The same old topic: Licensing.

jorj

[quote author="Alexandra Leisse" date="1276777620"]We agree. However, licensing (and law in general) unfortunately isn't easy to simplify while giving correct information...[/quote]

What about some simple use cases, specifying when and why you should use each licence... Although I suppose if it was that simple it would already exist...

A tricky topic....

troubalex

I just talked to our lawyer and she has already planned for a follow-up to mentioned "blog(Licensing blog)":http://blog.qt.nokia.com/2009/11/30/qt-making-the-right-licensing-decision/. To make it easier for her to figure out what is still unclear and would be good to address, I have started "a wiki page(Licensing wiki)":http://developer.qt.nokia.com/wiki/LicensingQuestions.

Please, add your questions/suggestions there and we do our best to provide you with answers.

sfilippidis

[quote author="Alexandra Leisse" date="1276877146"]I just talked to our lawyer and she has already planned for a follow-up to mentioned "blog(Licensing blog)":http://blog.qt.nokia.com/2009/11/30/qt-making-the-right-licensing-decision/. To make it easier for her to figure out what is still unclear and would be good to address, I have started "a wiki page(Licensing wiki)":http://developer.qt.nokia.com/wiki/LicensingQuestions.

Please, add your questions/suggestions there and we do our best to provide you with answers.[/quote]

I have just created this:

http://developer.qt.nokia.com/wiki/Question_Closed-source_application_scenario

But maybe I did something wrong and I do not see it at the Wiki! Could a TROLL please correct this? :)

EDIT:

I just noticed that I was supposed to EDIT the

http://developer.qt.nokia.com/wiki/LicensingQuestions

and NOT create a new wiki-page! So ... now I dit it (correctly!)!

Could a TROLL (please!) delete the

http://developer.qt.nokia.com/wiki/Question_Closed-source_application_scenario

which I shouln't have created the first place?

troubalex

[quote author="Stavros Filippidis" date="1277156563"]

Could a TROLL (please!) delete the
http://developer.qt.nokia.com/wiki/Question_Closed-source_application_scenario
which I shouln't have created the first place?
[/quote]

Done. Thanks for adding this scenario!

jorj

Yes, that scenario seems to cover the area in the middle I am more confused on... Interesting to see the result - thanks Stavros.

jeremy_c

When are the answers on the referenced wiki page going to be answered, or have they already and I'm just not finding them?

troubalex

[quote author="jeremy_c" date="1282830434"]When are the answers on the referenced wiki page going to be answered, or have they already and I'm just not finding them?[/quote]

Currently, Cristy - our lawyer - is working on her presentation for our Developer Days. The wiki is basis for that, among other things. It's supposed to help her understand what our users a struggling with.

After the event in San Francisco we will make her presentation available publicly.

I hope that helps.

sfilippidis

[quote author="Alexandra Leisse" date="1283252630"][quote author="jeremy_c" date="1282830434"]When are the answers on the referenced wiki page going to be answered, or have they already and I'm just not finding them?[/quote]

Currently, Cristy - our lawyer - is working on her presentation for our Developer Days. The wiki is basis for that, among other things. It's supposed to help her understand what our users a struggling with.

After the event in San Francisco we will make her presentation available publicly.

I hope that helps.[/quote]

Do we have anything new on the licencing follow-up with Cristy? :)

goetz

[quote author="Stavros Filippidis" date="1293545620"]Do we have anything new on the licencing follow-up with Cristy? :)[/quote]

The video is available "here":http://qt.nokia.com/developer/learning/online/talks/developerdays2010/qt-in-use

qtrahul

[quote author="Esdras Beleza" date="1275400201"]Hi,

I need to prepare a lecture for my colleagues about Qt Development, and one of the topics is licensing. But it's a very controversial topic, since the three Qt licenses make its licensing hard to understand. I tried to read "Qt Licensing(Qt Licensing)":http://qt.nokia.com/products/licensing) a few times, but I'm still confused.

So, I'll start with a some questions:

Can I develop and deploy closed-sourced commercial applications without buying a commercial license of Qt?
A more specific question, since the answer may be different: can I develop and deploy closed-sourced commercial applications without buying a commercial license of Qt, distributing it with the original Qt libraries, without any changes on it?

My personal projects are free and open sourced, but I need these questions answered so I could convince (or not...) some coworkers to use Qt on their commercial projects.[/quote]

If you are preparing lecture and need the material regarding it then "Qt in Education":http://qt.nokia.com/services-partners/qt-in-education will help you.

Check this "presentation":http://www.slideshare.net/qtbynokia/presentations also.

About licensing ,I think LGPL will not make any problem for you, As obvious you can not distribute that one.

goetz

LGPL libs can be distributed. As long as you use dynamic libs and you do not modify the Qt libs you are on the safe side.

And please: No speculations on licensing topics ("I think..."). It is too delicate and does more harm than help.

sfilippidis

[quote author="Volker" date="1293547101"][quote author="Stavros Filippidis" date="1293545620"]Do we have anything new on the licencing follow-up with Cristy? :)[/quote]

The video is available "here":http://qt.nokia.com/developer/learning/online/talks/developerdays2010/qt-in-use[/quote]

Thanks for the link! Very interesting video and quite enlightening. Unfortunately, I did not get the answers I was looking for the two first questions in

http://developer.qt.nokia.com/wiki/LicensingQuestions

Maybe the comments at

http://blog.qt.nokia.com/2009/11/30/qt-making-the-right-licensing-decision/

should open again? ;)

troubalex

I will remind her of the wiki again. Maybe we can get some answers based on the questions directly. No promises though, she's doing all she can.

sfilippidis

[quote author="Alexandra Leisse" date="1294056575"]I will remind her of the wiki again. Maybe we can get some answers based on the questions directly. No promises though, she's doing all she can.[/quote]

Thanks in advance Alexandra! I think that the answers two these questions are very important for non-legal-expert-qt-developers, so we will be looking forward for answers.

By the way, IMHO, Cristy is doing a great job! The video http://qt.nokia.com/developer/learning/online/talks/developerdays2010/qt-in-use/breakfast-seminar-qt-licensing-explained was very insightful. :)

Smar

I don’t want to open new topic, and I don’t know if these are told somewhere else, so...

What about licences of Qt related stuff but not in the repository by Nokia? This particular case I have is related to Qt logo(not actually stealing image from Qt site but just using the logo), but maybe there is others, maybe mainly art in the sites.

Sorry if I’m asking something too obvious... Like, the logo is available in git repo? :)

That leads me to another question: can I count on that everything in the Qt repos are licenced under LGPL/GPL?

goetz

For the logo: Guidelines are on the "logo download":http://qt.nokia.com/about/logos-for-download/ page

For the files in the repos: They should have a license statement on the top (some of them are from other sources and may have another license!)

Smar

[quote author="Volker" date="1294233087"]For the logo: Guidelines are on the "logo download":http://qt.nokia.com/about/logos-for-download/ page

For the files in the repos: They should have a license statement on the top (some of them are from other sources and may have another license!)[/quote]

Pictures and format restricted files can’t really have the licence, though... Maybe in meta tag, but those are cumbersome to look at, if they even exist.

goetz

They may have a README in the directory they live on... Hard to say, some of the Troll's license specialists should better comment on this. Maybe it's better to start a new thread for this, so that it gets some attention.

sfilippidis

[quote author="Alexandra" date="1294056575"]I will remind her of the wiki again. Maybe we can get some answers based on the questions directly. No promises though, she's doing all she can.[/quote]

Anything new on this? :-)