| |||||||||||||
Mark Shuttleworth on the future of UbuntuMark Shuttleworth on the future of UbuntuPosted Jun 5, 2008 22:48 UTC (Thu) by and (subscriber, #2883)In reply to: Mark Shuttleworth on the future of Ubuntu by kripkenstein Parent article: Mark Shuttleworth on the future of Ubuntu
> The problem is that you can't use all the FOSS licenses, you depend on Nokia agreeing to your using them. For example, last I heard the AGPL wasn't permissible Explicitly listing the AGPL is actually not necessary, since according to http://doc.trolltech.com/main-snapshot/license-gpl-except... Qt is also licensed under GPLv3. In section 13 the GPLv3 states that "you have permission to link or combine any covered work with a work licensed under version 3 of the GNU Affero General Public License". > Should Nokia become less cooperative than Trolltech has historically been, this might be very problematic. this is true for any project which requires copyright assignments: OpenOffice and MySql come to mind. But they can't revoke the licensing of the current version including the GPL exception which means that they can't prevent forks. Also, there is still the QtFreeFoundation (or however it is was called again) which where is effectively controlled by the KDE community (KDE e.v ??) and has the right to release Qt under a BSD license if Trolltech "misbehaves". So, I really don't think there is any danger of losing the toolkit, not even for proprietary applications.
(Log in to post comments)
Mark Shuttleworth on the future of Ubuntu Posted Jun 6, 2008 4:57 UTC (Fri) by kripkenstein (subscriber, #43281) [Link] That's good to know about the AGPL, thanks for the information. I don't think copyright assignments is the issue.Should Nokia become less cooperative than Trolltech has historically been, this might be very problematic.this is true for any project which requires copyright assignments: OpenOffice and MySql come to mind. I'm not familiar with MySQL, but OpenOffice is LGPL, not GPL; furthermore, OpenOffice is an app, not a framework like Qt. For both of these reasons I see little or no cause for concern if Sun should change OpenOffice's license to some other FOSS license. That is, if I want to write a plugin for OpenOffice using the GPL4, I will have no problem. A more relevant comparison is GTK, which is a framework like Qt. GTK being LGPL, I have no worries about writing GTK apps in my FOSS license of choice in the future. But they can't revoke the licensing of the current version including the GPL exception which means that they can't prevent forks.The problem is that no fork can add additional licenses, so if e.g. Nokia decides not to allow Qt apps to be written in GPL4, then no forking can help with that. We will be stuck in perpetuity with the last list of licenses Nokia has allowed us to use. Also, there is still the QtFreeFoundation (or however it is was called again) which where is effectively controlled by the KDE community (KDE e.v ??) and has the right to release Qt under a BSD license if Trolltech "misbehaves".This does not solve the problems I've mentioned. Nokia can continue to release Qt regularly while not allowing the GPL4, and Qt will not revert to a BSD license. "Misbehaves", as defined in that agreement, doesn't cover the problems that concern me. (Also, it isn't Trolltech anymore, but Nokia ;) )
Mark Shuttleworth on the future of Ubuntu Posted Jun 6, 2008 15:13 UTC (Fri) by and (subscriber, #2883) [Link]
> I'm not familiar with MySQL, but OpenOffice is LGPL, not GPL;
furthermore, OpenOffice is an app, not a framework like Qt. For both of
these reasons I see little or no cause for concern if Sun should change
OpenOffice's license to some other FOSS license. That is, if I want to
write a plugin for OpenOffice using the GPL4, I will have no problem.
if you are really this much concerned about not being able to use
not-yet-existing OSS licenses and about being able to write proprietary
derivate works without a payment, you really should be using a BSD instead
of the linux kernel: Even if there was desire to switch to GPLv3, linux
is still stuck to the GPL v2 until _every_ contributor agreed on
relicensing or alternatively every single line of code from authors who
haven't agreed is removed.
on the other hand you will always be able to use/fork/remix all versions
of Qt with (A)GPLv(2|3) code and link it to any code which uses one of the
licenses mentioned in Qt's GPL exception. Also if you want to use your
code with a newer license you can still dual-license it.
Mark Shuttleworth on the future of Ubuntu Posted Jun 6, 2008 18:24 UTC (Fri) by kripkenstein (subscriber, #43281) [Link] Actually the Linux kernel is close enough to what I want: I can write userspace apps using any license and run them on the Linux kernel. It's like the LGPL in that respect. That is, only if I want to extend the kernel itself do I have license issues - which is the same situation with GTK+, which is LGPL. In other words, that the Linux kernel stays GPL2 doesn't matter to me, unless I want to extend the kernel itself. Same as with GTK (which is also GPL2 last I checked, and again, it doesn't matter unless I extend GTK itself). This is the reason I prefer GTK and the Linux kernel's approach to licensing over Qt's (for libraries/frameworks, at least. For normal apps, other licenses might be better).
|
|||||||||||||