Re: OFFTOPIC: GTK and alternative GUIs and windowing systems in Linux

George (jirka@5z.com)
Wed, 11 Feb 1998 02:21:13 -0800


> >> Sorry to disagree but qt is not free. It is owned by Troll Tech. There
> >> is a *significant* difference here you have *obviously* missed. Troll
> >> Tech or whoever owns qt can cease its current distribution policy *at
> >> their discretion at any time*. Where will KDE be then?
>
> So could Linus. (The parts that are his anyway, leaving you with a quite
> useless pile'o crap kernel tree)

existing code HAS to be GPL, you can't change a license on RELEASED
source code, by Linus changing the license, all that would ahppen is
Linus would be out of kernel developing (and of course he would be the
one left with the useless pile of code since he could not use the other
code, while the rest of us could use his parts without problems) ....
this is the greatest strengths of GPL ...

but I'm fairly sure that Linus won't do that ...
1) he wouldn't gain much
2) he's just a real nice guy ... (I guess:)

anyhow ... if Qt license is changed, yes KDE can use the current free
version (as far as I understand their license) .... the point is, if they
change the license, NO-ONE can release another version except troll, and
if they decide to release that under a different license ...

George

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
George Lebl <jirka@5z.com> http://www.5z.com/jirka/
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While some may have the year 2000  | $ emacs
problem, my 64-bit alpha's got the | bash: emacs: command not found
year 292471208677 problem          | YES!!

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