[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?

[Thiago Macieira]

On sexta-feira, 24 de fevereiro de 2012 10.16.04, eike.ziller at nokia.com wrote:
> The thing that will definitely make your life hard when using a LGPL library
> is the requirements from section 6 (from LGPLv2.1), which basically
> requires you to provide means for users of your application to create a
> version of your application that uses a different version of the LGPL
> library. Now, that might be a bit problematic. The user can't access or
> modify the application as downloaded from the app store, so even
> dynamically linking would not comply to this (which might not be allowed by
> Apple in the first place). There's 6a) & 6c) which says that you can add a
> "written offer" to get everything one needs to create such a version of
> your application "for a charge no more than the cost of performing this
> distribution". So you could offer people to send them the object files or
> static libraries they need to link your application together, maybe plus a
> suitable Xcode project that does that. Of course they could not just build
> and install that on their devices without either paying Apple for a
> developer subscription, or jail-braking their device. I have no idea if
> that would conflict with the "charge no more than the cost of performing
> this distribution" rule.

You can just put the necessary files on a website, which is the preferred v3 
way of complying with the requirements.

The v2 licenses do not impose any restriction or requirement on _running_ the 
code. It's only about access to the source and access to the preferred way of 
rebuilding the application, provided the tools to do that are reasonably 
available. So you can do what Eike says, provide the necessary object files and 
project, and let the user rebuild. 

Whether the user can run the application or not is completely irrelevant to 
the v2 licenses.

The v3 licenses have the "TiVo clause", which require installation 
instructions. If you sign the application, you must provide access to your 
signing certificates. I have no idea how that plays with access to your App 
Store account.

Another interesting question is whether the license is between the user and 
you, or whether it is between the user and Apple. It's the problem of the 
publisher vs the hosting company: if I have a website where I host other 
people's content, I am just hosting. If I also publish on the website, then it 
is in fact I who am publishing everything, meaning the redistribution clauses 
of the LGPL and GPL apply to me.

In summary: go talk to a lawyer.

-- 
Thiago Macieira - thiago (AT) macieira.info - thiago (AT) kde.org
   Software Architect - Intel Open Source Technology Center
      PGP/GPG: 0x6EF45358; fingerprint:
      E067 918B B660 DBD1 105C  966C 33F5 F005 6EF4 5358
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