Re: KDE liscence question
Now really, I've been following that thread for quite a while now (And a
number of former threads on the topic as well) and I may sound like a dummy,
but after reading the GPL myself I really do not know any more, where
exactly the problem is:
We want to distribute KDE which is under GPL, so we have to:
- include the source
- include the sources of all libraries needed to make use of it
I can not find a place where it says, those libraries must be part of the
tar archive that contains the program. Just that if you give KDE to
somebody, you have to give him Qt as well.
Furthermore, the GPL does not say anything about the license of the
libraries that are used by the program. (of course they must be
freely distributable, otherwise you could not distribute the program at all,
but even that is not expressed but just implicated by the distribution
terms.)
I may be wrong on what I said as I am not a lawyer and am not used to read
texts like that. I think we should just try to read the GPL assuming that
the authors were thinking while they were writing. So I try to understand
what the intention behind the individual sentences is. And if there really
is some sentence that might be "braindead" as somebody put it before, there
is always the possibility to talk with the GNU people. The GPL *is*
changeable, and if there were a new version, KDE would automatically fall
under the new version.
Of course, we would have to bring very good reasons for them to even
consider to change a work like that. So if we just ask the creators of the
GPL about that case they will either help us read it the right way or they
will see that there must be something wrong about it. Actually disallowing the
distribution of KDE and Qt would be far beyond stupid, and - believe it or
not - the GNU people have some brain left!
Ciao,
Nobbi
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-- _________________________________Norbert "Nobbi" Nemec
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