> > > =them=, the most recent version of Motif needs to be available.
> >
> > Unfortunately, there is no *truly* open source version of the latest
> > Motif available. One of the guidelines we have been following here is
> > that we won't spec something for which a truly open source
> > implementation is available, or distributions which for one reason or
> > a another don't use non-open source code (eg. Debian) are unable to
> > comply with the spec. If TOG had *truly* open sourced Motif, this
> > would be a moot point. But, they didn't. They admit that they
> > didn't. It's in the FAQ. Given this, we can't spec anything beyond
> > what is supported by Lesstif, if we spec any Motif at all.
>
> I think we are getting into a religious discussion of what "open"
> and "free" both mean. I've read the FAQ and disagree with
> some of the conclusions. In particular, I believe that any Linux
> distribution which could not distribute "Open Motif" under the
> terms of the license isn't itself "free" and as such falls outside
> of the scope of this discussion.
That's the problem. Only completely open source Linux systems *could*
ship Open Motif, if I read the license correctly. If vendor foo
decides to release an LSB compliant OS based on (say) Linux and a
proprietary libc, they couldn't distribute Open Motif, because it is
then not an open source OS. Read the Open Source Definition
(http://www.opensource.org/osd.html). Pay particular attention to
clause 8. Limiting the license to a specific type of product is just
as bad as limiting to a specific product.
> Ignoring the philosophical bent of any one distribution (such
> as Debian's "we don't use it if it doesn't fit our private
> definition of ``free''), is there a =legal= reason that Motif
> cannot be distributed with the major Linux distributions? If
> there is no =legal= reason why Motif cannot be included, the
> personal philosophies of the people who put together a
> distribution are their problem and also outside the scope of a
> standards exercise.
>
> FWIW this is more than an idle exercise. I struggled for
> over a year to get Shadow included in all the distributions
> because they didn't like my definition of "free", which at the
> time was "anyone can copy/use/distribute so long as they
> don't make money from it". This looks like a repeat of the
> same experience -- some people don't like TOG's definition
> of "open" and "free" despite it being a very workable
> definition and they are willing to spec a technically inferior
> product because of it.
The reason is simple. As stated before, we are trying to only spec
things for which an open source implementation exists. Open Motif does
not qualify as open source, so the most we can spec is Lesstif, if at all.
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