[Qt-interest] Licensing

[Steven Doerfler]

On 5/29/2010 2:14 PM, Constantin Makshin wrote:
> AFAIR, [L]GPL doesn't require distributing the source code along the
> program/library, they only require that the code can be easily
> retrieved and the user has related information (how to get the code).
> And since Qt code is freely available to everyone, Phil can simply put
> a Qt address (http://qt.nokia.com) somewhere in his program's docs
> (unless he uses modified version of Qt, of course).

I don't think my original response to this statement of yours was very
clear, so let me try again.

I agree that, in many cases, LGPL doesn't require distributing source
code to the library you used.  But it's not because the library code can
be easily retrieved, or the user has been told how to get it from a
third party, or given a URL to do so.  The license doesn't care about
any of those things.

Many programs avoid the need to distribute LGPL library source code
simply by using the library as a shared library (and appropriately
crediting the owner of the library, and the various other things
described at the top of section 6 of the LGPL).

But if you can't do that, then the fact that Qt is easily available
doesn't free you of the responsibility to comply with the other parts of
section 6.

Steven