[Interest] Qt 4.8 (and Qt 5 too?) really need a digested file of to-be-shown copyright, licensing information

[Jonas Thiem]

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Hi *,

I checked the Qt licensing a bit:
http://qt-project.org/doc/qt-4.8/legal-easing.html
Short conclusion: it is complex.


Now I see the following problem (keep in mind IANAL):

Any application linking to Qt falls under "work that uses the
Library", no matter if it ships with Qt or not, specified in the LGPL
2.1 used for Qt 4.8. (unless I am mistaken of course)

This means each program needs to (again assuming I'm newbishly reading
correctly):
* display prominently they use LGPL-licensed Qt
* link to the full LGPL license (no matter if it's hidden in whatever
folder Qt/Licenses of the Qt install on whatever place of the disk)

Also, any other of the TONS of licenses Qt uses may or may not require
us to do similar things. (all the Apple contributions and more)

But who has the time to read all them?

Big companies like EA do. They have their lawyers to compile all the
licenses: http://gpl.ea.com/qtlicense.html

Surprisingly, most smaller open-source devs don't or aren't aware.

What does that mean? Most Qt programs probably violate Qt's LGPL terms
and probably others by missing out on displaying information they
should display. Only the big commercial players will actually comply,
and the actual open-source devs will have trouble reading up on what
they actually need to embed and display to the user for a simple Qt
program that doesn't even ship or install Qt.


Now if I look at http://qt-project.org/doc/qt-4.8/legal-easing.html I
can easily understand why. The page is a mess!

Why is there no single text file with all required licensing
information which I can simply slap into my About dialog? Or do I need
to hire a lawyer first or manually check all licenses that may require
me to display them or Copyright or whatever in my about dialog, so I
can actually comply with them?

Some more guidance on what an open-source dev linking to Qt legally
needs to display would really help. (e.g. to start with, a SINGLE FILE
assembling all copyright notices + licenses).

Regards,
Jonas Thiem

PS: Sorry for mailing this if all of what I said is false. Again I am
not a lawyer, I am just guessing from casually reading the LGPL
license that the display of stuff is needed. But if it is, it could
really help if Qt/Digia bothered to assemble a slap in and forget file
which has all the stuff that legally needs to be displayed. (that huge
nested HTML page isn't really suitable for embedding into an application!)
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