-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hi *,
I checked the Qt licensing a bit: http://qt-project.org/doc/qt-4.8/legal-easing.html Short conclusion: it is complex. Now I see the following problem (keep in mind IANAL): Any application linking to Qt falls under "work that uses the Library", no matter if it ships with Qt or not, specified in the LGPL 2.1 used for Qt 4.8. (unless I am mistaken of course) This means each program needs to (again assuming I'm newbishly reading correctly): * display prominently they use LGPL-licensed Qt * link to the full LGPL license (no matter if it's hidden in whatever folder Qt/Licenses of the Qt install on whatever place of the disk) Also, any other of the TONS of licenses Qt uses may or may not require us to do similar things. (all the Apple contributions and more) But who has the time to read all them? Big companies like EA do. They have their lawyers to compile all the licenses: http://gpl.ea.com/qtlicense.html Surprisingly, most smaller open-source devs don't or aren't aware. What does that mean? Most Qt programs probably violate Qt's LGPL terms and probably others by missing out on displaying information they should display. Only the big commercial players will actually comply, and the actual open-source devs will have trouble reading up on what they actually need to embed and display to the user for a simple Qt program that doesn't even ship or install Qt. Now if I look at http://qt-project.org/doc/qt-4.8/legal-easing.html I can easily understand why. The page is a mess! Why is there no single text file with all required licensing information which I can simply slap into my About dialog? Or do I need to hire a lawyer first or manually check all licenses that may require me to display them or Copyright or whatever in my about dialog, so I can actually comply with them? Some more guidance on what an open-source dev linking to Qt legally needs to display would really help. (e.g. to start with, a SINGLE FILE assembling all copyright notices + licenses). Regards, Jonas Thiem PS: Sorry for mailing this if all of what I said is false. Again I am not a lawyer, I am just guessing from casually reading the LGPL license that the display of stuff is needed. But if it is, it could really help if Qt/Digia bothered to assemble a slap in and forget file which has all the stuff that legally needs to be displayed. (that huge nested HTML page isn't really suitable for embedding into an application!) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1 iQIcBAEBAgAGBQJTO3oRAAoJEBIDTbbx8YkeQFMP/3JzTxZDtVf3FxnSeW8DCzPQ WmZ0ViaBPUbuUVhpB0DlVmTGuDAZ5EN76NoxQ7waF7MEjkpIDoSShT42ctYiVQJ8 4dSUj2trzWv0CODuO91R6Ajj/MK0+JXcQzD0HvBKrvGXYPiRDAY2sgR6/qLuDGtz fesKCb5bl2BMoKnD33BSxwNpEQMR9jRSzaOgPUdEx+rhYEYqKTJed5WByVJ08roG Oe2nnrucmD20KOtXnBAMd1Q/wNNnauaS0k6BwNyyPpZCD4dgbSFtyjcCQEWtsZUY Do7BDzREV285GYMbM2pWpLVDs9tdFrfwPN5txRZBl8ijVIR1uCHI8ecg/t1BizDG 4RwaAdHaVl1a+prnl9PcD0DJ/RZ43AgBqbT91IRJe/jZwe/NMxnIBB13j8grAv/s aTWjmKqmSSmSIP7vTmbmSD7obYEGO2tWXZDkcprmNMKn4wbWswhqQunNzgiGwPT6 4hwscgP5cdpapapL+syDcYHlt3E/ZrsqqmaL4laUGPp9ZytBxIxFbwAmgOrY0/qZ 4zYgYYiYAA45S2ZOr916XPolAkD5eAf8i22mtp7dxH3NGsZITF8e5DdQ0VmGhryv wfC2xURopCVni4af9KzjX0MdfVaGblVfMma6OJeoWuAcMIX6qQKz1Mws2FZXUrU2 2ecyw82lJjQm8u9puxlX =QRAS -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ Interest mailing list Interest@qt-project.org http://lists.qt-project.org/mailman/listinfo/interest
