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Re: [LMAO] El Reg: "GPLv2 - copyright code or contract?"


From: David Kastrup
Subject: Re: [LMAO] El Reg: "GPLv2 - copyright code or contract?"
Date: Sun, 18 Oct 2009 18:01:43 +0200
User-agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.1.50 (gnu/linux)

Tim Smith <reply_in_group@mouse-potato.com> writes:

> In article <8763acztoq.fsf@lola.goethe.zz>, David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org> 
> wrote:
>> >
>> > The KDE developers were operating in good faith when they dynamically
>> > linked to non-GPL Qt. This is allowed under GPLv2, because Qt was
>> > something normally distributed with the components of the operating
>> > system on which KDE ran.
>> >
>> > But the FSF threw a fit over this, until the makers of Qt changed the
>> > license.
>> 
>> Huh?  Qt was not merely licensed "non-GPL" but non-free.  KDE relied on
>
> It was not non-free.

The license, among other things, prohibited porting to Windows.  There
were quite a number of terms that put Trolltech into a special position
with regard to changes and redistribution.

The license went through several iterations.  I think there was a final
time span of about a year where it was indeed meeting the criteria for
free software, but was still GPL-incompatible.  And thus not worthwhile
for GNU.

-- 
David Kastrup


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