Re: KDE vs. Gnome?

["Brian F. Kimball" <bfk footbag org>]

On Thu, Jun 22, 2000 at 08:12:31AM -0400, Poletti, Don wrote:
 
> The GTK widget set that gnome is based on is NOT GPLed its
> LGPL. That is the Library General public license.

s/Library/Lesser/

> This means
> that I can write a commercial application for GNOME (using the
> gnome/gtk libraries) and charge money for it.

The GPL does not place any monetary restrictions on the sale of binaries
built from derivative works.

Perhaps you meant "proprietary" (closed source) instead of "commercial"?

> Now I have a few 
> software programs that I want to release and they will be GPL
> but I think for GNOME to be successful the OS has to be free
> for commercial use.

The GPL and the LGPL are copyright licenses, not EULAs, and as such only
govern the act of copying.  They do not and cannot place restrictions on
use.

You say your apps will be GPL and yet you have not read it?  The very
first section in the GPL states...

	"Activities other than copying, distribution and modification
	are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope.
	The act of running the Program is not restricted, and the output
	from the Program is covered only if its contents constitute a
	work based on the Program (independent of having been made by
	running the Program). Whether that is true depends on what the
	Program does."

> KDE on the other hand is released QPL.

No, the toolkit (Qt) used by KDE applications is QPL.  The KDE libraries
are mostly LGPL and the licenses for the applications vary.

> These means its free [...]

Beware, portions of KDE cannot be distributed legally.  The QPL is not
compatible with the GPL, under which some KDE applications are licensed.

Suggested reading:

http://www.gnu.org/
http://www.opensource.org/
http://freshmeat.net/news/2000/06/17/961300740.html