[plug] Perth 19 & cloudy, Sydney 17 & fine, Hades -2 & snow.

[The Thought Assassin]

On Tue, 5 Sep 2000, Bret Busby wrote:
> The Thought Assassin wrote:
> > I think the URL provides its own commentary.
> > http://www.trolltech.com/company/announce/gpl.html
> > The dawn of the Free desktop is upon us.
> Does that mean that the licensing problem with KDE <is solved>.
Yes. In rough terms, KDE is released under a license (the GPL) which
forbids (in general) linking to non-GPL software. KDE only works, though,
when it is linked to the Qt libraries, which were not available under the
GPL. This effectively meant that distribution of KDE was disallowed by the
license it was distributed under. Once Qt is available under the GPL, the
problem will no longer exist.

> or, with software developed for KDE
There is no direct effect on software developed for KDE, but since most
software developed for KDE uses the Qt library, it is now much easier to
write GPLed software for KDE, and to adapt the vast wealth of existing GPL
software for KDE integration. Happy days.

-Greg Mildenhall