The /usr/bin/licq shell script does some ps | grep commands to see if
you're running kde or gnome.  Unfortunately, when you do that, sometimes
the grep command itself will show up in the ps list, and sometimes it
won't...usually it does.   this gives an example of it:

[agrajag@loiosh agrajag]$ ps auxww|grep foo
[agrajag@loiosh agrajag]$ ps auxww|grep foo
agrajag   1944  0.0  0.3  1728  596 pts/3    S    21:52   0:00 grep foo
[agrajag@loiosh agrajag]$ 

The main result of this problem is that those of us running gnome will tend
to get the qt version of licq running, even though we're running gnome and
have the proper packages installed.

In a minute I'll attach my modified version of /usr/bin/licq that pipes
ps's output through 'grep -v grep' before passing it through the final
grep.  This solved the problem for me.