20 years of Qt

Posted May 21, 2015 16:32 UTC (Thu) by xnox (guest, #63320)
Parent article: 20 years of Qt

IMHO the author is aware of the difference and did actually address it right there on the spot:

"From the beginning, Qt has been released with both open source and commercial licensing options. Over the years, we have worked on expanding this model, and nowadays, Qt is actually developed as an open source project. "

the "and nowadays, ... actually" is a clear indication that back in the day it was mumbo-jumbo =) but by today's definitions it's all good and open-sourcery.

20 years of Qt

Posted May 21, 2015 18:37 UTC (Thu) by pboddie (guest, #50784) [Link] (1 responses)

What the author meant was that the code was originally being developed in private and then being thrown over the wall - with some kind of "open source" licence attached - whereas now the software bears a Free Software licence and everybody publicly collaborates by contributing code under such licences. In other words, the project went from a mostly producer-to-consumer development model employing a licence that didn't satisfy Free Software criteria to an open collaboration employing a Free Software licence. There are two different considerations involved that are being deliberately blurred.

(Of course, we can also argue about the "open source" licence employed in former times, but given that the GNOME project was originally motivated by a reaction to the Qt licensing of the day, perhaps the only conclusion to be drawn is that "open source" is not a very reliable label, especially given the widespread misuse and misappropriation going on around it.)

20 years of Qt

Posted May 25, 2015 11:29 UTC (Mon) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

> perhaps the only conclusion to be drawn is that "open source" is not a very reliable label, especially given the widespread misuse and misappropriation going on around it.

One only has to look at all the projects that started out as open source and not Free Software. The obvious one is linux :-) To that I'd add SuSE (with the YaST licence - almost the same as the original linux licence ...)

It's just as bad as all the arguments about "free" :-) - do you mean libre, do you mean gratis, do you mean freedom for the developer, do you mean freedom for the user, ...

And then, don't forget, a LOT of software developers aren't American - the American viewpoint is heavily influenced by the fact that many developers (the older ones) can remember a time when pretty much all software was Public Domain. Us Europeans have NEVER known a time like that. So for you, until the early 80s, "Free" (as in "the four freedoms") and "open source" (as in the source was available to read) were pretty much the same thing legally. That's why the FSF was founded - the legal framework was rewritten!

At the end of the day, if you aren't prepared to learn your history, and look at things IN THEIR HISTORICAL CONTEXT, you will never be able to understand what REALLY happened.

Cheers,
Wol