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> Also, the community if determined to provide a Free As In Freedom experience on desktop. Hopefully they can do it on phones as well. Their agenda is only soft

> Also, the community if determined to provide a Free As In Freedom experience on desktop. Hopefully they can do it on phones as well. Their agenda is only software freedom and privacy. This is contrary to the things that KDE-associated projects have traditionally valued. Software freedom has always been associated with GNU and GTK/Gnome. The philosophy behind Qt/KDE has always been that things can be considered free enough. The KDE community's willingness to tolerate a dubious licensing situation for Qt is the only reason that Gnome even exists.

emilsedgh 9y ago
That's not true. KDE originally started using Qt which was non free. Once the project took off and started to matter, 2 projects started to fix the non-free-Qt issue. One was Gnome. The other one was KDE's attempt to write a free Qt clone. But soon TrollTech approached KDE and agreed to open source Qt. There the KDE Free Qt Foundation was created. https://www.kde.org/community/whatiskde/kdefreeqtfoundation.php https://www.kde.org/community/whatiskde/kdefreeqtfoundation.... I can assure you that Software Freedom is on top of KDE's priorities. KDE has refused to even use anything non-free even in its infrastructure.
- carussell 9y ago
  I don't see how you can point to the years where Qt used a bad license, without seeing that the only statement that it proves is not true is the one where you wrote "that's not true". (And there were plenty of people arguing at that time that the Qt license was no big deal and the free desktop community should just move on to more productive things.) I know what Qt's licensing situation is now. But it being under a free license today doesn't mean that software freedom is one of two things that the KDE community cares about above all else. If I meet a man today and he's wearing a blue shirt, that doesn't mean it's true that you can infer his personal moral code means he will only wear blue shirts. (In fact, it can still be untrue even if he personally tells you that this is his code.)
  - emilsedgh 9y ago
    KDE is 21 years old. It's been 19 years since Qt has been FOSS. And within those 2 years, there was an attempt to rewrite Qt to be FOSS. Also KDE Community has evolved during the past two decades.
    - carussell 9y ago
      You're not really addressing things I've written.
      - prophesi 9y ago
        If a guy has been wearing blue shirts for 19 years straight, it's probably a safe bet that he'll be wearing blue shirts for the years to come.
        carussell 9y ago
        Three things: - My goal isn't to argue with someone who's just looking to have an argument with me. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15250932 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15250932 - Strain-the-metaphor is a terrible way to find clarity about anything, and a terribly unfun game to play along the way. - Once again: this doesn't really address the things I've written.
        prophesi 9y ago
        Sorry, I honestly didn't know you were the same person. I'll rephrase it: If a project has been using FOSS for 19 years straight, it's probably a safe bet that they'll be using FOSS for the years to come. It's time to accept that they're about freedom, and forgive them for their mishap from two decades ago.
      - emilsedgh 9y ago
        You said KDE was non-free and therefore it doesn't respect freedom that much. I argued that KDE acknowledged that depending on a non-free toolkit was not really OK for a free desktop. Therefore, from the very beginning it tried to fix that. And it succeeded very early by making Qt go open source. Even rms considers KDE free.
482794793792894 9y ago
This difference has been eliminated for so long, I really don't think it can be taken as reason to say that GNOME represents more freedom. To me, KDE represents more freedom, because on the secondary level, that is customizability, open development and taking community wishes into consideration, they are so far ahead of GNOME.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

emilsedgh 9y ago

That's not true. KDE originally started using Qt which was non free. Once the project took off and started to matter, 2 projects started to fix the non-free-Qt issue. One was Gnome. The other one was KDE's attempt to write a free Qt clone. But soon TrollTech approached KDE and agreed to open source Qt. There the KDE Free Qt Foundation was created. https://www.kde.org/community/whatiskde/kdefreeqtfoundation.php https://www.kde.org/community/whatiskde/kdefreeqtfoundation.... I can assure you that Software Freedom is on top of KDE's priorities. KDE has refused to even use anything non-free even in its infrastructure.

carussell 9y ago
I don't see how you can point to the years where Qt used a bad license, without seeing that the only statement that it proves is not true is the one where you wrote "that's not true". (And there were plenty of people arguing at that time that the Qt license was no big deal and the free desktop community should just move on to more productive things.) I know what Qt's licensing situation is now. But it being under a free license today doesn't mean that software freedom is one of two things that the KDE community cares about above all else. If I meet a man today and he's wearing a blue shirt, that doesn't mean it's true that you can infer his personal moral code means he will only wear blue shirts. (In fact, it can still be untrue even if he personally tells you that this is his code.)
- emilsedgh 9y ago
  KDE is 21 years old. It's been 19 years since Qt has been FOSS. And within those 2 years, there was an attempt to rewrite Qt to be FOSS. Also KDE Community has evolved during the past two decades.
  - carussell 9y ago
    You're not really addressing things I've written.
    - prophesi 9y ago
      If a guy has been wearing blue shirts for 19 years straight, it's probably a safe bet that he'll be wearing blue shirts for the years to come.
      - carussell 9y ago
        Three things: - My goal isn't to argue with someone who's just looking to have an argument with me. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15250932 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15250932 - Strain-the-metaphor is a terrible way to find clarity about anything, and a terribly unfun game to play along the way. - Once again: this doesn't really address the things I've written.
        prophesi 9y ago
        Sorry, I honestly didn't know you were the same person. I'll rephrase it: If a project has been using FOSS for 19 years straight, it's probably a safe bet that they'll be using FOSS for the years to come. It's time to accept that they're about freedom, and forgive them for their mishap from two decades ago.
    - emilsedgh 9y ago
      You said KDE was non-free and therefore it doesn't respect freedom that much. I argued that KDE acknowledged that depending on a non-free toolkit was not really OK for a free desktop. Therefore, from the very beginning it tried to fix that. And it succeeded very early by making Qt go open source. Even rms considers KDE free.

482794793792894 9y ago

This difference has been eliminated for so long, I really don't think it can be taken as reason to say that GNOME represents more freedom. To me, KDE represents more freedom, because on the secondary level, that is customizability, open development and taking community wishes into consideration, they are so far ahead of GNOME.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]