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Qt goes GPLv3
Trolltech has announced that, effective immediately, the Qt libraries will be distributable under version 3 of the GPL. "Trolltech hopes that its move will inspire free software projects to use GPL v3 when programming with Qt." Qt will be dual-licensed, with GPLv2 remaining an option.
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Glad to hear this Posted Jan 20, 2008 16:05 UTC (Sun) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] Since so many packages depend on Qt, it would have been unfortunate if they didn't migrate to GPLv3, so this is great news. I guess this should appear soon on the GPLv3 conversion counter: http://gpl3.palamida.com:8080/
Nope Posted Jan 20, 2008 20:52 UTC (Sun) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] GPLv3 conversion counter lists "Projects converted to GPLv3" and "GPLv2 or later" packages. It does not specifically list "GPLv2 or GPLv3" packages. Of course this decision means we'll see some Qt-based packages "converted to GPLv3" soon...
Qt is triply licensed. Posted Jan 21, 2008 18:11 UTC (Mon) by leoc (subscriber, #39773) [Link] GPL2, GPL3 and for a price, commercial closed source.
Qt is triply licensed. Posted Jan 21, 2008 19:13 UTC (Mon) by bangert (subscriber, #28342) [Link] Qt is licensed GPL2 OR GPL3 OR a commercial license - its your choice! And 'closed source' can hardly describe the commercial offering, as the source follows as well as the right to change it (and distribute the result) - read: BSD + price tag per seat. (AFAICT)
Qt is triply licensed. Posted Jan 21, 2008 19:49 UTC (Mon) by boudewijn (subscriber, #14185) [Link] And then there's the long list of exceptions that make it possible to link Qt with just about any genuine open source software.
Qt is triply licensed. Posted Jan 21, 2008 20:24 UTC (Mon) by kripkenstein (subscriber, #43281) [Link] The annoyance being in the "just about every" bit. Until this development, GPL3 wasn't among the licenses you could link to. Furthermore, Trolltech is also free to revoke the option to license Qt under the GPL3 at any time. I'm not saying Trolltech is likely to do so. Just that FOSS developers using Qt have to trust Trolltech; the entire KDE project is built on such trust. But what happens if Trolltech is bought by a less-friendly party? (Yes, I'm aware that Qt would go BSD if an open-source version is not released for a long time. But this doesn't stop Trolltech from being bought, and the new owner deciding to release only under the GPL2 from now on. And that is a relatively benign scenario compared to others that we can dream up.)
Qt is triply licensed. Posted Jan 21, 2008 21:13 UTC (Mon) by ipes (guest, #43384) [Link] > Trolltech is also free to revoke the option to license Qt under the GPL3 at any time. No they cannot. Once you release code under GPL (2 or 3), it is always available under that license, except to people who loose the rights given to them by violating the license. License exceptions are a different story, Trolltech can revoke them.
Qt is triply licensed. Posted Jan 22, 2008 3:04 UTC (Tue) by rahvin (subscriber, #16953) [Link] With the exception of any future changes of course, those would fall under whatever license those modifications are issued under.
Qt is triply licensed. Posted Jan 22, 2008 6:06 UTC (Tue) by kripkenstein (subscriber, #43281) [Link] Exactly. The current code is GPL 2 and 3, but starting from the next minor release, Trolltech can make it GPL 2 only.
Qt is triply licensed. Posted Jan 22, 2008 7:54 UTC (Tue) by boudewijn (subscriber, #14185) [Link] I know it's very hard to let go of prejudices you might have cherished for a long time, but isn't it time to do just that? And maybe stop thinking about whatever might be possible and start thinking about what end the actions you think possible might achieve? It would mean Trolltech would lose all credibility, not just in the free software world but also in the proprietary software world. It would mean a fork, with free software developers continuing the development of the last GPLv3 branch. It would mean incompatibility within their own software, because parts of Qt are now developed inside the KDE svn repository, as part of KDE. They would lose a lot of their best employees, who are free software enthusiasts to the core. Releasing the next version of Qt under GPLv2 only would be suicide for Trolltech. It's fun to be skeptical, it's fun to air ones prejudices, but it's much more responsible and productive to recognize Trolltech's contributions to free software. After all, if Qt had been as closed as Motif or XForms we would not have had any free desktop environment except for the FSF sponsored GNUStep.
