Re: On interpreting licences (was: KDE not in Debian?)
Marcus Brinkmann wrote:
> > What about the Qt header files, which are included at compile time?
On Wed, Feb 09, 2000 at 09:08:16AM -0500, Andreas Pour wrote:
> Right. And those are distributed in source form.
Not under terms which satisfy the GPL.
The GPL requires that there be no proprietary restrictions on
the modification and redistribution of the source for any
part of the program.
The QPL requires that Troll can put whatever proprietary restrictions
they like on the distribution of future modified versions of the
program.
> I think you are taking this debate a bit out of context.
Then again, the above issue has been pointed out to you many times,
yet you choose to ignore that particular issue whenever you feel like it.
> Raul is trying to convince me why a statically linked kghostview is
> not OK but a statically linked ghostview on Solaris is.
Well, yes, that's one point I'm currently trying to make. But, I'm
begining to think that I couldn't convince you that paper can burn,
even if I had unlimited time, unlimited dry paper, unlimited dry air
and unlimited dry matches.
> What you seem to be addressing here is the question of whether a
> KDE/Qt binary can satisfy the GPL at all, which was a whole other
> debate.
And if you light a match and hold it up to a piece of paper, which
is sufficiently dry, and hold it there long enough for the paper
to catch -- which isn't usually more than a few seconds, though I'm
sure you could come up with some papers that wouldn't burn -- it's
possible for the paper to catch on fire.
> To bring the point home, it is also true that proprietary libc
> header files are "enclosed" in a Solaris ghostview (or pick another
> GPL'd/proprietary libc program).
>
> > > (2) to have the capacity for holding.
> >
> > (I am not sure if I get all details of the english language correct,
> > but the kde exectuable has the capacity to "hold" the qt libs).
>
> I don't think you got this right -- this doesn't mean the theoretical
> capacity but the actual. Otherwise you could say "the sun contains
> Andreas" since theoretically it can, but that would not generally be
> considered a correct statement.
See program. See program run. Run program, run.
I think that if you examine an operating program -- not any specially
modified program, but the sort of program which any random user of
kghostscript might have -- and you took a look at what copyrightable
works comprised that program -- you'd have a pretty good idea of what
went into that program.
Of course, some people have raised the objection that the GPL doesn't
care how you use the program. Which means that it would be legal to run
the program if it was being distributed legally. But the only way to
believe that the program was distributed legally is by pretending that
a working copy of kghostscript is just some coincidence -- not something
that's being distributed.
Of course, once you've made that leap of fantasy (that working copies
of kghostscript are not being distributed), I suppose that it's pretty
easy to deny the meaning of any contradictory legal language.
--
Raul
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