xvfb
Mike A. Harris
mharris at www.linux.org.uk
Sat Jun 26 11:56:23 UTC 2004
On Fri, 25 Jun 2004, SATISH RAMANATHAN wrote:
>I have a quick, may be silly, question.
>My Linux (that runs on RHEL, RH8) application requires Xvfb be installed and
>running on the user machine. And we are coming across cases where not all
>the user machines have Xvfb installed by default. I believe Xvfb is not
>part of the standard package,though it comes with the CD. I would like to
>know if it is okay to package and ship the xvfb binary along with my
>application. Are there any issues(technical, legal,...) that I need to
>consider before doing this?
Xvfb is a standard part of the XFree86 source code, and is always
built and included with all Red Hat OSs. If you use Red Hat
Kickstart to perform installations, you can have Kickstart ensure
that Xvfb is always installed.
You could also include Xvfb with your application, as it is open
source software, however I'd recommend against that for various
reasons:
- Using the Red Hat supplied Xvfb, when you apply security
updates, if there are any updates which affect Xvfb, you'll
automatically get them. Otherwise you'd have to monitor X
security and update it manually in your application bundle.
- Red Hat supports the Red Hat supplied Xvfb, provided the Red
Hat supplied rpm packages have been installed. You may need to
use mailing lists for Xvfb support issues if you supply it
yourself.
- By using Red Hat packages, you ensure you don't have files
being installed on the filesystem that conflict with potentially
rpm managed files. This can cause problems during upgrades,
unless of course the file paths are unique.
The XFree86 sources included with Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and
Red Hat Linux 8.0 are under the various licenses included in the
XFree86 documentation. You'd have to check the Xvfb license for
the specifics, but I believe it is MIT/X11 like most of the rest
of the source tree.
DISCLAIMER: This is just friendly information, not legal advice.
Please consult the license files or an attourney for legally
binding licencing information.
;o)
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