GPL and missing licenses in xf86-input-keyboard? (was Re: [ANNOUNCE] xf86-input-keyboard1.2.2)

[Matthieu Herrb]

iel
>>   
>   Is there something preventing relicensing "Xorg" under GPL?

Yes. Several organisations using/contributing to X.Org rely on the
MIT/X11 license.

>   I think a full GPL relicensed Xorg could be the required change to 
> make the X server receive the same community/industry attention of Linux 
> kernel and/or gnome/kde, so that end users could buy a new computer and 
> expect to have things like full 3d acceleration, video, etc working, 
> instead of frequently needing to use something like the vesa driver and 
> only unaccelerated 2d.

No. As long as drivers are dynamically loaded, the GPL will not force
vendors to release sources. Persuading them to open their drivers is not
a matter of licenses.
> 
>   Forgive the fact that I have been away from XFree86/Xorg for some 
> years... But XFree86 tried to make an infrastructure to try to make it 
> easy for hardware vendors to provide binary only drivers as an option, 
> but this never became an reality (stable/reliable drivers built by the 
> hardware vendor).

stability and reliability have also few direct relationship with the
availability of the source code.

-- 
Matthieu Herrb