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List:       kde-licensing
Subject:    Re: KDE: a plan how to solve that
From:       Kevin Forge <forge () myrealbox ! com>
Date:       2000-03-11 16:15:48
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> > > =head2 Why did Red Hat start distributing KDE?
> > > 
> > > Because, supposedly, Troll Tech was going to fix the Qt license so that
> > > it wasn't proprietary, and KDE would be using some other license than
> > > the GPL.
> > 
> > Do we have a statement that makes this a fact o is it just what we think?
> > If we don't know it for certain we should not claim we do.  =>  That said,
> > AFAIK that is why.

Here is a more likely story and one with some factual basis.

RedHat refused to distribute KDE because of 4 reasons.
1. They didn't want to lock customers into any proprietary technology 
  for the long term.
2. The well paid lawyers who help them ink deals said it was dangerous
  at best.
3. They wanted the right to distribute any and all urgent bug fixes to 
  any and all crucial software in the RedHat box.  
4. They wanted RedHat customers to know they could modify any line of 
  source code included in the box.

Between the QPL and the "release" of Gnome these fears became short 
term at best and none existent at worst.  The lawyers and the Marketing 
people said go and it was so.
 
> Best thing to do is ask the Harmony people.
> 
> I remember that the reason Harmony was discontinued was that there
> would be no point with the new QPL.  But I don't have any personal email
> archives on the subject.

http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-freeqt&r=1&w=2

is the Harmony list archives.  Basically it tells of Harmony developers 
reading the QPL and deciding that an LGPLed QT clone was no longer 
needed for anything.

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