Re: KDE in hamm is a mess
On Wed, Jul 22, 1998 at 11:20:52AM +0200, Andreas Jellinghaus wrote:
> >I don't think we can distribute kde with Gordon Matzigkeit's permission.
> oh, there is no problem with libtool (written by gordon matzigkeit),
> as it is used for building applications, and not linked with qt or kde.
> you can even use libtool for a proprietary software.
>
> > The kde WWW Page has a statement, that all files are licenced under gpl.
> > But this package has not copyright notes or licences in all files, or in
> > global location, so the situation is unclear.
> >
> >And, in examining the copyright files I find a number of contradictions to
> >the statement on the web page: I've found at least a dozen other kinds
> >of copyrights besides the GPL.
>
> kde people never bothered with the licence stuff. after asking for licences
> againa dn again and again, they put that disclaimer on the web page. everyone
> still asking was responded "i don't see your propbelm. we have that disclaimer
> on the web page.".
>
kde people are too casual about the license stuff: I do'nt trust them
anymore about that. I'm doing a deepened research in the sources of the kde
packages, and I'm finding a lot of problems. There are even files GPL
copyrighted by the Free Software Foundantion!!!!(see kdecore/libintl.cpp in
the kdelibs package) (I've already contacted rms about this problem).
This is a very very very serious question, because rms has been always very
clear about the linking with proprietary software
> of course thet disclaimer only affects the files by the kde team, not the
> imported source code (that has licences, different licences).
>
>
> >That, combined with the above statement
> >from kde's copyright file makes me suspect that a lot of software is
> >being distributed here without the permission of its authors.
>
This is my suspect, too: I did'nt find any reference to such permissions
from the original authors (whith some exceptions).
> it was some sort of this :
> me> you wrote the kde program xxx. is this stuff under gpl ?
> kde author> what's a gpl ? ug, i think so ?
> me> then please add that header to all your source files.
> kde author> uh, that's work, isn't it ? hey, we have that disclaimer on our
> web page, that should be enough.
> me> oh, the license should be inside the package, best would be a header in
> every file.
> kde author> ok, i will copy the COPYING file into tha package, that has to be
> enough.
> me> oh, but copying a licene into the package doesn't say that you are useing
> it... maybe you can add this header to every file *.c/*.h file ?
> kde author> too every file ? that's silly.
> me> maybe at least one sentence in the readme ?
> kde author> *urgs* ok. done.
>
> ...
>
> of course, these were the good kde author. many simply did not reply at all.
> but there are also several good people in kde, who read the GPL, and added the
> normal 10 line header to every file. and i think this was done for several
> other file, too. maybe someone want's to check the current situation ?
> yes, this means : look at every single file in the kde source tree !
>
I did (partially), and I found a lot of GPL software from non-kde people;
kdvi of kpathsea (GPL), krn is linked to libgdbm (GPL),
kghostview use code from ghostview (GPL), kmidi use code of timidity,
kscdmagic is based on synaesthesia v1.3.
Frankly, I think that we must remove KDE (in hamm and slink) until the kde
packages are, from this point of view, sane packages.
> andreas
>
>
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