Date: Fri, 01 May 1998 17:55:37 +0300 From: Eugene Vedistchev <scaner@belabm.by> To: "freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG" <freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: something interesting Message-ID: <3549E269.C33B3E9A@belabm.by>
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Hello. Found this forward in russian echoconference about linux, seems to be interesting for freebsd ppl. Message-Id: ?199804281427.KAA18188@chmls05.mediaone.net? To: gnhlug@zk3.dec.com Subject: FYI - possible further X licensing developments Date: Tue, 28 Apr 1998 10:28:50 -0400 From: "Michael O'Donnell" ?mod@semolina.ne.mediaone.net? Date: Tue, 28 Apr 1998 09:40:19 -0400 From: Ken Flowers ?flowers@opengroup.org? Subject: X Window System Licensing Directions Dear Friends: You may be aware that we recently changed the licensing terms for the X Window System(TM) technology. You may also be aware that this change has caused some concern in the freeware community. This letter will explain the reasons behind the licensing change and explain what we are doing to address the concerns of the freeware community. We set up the X Window System licensing to provide free access to non-commercial users of the technology, while adding a licensing fee or X Project Team membership requirement for commercial use of the technology. The commercial terms have been well received, but the non-commercial terms have not met the needs of the freeware community. In particular, our current non-commercial license restricts the traditional freeware distribution channels by not having a way to distribute the code for a reasonable at media cost. The result of this is a potential split in the development streams of the technology. We have spoken with a number of leaders in the freeware community and belive we have found a solution to this problem that addresses our business goals, is mindful of our customers' needs, and addresses the concerns of the freeware community. We are looking at creating a variant of the "Artistic License" already in use by the freeware community for distributing Perl. That license would allow for redistribution of the X Window System code to the freeware community in the traditional manner, low priced CDROMs. We expect to finalize the details of this solution in the next weeks and announce changes to the non- commercial license terms to the broad audience then. In the mean time, I'd like to explain some of our reasons for making these changes and address some questions raised by these changes. Summary of X11R6.4 X Window System Licensing Commercial distributors of X11R6.4 must either be members of the X Project Team or make royalty payments, but not both. One benefit of membership in the X Project Team is that it now provides an annual paid up license for commercial distribution. An X Project Team membership costs between $5K and $50K per year depending on volume of shipments and participation levels. Non-commercial users can download the technology from our ftp site, ftp.x.org, or from a number of mirror sites at no charge. We are clarifying the current license to allow distribution of the technology in aggregate free software distributions for a fee. All of the money from X Project Team memberships, past and future (and any future royalty-based license revenue) has been and will be used for further development of the X Window System technology. Motivation The Open Group, operating with the input of the X Project Team members, has two motivations in creating the new license policy: * To insure that there is a financial base to support continued development, testing and controlled releases of the X Window System for both commercial companies and for the free software community. * To insure that work contributed for free from the free community is not exploited for commercial benefit unless an organization making commercial use provides some financial support for the evolution of the technology. This benefits the free community and, The Open Group hopes, encourages new work by the free community on the X11R6.4 base. Over time and with stability of the code, X Project Team membership support for the X Window System technology has dropped even while usage and sales of the technology has increased. In fact, one multi-billion dollar company recently dropped out of the X Project Team, but still was one of the first companies to download the X11R6.4 code from The Open Group web site. The intent of the new licensing policy is to counteract this trend and cause those who profit from the sale of the technology to help support it, instead of taking advantage of the previously unrestricted license model. Like harvesting a forest for profit without replanting, the previous state of affairs ultimately does not benefit users or suppliers. The most straightforward way to achieve a viable X Window System technology program in the future is to change the commercial economics of the situation now. That is what the new licensing policy does. Background The development of X Window System technology started at MIT, moved to the X Consortium, and then to The Open Group. The development of the X Windows System has always been funded by sponsorship from companies who planned to sell the resulting technology. In the last year that MIT managed the technology there were approximately 105 companies supplying over $2 million to the development of the technology. That dwindled to about half that amount at the X Consortium, which caused the X Consortium to develop a similar licensing program to what The Open Group has just announced. The X Consortium shut down prior to implementing that program. When the technology was transferred to The Open Group, The Open Group did not implement new licensing as the X Consortium had intended to do. Instead, The Open Group has tried to rely for support on the good will of the businesses that use the technology commercially. There is a core set of companies that, through their X Project Team memberships, make a valuable investment which benefits the free community. There are currently 25 X Project Team members. The Open Group gratefully acknowledges their support and believes that the best possible use of their investment is being made in delivering releases such as X11R6.4. The Open Group runs the X Project Team as a non-profit activity to support the technology and specification development of the X Window System moving forward. This work is done with a small full time staff that is supported directly from X Project Team membership revenue. The X Project Team members review and direct our work. All of the X Project Team revenue is invested back into the technology. Regards, Ken Flowers Director of Desktop Technologies ********************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to majordomo@zk3.dec.com with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug ********************************************************** To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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