Troll Tech [was RE: Sco vs. IBM]

Troll Tech [was RE: Sco vs. IBM]

[Downing, Thomas]

I'm no authority, but IMHO
 
> In article <20030619141443.GR29247@fs.tum.de>,
> Adrian Bunk  <bunk@fs.tum.de> wrote:
> >There's no license reason today why there are two big 
> desktop projects 
> >(GNOME and KDE).
> 
> There is. If you want to develop a commercial application under
> KDE you need to pay TrollTech for the Qt license. Basically
> TrollTech controls all commercial KDE applications.

No, you don't, IFF you distribute the source code.  Doesn't make
a lot of sense though.  So consider, a for-profit company licenses
QT for a proprietary app.  They send bug fixes/enhancements to QT
to TrollTech.  If these migrate to Free QT, you're ahead of the game.
If they don't, what did you lose?
 
> Which makes no sense. You're not at the mercy of Linus or the
> kernel developers, neither at that of the KDE developers, but
> TrollTech controls the KDE desktop wrt commercial apps.

No, they don't.  KDE uses the GPL for QT.  If I build a commercial
app using KDE, it is GPL.  If I build a commercial app not using
KDE, but using commercial QT, that has no effect on the KDE desktop.
 
> What if TrollTech decides to only license (or sell) Qt
> to, say, Microsoft? What does that mean for, say, the Kompany ?

They can't.  They released the code under GPL.  They can stop maintaining
that code, and continue on a proprietary track.  If they did, what
did you lose?

In summary, QT -> GPL, GNOME - GPL, what about _that_ makes one or
the other inherently preferable or better?

P.S. for once I am in complete agreement with larry m. ;-)

Re: Troll Tech [was RE: Sco vs. IBM]

[Jesse Pollard]

On Thursday 19 June 2003 12:37, Downing, Thomas wrote:
> I'm no authority, but IMHO
>
> > In article <20030619141443.GR29247@fs.tum.de>,
> >
> > Adrian Bunk  <bunk@fs.tum.de> wrote:
[snip]
> > Which makes no sense. You're not at the mercy of Linus or the
> > kernel developers, neither at that of the KDE developers, but
> > TrollTech controls the KDE desktop wrt commercial apps.
>
> No, they don't.  KDE uses the GPL for QT.  If I build a commercial
> app using KDE, it is GPL.  If I build a commercial app not using
> KDE, but using commercial QT, that has no effect on the KDE desktop.

Lets see...

SCO releases Linux code under GPL...
IBM releases code based on Linux...
SCO now changes mind...

And the lawyers gather...

Personally, I don't see a difference...

Re: Troll Tech [was RE: Sco vs. IBM]

[Thorsten Körner]

Hi Jesse
Am Donnerstag, 19. Juni 2003 20:58 schrieb Jesse Pollard:
> On Thursday 19 June 2003 12:37, Downing, Thomas wrote:
> > I'm no authority, but IMHO
> >
> > > In article <20030619141443.GR29247@fs.tum.de>,
> > >
> > > Adrian Bunk  <bunk@fs.tum.de> wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
> > > Which makes no sense. You're not at the mercy of Linus or the
> > > kernel developers, neither at that of the KDE developers, but
> > > TrollTech controls the KDE desktop wrt commercial apps.
> >
> > No, they don't.  KDE uses the GPL for QT.  If I build a commercial
> > app using KDE, it is GPL.  If I build a commercial app not using
> > KDE, but using commercial QT, that has no effect on the KDE desktop.
>
> Lets see...
>
> SCO releases Linux code under GPL...
Did they ?!? No they didn't
They are talking about old Unix-Licenses, not about Linux. And SCO also has 
not licensed Unix to IBM themselves.

