subject:"Re\: \[Interest\] Qt Creator licensing for companies with Qt Commercial developers"

Hi Matthew,

I have tried to be very clear in explaining that the whole point of this email 
thread is about mixing open-source and commercial, which not a the most common 
use case. I do not know what are the questions that I have tried to avoid 
answering. Yes, there are many users of Qt who use it in many different ways. 
It is rather simple to answer for every specific case when all details are 
known, but rather hard to give a short answer that covers every possible way of 
using Qt. 

But trust me when I say that the vast majority is using either the commercial 
or open-source version. In both these cases licensing is rather 
straightforward: either follow LGPL and GPL (if you use the GPL parts), or the 
commercial license if that has been purchased. 

I know licensing in general can be a challenging topic, but I can't help 
thinking if some people are intentionally trying to twist things around. At 
least there are quite many who have not been talking about this in a friendly 
tone.

That said, I hope there are at least some recipients in the mailing list who 
consider this discussion valuable. Unless there is any new actual question, 
this is my last email to the topic. 

Yours,

Tuukka

On 1.4.2020, 23.04, "Matthew Woehlke"  wrote:

On 31/03/2020 09.46, Andy wrote:
> Even a solo developer needs to hire a lawyer before touching anything
> Qt-related.

Fortunately for the OSS community, you forgot "commercial" in that sentence.

> Once you start trying to codify all the different scenarios in your
> licensing, it becomes toxic and people will avoid it

Yup. Just in this thread, I've seen messages *from Tuukka* that said
"yes", "no", and avoided answering in various ways.

It's no wonder people are confused.

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Re: [Interest] Qt Creator licensing for companies with Qt Commercial developers

Hi Matthew,

Unless you are in the situation described by the person who originated this 
email thread, I am rather sure you can continue using the GPL version of 
Creator. 

The whole point of this email thread was situations where the same development 
project team (creating the same product) would like to mix commercially and 
open-source licensed Qt frameworks or tools. This is not allowed, but also not 
the most common case. Typically either commercial or open-source version of Qt 
is used, which is the way indented.  

Yours,

Tuukka

On 1.4.2020, 22.16, "Matthew Woehlke"  wrote:

On 27/03/2020 08.55, Tuukka Turunen wrote:
> Correct. All users need to have commercial license. It is not allowed for 
part of the team to use commercial and part use open-source. Even though Qt 
Creator is great, it can feel odd to pay for full Qt license and only use the 
Creator IDE. 
> 
> We have been thinking about selling Qt Creator separately, but so far no 
decisions made on this. 

Wait, *WHAT?!* AFAIK, GPL imposes no restrictions on material created
*using* GPL'd software (with possible exceptions if such use results in
materials that incorporate parts of the software used, e.g. bison/flex).

That said, I wouldn't know what sorts of crazy provisions the Qt
commercial licensing may contain... IMHO though requiring licensees to
not use a particular IDE is pretty asinine.

> On 25.3.2020, 21.09, "Interest on behalf of Vyacheslav Lanovets" 
 wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Situation.
> 
> A company has a few developers with Qt Commercial subscription who
> write applications in Qt for iOS.
> There are many other developers, who work on other projects and don't
> use Qt libraries.
> They talk to each other and sometimes even work on the same code.
> 
> Is it still possible for the developers who don't use Qt libraries in
> any way, use Qt Creator IDE for editing and debugging?
> To be on the safe side, company plans to prohibit usage of Qt Creator
> IDE for all employees.
> I reckon this is a popular solution.
> If I understand correctly, Qt even sells a special option to ban all
> company IP addresses for open-source installer.
> 
> But is it really so?
> 
> Regards,
> Vyacheslav
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> 
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Re: [Interest] Qt Creator licensing for companies with Qt Commercial developers

On 31/03/2020 16.12, Krzysztof Kawa wrote:
> This got me thinking about quite a simple case that doesn't seem so
> simple now: Lets say I make a game using open-source licensed Qt, or
> even just open-source licensed Qt Creator. After few years of
> development I decide to publish the game. It just so happens that my
> publisher has a storefront app using commercial Qt or even just
> written in Qt Creator under commercial license. To put my app in their
> store there's usually some API, config file or whatever that
> technically makes it mixing the two, even if not through Qt based
> interface. 

Are you talking about an API that *your game* will use (e.g. for IAPs)?
Or just the process of submitting your content to be distributed?

> Does that mean I can't publish my app in that store?

*You* are fine, so long as publishing doesn't prevent you from
fulfilling your [L]GPL obligations.

The store, OTOH... I have no idea. (Lucky for you that's not *your*
problem.)

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Re: [Interest] Qt Creator licensing for companies with Qt Commercial developers

On 31/03/2020 09.46, Andy wrote:
> Even a solo developer needs to hire a lawyer before touching anything
> Qt-related.

Fortunately for the OSS community, you forgot "commercial" in that sentence.

> Once you start trying to codify all the different scenarios in your
> licensing, it becomes toxic and people will avoid it

Yup. Just in this thread, I've seen messages *from Tuukka* that said
"yes", "no", and avoided answering in various ways.

It's no wonder people are confused.

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Re: [Interest] Qt Creator licensing for companies with Qt Commercial developers

2020-04-01 Thread Scott Bloom

Sorry had to laugh...

> Yup... except I'd probably use some less polite terms than "tone-deaf".
Fair point... tone-deaf can be a bit insulting..

>This sort of thing, and also the recent installer changes, continues to 
>make me think that TQtC is *trying* to commit suicide. That, or whoever is 
>making these decisions is hopelessly incompetent.
Yes, hopelessly incompetent is a much more polite thing to say...


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Re: [Interest] Qt Creator licensing for companies with Qt Commercial developers

On 30/03/2020 13.49, Andy wrote:
> That makes no sense. Your license prevents a company from using an
> open-source tool? It says "if you license our stuff you cannot use the
> open-source tool X"?

That is, indeed, what I am hearing, and also how I would interpret the FAQ.

> This whole thread is yet another great example of where the Qt Company is
> totally tone-deaf.

Yup... except I'd probably use some less polite terms than "tone-deaf".
This sort of thing, and also the recent installer changes, continues to
make me think that TQtC is *trying* to commit suicide. That, or whoever
is making these decisions is hopelessly incompetent.

