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List:       kde-licensing
Subject:    Re: Liscencing Issue - Taking Action
From:       Waldo Bastian <bastian () kde ! org>
Date:       2000-06-12 18:51:37
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On Mon, 12 Jun 2000, you wrote:
> Waldo Bastian wrote:
> > On Sun, 11 Jun 2000, forge wrote:
> > > My lawyer read the licenses involved and some of the better arguments
> > > and told me frankly.  "I can win if a GPL violation case goes to court
> > > but not an unproved license change case."  Maybe other lawyers have
> > > different opinions.
> >
> > If KDE wins a court case against a GPL copyight holder we may have won
> > that battle but we surely lost the war.
>
> The point was that the GPL says and means one thing.  "Free software
> must be free forever and cannot be used as part of proprietary software".
> The current state of affairs doesn't change that.  If the claimed
> incompatibility was proven to be real it means that the GPL is an exclusive 
> cense.
> Hence GNU/Linux as it currently exists is all in violation.
>
> You see by attacking KDE and Troll Tech the Debian people seek to
> undermine the very foundation of there own culture.  

Unfortunately this is equally true the other way around, by interpreting the 
GPL from a strict legal point of view and ignoring its political message and 
intentions, KDE is undermining its very own foundation because KDE happens to 
use (L)GPL for large parts of its own foundation. 

I'm very sure that KDE never had the intention to be the messenger of the 
gospel of GPL but through a cruel play of faith, it seems that KDE is very 
much stuck with the GPL. So maybe it has become time for KDE to accept that 
and to work together with the political organisations behind the GPL. 

Actually I think that the QPL has been the result of exactly that from what I 
understand. In that light it is remarkable that all this is still an issue. 
Either the parties involved in making the QPL parted too early or the 
political organisations behind the GPL failed to make their point. Whatever 
it was this hasn't helped the trust in this fragile marriage.

Cheers,
Waldo
-- 
Make way, KDE/Linux is coming to a desktop near you!

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