Re: About the KDE issue.
YES.
(My two bits)
<introduction> Been reading this list for some time; thought I'd jump in
on this topic. Handshakes all around. :-)
</introduction>
There appears to be a lot of confusion on this issue; a clarifying
pointer would IMO be a Good Thing.
Fabien Ninoles wrote:
> I got a lot of questions about Debian not distributing KDE. Most people
> point me to the 'Qt issue' page on the KDE web site. (http://www.kde.org).
> Although they only tell the truth, the KDE people seems to simply miss
> or ignoring the point of the conflict between the GPL and the QPL(1).
> I'm a bit boring about this issue and think it makes bad press to Debian
> since we are the only distribution to not include KDE.
>
> Should we make a 'KDE issue' page to explain why Debian are so 'injust'
> against KDE? The page should said:
>
> - that Debian recognize the Qt libraries as free software and included it
> in it's official distribution, as well as other softwares based on qt2.0
> - Point out the problem with some KDE projects (kghostview is a pretty
> good example, IMHO).
> - Offers some possible solutions as *suggestions* about how to finally
> make KDE distributable (the removal of the conflicting clause from the
> QPL or adding the exception clause to the GPL Licensing term for Qt
> based programs).
> - Point out the unofficial site to get the KDE debs (http://kde.tdyc.net/)
> but with some warnings about the licensing issues previously explain.
>
> We should be careful so that we can warn people about the importance of
> the issue (which dilued greatly the strength of the GPL) without flaming
> either TrollTech or the KDE project, which we'll not help at all. That's
> why I'm asking you some advices.
>
> Thanks,
> Fabien
>
> (1): IMNSHO, KDE is ignoring the point because they will have to give up
> some important parts of their project (like kghostview) if they admit
> the case. So it's either to change all licenses or none and ignoring the
> issue. Currently, the first one is merely impossible so they have to
> choose the second solution which just make some important clauses of the
> GPL a joke. All IMHO, of course. I doesn't even try to contact the KDE
> people about this.
>
> --
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Fabien Ninoles Chevalier servant de la Dame Catherine des Rosiers
> aka Corbeau aka le Veneur Gris Debian GNU/Linux maintainer
> E-mail: fab@tzone.org
> WebPage: http://www.tzone.org/~fabien
> RSA PGP KEY [E3723845]: 1C C1 4F A6 EE E5 4D 99 4F 80 2D 2D 1F 85 C1 70
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
. . Debian GNU/Linux
|< /-\ (-) /-\ Free Software for Free Minds
Reply to: