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$3000 "Reward" for KDE/Debian Compatibility
in the recent edition of Linux Weekly News of 1st June 2000 the old debate of the potential inclusion of KDE2 to the Debian GNU/Linux distribution is discussed again. Even though KDE2 and QT2 are free software according to all standards (incl. DFSG), KDE2 is not planned to be included in the forthcoming Debian releases 2.2 (aka Potato) and 2.3 (aka Woody), because the QPL licence of QT2 is not compatible with the GPL licence of most of the KDE2 code. An elaboration of Debian's stance on KDE and QT licencing can be found here and here Debian does have a very strict position on such licensing issues, and even if some people may think that their position is somewhat nittygritty, it is a clear point of view that distinguishes Debian from commercial distributions (e.g. Redhat or SuSE).
The sad thing is that many people who like KDE very much, also prefer the Debian distribution because of their very commitment to the free software spirit, because of their high quality standards, because of their superior package management system, and because of their vast number of available packages (about 4500 in Potato). Therefore, it would be highly desirable for KDE AND Debian to solve the mentioned licence problems with the release of KDE2. Many discussions in the past have lead to nothing but frustration on both sides, because none of the involved parties was able to agree on a compromise.
It is possible that the licence issue could be partly resolved by Debian by the simple assumption that all KDE authors who have released their code under GPL have implicitly agreed to link their GPLed code to the QPLed Qt toolkit. However, Debian will not make this assumption, since it would weaken their stance on licence issues, and since it would also not resolve the conflict with third party GPLed code that was used by the KDE project.
Thus, there is only one realistic solution to the problem: All GPLed code in KDE2 has to include a licence that amends the GPL with the following exception clause: "This program is distributed under the GNU GPL v2, with the additional permission that it may be linked against all versions of Troll Tech's Qt library that are distributed under the QPL, and is distributed without the GPL applying to Qt". Of course changing all licences accordingly and contacting all referring authors of the code involves a lot of boring work that is not very attractive for dedicated coders, which might be the reason that the KDE project did not perform this rather simple solution yet. Therefore, I would like to stipulate the appropriate actions by offering a private donation of 3.000,- US-$ to the KDE project, in case (and only in case) that the licence of the official release of KDE2 (all official packages incl. koffice) will be modified in the mentioned way, so that KDE2 can be included in Debian-Woody at last.
The Debian project has already stated in the past that they would of course include KDE as soon as the licence conflicts are resolved. Since the Debian maintainer Ivan E. Moore II has already made inofficial Debian packages of KDE1.x and KDE2beta for the KDE Packaging Project he could likely become the maintainer of the future official packages.
I hope that my offer could contribute to a prospering common future of KDE and Debian for the benefit of the Linux community. It would be nice if I could receive something like an "official" answer by the KDE project concerning my offer. If KDE should agree, I will send a signed contract that guarantees that my donation will be immediately made as soon as KDE2 is released with the Debian compatible licence changes. It is up to the KDE project how my donation would be used; it could be used for any purpose of the KDE project, or even as a personal reward ("salary") for the referring KDE persons that will make the work of the licence changes.
With kind regards,
Guenter Bechly
P.S. Please note that I only speak on behalf of myself and that I am not representing any involved party. I am just an dedicated Linux user who happens to like Debian and KDE (and Gnome too btw ;-). Copies of this letter have been posted to Mosfet, KDE.com, TDYC, Debian, LWN, LinuxToday, and Slashdot.
--
Dr. Guenter Bechly
Staatliches Museum fuer Naturkunde Stuttgart
Abt. Palaeontologie - Sekt. Bernstein
Email (office): bechly@gmx.de
Email (private): GBechly@gmx.de
SENSE-OF-HUMOUR *grin* sorry couldn't resist.... Hey let's start a 'I say tomato, you say tomato kind of war!! errrrr, no?
if (!signature) { throw std::runtime_error("No sig!"); }
First of all, this license change argument is bullshit. But I defer that for another post.
t ion.html) that will protect Qt from closedness. In fact, what license do they say Qt will then fall under if such a thing happens to TrollTech? GPL? Nope. BSD license. Go... read it for yourself. I think the issue here is not the QPL, but the GPL and it's religious afterglow.
Second, I feel that TrollTech has every right to decide under what license they want to release their software. They are a company and as such they are out to make money. The thing I find that people don't often realize is that by offering a free edition of Qt for *nix developers, they are definitly helping the "community". So it's under a more restrictive license - but much less than say Motif (in the past) or various other toolkits. They want to make sure that their contribution to the "community" doesn't get taken advantage of and people use their product to sell commercial versions of Qt linked code. But then the Debian zealots (and other GPL zealots in general) feel that since the license isn't GPL it isn't "free". But then... hold on a second - the QPL is a license that protects FREE software. Qt is a good library (imo) and is definitly used by many people. People develop FREE applications with Qt because of things like the QPL. In fact, the GPL isn't as "free" as it appears to be. A point that underscores this is that if TrollTech is bought out (as you suggest as a possible "solution"), there still is the KDE Free QT Foundation (http://www.trolltech.com/company/announce/founda
Not a flame, just a thought.
Oh and yeah I use FreeBSD. Peace to ya.
Think of it this way.
KDE is a "derived work" of Qt, not the other way round. The QPL poses no problem to the distribution of KDE under the GPL.
It's the GPL which requires that not only must all derived works be GPLed, but all works from which the software is derived must also be GPLed. This is plainly stupid. The author of a GPLed program should be able to use whatever libraries they want, under whatever license those libraries are under, as long as THOSE LIBRARIES permit it.
It is certainly true that the GPL does not require linked code to be GPLed. However, it does require that code linked to GPLed code (subject to the "system library" exemption) impose no more restrictions than the GPL itself does. Thus, the GPL is compatible with a number of licenses, including (I believe) the new BSD, X, Apache, and Artistic licenses.
The QPL is not compatible with the GPL because it imposes additional restrictions on distribution: Troll Tech can demand that you give them a copy, with source, and you have no choice but to comply.
If the KDE project included third-party GPLed software in KDE without permission, is that the fault of the third parties? Or of Debian? As I remember, this was the major complaint from the GIMP people; the KIMP people seemed to feel it was their right to violate the GPL on the GIMP by linking it to Qt, and they didn't even bother to discuss it with the GIMP people. The archives even contain some discussion about making the GIMP toolkit-independent and adding the license exception; I think this petered out after KDE showed their utter disregard for the rights of the GIMP team.
As for what KDE needs to do to "appease" Debian, the clause in the offer is what Debian has repeatedly asked for from KDE since the adoption of the QPL. This has not changed, ever. Official Debian developers have even developed packages, and the whole team stands ready to incorporate KDE the moment the license is changed - again, as we have been since the QPL was adopted.
As I have said before, so I say again: licenses are important. It's stupid to make your stated wishes on your software incoherent, and it's rude (not to mention illegal) to ignore other people's stated wishes on their software out of convenience. Other people may be able to accept the risk that results from such stupidity and rudeness; Debian is not in a position to do so. But isn't it better to just stop being stupid and rude?
The QPL (v2.0) *is* free
It depends on your defination of what free is. Personally, if it isn't under the GPL or BSD type license, IMHO it isn't free, it is a company trying to get some cool buzzwords for their marketing department, like Open Souce.
Can I modify the Qtlib for my own personl and commerical purposes and make a profit off it, or change it any way I see fit and then distrubate the re-modified version, even if this competes with Troll Tech on a commerical level?
Just depends on what your defination of free is... I think we are differant in that aspect.
this part has nothing to do with the above post, but I will post it here since I see no better place.
I really respect the Debian team for holding strong to their ideals of what is "pure" and how to keep it that way. They have been doing an excellent job in this ascpect for the last years, and also are making a hell of a distro in the meantime.
some people are complaining that Debian is nitt-picking over a "minor" issuse. I don't see it that way. I seen it as a test for Debian, what are they going to do? Will they stick to the game plan and what their defination of "free" is, or will they bow down to compete with the commerical world... Debian is like Jesus walking around in the desert, they know it ALL could be their's, but at what price?
KDE2 looks like a very seducative temptation, I know the Debian team has been looking at it naked in the shower from a small hole in the wall, will Debian abstain from sin, or will they need a tissue?
Come on, the name of the company is Troll Tech, doesn't there NAME tell your something? Just for disclaimer purposes, I have nothing against the KDE team or the Debian team, and not really sure what to make of Troll Tech...
Sometimes comfort has to be exchanged for freedom
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
Minor commentary: most (all?) countries in Europe use the comma and period in the opposite way the US does; IOW, while we write $3,000.24 here it'd be $3.000,24 there.. :-)
-pf
Make affiliate bucks
The X and GPL licenses are compatible, while the QPL and GPL are not.
nojw
I wrote a Java class to convert dates automatically...
TO BUY A NEW CAR WOULD MAKE YOU SEXUALLY ATTRACTIVE.
In my opinion, this is one of the darkest chapters of free software history. I'm a longterm debian-user and I remember the times where I looked at things like CDE with a glance and was even ready to pay for a nice desktop...
What I want to express with this statement is that setting a prize by Mr. Bechly does one good thing: it brings the problem into peoples minds again. I know all the previous discussions and I talked to some of the debian developers as well as with some of the kde-core-team. I understand both of their sides. But I think all developers on both sides should get going and bring that beautiful piece of software into the main-debian-dist right after gnome so that people could choose what they want to use and it is included with all debian-distros (which afaik just include the main-tree) and subdists like corelLinux, etc. This would also help other developers to include support not just for redhat and caldera when they write their qt-based-installers. This would help getting a lot more people from MS to Linux because of the conveniences installing new software.
I know, this could also be done with gnome-libs but at least here in Europe it seems that more users use KDE... (no flamewar please: gnome is nice as well). So PLEASE SOLVE THIS!!!! (and thank you Guenter)
Gery
------------------------------
The answer is yes, me.
$3000 is a fine sum of money for a project that would likely take less than a month. That's about what I take home, and I'm quite comfortable.
Then there's the fact that it's coming as a donation. I think this was quite a nice gesture.
Yet another of your standard techniques. When you see that you have nothing more to gain, and something to lose, by continuing a conversation, you cut your losses and run.
You still haven't answered my original question: WHY DID YOU USE YOUR +1 BONUS FOR THAT POST?
(BTW, at least you've got one thing right; I do feel contempt for you, along with a healthy dose of pity at the sorry life you must lead.)
This is what I've got....
