Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!spool.mu.edu!sdd.hp.com!wuarchive!udel!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!o.gp.cs.cmu.edu!andrew.cmu.edu!dd26+ From: dd26+@andrew.cmu.edu (Douglas F. DeJulio) Newsgroups: comp.sources.d Subject: Re: Rms says: Motif vs open look, a trend? Message-ID: Date: 11 Feb 91 17:24:15 GMT References: <27A6E9BA.2E94@tct.uucp> <1991Feb5.011604.3849@NCoast.ORG> <8536@mitech.com> <1991Feb9.000821.5554@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> <51834@cornell.UUCP>, <40732@genrad.UUCP> Organization: Chemistry, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA Lines: 25 In-Reply-To: <40732@genrad.UUCP> jpn@genrad.com (John P. Nelson) writes: > Actually, this is very unlikely. The X windows system is largely > hardware independendent, except for the X server itself. It is > unlikely that anyone on the net will provide a source-code fix for > an X server whose source has never been distributed. THat's the point, isn't it? If the person's X server has bugs, they're out of luck. > In the meantime, if there are fixes to the numerous libraries and > applications which come with X, the MIT X11 sources should be > sufficient. What if it's a fix to the library, but the vendor includes programs that link in the library but don't come on the X tapes? Decwindows apps like dxterm come to mind. The person now has a fixed library, but can't do a thing to help the programs from the vendor for which source is unavailable. This is *exactly* the circumstance that the gnu LGPL would help to avoid. The vendors don't have to give up their own source code, but users can change and fix the public parts of the program and the vendors' programs will reflect the changes. -- Doug DeJulio dd26+@andrew.cmu.edu (ATK/AMS) ddj@zardoz.club.cc.cmu.edu (NeXT)