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List:       kde-policies
Subject:    Re: P2P file sharing software in KDE's CVS
From:       Ralf Nolden <nolden () kde ! org>
Date:       2003-09-13 17:30:47
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On Saturday 13 September 2003 19:01, Charles de Miramon wrote:
> Le Samedi 13 Septembre 2003 18:02, Ralf Nolden a écrit :
> > I'd like to remind that the KDE Project per se cannot be sued directly -
> > the KDE e.V. is the only legal entity that could be sued or the
> > individual authors directly. As the KDE e.V. is not responsible for the
> > code rather than being a support organization, who should be sued if not
> > the individual developers ? (and in that case it's *much* more likely
> > that companies like Adobe for instance who already did that with
> > killustrator, approach the companies that make their money with KDE
> > software, i.e. the distributors, though that doesn't mean we shouldn't be
> > acting responsible enough to not cause the distributors any trouble).
>
> Well, they could sue the physical owner of the main CVS server (if I
> remember right a German University) or target a specific individual like
> the release manager. Another legal solution, would be to convince the judge
> that KDE ev is, de facto, controlling the KDE project, even if, de iure, it
> says the contrary, a mechanism commonly used in French law to sue people
> that have taken a legal status just to escape taxes or liabilities. The
> chance that KDE ev get condamned, at least in European law, is extremely
> slim. KDE ev will not make any profit out of KMLDonkey and it will be very
> farfetched to prove that by providing the source of KMLDonkey, KDE is
> actively promoting piracy and breaking public order.
>
> Your point on distributions is a valid one. If we have "grey" software in
> KDExtragear we can make life more difficult for KDE packagers. For
> Mandrake, MLDonkey packages are in the Penguin Liberation Front repository
> a unofficial repository, I guess logically KMLDonkey should go there and
> not in the official package of  KDExtragear.
>
> Taking KMLDonkey out of the CVS won't be a tragedy for the program. Their
> user base is smart and computer wise enough to google to the new
> downloading location. On the other hand, it would be rather unpolite to
> show them the door just when we accepted them in.

I think as long as kdeextragear-* doesn't get packaged completely but is used 
to develop individual apps on an individual release cycle by the application 
developers themselves and not by the project, we're just providing the 
service to be able to use the kde infrastructure for "research", we're not 
promoting those programs. That's done by the individual authors who publish 
it - it doesn't get published by KDE saying we're releasing kmldonkey or 
something.

Ralf
>
> Cheers,
> Charles

-- 
We're not a company, we just produce better code at less costs.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Ralf Nolden
nolden@kde.org

The K Desktop Environment       The KDevelop Project
http://www.kde.org              http://www.kdevelop.org

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