.rar files .zip files
communicator-base-473 Communicator base support for version 4.73
communicator-nethelp-473 Communicator online help for version 4.73
communicator-smotif-473 Netscape Communicator 4.73 (static Motif)
communicator-spellchk-473 Popular World-Wide-Web browser software (spelling dict
crafty Chess Program
netscape-base-473 4.73 base support for netscape
netscape-java-473 Netscape Java support for version 4.73
rar Archiver for
ucbmpeg-play Software-only MPEG video player
unzip De-archiver for
xanim Plays multimedia files (animations, pictures, and soun
Do not read this
Lets put it the other way around. A company that makes device D needs a program. They do not want to pay for the development so they simply take your program X, modify it a bit to link it to their libraries, and sell it. The modified code is useless without their proprietary libraries, so they have essentially locked up your program code into depending on their proprietary libraries.
If you write a program and GPL you _have_ to make the exception that is needed here. If, as is the case of some of the KDE code, _you_ didnt write some of the code to the GPL program, you cannot change the license. And so the problem remains.
If the maker of a device will not use the GPL you need to explicitly allow linking against their library. You should do that if you need the library to make your GPL program work.
But dont come and say that I should allow _my_ GPL code to be linked against someones proprietary library, because I actually read the licenses I place my code under and choose one that accomplishes what I want. And, with my GPL code, I dont want it used to further sales of proprietary libraries.
This isnt restricting GNU programmers, this is protecting GPL programs against proprietary misuse. If you find it restrictive, read your licenses before you use them.
It's odd that the bonus is a default, then. I used to try to suppress
the bonus when I thought it was inappropriate, but I failed to come up
with any good demarcation of when to apply the bonus and when not to,
so now out of laziness I normally don't suppress it.
Maybe there should be a karma cost associated with use of the +1
bonus?
The GPL does not require that all software linked to it be GPLed. It merely requires it to be no more restrictive than the GPL.
As has been said numerous times, the QPL is more restrictive than the GPL. Therefore, it is not compatible.
> The post and the attached letter seem to be saying two different things.
You are correct. Usually, I chide other posters for not reading the story. This time, it seems like Taco is the one who's not reading what he's posting. Taco's question about a deb and a sources.list is most certainly answered by the letter (as well as the fact that such debs and sources.list already exist).
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
The key thing is to be able to distribute modified versions of the QT library without asking Troll Tech's permission. KDE dose this *already* because a few QT features they like didn't make it into the QT-2.1.0 release.
./ Kimp fiasco in 1998. The KDE teem respected that opinion and did not release Kimp at all. Instead they wrote a Gimp compatible Photoshope Clone for KOffice called KImageshope.
The Debian problem is a matter of semantics. Parts of KDE are still under the GPL and must remain that way. They include bits and pieces of other GPLed software ( KFloppy comes to mind ). Debian asks the KDE teem to change the license on this software. They can't do that since it belongs to other people who they may not even be able to find.
In all this dispute and haggling the only time I have ever seen someone say "This is *my* GPLed software and I don't want it linked to QT." was with that whole Gime
Other than that it's just people blabbering at each other about stuff they don't understand. The Debian teem thinks the QPL is not GPL compatible. Other distributions think it is. Having read the GPL and QPL personally ( Most of the people talking here have not ) I realize two things. The GPL doesn't require linking to GPLed software. It simply requires linking to software that allows distribution of modified versions for free ( I.e.. OSS compliant ). That may not have been RMS' intention but it is how the GPL was written and since he had professional Legal help the letter of the GPL stands.
kde-licensing@kde.org is the mailing list where the QPL was debated and refined. This isn't a legal or technical isue. It's a personal problem and the KDE teem canot do anything to apeas the Debian faithfull.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
actually, im proud of what Debian is doing, they are the only vendor (that i know of) that has taken a stand on the issues that mean the most to them, namely, licensing.. as a big debian fan, i stand behind what they are doing (no, im not using KDE)
:)
Licenses exist for a reason: to tell the world how the author of some software wants it to be distributed.
In the case of KDE, they have (so far) not managed to make a coherent statement about how they want KDE distributed. This is because they use the GPL, but link to Qt, which is not GPL-compatible.
Now, many people have taken the risk of "assuming" a few extra clauses in KDE's license. Most likely, that's safe, and for commercial distros with legal departments, that may be an acceptable risk.
Debian, however, is a legal fiction, with no assets. If we assume a risk like this, we are in reality causing our distributors to assume that risk, since in all likelihood they would be the ones sued. We don't feel it proper to put our distributors at risk; therefore, we don't incorporate software that doesn't have a clear license. KDE falls into that category.
The problem is that KDE hasn't made a coherent statement about their wishes that we can respect. Once they do (by incorporating a clause like the one in the offer, or switching to Artistic, or whatever), KDE will be incorporated into Debian as quickly as we can get it uploaded.
are Xfree86 .debs no problem? These aren't GPL'ed, too..
To me, it looks like a Gnome vs. KDE war through a distribution encapsulated in a license disagrement.
Which components cannot be distributed together? The KDE applications and the QT toolkit I would assume...
Why is this the rule? Is it explicitly stated in the license, or are people attempting to justify continued development of Gnome?
Does that make any sense? I thought you could write a GPL program using Motif and distribute it alongside Motif (assuming you can distribute Motif)
QT finally got the license together and they still catch he**.
Sorry; my bad. I must have gotten my timelines mixed up.
If Harmony existed, then there would be no licensing problems at all, and KDE would be in main right now.
Plamo Linux is a Slackware derivative localized for use in Japanese. Similar to Slackware itself, almost all the work is done by one person.
You don't even have to go to the website. Just put KDE in your /etc/apt/sources.list, update dselect and you can download all the debs you want along with dependency checking.
Stage Left: Open Source Man walks around the corner, humming the Hot Grits Theme from Star Wars Episode I. There is a giddy grin on his face, and a gleam in his open sourced eyeball.
Stage Right: Just around the corner of a building is a strolling troll. He is looking up, admiring the fjordly blue sky and humming BTO's "Takin' Care of Business".
The two round the corner, and collide. Both fall backwards onto their tuckus
Open Source Man: Hey! You got Qt in my Debian!
Strolling Troll: Hey! You got Debian on my Qt!
Both pause, on the verge of anger. As they thoughtfully try the result, a penguin waddles quietly past the two in the background. In the distant background, there is the sound of Windows breaking in two.
Open Source Man and Strolling Troll together: Mmmmm! Not bad!
They stand up and place their arms around each other
A squawking raven appears and swoops low over the pair
Stallman: SQUAWK! Purity of vision! SQUAWK! Purity of vision!
A white glob falls from the bird and lands on the pair of new-found friends
Open Source Man and Strolling Troll together: Hey! He GNU-doo'ed on us!
Slowly they turn toward one another, the anger returning to their eyes.
Open Source Man: This is all your fault! Free the code!
Strolling Troll: This is all your fault! Lighten up!
Fistfight ensues. Lots of dust and cartoon stars fly from the mayhem
Think of it this way.
KDE is a "derived work" of QT, not the other way round.
The QPL poses no problems for the distribution of KDE under the GPL.
It's the GPL which not only requires that all derived works be GPLed, but also that all works from which the GPLed software is derived must also be GPLed. This is (IMO) plainly stupid.
The author of GPLed software should be able to choose to base his/her software on whatever libraries they damn well please, as long as THOSE LIBRARIES allow his/her software to be distributed under the GPL.
This particular clause does nothing to perpetuate the cause of free software. In fact it restricts those who might otherwise wish to GPL their programs, because they used Qt, or some other non-GPL library, and thus potentially reduces the amount of free software in the world, or (in this case) the use and distribution of that software.
Not as a part of the OS, no.
One way that proprietary UNIX vendors get around this is by including the GNU utilities on a separate "unofficial" or "unsupported" CD. MS could do that.
See this rebuttal
and the Lineo filingNon-free is not part of Debian.
> Now I'm *really* confused. I just started
:-). Your local proprietary software developer finds my software, and realises that it would be just right for integrating with their application. So they link it in, as a library (they might even release the source to my code if they're feeling nice, but their code remains proprietary).
> thinking... the GPL doesn't allow linking to
> closed libraries? That kinda weakens it a bit, in
> my mind.
Think about what would happen if the GPL did allow linking to closed software. I write a really cool piece of software, which I release under the GPL because I'm a nice guy
Aaargh!
My free software just became an integral part of their proprietary software, which wasn't what I wanted at all. If I had wanted that to be possible, I would have chosen to use the LGPL (Lesser General Public License), as many other projects such as GTK+ have done.
I think the more important manner for the inclusion of KDE into debian, is that it has to match the file structure standards that debian uses. I have yet to see /opt used by debian for any package.
I believe Stormix had kde working in specifications that might be useful for this.
javajawa# sleep
Meh
deb http://kde.tdyc.com/debian potato kde kde2 contrib rkrusty
Cheers!
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
Second, he spells out quite clearly what is required to "win":
I have no idea why Taco said "I wonder if just hosting the
Jay (=
In that case, you chose the wrong license for your software. You'd likely be happier with the LGPL, or some other license. Or, if you really like the GPL otherwise, you could include an exemption like the one proposed here.
The license is your statement of what you allow other people to do with your software. If the GPL doesn't respect your wishes, don't use it.
if the debian team is afraid of being sued by some GPL coder in KDE, they can choose another way of bring KDE to debian.
just like the qmail-src packages, where qmail-license forbids distribution of compilied binaries, compile the debs on the users host. the user would violate the GPL instead by linking the source of KDE to the source QL, which would come in qt-src, kde-src packages.
i'd personally prefer this solution, since i like KDE on my debian more than this GPL-license-fascism.
>Amongst other things, the GPL says that unless >it's a system library, if you link something to >GPL'd code you've got to make it available under >the GPL.
Linking is a one way process - you have a library and you build a program against it - and this has tripped you up. True - you can't link something against GPL'd code and then not open the source under the GPL - which is why, if *QT* was GPL, then KDE would have to be.
KDE is being linked against QT - not the other way around Qt is self-sufficient, it is not bound by the KDE licensing choice - you've got things backwards.
Micah
http://kde.tdyc.com/
You Like Science?
You Like bottomquark.
"Now, could someone explain to me again why conflict between the QPL and GPL is a life and death issue, but copying and redistributing Metallica albums is an inalienable human right?"
Certainly. There's no conflict at all. We will support the strong enforcements of copyright if it is in our interest to do so. We will also decry the strong enforcements of copyright if it is in our interest to do so. I can't imagine you see this as a problem. Law, morality and rights have nothing to do with it. Only our own personal needs and wants are important.
Now go away, you're making me think, you reprobate.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Different people's opinions. But anyway, different contexts too. Many of the Debian people who think it is illegal to include KDE in fact *use* KDE personally. And anyway I'm sure you'd agree that they'd be insane to distribute Metallica albums illegally so there's no dichotomy.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
AFAICT Debian regards all of these as Free Software. They don't distribute KDE combined with Qt because they're convinced nobody (except maybe the KDE authors themselves) can legally do so.
