On Sat, Oct 10, 1998 at 05:17:55AM +0200, Arnt Gulbrandsen wrote: > Sorry, I must be too tired. I misread a paragraph of yours, so some > of my previous message probably don't make much sense. > > You say that linking constitutes making a derived works of the object > files and libraries being linked together. Does that mean that you > think Debian should convert libc and so on from the LGPL to the GPL in > order to comply with the license of the GPL'd applications in main? Not at all, LGPL code is considered to be GPL'd when linked with other GPL code. However, X licensed code can also be linked with GPL'd code because its terms are more flexable than the GPL terms, so meeting the GPL's requirements is not an issue. The GPL is pretty much compatible with all the major Free Software licenses (Qt is not Free Software, nor do I argue that Troll Tech has any obligation to make it so) however it is the only Free Software license that is so totally incompatible with non-free software licenses. (By definitions of "Free", I am using the DFSG) Other examples of Free licenses include BSD, Artistic (a personal favorite), X, LGPL, etc. From the FSF perspective, the GPL is "more free' because it keeps software more pure. From the BSD camp, the BSD, X, and similar licenses are "more free" because they don't have the GPL's restrictions to keep them pure and you can literally use BSD/X license code in any way you want and with anything else you want. Of course, nobody says you can't license the code as "GPL, but you can also ..." In fact, that's one of the things that would put KDE back in Debian. Of course, you'd have to ask for example the people who wrote ghostview for permission to do the same with their code, but I have already offered to help with trying to get such permission of KDE wishes to make an effort to resolve this mess. Harmony would solve the whole damned problem, but it's hardly usable now for ANY purpose AFAICT, and I don't see that changing in the near future. =<
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