[Development] Qt LTS & C++11 plans (CopperSpice)

Ansel Sermersheim ansel at copperspice.com
Mon Jul 27 03:47:02 CEST 2015


On 7/26/15 3:01 PM, Kevin Kofler wrote:
> Ansel Sermersheim wrote:
>> We do in fact have a CLA in place. However, our CLA has one single
>> purpose. In the event that Qt is re-licensed under a BSD style license
>> (whether due to the KDE Free Qt Foundation or some other reason), we
>> will re-license CopperSpice under that same license. That is the only
>> permission we ask from contributors.
> That in turn allows everyone else, or even you, to take the code
> proprietary, so in the case this clause is triggered (which depends on Qt,
> i.e., neither on you nor on the contributor), it is functionally equivalent
> to a CLA allowing proprietary relicensing.
There is one fundamental difference between the CopperSpice and Qt 
licensing situation.

In the (unlikely) event that CopperSpice becomes BSD licensed, it 
becomes BSD licensed for everyone. This means anyone, anywhere, has 
equal rights to make changes and profit from them.

This is very different from one particular entity owning the right to 
profit from an open source project. The argument between GPL-style vs 
BSD-style licenses is as old as the hills, but both licenses do treat 
all contributors equally.

Ansel Sermersheim



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