Re: General Resolution: Removing non-free
On Wed, Jun 07, 2000 at 07:25:14PM -0400, Ben Collins wrote:
> That was not my argument, just a comment to an anology. I'm personally
> against having such things in Debian simply because there isn't
> a replacement. In fact, I believe that giving them a non-free
> alternative makes people less likely to test and help with a free
> alternative. Just look at the KDE/QT2 license issue. Someone wants it
> in Debian so bad they are willing to pay KDE to make the appropriate
> changes. Now you could argue this is a legal issue, or some will argue
> it is a moral one. Either way, our stand seems to be making waves.
the KDE problem is not a free vs non-free issue (at least, not since the
QPL).
it is a license compatibility issue. the QPL is incompatible with the
GPL and we are not licensed to distribute any software which combines
the two licenses.
KDE is free software. Qt2 is free software. unfortunately, their
respective licenses are incompatible.
KDE could fix that by adding the permission to link with Qt to their
license or TrollTech could fix it by making the QPL compatible with the
GPL. neither have done so, which leaves us unable to legally distribute
KDE.
craig
--
craig sanders
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