[Development] Qt use under LGPL and exceptions to it

[Tomasz Siekierda]

Hi,

one of our forum users has spotted a curious discrepancy in Qt
licensing texts. It turns out, that the online docs have this
paragraph at the bottom of LGPL license text:
"Digia Qt LGPL Exception version 1.1

As a special exception to the GNU Lesser General Public License
version 2.1, the object code form of a "work that uses the Library"
may incorporate material from a header file that is part of the
Library. You may distribute such object code under terms of your
choice, provided that the incorporated material (i) does not exceed
more than 5% of the total size of the Library; and (ii) is limited to
numerical parameters, data structure layouts, accessors, macros,
inline functions and templates."

(link: http://qt-project.org/doc/qt-5/lgpl.html#digia-qt-lgpl-exception-version-1-1)

However, this paragraph is *not present* in the license file on
gitorious, and the LGPL exception placed in a separate file
(LGPL_EXCEPTION.txt) has a completely different wording:

"Digia Qt LGPL Exception version 1.1
As an additional permission to the GNU Lesser General Public License version
2.1, the object code form of a "work that uses the Library" may incorporate
material from a header file that is part of the Library. You may distribute
such object code under terms of your choice, provided that:
(i) the header files of the Library have not been modified; and
(ii) the incorporated material is limited to numerical parameters, data
structure layouts, accessors, macros, inline functions and
templates; and
(iii) you comply with the terms of Section 6 of the GNU Lesser General
Public License version 2.1.
Moreover, you may apply this exception to a modified version of the Library,
provided that such modification does not involve copying material from the
Library into the modified Library's header files unless such material is
limited to (i) numerical parameters; (ii) data structure layouts;
(iii) accessors; and (iv) small macros, templates and inline functions of
five lines or less in length.
Furthermore, you are not required to apply this additional permission to a
modified version of the Library."

(link: https://qt.gitorious.org/qt/qtbase/source/4cb03924c113c74b99e18c7347278600a011e917:LGPL_EXCEPTION.txt)

Those 2 exceptions seem to contradict themselves, in my opinion (the
first one restricts our rights, while the other one expands them). Can
anybody throw some light on what is going on here? Which LGPL
exception should be followed by the users? Both? Or only the one
distributed with the source code?

Please see the original discussion here:
http://qt-project.org/forums/viewthread/44082/

Cheers,
Tom