On Sun, 30 Jan 2000, Andreas Pour wrote: >> Most of the time this has worked rather well for us. But, somehow, >> people are >>offended<< that Debian isn't distributing KDE. > >To be fair, people were offended by the Debian statement that distributing KDE >is >unlawful and to a lesser extent by the tirades offered by *some* Debian >developers. >Each distribution obviously makes its own choices on what to distribute.
The issue that I disagreed with is that kdelibs, kdesupport, kdebase, and kdenetwork aren't included in Debian. These packages are of entirely KDE developed software (of which the free nature is undisputed) which depends on Qt (non-free) so these packages should IMHO go into non-free. These are the core KDE packages and I believe that most people who use KDE don't make any serious use of other KDE packages. Having these in Debian will make things much easier for many people. >> That's isn't really a legal issue. There is a legal issue, but: >> >> Debian is not obligated to distribute KDE. > >Agreed, except to the extent Debian has the self-imposed obligation to supply >its users >with the best Open Source software packages :-). Debian is not obligated to do anything. But what it does do is distribute software which is free and software which can be used without cost (non-free). I believe that as the 4 core KDE packages I list above fit the latter description they should be in non-free. >> (2) a maintainer who is interested in supporting it, and > >I think Ivan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> has been maintaining KDE packages for potato >and >slink, and has made them available at >ftp://ftp.us.kde.org/pub/kde/stable/1.1.2/distribution/deb/, and I believe >http://ftp.workspot.com/pub/kde/debian/. I also think Aaron <[EMAIL >PROTECTED]> has >been involved. Other people that might be interested include Bernd and >Russell. If >none of these gentlemen is willing and able I am quite confident a cross-post >on >debian-devel and kde-devel will turn up someone who is. deb http://kde.tdyc.com potato kde contrib Is where I currently get my KDE packages from. I currently am not involved in KDE packaging or development. The difficulties involved with distributing KDE Debian packages, and in keeping up to date with all the things it depended on made it too difficult to be an effective use of my time. Now I spend my time developing my own software. I will consider developing KDE packages again if things change and my work in that regard can productively benefit the community. -- Confucius wrote: To be fond of knowledge is better than simply acquiring it, and to take delight in it is far better than simply being fond of it.
