Yet another licensing question

[gevik]

Hello all,

I would like to know which license would be the correct one in my case?

I am developing a tool which is going to be BSD licensed and available in GitHub. The sources will not include the QT framework itself and there will be no modifications to QT either. The binary format of my tool however is going to contain QT libraries (either static or shared).

This means that anyone downloading the sources from GitHub will be able to utilize the tool in anyway they choose, as long as they obtain their own QT packages to build the tool.

It is my understanding that LGPL would be the correct license. Is this correct?

Thanks in advance.

[giesbert]

Hi,

this is a not too trivial question and I think, only a layer can answer 100% correct ....

My opinion is that LGPL would fit. Your code is completly available and no modifications of the libs. I'm not 100% sure whether static binding is allowed in LGPL...

[andre]

I concur with Gerolf:

• Get yourself legal advice if you want to be sure (or, perhaps, contact Digia sales department on this)
• LGPL should fit, as it does not restrict the licence of the work derived from the library. That means you can choose a closed licence (as is most often done), but it should also mean that you can choose a very liberal licence like you plan to do.
• It is my, non legal opinion that LGPL allows static linking as long as you provide some other means to satisfy the LGPL requirement that it must be possible for the user to replace the version of the library used (so, that means: relink the binairy).