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List:       kde
Subject:    Red Hat licence issues
From:       Andy Ross <andy () ics ! com>
Date:       1997-08-20 12:41:19
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Marc Ewing wrote:

> The reason we don't distribute Qt is that it introduces into our
> product a piece of software that 3rd party software vendors have
> to be careful with if they are developing apps.  We don't want any
> vendors to have to think about the individual licenses in Red Hat
> Linux.  We want them to know they can just develop apps and
> distribute them as they please.
> 
> Even Arnt at Troll thinks this is a fine policy.

OK, I'm adding yet another thread to an already-annoying flame war.  Sue
me.

So what about distributing the Qt runtime only?  This would allow people
to download and run any old Qt app they please, without the issues of
owning a Qt developers licence _or_ the hassle of downloading the Qt
distribution from the trolls.  That is, do something precicely
equivalent to distributing the visual basic runtime.  I just peeked at
the Qt licence, and so far as I can tell this is entirely legal.  Just
drop libqt.so into your /usr/lib directory, and forget about the headers
and man pages.

Would _this_ be within the bounds of your policy?  I'm really quite
serious here.

Andy

-- 
Andrew J. Ross      Integrated Computer Solutions, Inc.
andy@ics.com        201 Broadway
(617)621-0060x136   Cambridge, MA  02139

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