From kde-licensing  Tue Jun 20 02:11:22 2000
From: Steve Hutton <shutton () mediaone ! net>
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2000 02:11:22 +0000
To: kde-licensing
Subject: Re: RMS,Debian and KDE
X-MARC-Message: https://marc.info/?l=kde-licensing&m=96146790201091

On Mon, 19 Jun 2000, Darren O. Benham wrote:
> Joseph,
> 
> Why don't you substantiate that DEBIAN's problem (and not YOUR problem) is
> with "the number of KDE proponents who have said...".  

It's certainly comforting to know that official Debian policy is not openly
based on the amount of noise opposing advocates make.

> The only official
> Debian statement that I can find is the original one that Debian made when
> the decision to not ship KDE was made
> (http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=1998-10-08-002-10-OP)

It's interesting to go back and read this document now:

	     Potential Solutions:
                 -------------------- 
	     [...]

	     2) KDE losing its dependence upon non-free software. 

                 There are a few scenarios that could lead to this, the most promising one being
                 the Harmony[7] project (an attempt to implement a GPLed replacement for Qt).

                 If any of these come to pass, then KDE binaries built without any dependence
                 upon non-free code should be possible, and would then be included as part of
                 the main Debian GNU/Linux distribution. 

Since QT 2.x under the QPL is agreed to be "free software" by all parties, it
appears that the proposed solution that was labeled:

"KDE losing its dependence upon non-free software. "

has now been changed to:

"KDE losing its dependence upon any software whose license is interpreted as
more restrictive than the GPL by RMS"

Steve