CU
Thorsten

Re: Troll Tech [was RE: Sco vs. IBM]

[Jesse Pollard]

On Thursday 19 June 2003 14:08, Thorsten Körner wrote:
> Hi Jesse
>
> Am Donnerstag, 19. Juni 2003 20:58 schrieb Jesse Pollard:
> > On Thursday 19 June 2003 12:37, Downing, Thomas wrote:
> > > I'm no authority, but IMHO
> > >
> > > > In article <20030619141443.GR29247@fs.tum.de>,
> > > >
> > > > Adrian Bunk  <bunk@fs.tum.de> wrote:
> >
> > [snip]
> >
> > > > Which makes no sense. You're not at the mercy of Linus or the
> > > > kernel developers, neither at that of the KDE developers, but
> > > > TrollTech controls the KDE desktop wrt commercial apps.
> > >
> > > No, they don't.  KDE uses the GPL for QT.  If I build a commercial
> > > app using KDE, it is GPL.  If I build a commercial app not using
> > > KDE, but using commercial QT, that has no effect on the KDE desktop.
> >
> > Lets see...
> >
> > SCO releases Linux code under GPL...
>
> Did they ?!? No they didn't
> They are talking about old Unix-Licenses, not about Linux. And SCO also has
> not licensed Unix to IBM themselves.

It was my understanding that you could download SCO Linux up until about a 
month after they started the lawsuit. By that time, all/most of the contested
code had to already be in the kernel. Since SCO was supplying it, it was 
released (my opinion).

IMHO IBM AIX doesn't owe anything to SCO. Sure in the early days, IBM did 
consider using System V... but it had so many problems being ported that they
completely dropped it, and continued with AIX development instead.

I've used both.. and believe me, AIX doesn't work ANYTHING like System V. no
virtualization (disks), no partitioning (systems), no distributed operations, 
minimal networking, no Power support... (this was a 202e prototype at the 
time I believe...

All of that belonged to AIX. which even had SMP beginnings (some platforms).
Even shared memory was not exactly working well on System V (semaphores were
very slow).

Re: Troll Tech [was RE: Sco vs. IBM]

[Richard B. Johnson]

On Thu, 19 Jun 2003, Jesse Pollard wrote:

> On Thursday 19 June 2003 14:08, Thorsten Körner wrote:
> > Hi Jesse
> >
> > Am Donnerstag, 19. Juni 2003 20:58 schrieb Jesse Pollard:
> > > On Thursday 19 June 2003 12:37, Downing, Thomas wrote:
> > > > I'm no authority, but IMHO
> > > >
> > > > > In article <20030619141443.GR29247@fs.tum.de>,
> > > > >
> > > > > Adrian Bunk  <bunk@fs.tum.de> wrote:
> > >
> > > [snip]
> > >
> > > > > Which makes no sense. You're not at the mercy of Linus or the
> > > > > kernel developers, neither at that of the KDE developers, but
> > > > > TrollTech controls the KDE desktop wrt commercial apps.
> > > >
> > > > No, they don't.  KDE uses the GPL for QT.  If I build a commercial
> > > > app using KDE, it is GPL.  If I build a commercial app not using
> > > > KDE, but using commercial QT, that has no effect on the KDE desktop.
> > >
> > > Lets see...
> > >
> > > SCO releases Linux code under GPL...
> >
> > Did they ?!? No they didn't
> > They are talking about old Unix-Licenses, not about Linux. And SCO also has
> > not licensed Unix to IBM themselves.
>
> It was my understanding that you could download SCO Linux up until about a
> month after they started the lawsuit. By that time, all/most of the contested
> code had to already be in the kernel. Since SCO was supplying it, it was
> released (my opinion).
>
> IMHO IBM AIX doesn't owe anything to SCO. Sure in the early days, IBM did
> consider using System V... but it had so many problems being ported that they
> completely dropped it, and continued with AIX development instead.
>
> I've used both.. and believe me, AIX doesn't work ANYTHING like System V. no
> virtualization (disks), no partitioning (systems), no distributed operations,
> minimal networking, no Power support... (this was a 202e prototype at the
> time I believe...
>
> All of that belonged to AIX. which even had SMP beginnings (some platforms).
> Even shared memory was not exactly working well on System V (semaphores were
> very slow).


If something is so well known that somebody skilled in
the art could reconstruct it. That, having been abandoned
by many over 20 years, if I have a license to use it,
having paid for this license before it became obsolete
many years ago, do I have the privilege of suing those
who acquired knowledge of how to build it from public
information? I think not. And, the first line of defense
against such frivolous lawsuits was supposed to have been
the lawyers. I hope that IBM does not settle out-of-court
and takes the challenge. Once it gets into court there
are going to be some Lawyers who lose their licenses to
practice law.

This is how you stop this kind of abuse. Typically large
companies will decide to settle some claim against them
when the accountants total up how much money it will cost
to defend against the suit. They make some "deal" in
which they admit no wrongdoing, but simply pay off the
extortionists. This is how many of these instances are
"resolved". Unfortunately, this resolution leaves the
door open for other extortionists and the situation
continues.