> Nobody understands your licensing. You have fewer people using Qt and
> Qt-based things because of this.

Probably.

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Re: [Interest] Qt Creator licensing for companies with Qt, Commercial developers

On 31/03/2020 14.16, Francis Herne wrote:
> Having looked through said document, the relevant sections seem to be:
> 
>> 1. ... “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, or (iii) 
> incorporate or integrate Applications into a hardware device or product other 
> than a Device. ...
> 
> Can't use licensed Qt Creator to develop open-source Qt apps; ok.

That *is* what the above appears to say. It's also *beyond* asinine. YTH
should TQtC care if I buy their IDE and use it to develop OSS software?
This just strikes me as a reason to *not* buy their IDE. I fail to see
how it is in any way beneficial to TQtC.

The *intent* here is to not use the licensed Qt *libraries* to build a
product which also leverages the OSS version of Qt in any way, to avoid
people "shirking" by writing most of their code against OSS Qt and then
later bolting on a tiny proprietary bit. I won't comment whether I think
that approach makes sense, but it's at least comprehensible.

> In general, the only "clear" policy is that The Qt Company deliberately 
> obfuscates the conditions under which the GPL version can be used, to put 
> people off exercising the rights that do exist.
> 
> This goes along with the general downplaying of, and FUD about, the GPL 
> option 
> on the website, and the bizarre retrospective licensing.
> 
> It's disrespectful to the outside contributors who've built so much of Qt and 
> its ecosystem in exchange for those rights, and doesn't bode well for the 
> future of Qt in the free software community.

No argument here...

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Re: [Interest] Qt Creator licensing for companies with Qt Commercial developers

On 27/03/2020 08.55, Tuukka Turunen wrote:
> Correct. All users need to have commercial license. It is not allowed for 
> part of the team to use commercial and part use open-source. Even though Qt 
> Creator is great, it can feel odd to pay for full Qt license and only use the 
> Creator IDE. 
> 
> We have been thinking about selling Qt Creator separately, but so far no 
> decisions made on this. 

Wait, *WHAT?!* AFAIK, GPL imposes no restrictions on material created
*using* GPL'd software (with possible exceptions if such use results in
materials that incorporate parts of the software used, e.g. bison/flex).

That said, I wouldn't know what sorts of crazy provisions the Qt
commercial licensing may contain... IMHO though requiring licensees to
not use a particular IDE is pretty asinine.

> On 25.3.2020, 21.09, "Interest on behalf of Vyacheslav Lanovets" 
>  wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Situation.
> 
> A company has a few developers with Qt Commercial subscription who
> write applications in Qt for iOS.
> There are many other developers, who work on other projects and don't
> use Qt libraries.
> They talk to each other and sometimes even work on the same code.
> 
> Is it still possible for the developers who don't use Qt libraries in
> any way, use Qt Creator IDE for editing and debugging?
> To be on the safe side, company plans to prohibit usage of Qt Creator
> IDE for all employees.
> I reckon this is a popular solution.
> If I understand correctly, Qt even sells a special option to ban all
> company IP addresses for open-source installer.
> 
> But is it really so?
> 
> Regards,
> Vyacheslav
> ___
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> https://lists.qt-project.org/listinfo/interest
> 
> 
> ___
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> 


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Re: [Interest] Qt Creator licensing for companies with Qt Commercial developers

Hi,

As I have said earlier in this thread it can feel odd that the restriction of 
mixing extends also to the Qt tools, even in case framework libraries are not 
used.

I want to again emphasize that this is something that does not affect 
open-source use of Qt – as long as it is not done in conjunction with a 
commercially licensed Qt.

We have been considering of separately licensing some of the tools, but no 
decisions done yet.

Yours,

Tuukka

From: tomek 
Date: Wednesday 1. April 2020 at 13.28
To: Tuukka Turunen 
Cc: Krzysztof Kawa , "interest@qt-project.org" 

Subject: Re: [Interest] Qt Creator licensing for companies with Qt Commercial 
developers

Hi Tuukka,

so if the company's product is say modern car's head unit which is built from 
many, many blocks and to build one of those (UI) Qt with commercial license was 
used then hundreds or thousands of developers in the same company or many 
subcontractor companies developers are forbidden to use Qt Creator based on GPL 
license as their IDE of choice to C/C++ code development within that product 
(but for other modules not relying on Qt at all, physically stored in different 
repos/subrepos)? From the company/project management perspective there will be 
most probably many projects (per module/block) but in the end all will be 
bundled into one package which will land on the blackbox so according to your 
explanation it will be license violation, right?

Thanks,
Tomasz/

śr., 1 kwi 2020 o 07:24 Tuukka Turunen 
mailto:tuukka.turu...@qt.io>> napisał(a):
Hi,

To me your example does not sound problematic assuming that your application is 
like a typical app - a clearly different thing than the store that sells apps 
(the store sells a lot of different apps and your is in no way relevant for 
operating the store etc).

Also, for any particular real case at hand, you can ask if something is allowed 
for you or not.

Yours,

Tuukka

On 31.3.2020, 23.15, "Interest on behalf of Krzysztof Kawa" 
mailto:interest-boun...@qt-project.org> on 
behalf of krzysiek.k...@gmail.com<mailto:krzysiek.k...@gmail.com>> wrote:

> 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.

This got me thinking about quite a simple case that doesn't seem so
simple now: Lets say I make a game using open-source licensed Qt, or
even just open-source licensed Qt Creator. After few years of
development I decide to publish the game. It just so happens that my
publisher has a storefront app using commercial Qt or even just
written in Qt Creator under commercial license. To put my app in their
store there's usually some API, config file or whatever that
technically makes it mixing the two, even if not through Qt based
interface. Does that mean I can't publish my app in that store? If
that's the case then this pretty much makes Qt dead for any sort of
game development because there's no possible way to know which
publishers are gonna use what tech and under what license by the time
you ship. Same thing goes for any app distributed through external
stores I guess and I know at least few that use Qt.
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Re: [Interest] Qt Creator licensing for companies with Qt, Commercial developers

2020-04-01 Thread Ilya Diallo

Hi,

What I get from the explanations from Tuukka is that the commercial
contract includes what amounts to legal carpet-bombing aiming to prevent
bad faith actors to use loopholes to their advantage.
The unfortunate consequence is that good faith actors can feel unsafe if
they try to read the legal terms.
There's some concerns about the definition of a "project" or "product" but
most important terms are ill-defined if you think about it:
- what does "using" means exactly ?
- what does "depends" means exactly ?
- what does "affecting" means in the context ?
- and so on

You can't escape that increasingly anything tends to depends on everything,
so the dual-licensing model is more and more complicated to get right.

