“This is wrong to say that the only alternative to Commercial + GPLv3 is
Commercial only.”
I did not say the _only_ alternative. Some new things are LGPL exactly to grow
the user base. Qt for Python being one of such.
Yours,
Tuukka
From: Benjamin TERRIER <b.terr...@gmail.com>
Date: Wednesday, 14 August 2019 at 22.18
To: Tuukka Turunen <tuukka.turu...@qt.io>
Cc: qt qt <interest@qt-project.org>
Subject: Re: [Interest] Qt free software policy
Le mer. 14 août 2019 à 20:36, Tuukka Turunen
<tuukka.turu...@qt.io<mailto:tuukka.turu...@qt.io>> a écrit :
Hi,
Qt’s approach to open-source is publicly described, but perhaps a bit hidden,
check for example:
· Section 3 of https://www.qt.io/faq/
· https://wiki.qt.io/Qt_Project_Open_Governance
· https://www.qt.io/licensing/
These pages are just presenting the current licensing options.
They do not cover how The Qt Company view the licensing of future Qt modules.
We have been releasing new add-on modules under GPLv3 and commercial licenses
with intention of growing the adoption of commercial license for those making
closed-source applications with Qt. Alternative for using GPLv3 and commercial
would be to only offer these add-ons separately under a commercial license,
which would mean not even those who are ok with GPLv3 license could use these
add-ons. Some of such components do exist, but most of our code is available
under an open-source license as well.
This is wrong to say that the only alternative to Commercial + GPLv3 is
Commercial only.
The new add-ons modules could be provided as GPLv3 + GPLv2 + LGPLv3.
I understand the will to grow "the adoption of commercial license", but I
believe that some modules which have a lot of alternatives available could be
licensed also under GPLv2 and/or LPGLv3 without going against "the adoption of
commercial license".
Also having more module on LGPL can grow the Qt community leading to indirect
sales of the commercial license.
For instance when I work on GPLv3 projects I can use all Qt add-ons, but when I
work on GPLv2 or LGPLv3 project I cannot use the most recent Qt modules.
Which means that I have to find an alternative anyway. In the end I do not use
these Qt add-ons, even for the GPLv3 projects as I have an alternative ready.
At the same time we have developed a lot of new functionality, done a lot of
improvements, and fixed a lot of bugs in functionality available also with LGPL
license. This is a big investment, which directly benefits all Qt users whether
they distribute their applications under LGPL, GPL or commercial license. Just
look at the amount of new and changed code and you can see that the LGPLv3
parts are clearly not some legacy functionality, but very actively developed
areas of Qt.
I am not denying that.
It is just that all the novelties are GPLv3 only and I think it should be made
clear to the community that new LGPL modules are not to be expected.
BR
Benjamin
_______________________________________________
Interest mailing list
Interest@qt-project.org
https://lists.qt-project.org/listinfo/interest
