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Re: A simple mistake (was Re: Should we ship KDE in hamm?)



Raul Miller wrote:
  >Oliver Elphick <olly@lfix.co.uk> wrote:
  >> If you are looking at a legal document, you MUST look at what it
  >> actually says. Since the GPL does not mention static versus dynamic
  >> linking, one must see what it actually does say, which I analysed two
  >> or three posts back. You have ignored this.
  >
  >Dynamic linking is like static linking in that in either case the program
  >won't run without the library.  Dynamic linking is unlike static linking
  >in that the linkage is created every time the program runs, rather than
  >every time the prgram is linked.  Also, we generally do not make it a
  >practice of shipping unlinked .o files, arranging to statically link
  >them in the user's machine.
  >
  >That's about the extent of the technological differences..
  
They are not great, but what does a lawyer care about that?

  >What you're ignoring is that we introduce a very strong association
  >between the binaries and the libraries, using dpkg.  This, in
  >combination with some of the other associations (our testing process,
  >the documentation on the program, and of course the way we build the
  >package in the first place) make it very obvious that we intended that
  >qt be used to make kde work.

Certainly, but I don't think it affects the issue.  What does the licence
actually say?  A court (at least in the Anglo-Saxon tradition) will
assume that things that are not forbidden are allowed.
  >
  >>   >> But, as I pointed out, clause 2 only applies to modifications; we do 
      >not
  >>   >> modify KDE in any way.
  >>   >
  >>   >That's not true, when uncompressed the diffs against kdebase are about
  >>   >160k.
  >>   
  >> The point was, that the KDE Debian maintainer is part of the KDE team and
  >> the KDE debs are those published by KDE.  WE, Debian, do not alter them.
  >
  >Hmm.. that's an interesting point.  It is not sufficient for DFSG,
  >but it is still an interesting point.
  >
  >Then again, the point is somewhat flawed.  The licenses don't mention KDE,
  >and there's not a really good way of determining who was a part of KDE
  >and who wasn't.  [Which leads us back to stuff like kmidi, where it's
  >clear that the original authors did not take part in modifying to work
  >with Qt -- and yes, I'm aware you're trying to address a different point,
  >but this is related to the original problem: without a valid license
  >you just plain don't know what's going on.]
  >
I agree that the whole thing is a mess!

-- 
Oliver Elphick                                Oliver.Elphick@lfix.co.uk
Isle of Wight                              http://www.lfix.co.uk/oliver
               PGP key from public servers; key ID 32B8FAA1
                 ========================================
     "Be not deceived; God is not mocked; for whatsoever a
      man soweth, that shall he also reap."               
                                   Galatians 6:7 



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