Talk:Xming

Licensing

I've removed the text about Xming being free software. The website states that the author believes that redistribution without "asking permission" is a copyvio, which is nonsense. It'd be misleading to present the software as GPL on here when the author doesn't appear to have read it. Chris Cunningham 11:50, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

If you don't agree with the terms of use (license) and the terms of copying (copyright) don't use it. It's free to everyone who doesn't wear a pirate's hat :) [Colin Harrison] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.3.107.196 (talk • contribs) 21:35, 13 July 2007

Oh, I won't. But I'm also not going to allow the article to say that it's free software or that it's under the unmodified GPL, because neither of those things are true if redistribution is prohibited without seeking permission. Chris Cunningham 08:18, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Chris, I agree that we shouldnt state a license unless the author is clear about the licensing. This looks messy and I am surprised that there hasn't been any tech news about this licensing abnormality. John Vandenberg 08:14, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

It only says redistribution of "the Xming website, documentation, images, executables or installers" is copyright violation. Not the code itself. (as of August 10 anyway) --Spoon! 04:56, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

"Executables and installers"? You can't claim GPL and ban redistribution of binaries. Fair enough if the claimed licence were MPL or something, but it's GPL. Chris Cunningham 13:06, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

It's pretty clear to me from looking at the current site that a proper license is X11. It appears he's making two separate copyright claims under two licenses. There's the claim to his creative work in producing the code to allow X.org to run on Microsoft Windows, and a separate claim to his creative work in producing usable binary installers for the Windows platform. According to [1] "The source code is canonical in X.Org repositories and my patches are supplied under their license terms and are copyright... Copyright (c) 2005-2008 Colin Harrison, some rights reserved" which appears to state that his code on that site is licensed X11. It would be great if he could explicitly confirm this in both his distributed code and here. That's the most plain English reading; it's also possible he just means to state that his actions are in accord with the X.org licensing instead of in opposition to it. It is perfectly possible for him to produce derivative works of his own X11 licensed code that are not as permissive (the X11 license has a hint of "copyleft" to it but is generally regarded as being "copyleft" free) and sell them without any redistribution rights for the portion of the derivative work that is his, which appears to be what he is doing producing installers. He is also occasionally, or has in the past, released the installers under the X11 license, which permits redistribution. If Colin could confirm this it could be listed as something like X11 (Server Source Code) / Commercial (Configuration Tools). That sort of business model (open source engine, closed source user interface) has been successful for a number of companies. 67.170.149.185 (talk) 11:06, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Update

Look here: http://www.straightrunning.com/XmingNotes/terms.php#head-13 --92.230.11.159 (talk) 15:36, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Ah, good. That resolves the situation. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:24, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Good. But the defamatory comments (yes I made some too) and history still remain in public. This is strictly against site policy? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.3.107.196 (talk) 11:20, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

History is generally only removed in special cases, for instance minors posting personal details. In general, material which is simply unbefitting an encyclopedia is removed from the page but left in the history. For that matter, I'd appreciate it if you didn't edit my comments in future, regardless of your opinion of whether or not the content is defamatory or not. That also applies to all the material removed as "slanderous bollocks" in 2007. And please sign your posts. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:08, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Treat it as a special case then and this as the 1st formal request to remove **all** defamatory history, including any b***. I want this escalated to the 'management' for judgement, before I take further action to seek redress. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.3.107.196 (talk • contribs) 12:26, 9 June 2009

There are procedures to use for such things and this isn't one of them. I've left a link to the appropriate contact page on your user talk. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 13:31, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Escalated —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.3.107.196 (talk) 13:35, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Unsurprisingly, this IP has gotten itself blocked for making legal threats. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 14:15, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Explanatory text

I agree that more info needs to be added on what Xming is, but the correct approach is to take it slowly and ensure that information is accurate, appropriate and added in the correct style. There doesn't need to be a desperate rush to add tutorials to the article, and a rootless X server for Windows is useful for considerably more than getting terminal sessions to Unix boxes. Chris Cunningham 08:10, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Portability

