Re: KDE in hamm - let's have a vote

[Philip Hands <phil@hands.com>]

> Raul, you are still confusing two issues:
> 
> 1. A developer writes code that uses Motif/Qt/whatever and puts his
>    code under GPL
> 
> 2. Someone takes GPL code written by someone else and combines it with
>    Motif/Qt/whatever without the copyright owner's permission.
> 
> 1 is OK, 2 is not

1 is not OK.

Firstly, the author has been incompetent in their choice of licence, and I 
feel it's our duty to educate them.

Secondly, there is a small possibility that they chose the GPL in the 
knowledge of RMS's opinion on this issue, and they intended their code to be 
distributable under the GPL on Solaris, but not on Linux.

If the licence said  ``you can distribute this code on Solaris, but not on
Linux because I hate those chaotic loosers'' then I don't think you'd be
trying to say that distributing the code on Debian was complying with the
author's wishes.

Without the clarification of a ``GPL, but also linkable against Motif'' 
licence, we should not be distributing this stuff, even if there is no court 
in the world that would punish us for doing so.

Cheers, Phil.



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