Cervisia again, plus greater problems

[David Johnson]

On Wednesday 16 March 2005 02:22 pm, Ben Burton wrote:

> Given that the QPL is GPL-incompatible, this raises issues for GPLed
> programs that wish to use this kpart.  I believe this at least
> includes quanta and kdevelop (unless I'm mistaken).

kparts are loaded at runtime. It has always been understood in the 
community that the license restrictions based on copyright law do not 
apply to runtime components. The implications of reinterpreting USC 17 
this way are profound. The effects on Java development alone would be 
catastrophic.

It is somewhat understood that a deliberate misuse of runtime components 
to circumvent copyrights is not allowed, but this is certainly NOT the 
case for quanta and kdevelop (you also forgot konqueror). These 
applications are designed to load available runtime components solely 
on the basis of the services made available. There is no copyright 
violation occuring when a user loads a plugin at runtime, particularly 
one with a generic interface like a kpart.

-- 
David Johnson
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