Qt For Tizen Update Does Qt 5.2 Alpha, Wayland Happy

[TheBlackCat]

The real irony is that you don't dare to challenge the very fact that Qt is not copyleft. It is nice for Digia and Canonical though.. They managed to add proper social bribing, something that the likewise-minded Oracle never managed.

I don't see you flaming firefox, and you keep praising wayland, despite the fact that both are far less copyleft than Qt is.

[dee.]

Qt is not copyleft. CLA kills the copyleft. Deal with it!

Repeating something over and over does not make it true. Neither does adding "deal with it" to the end.

Copyleft refers to the "share alike" property of a license: you can use the code, but if you want to distribute copies of it - even modified copies - you have to distribute it under the same license, and grant the users of your distribution the same rights you were granted when you received the code.

CLA does nothing to remove this property. CLA has nothing to do with the license at all. Please, learn how licenses work.

Now can we get back on topic?

[dee.]

Copylefted code that gets CLAed is put under a broad license. That allows the code to be distributed in a non-free manner thus the copyleft is no more. The CLA is an anti copyleft trap. MS have described the GPL copyleft like a viral cancer, the CLA is the "cure".

You have no idea what you're talking about.

Stallman himself agrees (and it is the official stance of the FSF as well) that dual-licensing is an acceptable business model for GPL software. Dual-licensing is the practice of distributing the software under GPL (or other copyleft license), while also offering the choice to license the software under other, non-copyleft terms, which would allow corporations who want to use the software in their proprietary software to pay to get a license for it. Usually, the licensee is limited to use the licensed software in only ways approved by the developer. The original, GPL-licensed software meanwhile still stays under GPL and is still copyleft.

CLA allows the author of the software to relicense the software, ie. release it under another license. This does not change the licenses of already released versions, which will stay under the license they were released under to all eternity. So if something is released under GPL, it stays GPL, and even if the author decides to relese under a different license later, anyone can still fork the last GPL-licensed release and continue development under GPL.

Furthermore, CLA (or CA) does not make any difference with regards to licensing: if a single person is developing a software, they can change the license whenever they want to whatever they want, without any CLA or CA. Are you now also saying that any GPL software that only has one developer is also not copyleft? Also, even if there are multiple developers, and there is no CLA/CA, if all developers agree, the software can be relicensed. Is it then also not copyleft?

Answer: no, it is still copyleft. If something is licensed under a copyleft license, it is copyleft, regardless of CLA/CA agreements, because those are external to the license. The license only applies to the single release: speculation of what the developers may possibly maybe do in the future is of no concern to the license.

[Pajn]

https://www.gnu.org/copyleft/
You need to do your home work, and realize that the broad licensing of all upstream Qt code is NOT copyleft. CLA is a way to kill of the copyleft. Copyleft is hated like cancer by companies seeking a way to make money of closed software. Just like Digia.

No, just no.
CA/CLA have nothing to do with the license of released software.

[TheBlackCat]

No, just no.
CA/CLA have nothing to do with the license of released software.

Honton doesn't care about copyleft. If he/she did, he/she would also be flaming firefox and wayland. This is just one of many excuses Honton uses to flame groups he sees as enemies of Gnome. It is an argument that he/she commonly used under the name FunkStar, but hasn't used it as much recently since the new sock puppet came along.

[dee.]

https://www.gnu.org/copyleft/
You need to do your home work, and realize that the broad licensing of all upstream Qt code is NOT copyleft. CLA is a way to kill of the copyleft. Copyleft is hated like cancer by companies seeking a way to make money of closed software. Just like Digia.

1) You need to learn how to spell "homework", before you start telling others to do it (and I'm saying this as someone who doesn't speak english as his first language)

2) You apparently conveniently ignored every point in my post, and responded only with an out-of-context link whose contents you probably have never read yourself

I've considered selling exceptions acceptable since the 1990s, and on occasion I've suggested it to companies. Sometimes this approach has made it possible for important programs to become free software.

The KDE desktop was developed in the 90s based on the Qt library. Qt was proprietary software, and TrollTech charged for permission to embed it in proprietary applications. TrollTech allowed gratis use of Qt in free applications, but this did not make it free/libre software. Completely free operating systems therefore could not include Qt, so they could not use KDE either.

In 1998, the management of TrollTech recognized that they could make Qt free software and continue charging for permission to embed it in proprietary software. I do not recall whether the suggestion came from me, but I certainly was happy to see the change, which made it possible to use Qt and thus KDE in the free software world.

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling-exceptions.html

Looks like Stallman himself approves the business model of Qt. You have no leg to stand here. If you're against Qt, that's your problem, but don't drag the FSF into it, because they do not agree with your views.