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List:       kde-freeqt
Subject:    Re: [freeqt] Harmony Revival
From:       Mark <mark () mjm ! net>
Date:       1999-03-25 22:47:57
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On Wed, 24 Mar 1999, Merlin wrote:

> Well, why don't we ask Troll Tech what they think?  We can make some kind
> of arrangement with them to avoid any problems...can we not?

As others have stated writing to Troll Tech is a complete waste of time.
There is no reason at all that they would make a statement that would
surrender any legal rights. The other thing is anything that they said
today they could very easily later decide the opposite. Short of them
entering into a binding contract, which they wouldn't do, and probably
couldn't legally do without being sued by their share holders, this will
always hang as a sword of Damocleas (sp?) over the Harmony Project.

Basically if you are not willing to accept being sued by TT then don't
write code for Harmony. 

Personally I think it highly unlikely that TT would ever sue. It would so
damage their standing in the Free Software community it isn't funny. It
would probably lead to the death of KDE as an acceptable DE to the
overwhelming majority of Linux/Freenix users, redering it and Qt
irrelevant as Gnome runs over it.

Now as to the merits of a lawsuit. IANAL, but I don't think they could win
unless they proved their code was in Harmony. So with that in mind, we
might want to have some people that are familiar with both code bases
review submissions to be sure we are doing things differently. This might
be one way to shelter ourselves, and create a paper trail that could be
used in our defense should a lawsuit happen. All the reviewers could do is
approve or disapprove, they couldn't give commentary as that could open us
to a liability.

My thoughts for the moment,

Mark
-- 
Mark Menard <mark@mjm.net>        http://www.mjm.net          MarkX on IRC

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