Re: intent to package: licq

[gsstark@mit.edu (Gregory S. Stark)]

Philip Hands <phil@hands.com> writes:
> 
> Well, I don't think we have a licence to distribute KDE binaries at present.
>
> People seem to assume that I say this because I hate KDE, or something,
> which is not true.

Ok, so I think you're right but I don't think this means we shouldn't be
putting them in contrib until the problem is fixed. Why? Because the only
party with standing to sue are the KDE authors which clearly intend for it to
be distributable. However, the problem really does need to be fixed in the
long term, and it wouldn't be hard to do so:

1) They distribute their binaries under a license which says basically:
   ``You may distribute this package under the terms of the GPL with the
     additional exception that you may distribute it linked against the 
     Qt libraries without including Qt library source.''

2) The Qt people extend their license to allow distribution under this
   modified license. I'm not sure, their existing terms may allow this
   already.

3) In theory the KDE people might need permission to distribute the modified
   GPL because the GPL itself it copyrighted. However I think this is moot,
   RMS has on several occasions suggested writing exceptions just like this.

However, it shouldn't be an immediate concern, because as i mentioned, it is
clearly the intent of the KDE people to allow redistribution of the programs.
If the permission to distribute without Qt source is not forthcoming after
then we might have to reconsider that assumption.

greg


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