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List:       kde-licensing
Subject:    Re: GPL Restrictions
From:       Kevin Forge <forgeltd () usa ! net>
Date:       1998-08-26 4:26:07
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Tim Hanson wrote:
> 
> If you don't mind, I'd like to bring this back to how it affects me and
> perhaps others not in the middle of the controversy personally.  What
> I'm looking for is a universal environment to which I can write shareware
> Linux applications.
> 
> I'm not too thrilled about buying into the equivalent of Betamax video
> technology.  While I like the L&F of KDE, the inclusion of proprietary
> code into something as basic as this desktop strikes me as gatekeeping,
> of which I am well familiar from the MS-DOS world.  Applications can be
> distributed under a variety of licensing arrangements, but the tools
> should be LGPL.  That's what makes our alternative better than any of the
> big hardware / software companies.

You can distribute your apps as shareware and include the QT libs
without
paying the "Troll Tax" if you include the source code.  If you do not
wish to include the source and allow your customers to distribute and 
modify your code then you have no business asking others to do the same.
 
> appears to be a sudden flurry of activity, directed mostly at undermining
> KDE's efforts rather than at producing and maintaining a usable GUI for
> all of us to use.

The only way to possibly undermine KDE ( if that is the intention ) is
to 
"build a better mousetrap"

> If FSF will undermine QT by duping the API in an allegedly noble cause,
> are they free to undermine others' efforts when the cause isn't so noble,
> for strictly political reasons?

They are free to do *anything* short of stealing the source for NT and 
posting it on an FTP site.
-- 
"So let me get this straight," one IBM lawyer said. 
"We're doing a deal with . . . a Web site?"
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/98/0810/6209094a.htm  For context.
mailto:forgeltd@usa.net  http://www.independence.seul.org

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