Re: kde/gpl discussion is silly
On 18 Jul 1998 john@dhh.gt.org wrote:
> Raul Miller writes:
> > The GPL doesn't say that KDE's authors won't sue..
>
> A copyright license is a promise not to sue for infringement provided that
> the terms of the license are complied with. The KDE authors could, I
> suppose, sue someone who redistributed KDE for failing to provide a copy of
> the QT source licensed to permit distribution of modified versions. They'd
> be laughed out of court, but to to get rid of some of this FUD they should
> be willing to add a paragraph to the license.
>
> Read Oliver's posting. He's spot on.
Au contraire. You're both missing something about the GPL. The GPL is
designed as a guarantee of freedom. Imagine the following:
Someone who knows about the GPL, gets a copy of KDE. He sets it up on
his machine, and shows his boss. His boss says 'Wow! That's cool!
What's the license?'. The employee explains about the GPL. The boss,
realising that this is saleable, gets a team of programmers to tune it up,
which he can, since he has all the source. They then sell it. According
to the GPL, he should be OK. In fact, he's violated the Qt license by
modifying and reselling Qt.
I don't wish to argue about who could sue who. But the simple fact is,
that the GPL doesn't really apply to KDE, and that we, suggesting that it
does (by making /usr/doc/copyright the GPL) are confusing our users.
Legal liability entirely to one side, this seems to me a bad thing to do.
If we distribute KDE (even by FTP) we should ensure that we clarify the
license for our users benefit.
Jules
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