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Re: KDE not in Debian?



begin  Joe Drew quotation:
> Now, the GPL specifically says that the source code for the bit that
> is normally distributed with the "major components" of the OS need
> not accompany the source code to the program licensed under the GPL
> itself. It does not, however, state that the
> normally-distributed-with-OS part need not be licensed under the
> GPL. 
> 
> This is very interesting, indeed.
> 
> It's hard to say what the intention of rms was on this. 

	His intention was to allow free software on non-free operating
systems.  We may forget this nowadays, since we have free operating
systems like Debian GNU/Linux, but when the GNU project started, they
had to compile EMACS with a proprietary libc and libcurses and so
forth.

	One could possibly show the use of proprietary curses libs as
being an isomorphism for using non-GPLed X toolkit libs.

> It's even harder to say what the legal interpretation of this will
> be. 

	Yes, quite.

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