[techtalk] KDE license?

[Dan Nguyen]

On Fri, Feb 11, 2000 at 02:59:29AM +0100, Sunnanvind wrote:
> Rik; you mentioned that you knew the KDE license.
> Could you or anyone else please explain why the KDE license is not bad?
> Including QT etc.

First KDE uses the QT toolkit from Troll Tech, and QT is released
under the QPL, which is ``open.''  But the main problem is that KDE is
released under the GPL, which isn't bad.  The GPL has clauses which
try to guarentee that GPLed code is not ``hijacked,'' and closed up.
So to do that GPL code can only be linked against GPL or LGPL code (or
others).  There are ways around this, for example the QT gui plugin
for licq is released under the GPL.  But this is not a problem because
the author of the QT gui has given permission to link his code against
QT.  However the KDE authors have not done the same with KDE.  Another
problem is that KDE is larger project than licq, and many people
donate code to KDE which means that those authors too must give
permission.  

This recently reerrupted on the Debian-Devel mailing list a few weeks
back, check  http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2000/4/ for more info
on the subject.

-- 
       Dan Nguyen          | It is with true love as it is with ghosts;
    nguyend7 at msu.edu       | everyone talks of it, but few have seen it.
     dnn at debian.org        |               -Maxime De La Rochefoucauld
            25 2F 99 19 6C C9 19 D6  1B 9F F1 E0 E9 10 4C 16

************
techtalk at linuxchix.org   http://www.linuxchix.org