Is the default xming installation (windows) completely portable? That is, does it leave any configuration settings / registry entries? AmontonarPapeles (talk) 15:34, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes it is portable: http://hacktolive.org/wiki/Portable_Ubuntu_for_Windows SF007 (talk) 17:29, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Edit War RE: Donations

There have been several attempts to add information to this article pertaining to the unique donation-centered release cycle of Xming. Most of these comments in the past have been tacked on without consideration for total accuracy or neutrality - probably because the contributors were displeased with the fact that the project's most recent development trees are not freely available. I have attempted to work this information back into the article by presenting it in a more detailed format with citations, but I'm concerned that this may vanish again. I would prefer it if any disputes over the presentation of this information be worked out here instead of with an undo that lacks annotations. Brevantes (talk) 13:19, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

The current contents are reasonable, although what with being entirely referenced to the terma and conditions are of rather dubious additional value. We need coverage in reliable secondary sources for all of this kind of thing to move it beyond minor advert status. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 13:47, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Understandable, I have no objections to these citations being pulled later once it seems that the information is less likely to be contested. I was mostly following the guideline for Verifiability on that one. The main reason for linking the Terms and Conditions was due to the one year of Website Release availability not being mentioned with the core of the Donations information, making it a bit of a slippery slope and ripe for potential editing out. All of this is moot of the article fails to achieve notability though, yes. Brevantes (talk) 14:06, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, it got reverted anyway. I give up, there is far too much emotion and politics wrapped up in this article. Brevantes (talk) 19:30, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Talk page edit wars

I myself am a donor to the Xming project who has both an interest in its continued development, and in the proper handling of information in this article and its talk page. Too much focus is being placed on the doctoring of information that may be attacks on the author, when the life of the article itself is in jeopardy due to Wikipedia's Notability standard. I'd like to ask everyone to please review WP:TPG and WP:RPA before participating in any further edits of existing comments on this page. I direct this at both sides: avoid language that may be construed as a personal attack (stick to verifiable facts, avoid hostile tone), refrain from editing comments that aren't yours whenever possible, and don't ignore one policy to your benefit just because someone else is ignoring a different one. The rest of us are here to help moderate; please let us. Brevantes (talk) 02:22, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

There have mainly been attacks on the author here. Please remove all defamatory comments and their history...including any I made...they must not remain in public. It's offensive and totally against site policy. Or just do a TOG or a RPA or an RIP or whatever. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.3.107.196 (talk) 05:16, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

This is currently being discussed on 62.3.'s user talk. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:23, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I've blocked the IP for legal threats. I've reset the server-side hacked ref links to Xming's main page and removed the "release method" section as lacking any independent sourcing and possible original research. Meanwhile I don't see any meaningful independent coverage of this topic other than listings at software sites and forum/mail comments by some users. If edit warring carries on over this I will protect the page (most likely to the wrong version). Gwen Gale (talk) 15:22, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I have attempted to provide the notability requirements for this page via third-party references by fairly notable organizations, Novell and Linux.com. At least these are independent industry trade reviews and should satisfy a base level of support for WP inclusion. I don't know why this article stirs so many emotions, as the software project is clearly notable as such, outside of WP, irrespective of people's likes or dislikes of its licensing terms. Kbrose (talk) 16:48, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

The easiest way to deal with these worries is to give a reliable and independent source (other than the Xming website) for any assertion made in the text. Gwen Gale (talk) 17:19, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

