[PLUG] [Possible Clickbait] Ads may be coming to KDE, the popular Linux desktop

[Lynn Bradshaw via plug <plug@lists.phillylinux.org>]

https://www.neowin.net/news/ads-may-be-coming-to-kde-the-popular-linux-desktop/

So the Qt GUI framework can now be monetized with ads, which many
obviously perceive as a turn for the worse. The threat seems like it
might be overblown though. It's said that it's unlikely such a change
will be as drastically bad as it might seem up front because it's
considered highly unlikely core KDE applications will ever embrace
this feature. In addition, pretty much every widely-used KDE
application is licensed under the GPL, which means that the change
would be pretty trivial to undo. (Software relicensing can never be
retroactive.) The opposite possibility is suggested in the article
(i.e. forks that add rather than undo the new feature), but it seems
difficult to imagine that anyone would opt for those forks, even with
other incentives thrown in.

What seems much more likely is that the change will affect users of
Qt-based applications under Qt's commercial license on mobile
platforms and websites (via WebAssembly). But that's already par for
the course.

And if worse comes to worst I suppose ditching KDE entirely is
generally possible. The only KDE application I've ever made much use
of is Kdenlive, which is good enough that I'd tolerate ads if it ever
truly came to that (which seems really really really unlikely). Other
than that there is a lot of choice.
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