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List:       kde-licensing
Subject:    Re: [freeqt] Re: FreeQt concerns
From:       Richard Stallman <rms () santafe ! edu>
Date:       1998-04-16 6:52:31
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KDE may have all sorts of nice technical qualities, but as long as it
depends on Qt and Qt remains non-free, its technical qualities make no
difference.  If we cannot use a program because of its distribution
terms, its technical characteristics don't make a difference.

It's clear from what you wrote that you don't share my concern about
freedom.  Given that, it is not surprising that you see no problem
with using Qt.  Your view is nothing unusual; most computer users
don't care about freedom, and as a result most of them are content to
use Microsoft software.

Those of us who care about freedom are in a minority, but we will
continue to advance the state of free operating systems; without your
help, this will go slower, but we will still get there.

     But you overlook that KDE is also existing 
    thanks to Qt.

I don't believe that: I am sure you could have developed KDE in some
other way if you had made the effort.  You could have developed a free
toolkit that did what you needed.  It might have been somewhat more
work, but the result would have been infinitely more useful to the
free software community.

I mean "infinitely" literally.  If you had developed KDE using a free
toolkit, its usefulness would have been greater than zero.  Right now,
the usefulness of KDE to free operating systems is zero, and
statements that Qt is free, or just as good as free, do harm.

    btw: There was a mail some days ago which claimed to come from "Richard
    Stallman", too. In this mail the author claimed that writing non-GPLed
    software is "unethical" and that it was good if people who do so run
    into trouble.

The message you are talking about was from me, but that is not quite
what it said.  http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-free.html has a
description of my views on the matter, for whoever may be interested.
See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/categories.html for the definition
of free software and how that relates to GPL-covered software.

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