Re: Qt becomes Free Software

[Erwin Bolwit <erwin xs4all nl>]

Hello,

Everybody seems to be so happy about the new QT license. I have a contrary
point. I think the new QT license does not conform to the open source
definition.

Specifically, under point 3 the open source definition says that any
modification should be allowed to be distributed under the same terms as
the original license.

QT does not allow that. Specifically, the QPL says:


----- 8< ---- 8< QUOTE 8< ---- 8< ----
b. The patch must be explicitly licensed by the following clauses without
additional restriction: 

          Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person
obtaining a copy of this
          patch, to deal in the patch without restriction, including
without limitation the rights to use,
          copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or
sell copies of the patch,
          subject to the following conditions: Any copyright notice and
this permission notice must
          be included in all copies or substantial portions of the patch. 

     This clause has been inspired by the X Consortium license. It is
designed to ensure that patches can be
     used by anyone without restrictions. This makes it possible to
include patches in new versions of the
     software. For Troll Tech this means that we can incorporate patches
into new versions of Qt. It also
     means that we can include the same patches in the Qt Professional
Edition, which we intend to keep
     exactly equal to the Qt Free Edition. 
---8< --- end quote --- 8< ---


The QT license does specifally only allow distribution of patches under
the small license dicated in point 3, not under the full QPL. One point
that developers will have problems with, will be the fact that the full
QPL says that "You may copy and distribute the Software provided that the
entire package is distributed".

But patches may be distributed without the entire package, including the
right for troll tech to distribute your patches with a different,
commercial version.

Erwin Bolwidt

Disclaimer: my point is the protection of the Open Source certication
mark.
I've made GPL software, but not contributed to Gnome (yet), so take my
comments with as much grains of salt as your like.