Re: GPL3 code in KDE?

On Fri, Jan 01, 2010 at 01:38:38PM +0000, John Layt wrote:
> I've noticed an increasing amount of code in KDE svn being highlighted by 
> Krazy (1) as being GPL3+ only which is against the KDE Licensing Policies (2).  
> 
> Before I go put my foot in it by nagging people to change the license, I 
> thought I should check why this rule is in place so I can explain to them.  I 
> had thought it was something to do with Qt compatibility, but that makes no 
> sense since Qt went GPL3+ and then LGPL2.1+ (3).  
> 
> Is this rule still needed, or is our policy simply to remain 100% GPL2 
> compatible until the ev decides to migrate to GPL3, i.e. to prevent GPL3 by 
> stealth?

We have the GPL 2+ policy to keep everything in the archive compatible
(so you can copy and paste code without fear of licence clashes).  It
also means we can link to GPL 2 only libraries.

So yes please do poke people to change to GPL 2+.  If they have a good
reason for an exception they can ask for that.

> Also, the libraries policy is for LGPL+ (or BSD or MIT or X11).  A few small 
> executables and scripts exist in the libraries under GPL licenses and would 
> never be linked against.  Do we want/need to make these LGPL as well?

As Albert says this should be fine.

Jonathan