Cheers,
Dick Johnson
Penguin : Linux version 2.4.20 on an i686 machine (797.90 BogoMips).
Why is the government concerned about the lunatic fringe? Think about it.

Re: Troll Tech [was RE: Sco vs. IBM]

[Thorsten Körner]

Am Donnerstag, 19. Juni 2003 21:30 schrieb Jesse Pollard:
> On Thursday 19 June 2003 14:08, Thorsten Körner wrote:
> > Hi Jesse
> >
> > Am Donnerstag, 19. Juni 2003 20:58 schrieb Jesse Pollard:
> > > On Thursday 19 June 2003 12:37, Downing, Thomas wrote:
> > > > I'm no authority, but IMHO
> > > >
> > > > > In article <20030619141443.GR29247@fs.tum.de>,
> > > > >
> > > > > Adrian Bunk  <bunk@fs.tum.de> wrote:
> > >
> > > [snip]
> > >
> > > > > Which makes no sense. You're not at the mercy of Linus or the
> > > > > kernel developers, neither at that of the KDE developers, but
> > > > > TrollTech controls the KDE desktop wrt commercial apps.
> > > >
> > > > No, they don't.  KDE uses the GPL for QT.  If I build a commercial
> > > > app using KDE, it is GPL.  If I build a commercial app not using
> > > > KDE, but using commercial QT, that has no effect on the KDE desktop.
> > >
> > > Lets see...
> > >
> > > SCO releases Linux code under GPL...
> >
> > Did they ?!? No they didn't
> > They are talking about old Unix-Licenses, not about Linux. And SCO also
> > has not licensed Unix to IBM themselves.
>
> It was my understanding that you could download SCO Linux up until about a
> month after they started the lawsuit. By that time, all/most of the
> contested code had to already be in the kernel. Since SCO was supplying it,
> it was released (my opinion).
The lawsuit has nothing to do with Caldera or SCO-Linux. It's to make money.
The SCO-People seem to have read the book "How to make money while doing 
nothing" ;-)
>
> IMHO IBM AIX doesn't owe anything to SCO. Sure in the early days, IBM did
> consider using System V... but it had so many problems being ported that
> they completely dropped it, and continued with AIX development instead.
>
> I've used both.. and believe me, AIX doesn't work ANYTHING like System V.
> no virtualization (disks), no partitioning (systems), no distributed
> operations, minimal networking, no Power support... (this was a 202e
> prototype at the time I believe...
>
> All of that belonged to AIX. which even had SMP beginnings (some
> platforms). Even shared memory was not exactly working well on System V
> (semaphores were very slow).

That maybe right, I've never used AIX. But one single line of code would be 
enough for SCO. And I think there maybe some more than one line. Surely is it 
old code. But they say it's owned by IBM.
I hope that one day jugdes will stop companies and people from making money 
that dark way. But I think that this hope is slightly irrealistic.

CU
Thorsten

Re: Troll Tech [was RE: Sco vs. IBM]

[Robert L. Harris]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1082 bytes --]

Thus spake Thorsten K?rner (thorstenkoerner@123tkshop.org):
> >
> > It was my understanding that you could download SCO Linux up until about a
> > month after they started the lawsuit. By that time, all/most of the
> > contested code had to already be in the kernel. Since SCO was supplying it,
> > it was released (my opinion).
> The lawsuit has nothing to do with Caldera or SCO-Linux. It's to make money.
> The SCO-People seem to have read the book "How to make money while doing 
> nothing" ;-)
> >

Bingo...  These guys make a living sueing people:

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/06/19/1245254&mode=thread&tid=106&tid=185&tid=187&tid=88


:wq!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert L. Harris                     | GPG Key ID: E344DA3B
                                         @ x-hkp://pgp.mit.edu 
DISCLAIMER:
      These are MY OPINIONS ALONE.  I speak for no-one else.

