I've been forced into using an Windoze NT laptop, and am trying to get Xwindows working for it. Cygwin works fine (posix environment, bash shell, etc.) and someone has made patches to get XF86 compiled under win, which would be awesome. The problem is as follows:
Someone has patches to allow XF86 to be built under Windoze with cygwin, and the XF people are reluctant to let them in due to commercial interestes, i.e. the finished X server binaries can't be bundled with other software. Where do I find a clue bat large enough to change this thinking? Please have a lok at the mail below and let me know what I can possibly do. My thinking: the patches do not force you to use cygwin to compile, but rather just enable it for those who want it, and so I don't see any reason why the XF people should object to the patches. They enhance and do not limit in any way. If someone else wants to posrt it to a compiler with a different license, noone is stopping them. This is really frustrating me, people being this narrow minded (what's the politically correct term for that? :) and I'm hoping people here will have some useful suggestions. Thanks, Nils. His latest response to my questions (the person who has the patches for xf86 3.9.15): > >The patches are not incorporated into official XFree86 tre yet. I have not > >submitted the patches to XFree86.org yet. A lot of commercial X vendors > >have vested interest in XFree86.org. The objected to having using Cygwin > >to build XFree86 and merge my patches into official Xfree86 tree. > >Cygwin is > >under GPL, merging my patches into XFree86 means > those X-server vendors would either purchase commercial license > >of Cygwin or would not be able to bundle XF86 built with Cygwin > with theirsoftware. > > But are the patches cygwin specific or generic, i.e. differences > you might > find between different unices too? If they are generic, applying them > should not have any implication. And you don't have to put your patches > under the GPL, it seems to me you submit them to the XF86 project and > transfer ownership to them and that's the end of that. The fact that the > code you've submitted helps XF86 build on Cygwin should be irrelevant. First of all, I have not submitted the patches to XFree86.org yet. I did mention about it on XFree86 Developers list. It started a furious argument from commercial software vendors. They out-right demanded I should port XFree86 to Win32 using MSVC or a non GPL compiler, which could allow them to bundle the software. When, I replied that I do not care if they could bundle or not, all I want is a stable and free X-server for Win32 users. Then I was told that I am at the wrong place and should consider quitting XFree86 developers group. To answer your questions about if the pacthes are Cygwin specific. 96% of the code is already present in XFree86. It is ust a matter of finding out where #ifdef __CYGWIN__ should be added, so code can be compiled using GCC under Cygwin. Second, adding #ifdef __CYGWIN__ does not make a source code GPL. It is the act of compilation which makes the binaries GPL. If the Cygwin patches are merged into XFree86 source tree, it would also help Windows users to develop X clients on Windows NT/9x. Once the devices drivers are written and the code for devices drivers added to hw/xfree86/cygwin, the X-server (hopefully?) should be functional. Also, when user can download XFree86 source code from XFree86 Organization and compile it Windows themselves, it might attract more developers to contribute and complete the project. > > >The XFree86 organization, though is looking into it. If you wish > you can send > >your compain to XFree86.org (devel@xfree86.org). > > > > I think I may... I don't realy think that there's a problem with > submitting > hte patches. Any more details I should know about? See above... A second project in progress is to use XFree86 libraries, and compile XGGI X-server on Windows. John Fortin is writing DirectX drivers for XGGI. I have done all the XGGI/XFree86 work for Window, using Cygwin/GCC compilers. Once John's DirectX drivers are ready, and (if) my patches are merged into XFree86 source tree, a user can downlaod XFree86 source, obtain XGGI patches from GGI-project.org, and compile XGGI/XFree86 based X-server on Windows, using Cygwin/GCC. > > > >The XFree86 code with my patches built cleanly, though there are > some tricks > >involved. Most important, you must extract XFree86 tar-balls on a binary > >mounted cygwin disk, and compile on a binary mounted disk, > otherise the some > >UNIX specific Assembly code would not compile. > >
