Re: Your petition to GPL Qt
Avus wrote:
>
> o it is not clear if a modified GPL is still compatible with the GPL, in
> all cases. Some people will argue that it is not. If a developer wants
> to use code under "modified GPL", does then the whole work have to carry
> the license addition, even if Qt is not needed there? Or take a
> qt-programme with a modified GPL, that is temporarity 'linked' to a
> "pure GPL" programme without Qt calls, is this legal (note that this is
> the "plugin case", which is unclear anyway). For another example look at
> the p.s.
The LGPL is a "bridge license" ( My term ). It was designed
specifically
to allow running GPL and none GPLed apps to run on the system at the
same
time.
> So I am against such a license change and in favor of a more informal
> consent of the authors. If an author does not agree, the respective
> programme should not be in the Debian packages, unless Debian officially
> grants Qt the 'system library status' to use the respective exception
> clause in the GPL.
OK. I see your reasoning. Makes sense too.
> Yes, they expressed it in their annoucement to drop KDE. Unfortunately
> Debian didn't mention the system library clause and why *they* didn't
> want to use it (DFSG don't allow non-free libs to be part of the
> system). The announcement gave the impression that the expressed reasons
> were universally (and undisputedly) valid, which was IMHO quite
> offensive to other distributors.
OK. So therefore if QT goes into main KDE becomes universally
acceptable ?
Note my avoidance of RedHat ? They will be smart to ship ONLY Gnome
regardless of the relative quality of the 2 environments and the
existence
of license questions.
It's call "differentiating your product" :)
> Things like this are not very relevant at the moment, but when more
> non-qt KDE apps are developed and KOM/OpenParts will be used with other
> toolkits, this may quickly become a hot topic. And even if such claims
> are void, it may again lead to a lot of bad feelings in the community.
> (Guess we should better use LGPL for everything)
I like this Idea. Frankly it could be done and the developers can
start doing it after 1.1 ships.
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