Qt is triply licensed. Posted Jan 22, 2008 9:19 UTC (Tue) by kripkenstein (subscriber, #43281) [Link] Yes, it would be bad for Trolltech to do this - as things _currently_ stand. However, what if Trolltech were bought by a party with other interests than those you correctly explained here? Alternatively, what if Trolltech's business strategy changes at some point? Upheavals do happen. We shouldn't base our entire FOSS desktop strategy on the trust we place in a single commercial entity, no matter how friendly it is. This isn't a suspicion of Trolltech. It is simple acknowledgment of Trolltech being a for-profit that controls licensing of Qt (note that if Qt were LGPL, this wouldn't be an issue - we wouldn't need Trolltech's agreement to write KDE apps in GPL3, for example). Regarding prejudice: I realize that your assessment is a reasonable one given what I wrote, but it happens that I don't have any long-standing views on the subject. I took a 'break' from software for several years to do other things, and it was during this time that the licensing issues with Qt were an issue. I returned to full interest and participation in FOSS only a few years ago. My views, as explained here and previously, are based on the _current_ situation, as I see it.
Qt is triply licensed. Posted Jan 22, 2008 14:15 UTC (Tue) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] > Yes, it would be bad for Trolltech to do this - as things _currently_ stand. However, what if Trolltech were bought by a party with other interests than those you correctly explained here? Alternatively, what if Trolltech's business strategy changes at some point? Upheavals do happen. What would happen? People would immediately fork the QT library, most of the significant programmers would immediately quit and get snapped up by other open source friendly companies. Trolltech would cease to matter at all after a year or so, only to exist as a copyright house for legacy proprietary applications, and the company that purchased them would realise that they've lost money on the purchase. This is capitalism combined with open source. It's a self-regulating system. Anybody is free to do anything they want, but they make the most money and are the most successfull if they cooperate with each other. The trust in Trolltech is backed up by the GPLv2 and GPLv3 license. At anytime the community can fork QT and add it's own code. The community of KDE developers is more capable then Trolltech alone (of course Trolltech + KDE is better still) and their copyrights to the improvements of QT will lock out Trolltech from ever selling proprietary licenses for it. So Trolltech, for it's business case, is forced to cater to the interests of KDE users and developers. You can see evidence of this when KDE was interested in supporting Windows people started porting the Linux/GPL'd version of QT over to Windows. Previously Trolltech had QT open only for their Linux version and they figured people wanting cross platform compatability for Windows would pay for it. By porting the GPL'd QT over to Windows developers were essentially releasing a fork of it, so Trolltech themselves decided to GPL the Windows version for the QT license also.
Qt is triply licensed. Posted Jan 22, 2008 14:48 UTC (Tue) by kripkenstein (subscriber, #43281) [Link] Yes, we can fork Qt at any point. We will *never*, however, have the capability to change it to allow more licenses. If we end up forking Qt and in several years we want to write apps in GPL 4, then that will not be an option. This is the problem. Yes, the scenarios you describe show that, at the *present time*, it doesn't make sense for Trolltech to abandon the FOSS community. But things change. In 5 or 10 years Trolltech might find that 95% of its business is from licensing fees of lightweight proprietary Qt-based apps on cellphones (I pick the example purposefully, since Trolltech has some nice ideas in the mobile area). Say Motorola or Nokia then buy Trolltech, to build up their cellphone software stack (a reasonable move). They might then and there decide to commit to only minor KDE-related activity (no new licenses allowed, very little development, etc.). Trolltech is for them a widget toolkit for their phones, and nothing more. Stranger things have happened in the business world (and this isn't all that strange, even).
