On Thu, Jan 20, 2000 at 01:39:59PM -0700, John Lapeyre wrote:
> Who is "they" in "they have given ..." ? If I understand correctly,
> the issue is that chunks of GPL'd code (I never heard how much) have
> been included in KDE. This code was written previously by people who
> are not associated with KDE. KDE can not add a clause allowing linking
> with non-free libraries to the license on this code because they are not
> the copyright holder of this code.
This is the primary issue. The secondary issue is that the licenses, if
they should be ammended, have not been even by their authors in the KDE
project. This is a much smaller issue than that code which has been
"borrowed" under the pretenses of use under the GPL's terms being used in
ways the GPL does not allow.
This is the so-called "viral" effect of the GPL. Good or bad, it exists
and should be defended. If it's not defended, the GPL loses a _LOT_ of
its validity in the eyes of companies who may wish to use the viral nature
of the GPL to prevent their work from being used in proprietary (possibly
competing) applications.
> One question I have never seen addressed, maybe Joseph knows: How much
> of this code is in KDE? Have these authors been contacted? Have they
> refused to change their license ?
Unknown, usually no, and at least one person (Zephaniah Hull) has
indicated he might be willing to allow his code to be linked with Qt if
someone ever had the decency to ask him. At this point I suggest he take
a more aggressive stance simply because KDE has _NO INTENTION_ of ever
asking him if it's all right to use his code. They figure that they can
use it and if people like him don't like it, they'll somehow mistically
discover the license of their code is being violated and stand up for
their intellectual rights...
Seems to me more like a "what they don't know can't hurt us" sort of
stance to me. Morally it's wrong. Legally? Well if someone ever informs
these people that their license has been violated, hopefully at least a
few of them would be pissed off about it.
> It seems relatively simple, but I must be missing something. If these
> other authors are asked for a modified license, then they either say OK,
> or "no you can only have my code under the GPL". In the latter case, we
> would have a clear issue that would have been discussed publically by
> now.
KDE's strategy in this area seems clear enough: Assume that complaints of
GPL violations never come from anyone who has code in KDE until someone
PROVES the code is theirs. Then deal with it.
Forgivness is easier to get than permission, so it would seem.
> It would look bad for KDE and they might try to put pressure on TT or to
> write replacement code. But I never saw any reports one way or another
> on the position of the copyright holders. Also, why did RH start
> distributing KDE ? IIRC it was because they thought that a effort was
> being made in good faith to solve the problem with qt 2.0 .
Qt 2.0 and good faith on the part of KDe to make sure the legal issues
were resolved in KDE 2.0. Hopefully my editorials might convince them
how little KDE is doing to try and rectify the license issues.
--
Joseph Carter <knghtbrd@debian.org> Debian Linux developer
http://tank.debian.net GnuPG key pub 1024D/DCF9DAB3 sub 2048g/3F9C2A43
http://www.debian.org 20F6 2261 F185 7A3E 79FC 44F9 8FF7 D7A3 DCF9 DAB3
In fact.. based on this model of what the NSA is and isn't... many of the
people reading this are members of the NSA... /. is afterall 'News for
Nerds'.
NSA MONDAY MORNING {at the coffee machine):
NSA AGENT 1: Hey guys, did you check out slashdot over the weekend?
AGENT 2: No, I was installing Mandrake 6.1 and I coulnd't get the darn
ppp connection up..
AGENT 1: Well check it out... they're on to us.
-- Chris Moyer <cdmoyer@starmail.com>
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