Re: When will KDE and Debian get together?
"Alan W. Irwin" wrote:
> On Sun, 28 May 2000, Joey Hess wrote:
>
> > KDE, in source form or not, cannot be an official part of Debian until
> > its license problems are resolved. Source is great, but you have to be
> > ale to leagally build it, link it against the required libraires, use it,
> > and distriute binaries to others, or it is not free enough to be part
> > of the Debian distribution.
>
> I am glad we agree that source is great. But the rest of your sentences
> that I have just quoted are the nub of our disagreement. I believe the GPL
> says nothing about the *private* use of software.
Sure, but the intent would still be to get around the GPL.
> Thus, I don't think there is the slightest license issue at stake here over
> the issue of distributing the GPLed KDE source.
We disagree again.
> Fundamentally, you cannot
> use the GPL to justify supressing the distribution of GPLed source code.
Yes, if we believe upstream is not respecting the guidelines of
the GPL (Almost making a mockery of it, or at the very least
weakening it).
> The fact is KDE
> is doing fine without Debian, but will Debian's future be fine without some
> sort of interaction with the large and growing pool of KDE talent?
Why not? KDE themselves can make KDE deb packages if they want.
Or Storm, or Corel, or you! (If they or you don't care about the
legal aspects of weakening the GPL).
Why did you insist that Debian stop advocating free software?
You have not convinced me with any of your arguments. In fact,
I'd say the opposite. You are convincing me _not_ to do this, as
this would send a clear signal that it's okay for corporations to
incorporate GPL code in their closed-source apps, so long as they
add their code in a library and use dynamic linking. Hey, why
not? Even the Debian project approves of the method! Just where
do you draw the line for correct use of GPL software?
Peter
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