On Wed, 9 Aug 2000, Niall Kavanagh wrote:
> On Wed, 9 Aug 2000, Jeffry Smith wrote:
>
> > about KDE). Also, Gnome doesn't have the licensing conflicts that KDE
> > does (even the new Open Source QT).
> >
>
> At the risk of starting a licensing flame war, can you detail where the
> open source QT license is lacking? Not a leading question I assure you! ;)
>
The issue is that the QT license is incompatible with the GPL (imposes
additional restrictions). Since KDE is distributed under GPL, and GPL
requires that distribution be with no more restrictions, KDE cannot be
distributed with QT, but must be downloaded separately. Some claim
that there is a "default" exception for QT in the KDE license, since
without QT, KDE doesn't work. However, this doesn't cover the GPL
stuff KDE uses that wasn't written directly for KDE. Debian folks
have suggested a few ways to solve the problem:
1. Add an explicit QT exception to the KDE license (some parts have
this, and Debian distributes them). This does create the issue that
it emphasizes the parts of KDE that were not KDE written, and thus KDE
folks are vulnerable to suit.
2. Modify the QT license to be compatible with GPL. Troll Tech has
talked about this, but it requires the action.
3. Distribute KDE under a different license, such as the LGPL. Like
1, it brings out the non-KDE written code in KDE.
jeff
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jeffry Smith Technical Sales Consultant Mission Critical Linux
[EMAIL PROTECTED] phone:603.930.9739 fax:978.446.9470
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Thought for today: What sin has not been committed in the name of efficiency?
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