[techtalk] KDE / OpenSource

[kelly at poverty.bloomington.in.us]

On Thu, 3 Aug 2000 10:12:07 -0400 , "Fan, Laurel" <Laurel.Fan at compaq.com> said:

>Maybe so.  But another issue is that KDE has incorporated a lot of
>non-KDE-written GPL'd code, without asking the authors if it was ok
>to link their code with Qt.  In essence, forcing their controversial
>interpretation of the GPL on other peoples' "products".

There was a rather loud screechfest back when Mattias showcased
"Kimp": a very cheap hack of imbedding GIMP within a KDE wrapper.  He
was told, in no uncertain terms, that doing so was illegal and that he
was not permitted to do so.  He argued that he was allowed to on the
grounds that Qt is "part of the operating system" (a position that
essentially everyone outside of Troll Tech disputes), but he
eventually backed down.  The GIMP developers have made several
overtures to KDE team members about making GIMP more compliant with
KDE's environment, but those overtures have been ignored.

Kelly