New dishonest attempts to delete this article

A new user, User:PeaceTea, is trying to delete the article again. Since it is obvious that this user account has been specifically created in the attempt to delete this article, the edit as well as the account creation must be considered a subversion of WP rules, TBD. I request administrator intervention to revert the attempt, identify the user and block this user. This action cannot be considered good faith editing of Wikipedia and must stop. Kbrose (talk) 18:39, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Let the AfD run, wider input from editors will only help (I do note that my own wording was lifted for the nom and I likely know who's behind the userame). Gwen Gale (talk) 18:41, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Looking into this further, I've blocked PeaceTea for block evasion and will close the AfD as having been created by a block-evading user. Gwen Gale (talk) 18:51, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

citing the Xming website

Owing to server side changes at straightrunning.com the Xming website is no longer available through en.Wikipedia links and hence it cannot be verifiably cited as web content. There may be web mirrors or archives which can be cited, but owing to the unreliability/unavailability of straightrunning.com, please don't refer to that URL or any if its subpages. It's true that copy-pasting URLs to that domain straight into a browser address window will get one to the content and one could put the URLs into citations in an unclickable way, but this may not last, since pages could still be renamed and menus redone on the server side. Gwen Gale (talk) 09:42, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Incorrect. It isn't important that someone can reach it from here, though it's clearly nice and convenient if they can. What matters is verifiability - a large number of articles and facts in the wiki are cited to books that are not online at all, or pages that later vanish or move, compared to which a website configured to need a separate browser session to access is a complete non-issue. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 19:12, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Off-line books are still verifiable, web pages with names which have been changed and swapped with attack pages are not verifiable. Likewise, books and web pages which can no longer be found are no longer verifiable sources, any editor can remove them if the assertion they support is disputed in good faith. Care must be taken, however, that the source is truly gone: Often it'll be found in an archive of some kind. Either way, we can't cite URLs which are likely to be made into attack pages in an ongoing spat with Wikipedia. Gwen Gale (talk) 19:25, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

The website is now working for wikipedia users, so I was bold and re-added it... SF007 (talk) 14:36, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

notability of this topic

Although Xming is either on the edge of notability following WP:ORG or falls a bit short, users who edit articles about software programs on en.Wikipedia have long held them to somewhat lower notability standards, carrying such content so long as verifiability can be had on narrowly targeted IT websites and there are hints of a meaningful user base. I'm here only as a clueless admin, so I'm neutral as to the notability of this topic but nevertheless, given how editors tend to handle these topics, it seems unlikely to me that this article could now be deleted through an AfD. That said, a good faith AfD put forth by an experienced editor wouldn't be untowards, since the wider input brought by AfDs often does bring help to strengthen article content if the article winds up being kept. Gwen Gale (talk) 10:28, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, my impression is that AfDs are sometimes used as fishing exercises, having other editors look for sources, the nominee could not care to look for himself. I'm clueless on this topic as well, but I will hold that deletion is the last resort, not the first one. (once read this statement in our deletion policy but cant find it now) Power.corrupts (talk) 21:19, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Added references

A added a reference yesterday only to see it removed shortly after by Cunningham, the very same editor who has tagged the page as unreferenced and with notability concerns. Now I added four other independent sources that find it worthwhile to mention this freeware stuff software, I also added some text from the sources, in order to provide inline citations. This is probably as good as it ever gets for this kind of freeware wizardry, and the main purpose for the citations is to move the ongoing notability discussion forward and, hopefully, resolve it. I would be much obliged, if editors who maintain very high notability and inclusion standards would look for sources, and perhaps even add some. Power.corrupts (talk) 20:59, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I go by "Chris" or "user:thumperward" if you're planning on keeping it formal, thanks. The new references are good (heh); the "reference" that I removed was just a link to the pthreads-32 home page, which isn't an appropriate use of the footnotes system. I'll have a look for more references in future, hopefully; now that the author has taken his ball and gone home we're forced to find secondary sources for things like the license change, which is really a blessing in disguise. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:41, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

In every dark cloud... Gwen Gale (talk) 10:20, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Notability

The sources provided do not demonstrate the notability of this topic. The books make only the most passing reference to it. The only significant reference is a Novell white paper which I don't find to be an RS within the meaning of N. I am retagging the article. Bongomatic 00:39, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

If this was a one-paragraph article I would be inclined to agree. However, given the usefulness(in my opinion) of this application, the multiple distinct sources cited, and the lack of activity to merge or delete, I have pulled the notability tag. EugeneKay (talk) 15:29, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

External links modified

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