Re: packages linked against Qt
On Sat, Jul 15, 2000 at 10:13:44AM -0400, Steve Robbins wrote:
> I don't understand the point you are making.
>
> If your intent is to flame someone, why could you not do it in private
> email? Do you suppose the rest of debian-devel is concerned with your
> view of this person?
>
> On the other hand, if your intent is to set the public record straight,
> why did you not include your view of the situation?
My view is already a matter of the public record. And it has been for
more than two years now.
As for the flame, if you'd spend a few moments reading the last week's
traffic on debian-legal it will all the sudden make perfect sense.
> I have read the GPL thoroughly, I have read the DFSG, and I have read many
> accounts of the KDE/GPL controversy. With all that, I cannot figure out
> what you are alluding to. Rather than insult my intelligence, why not
> simply remind us all, with a few pithy words, why you doubt Tomasz' view
> of TrollTech's motives?
Troll Tech's motives aren't the problem. I'm not totally sure I trust
those myself.
Tomasz has already claimed that having a GIF file in a GPL'd package is
illegal under the GPL and wants to file some fifty RC bugs over it as soon
as possible to cause this injustice to be rectified. That's because of
the LZW compression. Of course you can load LZW compressed GIFs with free
tools, modify them, and save the results. He claims though that if you do
that they would no longer be GIFs used the original intended way and
therefore this violates the GPL. Someone else pointed out aptly that by
his logic you couldn't modify gcc's Makefile because then it would no
longer be the Makefile intended for use with gcc. His logic is simply
astounding and leads me to the conclusion, as another put it, that he is
dense enough to have his own moon. You can read it in -legal's archives,
it'll be quite entertaining.
Now fresh out of that discussion, he starts spouting off utter bullshit
such as the QPL is not a free license (why the hell is it in main then?)
and that nothing Troll Tech is likely to do will be good enough. And he's
feeding the flames against Debian in the process because of so many people
who say Debian as a whole has his attitude, so why bother fixing any
license problems?
Despite what they think, Debian most certainly DOES NOT share that view
beyond perhaps a small subset of its developers. Further, the things
Tomasz used to back his arguments weren't even true. That never helps
resolve conflicts. And because he's stated these views on a Debian list,
it will be read as coming from a Debian developer even though it does not.
Tomasz applied once and I objected then because of what I'd been reading
from him on the list showed that he didn't know what the hell he was
talking about.
This seems to still be true.
> > If you don't want to contribute to a solution, please just shut up and
> > quit contributing to the problem.
>
> Amen. Physician, heal thyself.
Some of us are unwilling to tollerate FUD coming from "our side" of this
issue making it harder to resolve. I've given up working with KDE on it,
too much work on my part and what feels like too little work and desire on
their part to see it resolved. Still, others haven't given up and I still
wish to see KDE in Debian provided we don't compromise on the DFSG.
Maybe, just maybe, Troll Tech wants the same thing at this point. And
maybe they know what it takes to make it happen. And maybe their little
announcement is for their own political gain rather than for the benefit
of the community. But to take Tomasz as representative of all of us
(which is clearly not the case, but that's irrelivant to perception), we
don't really want legal issues fixed. We apparently seem to want to kill
KDE and Qt because they are all "evil". It ain't so. Arrogant, stubborn
pains in the asses, perhaps, but I can't claim the people writing Gnome
are much less so - the difference is that Gnome doesn't have a license
problem. =p
--
Joseph Carter <knghtbrd@debian.org> GnuPG key 1024D/DCF9DAB3
Debian GNU/Linux (http://www.debian.org/) 20F6 2261 F185 7A3E 79FC
The QuakeForge Project (http://quakeforge.net/) 44F9 8FF7 D7A3 DCF9 DAB3
* aj thinks Kb^Zzz ought to pick different things to dream about than
general resolutions and policy changes.
<Kb^Zzz> aj - tell me about it, this is a Bad Sign
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