Qt is triply licensed. Posted Jan 22, 2008 6:35 UTC (Tue) by aseigo (guest, #18394) [Link] You, sir, are an ingrate of the worst sort: the sort that takes willingly and yet still complains. Time after time, year after year ... For years now Trolltech has continued to do the right thing, leading other toolkits (vendor or vendorless) in both technology and community correctness and yet ....... you just can't accept it. No, you have to find yet another reason to kvetch, to moan, to project nightmarish maybe-coulds. Each year these scenarios become more and more outlandish: "Oh, but they COULD resort to just GPLv2 IF they were bought or went insane!" wow. That'd also be a great way to sink the company. And therefore the profit stream. And therefore the development teams. And therefore ... it would go BSD. Or *worst* case, we'd take over with the GPLv3 product and continue to develop it from there. I'm tired of the acceptance in our community of those who trash one of the pre-eminent companies of the community: a company who has given more good tech on more platforms for the desktop than pretty much any other single entity. They have been involved in accessibility devel, x.org devel, the LSB, freedesktop.org, worked on various integration movements (glib's event loop, anyone?), paid people to work freely on free software (e.g. myself; we have a division devoted to us in the company, btw), donate everything they do as Free Software and realize that it would be corporate suicide for them to do anything else... all in addition to providing the foundation for the most forward looking and progressive set of desktop software in the Free Software world. Haavard, Trolltech's CEO, said publicly this last weekend that without Free Software and KDE in specific "Trolltech would be Tinytech". They get it. You don't. I thought it was "supposed" to be other way around: the corporate meanies wouldn't understand how things work. Sadly, that level of understanding still isn't enough for you or your ilk. Well, be gone. I'm all for keeping a keen eye on those in our community, but I'm also all for giving credit where credit is due. Trolltech has, without serious pressure, done the Right Things(tm) as they've found a way to balance corporate self-interest with magnanimous community interests. They deserve credit, not more Chicken Littling. Now, as someone whose rent is paid by Trolltech, I cannot and will not lead action to mark your attitude as unacceptable within our Free Software communities/groups/projects. I'll let others do that should they feel similarly, but boy .. do I wish at this moment I was still a volunteer developer as I was for many years so I could say without any possibility of you claiming conflict of interest that you are full of crap and should be shown the door.
Qt is triply licensed. Posted Jan 22, 2008 9:33 UTC (Tue) by kripkenstein (subscriber, #43281) [Link] First, I feel that your vitriol is a bit inappropriate to both the topic and my post regarding it. I understand that this is an important issue to you, but personal attacks are impolite and counterproductive. I'll try to answer without being too peeved by your tone. 1. I agree that Trolltech's interests do not support them stopping to license Qt in a FOSS-friendly way. But interests change, companies get bought, and as a for-profit, Trolltech's only final goal is to make money. The same would be true for whomever buys it, were that to happen. This isn't a criticism of Trolltech, it is a simple fact regarding ANY open-source friendly company, be it Red Hat, Novell, Sun, IBM. 2. The critical difference between (e.g.) Red Hat and Trolltech is licensing. If Red Hat gets bought my Microsoft tomorrow and abandons some GPLed application like (random example) gedit, then no matter - we the community can proceed to develop it from there, under the GPL. We don't need any other license in this context. However, the issue is NOT the same with a foundational toolkit like Qt, since we will never be able to add licenses to which we can link Qt code. Only the owner of the code can do so. If Qt is abandoned at its current status, we will *never* be able to write KDE applications that are GPL 4, as an example. This may seem a silly point now, but may become critical in 5 or 10 years. I believe that the FOSS desktop strategy needs to take such a long view of things. For these reasons, I think foundational projects like the Linux kernel and GTK+ should allow linking to otherwise-licensed code. The kernel does so (since userspace apps are not derived), and GTK+ does so since it is LGPL. Qt is GPL, and hence the problem. 3. I give Trolltech a lot of credit, I appreciate their work. I still reserve the right to criticize them when I feel it is appropriate. I hope you can evaluate my points above on their merits.
Qt is triply licensed. Posted Jan 22, 2008 10:22 UTC (Tue) by aleXXX (subscriber, #2742) [Link] Please have a look at the KDE Free Qt Foundation, which is there to ensure that if Trolltech would be bought or would otherwise become evil, Qt will be basically BSD licensed: http://www.kde.org/whatiskde/kdefreeqt_announcement_20040... Alex
Qt is triply licensed. Posted Jan 22, 2008 11:21 UTC (Tue) by kripkenstein (subscriber, #43281) [Link] Yes, I am aware of this. It might help in certain circumstances. I do not see how it can help in others. For example, if Trolltech didn't agree to allow the GPL 3, what could have been done? Essentially nothing.
