Re: Re: [forum] Re: Announcement: Modification to the base XFree86(TM) license.

On Fri, Jan 30, 2004 at 08:25:40PM +0100, Egbert Eich wrote:

Sven Luther writes:
 > 
 > Maybe a decision on both parts on this would be ok ? XFree86 could make
 > sure the licence of the driver code would not conflict with the GPL,
 > keeping the old one for example, and the fbdev driver authors would
 > dual-licence the code, both GPL and the old xfree86 licence would do
 > just fine. Benjamin, what do you think about this ?
 > 
 > BTW, CCing this to the linux-fbdev mailing list.
 > 

Yes, a personal agreement between driver developers would also work.
However they tend to change and other people will make contributions
who all would have to agree also. 
I don't know if a general dual license agreement in the kernel 
file header would be possible. Also it could get removed once 
the author changes. Just like the license in the XFree86 driver 
could be amended. 

I guess already some drivers have such a dual licencing.

Doing this now for existing fbdev driver would involve to ask
anyone who has contributed little more than a typo fix.

Yeah, that would be rather problematic, but anyway, most of the things
move from the XFree86 code to fbdev code, and most often, it is not code
that is copied, but the register information and such. It is always
easier to get specs if you are working for XFree86 than if you plan to
do some kernel driver work.

Friendly,

Sven Luther


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