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List:       kde-core-devel
Subject:    Re: Possible cause of kivio problems
From:       Guillaume Laurent <glaurent () telegraph-road ! org>
Date:       2001-05-01 14:51:35
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I apologize in advance for jumping in something which isn't of my business, 
but I really disagree here.

On Tuesday 01 May 2001 17:21, David Faure wrote:

> Sorry, I really don't see where's the problem. A set of GPL widgets
> was moved in a common place so that other apps could use them.
> What extra work ? The stuff has been moved, it still works in kivio,
> and this makes it possible to use the same widgets in kword, kspread etc.
> This improves consistency in KOffice, and thus was a good move.

No, it wasn't.

From a software engineering point of view, it was certainly a good move. 
However, Shawn here is trying to enforce the stability of a product. Product 
as in "commercial product with a fair bit of money involved, customers 
waiting, etc...". So IMHO there is no question that this move was completely 
wrong.

Whoever did it really should have asked first. Even more since moving files 
in a source tree is probably the single best way to cause havoc.

> "outrageous" ? Give me a break.
> If you don't want other koffice apps to use those widgets, then kivio
> isn't GPL.

If I jump in KOffice cvs and start moving files around and make you lose 
hours or even days before you recover, I don't think you would appreciate it 
one bit, even if the change is perfeclty justified from a programming 
standpoint. Even less if your app was stable at that point.

The GPL doesn't grant you the right to break other people's code.

> I agree that a small mail about the move would have been nice to prevent
> the surprise, though.

At the very least.

That said, I also disagree with Shawn when he's asking for ACLs. I suppose 
this is a reaction to wasting time trying to get kivio back into working 
state. However it is very important that people understand that theKompany's 
code is under stronger requirements than the rest of KDE, simply because his 
business depends on it. But please let's not have the same silly fights which 
gnome is constantly having with Eazel, Ximian or RedHat.

-- 
					Guillaume.
					http://www.telegraph-road.org

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