The general intent of the Qt license is somewhat clear, but someone said
that the "get a lawyer" advice is FUD, and it's tempting to agree. I think
it's even worse for the QtC because a lawyer may advise to not use the
commercial license if he tries to get to the bottom of it and fails (as he
should).

Ilya

Le mer. 1 avr. 2020 à 09:04, Tuukka Turunen  a écrit :

>
> Hi,
>
> I think you are now twisting and mixing things incorrectly.
>
> For example, working in a company who has a commercial license of Qt does
> not in any way hinder contributing to Qt.
>
> Yours,
>
> Tuukka
>
> On 1.4.2020, 9.32, "Interest on behalf of Roland Hughes" <
> interest-boun...@qt-project.org on behalf of rol...@logikalsolutions.com>
> wrote:
>
>
> On 3/30/20 1:03 PM, Andy wrote:
> > That makes no sense. Your license prevents a company from using an
> > open-source tool? It says "if you license our stuff you cannot use
> the
> > open-source tool X"?
> >
> > This whole thread is yet another great example of where the Qt
> Company is
> > totally tone-deaf.
> >
> > Nobody understands your licensing. You have fewer people using Qt and
> > Qt-based things because of this.
>
> I've honestly been expecting KDE to kick Qt to the curb any day now if
> they are reading this.
>
> Medical device companies have been running screaming away from Qt over
> the past year. Many moving to Rust. Some are even moving to Zinc which
> really kind of surprised me.
>
> Some companies in other markets are abandoning embedded Linux for
> embedded DOS so they can use other GUI tools. Before you Guffaw at
> that,
> AGCO uses a lot of embedded DOS and they make an awful lot of Ag heavy
> equipment. Last I heard they were moving away from Qt as well.
>
> What is impressive is how "company" and "project" get thrown around
> interchangeably. So, if one tiny little project in GE in some remote
> location is using a commercial license, from what was stated, every
> person in every GE location around the world __must__ have a
> commercial
> Qt license to use QtCreator even if they are just using C++. I guess
> everyone has to move to Emacs, CodeLite, KDevelop, and VSCodium.
>
> https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/
>
> https://codelite.org/
>
> https://www.kdevelop.org/
>
> https://vscodium.com/
>
> I suppose if they didn't want free they could pay $299 for SlickEdit.
>
> https://www.slickedit.com/
>
> or a $100/yr annual subscription to UltraEdit.
>
> Just be aware that UltraEdit like many other PC originating editors
> gets
> tabs wrong. When you set tabs to spaces and set their width to 4,
> hitting  when cursor is in first column of the line has to put
> the
> cursor in column 4, not 5 like far too many PC editors.
>
>
> https://www.logikalsolutions.com/wordpress/information-technology/most-text-editors-get-tabs-wrong/
>
> Having followed this "discussion" for a bit now I have a relevant
> question.
>
> Assuming Intel, given all of the locations it has around the globe,
> owns
> a single commercial Qt license at any one of them, by what has been
> said
> here, Thiago not only has to have a commercial license to work on Qt,
> he
> technically can't work on the OpenSource version. He has to commit his
> code to the commercial version where it may or may not ever find its
> way
> into the OpenSource version, if there ever is to be an OpenSource
> version again.
>
> Cause that's what I've been hearing in this conversation. The new new
> new new licensing "strategy" is once anyone in an organization has
> touched a commercial version they must perpetually pay forever and
> ever
> for everyone. It almost sounds like a person couldn't even leave a
> company and go work on OpenSource.
>
> I went back tot he archive.
>
> Vyacheslav Lanovets actually asked:
>
> =
>
> A company has a few developers with Qt Commercial subscription who
> write applications in Qt for iOS.
> There are many other developers, who work on other projects and don't
> use Qt libraries.
> They talk to each other and sometimes even work on the same code.

Re: [Interest] Qt Creator licensing for companies with Qt, Commercial developers

Hi,

I think you are now twisting and mixing things incorrectly.

For example, working in a company who has a commercial license of Qt does not
in any way hinder contributing to Qt.

Yours,

Tuukka

On 1.4.2020, 9.32, "Interest on behalf of Roland Hughes"

wrote:

On 3/30/20 1:03 PM, Andy wrote:
> That makes no sense. Your license prevents a company from using an
> open-source tool? It says "if you license our stuff you cannot use the
> open-source tool X"?
>
> This whole thread is yet another great example of where the Qt Company is
> totally tone-deaf.
>
> Nobody understands your licensing. You have fewer people using Qt and
> Qt-based things because of this.

I've honestly been expecting KDE to kick Qt to the curb any day now if
they are reading this.

Medical device companies have been running screaming away from Qt over
the past year. Many moving to Rust. Some are even moving to Zinc which
really kind of surprised me.

Some companies in other markets are abandoning embedded Linux for
embedded DOS so they can use other GUI tools. Before you Guffaw at that,
AGCO uses a lot of embedded DOS and they make an awful lot of Ag heavy
equipment. Last I heard they were moving away from Qt as well.

What is impressive is how "company" and "project" get thrown around
interchangeably. So, if one tiny little project in GE in some remote
location is using a commercial license, from what was stated, every
person in every GE location around the world __must__ have a commercial
Qt license to use QtCreator even if they are just using C++. I guess
everyone has to move to Emacs, CodeLite, KDevelop, and VSCodium.

https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/

https://codelite.org/

https://www.kdevelop.org/

https://vscodium.com/

I suppose if they didn't want free they could pay $299 for SlickEdit.

https://www.slickedit.com/

or a $100/yr annual subscription to UltraEdit.

Just be aware that UltraEdit like many other PC originating editors gets
tabs wrong. When you set tabs to spaces and set their width to 4,
hitting when cursor is in first column of the line has to put the
cursor in column 4, not 5 like far too many PC editors.

https://www.logikalsolutions.com/wordpress/information-technology/most-text-editors-get-tabs-wrong/

Having followed this "discussion" for a bit now I have a relevant question.

