At 02:36 PM 10/4/2000 +0200, Alexander Mai wrote:
><snip>
>
>And talking about free software, OM fails to fullfill terms which
>at least a majority of involved people agree that are required for being
>"free", "opensourced", etc., i.e. many people can't use it _legally_.
Is there more to this comment about "_legally_" other than the obvious one
that people which have chosen to use GPL for their open software can't use
Open Motif without violating the GPL? I understand that there is a clear
philosophical issue about using a license agreement that has not been
approved by opensouce.org.
<snip>
>Obviously many people writing here do have a free operating system or
>no problems using OM in an illegal way. That's actually a problem -
>those people do neither help in LessTif's development nor push
>the OM copyright holders to change the license. In other words:
>they are 'useless' in our effort to get a "free" Motif implementation!
>- which is in my understanding the main topic on THIS list.
Don't mistake lack of success for lack of effort...
>Keeping Motif alive or improve it is beyond the possibilities of
>the people here: if a) Motif is not accepted by the masses or
>b) the masses use OM or c) the commercially distributed Motif is
>accepting input from the community - we can do not very much.
>Adding a few gimmicks to LessTif/OM is certainly not sufficient to
>compete with the "newer" toolkits. And for anything else beyond this
>you first need to get the manpower ...
But divided, we're insuring the failure of the Motif API. As ICS extends
Open Motif, I have no problem dual licensing our extensions (as long as
they don't contain Motif proprietary info) so that they can be used by
lesstif. For example, the themes engine (its external to the Motif library)
is now available on the Open Motif CVS. If that would be useful to lesstif,
I would be glad to dual license it.
Mark
-
Integrated Computer Solutions, Inc.
Visual Development Tools for Professionals
617-621-0060 x108 (voice)
617-621-9555 (fax)
201 Broadway
Cambridge, MA 02139