The money is out there. KDE is certainly worth the expenditure. If they can spend 9 billion dollars on purchasing slashdot, when they vow not to change anything, I honestly can't see how some forward-looking linux company doesn't purchase this product, if not, troll-tech in it's entirety, to do what may just amount to the saving of linux. Once licenses start to be "bent" in the manner which has been proposed, the foundation of Linux would seem to start to erode.
I can't begin to imagine the revenue troll-tech gets from this product, but I would seriously consider it to be much less than any single one of the linux money houses could easily spare.
________
1995: Microsoft - "Resistance is futile"
You obviously count the executives at Red Hat as GPL zealots, then. But you think it's fine for Troll to use whatever license they want for QT, so why do you object to Red Hat and Debian's right to not redistribute QT if they think it might land them in hot water?
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
The main distribution of Debian is entirely free, but the Debian non-free section (not part of the distribution itself, but hosted on the mirrors and usable from the standard Debian tools) contains about as much non-free software as they can legally distribute. There's also a Debian package called "The virtual RMS" that will mail you every month telling you which non-free packages you have installed.
Kernel Panic (Core Dumped)
Brain halted.
Sorry... i am having a really bad day. =^( Please disregard my post, and i will refrain from posting until i fix my brain.
-legolas
i've looked at love from both sides now. from win and lose, and still somehow...
- One is a "community" of thieves; maybe they have been ripped off and think they are therefore entitled to steal something back, but in any case they steal things. These include the warez d00ds and the skript kiddyz. Free Software is roughly the same to them as a pirated copy of Windows 2000. You may have guessed that I don't have much respect for them.
- One is a community of people who do not have the money or the inclination to spend money on software; these people like getting things for no money, and these people include graduate students (I know, I was one). Free Software is No-Cost-Ware to them. These people don't necessarily want to steal, and Free Software means that they don't have to, and yet they still don't have to spend any money (which they may not even have to spend).
- One is a community of people who value their freedom. Many times these people are programmers, but sometime they are just people who wouldn't buy a car with the hood welded shut. Free Software is Freedom-Software to them.
I think that there is in fact very little overlap between the first group and the last; the first group copies Metallica albums; the last group is concerned about the conflict between the GPL and the QPL."Qt, which is normally distributed with all distributions of Linux and GNU/Linux (Debian distributes Qt2), falls under this exception."
Disctributed != Standard Component
And QT is by no means a standard component. Even if you think it is, others will disagree making the legal situation ambiguous. Hence Debian's reluctance.
Whatever happened to the Harmony project to create a GPL QT clone?
As I recall it got pretty much abandoned when Trolltech (hehe, funny name) loosened the license on QT to bring it into OSS compliance.
Obviously though, QT licensing is still causing a problem. Would it really be that difficult to finish Harmony? Or to create a new, similar, GPL GUI toolkit? And since when has 'difficult' ever stopped the free software community from accomplishing big things?
Is Harmony still around?
Not the UK or Ireland, but AFAIK everywhere else. (Of course, only for currency
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
Wasn't this the goal of the Harmony project? I remember they were righting a free replacement to QT, and I thought it was based off of GTK.
treke
Ive sat on the sidelines for every single discussion on FreeQt, QPL, Qt as GPL, Qt vs Gtk, KDE vs Gnome but Ive reached my breaking point.
I for one am sick of all the people whining about the KDE/Qt licensing. Of course the authors implicitly allow linking to their program, duh.. There is no other way for the program to run.
If Debian doesnt want it, fine, so be it. Consumers arent going to be running Debian anyway. Debian will probably just end up as a manical purists version of Linux. The rest of planet will move on to either RedHat, Mandrake or Corel.
--John C
One of the reasons for keeping it (linux/debian) free was to stop those nasty corporates taking it over, destroying it with small print and legal matters. Yet debian, in my very humble opinion, seems to be heading for that very direction.
Don't get me wrong, I like Debian, but common sense seems to be left behind here. This isn't a case of "Debain doesn't like KDE because KDE isn't free", if that was the reason then fair enough, instead it's "Debian doesn't like KDE because Debains license doesnt like a little line in KDEs license". Is something like that really worth spending time over when we could all be doing something (coding, looking for porn, etc) instead?
You will forget this sig before you next see it
> Can I modify the Qtlib for my own personal and commerical purposes and make a profit off it, or change it any way I see fit and then distrubate the re-modified version, even if this competes with Troll Tech on a commerical level?
Yes. If you intend to distribute your modified version as closed source, you need to buy a special license, but as long as you stick with a QPLed modified version, you can
- Distribute binaries with the same name (libqt)
- Distribute sources with another name (you can just add a prefix to each file with a script).
See http://www.trolltech.com/pr oducts/download/freelicense/ for more info.> Debian is like Jesus walking around in the desert, they know it ALL could be their's, but at what price?
KDE2 looks like a very seducative temptation, I know the Debian team has been looking at it naked in the shower from a small hole in the wall, will Debian abstain from sin, or will they need a tissue?
No comments. I just hope for your mental sanity this is humor.
> Come on, the name of the company is Troll Tech, doesn't there NAME tell your something?
Trolls are mythological creatures very popular in norway. Norvegian giant offshore oil station are also labeled Troll-something. Your argument here is that, as "troll" is a common insult on various h4xx0r forum and newsgroup, the 31337 troll definition is the only one valid.
sigmentation fault
Laws matter in the end. That is what your "GPL Zealots" are trying to say.
Ignore them, and the KDE Project will keep getting nipped in the but on this.
I'm not sure how the KDE post is relevant. I didn't think that XFree86's licensing was an issue.
I'm also not sure what Lineo's IPO filing has to do with anything. As I mentioned somewhere else, companies with legal departments (like Lineo) may consider things to be acceptable risks that others (like Debian) may not.
Sounds like Berlin. The API is exposed through CORBA so all languages with CORBA bindings have equal footing.
As you said, the issue is incompatability between QPL and GPL, not that one of these is non-free
In other words, it is an internal KDE/Qt problem, which would prevent anyone from distributing compiled versions of KDE if they were adhering to the license.
Also, this was not an insightful post because it says to go to the KDE FTP site and manually grab .deb's if you want KDE on your Debian system. The "Debian way" is to have automatic retreival and updating through APT, by adding the following lines to /etc/apt/sources.list:
It's debian-legal, in fact, that keeps pushing us not to include KDE, so I fail to see how the issue could have been "cleared up" there. I suppose you're free to re-introduce the issue if you think this is really what's happening (though my thoughts are that it will simply ignite another flame war and accomplish nothing).
At any rate, your analysis fails. Section 3 starts out:
"3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following..."
So Sections 1 and 2 apply to any distribution you make under Section 3. And, of course, Section 2 (in the part you forgot to quote) states:
"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."
Now, this argument would work for source-only distribution; it's perfectly legal to distribute source. But binaries, when distributed, are linked to Qt, thus forming a "work based on the Program" (namely, a complete working binary distribution of KDE) - either by physical static linking (copies of Qt code embedded in each executable) or through binaries that will not function without a copy of Qt, and incorporate Qt into themselves at run time.
To make this perfectly clear, you could likely do one of the following:
- Distribute KDE source.
- Distribute KDE binaries, dynamically linked to Qt but not accompanying Qt. In other words, a broken implementation of KDE that will do nothing.
Finally, if I may: Let's dispense with the hostility. Don't you think we have enough slamming on other people's views, without such volatile language? The old saw applies here well: If you don't like Debian, don't use it.
That may be their intent. Unfortunately, it happens too often that the letter does not match the intent; that's the source of too much lawyering these days.
Without meaning to troll here, it does seem as though KDE has started to become ascendant in the desktop 'war' and GNOME has become a bit more of a backwater recently ; I think the earlier QT licence changes seem to have taken a lot of the impetus out of creating GNOME .
Maybe I live under a rock or something but I have seen almost the opposite reaction. With Helix Code kicking out new packages of Gnome all the time and the every increasing press releases from Eazel, I have almost forgotten about KDE. I admit there seem to be a lot of bugs but hey it's better then it used to be..... With sawfish it's a killer combination. Still I suppose you are talking about people who actually write code for the projects. <:
Don't get me wrong, I like KDE but it has become so cluttered with applications that I don't use. I have been on a "simplfy my desktop" mood lately. Ah, the virtues of choice. <:
This is a major illustration of one of RMS's points: that the GPL is not anti-commercial, just anti-proprietary. The QPL's stated intent is to be anti-commercial.
They are free to be motivated in this way, and to make such demands; this does not make it any less incompatible.
Clause 6 of the QPL, especially part c:
... If the items are not available to the general public, and the initial developer of the Software requests a copy of the items, then you must supply one."
"You may develop application programs, reusable components and other software items that link with the original or modified versions of the Software. These items, when distributed, are subject to the following requirements:
The GPL does not force you to distribute; it only forces you to distribute source when you do distribute. The QPL, on the other hand, does force you to distribute in this one special case: when Troll asks, you must give them a copy. This is an "additional restriction", and therefore is incompatible with the GPL.
(The "when distributed" clause is not enough of an "out" here. If I give a copy of my cool new GPLed program to my friend, and the two of us don't want to give a copy to Troll, we don't have to - unless, of course, the program is linked to Qt.)
Because I liked it :-)
Cthulhu fhtagn!
Yeah, if the script would automatically write a mail to all authors, asking them for permission of changing the license text, waiting for reply mails, grepping for "OK", patch the text and then system( "cvs commit" ) ;-)
Seriously, IMHO that's complete nonsense.
And I wonder when the debian guys will learn to accept additional opensource licenses, other than the GPL, given the fact that the QPL is just the same for opensource applications.
Dynamically linked libraries are considered part of the program.
... considered a part of the operating system,
... with the major components ... of the operating system." It does not have to be an actual part of the operating system.
Not under copyright law. And the GPL falls under copyright law. Deriving an application from a library in the programming sense is a very different thing from the copyright sense.
If, and only if, a library can be
That is not what the GPL says. The clause in question refers to "anything that is normally distributed
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
...specifically paragraph 6, clause c. Note specifically that this applies to programs that link to "the Software".
They packaged kdelibs; they did not upload it to Debian.
I haven't the faintest idea what you're trying to say - did you actually read my post? Did you read the original post that it was a reply to? Did you understand that I was explaining the usage of the comma and period in European numerical notation?
What in God's name were you reading? Cause I sure can't figure out how you managed to make that reply to my post.
Right, but the point of the article (you did read it, right? ;-) ) is to ask the KDE project to ammend the license to make it palatable to Debian, not for Debian to take US$3000 to look the other way (at least that's what it looks like to me when I read it.)
Thus, there is only one realistic solution to the problem: All GPLed code in KDE2 has to include a licence that amends the GPL with the following exception clause: "This program is distributed under the GNU GPL v2, with the additional permission that it may be linked against all versions of Troll Tech's Qt library that are distributed under the QPL, and is distributed without the GPL applying to Qt". /I.
