Regarding 5. : > Large company F is creating a product with Qt under commercial license. Part of the work is subcontracted to Company G that uses Qt under commercial license. Company G subcontracts some of the work further to low-cost Company H, who uses Qt under open-source license. This is not allowed.
Could you clarify these cases : 1/ Is "Qt under open-source license" limited to the downloads on qt.io, or any software code related to Qt ? 1/ a. Does this also cover people doing apt-get install qtcreator on Debian or brew install qtcreator on macOS 1/ b. Does this also cover forks of Qt ? say, company H builds a plug-in using Copperspice for the software ordered by company F. Does company H need to take a Qt license ? 1/ c. Does this also cover WebKit / Blink engines, which come from KHTML, which was developed at some point in the past with open-source Qt and thus every software using a derivative of WebKit on earth ? (electron, chrome, microsoft edge, etc)... eg. if I, as company H, ship an electron app in the context of the project of company F (say, the electron app is opened when a button is pressed in the app developed by company F), do I also need to get a Qt license ? And, if the answer to c. is "no", how is that different from company H "subcontracting" by developing a library with open-source Qt, putting it on the Qt market place, and having company G download it and integrate it to its project ? Thanks for your answers so far, Jean-Michaël On Tue, Mar 31, 2020 at 7:32 PM Tuukka Turunen <tuukka.turu...@qt.io> wrote: > > > Hi Jérôme et al, > > > > This thread has long ago left the original question and become a > discussion about Qt licensing in general and especially about the point of > not mixing commercial Qt with open-source version of Qt. > > > > The key point is: The Qt Company, just like Trolltech initially and other > companies in between, does not want mixing open-source Qt and commercial > Qt. > > > > Reason is simple: if mixing was allowed, many companies would use it to > pay less for their use of Qt. > > > > It is unfortunate that also real open-source projects may be affected in > some cases. Majority of users are not affected in any way. > > > > It is also unfortunate if licensing is felt to be so complex that it is > better to use some other technology. Commercial licensing of Qt is quite > flexible and it is also possible to negotiate and ask for advice in case it > is unclear what is allowed and what not. > > > > Here are some examples that hopefully clarify the point about mixing > open-source and commercial: > > > > Example 1: Company A has 10 developers creating a product. 5 of them use > Qt under commercial license and 5 do not use Qt at all. This is ok. > > > > Example 2: Company B has 10 developers creating a product. 5 of them use > Qt under open-source license and 5 do not use Qt at all. This is ok. > > > > Example 3: Company C has 10 developers creating a product. 5 of them use > Qt under commercial license and 5 use Qt under open-source license. This is > not allowed. > > > > Example 4: Large company D is creating a product with Qt under commercial > license. Part of the work is subcontracted to Company E that uses Qt under > commercial license. This is ok. > > > > Example 5: Large company F is creating a product with Qt under commercial > license. Part of the work is subcontracted to Company G that uses Qt under > commercial license. Company G subcontracts some of the work further to > low-cost Company H, who uses Qt under open-source license. This is not > allowed. > > > > Example 6: Company I is building two independent products with separate > development teams. One development team uses Qt under commercial license to > create product 1 and the other development team uses Qt under open-source > license to create product 2. This is ok. > > > > Hopefully I was able to clarify the topic with these examples. The Qt > Company wants to provide Qt under open-source license. There is no mega > corporation with deep pockets behind. Development of Qt is funded with the > revenues gained from commercial licensing. > > > > Yours, > > > > Tuukka > > > > > > > > *From: *Jérôme Godbout <godbo...@amotus.ca> > *Date: *Tuesday 31. March 2020 at 17.56 > *To: *Tuukka Turunen <tuukka.turu...@qt.io>, Andy <asmalo...@gmail.com> > *Cc: *"interest@qt-project.org" <interest@qt-project.org> > *Subject: *RE: [Interest] Qt Creator licensing for companies with Qt > Commercial developers > > > > Hi, > > the mix is not a corner case, it’s the reality of many people around. We > are a services compagnie, and this is really a headache to understand where > it should fall since we do project for client but we are a single cie. The > license of Qt have is such an ambiguity and our lawyer recommend (not even > sure himself where we do fall) we avoid using it as much as we can given > the context we are in. When a client have commercial license, we ask them > to use their infrastructure and avoid having any commercial license on > premise (we cannot take any chance). If you think your licensing is clear > and make it easy, it ain’t, we do more and more Xamarin, just for license > reason not because we like it. I continue Qt mostly on hobby, really like > Qml and where the binding in C++ is heading. But for my work job, Qt is > fading out. > > > > The departure between mixing LGPL and Commercial one is such a gray area, > nobody want to venture anywhere there. > > > > Note: I don’t speak in the name of my cie, but my own opinion here. Just > stating the fact that the Qt license is the main reason we often ditch Qt > for some application. > > > > > > *From:* Interest <interest-boun...