nanogui: Thread: Re: nanoX name and licensing...

Greg and I have been talking about the licensing of Nano-X, and we've
decided to open it to the list for discussion.

Basically, the license which is on the code right now is under a very
unrestricted license (something like BSD style without the advertising
clause), which is what David Bell, the author of mini-X put his code
under. Greg would like to put his code under the GPL, but it wouldn't be
too easy to split the new code away from the old. Personally I wouldn't 
mind leaving it as it is, though any new programs I write for the NanoGUI
project will be GPLed.

On Mon, 10 May 1999, Greg Haerr wrote:
> > > On the subject of licensing, I think we should move to a GNU license.  Currently,
> > > there is *no* license, and I think that people should be able to do what they want,
> > > but have to supply their source mods, which GNU requires...
> > 
> > I was thinking about that this afternoon. There is a license:
> > 
> >  * Permission is granted to use, distribute, or modify this source,
> >  * provided that this copyright notice remains intact.
> > 
> > Which is the license which came with mini-X, and is fairly BSD-ish in
> > style, but without the advertising clause. It seems we have three main
> > possibilities:
> > 1. License our code under the above. I'd be happy with that, personally.
> 
> 	I think that Bell's license is basically not restrictive.  This means
> you can do anything with it, including modifying it and not redistributing sources.
> I would like to make sure that the source code to this effort remains available.
> 
> > 2. Split all our new code into seperate files which have a different
> > license to the files which contain mini-X code. This is allowed, because
> > the mini-X license is less restrictive than the GPL. This also seems
> > fairly feasible, particularly if you want the protection of the GPL.
> 
> 	This will be pretty hard, since I have rewritten alot. When I bring
> out nanoWindows, it will be a complete re-write.  All the driver code is
> new code now.
> 
> > 3. Try to get in contact with David I. Bell, and ask if he would be
> > prepared to relicense his code under the GPL. Since the latest email
> > address we have of his is 8 years old, this could prove very difficult,
> > and he may not be happy with the change anyway.

--------------- Linux- the choice of a GNU generation. --------------
: Alex Holden (M1CJD)- Caver, Programmer, Land Rover nut, Radio Ham :
-------------------- http://www.linuxhacker.org/ --------------------

> under. Greg would like to put his code under the GPL, but it wouldn't be
> too easy to split the new code away from the old. Personally I wouldn't 
> mind leaving it as it is, though any new programs I write for the NanoGUI
> project will be GPLed.

The changes I made in putting mini-X and bogl together initially are GPL'd.

The current situation causes no problems at all. We ar eusing the original
code in a way the original license permits but with additional protections
for our own code. (Anyone can extract the original mini-X alone and use it)

You've also sensibly LGPL'd the stubs

Alan