We wanted Gnome to be a free software stack, and that was our requirement. Gnome itself was assembled out of the available components plus the requirements of the community that emerged early on.
GNOME was made out of available components and new components. In particular, we discussed plans for new libraries, and decided how to license them. We didn't include Red Hat in that discussion, since it was a GNU Project matter. However, from what you said, the decision we made for free software reasons would also have satisifed what Red Hat wanted for its GNU/Linux distribution. The individual pieces of Gnome are no longer just used by Gnome, or designed merely to be part of Gnome, they are built to be reusable not only by KDE, but also by server applications, or mobile applications; And they are licensed to allow proprietary developers to use them. I hope that you are making an overstatement when you claim that GNOME has lost all influence over the licensing of components developed for GNOME. It would be a shame if GNOME can only drift with the current. I also hope it is an overstatement to say that all GNOME components have been licensed in ways that fail to give any advantage to free software packages over proprietary software. If true, that would mean useful opportunities to boost other free software have been wasted. But even if those things are true, they can be changed in the future. GNOME can recover influence on licensing decisions. New components will surely be developed for GNOME, and GNOME can ask developers to follow licensing practice designed to help the free software cause. The motives for the policy we decided in 1997 or 1998 are still valid: we want proprietary programs to be able to work with GNOME, and we want to help free software developers compete technically with proprietary software. Thus, libraries needed for an app to work with GNOME should be licensed so proprietary apps can use them. Libraries that help people develop apps, or help the apps work better, should be limited to use within free software, so as to give our fellow free software developers an advantage. _______________________________________________ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list