[Qt-interest] LGPL compliance poll

[Arnold Krille]

Hi,

On Friday 01 October 2010 17:04:35 BRM wrote:
> > From: Arnold Krille <arnold at arnoldarts.de>
> > For applications there is actually no difference between GPL and  LGPL.
> That depends on how the applications interface. The LGPL concerns itself
> entirely with how they interface.
> If you use an LGPL application inside your close-source application then
> there is still the same difference between the GPL and LGPL.

"Apps" as in stand-alone-binary ready to execute. And as such there is no 
difference in LGPL-apps and GPL-apps as you can not link to apps (at least not 
with sane results). So the practical results for distributing apps is the same 
on LGPL and GPL.

> >  The only difference between the two is that for libraries, LGPL allows
> >
> >'closed source'
> >
> > apps to link to this library without becoming GPL  themselves. Using GPL
> > for libraries in contrast forces any app linked to  this lib to be GPL
> > too. That is the reason why Qt is LGPL and not GPL. Simply  so you can
> > write commercial, closed source (ie. non-GPL) apps with the free 
> > edition of Qt.
> Correct. But that's not what you were stating in the previous paragraph.

Hm? That is exactly what I said in both paragraphs.

> > The only occasion where you are allowed to use  GPL-libraries without
> > your becoming GPL is when that app is only used within  the
> > firm/business unit that
> > 
> > wrote it in the first place. Which means when  the app isn't sold.
> > On a side-note: This is the reason some folks invented  the AFL for
> web-apps...
> 
> Doesn't have anything to do with selling. I can sell you a copy of a
> closed-source application that utilizes GPL code so long as I do not
> _distribute_ the actual application to you.
> As soon as I distribute the application the GPL license kicks in; until
> then I am free to do what I please.

Selling me a copy of an app _is_ distribution. Selling me your work 
programming the app (when you don't keep a copy of the source or at least do 
not sell/distribute it to others) makes it my property and the exception I 
stated above applies.

Have fun,

Arnold
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