Apollon soon in kde-extragear

[Martin Köbele]

Hi,

On Monday 09 February 2004 23:42, Scott Wheeler wrote:
> Honestly I'd like to see more than "passive approval" (i.e. I'm going to do
> this if nobody objects...) 

as you can see, that was the sentence which finally caused a discussion again, 
after emails (subject: "Apollon in kdeexatragear") to kde-devel, 
kde-core-devel and kde-extra-gear a week ago, to which I didn't receive any 
replies.


But now, I don't get it really.

Is this something about being a "moral apostle" like "Don't do something 
illegal" with a risen index finger? 

Then I strongly agree with Benoit Walter. There are illegal pages which can be 
displayed with konqui. The use of K3B, especially after adding the 
DVD-burn-feature, is obvious: It's about copying CDs and DVDs.
Nobody says "stop" here?? Why not? Isn't copying of copyrighted material 
illegal? 

NO, it's not!! - As long as it's for private use! 
Same with downloading copyrighted material via a p2p-program, or http, or ftp, 
whatever. Downloading is not illegal.
There is even no law which says that it's forbidden to possess copies of 
copyrighted material! You're even allowed to listen to the mp3s. You're not 
allowed to install a copy of a software, though.
And do you really wanna say to the user: "hey, don't you have a bad conscious 
that you downloaded a song"?
Imho, there are more people looking at porn-pages than people using 
p2p-software. And you don't tell those: "hey dude, that's dirty!".


Other topic: Uploading. That is illegal - if the offered material is 
copyrighted. Per default, Apollon doesn't upload and doesn't turn the user's 
pc into a searchnode.

So it's up to the user. And KDE and the programmers have absolutely no clue of 
what the users do with it. They could use it for illegal upload, or maybe 
they just download songs, or they actually share not copyrighted material. 
Who knows? Who cares? It's not in our responsibility. Why not? Because 
Apollon doesn't force anybody to download only copyrighted material. And 
Apollon doesn't allow only the sharing of copyrighted material. OK, maybe a 
little hint somewhere in the program would be good. Hints like the Americans 
have on their coffee-cups: "HOT!"....


On Tuesday 10 February 2004 00:19, Dominique Devriese wrote:
>"Maybe a prominent notice could be put in place in the
>program saying that usage of the program is to the user's own risk,
>and that (s)he should always check the legality of the downloaded
>content ?"

It's not in the downloader's responsibility to check that. It is the uploader 
who might break the law, if he shares copyrighted material.


On Tuesday 10 February 2004 00:31, Rob Kaper wrote:
>"We could host KDE CVS in the Netherlands, were the already was a legal
>ruling providers of P2P networks and software are not liable for illegal
>activity of their users. Not sure where else in the world such a ruling has
>been made."

KDE won't be the provider of a p2p network. Neither is Apollon. Apollon is 
just a client. The authors are German and Dutch. Therefore the Copyright Law 
of Germany and the Netherlands is which counts. Copyright-laws are not really 
just national, especially within the EU, the Copyright-laws are very similar.


I wonder how kmldonkey got a cvs-account. Did anybody ask? 

So after all, I would suggest the following:

1.) Apollon and kmldonkey in kdeextragear.
2.) Neither Apollon nor kmldonkey in kdeextragear.

Any discussions about "kmldonkey is not as bad as apollon" or something like 
that doesn't make any sense at all.


Martin