@qt-project.org> *On Behalf Of *Tuukka > Turunen > *Sent:* March 31, 2020 10:33 AM > *To:* Andy <asmalo...@gmail.com> > *Cc:* interest@qt-project.org > *Subject:* Re: [Interest] Qt Creator licensing for companies with Qt > Commercial developers > > > > Hi Andy, > > > > You are asking to explicitly define terms like project, company, product. > These are rarely possible to define outside of the generic use of the term > and each individual contract. I assume you understand that it is not > possible to take any stand of those in an email. We have these listed in > the FAQ and contracts in as clear way as we have been able to list these. > > > > I have also tried to explain these, but your tone feels rather aggressive. > I do not understand what makes you say: “Even a solo developer needs to > hire a lawyer before touching anything Qt-related.” For most of the > situation the licensing of Qt is really simple and also very permissive. > Yes, there are certain complex corner cases, like mixing of commercial on > open-source versions of the Qt framework/tools. But how often do you need > to mix these? Most of the Qt users are using either the commercial or the > open-source version. > > > > Yours, > > > > Tuukka > > > > *From: *Andy <asmalo...@gmail.com> > *Date: *Tuesday 31. March 2020 at 16.47 > *To: *Tuukka Turunen <tuukka.turu...@qt.io> > *Cc: *Giuseppe D'Angelo <giuseppe.dang...@kdab.com>, " > interest@qt-project.org" <interest@qt-project.org> > *Subject: *Re: [Interest] Qt Creator licensing for companies with Qt > Commercial developers > > > > > "This is at the moment not listed as an allowed case..." > > > > And this again is here the Qt company is digging it's own grave. > > > > What constitutes a "product"? If a company has one team working on an open > source library and another team using it in a proprietary application - > what then? What if an internal tool uses some code or a library from > proprietary application? What if... > > > > Even a solo developer needs to hire a lawyer before touching anything > Qt-related. > > > > Once you start trying to codify all the different scenarios in your > licensing, it becomes toxic and people will avoid it > > > > --- > Andy Maloney // https://asmaloney.com > > twitter ~ @asmaloney <https://twitter.com/asmaloney> > > > > > > > > On Tue, Mar 31, 2020 at 9:36 AM Tuukka Turunen <tuukka.turu...@qt.io> > wrote: > > > Hi, > > The point of the "Prohibited combination" is to prevent a company or a > chain of companies (like in a typical subcontracting scenario) from making > part of the product with non-paid Qt and part with paid. Qt being as > defined in the commercial license agreement, i.e. including tools and > framework. This was what the person initiating this mail thread asked > about. I do agree that it gets complex when one starts including items > created by an independent third party. This is at the moment not listed as > an allowed case, even though it is not something we specifically aimed to > prevent. > > Yours, > > Tuukka > > On 31.3.2020, 15.03, "Interest on behalf of Giuseppe D'Angelo via > Interest" <interest-boun...@qt-project.org on behalf of > interest@qt-project.org> wrote: > > On 3/31/20 1:22 PM, Tuukka Turunen wrote: > > For completely independent projects/products this is fine. Note that > these really should not be same or in practice the same - or in any way > depending, relating, using etc each other as defined in the license > agreement. > > > > See licensing FAQ question 2.7 athttps://www.qt.io/faq/ and > License agreement athttps://www.qt.io/terms-conditions/ > > It is still unclear if the usage of Qt _Creator_ for developing some > code would cause such code to fall under the restrictions of > commercial > licensing. > > > Here's a few scenarios: > > 1) I have a Qt commercial license. In my project using commercial Qt I > want to use a library developed by > > 1a) some other team in my company; > 1b) someone else. > > This other library is under a liberal license; does NOT use Qt itself > in > any way; but has been developed using Qt Creator (GPL). Can I use it > in > my product under the commercial license? Or would it fall under the > "Prohibited Combination": > > > “Prohibited Combination” shall mean any means to (i) use, combine, > incorporate, link or integrate Licensed Software with any software created > with or incorporating Open Source Qt, (ii) use Licensed Software for > creation of any software created with or incorporating Open Source Qt > > Does "created with" here extend to GPL Creator? > > > > 2) Same as 1, but this time with the library using Qt (as in: using > headers, linking against it). Example: a Qt-based library coming from > KDE Frameworks, developed using Creator. > > > Thanks, > -- > Giuseppe D'Angelo | giuseppe.dang...@kdab.com | Senior Software > Engineer > KDAB (France) S.A.S., a KDAB Group company > Tel. France +33 (0)4 90 84 08 53, http://www.kdab.com > KDAB - The Qt, C++ and OpenGL Experts > > > > _______________________________________________ > Interest mailing list > Interest@qt-project.org > https://lists.qt-project.org/listinfo/interest > > _______________________________________________ > Interest mailing list > Interest@qt-project.org > https://lists.qt-project.org/listinfo/interest >
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