On Sat, Aug 21, 1999 at 10:39:05PM +0200, Rainer Dorsch wrote: > I remember long discussions about the KDE - QT license issue, when > distributing binaries of KDE. Is there a summary of the problem(s)/solutions > available somewhere? > > Is it e.g. legal to distribute Solaris binaries? The problem is that KDE is largely under the GPL. Qt2 is under the QPL. The licenses are not compatible and likely won't be anytime real soon - Troll Tech received a LOT of mindless flaming crap from slashdot lamers who masturbate with a copy of the GPL or something before the QPL was more than a rumor and still receives it today. These messages have absolutely no value whatsoever and if you may recall freshmeat almost went down because of similar mindless flames and rants filled with a lack of proper spelling, poor mechanics, lots of CAPS and !!!!, and of course filled with bad language and lots of "GPL rules but you'll always suck" attitudes. People went so far as to threaten to destroy Troll Tech as a company with the GPL---demanding that Qt be GPL'd first and then telling them that once it is GPL'd they would make lots of patches to it and fork the source left and right simply to destroy KDE (which is just like windoze right?) and Troll Tech (they wrote non-free software!! What does it matter if they're making it free?) I have mixed feelings about the whole affair. On one hand, Troll Tech should have realized that in large the people writing these messages were not only clueless morons but non-developer clueless morons. Their impact on Troll Tech and Qt would be all that it has already been: almost none. On the other hand, nobody should have to wade through that level of bullshit flung in their direction by people with so little clue as to what they are talking about. It's almost no wonder why they gave up. I've been told that Qt will become BSD licensed before it'll ever be GPL, and while I understand why they say that, it is IMO being somewhat unreasonable here.. I said mostly GPL... KDE is migrating piece by piece to the Artistic license. I offered to write them a better license than the Artistic that would actually be free able to keep the source free (most licenses don't, save the (L)GPL), and compatible with all the free licenses (GPL included) and if possible ONLY the free ones. A sort of LGPL for free software only. The KDE people don't appear to be terribly interested anymore because they are at this point convinced that no matter what they do somebody is going to be pissed off about it and scream that what they're doing is a violation of the commandments of RMS or something like that. Sad to say it, but they're probably right. So by involving yourself at all with KDE or Qt you open yourself to flames. It's funny to note that nobody screaming "Copyright infringement" is actually in a position to do anything about it---ie, it's not their code to scream about. There are I think about 7 programs whose GPL code has been used by KDE. The authors of these things don't exactly care or if they do they haven't asked KDE not to. The rest is all written by KDE unless you put any stock in the accusations of code theft (ask for proof, I did--never got any though..) So to answer the question: Is it legal to distribute? Probably not entirely given the best layman's interpretations of the licenses we have to date. I know Red Hat and Corel both have lawyers who would intervene about them distributing KDE/Qt if they thought there was any danger in it at all. I'm almost certain the question the lawyers were asked was "Will we get sued?" not "Is this 100% legal by the letter of the licenses involved?" I'm quickly starting to believe that software licenses are a sick joke anyway given the whole WIPO thing. -- Joseph Carter <knghtbrd@debian.org> Debian GNU/Linux developer GnuPG: 2048g/3F9C2A43 - 20F6 2261 F185 7A3E 79FC 44F9 8FF7 D7A3 DCF9 DAB3 PGP 2.6: 2048R/50BDA0ED - E8 D6 84 81 E3 A8 BB 77 8E E2 29 96 C9 44 5F BE -------------------------------------------------------------------------- <Knghtbrd> shaleh - unclean is just WEIRD. <Espy> heh, unclean is cool <Knghtbrd> Espy - and weird. <Espy> yes, weird too
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