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
Just for the record, Slackware is absolutely not a derivative of RedHat. No way.
You do realize that QT is in Debian, both versions 1.x and 2.x (though I don't know if 1.x is in Potato.) It's the one license alone; it's the GPL and QPL in combenation that's the problem.
Does this mean that GPLed Motif based programs would be considered illegal? If so I believe there are a few of these illegal programs out there!
Read the QPL again. You need to violate the GPL for this restriction to apply or distribute under another free license. I.e. It only applies if the software is distributed without source.
Therefore it's an additional restriction for BSD and X licenses but not for the GPL.
BTW : kdelibs, kdesupport, qt-kde-addon and koffice are under the lgpl, lgpl, qpl and artistic licenses respectively. Why were they not included in Debian ?
With those components you wold have a working office suite and remain Debian pure.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
And so have Mandrake!
Unfortunately, the KDE folks in that page didn't address the debian issue - it's not that QT 2.0 isn't DFSG, or that KDE isn't DFSG, it's that KDE is GPL & QT is not GPL-compatible. thus the licensing conflict. KDE folks keep going on about how great KDE is, how they've GPL'd the work, how QT is now free, why they chose that license, etc. They don't seem to address the problem of the license conflict. It's not that either side is wrong, it's that they are both right in incompatible ways. Debian continues to suggest a simple solution (KDE be GPL with a QT exclusion, he who writes the code chooses the license, so they can do this). However, the KDE folks don't seem to even recognize the problem.
This also highlights a fact with all the MPL, EPL, IPL, RPL, GPL, BSD, LGPL, and many more - each time you include software, you have to have your lawyer check on the compatibility of the licenses. All the more need to have a few basic license (my votes for GPL, LGPL, BSD (new, without the advertising), X (which is similar to the new BSD). Decide what you will allow third parties to do with your code & choose accordingly:
GPL - 3rd parties must open up their code if they include mine.
LGPL - They can write proprietary apps, but they have to open up mods to my code, & make my code available.
BSD & X - Do what you want, even make proprietary products.
The actions restricted by copyrights are only those actions that directly related to the owner's work. It is completely unconcerned with what you do with your own or someone else's work.
If you don't believe that information should be a form of property, then fine. But at least have the courtesy of living up to your own standards by using the public domain instead of the GPL. The GPL may have fewer restrictions upon its users actions than the typical proprietary license, but it STILL restricts the users, something that you yourself just called immoral.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
That's also why KDE code should be LGPL'd and not GPL'd
although a lot of KDE developers still do this wrong.
New things are always on the horizon
How would I know? The GPG/PGP signatures could have failed to check, it could have had some technical failing, it could have included some GPL code linked against Qt, it could have had some techincal failing, and it could have been uploaded by someone who is not a Debian developer. I don't know.
If there were no techical/security reasons to reject it, a developer has full recourse to the Debian lists. At no point in that time, did I see a complaint about kdelibs being rejected cross debian-devel or debian-legal. Neither did I see an ITP (Intent to Package) kdelibs message on debian-devel, which properly should preceed the uploading.
If you reread the GPL, you'll see that the clause in question refers to components distributed with the major components of the operating system.
Qt does not have to be a system library or a standard component. It only has to be distributed along with the operating system. The rational for the clause is quite easy to understand: the user does not need to purchase extra software in order to use the GPLd package.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
The licenses of most standard system libraries (eg. libc) state that once you link your programs to them, you can release the result under whatever license you want. The QPL doesn't allow this, and as a result, it conflicts with *any* license (not just the GPL) that binds you to its terms.
None of the GPL, BSDL, Artistic, or even Microsoft's C library licenses, force you to give somebody copies of your sources on demand (a pretty absurd requirement). Only the QPL does.
--------
"I already have all the latest software."
It even says in the article above, if anyone can read (its stuff like this that really makes me question the intelligence of the loudmouth shoot from the hip poster.)
KDE and QT is RMS free, and Debian free.
There is no issue anymore about KDE being free. If you want to go back to the past and relive the great KDE debates, click on the link in my sig that says OLD.
Personaly I've mentioned this to the Debian developers almost a year ago that I'm going to make a distribution called "It-looks-a-lot-like-debian-but-it-has-kde". And you know what the response was? "Yeah! go ahead and do it!"
All it would take is setting up my own mirror of both sites, so that people could only have one line in their sources.list file. All I would need to do is add the KDE (etc...) directory to the appropriate spot. My 5 year old niece could do that. I could even start burning CD's with it.
Now, mind you I'd add my own change to the pot above to make KDE make the last few "exemptions" for the GPL. But this *isn't* an issue. KDE is free, and good and happy and makes me smile.
Please people read the article *Before posting* next time.
^~~^~^^~~^~^~^~^^~^^~^~^~~^
The exception (of course) is England, which is like the US, except that a period is frequently used to denote multiplication, just to make things even more confusing
I should know; I'm a mathmatician from the continent (Norway) living in Eng-A-Lond.
I'm sorry. (Canadian joke)
Since I supposedly have neutral interests in this matter, I say I have to agree about the Europeans doing things more intelligently (*being* more intelligent, I don't know).
I mean, what's the reason *not* to use the Metric system? Or YYYY-MM-DD? Or the better broadcast HDTV standard (forget the name. It was on Slashdot a few months ago)?
Anyway, I think you all have way too much nationalism. Do you guys really have to get personal like that?
--------
"I already have all the latest software."
KDE interested on making money ? Where the fuck did you get that from ? And even if that were true, what the fuck is wrong with that ? Do you make money or do you regulary beg ? .. obviously no more ...
Working and making money used to something to be proud of
Think before you post !!!
Here is the rule: (from the GPL, section 3)
"However, as a special exception, the source code distributed need not include anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component itself accompanies the executable."
This is part of a larger paragraph that requires, among other things, that source must be distributed, and that the compilation must itself be licensed under the GPL. This is where the restriction comes from that the license for components cannot be more restrictive than the GPL; otherwise, you couldn't license the compilation (your code plus the other code needed) under the GPL.
It's not legal to write GPLed apps for Motif and distribute them with Motif. It is legal, however, to distribute GPLed Motif apps separately.
Yes, I agree that guy's idea of "no logical absolutes" was a bit crazy, but are you suggesting Debian's wrong? (Don't want to flame if you're not)
--------
"I already have all the latest software."
When I talked about RedHat derivates, I was thinking of Mandrake, the chinese Red Flag Linux etc.
BTW are there any Slackware derivates yet? I know that some firms bundle modified SuSEs with computers, and SuSE offers different flavors of their own distro - the standard SuSE and SuSE Aktuell (at least in Germany), which consists of a basic SuSE system together with several ftp mirrors (no, I don't think of SuSE as a Slackware derivate, it was just an example :-)
Cthulhu fhtagn!
False. The QPL don't require you to send your code to Troll Tech. Absolutely no. It just requires you to let the software owner (Troll Tech for Qt) integrate changes you made in the software (Qt). If you write a program and publish it under the QPL, the software owner will be you, not Troll Tech. If you write a project that links with Qt, it is not a modification of Qt and you absolutely don't need to send it to Troll Tech.
sigmentation fault
Dependency is not derivation. Copyright law is only concerned with derivation, and then only in the legal sense.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
I wouldn't think so so I guess all the GPLed programs that use Motif would be considered illegal. Yes their are GPLed Motif based programs out there. So what allows them to get away with this and not KDE? Is it simply because of the existance of Lessif that makes this possible? I guess someone could develop an alternative implementation of qt. It woulldn't even have to work very well (like lesstif) it would just have to exist and work well enough to compile KDE. The other way out is simply for KDE developers to go Artistic or BSD (new style no ads) and be done with the GPL. In fact I have heard that with KDE v2 a number of the authors have changed the licenses on their individual programs. I don't know about KDE libs though. I wouldn't be suprised if it happens though.
Yes, sorry, I should have said KDE. (Although both refused to distribute Qt at one time)
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
You should read the GPL:
This covers system libraries. So you can dynamically link GPL code to whatever libraries are standard in the platform you're running.
It is a license incompatibility issue, and nothing else.
--
Make a merged distribution of Debian and Corel lite and make an instalation script, which either adds Corel KDE to after the Debian installation or the otherway arund.
No Licence cosmetics is necessary, since it makes a ".dpkg" distribution that does not blame Debian.org for not being GPL othodox.
Which defeats the whole purpose of the exercise, doesn't it?
Did I just win $3k? Tell me why not!
Well, since you asked, let's look at that open letter again. (You did read the open letter that was posted in the story, right?)
Well, given that:
1) you have not changed the licenses of the various KDE packages in the mentioned way
and
2) you are not the KDE project
then no, you don't get US$3,000.
Jay (=
(Why are people wasting their time thinking up ways to get the $3,000? It's not a contest!)
False. Qt has always had a consistent license, so Debian has always distributed it, albeit in nonfree until Qt version 2.0.
"I fail to see how the issue could have been "cleared up" there."
The debian-legal list has the curious habit of revisting topics again and again. Of course the matter was not cleared in everyone's mind, such things never are. But when an issue gets hashed to death in that forum to the point that people start quibbling over the meaning of "is", some shmuck always comes along with "Hey! What about clause 13c?", and off it goes into another direction. One will not see this with a casual perusal of the list. It is a pattern only seen over a period of time.
But when you distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based on the Program
KDE and Qt are not distributed as a whole. And Qt is not a work based on KDE (the Program). Just prior to your quote, it states "this License, and its terms, do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate works" The only parts of KDE which actually include QPLd files as part of the package are licensed under the LGPL instead of the GPL.
Don't you think we have enough slamming on other people's views, without such volatile language?
I have been much nicer and far politer here than most (not all) Debian developers have ever been to me. The debian-legal list is the only mailing list I have *ever* been on where vitriolic and vulgar hostilities have spilled over into my private mail. I have had to quit the debian-legal list simply because I want to keep the discussions on the list where they belong instead of spilling over into my mail box.
I didn't mean to be hostile in my post. I may have been snide and sarcastic, but I didn't intend hostility.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
I, for one, applaud Debian for sticking to their guns in this matter. They set out for a completely free distro, and they're not going to fool around with KDE if Qt ain't free.
I agree with their stand that KDE shouldn't be included. I have but one question. How is it different really if all you need to do to install KDE is race up to the KDE website and grab the debs, and install them. If you really want to use KDE and Debian, then do that, but don't try to move Debian away from it's stated goals.
Ben
This just about sums up the reason why I have stayed away from Debian. They may have a fantastic product, but I don't want my computing experience artifically limited for reasons that are non-technical.
I don't suppose it matters much anyway as there are other distributions that cater for my wants and needs. That's the nice thing about having a selection of distributions to choose from that differentiate themselves by targeting different audiences. Debian are quite unique in this regard too in that their differentiator is that they shape their product according to a perception of ethics rather than a money driven desire for market share. How many commercial companies can you think of that behave that way?
