Big development in the GUI realm

[Scott Robinson]

On Mon, 07 Feb 2005 20:56:44 -0800, Courageous <dontwant at spam.com>
wrote:

>
>>OK, so according to Linus, the GPL allows ....
>
>No. Pay attention. Linus has his own revised version, to clarify
>this point, and in fact /overruling/ the GPL if the point is
>clarified differently by RMS or others.
>
>That's the right of their community, it's /their/ code.
>
>>make calls to the kernel, but TrollTech says the GPL doesn't allow a
>>proprietary program to make calls to the Qt library.
>
>That's their prerogative, although TrollTech's authority as an
>/interpretational/ entity over the GPL means precisely zero. I
>wouldn't push this, though, unless you've got a big litigation
>budget.
It should also be pointed out that the FSF's interpretation of the GPL
with respect to Qt means absolutely zero.  If TrollTech publishes an
interpretation of the GPL and announces it to any interested in
licensing their software, I suspect that the courts will take that
into consideration.  This won't help that at all if it isn't a legally
valid interpretation, but it establishes that you *knew* what their
interpretation was when you agreed to the terms to distribute their
copyrighted software.

>
>>It's this double-standard that I find confusing, since both projects
>>are said to be based on the same license.
>
>Linus doesn't use "the" GPL, he uses "his" GPL, version-whatever.
>
>Anyway, your safe bet:
>
>Follow the copyright holder's wishes.
>
>That's fair. After all, it's free, so they're doing you a damn
>big favor.
>
>C//
Scott Robinson