Assuming Intel, given all of the locations it has around the globe, owns
a single commercial Qt license at any one of them, by what has been said
here, Thiago not only has to have a commercial license to work on Qt, he
technically can't work on the OpenSource version. He has to commit his
code to the commercial version where it may or may not ever find its way
into the OpenSource version, if there ever is to be an OpenSource
version again.

Cause that's what I've been hearing in this conversation. The new new
new new licensing "strategy" is once anyone in an organization has
touched a commercial version they must perpetually pay forever and ever
for everyone. It almost sounds like a person couldn't even leave a
company and go work on OpenSource.

I went back tot he archive.

Vyacheslav Lanovets actually asked:

A company has a few developers with Qt Commercial subscription who
write applications in Qt for iOS.
There are many other developers, who work on other projects and don't
use Qt libraries.
They talk to each other and sometimes even work on the same code.

Is it still possible for the developers who don't use Qt libraries in
any way, use Qt Creator IDE for editing and debugging?
To be on the safe side, company plans to prohibit usage of Qt Creator
IDE for all employees.
I reckon this is a popular solution.
If I understand correctly, Qt even sells a special option to ban all
company IP addresses for open-source installer.

The question clearly states the second group just like the IDE for C++.
They aren't using Qt at all. That was the question asked.

What this conversation is really starting to sound like is "The
OpenSource version has ceased to exist."

Please clarify explicitly while I dust off my Zinc books.

https://books.google.com/books?id=cdx_nLaqMn0C=frontcover=Zinc+It!=en=1_redir=0=X=2ahUKEwidibzz8sLoAhVrUN8KHXzSBtkQ6AEwAXoECAIQAg#v=onepage=Zinc%20It!=false

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Re: [Interest] Qt Creator licensing for companies with Qt, Commercial developers

2020-04-01 Thread Hamish Moffatt


On 31/3/20 6:09 am, Roland Hughes wrote:
Just be aware that UltraEdit like many other PC originating editors 
gets tabs wrong. When you set tabs to spaces and set their width to 4, 
hitting  when cursor is in first column of the line has to put 
the cursor in column 4, not 5 like far too many PC editors. 



That's definitely not the right behaviour if you're coding Python for 
example, which is a far more likely scenario for a modern editor than COBOL.




Hamish

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Re: [Interest] Qt Creator licensing for companies with Qt, Commercial developers

2020-04-01 Thread Roland Hughes

On 3/30/20 1:03 PM, Andy wrote:

That makes no sense. Your license prevents a company from using an
open-source tool? It says "if you license our stuff you cannot use the
open-source tool X"?

This whole thread is yet another great example of where the Qt Company is
totally tone-deaf.

Nobody understands your licensing. You have fewer people using Qt and
Qt-based things because of this.

I've honestly been expecting KDE to kick Qt to the curb any day now if
they are reading this.

Medical device companies have been running screaming away from Qt over
the past year. Many moving to Rust. Some are even moving to Zinc which
really kind of surprised me.

https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/

https://codelite.org/

https://www.kdevelop.org/

https://vscodium.com/

I suppose if they didn't want free they could pay $299 for SlickEdit.

https://www.slickedit.com/

or a $100/yr annual subscription to UltraEdit.

https://www.logikalsolutions.com/wordpress/information-technology/most-text-editors-get-tabs-wrong/

Having followed this "discussion" for a bit now I have a relevant question.

I went back tot he archive.

Vyacheslav Lanovets actually asked:

The question clearly states the second group just like the IDE for C++.
They aren't using Qt at all. That was the question asked.

What this conversation is really starting to sound like is "The
OpenSource version has ceased to exist."

Please clarify explicitly while I dust off my Zinc books.

https://books.google.com/books?id=cdx_nLaqMn0C=frontcover=Zinc+It!=en=1_redir=0=X=2ahUKEwidibzz8sLoAhVrUN8KHXzSBtkQ6AEwAXoECAIQAg#v=onepage=Zinc%20It!=false

https://books.google.com/books?id=4vu5LwUGT28C=PP1=Zinc+It!=en=1_redir=0=X=2ahUKEwidibzz8sLoAhVrUN8KHXzSBtkQ6AEwAHoECAEQAg#v=onepage=Zinc%20It!=false

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Re: [Interest] Qt Creator licensing for companies with Qt, Commercial developers

2020-04-01 Thread Roland Hughes


It's not just you.

On 3/27/20 9:03 AM, interest-requ...@qt-project.org wrote:

Hi,

is it just me or this is heading into the wrong way, or at least into the 
opposite direction of the market. Most IDE are now free, even the embedded 
world start giving IDE away:
  xCode is free
vs code is free
Atollic is free
STM32 TrueStudio is free
...

People are leaving pricy IDE behind, Keil anyone? less and less used. Starting 
to pay for an IDE like QtCreator, seem like you will only get less users toward 
Qt or people might be temped more and more to use VisualStudio as an IDE of 
choice.

This is my personnal point of view on the subject,
My 2 cents,


--
Roland Hughes, President
Logikal Solutions
(630)-205-1593

http://www.theminimumyouneedtoknow.com
http://www.infiniteexposure.net
http://www.johnsmith-book.com
http://www.logikalblog.com
http://www.interestingauthors.com/blog

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Re: [Interest] Qt Creator licensing for companies with Qt Commercial developers

Hi,

To me your example does not sound problematic assuming that your application is 
like a typical app - a clearly different thing than the store that sells apps 
(the store sells a lot of different apps and your is in no way relevant for 
operating the store etc).

Also, for any particular real case at hand, you can ask if something is allowed 
for you or not.

Yours,

Tuukka 

On 31.3.2020, 23.15, "Interest on behalf of Krzysztof Kawa" 
 wrote:

> 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.

This got me thinking about quite a simple case that doesn't seem so
simple now: Lets say I make a game using open-source licensed Qt, or
even just open-source licensed Qt Creator. After few years of
development I decide to publish the game. It just so happens that my
publisher has a storefront app using commercial Qt or even just
written in Qt Creator under commercial license. To put my app in their
store there's usually some API, config file or whatever that
technically makes it mixing the two, even if not through Qt based
interface. Does that mean I can't publish my app in that store? If
that's the case then this pretty much makes Qt dead for any sort of
game development because there's no possible way to know which
publishers are gonna use what tech and under what license by the time
you ship. Same thing goes for any app distributed through external
stores I guess and I know at least few that use Qt.
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Re: [Interest] Qt Creator licensing for companies with Qt Commercial developers

Hi,

This disclaimer is because every case can be a bit special. We are trying to 
avoid a case where someone clearly violates the license and then comes with 
explanation, because N.N. said years ago that ABCDC is ok. 