Diagnosis: witzelsucht  	

IPv6 = robert@ipv6.rdlg.net	http://ipv6.rdlg.net
IPv4 = robert@mail.rdlg.net	http://www.rdlg.net

[-- Attachment #2: Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 189 bytes --]

Re: Troll Tech [was RE: Sco vs. IBM]

[Erik Hensema]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1536 bytes --]

Jesse Pollard (jesse@cats-chateau.net) wrote:
> On Thursday 19 June 2003 14:08, Thorsten Körner wrote:
>> Did they ?!? No they didn't
>> They are talking about old Unix-Licenses, not about Linux. And SCO also has
>> not licensed Unix to IBM themselves.
> 
> It was my understanding that you could download SCO Linux up until about a 
> month after they started the lawsuit. By that time, all/most of the contested
> code had to already be in the kernel. Since SCO was supplying it, it was 
> released (my opinion).

Not conciously. I'm not familiar with USA laws, but under Dutch laws, you
have to consiously be aware of your actions. SCO can claim they are tricked
into distributing (not releasing) propietary code under the GPL.
> 
> IMHO IBM AIX doesn't owe anything to SCO. Sure in the early days, IBM did 
> consider using System V... but it had so many problems being ported that they
> completely dropped it, and continued with AIX development instead.

Please remember that this is a *legal* issue, and most of us here are
coders. We may *think* we understand the issues, but we (at least I am) are
looking at it as coders, not lawyers.

> I've used both.. and believe me, AIX doesn't work ANYTHING like System V. no
> virtualization (disks), no partitioning (systems), no distributed operations, 
> minimal networking, no Power support... (this was a 202e prototype at the 
> time I believe...

Doesn't matter. SCO claims that relatively tiny portions of their unix were
copied into Linux.

-- 
Erik Hensema <erik@hensema.net>

Re: Troll Tech [was RE: Sco vs. IBM]

[Jesse Pollard]

On Thursday 19 June 2003 15:18, Erik Hensema wrote:
> Jesse Pollard (jesse@cats-chateau.net) wrote:
>
[snip]
>
> > I've used both.. and believe me, AIX doesn't work ANYTHING like System V.
> > no virtualization (disks), no partitioning (systems), no distributed
> > operations, minimal networking, no Power support... (this was a 202e
> > prototype at the time I believe...
>
> Doesn't matter. SCO claims that relatively tiny portions of their unix were
> copied into Linux.

Or is it the other way...

Since the "tiny portions" were (reportedly) not supplied with dates, how does
one know which way any copying may have been done?

This ends up with Mark Twains reponse to the senator who took offense when
told "I have a book with every word of your speech in it...".

The senator was sent a copy of a dictionary.

Re: Troll Tech [was RE: Sco vs. IBM]

[Richard Braakman]

On Thu, Jun 19, 2003 at 02:30:02PM -0500, Jesse Pollard wrote:
> It was my understanding that you could download SCO Linux up until about a 
> month after they started the lawsuit. By that time, all/most of the contested
> code had to already be in the kernel. Since SCO was supplying it, it was 
> released (my opinion).

They're STILL distributing Linux.

  ftp://ftp.sco.com/pub/updates/OpenLinux/3.1.1/Workstation/CSSA-2003-020.0/SRPMS/linux-2.4.13-21D.src.rpm

I got the url from
  http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=10018
which is itself an interesting article: it reports on an anonymous
kernel developer sending a cease & desist to SCO/Caldera to stop
distributing that file.

And I checked, the file is still there.

Richard Braakman

Re: Troll Tech [was RE: Sco vs. IBM]

[Scott McDermott]

Thorsten Körner on Thu 19/06 21:08 +0200:
> > SCO releases Linux code under GPL...
>
> Did they ?!? No they didn't

I recall a fellow named Tigran Aivazian submitting lots of
kernel patches from an @sco.com address, for one.  And then
there's Caldera OpenLinux, of course.  I don't think it's
relevant though...they can submit as much GPLed code as they
want and still claim a violation of a contract pertaining to
some other non-GPLed code that was copied into Linux.