Qt is triply licensed. Posted Jan 22, 2008 15:46 UTC (Tue) by AJWM (guest, #15888) [Link] > Furthermore, Trolltech is also free to revoke the option to license Qt under the GPL3 at any time. Yes, and Microsoft is free to start licensing Windows under the GPL at any time. I view the two events as of about equal probability, which probably ranks up there with all the air molecules in the room suddenly deciding to condense into one corner. People who have time to waste worrying over such events must lead rather strange lives.
Whining about Qt Posted Jan 22, 2008 13:16 UTC (Tue) by Janne (guest, #40891) [Link] The whining about Qt and it's licensing never ceases to amaze me. eariler it was about "But I can't develop proprietary closed-source apps with Qt without giving them money!". Well, boo-frigging-hoo, since when did we (and by "we" I mean the larger free-software community) have to satisfy the whims of leeches? And now that complaining has taken a slight change. The complainers realized how stupid it is to defend developement of proprietary software, they moved to other areas. "What it TrollTech ceases to distribute GPL'ed Qt?", "oh, but you can't use Qt with these and these projects, due to licensing-issues...". Seriously: If you are worried about those things, why aren't you whining about GTK's licensing? IF you want absolute maximum amount of freedom (like you seem to want from Qt), then you should also be insisting that GTK should be licensed under the BSD-license. Well, why aren't you? Is it because you hold Qt and GTK to a different standards? And I find it REALLY strange that you keep on whining about a company that not only distributes their expensive flagship-product under the GPL2, but also under GPL3! So distributing software under the GPL is a bad thing, huh? with friends like these, who needs enemies?
Qt's licensing vs the Linux kernel Posted Jan 22, 2008 14:02 UTC (Tue) by kripkenstein (subscriber, #43281) [Link] "Seriously: If you are worried about those things, why aren't you whining about GTK's licensing? IF you want absolute maximum amount of freedom (like you seem to want from Qt), then you should also be insisting that GTK should be licensed under the BSD-license. Well, why aren't you?" (Speaking for myself; you seem to be addressing a wide range of people here.) First, this isn't a GTK vs. Qt issue. I prefer to compare Qt to the Linux kernel. I can write whatever userspace program I want - GPL2, 3, 4 (when it's out), CDDL, proprietary, etc., and run it on a Linux kernel-based system. I cannot do the same with Qt. This is the difference between the two models. No, I do not hold Qt and GTK to different standards. My personal standard is that a foundational tool like the Linux kernel and a widget set should be LGPL or something effectively like LGPL (not BSD, which advocates theft, and not GPL, which allows nothing but itself). I do not want _maximal_ freedom, I want what I believe - based on my personal reasoning, and the success of Linux and GTK - is an _appropriate_ degree of freedom. (Note that the Linux kernel is GPL, but due to the interpretation of the userspace-kernel divide, it is effectively LGPL for purposes of comparison to widget toolkits.) Now, Trolltech is going another way with Qt, and that is its right - it owns the code - but I think the licensing choice of Qt is problematic, for the reasons I detailed above. "And I find it REALLY strange that you keep on whining about a company that not only distributes their expensive flagship-product under the GPL2, but also under GPL3!" The point is that until a few days ago, you _couldn't_ write Qt apps that were GPL 3. And for all we knew, it would never be possible. Yes, the Trolltech people were nice and decided to give us that option, but they were not compelled to. In the future they might - or might not - decide to let us write apps in GPL 4. This isn't an issue with projects like the Linux kernel and GTK.
Qt's licensing vs the Linux kernel Posted Jan 22, 2008 14:55 UTC (Tue) by tbleher (guest, #48307) [Link] But this *is* an issue with the Linux kernel! The kernel is GPLv2 only, so if you want to write a device driver, it has to be under the GPLv2, too. I can't understand why you say this is different. (And writing device drivers is essential if you want to run a now-current kernel ten years from now on then-current hardware, so this definitely is an issue) I'd compare running a user space program on a Linux kernel more to running a Gtk app side-by-side a Qt app. The license of the kernel doesn't stop you from running proprietary apps, since apps and kernel are independent. Neither does Qt stop you from running Gtk apps. So why is this an issue for you. After all, you aren't forced to use Qt for developing your apps.
