Submitted by giallu on Tue, 08/22/2006 - 22:33.
First of all, sorry for the cross-posting, but I really need to reach all interested parties in a small timeframe.
This is a notice to let you know the Fedora Core distribution is going to remove OpenMotif from the list of packages. This is caused by the lack of a proper Open Source license, and will be effective as soon as a workable alternative is availble.
If you care at all about being included in any 100% Open Source GNU/Linux distributions, please consider changing the terms of the license to an acceptable one.
Feel free to ask me any detail about the issue.
Best Regards
Gianluca Sforna
Wed, 08/23/2006 - 19:00#1
Mark
Fedora Core is going to drop the OpenMotif package
(this is a cross post so that readers will see a response. Let's keep this discussion going in the Developer's forum)
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Gianluca,
Motif was released under the OpenMotif Public License by the OpenGroup (they own the copyright). Unfortunately, the OpenMotif project team does not have the right to change that license.
I have asked our contact at the OpenGroup to reconsider their license. However, I don't have a lot of confidence that they see this as a business priority from their prospective. :-(
Thank you for offering to provide some background to this issue.
Can you provide:
1. Some background in terms of this decision? (who what, when, etc.). The requirement that software distributed with the core software be under an open source license has been a requirement of the Debian and Mandrake distros for quite some time. However, this is quite a change for the Fedora distro.
2. What licenses are considered "proper". Do they need to be OSI approved or meet some other criteria? Just want to make sure I fight for the right license.
3. You mentioned an alternative? Are you referring to lesstif? There is a *very* significant difference between lesstif and OpenMotif in terms of functionality.
Although nothing can't be replaced given time, I am worried that the number of commericial applications that rely on openmotif (and can't use lesstif) is severely underestimated among many in the open source community. The problem is much harder than just deleting the OpenMotif RPMs and telling the world that lesstif is the real Motif. Lots of stuff will just no longer compile.
Regards,
Mark
Thu, 08/07/2008 - 06:33#2
ma_meister
Re: Fedora Core is going to drop the OpenMotif package
Regarding lesstif: Seconded, this is absolutely correct, there are many apps out there where it is hopeless.
I can agree that there is market potential in Motif as there are so many applications desperately needing it. In the long run though people will (and most already have) move on and see that as an investment (perversely for the open source idea). My example: I have about a week left to consider and decide how to port my X11/Motif/XMT/MESA/OpenGL - SGI App (that I ported to Linux) over to Windows.
It will now most probably be by buying something commercial to help port (NutCracker?) or redeveloping the code directly in a .NET/wxWidgets-combination to secure the future of the application and production needs at our place (although that will be a lot more expensive but the boss will have the final word and he desperately wants it to run on Windows ... )
Regarding the license and a compile of OpenMotif in cygwin: There seems to be no chance to do this in cygwin without breaking the law. Am I right?
Greetings,
Martin
Thu, 10/30/2008 - 16:44#3
fredk
Re: Fedora Core is going to drop the OpenMotif package
Have you tried the Hummingbird eXceed XDK? It contains Motif2.1 that works with Cygwin.
--
Fred
Tue, 05/19/2009 - 13:00#4
ma_meister
Re: Fedora Core is going to drop the OpenMotif package
Sorry for answering to late but this is exactly what I did for another application, thanks for the hint.
My problem is that Exceed XDK does not supply XMT for cygwin which I need.
I have the XMT source code but I do get segfaults with my app but not the mockup
examples.
Martin