[Qt-interest] Licensing

[Scott Aron Bloom]

Thiago,

Please take this with the intent I'm trying to put forth.  

This confusion over what closed sourced commercial apps (not Qt defined commercial license apps) have to do to satisfy the requirements of the LGPL + the Qt exceptions/extensions to the LGPL are extremely confusing for us commercial developers.

While I understand Nokia/TT will never do this, it would be great, if Nokia would put out a checklist of "if you do this" we consider you satisfying the requirements of the license.  And if a suit is brought forth against you, and you can show that you followed our prescribed checklist of requirements, we will file a friend of the court brief.

Until this is cleared up, while I LOVE that Qt has been put into the LGPL, there are many small companies that will just be afraid to use it... Or roll the dice and every 3-6 months a QSO like this will occur.

Scott

-----Original Message-----
From: qt-interest-bounces at trolltech.com [mailto:qt-interest-bounces at trolltech.com] On Behalf Of Thiago Macieira
Sent: Wednesday, June 02, 2010 11:49 AM
To: qt-interest at trolltech.com
Subject: Re: [Qt-interest] Licensing

Em Quarta-feira 2. Junho 2010, às 20.03.28, Kustaa Nyholm escreveu:
> But my point is that I can statically link my application as long as I 
> do not deny the users the right to re-link it.
> 
> And I can do that with static linking if in addition to  the 
> statically linked  application executable  I will distribute the 
> unlinked object files of the application as well.
> 
>  I was further speculating that under 6c I would not even have to 
> distribute those unlinked object files if I just promised in writing 
> to deliver them on request.

That's how I personally read the LGPL, but that's not necessarily how everyone might.

You have to deal with the risk that someone considers static linking as derived work and thus requests not only the ability to relink, but access to the source code.

--
Thiago Macieira - thiago (AT) macieira.info - thiago (AT) kde.org
  Senior Product Manager - Nokia, Qt Development Frameworks
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