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List:       kde-devel
Subject:    Re: Does KDE want to limit or destroy its commercial acceptance?
From:       Allan Sandfeld Jensen <kde () carewolf ! com>
Date:       2003-12-30 9:44:59
Message-ID: 200312301044.59531.kde () carewolf ! com
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On Monday 29 December 2003 22:49, Paul Hampson wrote:
> "..the KDE project does not mandate any single Open Source license as long
> as the license is Open Source. By far, the most common license for the KDE
> libraries is LGPL, and the most common for applications is GPL. Code that
> we may explicitly want people to incorporate into (possibly closed-source)
> applications may use other licenses."
>
> Particularly note this line: "Code that we may explicitly want people to
> incorporate into (possibly closed-source) applications may use other
> licenses."
>
> That statement seems very weird to me. It seems to deny development of
> proprietary software without the express permission of the KDE community.
> Does this not hinder the acceptance of Linux by the general computer using
> community? It appears that you are frowning on closed source applications.
> However I hold the view that without some proprietary software the Linux
> community cannot come into acceptance as the general public and businesses
> will see the Linux system as ill supported.
>
No the statement means the exactly opposite. Most applications are GPL, making 
them impossible to extend to closed-source applications. However sometimes we 
want to integrate KDE-applications with outside applications (because they 
have been developed for private funds or other reasons), therefore we allow 
other licenses. 
In most cases private companies that develop for KDE are not interested in the 
applications, but only the libraries (to make their own applications). And 
The core libraries however all need to be LGPL or free'er.

`Allan
 
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