[bt-devel] Licensing

[Joachim Ansorg]

Hi!

AFAIK the FSF accepted the QT free license as a "GPL like" license! But why 
it's forbidden to link a "GPL"ed program with a "QT free" licensed program ??

I hope I understood your explanations, but if BibleTime has the additional 
things in the license may we link to KDE ( you know, they do not want to 
change the license) ?

I think it's OK to distribute BIbleTime with a distribution, but this license 
issue is annoying.


So long,
--Joachim


On Mon, 12 Jun 2000, you wrote:
> On 12 Jun 2000, at 16:52, Joachim Ansorg sent forth the message:
> > Hi!
> >
> > On Mon, 12 Jun 2000, you wrote:
> > > Hi, 	I don't know if anyone has followed the problem with Debian
> > > and KDE because of the incompatibility of the GPL and QPL(Qt
> > > licence). afaik bibletime is covered by the pure GPL so it's going to
> > > be in the same boat unless it is changed.
> >
> > Could you please explain what the problem is ?
>
> I'll do my best ;)
> The GPL says (http://www.fsf.org/copyleft/gpl.html)
> '
> 2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion of it,
> thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and distribute such
> modifications or work under the terms of Section 1 above, provided that you
> also meet all of these conditions:
> b)  You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole
> or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to
> be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of
> this License.
> These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If identifiable
> sections of that work are not derived from the Program, and can be
> reasonably considered independent and separate works in themselves, then
> this License, and its terms, do not apply to those sections when you
> distribute them as separate works. But when you distribute the same
> sections as part of a whole which is a work based on the Program, the
> distribution of the whole must be on the terms of this License, whose
> permissions for other licensees extend to the entire whole, and thus to
> each and every part regardless of who wrote it.
> Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest your
> rights to work written entirely by you; rather, the intent is to exercise
> the right to control the distribution of derivative or collective works
> based on the Program. In addition, mere aggregation of another work not
> based on the Program with the Program (or with a work based on the Program)
> on a volume of a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other
> work under the scope of this License.
> '
>
> This means (AFAIK) that an app that links with Qt must either be
> distributed separately from Qt or include Qt along with itself all under
> the GPL. I haven't found the exact reason, but people seem agreed that the
> QPL license doesn't allow you to relicense with the GPL (which is fair
> enough).
>
> Afaict this means you can't distribute statically linked binaries and the
> app can't be part of a distribution.
>
> > I do only know that it can't be used in comapnies with current license,
> > right? But why is it a problem now?
>
> probably because I'd like to package bibletime and get a decent bible
> program as part of Debian and have only recently found out what all this is
> about ;)
>
> > AFAIK it wasn't an issue before.
>
> I think it's probably been an issue, it's just that it's never come up.
>
> > Is it only a problem with Debian?
>
> They seem to the only ones that have a problem (everyone else is burying
> their heads in the sand pretending nothings wrong or interpreting things
> correctly depending on your point of view).
>
> > > (I'll try and explain if someone wants me to).
> > >
> > > 	Would it be possible to change the license of Bibletime by adding
> > > the exception:
> > > 'As a special exception, you have permission to link this program with
> > > the Qt library and distribute executables, as long as you follow the
> > > requirements of the GNU GPL in regard to all of the software in the
> > > executable aside from Qt. ' ?
> >
> > Last time this was on the KDE-Devel list. But isn't it forbidden to use
> > QT in companies using the free QT license? Or am I wrong here?
>
> I think so. I think that may be the problem. AFAIK you can make money from
> GPL programs but you must keep the source available (the free speech
> thing).
>
> > > This comes from http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/license-list.html as
> > > the solution to the issue.
> > >
> > > Thing is I assume that a license change like is would require consent
> > > by all of 'The Bibletime Team'. And the consent of the original
> > > coders of ktipofday and any other GPL'd code from other sources if
> > > it is to be included.
> >
> > KTipOfDay is from the KDevelop team.
> > In 0.3 we use some code from Konqueror and KDevelop.
>
> This may be a problem.
>
> > In 0.2 we used code from KDevelop, KHexEdit and perhaps some other
> > programs.
> >
> > > After further checking it also looks like swords license needs
> > > modified (to allow bibletime to be linked with it and Qt). I haven't
> > > found yet what a suitable exception is, but will let you know if you
> > > like when I do.
> >
> > SWORD doesn't use QT so it's not linked to QT ;-)
>
> Bibletime does though! This one came up with Debian before. Apparently
> GPL'd libraries don't like being linked with non-GPL-compatible libraries
> (otherwise they could be used in a proprietary product). When bibletime
> links sword and qt together in one package all the licenses need to be
> compatible.
>
> Hope this helps.
>
> Regards,
> 	Daniel