[Interest] Licensing

[Giuseppe D'Angelo]

Hi,

Il 05/10/19 13:17, Colin Worth ha scritto:
> My company has developed embedded and cross-platform GUI software using free open-source QT, the latest version. We are using the libraries that are included with the standard open-source installation. Soon we will freeze the version number, because we need to go through the FDA certification process. The software will be included with a medical device and we may also develop a sub-project that can be sold directly to consumers (its a medical device for amputees) Can someone briefly summarize our options as far as licensing (I have already read and googled many links, read through license terms, etc., even including a suggestion that we need to hire a lawyer, but this seems like a pretty straightforward question.)
> 
> 1) Are we free to sell and distribute the software with our product, or as a download, as long as we dynamically link to the Qt libraries (as happens automatically when deploying with mac/windeployqt). Do we need to post any part of our source code online?

Unfortunately it IS a question for your own lawyers. The point is that 
you need an authoritative answer from an IP specialist operating in your 
country, with knowledge about your specific domain.

Note that you said "open source" Qt, which is meaningless -- different 
parts of Qt are covered by different open source licensing schemes 
(LGPL3, GPL2/3, LGPL2, ...), that carry very very very different 
obligations. You need to audit your source and figure out which ones 
you're actually using. The same thing applies for any other 3rd party 
library you are using.

And while a license like LGPL3 doesn't mandate publishing the source 
code of the application linked against a LGPL3 library, it *still* puts 
further constraints on such an application, that may or may not be fine 
with you.

There is a number of online videos that might help at getting a rough 
idea about whether you'd be fine at using an open source license, but I 
cannot stress this enough: they're *not* authoritative answers for your 
*specific* case, and you shouldn't risk your entire business strategy 
based on what a complete stranger said on the Internet!

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwTlCBbB3RY

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSYDWnsfWUk



> 
> 2) If not, how much does commercial licensing cost, not for ongoing development, but just to include Qt with a product, or would that be determined on a case-by-case basis with the QT company.

The quotes are not public; this is a question for your own Qt Sales 
representative.


HTH,
-- 
Giuseppe D'Angelo | giuseppe.dangelo at kdab.com | Senior Software Engineer
KDAB (France) S.A.S., a KDAB Group company
Tel. France +33 (0)4 90 84 08 53, http://www.kdab.com
KDAB - The Qt, C++ and OpenGL Experts

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