Fw: The Open Source CDE and Motif petition, an update

[Dialup Jon Norstog]

To the list:

Apropos of the proposed fedora core 8/Alpha project:  A bunch of Tru64 and VMS
users petitioned for an open-sourcing of the CDE desktop.  Just in time to
console us for not having KDE 4.0 available.

jn


---------- Forwarded Message -----------
From: Peter Howkins <peter.howkins at marutan.net>
To: thursday at allidaho.com
Sent: Wed, 27 Jun 2007 15:15:05 UT
Subject: The Open Source CDE and Motif petition, an update

This is an update to the "Petition to Open Source CDE and Motif"

http://www.marutan.net/cde/
http://www.petitiononline.com/opencde/petition.html

I have recently been in discussions with The Open Group after they have
had a chance to review the petition. They have been generally positive
and would be willing to support both an Open Source CDE and Motif if a
couple of practical issues can be resolved.

CDE, The Open Group is investigating whether they own the complete rights
to release CDE as Open Source. If they can release it, they will.

Motif brings The Open Group a sizable income in licensing revenue 
and since they operate as a non-profit, would cause some difficulty 
if it suddenly went away. The Open Group are willing to Open Source 
it provided they can make up that revenue in the short term. Without 
doing so The Open Group's management can be held accountable by its 300+
members for not acting in their best interests.

Several different ways are being investigated to find this revenue but if
you, personally or on behalf of a company, would be interested in financially
sponsoring this project, it might help make up any shortfall. Please get in
touch if you could help out in this way.

I will keep you informed when more information comes in, and I thank you
for signing the petition, your support has been persuasive.

Yours sincerely

Peter Howkins

You have received this mail because you signed the Open Source CDE and
Motif petition. If you would not like to receive anymore updates, please
email me, and I will remove you from the contact list.
------- End of Forwarded Message -------


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