[Qt-interest] Licensing

[jjDaNiMoTh]

2010/6/2 Srdjan Todorovic <todorovic.s at googlemail.com>:
> On 2 June 2010 08:32, Jan <janusius at gmx.net> wrote:
>>
>> Thanks for your thoughts on this ... but if that is the case (selling
>> LGPL'd Qt software) I don't understand why the term "commercial" is
>> exclusively appearing in the commercial licence description.
>>
>> Probably "commercial" is something different here.
>
> I thought that in this context, "commercial" means that you can keep
> your code closed-source.

This is true with GPL, not with LGPL.

I could keep my applications (see below) closed-source and use LGPL
version of Qt, without distribuiting its source code.
I have seen this in many, many places (I'm a maintainer of many
packages in ArchlinuxPPC, and I see every time closed programs which
use LGPL libs).

Also, here [1], you could see definitions (Applications, Library...).
So, the LGPL places copyleft restrictions on the program itself but
does not apply these restrictions to other software that merely links
with the program, and this is the main difference from GPL.

Commercial license exists (IMHO, from what I see from website) for
programmers which want technical support and for who want to
statically link their software vs. Qt.


[1] http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl.html