Qt's licensing vs the Linux kernel Posted Jan 22, 2008 15:22 UTC (Tue) by kripkenstein (subscriber, #43281) [Link] I agree that there is an issue with the kernel, exactly as you say. That is why I said my point is that there should be an *appropriate* degree of freedom. For 95% of apps (number made up, but I think it's the right ballpark), userspace is where they reside. So no problems for them. For the other 5% the issue you mention exists (in particular, device drivers). This isn't a perfect solution; there is no perfect solution, since to make the Linux kernel BSD or public domain is worse, IMHO at least. So the compromise Linus made for the kernel seems to me to be a very wise one (and I think history has proven him right as well). With Qt, the issue applies to 100% of apps, not 5% as in the example above. Again, this isn't a 'this is right, that is wrong' situation. All license choices have advantages and disadvantages. Linux has problems - for example, ZFS is a prime example here. Still, *overall*, the license choice for Linux is an excellent one. Regarding your last paragraph. The issue is what ecosystem we build for the FOSS desktop. If most of our apps use Qt, and we run into licensing issues as I mentioned previously, then we will have to port these apps to GTK. It will be a major, major setback.
Qt's licensing vs the Linux kernel Posted Jan 22, 2008 20:06 UTC (Tue) by martinfick (subscriber, #4455) [Link] While you bring up an interesting point about the ability to change licenses in the future, your point applies to all software not owned by you in the future, no matter what the license is today! So what does it really mean? Not much really. GTK is not immune to this (unless you personally own its code, then the rest of us aren't immune,) no code is. There is no good solution to this really. Creating a foundation? No, not really, foundations are political in nature and change too (or more likely don't change when you want them to), and they die if there is no commercial interest in the foundation. Please don't try and sell me the "not for profit == noble/uncorruptible" idea, I don't buy it and never will. Distributing the ownership (aka linux?) No, because as mentioned, it makes it really hard to ever change the license to adapt it to the future. The problem is a real problem, but not one which is solved by ANY choice of license and I can't really imagine an ownership solution that will solve this problem either. Suggestions?
Qt's licensing vs the Linux kernel Posted Jan 22, 2008 20:18 UTC (Tue) by kripkenstein (subscriber, #43281) [Link] I don't think my point was clear. Let me try again. For 95%+ of software using GTK, all we need is GTK as an external library. Since GTK is LGPL, 95%+ of our software can have whatever license we want. We can write GPL2, GPL3, GPL4 apps, no problem. Yes, for some 5% of software (and I am being lenient) you need to modify something inside GTK itself. I've not run into such a case myself (in any widget toolkit), but let's say 5%. For those 5%, yes, your point is valid, licensing issues may be a problem. (However, we at least have the fact that GTK is LGPL2+. So we can use LGPL2, 3, 4, etc.). For Qt, **every app we write** must follow Qt's licensing guidelines. The extremely rare problem for GTK is completely unavoidable here. We could not (until a few days ago) write GPL 3 apps for Qt. We may never be able to write GPL 4 apps - no promise (Qt is not only GPL and not LGPL, but also doesn't have the "+" clause for any higher version). The issue isn't who owns the code. You are 100% correct, no ownership is free of problems. But ownership isn't the issue, the issue is the GPL vs. the LGPL. My apps have nothing to fear from LGPL code: worst case, I can fork the toolkit and continue it as LGPL, i.e., continue to code my apps in whatever I want. But with Qt's licensing, if I am forced to fork it, **I will never be able to add more licensing options**. That means I will never be able to write GPL 4 apps. That is my concern.
Qt's licensing vs the Linux kernel Posted Jan 22, 2008 21:22 UTC (Tue) by robilad (guest, #27163) [Link] There may never be a GPLv4 before the thermal death of the universe, for all we know. Who cares about hypothetical problems?
