Apologies for the excessive Cc'ing.
On Tue, Dec 22, 1998 at 07:13:54AM +0100, rolf@max.lui.uni-tuebingen.de wrote:
> On 21 Dec 1998 john@dhh.gt.org wrote:
> > Kevin Forge writes:
> > > The authors of the apps KDE has "adopted" haven't been complaining
> > > either.
> > They could at any time. Sun and BSDI may be willing to assume that
> > infringement is ok as long as they can get away with it. We aren't. We
> > have told our CD vendors that they need never fear getting a letter from a
> > lawyer as a consequence of pressing Debian CD's. We intend to keep that
> > promise.
> okay! important idea!
> but what has this to do with KDE? or the QT license?
It determines whether KDE's license allows Debian to redistribute it.
KDE can only be redistributed by Debian if Qt is distributable under the
GPL, or if Qt is `normally distributed with the major components' of
Debian. The thread up until now has been bickering about just what that
means in Debian's context -- we've never really thought about that clause
before. [0]
In short, we need to discuss this. So we are. I'm not sure why we're
Cc'ing kde-licensing and RMS and so on to do so, but that's another
matter.
It'd be easy to come to the best solution (viz "Yes! We can distribute
KDE! Hurrah!") if Qt were GPLed, or GPLable -- it'd be a no-brainer. But
if it's not going to be, well, we'll see. [1]
> debian is just another linux distribution no more no less,
> thats it.
> there is a difference between loosing debian and loosing the
> most advanced desktop project.
``KDE is just another windowing system. No more. No less. That's it.
There's a difference between loosing the most advanced, entirely free
operating system, and KDE.''
Please, we can both do without the slurs and rhetoric.
Especially when it's looking like we'll almost certainly be able to have
official kde.deb's again fairly soon.
> the debian team has showed more than once that they dislike KDE.
This is _not_ true.
Yes, I'll grant you there are people who use Debian who hate KDE. To the
best of my knowledge, none of these people are part of the Debian project
itself [2].
I'm not particularly concerned about such people myself. There are idiots
everywhere. There views aren't mine, and they aren't Debian's.
What Debian *does* dislike about KDE is that its licensing situation
never seems to be simple. What irks us most, is that it's otherwise
exactly the sort of thing we'd like to include: it's free, and it's
exactly the sort of software heaps of people want.
That's why KDE got pulled from Debian after an age of both public and
private wrangling. That's why a bunch of people from Debian spent a
couple of weeks looking for any subtle problems with the QPL -- so
they could be fixed, and so we could get on with our lives.
> looking at the mailinglists they would even change their
> DFSG to get a good reason to abolish KDE
The draft update of the DFSG has not been accepted. It hasn't even
received a great deal of support. And in any case, thanks to the comments
of various Debian developers, the QPL fulfills this draft anyway.
So would you *please* stop with the "Debian hates KDE" FUD. We're both
working on free software projects. Do we *really* have to start sniping
at each other every time we open our mouths?
> PS.: a GPL QT is a bad idea even with a promise of RMS.
> remember there are USERS out there who depend on
> KDE moving forward.
> there is NO room for experiments left.
There are users out there who depend on the linux kernel moving forward
too.
Although trying to write a small program based on Gtk1.1 at the moment,
I can certainly understand why you're not quite so enamoured with
experimentation in Qt. *sigh*
Cheers,
aj
[0] For example, we distribute GPLed binaries linked against Motif. We
do this because Sun has. Maybe we shouldn't. Maybe Qt is the same,
and we shouldn't do that either. But then, if Qt's DFSG free (which
it will be as of v2, by the looks of things), maybe we should add
Qt support, and dump Motif support. Or maybe not.
[1] *sigh* What would be really nice is if everything everywhere ever
was GPLed or LGPLed. Having to think about all this stuff instead
of just getting on with coding is such a bore.
[2] ie maintainers or developers. Something like the core-team, perhaps.
--
Anthony Towns <aj@humbug.org.au> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/>
I don't speak for anyone save myself. PGP encrypted mail preferred.
``Like the ski resort of girls looking for husbands and husbands looking
for girls, the situation is not as symmetrical as it might seem.''
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