The basic rules are simple:
- If you use Qt under open-source, check what LGPL and GPL (in case you use 
that) require you to do
- If you use Qt under commercial license, check what the commercial license 
agreement says, and ask in case it is not clear
- If you are involved in situation where both open-source and commercial Qt is 
used, do not mix them 

I think our licensing FAQ is quite clear, but I am naturally biased. 

Yours,

Tuukka

On 31.3.2020, 22.57, "Interest on behalf of Bernhard Lindner" 

wrote:

Hi Tuukka!

> 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.” 

Because this is what users hear in MLs and forums, when they ask about Qt 
licensing
issues. The recurring answer is: "don't know, don't understand, hire a 
lawer". 

And because this is written in your FAQ: "It is always recommended to 
contact a lawyer
familiar with open source licenses for a full review of your project to 
determine whether
you can fulfill all of the obligations of applicable open source licenses".

-- 
Best Regards,
Bernhard Lindner

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Re: [Interest] Qt Creator licensing for companies with Qt Commercial developers

Hi,

Note that I am not a lawyer, and also note that a generic comment may not be 
applicable in a specific case. If there is a company who wants to clarify their 
usage of Qt, it is best done by directly talking about that case. Remember, 
that the restriction on mixing is only relevant when Qt is commercially 
licensed.

That said, see comments inline below. Hopefully this clarifies, and does not 
confuse more.

Yours,

Tuukka

From: Jean-Michaël Celerier 
Date: Tuesday 31. March 2020 at 22.02
To: Tuukka Turunen 
Cc: Jérôme Godbout , "interest@qt-project.org" 

Subject: Re: [Interest] Qt Creator licensing for companies with Qt Commercial 
developers

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<http://qt.io>, or any software code related to Qt ?

TTT: In the case of mixing, what matters is the content of the commercial 
license agreement, i.e. what items have been licensed commercially. Typically 
Qt Creator is included, for example.

1/ a. Does this also cover people doing apt-get install qtcreator on Debian or 
brew install qtcreator on macOS

TTT: It does not matter how the open-source version of Qt (or any part of it) 
is acquired.

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 ?

TTT: To my understanding, yes as long as the fork contains parts of what has 
been commercially licensed (or their earlier versions).

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 ?

TTT: The upstream 3rd party copyright parts no, the Qt parts yes.

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 
mailto: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 p

Re: [Interest] Qt Creator licensing for companies with Qt Commercial developers

2020-03-31 Thread Krzysztof Kawa

> 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.

This got me thinking about quite a simple case that doesn't seem so
simple now: Lets say I make a game using open-source licensed Qt, or
even just open-source licensed Qt Creator. After few years of
development I decide to publish the game. It just so happens that my
publisher has a storefront app using commercial Qt or even just
written in Qt Creator under commercial license. To put my app in their
store there's usually some API, config file or whatever that
technically makes it mixing the two, even if not through Qt based
interface. Does that mean I can't publish my app in that store? If
that's the case then this pretty much makes Qt dead for any sort of
game development because there's no possible way to know which
publishers are gonna use what tech and under what license by the time
you ship. Same thing goes for any app distributed through external
stores I guess and I know at least few that use Qt.
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Re: [Interest] Qt Creator licensing for companies with Qt Commercial developers

2020-03-31 Thread Konstantin Tokarev



31.03.2020, 22:57, "Bernhard Lindner" :
> Hi Tuukka!
>
>>  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.”
>
> Because this is what users hear in MLs and forums, when they ask about Qt 
> licensing
> issues. The recurring answer is: "don't know, don't understand, hire a lawer".
>
> And because this is written in your FAQ: "It is always recommended to contact 
> a lawyer
> familiar with open source licenses for a full review of your project to 
> determine whether
> you can fulfill all of the obligations of applicable open source licenses".

Actually, situation with commercial license turns out to be even more 
complicated than
with open source. Open source licensing is at least well-understood by lawyers 
and
doesn't affect what each department or employee in the company is doing, only 
what
end products are shipped.

-- 
Regards,
Konstantin

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Re: [Interest] Qt Creator licensing for companies with Qt Commercial developers

2020-03-31 Thread Bernhard Lindner

Hi Tuukka!

> 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.” 

Because this is what users hear in MLs and forums, when they ask about Qt 
licensing
issues. The recurring answer is: "don't know, don't understand, hire a lawer". 

And because this is written in your FAQ: "It is always recommended to contact a 
lawyer
familiar with open source licenses for a full review of your project to 
determine whether
you can fulfill all of the obligations of applicable open source licenses".

-- 
Best Regards,
Bernhard Lindner

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Re: [Interest] Qt Creator licensing for companies with Qt Commercial developers

2020-03-31 Thread Jean-Michaël Celerier

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  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 
> *Date: *Tuesday 31. March 2020 at 17.56
> *To: *Tuukka Turunen , Andy 
> *Cc: *"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 a

Re: [Interest] Qt Creator licensing for companies with Qt Commercial developers

2020-03-31 Thread Elvis Stansvik

Den tis 31 mars 2020 kl 20:46 skrev Elvis Stansvik :
>
> Den tis 31 mars 2020 kl 20:40 skrev Giuseppe D'Angelo via Interest
> :
> >
> > Il 31/03/20 20:34, Elvis Stansvik ha scritto:
> > > Do you see the absurdity? For me as manager at F, to be sure we're not
> > > breaking the contract with Frob, we would have to stipulate our
> > > contract with G not only that they themselves stick with paid-support
> > > Frob tools, but that they in turn must stipulate the same in their
> > > contracts with any H type subcontractors.
> > >
> > > And you think this will encourage people to pick commercial Qt?
> >
> > Without such a clause, you could easily incorporate a wholly owned
> > subsidiary, make it do all the development as "contractors" using Open
> > Source Qt, get the finished product back, slap it under Commercial Qt
> > and enjoy the benefits of the commercial terms without having paid for
> > it during the development. That's what the clause is protecting against.
>
> Sure, I understand what it's protecting against. With all the
> confusion in the thread, I don't think anyone is confused about that.
> I just think it's an absurd protection.-

And, with the risk of running my analogy into the ridiculous, this
would rather be as if F was buying say floor tiles (== Qt) from Frob,
and the jackhammer (== Qt Creator) H was using happened to be made by
Frob as well.

