[TROLL] Re: Getting xserver patches reviewed

[Graeme Gill]

Xavier Bestel wrote:
> I am under the impression that GPL projects always attract more people
> than their BSD/MIT counterparts.
> Sadly X has no GPL equivalent to test that theory.

I tend to think that for really basic infrastructure,
where part of the trick is to promote standardization, then an MIT or
BSD license is the best approach, since it encourages proprietary system
vendors to adopt the standard, rather than coming up with something
incompatible.

There's nothing to stop someone from forking X11, and starting up a version
that accepts GPL code. It may not be very productive to split the
developers though.

[ Personally I think that it's poor form to take all the contributions
   made to X11 on the understanding that it is an MIT licensed project,
   and effectively change the rules afterwards and handcuff it to depend on
   GPL licensed code. Do the Linux kernel developers accept code that is
   GPL + extra restrictions ? Are they currently accepting GPL3 or AGPL code ? :-)
   Perhaps the situation is not that different. ]

Graeme Gill.