[ILUG] RMS: KDE in violation of GPL

[Paul Jakma]

On Wed, 6 Sep 2000, Ruairi Newman wrote:

> 
> Paul,
> 
> The applications in question are kmidi & kghostscript.  Both
> applications are GPL'd.  The libraries on which they RELY are not GPL'd
> but at worst I would consider this to create a grey area in this issue.
> 

"2b: 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.

[snip]

3: The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for
making modifications to it. For an executable work, complete source
code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any
associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to
control compilation and installation of the executable. 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 would perhaps fall under associated interface definition files (i
think). Otherwise it is part of the work. Whaterver, it is not
normally distributed as part of the major components of an operating
system.

> To be clear on the matter I have just re-read the GPL (v2), and cannot
> find any clause restricting the inclusion of GPL'd code into a second
> GPL'd application, regardless of whether or not the second application
> is linked against non-GPL'd libs.
> 

to link is to include code. it's just dynamic linking makes it look
as if the 2 bodies of code are seperate. But they are not, at runtime
they are one body of code. 

To clarify this: imagine if you statically compiled the QT libs into a
KDE app. (there's no difference from the POV of the KDE code).

> 
> No, they didn't.  All of the code in KDE is GPL'd.  QT isn't, but GPL'd
> code wasn't incorporated into QT.

The GPL code on it's own is useless. It must call code in the QT
library. Hence the KDE app is derived from the QT app. The QT licence
is not GPL compatible, hence the KDE code is not GPL.

> If I'm missing something here please let me know with a slightly more
> helpful statement than "you don't understand the GPL."
> 

KDE is not GPL compatible because of QT. 

The problem is not in the terms of the GPL licence, it is that KDE
is incompatible with the GPL and cannot be licenced under it.

> Thanks,
> 
> Ruairi
> 
> 

--paulj