Re: KDE liscence question
Piotr Roszatycki <dexter@fnet.pl> writes:
> The best solution might be to distribute KDE as non-US part of Debian.
> Many of european vendors distribute non-US on separate CD. Why
> couldn't we do the same with KDE?
KDE currently has an invalid license. Why ? Because the QPL only
allows modification in the form of patches, whereas the GPL insists
that a) all the code for a program distributed under the GPL be
distributable under the GPL, and b) that this gives you the right to
modify it. These are incompatible conditions.
I realise that the KDE developers do not intend to mean that, when
they use the GPL, but unfortunately that like saying Grandad didn't
really mean what he put in his will.
If we allow the KDE GPL situation to pass without comment, then it
devalues the GPL for everyone, not just in the context of KDE.
Similarly, if people took to saying ``Till death do us part'' when
they meant ``Till the end of next month'', then pretty soon the whole
institution of mariage would be discredited. Oops, too late ;-)
I do wish the rumoured change of the KDE license would materialise, so
we could drop this.
Cheers, Phil.
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