Re: Can we pull KDE?
> David Welton writes:
> > Communicating with them seems like a first step.
>
> Seems to me that the first step is getting a legal opinion from a real
> lawyer. Is there any possibility at all of doing so?
Why ?
Surely we should decide if it is morally justifiable to tolerate the abuse of
someone's copyright, rather than asking some lawyer if we are likely to be
able to get away with it (especially since a lawyer will probably only be able
to tell you about the jurisdiction in which they practice).
I feel no need for a legal opinion when I decide that incorporating third
party GPL code into non-free programs is wrong, because if it happened to my
code I would be outraged, regardless of whether I had any legal recourse.
As far as using the GPL for non-free software is concerned, I think this too
is wrong, because it dilutes the power of the GPL, by it's misaplication.
Would we tolerate M$ releasing IE for linux under the GPL (without actually
publishing the source) just because some lawyer said that M$ wouldn't be able
to sue us if we distributeed it ?
How would we show our displeasure ? By not carrying the ``IE-gpl'' binaries
on our servers, since that's the only sanction we have.
Cheers, Phil.
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