IANAL, and I would love to get into the guts of the licensing
problem. The fact that KDE/Qt is not GPLed does not bother me per se
(since I don't develop KDE-related stuff), but if they violate GPL
that's a big problem that might lead me to dropping KDE indeed.
However, the slashback article contains a statement that KDE violates
the rights of the authors of GPLed components and patches included in
the distribution. However, there is no good explanation or example of
that, and that's what I'd like to see.
GPL seems to be unequivocal on the following:
"If identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the
Program, and can be reasonably considered independent and separate
works in themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to
those sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when
you distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work
based on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the
terms of this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to
the entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who
wrote it."
I don't think there can be an argument that KDE is distributed as one
piece. However, conceivably one can argue that there is Qt and a
collection of programs that are designed to work with it, and it is
the latter that is KDE. IMHO (IANAL!) this is weak, and my
understanding is that KDE without Qt is not GPLed either.
I still don't understand the following though. The argument is that
KDE disregards the fact that some s/w ("patches") contributed to it is
GPLed. The people who contributed the patches etc knew in advance it
would be used in KDE, linked with Qt, etc. Note item 10 of GPL:
"10. If you wish to incorporate parts of the Program into other free
programs whose distribution conditions are different, write to the
author to ask for permission. For software which is copyrighted by the
Free Software Foundation, write to the Free Software Foundation; we
sometimes make exceptions for this. Our decision will be guided by the
two goals of preserving the free status of all derivatives of our free
software and of promoting the sharing and reuse of software
generally."
It is conceivable that by contributing to KDE the s/w authors allowed
- implicitly or explicitly - KDE to use their products, and so KDE is
not technically in violation of GPL. This could have caused the
allegations of "violating the free software spirit". The latter is
understood differently by different groups, and can be perceived as a
lame punch when no actual wrongdoing has taken place (I said
"perceived", didn't I?). This might explain why Red Hat, who certainly
can afford a lawyer or two now, despite the dismal stock performance,
have no problem with that. Has any of the contributors complained that
their rights have been violated?
This turned out long. Sorry. To summarize, KDE's using non-GPLed
software is not a grounds for a boycott in itself. They could have
chosen Qt as the best or the most suitable at the time, for technical
reasons. If they violate GPL, it's not enough to uninstall it - the
instructions in http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl-violation.html should
be followed, I suppose. However, violating GPL is different from
violating "free software spirit", the definition of which depends on
who you talk to.
--
Oleg Goldshmidt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
"Inventions ... cannot, in nature, be a subject of property."
T. Jefferson.
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