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List:       kde-licensing
Subject:    Unidentified subject!
From:       David Damerell <damerell () chiark ! greenend ! org ! uk>
Date:       1998-10-13 16:37:12
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"kde-licensing@kde.org" <kde-licensing@kde.org>,
debian-devel <debian-devel@lists.debian.org>
Subject: Re: LICENSES [was: Re: Have you seen this?]
X-Mailer: VM 6.47 under Emacs 19.34.1
Reply-To: damerell@chiark.greenend.org.uk

xtifr@dsp.net writes:
>I'm not a free software fanatic (I use Debian because I like the
>packaging system and menu system), but I honestly do *not* understand
>why the KDE team objects to clarifying the KDE license to explicitly
>allow linking with Qt.  Care to elaborate?

[This starts - I hope - non-controversial, and becomes less so towards the
end.]
Ignoring the question of who is actually right and who is actually wrong,
at the moment the position of the KDE people is that there is no problem;
that the GPL does not preclude linking with Qt. If they were to clarify
the KDE license, it would make that position absurd; and having
admitted that there might be a problem, it would be harder for them to use
GPLed 3rd-party code without permission; at present they can use such code
because their position is that they do not need permission.

Obviously the sheer amount of effort that would be involved in extracting
permission from those third parties makes it difficult for even those
members of the KDE project who think there might be a problem to say so;
KDE must continue to insist that the GPL permits linking with Qt no matter
if they have doubts, because otherwise their project becomes untenable.

In My Arrogant Opinion, this effect - of software based on non-free
libraries being hard to write - is one of the intentions of the GPL.

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