Re: KDE - license issue

[Craig Sanders <cas@taz.net.au>]

On Mon, Aug 23, 1999 at 07:22:57PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 23, 1999 at 09:56:04AM +0300, Rainer Dorsch wrote:
> > What abut the "However clause"? [...]
> > 
> > If QT is included in Debian it is a major component of the OS like libc in 
> > Solaris?
> 
> Qt 1 doesn't have a chance of this (being non-free), and there isn't a
> released version of KDE using Qt 2 yet.
> 
> Exactly what "major component" means is a little unclear. Presumably
> .debs with priority "optional" or "extra" don't apply, so Qt would have
> to be given priority "standard" or higher (the compiler, gcc, is priority
> standard, so this would make sense).

actually, i don't think that the definition of "major component" is
relevant. 

the GPL says "... normally distributed (in either source or binary form)
WITH the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating
system..." [my emphasis added on "WITH"]

that means that Qt doesn't have to be a major component itself, it just has
to be normally distributed with the major components.

i.e. it has to be in main.  it has to be DFSG free.  this will be true for
Qt2 (but not for Qt1).


of course, this still doesn't answer the second part of that exception:
"...unless that component itself accompanies the executable."  -- there is
enough ambiguity in that phrase to leave it subject to interpretation.

craig

--
craig sanders