RE: [Xouvert-general] Recent Popular questions turned into FAQ

[David Ross]

Perhaps we need a FAQ?  I would be happy to maintain it.  If my
questions/answers/definitions are incomplete/wrong/etc feel free to
change.

We could start off with:
1.)     Q)      Will Xouvert remove/modularize network transparency?  I
think we should do this to make X faster, more robust, or just plain
better.
        A) We *cannot* remove network transparency. Period. There is
absolutely no 
question about it whatsoever. X11 *is* a _network_ protocol. I think the
reason everyone thinks its slow, is because everyone thinks that X11 on
a local machine goes thru TCP/IP. It doesn't. It uses UNIX sockets 
which are very fast.

2.)     Q)      Why does Xouvert use the XFree License?  I think the
GPL/BSD/<my favourite license> is way better.
        A)      We are using the XFree License so that we maintain
license compatibility with Xfree86(tm) and so that we can contribute our
developments/code/improvements back to the XFree86 project.  We do not
want to fork the Xouvert and XFree86 projects.

3.)     Q)      I keep hearing this talk of forking and branching,
what's the diff?
        A)      If we were to fork Xouvert from XFree86, then we would
be creating a whole other X Window system.  We don't want to do that.
That would be bad because XFree86 is a proven accepted standard on many
platforms.  It is it already stable, but lacks some features that
I/we/you/he/she/someone wants.  That is why we are branching it--to pick
up the pace, and have a more public development process those developers
who want to work on X and for those who need to be on the bleeding edge.
A branch simply means that we want to have our work integrated back into
the larger whole and that we want to maintain compatibility with
XFree86.


-----Original Message-----
From: address@hidden
[mailto:address@hidden On Behalf
Of Jonathan Walther
Sent: 2003 August 18 9:59 PM
To: address@hidden
Subject: Re: [Xouvert-general] License question


On Tue, Aug 19, 2003 at 06:35:58AM +0200, Massimo Santoro wrote:
>The question was: "why not make it GPL instead of X11/MIT?"
>
>The answer was: "because we could not recontribute to XFree86"
>
>Then: "GPL would not cause anything <bad> about this, let's not forget 
>it is
>an independent fork, maybe GPL would make it better".

That is false.  Xouvert is an independant developement branch.  It is
not a fork.  Everything we do, is intended to be incorporated in the
"stable" XFree86 project eventually.

As a branch, and not a fork, it is important to keep the licenses
compatible and consistent, and not to alienate our co-developers at the
XFree86 project.

Jonathan

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    It's not true unless it makes you laugh,                           
             but you don't understand it until it makes you weep.      

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