Motif has since been released under the LGPL, so this is largely of historic interest.
Was the license of OpenMotif ever submitted to OSI?
http://www.opengroup.org/openmotif/license/
Debian clearly considered it non-DFSG-compliant, but I can't find a discussion why this was the case.
In the FAQ, the Open Group wrote:
| QUESTION: | | Does the Open Group Public License for Motif meet the Open Source | Guidelines? | | ANSWER: | | No. The Open Group Public License for Motif grants rights only to | use the software on or with operating systems that are themselves | Open Source programs. In restricting the applicability of the | license to Open Source platforms this does not meet term 8 of the | Open Software Definition (http://www.opensource.org/osd.html).
http://www.opengroup.org/openmotif/faq.html
I find this surprising. The license is not worded in such a way that it is specific to a particular distribution: any free software distribution will do. The license doesn't even require that the software linked with OpenMotif is free software. It's true that their definition of “Open Source” does not match OSI's, but as theirs is more encompassing (to the degree that it misses the point), that's not an issue at all.
I'm also puzzled why both Debian and Fedora rejected the license (but Debian did consider it suitable for non-free). For Fedora, I found this:
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-advisory-board/2006-August/msg00261.html
But it's just a reference ot the FAQ, and then the answer is merely rephrased:
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-advisory-board/2006-August/msg00305.html
The FSF list does not mention the license under either name. Richard Stallman wrote about the license here:
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/motif.html
It's not very illuminating, unfortunately. This is the most relevant part:
| The license is restricted to use on certain operating systems, those | which fit a category they call “open source”. Both the free software | movement and the open source camp consider use restrictions | unacceptable.
I assume that I myself at the time thought this restriction as overly burdensome, but I don't think I would do so today, especially since the license does not require that *all* software on a computer needs to be open source. In fact, it looks fairly liberal to me. However, when OpenMotif came out, many systems still used proprietary SSH and the Netscape browser, so perhaps the OpenMotif license was thought to be too corrosive back then. (But that was a non-issue when Fedora removed OpenMotif from the distribution many years later.)
Fedora says “Commercial use restrictions” under https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:Main#Bad_Licenses, but the reason for that remains unclear to me. It looks like a confusion of proprietary vs commercial licensing.
Any ideas why it's so clear-cut that this license violates the DFSG or the OSD? Do you still think it does?
On 10/25/2018 04:56 PM, Florian Weimer wrote:
Any ideas why it's so clear-cut that this license violates the DFSG or the OSD? Do you still think it does?
Is it really worth rehashing the applicability of a dead license? :)
~tom
"TC" == Tom Callaway tcallawa@redhat.com writes:
TC> Is it really worth rehashing the applicability of a dead license? :)
Well, other software might consider similar license terms. "Creative" licensing seems to have become quite popular recently.
- J<
On Thu, 2018-10-25 at 22:56 +0200, Florian Weimer wrote:
Motif has since been released under the LGPL, so this is largely of historic interest.
Was the license of OpenMotif ever submitted to OSI?
http://www.opengroup.org/openmotif/license/
Debian clearly considered it non-DFSG-compliant, but I can't find a discussion why this was the case.
In the FAQ, the Open Group wrote:
QUESTION:
Does the Open Group Public License for Motif meet the Open Source Guidelines?
ANSWER:
No. The Open Group Public License for Motif grants rights only to use the software on or with operating systems that are themselves Open Source programs. In restricting the applicability of the license to Open Source platforms this does not meet term 8 of the Open Software Definition (http://www.opensource.org/osd.html).
http://www.opengroup.org/openmotif/faq.html
I find this surprising. The license is not worded in such a way that it is specific to a particular distribution: any free software distribution will do.
If I had to guess...
DFSG#9: License Must Not Contaminate Other Software
"The license must not place restrictions on other software that is distributed along with the licensed software. For example, the license must not insist that all other programs distributed on the same medium must be free software."
We can argue about what "distribute" means here, I suppose. Also #8: "all parties to whom the program is redistributed should have the same rights as those that are granted in conjunction with the Debian system". So if it's not as free everywhere as it would be in Debian, it's not free enough for Debian.
- ajax
On 10/26/2018 11:32 AM, Adam Jackson wrote:
So if it's not as free everywhere as it would be in Debian, it's not free enough for Debian.
It has never happened that I know of, but if there were a copyright license which was somehow okay only in Fedora (but not for anyone downstream of us), we would not consider it acceptable either.
~tom
* Adam Jackson:
On Thu, 2018-10-25 at 22:56 +0200, Florian Weimer wrote:
Motif has since been released under the LGPL, so this is largely of historic interest.
Was the license of OpenMotif ever submitted to OSI?
http://www.opengroup.org/openmotif/license/
Debian clearly considered it non-DFSG-compliant, but I can't find a discussion why this was the case.
In the FAQ, the Open Group wrote:
QUESTION:
Does the Open Group Public License for Motif meet the Open Source Guidelines?
ANSWER:
No. The Open Group Public License for Motif grants rights only to use the software on or with operating systems that are themselves Open Source programs. In restricting the applicability of the license to Open Source platforms this does not meet term 8 of the Open Software Definition (http://www.opensource.org/osd.html).
http://www.opengroup.org/openmotif/faq.html
I find this surprising. The license is not worded in such a way that it is specific to a particular distribution: any free software distribution will do.
If I had to guess...
DFSG#9: License Must Not Contaminate Other Software
"The license must not place restrictions on other software that is distributed along with the licensed software. For example, the license must not insist that all other programs distributed on the same medium must be free software."
But Debian distributes OpenMotif under this license, next to non-free software for which sources are not available. So clearly DFSG#9 did not apply in Debian's view, otherwise OpenMotif would be undistributable (then and now).
We can argue about what "distribute" means here, I suppose. Also #8: "all parties to whom the program is redistributed should have the same rights as those that are granted in conjunction with the Debian system". So if it's not as free everywhere as it would be in Debian, it's not free enough for Debian.
So what I find particularly puzzling is that this license is a bit like the GPL (version 2) without a system library exception, and at least Debian pretended that the system library exception was not an option for the distribution. (According to that analysis it's only something prioprietary operating systems coudl exercise historically, due to the clearly separate vendors and distribution channels.)
Is it necessary that an open source license must allow porting to proprietary systems? I don't think so today. But based on what I found out about the OpenMotif license, people actually thought that back then. This surprises me. Has this changed?
On Fri, 2018-10-26 at 21:29 +0200, Florian Weimer wrote:
Is it necessary that an open source license must allow porting to proprietary systems? I don't think so today. But based on what I found out about the OpenMotif license, people actually thought that back then. This surprises me. Has this changed?
IMO it is a violation of the spirit, if not the letter, of the OSD. For instance, that license forbade us from even using, much less distributing, OpenMotif on Cygwin (which, as a *NIX/X11 platform, wouldn't require much actual porting) -- which, while itself Free Software, was built on a proprietary kernel (Windows), which this license explicitly called out as the definition of the OS. The same would apply to proprietary *NIXs, leaving the far-from-perfect lesstif as the only viable option for us and them. Shouldn't this have been considered a restriction against persons/groups (users of such systems) or fields of endeavour (use on such systems)?
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Adam Jackson -
Florian Weimer -
Jason L Tibbitts III -
Tom Callaway -
Yaakov Selkowitz