Canonical Watch

[LinuxGamer]

its good to see users keeping a eye on the devil!!

[pingufunkybeat]

FUD? I'm giving facts based on the agreement. The CLA is the reason I have not contributed to Qt, and will not.

A lot of the arguments repeated by the threadstarter are pure FUD.

You have the right to contribute (or not) to projects whose licensing you find agreeable, that's fine.

Personally, I am less worried about power imbalance than I am about the chances of my code remaining free, so I prefer contributing to copyleft projects. But I've contributed BSD-style licensed stuff too. Which -- power imbalance or not -- is pretty much a guarantee that it will be closed by someone.

[curaga]

FUD? I'm giving facts based on the agreement. The CLA is the reason I have not contributed to Qt, and will not.

I'm not against using Qt, or liberally licensed apps. I'm against contributing to a CLA'd project, because it gives an unfair power to one side. I have contributed to Mesa/X, I'm not against the BSD licenses: there is no such difference in power there.

Past behavior is not an indication of anything.

[pingufunkybeat]

The agreement is quite full of holes; if Digia wanted, they could cause much trouble.

You of course own the copyright for your patches, and are free to publish them any way you like. What Digia can do however, is to incorporate your patches only in a proprietary Qt version, never shipping them in the free Qt. This effectively turns your work proprietary, as nobody will see it in the official Qt, and whatever further modifications Digia does to the proprietary version, in your code, you will never see.

Perhaps they could do that, but they would certainly be challenged, because it would seem to violate one of the sections (which demands a "corresponding" Free version for any non-free Linux-based release). In the case of a dispute, the KDE guys decide.

Perhaps the wording could be more exact, but a lot of this is just typical FUD. Qt has been an integral part of the Free Software ecosystem for almost 20 years now, and it's been FSF-approved Free Software for 15. As a project, they have relased more GPL code to the community than almost any other project in existence (of course, there are notable exception). If ANYONE has played nicely with the community, it's been Qt developers. They (as Trolltech, Nokia, or Digia) have never even hinted at doing anything that they are accused of.

I'm at a loss at how someone can happily use LLVM, CUPS, X.org or Apache, but have a problem with Qt. It's just political backstabbing, de Icaza style.

[curaga]

It's LGPL + CLA. So while the patch itself stays LGPL, Digia has the right to do whatever they want with it, under any license they want. That's the point of the CLA.

[doom_Oo7]

What Digia can do however, is to incorporate your patches only in a proprietary Qt version, never shipping them in the free Qt.

I don't understand how is this possible.
It is stated in the contributor agreement :
"Third Party Contributions may
only be accepted for use in Qt Software or by the Qt Project if the following criteria are met:

(a) The Third Party Contribution is licensed under license terms that are compatible with the GNU
Lesser General Public License version 2.1 (?LGPL v. 2.1?) as included on the Free Software
Foundation?s website (www.gnu.org); and
"

If it's licensed under LGPL, it can't be "proprietary-zed", right ?

[curaga]

"Qt: Digia CLA. Provides the ability to close up apps, use DRM and make alterations compared to any free software versions."

Care to explain more in detail ?

Also, I don't know in other countries but in France, the final word is on the one who wrote the code, and he can set the license to whatever he wants even if the company is against (even in case of copyleft the writer retains full intelectual property).

The agreement is quite full of holes; if Digia wanted, they could cause much trouble.

You of course own the copyright for your patches, and are free to publish them any way you like. What Digia can do however, is to incorporate your patches only in a proprietary Qt version, never shipping them in the free Qt. This effectively turns your work proprietary, as nobody will see it in the official Qt, and whatever further modifications Digia does to the proprietary version, in your code, you will never see.

[doom_Oo7]

"Qt: Digia CLA. Provides the ability to close up apps, use DRM and make alterations compared to any free software versions."

Care to explain more in detail ?

Also, I don't know in other countries but in France, the final word is on the one who wrote the code, and he can set the license to whatever he wants even if the company is against (even in case of copyleft the writer retains full intelectual property).

Ignoring two trolls above, I will nevertheless put this nice Canonical CLA and Harmony CLA analysis as a link for those interested.

In fact, Canonical is driving itself out of own userbase, damaging Linux ecosystem and on the way of breaking own promises.

The whole CLA, NIH and reinvention just for purpose of damage is not describing Canonical as a friendly neighbor.
Maybe we are looking at somebody who plans to repeat SCO ?

Since you have called them trolls prove they are mistaken. If someone deserves the first price of NIH syndrome it's a gnome team. The second one goes to Canonical.

[cliff]

Canonical ?

People still use that? LOL
I have been using Debian Stable for years and love it!!