[H-GEN] GPL question (KDE?)

[Benjamin]

On Thu, 8 Jan 2004 08:32 pm, David Starkoff wrote:
> [ Humbug *General* list - semi-serious discussions about Humbug and     ]
> [ Unix-related topics. Posts from non-subscribed addresses will vanish. ]
>
> On 07/01/2004, at 8:23 PM, Trent WADDINGTON wrote:
> > On Wed, 7 Jan 2004, David Starkoff wrote:
> >> Running a computer program necessarily involves making a copy of it,
> >> which is an exclusive right of the copyright owner.  Without specific
> >> statutory authorisation or a (possibly implied) licence, it is
> >> therefore not permitted by copyright law.  Microsoft Corp v Business
> >> Boost Pty Ltd, and its U.S. cousin MAI Systems v Peak, holds as much.
> >> That's (one reason) why copyright law is so pervasive in relation to
> >> computer programs.
> > You're the lawyer, so I guess I have to take your word for it.
> Just to be clear, no, you don't have to take my word for it.  (This, as
> with the rest of my contributions to this thread, is not legal advice
> and all that, after all.)

Still, thanks for contributing some "real" law to the discussion :)

On a related note, I wonder if someone could explain this web page to me:
http://kdemyths.urbanlizard.com/viewMyth.php?mythID=59

If a kde library requires qt to run, and is developed using the GPL'd qt base, 
why is it not required to be GPL? From the sounds of things on this thread 
it's fairly clear (at least from the FSF perspective) that a program linked 
against a GPL library must be GPL, but doesn't a library that uses libqt in 
the same way come under the same effect? When you're creating a .so file 
the .so files that it depends on needs to be there already for the creation, 
and when you're creating .o's to go into a .a file the header files, at 
least, must be available.

Now I understand how if A depends on both B and C that the licence of C would 
usually not affect hte license of B, but if A depends on B and B depends on C 
isn't that another matter? In that case you really don't have a B without the 
C that it is dervied from... or am I completely crazy?

Benjamin