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RE: [Fwd: FYI: Debian draft license.] and others.
> > Well, after what looked like a promising tone coming from the Debian
> > crew it looks like they really are trying to change the DFSG to be
> > incompatible with the QPL. I'm saddened to see such behavior, but I
> > guess it should of been expected. It is a shame that standards such as
> > the DFSG may become a moving target and changed at the whim of a few
> > developers.
>
The way I see it th original DFSG has some loopholes which would
condone QPL, even if it is against the spirit of free software.
Also, modifications to QPL'd software can't be distributed under
QPL, what is clearly agains the DFSG. And QPL isn't still compatible
with GPL.
To see how QPL is against the spirit of freedom, you need just
remember that the mechanism of distribution with patches is the same
as that used for Minix. Now a guy from Finland named Linus Torvalds
found it so clumsy he just started coding his own kernel.
That's why we still need Project Harmony (aka GPL'd Qt), or better
still GNOME. QPL is not about freedom, it is about giving Troll
control.
> I have heard the argument, but I haven't heard any real argument why it
> wouldn't just be ok to ship Qt with the OS. Something SuSE does do, and
> Red Hat could do.
>
> One difference between SuSE and Red Hat is that the former operates in a
> country where people don't sue each other over coffee being too hot. Oh,
> well,
>
> Linus
One thing Linus seems to be unable to understand is that without a
good license, we are at the mercy of anyone who wants to sabotage us.
For example, one could contribute a piece of code which is incompatible
with GPL, still becomes central to Linux. Then we discover his name is
William Gates III, and he sues us and we have to stop distributing the
packages which depend on it but have an incompatible license -- such as
QPL.
0---5----1----5----2----5----3----5----4----5----5----5----6----5----7--
This is something Linus and Eric Raymond could learn from the FSF
and
Richard Stallman
> Well, since there are some (me included) who prefer that KDE will win in
the
> long run
KDE depends on Qt; Qt makes us dependant on TrollTech. QPL is so
clumsy, it seems to have been designed just to fit into the DFSG while
still allowing Troll to control it.
GNOME means freedom, and also technical excellence -- that is, not
being locked into C++.
Leandro Guimaraens Faria Corcete Dutra
Amdocs Brasil Ltda