[Interest] Protection against a VLC-like enforcement: a Qt developers could send an infringement complaint about software distributed through he Apple App Store, and Apple pulling the software?

Erwin Coumans erwin.coumans at gmail.com
Tue Feb 21 20:05:13 CET 2012


I have some concerns regarding the LGPL license, statically linked in an
application distributed through the Apple App Store.
This was previously discussed here, but it ignore the a part of the LGPL
license about not imposing further restrictions:
http://lists.qt.nokia.com/pipermail/qt-interest/2011-September/035667.html

Apple's Terms of Service impose restrictive limits on use and distribution
for any software distributed through the App Store, and the GPL and LGPL
doesn't allow that.
>From the LGPL license: "You may not impose any further restrictions on the
recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein."
See
http://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/more-about-the-app-store-gpl-enforcement

It seems that if any Qt developer would send an infringement complaint to
software distributed through he Apple App Store, Apple would pull the
software, just like they did with the VLC player.
(http://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/vlc-enforcement)

Do we just need to trust the Qt developers they won't do this?
Or is there anything that protects Qt users (who want to distribute their
software through the Apple App Store) from such infringement complain?
Thanks,
Erwin
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