Re: Can we pull KDE?
Raul Miller <rdm@test.legislate.com> writes:
> > I think we should just pull the kde packages out of debian. When new
> > packages are available with proper copyrights, we can distribute
> > those.
Jim Pick <jim@jimpick.com> wrote:
> I don't agree that the copyright/licensing violations are grievous
> enough to justify this.
Er... did you read any of the bug reports that I referred to?
What gives us the right to distribute GPLed software linked against
a non-free library without explicit permission from the author? A
lot of KDE was written by non-KDE authors.
> We should work with the KDE guys to resolve the worst problems, and
> let it go at that.
It's not as if we have not been telling them about this for years...
> There is a difference of opinion on how the GPL should be interpreted
> with regards to Qt. Why can't we accept that? I personally believe
> there is enough "slap" in the GPL license that it can be used with a
> library such as Qt (ie. emacs can be compiled against Motif).
That red herring again?
I can't accept that the GPL allows things that it explicitly states
are not allowed. I don't know why you can accept such things.
> I don't see any evidence that there exists people who are worked up
> enough over the licensing that they'd be willing to pursue legal
> action. If there were "real" license problems, I'm sure the KDE guys
> would rectify the problem (or SuSE and Caldera would drop KDE).
So we should accept whatever license is on a piece of software until
legal action is threatened?
Is this something we ought to vote on?
> This whole thing is ridiculous. Especially when you consider that
> "contrib" isn't even an official part of Debian. I thought putting KDE
> in contrib was reasonable enough of a "sanction" against the KDE guys
> for using Qt. Apparently that isn't enough for some people.
This "contrib isn't an official part of Debian" is another red herring.
Contrib is on the official Debian cdroms. In fact, you can't buy an
complete official Debian 2.0 cdrom set for main without buying contrib
[if you forgo contrib you don't get all the source for main].
> I like Debian. It's really plugged into the Linux community. But the
> KDE guys are part of the community as well. I'd guess that 80% of the
> Linux community harbours no bad feelings against KDE. Some people want
> to declare war, and use Debian as a weapon. That reflects back on us.
> I don't want any part of that.
This "declare war" thing is another red herring.
We've pulled packages off the ftp site before for lack of a proper
copyright. Those weren't declarations of war either.
--
Raul
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