Re: KDE liscence question
Craig Sanders <cas@taz.net.au> writes:
> On Mon, Jun 14, 1999 at 11:22:18AM +0200, Goswin Brederlow wrote:
> > KDE can't change from GPL to something else, because GPL forbids that.
>
> that is self-evident. they can't change the license on existing GPLed
> code. however, they can do whatever they like with their own stuff -
> including re-licensing it under different terms (but that still wouldn't
> override the GPL on the stuff they have already released).
They can't change the licens for the next release, because so many
people have worked on kde and have submited bugs under GPL. Even if
they could ask every singe one, who would trust that they realy got
every single one? They would need written permissions from every
single person who submited something to kde. And then they copied code
form other sources that are GPL I think. They have a big problem there.
> KDE could provide permission to distribute THEIR stuff (i.e. the stuff
> that they wrote themselves, but not the existing GPLed code that they
> used) with Qt. All it takes is for them to provide that permission and
> we could distribute it. they have ignored every request to do so (my
> guess is that is because they don't want to admit that they have to)
I talked to them just last weekend and they themself see that it was a
bad decision to use GPL when they started. Now they see it, but can't
do anything about it for the above reasons. I think all further code
will be released under the artistic license or so, but that still
doesn't change the license of the existing code.
May the Source be with you.
Goswin
PS: What would be if I wrote a libunqt that is gpl and link kde
against that, similar to libungif. That should make kde
redistributable and people can substitute the real qt to get a meaning
out of kde.
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