Considering worst-case scenarios Posted Jan 25, 2008 5:24 UTC (Fri) by kevinbsmith (guest, #4778) [Link] Why care about hypothetical problems? Well, I've never filed an auto insurance or home insurance claim, but I still carry both policies. I never trust that my current job will last forever, even though it probably will. I don't sign long-term cell phone contracts because I like the freedom to switch carriers if mine starts to suck. I won't store precious data on a commercial online service unless I can pull my own backups, in case they suddenly go bankrupt, or raise their prices dramatically. When I do rely on the goodwill of a company, it is a very conscious decision. From a moral standpoint, I'm perfectly fine with TrollTech's licensing. From a practical standpoint, I don't like giving that much control to a commercial company. The likelihood of problems may be small, but the costs to me if they happen would be quite large. That's a gamble I personally don't want to take. Fortunately, there are alternatives, so the Qt folks can do their thing and I can do mine. It does irritate me though, when Qt fans can't accept legitimate concerns, and especially when they attack anyone who raises them. Trolltech is not BitMover, but keep in mind that when Linus chose Bitkeeper, he didn't believe the license would become a problem. It did, and it was LUCK that Linus was capable of coding git as a quick replacement. I'm not doubting his skill...just pointing out that nobody, including Linus himself, knew in advance whether or not git would actually work. It did. Whew. It could have been a disaster for kernel development, and should be a cautionary tale for anyone evaluating licenses. I'm not saying bad things will happen. I'm saying that you should carefully consider what could happen, and then make a rational decision about it. If you have really evaluated what could happen, and are ok with it, then by all means use Qt if you feel it is the best toolkit for your needs.
Considering worst-case scenarios Posted Jan 25, 2008 8:02 UTC (Fri) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] Um, the BitKeeper license was never free and permitted retroactive changes (something which had lot of people scratching their heads, as copyright licenses per se don't allow that). Qt is under the GPL. If you're worried about Trolltech turning evil and consuming their developers (since how else could they stop those developers keeping the free Qt going?), why not spend some effort worrying about every single *other* project that uses copyright assignments to vest some degree of control in a single entity. Oooh, if the FSF turns evil they could relicense GCC under the Evil Bastards' License (which grants you GPL-like powers iff you give up your firstborn child, and contains a clause saying that it is 'similar in spirit' to the GPL in an evil attempt to eviscerate the wording in all the copyright assignment forms). There are many more important things to worry about than this.
Considering worst-case scenarios Posted Jan 25, 2008 9:29 UTC (Fri) by kripkenstein (subscriber, #43281) [Link] If the FSF 'goes evil' and relicenses GCC under an untenable license, we can take the previous version of GCC, fork it, and continue to develop it ourselves, and, critically, **continue to use it the way we always did**. That is, use it to compile apps in whatever license we want. So if the FSF were to do so, the only loss would be no more patches from the FSF programmers. If Trolltech 'goes evil' and doesn't let us write Qt apps using the GPL4 or even a currently-in-the-works licensing concept like the Afferro GPL is aiming at, then we are in trouble. We can fork previous versions all we want, **we will never be able to write Qt/KDE apps using new licenses**. That is, GCC does not depend on the continuing goodwill of the FSF to keep itself up-to-date with respect to possible licenses that can be used with it. Qt, on the other hand, does. (Yes, if you want to modify GCC **itself**, then you are limited to the FSF's licenses. However, as detailed elsewhere in this discussion, that is perhaps 1% of the usage of GCC. 99% of GCC usage is to write apps using it, and this works as I said above - we are future-proofed. With Qt, 100% of apps using it run into the potential problem.)
