Re: KDE et al may not incorporate other people's GPL'd code
On Wed, 22 Oct 1997, Ian Jackson wrote:
> Of course, if someone takes my code and puts it into their Qt
> application then the _complete sources are not available_.
Unfortunately QT's sources are availble so you can satisify the
requirement for complete sources. The GPL lacks a statement that says all
things the program depends on must be 'free'. When reading the next
section consider that section 3 has defined QT as a 'part of the program'.
I think section 2 provides the best hope:
These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If
identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program,
and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in
themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those
sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you
distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based
on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of
this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the
entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it.
-- GPL Section 2
In otherwords if I were to modify your code to include in a QT program
then QT (an identifiable separate work) would have to be distributed under
the GPL. This is the well known 'viral' clause.
Jason
--
TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word "unsubscribe" to
debian-devel-request@lists.debian.org . Trouble?
e-mail to templin@bucknell.edu .
Reply to: