[gritspants]

I hope someone comes along with a better recollection than I have. When KDE 1 came out there were some bitter licensing discussions on /. and elsewhere, largely regarding Qt. I had high hopes for Enlightenment and later Gnome but they mostly seemed to fail.

[foresto]

I'm not sure what you're trying to recall, but regarding Qt licensing, perhaps you'll find this interesting:

https://kde.org/community/whatiskde/kdefreeqtfoundation/