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Re: KDE not in Debian?



On Thu, Jan 20, 2000 at 01:02:04PM -0800, David Johnson wrote:
> code exists within KDE, or it would have been found by now. True, KDE
> did take a lot of existing GPLd code, but to the best of my knowledge,
> all of this code already linked to the Qt library. 

The obvious are kgutenbook and kgv?. Both are non-QT GPL
programs ported to run under KDE. kgutenbook is questionable; I would
assume he talked to the upstream authors, but there's no evidence of
it on the webpage. The KDE postscript viewer (IIRC) is a port of gv,
which is under a GPL license and not written for QT. I don't know if
the porters talked to the upstream authors there either. If they're
still on the net, I would assume that they didn't care because they
haven't complained yet, but a copyright court would remind you that
that's not a legal principle.

Part of my problem is it's that implict permission is legally very shaky,
and copyright law is written greatly for and by highly anal companies.
Secondly, it sets bad examples. Cf. kgimp, and think of the rucus that could
ensue if someone started a kemacs.

-- 
David Starner - dstarner98@aasaa.ofe.org
If you wish to strive for peace of soul then believe; 
if you wish to be a devotee of truth, then inquire.
   -- Friedrich Nietzsche

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