Re: Debian i386 freeze

[Philip Hands <phil@hands.com>]

> Brian White <bcwhite@verisim.com> wrote:
> > I've decided to leave the kde stuff in contrib for Hamm.  We can change it
> > for Slink if it is deemed necessary at the time.
> 
> Considering the confusion the kde folks have brought to bear on this
> issue, this is probably an acceptable tact to take.  However, I'd like
> to see something like the following in the hamm release notes:
> 
> 
>                       "CONTRIB" IS NOT A PART OF DEBIAN
>   
>   NOTE: It's not clear whether or not we have the right to distribute
>   kde binaries.  This is a general problem involving GPL'd code where
>   the binaries require certain kinds of non-free code so it may be that
>   other code in contrib has similar problems.  Please be careful about
>   deciding whether or not you wish to distribute these binaries.
> 
>   On the one hand, other linux distributors (such as Red Hat and SuSE)
>   are distributing these binaries as if they were free software.  On
>   the other hand, just because other people are doing it doesn't make
>   it right.  On the third hand, the KDE folk have implied that it's
>   ok to distribute these kind of binaries.  On the fourth hand, they've
>   never addressed the underlying issue:  their license requires that
>   all the code which went into the binaries be distributed under terms
>   where you can modify the source code and redistribute the result, but
>   they're using Qt, and Qt forbids such use.
> 
>   We'd like to see this issue resolved, but only the KDE folks can
>   do this.  The public statements by the KDE folks lead us to believe
>   that they intend to do something to make KDE binaries legally
>   redistributable as free software so we are not taking any action
>   at this time.  However, in good conscience we cannot pretend that
>   this issue does not exist.  Take care.

Perfect.

Well done Raul, if that's included somewhere where it cannot be missed by 
someone installing KDE, I think it deals with the problem quite nicely.

It should probably end up in each of the kde packages copyright files as well, 
in the next upload.

Cheers, Phil.


--  
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-request@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org