IMHO wrong arguments in this thread, worth a reply.

[Myriam Schweingruber]

Hi Hugo, hi everyone,

On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 13:30, Hugo Roy <hugo at fsfe.org> wrote:
> Le lundi 27 février 2012 à 13:14 +0100, Myriam Schweingruber a écrit :
>> Hi all,
>
> Hi Myriam,
>
> Maybe this would be best addressed with discussion at fsfeurope.org so that
> everyone can participate.

Including discussion, you are right, that should have been my first
target list :)
>
>> today I came across this discussion thread:
>>
>> http://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=99425
>>
>> The arguments the users gives in his reply seem quite wrong to me, but
>> I have a serious cold currently and I struggle to write up something
>> that makes good sense. It would be nice if somebody could reply from
>> the "KDE is an associated organisation to the FSFE" POV. I know quite
>> a few of us use KDE and are certainly better than me in arguing in
>> that thread :)
>
> I don't know if saying KDE is associated to the FSFE would really help.
> After all, KDE prefers the GPL not because FSFE told them so, but
> because they have a right and a benefit to do that :)

I totally agree on that. But if the KDE is actually an associate
organisation it is because the KDE Community adheres to the same
principles about Free Software.

But as I said, I have some difficulties in formulating a good answer.
I do agree with you that his reasoning is seriously flawed and I think
this needs to be corrected, hence my mail :)

>
> Anyway, looking quickly at the answer, some things are factually and
> legally wrong. Here's my NSHO (not-so-humble-opinion)
>
>> The relicensing will give much benefit to the small project like Haiku
>> (operating system) who believe to licensed their OS with permissive
>> license. GPL will hamper their objective, because combining Haiku and
>> KDE can risk future objective of Haiku just because the entire
>> combination must be relicensed under GPL.
>
> I know personally a Haiku developer. I never heard of such things and
> anyway, since Haiku already has its own custom DE, etc. this does not
> make a lot of sense factually. I've asked the haiku developer for more
> details on that.
>
> Legally combining Haiku with KDE would not mean "the entire combination
> must be relicensed under GPL." That's totally outside the reach of GPL's
> copyleft.
>
>> So I think the best solution for that is LGPL (I even didn't recommend
>> permissive license). This is a solution that satisfies those who wish
>> to produce free software, and also those producing proprietary
>> software or having different goal.
>
> I'd say the opposite: it's a solution that will probably satisfy no one.
>
>>  The free software is still free, and the derivative still get back to
>> the community. But this is give more freedom to the developers to
>> treat their own implementation as they wish (free as freedom ;) ).
>
> So it gives more freedom to some developers to take away freedom from
> the users (i.e. also from other developers) which is exactly against the
> concept of "getting back to the community."
>
>>  GPL will limit this freedom, because even with some other free
>> software GPL, still have compatibility issues.
>
> Saying that GPL limits freedom is totally untrue. The GPL gives more
> rights than copyright law ever gives to users (restricting freedom would
> mean to give less rights); and the GPL safeguards rights of users
> compared to non-copyleft licenses, thus giving more freedom to everyone.
>
>> We can see by ourself even the free software still need proprietary
>> software. Device driver, flash, codec, etc. Freedom of software is
>> very important, but the usefulness of software is much more important.
>> Linux without binary bloob is useless. Distro without proprietary
>> codec cannot playback our favorite movie.
>
> That doesn't make any sense to me.

Thanks a lot for your input :)

Regards, Myriam
> --
> Hugo Roy                           im: hugo at jabber.fsfe.org
>  French Coordinator               mobile: +33.6 0874 1341
>
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