Re: Troll Tech [was RE: Sco vs. IBM]

[Thorsten Körner]

Hi Scott
Am Donnerstag, 19. Juni 2003 21:31 schrieb Scott McDermott:
> Thorsten Körner on Thu 19/06 21:08 +0200:
> > > SCO releases Linux code under GPL...
> >
> > Did they ?!? No they didn't
>
> I recall a fellow named Tigran Aivazian submitting lots of
> kernel patches from an @sco.com address, for one.  And then
> there's Caldera OpenLinux, of course.  I don't think it's
> relevant though...they can submit as much GPLed code as they
> want and still claim a violation of a contract pertaining to
> some other non-GPLed code that was copied into Linux.
ACK. That's what I wanted to say, that Linux-Distros from SCO or Caldera are 
not relevant for that Lawsuit.
CU
Thorsten

Re: Troll Tech [was RE: Sco vs. IBM]

[John K Luebs]

On Thu, Jun 19, 2003 at 01:37:28PM -0400, Downing, Thomas wrote:
>  
> > In article <20030619141443.GR29247@fs.tum.de>,
> > Adrian Bunk  <bunk@fs.tum.de> wrote:
> > >There's no license reason today why there are two big 
> > desktop projects 
> > >(GNOME and KDE).
> > 
> > There is. If you want to develop a commercial application under
> > KDE you need to pay TrollTech for the Qt license. Basically
> > TrollTech controls all commercial KDE applications.
> 
> No, you don't, IFF you distribute the source code.  Doesn't make
> a lot of sense though.  So consider, a for-profit company licenses
> QT for a proprietary app.  They send bug fixes/enhancements to QT
> to TrollTech.  If these migrate to Free QT, you're ahead of the game.
> If they don't, what did you lose?
> 
[snip]
> > What if TrollTech decides to only license (or sell) Qt
> > to, say, Microsoft? What does that mean for, say, the Kompany ?
> 
> They can't.  They released the code under GPL.  They can stop maintaining
> that code, and continue on a proprietary track.  If they did, what
> did you lose?

Correct, and this is simple thing is what a lot of anti-KDE folk will
absolutely refuse to accept.

> 
> In summary, QT -> GPL, GNOME - GPL, what about _that_ makes one or
> the other inherently preferable or better?

No, the core GNOME and GTK+ libraries are licensed under the terms of
the LGPL. This essentially means closed source works can link to 
these libraries. You can't do that with Qt. Whether this is a positive 
or a negative is not appropriate to discuss here.

Probably surprising to many (based on the proliferation of ignorant remarks 
on various mailing lists), Troll Tech's Qt offering is aligned 
more closely with the FSF philosophy than GTK/GNOME (remember the L in LGPL 
stands for LESSER after all (well the FSF prefers this now, but the 
GNOME/GTK folks continue to use the former version of the license
where the L stands for LIBRARY)).

I think that Qt is a great contribution, but it is misleading to say that 
there is no difference between Qt and GNOME licensing.

	--jkl

Re: Troll Tech [was RE: Sco vs. IBM]

[Bernd Eckenfels]

In article <20030621062936.GB25944@luebsphoto.com> you wrote:
> Probably surprising to many (based on the proliferation of ignorant remarks 
> on various mailing lists), Troll Tech's Qt offering is aligned 
> more closely with the FSF philosophy than GTK/GNOME (remember the L in LGPL 
> stands for LESSER after all (well the FSF prefers this now, but the 
> GNOME/GTK folks continue to use the former version of the license
> where the L stands for LIBRARY)).

this is the mysql/sap db way of making money, btw. You publish libs which
are needed to ship with your product under the "free" GPL, and sell a
commercial license for all others. This does work good, as long as you do
not accept major contributions which are not reassigned to your copyright.

Sorry for the OT but I guess the whole thread is :(

Greetings
Bernd
-- 
eckes privat - http://www.eckes.org/
Project Freefire - http://www.freefire.org/

Re: Troll Tech [was RE: Sco vs. IBM]

[Timothy Miller]

Downing, Thomas wrote:

> 
> No, they don't.  KDE uses the GPL for QT.  If I build a commercial
> app using KDE, it is GPL.  If I build a commercial app not using
> KDE, but using commercial QT, that has no effect on the KDE desktop.
>  


I'm over 1100 emails behind here, so please excuse me if I'm repeating 
what someone else said.

But are you implying, by analogy, that if I were to write a program 
using GTK+ that the application would be forced to be under GPL?  So I 
can't write a closed-source GNOME program?  Or is GTK under LGPL?

Anyhow, I see little problem with the Qt model.  If I'm writing a 
closed-source commercial app that I'm going to sell, it's no skin off my 
nose to pay TrollTech a little money to use their toolkit, considering 
that I'm probably going to need some support anyhow.

