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List:       kde-devel
Subject:    Re: License of the Breeze style
From:       Allan Sandfeld Jensen <kde () carewolf ! com>
Date:       2016-02-18 8:29:37
Message-ID: 201602180929.38133.kde () carewolf ! com
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On Wednesday 17 February 2016, Thomas Lübking wrote:
> On Mittwoch, 17. Februar 2016 07:58:46 CEST, Martin Graesslin wrote:
> > On Tuesday, February 16, 2016 8:15:57 PM CET Александр Волков wrote:
> >> I've noticed that the Breeze style is released under GPL-2+ license:
> >> Why not LGPL? It's a library after all.
> > 
> > The style is not a library, it's a plugin. As it's released together with
> > Plasma the license choice of GPL looks quite correct to me.
> 
> According to the FSF cheat sheet [1] that's actually a "problem", because,
> while LGPL is an inappropriate license in any case, the GPL forbids [2] to
> load the GPL plugin in a non-GPL compatibly licensed application, ie.
> strictly spoken, any application using the non-free Qt license MUST NOT
> use the Breeze style (this becomes even more interesting reg. the QPA
> plugin - notably as it's the user who loads the plugin ;-)

No. In this case the plugin is style-plugin, and not loaded by, requested by 
or an integral part of the application, the application will run perfectly 
fine without,  which means the application is not a derived product of the 
plugin, and thus the application is not violating the GPL. The user can't 
violate the GPL either because the GPL doesn't apply any restrictions on 
users.

`Allan
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