Considering worst-case scenarios Posted Jan 25, 2008 14:51 UTC (Fri) by kevinbsmith (guest, #4778) [Link] There seem to be two axes here: Application vs. Library, and GPL-like strong copyleft license vs. liberal license. With applications like gcc, copyleft is no problem, because you can continue to use the application forever without worrying about linking issues. With libraries that allow linking with almost anything (MIT or LGPL, for example), you can continue to use the library and derivatives regardless of what the copyright owner does in the future. The tricky case comes in with GPL libraries like Qt, which are somewhat rare. In that case, you can't use the library (today or in the future) to create non-GPL software. The distinction isn't Free vs. non-Free, as there are incompatible Free licenses. Trolltech apparently (I haven't paid much attention lately) reduces this problem by allowing exceptions for other specific Free licenses. That's great for now, but does not guarantee help for the future. It also doesn't help if you want to release your own code under an unapproved Free license, nor if you want to release your code under an approved license, but to incorporate other third-party code that uses an incompatible Free license. I notice that the normally GPL-compatible "Ruby License" is not in their list, which I guess means I couldn't distribute an app that includes both Qt and some Ruby-licensed code. There is no way to predict with certainty which future Free Software licenses they will or will not permit linking with. Users of Qt either will never want to use a license that Trolltech disapproves of (including licenses of other third-party components?), or they trust that Trolltech will forever allow linking with every reasonable new Free license that comes along, or they trust that if they ever wanted to use an unapproved license, they could switch away from Qt without significant cost. That's fine for them, but it is not a bet I choose to make.
Qt's licensing vs the Linux kernel Posted Jan 23, 2008 1:27 UTC (Wed) by pinky0x51 (guest, #40742) [Link] >But with Qt's licensing, if I am forced to fork it, **I will never be able to add more licensing options**. Not necessarily. If you fork Qt and start writing you additions, bugfixes etc under "GPLv3 or later" there will come the time where more and more code will be "GPLv3 or later" and at some point of time every code or almost every code will be "GPLv3 or later" so that you can replace the last "GPLv3 only" parts. It's like the step from Qt3 to Qt4, i think there is not much Qt3 code left in Qt4.
Qt's licensing vs the Linux kernel Posted Jan 23, 2008 1:29 UTC (Wed) by pinky0x51 (guest, #40742) [Link] I just wonder why they decided to dual-license (GPLv2 and GPLv3) and not go to GPLv3 only and added GPLv2 to the list of allowed licenses for apps?
Qt's licensing vs the Linux kernel Posted Jan 23, 2008 1:54 UTC (Wed) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link] If I'm understanding your suggestion properly, the reason is that doing that would have made Qt GPLv2-incompatible. This is counter-intuitive, I know, and it's because of the funny way the GPL and copyright work. There are lots of existing codebases that use Qt and that are themselves under the GPLv2. If Qt were under GPLv3, then Qt would need an extra exception added to the GPLv3 to allow linking to those GPLv2 applications, *and* those applications would need an extra exception added to their GPLv2's to allow linking to the GPLv3 Qt. Trolltech can easily provide the former, but the latter requires all apps to go through the full relicensing dance, which is awful. (Or if those apps are already licensed GPLv2+, then they could just upgrade to the GPLv3 instead of doing the relicensing dance, but can you *imagine* the screams if Trolltech forced KDE etc. to upgrade to v3 before KDE wanted to?)
Qt's licensing vs the Linux kernel Posted Jan 23, 2008 6:13 UTC (Wed) by kripkenstein (subscriber, #43281) [Link] Ok, that's a valid point. A complete rewrite is the only solution to the potential licensing issue that was mentioned. I see a complete rewrite as very difficult and problematic, but yes, this would be a way out.
Qt's licensing vs the Linux kernel Posted Jan 23, 2008 8:23 UTC (Wed) by nowster (subscriber, #67) [Link] The issue isn't who owns the code. You are 100% correct, no ownership is free of problems. But ownership isn't the issue, the issue is the GPL vs. the LGPL. My apps have nothing to fear from LGPL code: worst case, I can fork the toolkit and continue it as LGPL, i.e., continue to code my apps in whatever I want. But with Qt's licensing, if I am forced to fork it, **I will never be able to add more licensing options**. That means I will never be able to write GPL 4 apps. That is my concern. I think GPL is the correct licence for Qt, not LGPL. "Why?" I hear you ask. Because Trolltech want to make money from licencing to non-free projects, whilst allowing free projects use of their code. If Qt is LGPL, there's nothing that Trolltech can do to stop Microsoft (for instance) from using it as the widget library of their next version of Windows. (Don't forget that the Windows 9x TCP/IP stack originally contained BSD code.) All they'd need to do to satisfy the LGPL would be to distribute the library source (and their modifications) in an obscure location on their installation media. This would mean a loss of earnings for Trolltech, as Microsoft wouldn't have to pay them a penny. By using the GPL only, they're ensuring that this loss of revenue does not happen. The "this version only" and "this version and any subsequent version" variant wording of the GPL is a different matter.