Re: Troll Tech [was RE: Sco vs. IBM]

[Alan Cox]

On Maw, 2003-06-24 at 15:17, Timothy Miller wrote:
> But are you implying, by analogy, that if I were to write a program 
> using GTK+ that the application would be forced to be under GPL?  So I 
> can't write a closed-source GNOME program?  Or is GTK under LGPL?

The core gtk/gnome/accessibility libraries are intentionally LGPL

Re: SCO's claims seem empty

[Paul Rolland]

And if it is only comments, it could be Sco that has taken then from
Linux, without any damage to their code ;-)

Paul

> If it isn't simply carefully doctored choices designed 
> mislead clueless analysts. You are also ignoring at least two 
> other things - code that is common because its from the 
> reference (eg intel locking code) and code from third party 
> vendors legitimately supplied to both Linux and SCO.

Re: Sco vs. IBM

[Martin List-Petersen]

Citat Magnus Solvang <magnus@solvang.net>:

> Quoting jdow (jdow@earthlink.net):
> [...]
> | > I believe it's this Norwegian company they write about:
> | > 
> | > http://www.trolltech.com/
> | 
> | If so then say good by to KDE sometime soon....
> 
> How did you arrive at that conclusion? Do you believe that
> SCO will destroy everything and everybody related to Linux
> when they can make money by suing them? :)
> And KDE is not limited to just Linux.

Go back and read the forbes article. That was more or less exactly the point of
that article. 

Regards,
Martin List-Petersen
martin at list-petersen dot dk
--
BOFH excuse #66:

bit bucket overflow

Re: Sco vs. IBM

[Jesse Pollard]

On Thursday 19 June 2003 08:03, Martin List-Petersen wrote:
> Citat Magnus Solvang <magnus@solvang.net>:
> > Quoting jdow (jdow@earthlink.net):
> > [...]
> >
> > | > I believe it's this Norwegian company they write about:
> > | >
> > | > http://www.trolltech.com/
> > |
> > | If so then say good by to KDE sometime soon....
> >
> > How did you arrive at that conclusion? Do you believe that
> > SCO will destroy everything and everybody related to Linux
> > when they can make money by suing them? :)
> > And KDE is not limited to just Linux.
>
> Go back and read the forbes article. That was more or less exactly the
> point of that article.

It was the original reason Gnome was started. Trolltec had released thier
toolkit for "free" but not GPL. They then changed the licence a bit, but I
think they still have some (lot?) control over the toolkit. I believe the
KDE group did start a re-work to implement an independant version, but I
don't know how that went.

Re: Sco vs. IBM

[Adrian Bunk]

On Thu, Jun 19, 2003 at 08:14:55AM -0500, Jesse Pollard wrote:
> On Thursday 19 June 2003 08:03, Martin List-Petersen wrote:
> > Citat Magnus Solvang <magnus@solvang.net>:
> > > Quoting jdow (jdow@earthlink.net):
> > > [...]
> > >
> > > | > I believe it's this Norwegian company they write about:
> > > | >
> > > | > http://www.trolltech.com/
> > > |
> > > | If so then say good by to KDE sometime soon....
> > >
> > > How did you arrive at that conclusion? Do you believe that
> > > SCO will destroy everything and everybody related to Linux
> > > when they can make money by suing them? :)
> > > And KDE is not limited to just Linux.
> >
> > Go back and read the forbes article. That was more or less exactly the
> > point of that article.
> 
> It was the original reason Gnome was started. Trolltec had released thier
> toolkit for "free" but not GPL. They then changed the licence a bit, but I
> think they still have some (lot?) control over the toolkit. I believe the
> KDE group did start a re-work to implement an independant version, but I
> don't know how that went.

That's not correct.

Qt was pulished under the QPL. The QPL is an open source license. The 
only problems was that the QPL is not compatible with the GPL.

There were copyright problems since some small parts of KDE (IIRC e.g. 
kghostview) contain GPL'ed code not written by the KDE developers.

Since version 2.2 Qt is dual-licenced under both the QPL and the GPL 
(you can choose under which license you want to use it.

Trolltech has the same control over Qt as Linus over the Linux kernel.

There's no license reason today why there are two big desktop projects 
(GNOME and KDE).

cu
Adrian

-- 

       "Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out
        of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.
       "Only a promise," Lao Er said.
                                       Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed

Re: Sco vs. IBM

[Miquel van Smoorenburg]

In article <20030619141443.GR29247@fs.tum.de>,
Adrian Bunk  <bunk@fs.tum.de> wrote:
>There's no license reason today why there are two big desktop projects 
>(GNOME and KDE).