So though I am not a Debian user, I'm happy that they exist. Wouldn't the Linux experience be a boring one if all the distributions were the same.
Macka
- TrollTech can publish their code under any license they feel like, period.
- Anyone who believes (as Debian do) that software freedom resembles speach not beer can tell them to fsck themselves, period.
You use BSD, I use Linux, and the simple fact that that TrollTech want to revert to the BSD license if neccessary simply shows that they have the interests of business at heart. Debian has the interests of Free software development at heart. Distributing KDE with a Linux distribution weakens the GPL by publically breaking it. The GPL and BSD license allows you to write programs for Windows, or for someone else to port your funky BSD or Linux program to Windows, TrollTech have isolated the M$ OS for their own gain (well it is 90% of the market?) and this is why they shunned the BSD and GPL. I hate the M$ operating systems, but I believe in software freedom (speech NOT beer) and think it is obnoxious to say you can use this as long as you don't try to use it with Windows. If the situation was reversed (say M$ released a toolkit as source code and said that it could be used, modified and anything else you want so long as it is only ever used on their Operating Systems or never used on Linux without a licensing fee) you can imagine the outcry on Slashdot.Bottom line the Debian zealots (and other GPL zealots in general) are protecting the M$ operating system and fighting for its rights. Yes the problem is the GPL, the GPL however is not about linux or even *nix, it is about making sure that everything we all work on together is safe forever. Let all Linux vendors take note and stop distributing QT with GPL software (make the user download and install QT if they want to use the KDE aps that are distributed with the system).
Conspriracy Theory: Are TrollTech deliberatly setting out to destroy the GPL so they can release a closed version of the KDE suite for any OS they want?
Not a flame, just calling it as I see it.
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
Although the Debian maintainers will be far clearer on the issues involved, as far as I'm aware the Debian team's objection to KDE is that the Qt licence and the GPL are not compatible when a GPL'd program is linked with the Qt library. That means they wouldn't be able to include it in non-free (despite what CmdrTaco says), simply because the act of compiling KDE and distributing the resulting binaries, in and of itself, would be a breach of the GPL.
In other words, if the Debian team were to distribute KDE, they'd have to do it in source form - not the likeliest of possibilities.
It strikes me that there could be a sizable business opportunity for someone to push out a KDE based debian ditribution. Of course there is already Corel, but they seem to be firmly targeting the Windows user / newbie market which isn't exacly the same memespace that Debian inhabits.
A company like Stormix would be well positioned to roll out a "KDE edition", and in fact they already include KDE with their product.
There's always room for more distributions, and if there really is this much demand, it strikes me as an ideal business opputunity.
-- Oh Well
RH and Debian DO distribute Qt. And, by the way, please write "Qt", not "QT". QT means QuickTime. Qt means nothing, apart being pronounced "cute".
sigmentation fault
Funny, I thought that all of KDE was now under the Artistic License, which is much more lenient about these things, and would make it legal to distribute? Or is this what the 3k bonus is for? The letter isn't clear to me.
---------------------------------
---------------------------------
Visit
They can't "integrate" Emacs into Windows. They can certainly distribute it, even in the same CD.
It's Ironic - the free software movement seems to be bogging down in the same litigious contortions of the commercial boys.
Ok, yep - I should have said "it used not to be a part of Debian".
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
Like this.... One moderator pulled it down (troll), another pulled it back (funny).
Sig11 is OK, it's the segfault overspill on
Go ahead, 5kr1p7 k1dd135 with moderator points, have this down as -1 flamebait or troll because you can't take the sound of free speech. I'm posting at +2 because I at least defend Sig11's right to try & be funny. Did I laugh? No. But what I find funny and what other people find funny are two different things, and I'm sure Sig11's post gave someone a chuckle somewhere.
And yes, there is a karma cost of posting at +2... You can lose 1 more point if modded down...
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
There are Perl bindings for Qt. Not that this completely invalidates your point, just letting you know that it's not C++ only.
My other
From the annotated QPL license: If the items are not available to the general public, and the initial developer of the Software requests a copy of the items, then you must supply one.
This is to avoid problems with companies that try to hide the source. If we get to know about it we want to be able to get hold of the code even if we are not users. In this way, if somebody tries to cheat and we get to know we can release the code to the public.
sigmentation fault
When KDE was developed GTK existed. KDE was started in October of 1996, and GNOME was started in 97 using the well established GTK+ toolkit, which was initially released in a very stable version (for an early) in July of 1996.
Personally, I prefer GTK, but if KDE would switch to the GPLed clone of Qt (the clone is from the harmony project), then I'd have no problem with debian including it, and I don't think the debian maintainers would have any problems with including it either.
-- Superlame http://catpro.dragonfire.net/joshua/
----
Celebrate the finer things in life
The guy who wrote the letter is German (presumably). Germany is a European country. Much of Europe uses the period instead of a comma for separating groups of numbers.
Do we have a clue yet?
--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
You know, if you REALLY want KDE, it's much more productive to quit your whining and just download the sources. Geez. (Compile source? Oh my god, not that!)
As for the issue of KDE's license being incompatible with Debian, it's more related to Qt and recursive licensing issues...
> I don't know how many this means but on sych a large project it could be a monumental task.
No. Just a Perl script who looks in COPYING files and add the required exception. Make it recursive to look in all projects subdirs. No KDE developer will want their program to be incompatible.
Oh, of course it's more a joke than anything else, but as someone stated elsewhere, the only "I don't want it" case was with Kimp, a KDE version of Gimp. The result ? There is no Kimp.
sigmentation fault
hmm qt2.0 is distributed with debian...
*** Opt libs libqt2 2.0.2-1.1 2.0.2-1.1 Qt GUI Library (runtime...
i'm using it with licq
-- http://electronicintifada.net --
I agree.
However, according to RMS, the QPL (and the use of Qt) is in fact incompatible with the GPL. RMS is possibly a bit biased, but he did write the GPL, so either he's lying or at least the intention of the GPL makes it incompatible with linking to Qt. (This doesn't mean there aren't any unintentional loop holes). You claim that it is legal to distribute GPL'd programs that link to Motif (without adding an exception, I assume), do you have any examples? IIRC emacs (at some point?) was distributed with an added exception that explicitly allowed linking to Motif.
What I feel is most disturbing about your post is that you seem to imply that the Debian developers are using the legal (non)issue just as an excuse for not distributing KDE, since they simply hate KDE for some unspecified reason. This sounds more like a conspiracy theory than reality to me. Debian is the most open and democratic open-source project I know of. Anyone can join Debian -- just say "Hi, I want to package foo", and you will be given one vote like everyone else. If Debian is excluding KDE driven by hatred, that means that a majority of Debian developers either share these feelings, don't care or simply aren't aware of it. What makes this even more unrealistic is the fact that AFAICT Debian is the distro that has the largest variety and alternatives of packages. Just look at the list of texteditors or window managers in Debian. It seems more likely that the evil Debian developers you discribe would say: "we will only include $MY_FAVORITE_EDITOR. All other editors have broken licenses.".
As I said earlier, I can't really tell if distributing KDE is legal or not. But I think it's pretty clear that your description of Debian is unfair and untrue.
Note: I am use Debian, but I'm not a developer, and I neither use nor develope KDE or Gnome.
Please alter my pants as fashion dictates.
The QPL is a free software license; Debian accepts software licensed under the QPL.
The GPL is also a free software license; Debian accepts software licensed under the GPL.
The terms of the QPL and the GPL are incompatible, such that binaries licensed under the GPL may not legally link to binaries licensed under the QPL - this is why a special exception is required by the copyright holders of the KDE programs.
It was not mentioned in the article that the simplest solution of all would be for TrollTech to modify the terms of the QPL such that it would be compatible with the GPL. I'm not advocating that they do this (or don't do this), I'm just saying that would be a simple solution.
Gee, an anonymous coward tells me that kdelibs is not wanted by Debian. Then it's obviously true.
If you take a look at the archives for debian-devel and debian-legal, I've been posting and reading for almost two years now, despite not being a developer. I've never got the impression that Debian didn't want kdelibs in. I've never got the impression that Debian didn't want KDE in. I have got the impression that many Debian developers have put much blood, sweat, and tears into fixing the KDE problem, to no avail, and that some of them are quite frustrated. Considering that I've never read much discussion on kdelibs, and what discussion I've read has never been hostile towards kdelibs, I'd have to disagree with you.
I am curious - how you actually read any of debian-devel? debian-legal? Where is your primary evidence (i.e. the words or actions of Debian developers) that they don't want kdelibs? You've claimed kdelibs being in incoming, but frankly I don't see the evidence to prove that if it was there, that it was removed for dogmatic instead of technical reasons.
The obvious solution would be to do this:
(State the GPL.)
As a special exception, you are allowed to link this program with programs distributed under the QPL. When redistributing this program, you may, at your option, choose to keep this special exception or not to.
Would this keep a programmer who adheres to the strict definitions put forth by debian from using both pure GPL and QTclause GPL code in a single app?
As I understand it, the GPL states that it must be attached, unaltered, to derivative works.
I assume that the QTclause GPL would also have to be attached to derivative works.
As this is the case, I think we have something akin to the "obnoxious advertising clause" in the old BSD liscenses.
For that reason, I'd have to say that this "obnoxious linking clause" is a bad thing.
On the other hand, I'm not sure why the Debian people won't include KDE in the first place.
So I guess my vote is, ignore the bribe, throw the KDE in as "nonfree".
Thank you for not thinking.
He is NOT offering $3,000 for KDE to be included in Debian, he is offering $3,000 to the KDE project for them to modify their licenses! Can't you even read?
Thanks for including the letter so we didn't have to dig very far.
--
blue
i browse at -1 because they're funnier than you are.
Well, when i compiled X/KDE/BB from src, KDE was installed by /default/ to /usr/local/kde
/not/ a Qt issue, it's a KDE issue, WHY do you think this is being asked from the KDE team and not Debian, eh?
This is
The KDE team has a license issue...
.HIghoS
--
Jesse Tie Ten Quee - tie@linux.ca - highos@highos.com
http://highos.dhs.org
The basic idea (as I understand it) is that the QPL requires that any software developed that links to Qt Free must be given to Troll Tech, with source, upon their request. This is an "additional restriction" to the terms of the GPL (the GPL doesn't require you to distribute to anyone, only to distribute source whenever you do distribute), which is prohibited by the GPL.
Disclaimer: I'm a Debian developer.
I wrote to the FSF recently about this problem of license incompatibilities (it seems that every free software license that is out there is incompatible with the GPL) and whether anything could be done about it. My specific suggestion was to introduce a license in between the GPL (that allows linking only with software that is compatible with the GPL) and the LGPL (that allows linking with any kind of software); this "intermediate" GPL would allow linking with any software that satisfies some specific Free Software guidelines (included in the license).