Elvis

>
> Elvis
>
> >
> > My 2 c,
> > --
> > 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
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Re: [Interest] Qt Creator licensing for companies with Qt Commercial developers

2020-03-31 Thread Elvis Stansvik

Den tis 31 mars 2020 kl 20:40 skrev Giuseppe D'Angelo via Interest
:
>
> Il 31/03/20 20:34, Elvis Stansvik ha scritto:
> > Do you see the absurdity? For me as manager at F, to be sure we're not
> > breaking the contract with Frob, we would have to stipulate our
> > contract with G not only that they themselves stick with paid-support
> > Frob tools, but that they in turn must stipulate the same in their
> > contracts with any H type subcontractors.
> >
> > And you think this will encourage people to pick commercial Qt?
>
> Without such a clause, you could easily incorporate a wholly owned
> subsidiary, make it do all the development as "contractors" using Open
> Source Qt, get the finished product back, slap it under Commercial Qt
> and enjoy the benefits of the commercial terms without having paid for
> it during the development. That's what the clause is protecting against.

Sure, I understand what it's protecting against. With all the
confusion in the thread, I don't think anyone is confused about that.
I just think it's an absurd protection.

Elvis

>
> My 2 c,
> --
> 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
>
> ___
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Re: [Interest] Qt Creator licensing for companies with Qt Commercial developers

2020-03-31 Thread Giuseppe D'Angelo via Interest


Il 31/03/20 20:34, Elvis Stansvik ha scritto:

Do you see the absurdity? For me as manager at F, to be sure we're not
breaking the contract with Frob, we would have to stipulate our
contract with G not only that they themselves stick with paid-support
Frob tools, but that they in turn must stipulate the same in their
contracts with any H type subcontractors.

And you think this will encourage people to pick commercial Qt?


Without such a clause, you could easily incorporate a wholly owned 
subsidiary, make it do all the development as "contractors" using Open 
Source Qt, get the finished product back, slap it under Commercial Qt 
and enjoy the benefits of the commercial terms without having paid for 
it during the development. That's what the clause is protecting against.


My 2 c,
--
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



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Re: [Interest] Qt Creator licensing for companies with Qt Commercial developers

2020-03-31 Thread Elvis Stansvik

Den tis 31 mars 2020 kl 19:32 skrev Tuukka Turunen :
>
>
>
> 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.

I'm sorry, but you cannot be serious.

My company F owns a mall and decide to do some renovating of the
bottom floor, using our own staff for the renovation. We use a suite
of power tools from company Frob Inc, where we've decided to go with
the more expensive option which includes support from Frob if they
fail. After a while, we decide we cannot finish the renovation in time
and subcontract some of the demolition work required to external
contractor G. They too use Frob tools with paid support. Some time
into the demolition, several people at G quit their jobs, and the
manager at G decide to hire some folks from H, who use happen to use
one single Frob tool (say a jackhammer), but have not gone with the
paid support option. Now my company F is infringing the contract with
Frob.

Do you see the absurdity? For me as manager at F, to be sure we're not
breaking the contract with Frob, we would have to stipulate our
contract with G not only that they themselves stick with paid-support
Frob tools, but that they in turn must stipulate the same in their
contracts with any H type subcontractors.

And you think this will encourage people to pick commercial Qt?

Elvis

>
>
>
> 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 
> Date: Tuesday 31. March 2020 at 17.56
> To: Tuukka Turunen , Andy 
> Cc: "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

Re: [Interest] Qt Creator licensing for companies with Qt Commercial developers

2020-03-31 Thread Konstantin Tokarev



31.03.2020, 20:34, "Tuukka Turunen" :
> 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.

Hi,

I think this is a kind of explanation which deserves to be in official FAQ.

You should also consider adding flowchart or interactive questionary which 
would show people if their use cases are ok or not after they answer a series 
of questions about their conditions. Otherwise some people might still end up 
with impression that licensing terms are unclear (or even intentionally vague).

-- 
Regards,
Konstantin
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Re: [Interest] Qt Creator licensing for companies with Qt Commercial developers

2020-03-31 Thread Francis Herne

> ...
>
> 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

Dear Tuukka,

Thank you for the clear examples.

If I'd seen this email before writing my previous one, it would have been less 
grouchy!

That said, could you explain how Example 6 is permitted under the licensing 
terms, given the section I quoted in the other email which appears to prohibit 
this without allowance for separate projects?

Thanks again,
 - Francis H


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Re: [Interest] Qt Creator licensing for companies with Qt, Commercial developers

2020-03-31 Thread Francis Herne

On Tuesday, 31 March 2020 18:02:15 BST Tuukka Turunen wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I apologise, if I have been unclear with words 'company' and project'. If
> you read the license agreement and faq behind the links I have posted
> multiple times, it should be rather clear what is meant. 

> Yours,
> 
>   Tuukka

Dear Tukka,

Frankly, I think you're arguing in bad faith here. It's patently obvious from 
every response in this thread that the Qt Company's position is *not* clear to 
anyone outside the company.

The FAQ doesn't address the project/company distinction at all, and linking 
20,000 words of legalese in "answer" to a boolean question is just a refusal 
to give a straight answer.

Having looked through said document, the relevant sections seem to be:

> 1. ... “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, or (iii) 
incorporate or integrate Applications into a hardware device or product other 
than a Device. ...

Can't use licensed Qt Creator to develop open-source Qt apps; ok.

> 3.4 [viii]: Licensee shall not and shall cause that its Affiliates or 
Contractors shall not use Licensed Software in any Prohibited Combination, 
unless Licensee has received an advance written permission from The Qt Company 
to do so.

Can't use licensed and GPL Qt in the same project; ok.

> Absent such written permission, any and all distribution by the Licensee 
during the Term of a hardware device or product a) which incorporate or 
integrate any part of Licensed Software or Open Source Qt; or b) where the 
main user interface or substantial functionality is provided by software built 
with Licensed Software or Open Source Qt or otherwise depends on the Licensed 
Software or Open Source Qt, shall be considered to be Device distribution 
under this Agreement and shall be dependent on Licensee’s compliance thereof 
(including but not limited to obligation to pay applicable License Fees for 
such distribution).

