Re: apache non-free?
On Fri, Dec 07, 2001 at 07:46:52PM +0100, Marcus Brinkmann wrote:
> We do not interpret licenses in favor of the copyright holder. There
> is sufficient precendence to this (biggest example being KDE) where we
> knew the copyright holder would never enforce a problematic clause,
> but did not consider it to be free anyway.
a big part of the issue with KDE was not really the license of KDE
itself, but the license of pre-existing GPL-ed works which had been
linked with Qt (which had a GPL-incompatible license at the time).
we could have legally distributed the source, or even a binary linked to
a GPL alternative to Qt (such as the incomplete & now defunct Harmony
project), but we could not legally distribute binaries linked to Qt.
there was also the fact that when KDE licensing problems were pointed
out to KDE authors, they flat-out refused to add an additional
permission to their license which would allow us/anyone to link their
GPL software to the GPL-incompatible Qt.
we asked for permission, they said "No"...how else do you interpret a
refusal to grant permission other than as a refusal to grant permission?
craig
--
craig sanders <cas@taz.net.au>
Fabricati Diem, PVNC.
-- motto of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch
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