Qt 5.2 Final Release Is "Coming Really Soon"

[Akka]

So your point is KDE and Digia makes "Free software" so difficult that you need a lawyer? That is quite the opposite of transparent and Free. So much for freedom, I guess KDE doesn't care because they could just terminate the agreement. And just to make a few things clear. Your lawyers advice adds nothing new. no one is talking about procedence vs law or revoking GPL. It is simply a matter of the definition of Qt and Qt Free Edition. It is written in plain English. Go look it up and answer me; Does a relicense cover Qt or Qt Free Editon?

Death to the suppressor, our liberator!! All hail the savior of the island of yesterday!

[curaga]

You didn't even know what the timing restrictions were.

Um, I have the pdf right here. Perhaps you misread me.

[TheBlackCat]

Let's imagine the worst-case scenario: what is the worst Digia could do while still following the agreement?

1. They could keep their own in-house Qt patches to themselves for 12 months. Patches by third parties would still be available immediately.
2. They could stop publishing their own in-house patches for the Windows, Mac Os X, and iOs Qt backends indefinitely. The backends would still be available since they are LGPL, and third-party patches to the backends would still be available immediately.

Now, what would happen if Digia violated the agreement?

1. Pretty much all of Qt, including documentation, would become BSD-licensed. Digia would lose most of its advantage over other companies offering Qt support.
2. The Windows, Mac Os X, and iOs Qt backends, which are a pretty small part of Qt, would remain LGPL. If there is enough demand, others would probably offer BSD-licensed backend implementations (again, since this is a fairly small part of Qt).

[TheBlackCat]

First of all, wasn't there a timeframe of one year (or three months if KDE board decides to act)? This means Digia can delay the corresponding free version by 3-12mo, depending on the KDE board, without any repercussions.

They have to release the free version within 12 months of the non-free version and they have to release the free version within 12 months of the last free version. So they could release the non-free edition earlier (although it would probably take several years to get them 12 months out of sync without violating the free-every-12-months rule). I don't see how that would be a major disaster, however.

Many Qt buyers are also not doing so because they're forced (many of them could in fact use the LGPL version), they do it to have corporate support and a party to blame. This cash flow would not change over a BSD'd Qt.

There are a number of other companies offering paid support for Qt besides Digia. The only advantage Digia has over them is licensing. With the BSD license, Digia would have to compete on an even playing field with those companies.

but the defenders haven't fully read the agreement either, or perhaps they don't have enough imagination for how evil could be done and still be within the agreement.

Shouldn't you should know what is in the agreement yourself before criticizing others for not knowing it? You didn't even know what the timing restrictions were.

[curaga]

What you are worried is that Digia would make secret patches which are not GPL, and then combine them with Qt and sell that. This is exactly what the agreement prevents -- it is called selling a commercial version without a corresponding Free version. If they do this, the following automatically happens:

1) Whatever is in the repository gets released under a BSD
2) Digia goes out of business overnight because their 3 secret patches are worthless compared to all of Qt
3) Commercial Qt dies overnight because nobody would pay for it
4) Some commercial entities build their software using the BSD version
5) The community releases all further changes as GPL/LGPL only
6) The BSD version also dies because nobody is working on it

First of all, wasn't there a timeframe of one year (or three months if KDE board decides to act)? This means Digia can delay the corresponding free version by 3-12mo, depending on the KDE board, without any repercussions.

I quite disagree with the conclusions too. Digia has many other businesses, so they would not die for that. Many Qt buyers are also not doing so because they're forced (many of them could in fact use the LGPL version), they do it to have corporate support and a party to blame. This cash flow would not change over a BSD'd Qt.

Honton keeps being overboard, but the defenders haven't fully read the agreement either, or perhaps they don't have enough imagination for how evil could be done and still be within the agreement.

[anda_skoa]

Then the wording is changed. But still wrong. It does NOT cover Qt for Android, only Qt Free Edition for Android.

Well, on Android there is no difference. The main corpus is Qt for Linux, which is covered by the agreement, and the Android specifc extensions are now as well.

Let me help you. "Copyleft is a general method for making a program (or other work) free, and requiring all modified and extended versions of the program to be free as well."

http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/

Having KDE relicense Qt Free Editon to GPL+LGPL+BSD does kill the copyleft. KDE can NOT touch Qt, they can only drop an anticopyleft cluster bomb on Qt Free Editions users. Get it?

I am not sure. Assuming the chosen relicensing option is BSD, what is the likelyhood of everyone using their own fork of Qt? Only very few players who currently contribute to the development could afford that, all others would most likely just contribute to the GPL/LGPL licensed shared project.

BSD might also not be the chosen option, could be anything, e.g. LGPL or LGPL with linking expections.

Cheers,
_

[schmalzler]

Honton. I already pointed you to the old discussion on this topic, especially to the part where I quote an email written by an "official" person. Look at the first page of this thread. There I also asked you a question, please give me an answer.

[TheBlackCat]

So by Honton's standards, Linus Torvalds is an enemy of free software.

[TheBlackCat]

Then the wording is changed. But still wrong. It does NOT cover Qt for Android, only Qt Free Edition for Android.

They are THE SAME THING. There is no difference whatsoever between the two.

[doom_Oo7]

They are the same thing, funky. Exact same software, with exact same documentation, built from the exact same repository. Which is managed by the community. Everything that goes into that repository is automatically GPL, only Digia has the right to relicense it for money.

...

I'm faving your post.
It says everything and closes the debate (at least I hope).