It's unclear here whether this should be read as "hardware (device or 
product)" or "(hardware device) or product". Could you please clarify the 
intent?

Taking the latter, more pessimistic reading there's no project/company 
distinction; any entity licensing Qt can't distribute the GPL version in any 
'product' which I believe would include open-source projects. Hard luck Thiago 
et al!

> Notwithstanding what is provided above in this sub-section (viii), Licensee 
is entitled to use and combine Qt 3D Studio and/or Qt Design Studio with Open 
Source Qt (“Permitted Combination”) for its internal evaluation purposes, 
provided that Licensee shall in no way transfer, publish, disclose, display or 
otherwise make available any software or work resulting from such Permitted 
Combination;

This exception doesn't cover Qt Creator, and would be in the opposite 
direction to the original question anyway.

So the answer is "no".

In general, the only "clear" policy is that The Qt Company deliberately 
obfuscates the conditions under which the GPL version can be used, to put 
people off exercising the rights that do exist.

This goes along with the general downplaying of, and FUD about, the GPL option 
on the website, and the bizarre retrospective licensing.

It's disrespectful to the outside contributors who've built so much of Qt and 
its ecosystem in exchange for those rights, and doesn't bode well for the 
future of Qt in the free software community.

Yours,
-Francis H

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Re: [Interest] Qt Creator licensing for companies with Qt Commercial developers


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 
Date: Tuesday 31. March 2020 at 17.56
To: Tuukka Turunen , Andy 
Cc: "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  On Behalf Of Tuukka Turunen
Sent: March 31, 2020 10:33 AM
To: Andy 
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 mai

Re: [Interest] Qt Creator licensing for companies with Qt, Commercial developers

Hi,

I apologise, if I have been unclear with words 'company' and project'. If you 
read the license agreement and faq behind the links I have posted multiple 
times, it should be rather clear what is meant. 

Yours,

Tuukka 

On 31.3.2020, 18.50, "Roland Hughes"  wrote:

I sent this the other day but it hasn't made it into the list yet. At 
least I haven't seen it. Forwarding because it is pertinent

 Forwarded Message 
Subject:Re: [Interest] Qt Creator licensing for companies with Qt, 
Commercial developers
Date:   Mon, 30 Mar 2020 14:09:42 -0500
From:   Roland Hughes 
To: interest@qt-project.org, asmalo...@gmail.com

On 3/30/20 1:03 PM, Andy wrote:
> That makes no sense. Your license prevents a company from using an
> open-source tool? It says "if you license our stuff you cannot use the
> open-source tool X"?
>
> This whole thread is yet another great example of where the Qt Company is
> totally tone-deaf.
>
> Nobody understands your licensing. You have fewer people using Qt and
> Qt-based things because of this.

I've honestly been expecting KDE to kick Qt to the curb any day now if 
they are reading this.

Medical device companies have been running screaming away from Qt over 
the past year. Many moving to Rust. Some are even moving to Zinc which 
really kind of surprised me.

Some companies in other markets are abandoning embedded Linux for 
embedded DOS so they can use other GUI tools. Before you Guffaw at that, 
AGCO uses a lot of embedded DOS and they make an awful lot of Ag heavy 
equipment. Last I heard they were moving away from Qt as well.

What is impressive is how "company" and "project" get thrown around 
interchangeably. So, if one tiny little project in GE in some remote 
location is using a commercial license, from what was stated, every 
person in every GE location around the world __must__ have a commercial 
Qt license to use QtCreator even if they are just using C++. I guess 
everyone has to move to Emacs, CodeLite, KDevelop, and VSCodium.

https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/

https://codelite.org/

https://www.kdevelop.org/

https://vscodium.com/

I suppose if they didn't want free they could pay $299 for SlickEdit.

https://www.slickedit.com/

or a $100/yr annual subscription to UltraEdit.

Just be aware that UltraEdit like many other PC originating editors gets 
tabs wrong. When you set tabs to spaces and set their width to 4, 
hitting  when cursor is in first column of the line has to put the 
cursor in column 4, not 5 like far too many PC editors.

https://www.logikalsolutions.com/wordpress/information-technology/most-text-editors-get-tabs-wrong/

Having followed this "discussion" for a bit now I have a relevant question.

Assuming Intel, given all of the locations it has around the globe, owns 
a single commercial Qt license at any one of them, by what has been said 
here, Thiago not only has to have a commercial license to work on Qt, he 
technically can't work on the OpenSource version. He has to commit his 
code to the commercial version where it may or may not ever find its way 
into the OpenSource version, if there ever is to be an OpenSource 
version again.

Cause that's what I've been hearing in this conversation. The new new 
new new licensing "strategy" is once anyone in an organization has 
touched a commercial version they must perpetually pay forever and ever 
for everyone. It almost sounds like a person couldn't even leave a 
company and go work on OpenSource.

I went back tot he archive.

Vyacheslav Lanovets actually asked:

=

A company has a few developers with Qt Commercial subscription who
write applications in Qt for iOS.
There are many other developers, who work on other projects and don't
use Qt libraries.
They talk to each other and sometimes even work on the same code.

Is it still possible for the developers who don't use Qt libraries in
any way, use Qt Creator IDE for editing and debugging?
To be on the safe side, company plans to prohibit usage of Qt Creator
IDE for all employees.
I reckon this is a popular solution.
If I understand correctly, Qt even sells a special option to ban all
company IP addresses for open-source installer.

=

The question clearly states the second group just like the IDE for C++. 
They aren't using Qt at all. That was the question asked.

What this conversation is really starting to sound like is "The 
OpenSource version has ceased to exist."