There is. If you want to develop a commercial application under
KDE you need to pay TrollTech for the Qt license. Basically
TrollTech controls all commercial KDE applications.

Which makes no sense. You're not at the mercy of Linus or the
kernel developers, neither at that of the KDE developers, but
TrollTech controls the KDE desktop wrt commercial apps.

What if TrollTech decides to only license (or sell) Qt
to, say, Microsoft? What does that mean for, say, the Kompany ?

Mike.

Troll Tech [was Re: Sco vs. IBM]

[Larry McVoy]

These discussions always make me wonder if the open source crowd is ever
going to realize it's reasonable to be friendly with commercial companies.
Troll Tech is being nice.  They have a nice product, they've created a
business model that let's you have the product for free and ensures that
they will be in business to support that product.   That's a Good Thing,
you benefit from that.

The Gnome guys will do something very similar or just die out.  It's a
huge amount of work to keep making the toolkits both look good and work
well.  So far, what I see from Gnome is more on the look good front and
nowhere near enough on the work well front.  I'll take Microsoft's desktop
over Gnome any day.  KDE is better but not better than Microsoft.  Why?
Because it takes a lot of effort to do all the grunt work and if that
grunt work is behind the scenes in things like application to application
communication, there is less incentive for people to work on it.  The last
Gnome interview I read was all about the icons.  Icons are great if the
underlying system works well.  Otherwise they are just eye candy and
suck people in for a while and then they give up.

The world is not going to end up with all software working perfectly and 
being free.  Software is hard work, software tends to rot if you don't 
take care of it, there has to be an business plan better than

	1.  Give it away.
	2.  ???
	3.  Make lots of money.

Instead of fighting with people like Troll Tech, you should be figuring
out how to do more stuff like that.  It's a pretty sweet deal you have
there.

On Thu, Jun 19, 2003 at 04:34:05PM +0000, Miquel van Smoorenburg wrote:
> In article <20030619141443.GR29247@fs.tum.de>,
> Adrian Bunk  <bunk@fs.tum.de> wrote:
> >There's no license reason today why there are two big desktop projects 
> >(GNOME and KDE).
> 
> There is. If you want to develop a commercial application under
> KDE you need to pay TrollTech for the Qt license. Basically
> TrollTech controls all commercial KDE applications.
> 
> Which makes no sense. You're not at the mercy of Linus or the
> kernel developers, neither at that of the KDE developers, but
> TrollTech controls the KDE desktop wrt commercial apps.
> 
> What if TrollTech decides to only license (or sell) Qt
> to, say, Microsoft? What does that mean for, say, the Kompany ?
> 
> Mike.
> 
> -
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-- 
---
Larry McVoy              lm at bitmover.com          http://www.bitmover.com/lm

Re: Troll Tech [was Re: Sco vs. IBM]

[ismail (cartman) donmez]

On Thursday 19 June 2003 19:59, Larry McVoy wrote:
> These discussions always make me wonder if the open source crowd is ever
> going to realize it's reasonable to be friendly with commercial companies.
> Troll Tech is being nice.  They have a nice product, they've created a
> business model that let's you have the product for free and ensures that
> they will be in business to support that product.   That's a Good Thing,
> you benefit from that.
TT is just great. If all commercial companies are like that. Noone could 
object commercialism in OSS. [1] GTK+ people are being cheap and go blame Qt 
for being GPL. Now TT puts a great product there with great help system for 
free  so I would better shut up or put up.

> KDE is better but not better than Microsoft.  Why?
> Because it takes a lot of effort to do all the grunt work and if that
> grunt work is behind the scenes in things like application to application
> communication, there is less incentive for people to work on it.  The last
> Gnome interview I read was all about the icons.  Icons are great if the
> underlying system works well.  Otherwise they are just eye candy and
> suck people in for a while and then they give up.

Gnome is great for icons yeah. But KDE ( with -devs -apps ) are great. Not 
ready for %90 of desktop out there but getting there. I suggest Gnome people 
stop whining about Qt but creating a usable GTK+ file dialog at least.

[1] : Its nice of BitKeeper to provide CVS and SVN gateways. People should 
appreciate it.

Regards,
/ismail