The answer I got (from Bradley Kuhn) was rather unsatisfactory. He explained that this license either wouldn't work or wouldn't provide a true copyleft. Now I fail to see why that is. I didn't want to press the issue because I know he has more important things to do than answer my question, but I'd be glad if someone could explain this.
Another pet idea of mine: would it be possible for someone to formalize this whole license mumbo-jumbo in mathematical logic so that all the discussions which use vague rhetorical terms as to what can or cannot be done, can be made precise once and for all? And so we can write computer programs that will say definitely: "thou shallst not link this with that"? Formalizing this particular area of law seems doable.
When you say "Copyright Law", you mean the Copyright Law of which country? Remember that there are many countries, and many different copyright laws, and if your arguments fail in a single one, you lose. Even if we limit ourselves to countries that signed the Berne convention and the Geneva convention (a reasonable international unification of copyright), we are still left with a great number of national variants: can you seriously claim that you know all these laws well enough so as to be sure of what you are saying? I doubt it. I even doubt anyone knows all these laws and the specifics of computer science well enough to make a good case.
Please remember that licenses such as the GPL are not simply supposed to work for the country in which the code was written, but for the entire world. Please remember that Debian should be legal in all these countries.
KDE and Qt are not distributed as a whole. And Qt is not a work based on KDE (the Program). Just prior to your quote, it states "this License, and its terms, do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate works" The only parts of KDE which actually include QPLd files as part of the package are licensed under the LGPL instead of the GPL.
Which, as I said, gives you your two choices: source, or unusable binaries. :-)
The problem is that you are creating "a work based on the Program". The "Program", here, is KDE. By compiling it, you create a "work based on the Program" - namely, the combination of KDE and Qt. And this is more than a mere aggregation, because if you remove Qt, KDE stops working.
In this sense, Qt becomes "a part" of KDE when it's compiled, in that KDE won't work without it.
I have been much nicer and far politer here than most (not all) Debian developers have ever been to me.
Fair enough. Not that I've *ever* been snide or sarcastic before. :-)
Actually the standard KDE distribution is licensed under the LGPL, which allows it to be linked to QT. Any third-party authors who have released KDE applications under the GPL have just made mistakes and don't know it. Debian could include the standard KDE distribution, and there can't be a good reason it won't (I'm talking about KDE2 here). Obviously Debian can't use KDE1 with QT1, but there's no good reason they can't ship KDE2 and QT2 when they've stabilized.
As far as I know all parties (Qt, KDE, Debian) want this to work, so I don't understand why KDE is still out of Debian.
bye,
pieter
Troll Tech don't produce KDE. The KDE license problem is not the fact of Troll Tech. Your conspiracy theory just can't work (as much other conspiracy theory). Yes, that's not a flame. Just a bullshit.
sigmentation fault
Didn't you read the letter? There IS NO specific addition to the GPL in KDE's license which say s that the code may be linked with Qt. If there was, there would be no problem, no story, no discussion, and KDE would be in Debian.
From Debian.org
The Problem
Troll Tech's Qt library is distributed under a licence [5] that includes this condition: You may copy this version of the Qt Free Edition provided that the entire archive is distributed unchanged and as a whole, including this notice. The KDE code is licensed under the GNU GPL v2 [6] Currently, KDE must be linked against Qt in order to produce usable binaries.
Clause 2.b. of the GPL reads:
You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License. The corollary of this is that if you link the GPLed KDE code against Troll Tech's Qt library, and distribute it, you must distribute it under the GPL.
However, the GPL insists that you grant the right to modify the complete source of a program distributed under its terms, which is clearly in conflict with Qt's licence conditions.
Clause 7 of the GPL reads: ... for any other reason ... conditions are imposed on you ... that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at all.
7. If
So, we have been denied the right to ``distribute the Program at all''.
Conscience is the inner voice which warns us that someone may be looking.
Conscience is the inner voice which warns us that someone may be looking.
-- H. L. Mencken
The thing I like about Debian the most is that is is pure. I can rely on not having any non-free software in my GNU/Linux (they use the term!) when I go Debian. If they change that, what is the advantage of Debian? Their frequent releases?
it's green.
I understand that if all of the authors of KDE agree to a license which allows it to be linked to QT then KDE itself can be distributed with Debian, but wouldn't QT also need to be distributed for KDE to work at all? And according to the link at the top of this article the current QT release does not meet Debian's open source guidelines (it's the future version that will), so how can QT be distributed? Maybe the links provided in this article are out of date and KDE2 will use the open source QT2 - if so, somebody please clarify this. Otherwise, I don't see how changing the KDE license will made a working version distributable as it looks like the current QT can't be distributed with Debian. (This is not flamebait, I am genuinely curious as to what I missed.)
-----
Free P2P Backup, Windows & Linux
Take a look at incoming.debian.org. It's not there, nor has it been there recently.
We can call it 'Cutie'!
There should be enough people out there that know Qt well enough to be able to do this.
--
"You take a distribution! Rename! Stamp CD's! IPO!"
- CmdrTaco, Geeks in Space, Episode 2 from 6:18 to 6:23.
"Chiswick! Fresh horses!"
It is not every Debian developer that wants to keep KDE out. But enough of them do that it can't come up to a vote. Some mirror site maintainers have even stated that they will not mirror KDE even if Debian voted for it and included it in main.
Having spent some time willingly and unwillingly (debian-legal posters frequently cross post to other lists) in several debian mailing lists, there is a small but very vocal minority that seem to have an irrational dislike for KDE. Right now, today, this very instant, there is no reason that the LGPL KDE *libraries* cannot be included in Debian. And once there, there is no reason not to include those KDE applications that fall under non-GPL licenses (like the most excellent Cervisia). But they have not done so even though this move has been brought up time and time again.
One particular developer said a while ago that the only thing stopping him for including KDE was the presence of KFloppy, which linked pre-KDE code to Qt. This is a valid point, and one of the few *real* legal problems with KDE/Qt licensing. However, removing KFloppy from KDE is trivial. So just do it!
If the plurality of Debian really wanted to include KDE, they could do so in some form. They could include just the base libraries and the non-GPL applications. They can include just the KDE source code (which sidesteps the entire linkage objection). But instead of doing this, they have spent the last two years endlessly arguing of minutia. The only reason I can fathom for them not included some form of KDE is because they just don't want to.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Oh goody, yet again we have the old QTL v. GPL argument. This time, i'm gonna ask some questions that have been bothering me.
;)
When KDE was started, and the decision to use Qt was made, surely the KDE team were aware of the QTL? They must have been aware of it's interaction with the GPL, and yet they still chose to use Qt. So, if the QTL is so evil that Debian refuse to use KDE, why did the KDE team still use it?
Because the QTL is so bad (Aparently), how much work would it be to move the whole of KDE over to something like GTK+? I've never coded for either Qt or GTK, but i'm assuming they are similiar enough that it wouldn't require a whole rewrite of KDE to do it? How about writing a Qt wrapper for GTK+?
That's all, anymore and i'll bore everyone else to sleep
Syllable : It's an Operating System
here is an example
and there is no indication whether or not it would work with Lesstif. Freshmeat has a number of these GPLed Motif dependent apps. Many mention the ability to use Lesstif as a replacement. A few do not. If a program doesn't compile using Lesstif then is the author violating his own license?
I have packaged sndconfig for Debian. It's not uplaoded yet, but it will be in the near future. -- dex.
Let's think rationally for a moment. If you wanted to allow easy access to a suite of applications on Debian, but didn't want to go through the hassles of having it offically packaged, what would you do? The answer: Set up an apt-accessible source for the packages. It's easy to do, and it would reduce the task of installing KDE on a system to less than 3 commands.
It's that simple! I know apt-accessible KDE
Debian has a set of ideals that they started with, and they are staying with. If you don't agree with them, don't use them. It's silly to try to convince them they are wrong, part of the point of multiple distributions is that you can choose your distribution for almost any reason. Ease of use, standardization, strict adherence to GPL.
Some of us use debian because we find it to be the technically superior solution, not simply due to strict adherence.
Even if you put the subject of KDE code theft and GPL violations aside, that horrid licensing and pricing scheme of QT sucks, and that vacuum drags KDE down to the suck level.
I'm amazed at how KDE people bitch and moan about anyone who refuses to use KDE because of the Trolltech license, but they happily use and distribute completely free software from the rest of Linux.
What a double standard. Keep your desktop free, refuse KDE and QT until the TROLLS fix that disgusting license. Check out helixcode.com or something, anything but Trollware.
It would also be nice if some KDE people would recognize that QT has screwed them far more than any other group.
I'd use VC++ and Win2K first, for less than half the price of QT!
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
Actually it would be great if everyone used the space, that way there would be no confusion. The next best thing in documentation is to indicate the notation format you are using, this is also useful with dates.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
In the scenario you talk about you can claim it has not been distributed. Also you would have given your friend source right ?
In order for this clause to be a problem you would have to prove that QPL and GPL have 2 different and incompatible definitions of the word "distribute". The GPL lets you give software to people within your organization without source if you so choose. However that only works because being in the same org you can claim it was not distributed at all.
If the software in question is under the GPL and Troll Tech can demand a copy it also means that the author or the FSF ( if it's part of GNU ) can sue for GPL violation. The only way around this is if the owner of the code is the one distributing it without source.
Why would you license your own software under the GPL and then distribute it without the source code ? Just a hint but maybe it's because you want to link against some GPLed lib and hope the owner won't notice the lack of source. Other than that you just want to avoid paying the "Troll Tax" and are willing to commit fraud to achieve this.
Clause 6.2 has too requierments that must both be satisfide.
1. The Software must be distributed.
2. That distribution must not include source.
Before Troll Tech can ask you to provide them a copy of the source they would have to prove that someone with a copy of the binary dose not have access to the source. It really is that simple. If 50,000 people have it and all of them have source then Troll can't get it. If one can't get source then he simply has to send his binary to Troll or tell them his predicament and they will enforce his rights under the GPL and give him GPL like rights over BSD software.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
And also use a comma for separating the "whole" number part from the "fractional" part. (As in $3.000,00...) This can get very confusing and weird, but...
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Debian is not including KDE because of any licensing issue. They are not including it because they don't want to! The compatibility issue was long laid to rest on the debian-legal list over a year ago. Some people just keep bringing it up.
... then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate works."
Let's actually look at the GPL and see what it says, instead of letting Debian tell us what it means. First off, section 0 of the GPL clearly states that it operates under copyright law. This is important, and I'll return to it.