Qt's licensing vs the Linux kernel Posted Jan 23, 2008 8:44 UTC (Wed) by kripkenstein (subscriber, #43281) [Link] > If Qt is LGPL, there's nothing that Trolltech can do to stop Microsoft (for instance) from using it as the widget library of their next version of Windows. That's true. However, as LGPL, Microsoft would have to release its own modifications of Qt, which would presumably be quite a lot. Microsoft wouldn't just write a few apps on top, they sell an entire OS, and they'd make lots of changed everywhere to ensure it all works (well, works up to their standards anyhow). > (Don't forget that the Windows 9x TCP/IP stack originally contained BSD code.) This is exactly why I prefer the GPL/LGPL to BSD. I am pretty sure the TCP/IP stack was modified by Microsoft - if only to fix bugs (and probably more). Upstream could have benefited from those bugfixes and modifications. Perhaps you think that Microsoft would have made few changes to Qt, and in practice made few changes to the BSD TCP/IP stack. I guess neither of us has any conclusive evidence here, but I think my guesses above are very reasonable. Assuming I am right, that the changes would be great, you might still say that receiving those changes isn't enough compensation, and you want Trolltech to also get paid (i.e., what Trolltech currently does). I can see the validity of such an argument. My personal view is that, due to the drawbacks of such an approach, the alternative is better. Drawbacks include potential problems with FOSS license changes discussed in depth elsewhere in this thread, as well as complicating collaboration with other commercial entities (this is one of the reasons why all major commercial or commercially-backed distros - Red Hat, SUSE and Ubuntu - have chosen GTK over Qt, as I interpret their strategy decisions. And it should be especially obvious assuming that Qt is superior to GTK+, as many in the KDE camp feel - I don't know GTK+ or Qt in enough depth to have an opinion on the matter myself, both seem great to me when I write apps for them).
LGPL just does not work... Posted Jan 23, 2008 12:17 UTC (Wed) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] Microsoft would have to release its own modifications of Qt, which would presumably be quite a lot Sure. A lot of modifications like Contents of msqt_ex library will be then available in binary form if you sign the EULA. Take a look on how Microsoft tried to circumvent GPL. Do you really think LGPL "protection" will stop the guys who made an empire on the foundation of secret, proprietary extensions to public API ?
LGPL just does not work... Posted Jan 23, 2008 12:39 UTC (Wed) by kripkenstein (subscriber, #43281) [Link] I am not a lawyer, so I don't know the answer to that. But I believe this would be illegal. Now, perhaps Microsoft with all of its money can ignore the law and do whatever it wants, but that just implies that no license will matter, so the debate is moot. I do not believe this is the case, though.
Qt's licensing vs the Linux kernel Posted Jan 25, 2008 3:15 UTC (Fri) by lysse (guest, #3190) [Link] > My personal standard is that a foundational tool like the Linux kernel and a widget set should be LGPL or something effectively like LGPL (not BSD, which advocates theft, and not GPL, which allows nothing but itself). That's nice for you. What are you doing to ensure that one is available? I mean, given how strongly you evidently feel about it, surely you are doing more than merely whining about what might happen to Qt if six impossible things happened before breakfast?
Qt's licensing vs the Linux kernel Posted Jan 25, 2008 9:18 UTC (Fri) by kripkenstein (subscriber, #43281) [Link] Well in fact I do quite a lot more than talk about these issues. I would go into details, but from your tone, it seems you aren't asking the question with any intention of getting an actual answer. If I misread you then please correct me and I'll give a direct answer (giving you the benefit of the doubt here).
Qt's licensing vs the Linux kernel Posted Feb 21, 2008 5:20 UTC (Thu) by lysse (guest, #3190) [Link] Please do go into details.
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