lkml.org 
[lkml]   [1998]   [Jul]   [13]   [last100]   RSS Feed
Views: [wrap][no wrap]   [headers]  [forward] 
 
Messages in this thread
/
Date
From
SubjectRe: Linus Speaks About KDE-Bashing
The problem with Qt is simple: it is not free software.  Its authors
have used copyright law to prevent people from sharing changes to it.
To use the word you used, these restrictions are unethical.

Copyright law is a weapon, and like any weapon, it can be used for
various purposes--in particular, to dominate others or to defend
others' liberty. Using copyright as the basis of copyleft is using it
to protect liberty. Using copyright to make a program non-free is
using it for domination. When that happens, people should not
complain--they should object.

On a controversial issue, no view goes without saying; arguments for
this position can be found in
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-free.html.

Of course, there are thousands of non-free programs, and while this is
unfortunate, we don't spend our time worrying about them. So why is
Qt different? Because Qt sets a trap for free software developers in
a way that most other proprietary programs do not.

With our free software community, with our complete free operating
system, we have pushed most of the non-free software far enough away
from us that we don't need to be angry about it--we can just ignore
it, writing free replacements as we feel the need.

But we can't just ignore Qt, because Qt is tempting free software
developers to use it. And when they do, they write free software that
won't run on a free operating system, because a free operating system
does not include Qt. Since popularity tends to attract more users,
there is a positive feedback problem here--the more Qt is used, the
more it is likely to be used. So we needed to take action, the sooner
the better, to warn others away from the pitfall that KDE fell into.

The community has taken several kinds of action: writing GTK, writing
Harmony, and having public discussion to make people aware of the
potential mistake. We faced the problem, we took necessary actions,
and we have probably averted the potential catastrophe.

Motif posed a similar problem, and that is why LessTif is so
important. It took many years to develop LessTif to the point where
it really does the job, and in the mean time, many useful free
programs were unavailable for free operating systems because they
needed Motif. I'm glad that we took on the Qt challenge more
vigorously and faster.

By the way, it is true that unauthorized copying is a crime in the
US--since 1996. Smoking pot is also a crime. When I was young, it
was a crime to have an abortion, and a crime in some states for a
Black person to sit in the front of a bus. It is necessary to have
laws, but that doesn't mean the laws we have are ethical. The
legislature can make something a crime, but it takes more than a vote
of the legislature to make something right or wrong.

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu
Please read the FAQ at http://www.altern.org/andrebalsa/doc/lkml-faq.html

\
 
 \ /
  Last update: 2005-03-22 13:43    [W:0.311 / U:0.180 seconds]
©2003-2020 Jasper Spaans|hosted at Digital Ocean and TransIP|Read the blog|Advertise on this site