Freshmeat: Why Debian Doesn't Include KDE | Linux Today

Freshmeat: Why Debian Doesn’t Include KDE

Written By
Web Webster
Web Webster
Jun 18, 2000

“I can’t say I expect this message to be seen at this stage
amidst all the confusion that a KDE-license-problems message on
Slashdot usually entails, but I feel I must nevertheless write it
as someone directly involved.”

I am a Debian developer. I’m also one of the people who
worked with Troll Tech in writing the QPL, the license under which
Qt version 2 is licensed. I made it through several revisions with
them and am even mentioned on their page for the efforts I put into
it. I took a lot of fire from a lot of people on a lot of different
sides for my work. I’m not sure it was worth it.

“My goal was a license which met our Debian Free Software
Guidelines and was also compatible with the GPL. I succeeded with
the former, but apparently not the latter. The reaction from
commercial distributions such as Red Hat often makes me wonder if
my “victory” in a free Qt license was actually miserable
defeat.”

Complete
Story

Web Webster

Web Webster

Web Webster has more than 20 years of writing and editorial experience in the tech sector. He’s written and edited news, demand generation, user-focused, and thought leadership content for business software solutions, consumer tech, and Linux Today, he edits and writes for a portfolio of tech industry news and analysis websites including webopedia.com, and DatabaseJournal.com.

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