Section 2b is sometimes cited as a reason against Qt compatibility. It requires that derivations of KDE be licensed under the GPL. But Qt is not derived from KDE. So there is no requirement to license Qt under the GPL. This one is a no-brainer, and even the most virulant of Debian developers have long since abandoned this approach. The GPL even has a clarification on this point at the end of section 2: "If identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program
Section 3 is where most of the arguments come from. It includes the statement: "For an executable work, complete source code means all the source code for all modules it contains..." For some strange reason, a lot of people assume that Qt is a module of KDE. But remember section 0. The GPL is governed by copyright law, and not by the common idioms of hackers and developers. In a programmatic sense, Qt might be considered a module of KDE. But under copyright law it is not. It is not even considered a derivative work.
But just in case people still viewed certain libraries as modules or the Program as their derivatives, the GPL goes on to make an exception: "However, as a special exception, the source code distributed need not include anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component itself accompanies the executable." Qt, which is normally distributed with all distributions of Linux and GNU/Linux (Debian distributes Qt2), falls under this exception.
The phrase "unless that component itself accompanies the executable" trips up a lot of people. Whether or not Qt is actually accompanies KDE, or is merely aggregated with it in the same Debian directory is beside the point. The requirement is only that "Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2". First, the source code to Qt is available to users of KDE. Second, sections 1 and 2 include exceptions for stuff that is not derivative of the Program (KDE). All that needs doing is ensuring that the source code to Qt is available. It is.
If it is legal to distribute a GPLd program based on proprietary Motif, then it should be just as legal to distribute KDE based on Free Software Qt.
Section 6 is the "compatibility" clause. It says in part " Each time you redistribute the Program... You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein." But Qt is not the Program. KDE is! Copyright law does not allow anyone to impose restrictions on third parties. Any interpretation of this clause to mean that the GPL imposes restrictions on Qt is contrary to law.
Hopefully I have cleared up some confusion. In any case, don't take my word for it. Read the GPL for yourself, from top to bottom. If all else fails, rely on your common sense. The KDE Core Team has already given Debian permission to legally distribute KDE. That fact that they are still arguing over its legality seems to indicate that they simply don't want KDE, and would find yet another excuse not to distribute it even if Qt were to be made LGPL.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Could we PLEASE for a moment put aside the issue of who is right, and instead talk about what we are going to do? Maybe Debian's interpretation of the GPL/Qt incompatibility is legally sound, maybe it's not. Maybe the KDE group's opinion that there's no problem is correct, and maybe it isn't.
None of that is important. What is important is that we have two groups who are intractably set in their particular positions, with little or no hope that either side will change their minds.
Deadlock.
But -- that doesn't mean that nothing can be done.
I have a suggestion: It is possible to compromise on legal issues without admitting that you're wrong. For example, it would be possible (although tedious and time-consuming) for the KDE folks to add the requested exception to their license, even if they don't believe that it is legally necessary. Doing so would bring a wealth of benefits, IMHO, and wouldn't harm the KDE project at all, except for the loss of some time.
That is what the $3000 is for. Not to change their opinions about legal issues, but to initiate action. The $3000 is merely paying the KDE folks for the work involved in adding a feature, only in this case the feature is legal, not technical. The fact that none of the KDE people believe that they need this feature is beside the point.
Let me give you an example taken from Jewish religious teachings (Note: I'm not Jewish, I just find religions of all sorts interesting). There is this notion of a "hedge" or "fence" around God's law. That is, the law of God is visualized as a barrier which none may cross. So the elders of the society put up a human-made barrier in front of God's barrier so that no one will get anywhere near God's barrier. In other words, there is a human law which is stricter than God's law, so that no one will accidentally violate God's law.
In programming, we do this sort of thing all the time. Sure, we know that the operating system should manage memory and filehandles for us, but we bullet-proof and firewall our code just the same. Of couse, a purist might argue that such things aren't needed ("Why are you bothering to close those database cursors - the garbage collector does that for you. You're just adding uneeded redundancy!") but real programmers know that a little bit of redundancy and backup is a good thing.
So why should it be so objectionable to take the same approach with licensing. Contrary to many of the opinions stated here, licensing is important, just as ethics is important. Isn't it worth a little trouble to make sure that we dot all our i's and cross all our t's? Shouldn't we be absolutely sure that we get the effects we want?
I am a huge fan of both Debian and KDE. I want to see those two projects work together in accord with each other's principles (I was going to say "in harmony", but that would have been misinterpreted :-). I applaud Dr. Guenter Bechly's actions in this matter. In fact, if there were a "pool" set up for collecting additional funds for this reward, I would add money to it.
And PLEASE do not reply to this posting with statements such as "but it isn't necessary" or "KDE is wrong" or "Debian is wrong" or "it doesn't matter". If you do, you'll have completely missed the point.
"politeness doesn't scale." -- Talin
The point is that the author of a work should be free to choose her own license, and not have someone else impose their idea of the ?right? license upon it.
Absolutely correct.
And if an author chooses a license that states the equivalent of "You are forbiden from distributing binaries built from this code" you can trust Debian to comply with that license.
That is the case with the GPLed portions of KDE. The fact that others chose to ignore the license is not our concern.
Debian: GNU/Linux done the Linux way
Without meaning to troll here, it does seem as though KDE has started to become ascendant in the desktop 'war' and GNOME has become a bit more of a backwater recently; I think the earlier QT licence changes seem to have taken a lot of the impetus out of creating GNOME.
The fact that the free QT licence met all of RedHat's objections seems to have allowed KDE to almost become the defacto Linux desktop, and perhaps qualifying for Debian release is the last hurdle to overcome.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
/opt stands for optional. Its function in terms of Unices is to store things that are not part of the base distribution. Eg, anythign which isn't part of the the OS known as solaris lives in /opt.
This is completely irrelevant for Linux systems. There is no official Linux vendor, there is no official Linux set of applications,and quite obviously, peoples definition of optional varies widely.
Is KDE optional? Well I can run Linux without it, so yes.. What about GNU less? Well, I can make a distribution which doesn't use that either. That's optional too.
/usr/local is where third party apps which want their own directory tree should live.
Hope that's some use to someone!
Andrew.
I guess its kinda nice to see that someone is putting an effort together to resolve conflict in the free software community but I doubt that money will work. KDE is a nice desktop environment but the people who are behind it release Qt under their own license because of the fact that they don't want it to be free. If they would just release their code under the GNU GPL this would be over right now. But, I think since the people who work on the KDE project aren't interested in free software so much as one day making a dollar off of it that nothing will be resolved. The GNU GPL doesn't exclude making money from free software it just gives freedom to the user...which to me at least is the point of free software in the first place :-) I don't think that KDE should be made to do anything they don't want to do but I do think that they shouldn't be considered a free software project in the strictest sense of the word...see gnu.org for more information ;-)
I don't suppose you researched any of this before making your posting? Debian *has* a non-free section for software that is not DFSG-free; that is not the issue. The issue is that as it stands, most of KDE's code is technically illegal. GPL'd software cannot legally be linked with QPL'd software. Most distros make the assumption that the authors of the GPL'd code have given their implied permission to link against QPL'd libs, even if such permission is never explicitly stated; Debian refuses to make such an assumption. If you want non-free software you're still more than welcome to use the non-free section of the distribution; if you disagree with Debian's ideas, then you're still free to use something else and quit bitching.
Mike Markley - *NIX Sysadmin and all-around geek - finger for PGP key
For an explanation of the QPL, you'll have to look to someone else.
However, it doesn't matter. The issue isn't the QPL (at least not directly), it's that the QPL has requirements that the GPL doesn't. Since the GPL doesn't permit extra requirements (I'm putting this loosly -- IANAL) the GPL & QPL aren't compatable (i.e., code under both licenses can't be put together into a single derived work). Since they're incompatable, technicaly no one has the right to distribute such a derived work, which I understand much of KDE is.
Arguably, this is a technicality; certainly many distributions (e.g., Redhat) ignore it and move on. However, for lots of reasons, Debian isn't willing to ignore it and compromise their strict view on licensing. So despite the fact that they'd (probably) not be sued over it or anything, they're unwilling to distribute it at all -- even in non-free.
This has been the subject of many a flame war on debian-legal, and hopefuly this won't turn into another one.
HOWEVER, if you mark something meant to be funny as TROLL that is bad moderation. Do it repeatedly and I will have no sympathy for you when your account -1's and vanishes from slashdot.
It is YOUR responsibility to moderate appropriately, not mine!
If I were a maintainer, and saw someone offer $3000 for me to sell my beliefs, I think I might take this personally.
Anyway, heres what needs to happen. Qt very simply needs to be released under the LGPL or a BSD license. This isn't news to anyone, so lets figure out how this can happen. Heres my thoughts:
Thanks my $.02.
I have started using the yyyy/mm/dd format because it is the only format in Canada that doesn't get confused. I have often encountered the problem at work, where nobody knew if the document had been writtem US format or international format, as an example is the month May or October:
5/10/2000 ?
The problem isn't anything to do with Canadian intelligence, but because our company deals with both Americans and Canadians.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
By actually replying to it actually helps make it more noticable. If you don't reply, then it will simply get lost in the noise.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Debian has a set of ideals that they started with, and they are staying with. If you don't agree with them, don't use them. It's silly to try to convince them they are wrong, part of the point of multiple distributions is that you can choose your distribution for almost any reason. Ease of use, standardization, strict adherence to GPL.
Personally, in a society of people who think that every thought is only a shade of concept, and that there is no right/wrong, It's nice to see someone stand up for what they believe in.
-- Keith Moore
This sig is the express property of someone.
And the letter was signed...
Dr. Guenter Bechly
Staatliches Museum fuer Naturkunde Stuttgart
Abt. Palaeontologie - Sekt. Bernstein
Email (office): bechly@gmx.de Email (private): GBechly@gmx.de
Ummmm... exactly what's your point? If it is anti-German, then you have a lot to learn.
-legolas
i've looked at love from both sides now. from win and lose, and still somehow...
>then the same rules do not apply to you as they do for everyone else.
That certainly appears to be the case, doesn't it? Never heard of anyone being bitchslapped for moderating down posts by any other one poster, eh?
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
There's a forum on bitchslapping? If you happen to see this reply (guess it's about 3 days old) could you please reply with the sid?
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
The answer to this question might seem obvious, however it's not.
Not only did Debian purge all GPL'ed KDE code from their distribution but they also purged all LGPL'ed code!
Yes, that's right, some of the most important and most useful KDE code is LGPL'ed, yet a Debian developer filed a "fatal" bug report against this code and it was subsequently purged. Many people never realized this.
This issue has been brought up SEVERAL times with Debian, so it is not something that has simply been overlooked. It's something that is being ignored and I can only guess at the true reasons and motivations involved.
(Please browse at -1 to read this comment.)
Please name any European country in which the GPL has been ruled invalid. Hint: the answer is none; no country has so ruled.
