Non-free (?) GLX code under GLX Public License and SGI Free Software Licence B

[Daniel Stone]

On Wed, May 07, 2008 at 07:34:45AM +0200, Carsten Agger wrote:
> Daniel Stone wrote:
> > > Well, you'd have to convince their legal department that the cost (and
> > > the cost will be non-trivial) would be worth it.  I'd imagine this would
> > > be difficult.
> 
> Excuse my ignorance, but what are the nature of these costs? There's the
> logistical costs of changing the files, communicating the changes,
> updating the Web site, but is there more?
> 
> Do they have third party obligations which would mean they'd incur costs
> (e.g., patent licensing problems) if they were to change the license?

Their legal team are going to want to vet every line of both the license
and the code (yes, again).  There will be interminable meetings about it
with the legal team and 'all relevant stakeholders', and even these will
have a perceived cost.  In the end, it will come down to a lot of money
(some justified, some not), and the legal team and everyone else will
demand a business reason as to why they should spend this money.  Also,
they'll want a compelling (to their bottom line, not to a bunch of
bearded people who care about the difference between free software and
open source) reason to change anything at all.  It's worked well so far,
right?

That's pretty much what you're up against.  Maybe 10 years ago, you
would've had a chance, but I doubt SGI are really that interested in
development, X, or development of X these days.  If it's not helping
them shift hardware ...

Cheers,
Daniel
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