Re: [Interest] Qt Creator licensing for companies with Qt Commercial developers

2020-03-31 Thread Jérôme Godbout

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  On Behalf Of Tuukka Turunen
Sent: March 31, 2020 10:33 AM
To: Andy 
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 mailto:asmalo...@gmail.com>>
Date: Tuesday 31. March 2020 at 16.47
To: Tuukka Turunen mailto:tuukka.turu...@qt.io>>
Cc: Giuseppe D'Angelo 
mailto:giuseppe.dang...@kdab.com>>, 
"interest@qt-project.org<mailto:interest@qt-project.org>" 
mailto: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 
mailto: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" 
mailto:interest-boun...@qt-project.org> on 
behalf of interest@qt-project.org<mailto: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/<http://www.qt.io/faq/>  and License agreement 
athttps://www.qt.io/terms-conditions/<http://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
lice

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 
Date: Tuesday 31. March 2020 at 16.47
To: Tuukka Turunen 
Cc: Giuseppe D'Angelo , "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 
mailto: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" 
mailto:interest-boun...@qt-project.org> on 
behalf of interest@qt-project.org<mailto: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/<http://www.qt.io/faq/>  and License agreement 
athttps://www.qt.io/terms-conditions/<http://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<mailto: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

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Re: [Interest] Qt Creator licensing for companies with Qt Commercial developers

2020-03-31 Thread Giuseppe D'Angelo via Interest


Il 31/03/20 15:35, Tuukka Turunen ha scritto:

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.


I understand the underlying reasoning 100%, but clarity is important 
here, and the ones I brought forward aren't some "far fetched" 
hypothetical scenarios.


In a product developed with Qt commercial, anyone is going to using a 
bunch of non-Qt libraries, for instance coming with any basic Linux 
installation (e.g. glibc, libstdc++, ICU, whatever). Maybe some ad-hoc 
ones, e.g. Boost. How can one be sure that none of those has been 
developed using GPL Qt Creator? Should one just "live with" the 
possibility of infringing the commercial license, because TQC is just 
not interested at chasing this case down?



Thakns,
--
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



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Re: [Interest] Qt Creator licensing for companies with Qt Commercial developers

2020-03-31 Thread Andy

> "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 



On Tue, Mar 31, 2020 at 9:36 AM Tuukka Turunen  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@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
>
>
>
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Re: [Interest] Qt Creator licensing for companies with Qt Commercial developers

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" 
 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

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Re: [Interest] Qt Creator licensing for companies with Qt Commercial developers

2020-03-31 Thread dbeancoltd--- via Interest

??

-Original Message-
From: Tuukka Turunen 
To: Thiago Macieira ; interest 

Sent: Tue, Mar 31, 2020 01:03 PM
Subject: Re: [Interest] Qt Creator licensing for companies with Qt Commercial 
developers

Hi Thiago,

As I wrote a bit earlier, for completely independent projects/products it is 
fine that one is using commercial and one open-source. This is much more 
likely to happen in a big corporation than a small company, but possible 
scenario in both.

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 at https://www.qt.io/faq/ and License 
agreement at https://www.qt.io/terms-conditions/

Yours,

        Tuukka

On 31.3.2020, 14.33, "Interest on behalf of Thiago Macieira" 

wrote:

    On Monday, 30 March 2020 16:59:11 -03 Elvis Stansvik wrote:
    > > Please read the commercial license agreement and the licensing FAQ. 
The
    > > restriction has nothing to do with open-source licensing. It is 
about a
    > > company, who is using a commercially licensed Qt not to use parts of 
the
    > > same licensed Qt product under open-source license. If there was no 
such
    > > restriction, a company could have a team of 10 developers, but only 
1 or
    > > 2 commercial license for Qt.
    > Up until now, you've said "same project". Now you are switching to
    > "company". Please clarify.

    And don't think of a 10-developer company. Think of a company with 2
    developers, with offices all over the world. If *any* of them buy a 
commercial
    licence, does it mean everyone else must stop using the open source Qt? 
And Qt
    Creator?

    How about contributing to Qt open source? Do they have to stop too?

    -- 
    Thiago Macieira - thiago.macieira (AT) intel.com
      Software Architect - Intel System Software Products

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Re: [Interest] Qt Creator licensing for companies with Qt Commercial developers

Hi Thiago,

As I wrote a bit earlier, for completely independent projects/products it is 
fine that one is using commercial and one open-source. This is much more likely 
to happen in a big corporation than a small company, but possible scenario in 
both. 

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 at https://www.qt.io/faq/ and License agreement 
at https://www.qt.io/terms-conditions/

Yours,

Tuukka

On 31.3.2020, 14.33, "Interest on behalf of Thiago Macieira" 
 wrote:

On Monday, 30 March 2020 16:59:11 -03 Elvis Stansvik wrote:
> > Please read the commercial license agreement and the licensing FAQ. The
> > restriction has nothing to do with open-source licensing. It is about a
> > company, who is using a commercially licensed Qt not to use parts of the
> > same licensed Qt product under open-source license. If there was no such
> > restriction, a company could have a team of 10 developers, but only 1 or
> > 2 commercial license for Qt.
> Up until now, you've said "same project". Now you are switching to
> "company". Please clarify.

And don't think of a 10-developer company. Think of a company with 2 
developers, with offices all over the world. If *any* of them buy a 
commercial 
licence, does it mean everyone else must stop using the open source Qt? And 
Qt 
Creator?

How about contributing to Qt open source? Do they have to stop too?

-- 
Thiago Macieira - thiago.macieira (AT) intel.com
  Software Architect - Intel System Software Products

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Re: [Interest] Qt Creator licensing for companies with Qt Commercial developers

2020-03-31 Thread Giuseppe D'Angelo via Interest

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

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Re: [Interest] Qt Creator licensing for companies with Qt Commercial developers

2020-03-31 Thread Thiago Macieira

On Monday, 30 March 2020 16:59:11 -03 Elvis Stansvik wrote:
> > Please read the commercial license agreement and the licensing FAQ. The
> > restriction has nothing to do with open-source licensing. It is about a
> > company, who is using a commercially licensed Qt not to use parts of the
> > same licensed Qt product under open-source license. If there was no such
> > restriction, a company could have a team of 10 developers, but only 1 or
> > 2 commercial license for Qt.
> Up until now, you've said "same project". Now you are switching to
> "company". Please clarify.

And don't think of a 10-developer company. Think of a company with 2 
developers, with offices all over the world. If *any* of them buy a commercial 
licence, does it mean everyone else must stop using the open source Qt? And Qt 
Creator?

How about contributing to Qt open source? Do they have to stop too?

-- 
Thiago Macieira - thiago.macieira (AT) intel.com
  Software Architect - Intel System Software Products



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Re: [Interest] Qt Creator licensing for companies with Qt Commercial developers