Re: KDE not in Debian?
On Wed, Jan 19, 2000 at 01:56:19PM +0100, J.A. Bezemer wrote:
> Yet it says on
> http://www.kde.org/documentation/faq/kdefaq-2.html#ss2.6
> "It is absolutely legal to make KDE and Qt available on CD free of charge."
Their respective copyrights speak a different language.
The entry in the FAQ is NOT a copyright statement, and therefore we can't
take it for granted.
> And on
> http://www.troll.no/dl/qtfree-dl.html
> "The Qt Free Edition is provided under the Q Public License ("QPL"). This
> specifies that you may freely use the Qt Free Edition for: Running software
> developed by others (e.g. KDE)"
Usage is not the same as distribution. Use of GPL software is not
restricted, therefore there is no problem using a GPL program with Qt or
even Motif or whatever non-free library you might use (but distributing the
resulting files may be restricted).
> Moreover, I've been told that KDE _is_ on the freely-redistributable Red Hat
> CDs.
This does not mean that it is legal. It just means that RH probably does
consider it to be legal or just doesn't care.
> Am I missing something obvious? (happens to me more than once ;-)
Unfortunately, copyright issues are seldom obvious. I can understand how you
might get the impression that it is legal, especially because everyone does
say so and even does it (including KDE, but their position as the copyright
holder is special). But that does not mean that it really is legal.
Only reading the respective copyrights and interpreting what they say is
giving results you can build on. And you have to do just that to understand
why Debian is not distributing KDE binaries.
Thanks,
Marcus
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