Hi, I am not a lawyer, but I'll give it a try. The catch is in the definition of "Source Code" in the LGPL. Quote:
"Source code" for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it. For a library, complete source code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the library. Build scripts are part of the source code by this definition. Including ant-contrib.jar would make this file part of the build scripts and therefore part of the Qt Jambi source. Weird, but it says so. A Qt Jambi that is licensed as GPL (again! Nokia relaxed this just a while ago, remember?) is a major step backwards for me and my project(s). Now the much more interesting question is: if ant-contrib is only a build time dependency that is not included in the source code of Qt Jambi, is (a) the distributed source code in violation of the requirement of being the "full Source Code" according to the LGPL and (b) would this need to change the license of Qt Jambi also? Francis, the FSF gives quite good (and reasonable) advice on the interpretation of their licenses in matters like this. Maybe you could ask them for clarification? A simple email is enough. Regards, Gregor -------- Original-Nachricht -------- > Datum: Fri, 16 Oct 2009 14:22:30 +0200 > Von: Tom Schindl <[email protected]> > An: Eskil Abrahamsen Blomfeldt <[email protected]> > CC: [email protected] > Betreff: Re: [Qt-jambi-interest] [RFC - community-port-to-4.6] Add a build > dependency on ant-contrib (was Re: Status report on the build system) > Hi, > > How could a build *dependency* affect the license of the resulting binary? > > Tom > > Eskil Abrahamsen Blomfeldt schrieb: > > Francis Galiegue skrev: > >> As I understand it, the community-port-to-4.6 branch is dedicated to > >> the community. I therefore propose that the next-to-come > >> qt-jambi-4.6.x depend on ant-contrib for the build process. Should the > >> consensus turn out to be in favor of integrating it, I stress out the > >> fact that I'll start integrating ant-contrib ONLY when I'm done with > >> the build branch. > >> > > > > If you are actually considering physically integrating the > > ant-contrib.jar-file like before, please bear in mind the consequences > > for the licensing of Qt Jambi. Ant-contrib is licensed under the Apache > > license, which I believe is a GPL3-compatible license, but incompatible > > with LGPL and GPL2. I may be wrong about this, but as far as I could > > see, this is the case. Any user of Qt Jambi who currently depends on > > either LGPL or GPL2 will thus not be able to use this branch of Qt > > Jambi, as the new branch would have to be licensed under GPL version 3. > > > > The bottom line is that commercial users of Qt Jambi will not be able to > > upgrade to the community version and therefore not to Qt 4.6, which I > > would consider a significant downside. > > > > As long as ant-contrib is available on all supported platforms, I don't > > mind adding a dependency on it for the community version, but I would > > vote against adding the actual .jar-file to the repository. > > > > -- Eskil > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Qt-jambi-interest mailing list > > [email protected] > > http://lists.trolltech.com/mailman/listinfo/qt-jambi-interest > > _______________________________________________ > Qt-jambi-interest mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.trolltech.com/mailman/listinfo/qt-jambi-interest -- GRATIS für alle GMX-Mitglieder: Die maxdome Movie-FLAT! Jetzt freischalten unter http://portal.gmx.net/de/go/maxdome01 _______________________________________________ Qt-jambi-interest mailing list [email protected] http://lists.trolltech.com/mailman/listinfo/qt-jambi-interest
