X11R4: who has what ???

[Jeff Weinstein]

In article <9007190859.AA25709 at mcirps2.med.nyu.edu>,
root at MCIRPS2.MED.NYU.EDU writes:
> I understand that sgi offers an x11 developers package, which costs money,
> which is partly to pay royalites to the X people(mit ?).

	The money we charge pays for our software development efforts,
	support, distribution, etc.  No one pays MIT royalties for X11R4.

> Who owns X for sgi machines ? If it is available over the net, why does
> sgi need to sell it ? What are the contractual and legal issues that
> a developer such as ourselves should know about the X from sgi or mit ?
> Why does sgi sell X for so much(how much ?) when mit has it for free ?

	You can get an unsupported X that you have to port, compile,
	fix, support yourself over the net from MIT.  You can get
	an already built, ported, supported, (mostly) fixed version
	from SGI.  Note that as we move from NeWS to X the price of
	the X dev package will be coming down.

> Which package offering is better, or more directly, which should I use
> as a sgi software developer ?

	If you ever want to get fixes/support/working code from sgi
	then buy ours.  If you want to muck with the source yourself
	and are willing to support it then get it from MIT.

		--Jeff

Jeff Weinstein - X Protocol Police
Silicon Graphics, Inc., Entry Systems Division, Window Systems
jsw at xhead.esd.sgi.com
Any opinions expressed above are mine, not sgi's.