On Sat, Oct 10, 1998 at 05:29:08PM +0100, Alan Cox wrote: > > In my opinion, Qt is not a section of KDE, it is not derived from the > > KDE and it must be considered independent and separate from the KDE. > > In other words: The KDE's usage of the GPL does not cause the GPL, and > > its terms, to apply to Qt. > > Indeed Qt is not part of the problem Thank you Alan, a few people still seem to believe otherwise. Care to borrow a few cluebats? You're going to need them. While Qt's license does not help matters much by saying that it may be used with GPL'd software, there is nothing wrong with it saying so, realizing of course that the GPL'd software in question must expressly permit its use since Qt is not available on every platform as part of the base system. Motif is on Solaris, but that's Motif and Solaris. The issue for Debian is Debian GNU/Linux and Qt, which by Debian's social contract will never be included as part of the base system. This means at least for Debian GNU/Linux, binaries cannot be distributed linked with Qt without express permission. That's why Debian had to remove KDE. > > Qt is not distributed as part of KDE. It is distributed as part of > > various distributions that also include the KDE, but only by "mere > > aggregation [...] on a volume of a storage or distribution medium" > > which the GPL okays elsewhere in the text. > > It is not a mere aggregation. If I remove Qt KDE is unusable. Furthermore > your discussion with Preston Brown re legal issues clearly shows you believe > that the question of inline code is a matter of IPR and potential lawsuits > therefore you clearly believe the inline C++ code linked by KDE from Qt code > is a component I really, truly, and honsetly believe the whole notion that the GPL does not apply to Qt because Qt is merely used by the program and "not part of it" is merely an attempt to find any possible justification for not fixing the problem in the KDE license--that the GPL prohibits someone to derive a work of another's program which is dependant on non-free software that is not an essential part of the system. Qt is clearly not an essential system library nor is it even a standard system library. It's a piece of non-free code owned by Troll Tech and licensed how Troll Tech chooses to license it, as is their right. Because the GPL does not by default allow people to do this, additional rights to link Qt are required. KDE is unwilling to admit that. If they are willing to admit that at least the possibility exists for Qt not to be a standard system library as it's clearly not in Debian's case, I have offered to help them get the permission they need from other sources. That offer stands, if they are willing to make an effort to fix the problem at all. > KDE requires Qt currently. So KDE is non free. Similarly Linus does not > distribute KDE with the kernel so its not in the base distribution. On > Solaris KDE is shipped even though no Sun product includes Qt. So the case > there is even more blatant This would place KDE in Debian's contrib section---not part of Debian, but it would be distributed as free-but-depends-on-non-free software. This is where KDE was, until KDE would not deal with the legitimate claim that there was at least a potential problem without giving permission to link Qt and geting it themselves for things they've ported. Debian feels that it's shaky ground for KDE to not give explicit permission to link Qt, especially since Debian does not include Qt. Debian feels that KDE refuses to fix the problem because they do not wish to get the permission the GPL code they have ported requires them to get, for fear they would not get that permission or that KDE would be considered to be non-free software. As for Sun, they don't earn my respect by further abusing the GPL. I think until I see differently I will consider them in line with Caldera and SuSE. Ie, they have no respect for the GPL or the code written by people who were not even asked if their code could be ported to a non-free library. And I can see that at least three or four of KDE's core developers have the same respect for the GPL, none. People who will not respect the GPL are its true enemies. M$? Big deal, they wouldn't touch GPL code because they wouldn't want to become dependant on something that could require them to rewrite massive amounts of their code or GPL code they had written. The enemy who says he is your enemy is always less dangerous than the enemy who claims to be your friend. And yet, I would help them do the right thing, if they were willing to do it at all, because that would show me they had either enough respect for the GPL to ask for the required permission--or at least realize that they have to ask for it if they wants support from Debian and most of those who DO respect the GPL. KDE would have been better off with the LGPL or with the Artistic license (a personal favorite) IMO. It wouldn't help them with problems like kghostview but it would at least have helped with other problems.
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