Mix commercial and open source
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wrote on 22 Feb 2024, 21:23 last edited by
Actually, it's clear that you can't mix commercial and open source.
Does this also apply if a company works open source and an external company develops a commercial sub-application, but links the open source Qt dynamically? Without static linking, so that in the end only the open source Qt remains?
Or are you not allowed to mix things under any circumstances, even if it only affects the development?
I don't expect a legally certain answer, just an empirical value.
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Actually, it's clear that you can't mix commercial and open source.
Does this also apply if a company works open source and an external company develops a commercial sub-application, but links the open source Qt dynamically? Without static linking, so that in the end only the open source Qt remains?
Or are you not allowed to mix things under any circumstances, even if it only affects the development?
I don't expect a legally certain answer, just an empirical value.
wrote on 22 Feb 2024, 21:26 last edited by@JohannesW Impossible to answer that, because there are a lot of different open source licenses available. You must tell us about wish open source license you are talking. Because sometimes it is allowed and sometimes it is not allowed, depending on the open source license.
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@JohannesW Impossible to answer that, because there are a lot of different open source licenses available. You must tell us about wish open source license you are talking. Because sometimes it is allowed and sometimes it is not allowed, depending on the open source license.
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wrote on 22 Feb 2024, 22:19 last edited by
@JohannesW Qt has a lot of different licenses, depending on the modules that you are using.
It is allowed to link against LGPL code, as long as you still care about the LGPL. see https://www.qt.io/licensing/open-source-lgpl-obligations
GPL, no, you are not allowed to link against them.
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Actually, it's clear that you can't mix commercial and open source.
Does this also apply if a company works open source and an external company develops a commercial sub-application, but links the open source Qt dynamically? Without static linking, so that in the end only the open source Qt remains?
Or are you not allowed to mix things under any circumstances, even if it only affects the development?
I don't expect a legally certain answer, just an empirical value.
@JohannesW Hi,
What exactly do you mean by commercial and Open Source ?
Do you mean building a commercial application using Open Source libraries or mixing the Qt Open Source and Commercial licenses ?
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Actually, it's clear that you can't mix commercial and open source.
Does this also apply if a company works open source and an external company develops a commercial sub-application, but links the open source Qt dynamically? Without static linking, so that in the end only the open source Qt remains?
Or are you not allowed to mix things under any circumstances, even if it only affects the development?
I don't expect a legally certain answer, just an empirical value.
@JohannesW said in Mix commercial and open source:
Or are you not allowed to mix things under any circumstances, even if it only affects the development?
You are not allowed to mix code that was developed with Qt commercial license(s) and such that was developed with Qt's LGPL offering. TQtC's concern being that you can develop a whole system with LGPL and then decide that you want to jump to commercial to close the source completely (i.e. to decide you don't want oblige the requirements of the LGPL at some point after the code is already developed).
In any case you can use the LGPL to develop commercial software, simply don't mix the licenses.
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