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List:       kde-licensing
Subject:    Re: [knghtbrd@debian.org: QPL v0.92+knghtbrd1]
From:       Joseph Carter <knghtbrd () debian ! org>
Date:       1998-12-29 12:49:03
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On Tue, Dec 29, 1998 at 07:21:59AM +0000, Andreas Pour wrote:
> > A Copyright lawyer would be nice.  We don't exactly have one offering to
> > do it free of charge however and I don't think I have done all that bad a
> > job considering that I'm not a Copyright lawyer.
> 
> Please don't take this as a criticism drafted at you.  Just like a copyright
> lawyer with no computer training should not be hacking the 2.2 kernel
> unsupervised by a programmer and then publicly distribute the kernel, so a
> programmer should not draft a legal document.  It's a question of
> qualifications.  Though people like to bash lawyers, there is in fact a purpose
> to the three years of legal training and seven years of apprenticeship that go
> into being a good lawyer.

Slight problem here.  You and I are dealing with the Copyright law in the
US.  To say it as simply as I can, if Troll Tech hired a laywer's
services for the purposes of writing the license the results would be a
lot shorter than if they hired someone in the US.


> > The only person
> > involved with this discussion who is even in a position to really consult
> > a Copyright lawyer is RMS, and you removed him from your reply so unless
> > someone forwards the message to him, he'll never see it.
> 
> Obviously any lawyer working for RMS would have a conflict and could not render
> legal advice to TT.  The point was not addressed at you but at TT, I keep
> saying this so hopefully they will take this advice and hire a lawyer, maybe
> they have already, I don't know.

Unless of course RMS brought the issue before them with the Trolls'
interests in mind.  I think he could do this personally, he has taken
great interest in the license and even determined that as much as the
original v0.90 was not GPL compatible and had some annoying points in it
that even that was free software and it was a good thing.  I believe
Troll Tech disagrees on this point and I'm certain they have reasons why
they do.  He's not exactly what anyone would call impartial here.  <g>


> > (Not to mention my belief that RMS is likely not going to be viewed
> > by anyone at Troll Tech as taking their professional product and
> > profitability into account, whether he did or not)
> >
> > As you commented, a good portion of section 7 has no legal purpose.  The
> > purpose was not intended to be legal, it was intended to be there for
> > people who AREN'T lawyers to read and understand the intent of the line
> > above, which could serve a rewrite based on your comments.  Your solution
> > of just delete the whole thing doesn't much help things.
> 
> Well, it prevents language from being in there that (a) doesn't work, (b)
> doesn't make sense (either from the QPL's or the GPL's perspective), (c) is
> incomprehensible, and ergo (c) won't be enforceable.

As written (and reread later) I would agree that it wouldn't work.  It
does make sense however.  The minimum requirements of the QPL are <=
those of the GPL.  The solution I kept hearing to be the end-all for the
license debate would be to GPL Qt.  However we have already established
that nothing in the GPL is going to say "we're really like you to
distribute your changes as patches" or "if you want your mods in the
official tree you'd better give Troll Tech the ability to relicense the
changes" or "Anything which has freely available source and can be
redistributed is good enough to be considered free when you're figuring
out whether or not you can use this library without paying for it."


> Face it, you will never satisfy the GPL zealots unless TT GPLs or LGPLs
> Qt, which IMHO would be a terrible thing (for many reasons I won't get
> in to) and in any event I think their creative minds would still find
> something wrong with Qt.

Please do go into the reasons you think the GPL would be a terrible
thing.  I looked at the requirements of the QPL (which you did not change
in your version that I saw) and compared it with the requirements of the
GPL.  They are very similar.  In fact, v0.92+knghtbrd1 allowed things the
GPL didn't.  It was my belief then that as long as the QPL was included,
the GPL could be too and there would be no harm in allowing the code to
be used under the GPL.

However, the way it's done with perl and other software just didn't seem
right for all the same arguments I've made against it before.  Putting it
in the license seemed like a better solution, though it would end up
having probably the same sort of effect legally.  I think the effect
would be slightly different on the average person though, and that was
the point.  If the LGPL did not do it directly, people could release
their software as both LGPL and GPL---you could then use whichever one
you want/need for the task at hand.


> My view is you cannot satisfy the radical factions so don't bother,
> they will not be reasonable so you can't reason with them, they have to
> have things exactly their extreme way or not at all.  Believe me, I
> tried to be reasonable on this mailing list and as is the mark of true
> zealots even when backed into a corner they will never admit they are
> wrong.

I'm not trying to please the zealots.  I figure a clear relationship
between the QPL and GPL is a good thing.  If it's enough to make the
people calling for Troll Tech to use the GPL happy, cool.  If they're
not, well there isn't anything more I could do then.

In addition to the advantages of having the direct GPL compatibility that
nobody in their right mind would contest, I can see other benefits for
good PR for Troll Tech and for Free Software.  And being a little biased
for a moment, something that clearly obviously related to the GPL if the
resulting QPL is applied to Qt 1.42 (something I suggested they might
consider and they didn't appear objectionable to) and the current KDE
would be in Debian the day (after) it could be compiled and licenses were
all compatible..  =>

It'd be there if I had to compile the packages myself!  Of course on this
machine that'd take TWO days, but hey.  =>


> In short:  the only way to get a reasonble solution is for all parties to be
> reasonable and for all parties to want a solution.  TT has done an excellent
> job at letting people comment and has been very reasonable and flexible in its
> proposals, and also clearly desires a solution.  The other side in this debate
> have been nothing but unreasonable, unbending stakes in the cement, unwilling
> to make even the smallest departure from their dogma, and since they appear to
> want to see KDE die and Gnome succeed they do not want a solution, either.
> While I wish it weren't so, that is the way I see it.

A lot of us aren't on Troll's side (I don't consider myself to be) and I
want a solution.  There seem to be hundreds of "sides" to this issue. 
It's not fair to any of us to say it's "us" vs. "them" because it just
doesn't work that way.  Everybody has different hopes and goals here. 
Mine happen to be looking for the best solution for as many people as I
can find it for.

-- 
NO ONE expects the Spanish Inquisition!

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