Re: Can we pull KDE?

[john@dhh.gt.org]

David Welton writes:
> Communicating with them seems like a first step.

I wrote:
> 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?

Phil writes:
> Why ?

So that we will have a solid basis for a decision and an unquestionable
response to the inevitable flames and accusations.  We presently have at
least three conflicting 'legal' opinions from at least three different
non-lawyers.  Don't you think it would be a good idea to resolve this with
an opinion from someone who actually knows the law?

> 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).

You seem to be expecting that a lawyer would tell us that it is legal to
continue to distribute KDE.  I would expect the opposite.

> 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.

Obviously, if we can't get a lawyer we'll just have to make do with our
best guess, as we always have.  However, I note that KDE is still there.
How long do you think it will stay after a lawyer says that it is illegal?

NOTE: I'm responding to a cc'd copy of Phil's message.  I never saw it on
the list, though the headers include
'cc: Debian Developers List <debian-devel@lists.debian.org>'
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