Re: Status of KDE/Qt - interim decision
i started writing this message to say "lets just stick it in contrib
where it belongs" but then i remembered the licensing issues in facts 3
and 4 below. 3 is minor and trivially solved by KDE people themselves.
4 could be a big problem - KDE don't have the right to re-license
someone else's property.
On Tue, 11 Aug 1998, Brian White wrote:
> > > > > Qt works stand-alone. KDE does not.
> > > >
> > > > Interesting. I thougth libraries did not ever work "stand-alone" :-)
> > >
> > > It does exactly what it was intended to do. I allows others to write
> > > software using it. I'd classify that as "working".
> >
> > Yes, but since Debian is dedicated to free software, it would be much
> > better to remove Qt, not KDE.
>
> Debian also encourage the correct licencing of software, which KDE does
> not do.
>
> Without Qt, KDE doesn't work. KDE is not free software because it uses
> Qt. Contrib is not a supported part of Debian. For both ideals and
> usability reasons, having KDE and not Qt just doesn't make sense.
facts:
1. Qt can never be a part of debian, it is non-free.
2. KDE can't be part of debian either, because it depends on non-free Qt.
It can, however, go in contrib. that is one of the reasons we have
contrib.
3. KDE people need to clarify their license and append the additional "you
are allowed to link this with Qt" permission. at least one KDE
developer has said that they will do this, but they don't seem to
have done so yet. maybe they need to be nudged a little.
4. some KDE apps were not originally written by KDE people. they are
ports of existing GPL-ed software. The original authors need to
provide permission for their software to be linked with Qt.
speculation:
1. it is possible that some original authors will refuse to give the
permission mentioned in fact 4.
suggested solution:
if the license issues in facts 3 and 4 can be resolved satisfactorily,
then why not just leave KDE in contrib? we have several other packages
in there which depend on non-free things.
if fact 4 is problematic, then we'll have to drop those KDE apps for
which we can not gain permission to link against Qt. We don't have any
choice in this, we can not risk violating someone's copyright.
it's an ugly can of worms.
in the meantime, if anyone cares enough about having KDE in debian
contrib, then they should write to the KDE team and also to the original
authors of KDE ported software asking them to add the Qt link permission
to their license(s). Note that it has to be a universal permission and
not just a special exemption for debian.
btw, i'm not a "KDE supporter". in fact, i'm quite anti-KDE because
of their attitude to licenses and so on. however, i don't like to be
hypocritical - if other packages which depend on non-free things can go
in contrib, then so can KDE.
> > After all, nothing prevents KDE to use another dfsg-compliant
> > compatible library instead of Qt, except that such library does not
> > exist yet.
>
> And if one did exist, then there would be no need to remove one of
> them and we wouldn't be having this discussion in the first place.
true. if that ever happens then KDE can go in debian main because there
will be no unpleasant licensing issues. GPL-ed code can link to GPL-ed
code without legal problems for anyone.
craig
--
craig sanders
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