Re: Status of KDE/Qt - interim decision

[Philip Hands <phil@hands.com>]

Craig Sanders <cas@taz.net.au> wrote:
> 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.

You are missing the point here IMHO.

The problem is not the dependence upon non-free things (otherwise we would 
just dump contrib)

The problem is their abuse of the GPL, the corollary of which is that they
are not licensing redistribution of their code, when linked against Qt.

There is also a secondary problem, which is that they are using the fact that 
they are claiming to be GPL programmers (which is a falsehood) to dupe real
GPL programmers into letting them use their code.

I for one would not want my GPL code used in conjunction with Qt, but if the
question were presented as ``Is it OK for us to use your GPL code, in our GPL 
program'' and I was not aware of the details, I'd probably say ``Yes, of 
course, that's what the GPL is all about''.  This is a Bad Thing.

Once they reveal their true colours (by using a GPL+non-free licence, or
any other freeware licence), then I will have no problem with their binaries
being in contrib.

 [---------------------------------
  BTW I've not noticed any new kde packages hitting the archive in the month 
  since I stirred this hornets nest.

    Steven,

    Are we to take this to mean that you are having trouble persuading the
    rest of the KDE team that the licence must change ?
    or have you just been too busy to do the upload ?
  ----------------------------------]

As it stands, I think we should use the only sanction available to us, and 
show our displeasure at their licence abuse, by removing the KDE packages from 
our archives.  I don't want to do so if a new version is just about to appear 
with proper licences, but we need to put a time limit on this.

The same goes for any other GPL code that is linked against non-free libraries
(i.e. GPL+motif code), unless it has a GPL+non-free licence (i.e. this code is
underthe GPL.  In addition you can distribute binaries linked against
[insert non-free library name here])

Cheers, Phil.