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Open Motif Frequently Asked Questions

Version 2.14

QUESTION:

What is Open Motif? How does it differ from standard Motif?

ANSWER:

For the current stable 2.1.30 release, aside from some different copyright and license statements, both Motif and Open Motif share the same functionality and source code. The primary difference between Open Motif and the commercial product is the software license. Open Motif source code and binaries can be distributed royalty free under The Open Group Public License as long as the operating system upon which Open Motif is running meets the OSI's Open Source Definition. Motif is made available under the standard Open Group software licenses and requires the payment of source code and royalty fees.

QUESTION:

How does the Open Group Public license relate to other licenses?

ANSWER:

The Open Group Public License for Motif closely follows the IBM Public License Version 1.0 , with an addition of the restriction (in clause 2) regarding the applicability only to Open Source operating systems.

QUESTION:

Does the Open Group Public License for Motif meet the Open Source Guidelines?

ANSWER:

No. The Open Group Public License for Motif grants rights only to use the software on or with operating systems that are themselves Open Source programs. In restricting the applicability of the license to Open Source platforms this does not meet term 8 of the Open Software Definition (http://www.opensource.org/osd.html).

QUESTION:

Will Motif be made Open Source in the future?

ANSWER:

Yes, we hope to be able to make a distribution under a license complying with the Open Source guidelines sometime in the future. For now this is as close as to Open Source as we could get.

QUESTION:

What is the motivation for making Motif publicly available?

ANSWER:

The motivation is recognition of the importance of Open Source operating systems in the industry. The public availability of Motif will allow the many Motif applications to more easily be made available on Open Source platforms , thus increasing the variety of applications available, delivering greater choice for buyers and a larger market for vendors.

QUESTION:

Did The Open Group wait too long to make Motif publicly available?

ANSWER:

At the end of 1999 the existing development and maintenance contracts for Motif (the OSF PST) came to an end and this presented an opportunity for The Open Group and the sponsors of the Motif PST to make the technology more widely available. The Existing Technology Committee of the OSF decided to move Motif toward the Open Source Market.

QUESTION:

Why does The Open Group define the term "Open Source" in the license when the definition exists at http://www.opensource.org ?

ANSWER:

Our lawyers required us to do this. The intent for the definition is to be inline with the Open Source Definition Version 1.7 (see http://www.opensource.org/osd.html). We're working on a fix for this and other licensing issues in the next revision of the Motif Public License. An alternate way of reading that paragraph is:

"Open Source" programs mean any software which meets the criteria of the Open Source Definition Version 1.7 as published by the Open Source Initiative (OSI) at www.opensource.org

QUESTION:

How does The Open Group define the term "Operating System" Does this apply to the kernel or the complete distribution?

ANSWER:

The Open Group's intent is that this applies only to the kernel of the operating system, without regard to any bundled utilities or application software. This includes all known distributions of Linux and BSD distributions. To find out if an operating system qualifies check whether kernel sources are available under criteria meeting the OSI's Open Source Definition.

QUESTION:

Can an open source operating system kernel include binary modules that do not have sources available under criteria meeting the OSI's Open Source Definition?

ANSWER:

Yes, an operating system kernel that is otherwise open source but includes a limited number of such binary modules, for example graphics drivers or wireless card drivers, still meets the requirements. This includes all known distributions of Linux and BSD distributions.

QUESTION:

Can I charge for my distribution of Motif under this license?

ANSWER:

Yes, if in accordance with the terms of this license. See the section on Commercial Distribution.

QUESTION:

Do I have to Open Source my commercial application if linked with the Open Motif package?

ANSWER:

No.

QUESTION:

I'm an existing Motif Licensee, does this announcement change my obligations?

ANSWER:

No.

QUESTION:

If I distribute a binary of this code, do I have to make source available?

ANSWER:

Yes, see clause 3b.