And then a script (which could also be run from the command line) could be run that does the apt-get of the .deb files and installs "the rest of the system", for those that want it. The free-software-or-DIE crowd doesn't have to run the script, yes? But offer a CHOICE. Or do you Debian folks PH33R to facilitate free decisions and free thinking by the Linux user?
heh. the guy is also writing from europe, where the decimal is used like our comma
javajawa# sleep
Meh
This leads to the following suggestion. Have an extra disk, marked "partial", to go along with the main, source, extra, non-free and non-us.
The "partial" disk can contain GPLed code that has been dynamically linked to non-GPLed libraries, but WITHOUT including those non-GPLed libraries, on the basis that GPLed versions may be written, or the Qt licence may be replaced with the GPL.
IMHO, this solves the conundrum of KDE - free code barred from a free distribution on the basis of a decision made by an outside agency. Contain the problem, rather than quarantine the population.
IMHO, this makes more sense than licence tweaking, as that just adds to the proliferation. If the Governments of the world can agree to Nuclear Arms Reduction Treaties and Non-Proliferation Treaties, then Open Source coders can establish Licence Reduction Treaties and Licence Non-Proliferation Treaties.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
There are several potential solutions:
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
The post and the attached letter seem to be saying two different things.
The post seems to imply that someone is trying to bribe Debian to include KDE with their next release. If that's the case I'm against it; I may or may not follow Debian's ideals but I do think it would be a shame for those ideals to be compromised.
However, the letter seems to say that this is just some guy offering $3000 to KDE if they'll add an exception to the GPL in their license, thus rendering it compatible with KDE. Frankly, I don't know why the hell the KDE team didn't just do this in the beginning. If they had only done that then The Licensing Wars would never have started, Troll would get to keep their precious pseudo-Free license unaltered, KDE would stay GPL, there would be no licensing conflict, Debian could have included KDE, and everyone would have been happy. Of course, then there would have been no entertaining flamewars on Slashdot, but I think that's a small price to pay.
Is this just a case of submission (or posting) error? The post makes this seem like some potential scandal, but the letter by itself is hardly that at all.
ARGH! I suck, sorry 'bout that. It's too early in the morning for me to have coherent thoughts.
--
Don't dodge the issue. You had no justification for posting with the +1 bonus, yet you did so. I called you on it; why did you make no reference whatsoever to this in your reply?
You've managed to tie people up in enough knots that some even take your side, but I have yet to see a single (on-topic) post of yours that could be considered to be a valid opinion, as opposed to one that you made up on the spot to get moderated upwards. (The reason why I specify "on-topic" is that I've seen more than enough of your off-topic posts.) I don't expect you to change; that's probably just the way you are - a shallow person that longs for some form of recognition. That's fine - but DON'T spray your drivel in places where others have to see it.
Günter Bechly posted links to the Debain side of the issue, here is a similar page written by the KDE people...
SPF support for most open source mail servers can be found at libspf2.
Seems pretty straightforward to me. You have to get all the developers to add this change to their licenses. I don't know how many this means but on sych a large project it could be a monumental task.
I am unaware of any rules governing the use of +1 karma bonus. To
what are you referring to when you talk of the lack of justification
for using the +1 bonus?
The GPL includes an exemption for code that is considered to be "system libraries", but adds a clause that the "system libraries" and the executable itself cannot be distributed together.
Ahhh, ok. Would Qt count as a system library? It should, if the Win32 UI libs do, because they play the same role.
--
So because you *may* have made some good points in the past you think you now have the right to post this crap?
Adam
http://www.internatif.org/bortzmeyer/debian/apt-so urces/
I use:
CCYYMMDDHHMMSS when I write a date, with HH being in 24hr format, and HH MM and SS being optional.
Lowmag.net
ugh.. after years and years I still have trouble switching to american dates. who made that up anyway, a date notation of MM/DD/YYYY ?
YYYY/MM/DD or DD/MM/YYYY is more logical.
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
Now I'm *really* confused. I just started thinking... the GPL doesn't allow linking to closed libraries? That kinda weakens it a bit, in my mind. Doesn't that mean you can't write GPL'ed Windows programs? I understand that you can't link closed programs to GPL'ed libraries, but I didn't think there were any restrictions going the other way.
And if this isn't the case, what's the fuss about? KDE is GPL'ed, Qt isn't, but that's ok, right? The only problem would be if it were the other way around. Or am i just braindead at this ungodly hour of the morning?
--
I opened up Slashdot this morning, saw this article and thought: "Oh boy!", I was honestly excited.
But I came to realize how pathetic that is, and this realization led to me to a life reevaluation.
Things will change!
I am now moving to a llama farm in kentucky.
Just because something is meant to be funny doesn't mean it is... As such, we may not know that it was meant to be funny and only think it was meant to annoy people reading Slashdot. Therefore, it is a troll.
Adam
a) Sometimes, if I'm in a hurry I forget to tick the 'No Score +1' box
b) One of the little known effects of posting at +2 is that it means that if you have written something which gets moderated up is that you acquire less karma for the post.
e.g
article at +1 to +5 adds 4 points to your karma.
article at +2 to +5 adds only 3 points to your karma.
c) If this had started at +1, it would already be at +2 and thus above most peoples threshold setting anyway.
d) This is reasonably funny, more or less on topic and therefore IMO would qualify for a +1 funny if I was moderating instead of posting. Other people may disagree with me, but that's moderation for you.
e) Maybe Slashdot should allow you to do your own moderating - for those with a sense of humor failure it should have a checkbox to block out humourous posts.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
How many of us are willing to pay off the Trolls? Gunther is willing to give $3000 (or is it $3) for a bad work-around (bad because we now have another extra legal loop to go around.... e.g. I want to port a kde app to gnome, must I license it with the QT qualifier? Must I send my source to the Trolls?) and I would be willing to give a few bucks (i.e. buy a boxed distro). So who will step up to the mark?
- IBM, SGI or
.... One of the bigger companies who can afford it as a publicity issue. - Microsoft. They could do it so that they can use qt work etc on windows but let's face it this is unlikely
- Gnu, FSF. A fund-raising campaign to put this to bed for once. Could they have the readies in time for QT2?
- Us. Anyone have any ideas for a real way to collect money online so that it can be bought buy the people for the people?
At the end of the day who cares if MS get it for free aswell, so long as we can all ensure that we have a free computer software system, and who couldn't care less as long as they can compile and run what they want?Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
Signal11
Signal 11
Signail 11
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Please explain how Sig's post is even remotely on-topic... It has nothing to do with KDE or debian or licensing.
Adam
This is actually a problem with the GPL, I think. (oh, I can see the flames already) Here's the issue as I understand it.
I write program X under the GPL, but in order for it to work with, say, device D, I have to link in libraries from the company that makes device D. I now can't distribute program X so long as it needs the device D libraries, unless I can get the company to change their license?
This is a little absurd. The GPL is noble and all, but in this case it becomes a 'We won't play with you unless you use our ball' argument, and unfairly restricts the abilities of GNU programmers to accomplish what they wish to accomplish. If the maker of a device won't use the GPL, and we need their libraries to make a product work, we should be able to distribute the library under its original license and still link against it.
There is an easy solution for those who like both Debian and KDE.
Make a merged distribution of Debian and Corel lite and make an instalation script, which either adds Corel KDE to after the Debian installation or the other way arund.
No Licence cosmetics is necessary, since it
makes a ".dpkg" distribution that does not blame
Debian.org for not being GPL othodox.
Did I just win $3k? Tell me why not!
Petrus
Yet another self-serving post made up to look like you're a reasonable person.
Your karma isn't a reflection of any particular "worth" inherent in your posts; it just indicates that your campaign to fool the
And as for your bit about the moderation system - of course you want people to use the moderation system; that's how you raise your karma, isn;t it? So how do you justify the bitchslap, then - because that sure looks to me like the moderation system isn;t working properly (at least in your case.)
The mod system was designed to handle posts by either sincere people posting on-topic posts, or those taking advantage of
My justification is the 500 karma points I earned due to good posting, including the times I used my +2 bonus.
That's fine - but DON'T spray your drivel in places where others have to see it.
You know, there's this thing.. called the moderation system.. and it was designed specifically to address that problem. Use it!
I thought the QT deal was a system library (like GTK+) for drawing widgets and such to the screen...
If it is a system library, then the GPL should be used in KDE.
What am I missing on this? What have I overlooked?
ed
Nobody cared enough to fix it. It's not quite as easy as you say; for instance, all the GPL-QT example code needs to be expunged too. At the time, it was (incorrectly) believed that the LGPL libraries included the GPL gettext code (it actually included the LGPL gettext code from libc.) Once again, it takes work to do this - the people to look at are the Debian developers who currently package KDE (unofficially - see kde.tydc.com). Ask they why they haven't package the kdelibs for Debian. They are the logical ones to do it.
Your replies on this have been nothing more then thinly veiled hatred and contempt and I will not continue to cater to your insecurities by replying anymore to your posts. Good day.
Malda mentioned it when he originally announced the moderation system; the use of the +1 bonus should only be used for posts that other readers would appreciate, rather than your own personal gain (which in this case definitely applies, considering that Sig11 made his +1 post at a time when there were NO other posts in this story above one, thereby putting him at the top for those browsing with "highest moderation first" on. This would suggest that Sig11 considered his post to be more worthy than any of the ON-TOPIC posts that were sitting at 1.)
You should check your information. kdelibs was/is in the Debian incoming queue for SEVERAL months. It's probably still there for all we know.
(Please browse at -1 to read this comment.)
AFAIK there is a ISO standard that says it should be YYYY-MM-DD. Try GNU date with the -I switch. Only country that uses it is Sweden though =).
return -ENOSIG;
That is irrelevant. If you hold the rights to the code you can change the GPL to allow an exception. The GPL means to prevent those that DO wish to combine GPL code (that they do not hold copyright to) with proprietary code.
Nothing to do with debian, licensing or KDE (but it managed to mention Gnomes); but it was on topic in the sense it was a joke about offering rewards (involving Linux).
IIRC, Sig11 has not posted this joke before, or posted it multiple times; he's hardly going to break the karma system over this. Anyway, if he has got 500 odd karma points, the odd one or two gained or lost will hardly hurt.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
No, they don't need a program.
Um, yes they do. What good is a library that NO programs use? If that ends up being the case, they completely wasted their time.
"I am one poster, and just like everyone else am governed by the same rules under this system."
If, as BJH says, individuals have been bitchslapped for moderating you appropriately, then the same rules do not apply to you as they do for everyone else.
Adam
Hmmm, think it's mostly the scandinavian countries that uses YYYY/MM/DD. The rest uses DD/MM/YYYY. think there was a process long time ago (1970s?) where all european countries was supposed to standardize on YYYY/MM/DD, most european countries didn't give a damn, but of course sweden (as the rule-loving country it is *s*) they jumped on it. (can't really speak for the rest of scandinavia, not sure what they use)
if (!signature) { throw std::runtime_error("No sig!"); }