QUESTION:

I add my own value-added features to my distribution of Motif, if I pick up this new public code and enhance that with my modifications do I have to make the source available?

ANSWER:

Yes, clause 3 covers the requirements that source code be made available.

QUESTION:

How do I report a bug in Open Motif?

ANSWER:

Submit your bug report using the template included with the release, to the email address noted in that template, or enter a bug direct into the Bugzilla database at http://bugs.openmotif.org/enter_bug.cgi

QUESTION:

I would like to contribute modifications to Open Motif, how do I go about this? Who collects, approves, and distributes fixes and enhancements to Open Motif?

ANSWER:

At present there is no organization supporting the collection and integration of Open Motif enhancements.

QUESTION:

Which version of Motif is being made available?

ANSWER:

Version 2.1.30 is the stable production version (The January 2000 release).

QUESTION:

What is the content of the release?

ANSWER:

Open Motif 2.1.30 is a complete stable production release, (you get libXm, libMrm, libuil, mwm, uil etc). There have been 5 patches to 2.1.30 available in the fixes tree.

QUESTION:

What documentation is included with the release?

ANSWER:

A set of the official documentation has been made freely available for personal use as the Open Motif Documentation Supplement, available from http://www.opengroup.org/openmotif/docs .

Members of The Open Group can also freely download the complete published Motif / CDE 2.1 documentation in pdf from the publications catalo.

QUESTION:

Where can I get the code from?

ANSWER:

See http://www.opengroup.org/openmotif/

QUESTION:

Is the software available on CD-ROM?

ANSWER:

YES, See The Open Group Bookstore. The Open Group also makes it available via the www and ftp.

QUESTION:

What version of X11 has this been tested with?

ANSWER:

This has been tested with X11R6.4 patchlevel 3.

QUESTION:

Are any tests included with the release?

ANSWER:

Yes, the following tests are available with the distribution:

QUESTION:

What does QATS cover?

ANSWER:

QATS test suite is set of test suites that we used to test OSF/Motif prior to the 2.0 release. Some of the areas of QATS include:

QUESTION:

How do I build OpenMotif on Redhat Linux?

ANSWER:

See the RELNOTES file for precise details.

The following sequence of commands has been tested on Redhat 6.0

$mkdir motifsrc

(download the tar.gz file)

$tar zxvf openmotif2.1.30.tar.gz
$mkdir motifblddir
$lndir  `pwd`/motif `pwd`/motifblddir
$cd motifblddir
$mkdir -p imports/x11
$cd imports/x11
$ln -s /usr/X11R6/bin
$ln -s /usr/X11R6/include
$ln -s /usr/X11R6/lib
$cd ../..
$make World

QUESTION:

Is there a standard for packaging Open Motif on Linux systems?

ANSWER:

Yes. For RPMs:

runtime:                        openmotif-2.1.30-1_VDR-i386.rpm
development:                openmotif-devel-2.1.30-1_VDR-i386.rpm

Notes:

1.      The "1_VDR" represents "package#_3-letter-vendor-code" , so for The Open Group, this might be 1_TOG , and the second release of our package would be 2_TOG.

2.      i386 is replaced by sparc, alpha, or ppc as appropriate.

And for DEB:

runtime:                        openmotif_2.1.30-2_i386.deb
development:                openmotif-devel_2.1.30-2_i386.deb

Notes:

1.      Hyphens and underlines are different from the RPMs.

2.      There is no way to represent the packager externally. The "-2" thus represents the second package that we have created..

3.      i386 is replaced by sparc, alpha, or ppc as appropriate.

QUESTION:

I'm having trouble running wsm and the panner demo with Open Motif, is this a known problem?

ANSWER:

Yes, wsm demo was written for Motif 2.0, and relies on features that are only present in mwm 2.0. Version 2.1 of mwm removed the capabilities that wsm required to work, so wsm will not work with mwm 2.1. Similarly the panner demo has the same problems.