QT LGPL'ed (Was: Including shared libraries in a package)

[Myriam Schweingruber (private)]

Hi all,

On Thu, Jan 15, 2009 at 14:24, Scott <sclewin at sgaming.ca> wrote:
> John McCabe-Dansted wrote:
>> (From ubuntu-devel) As an aside, I imagine that once QT is LGPL'ed the
>> need for multiple versions off QT for licensing purposes would be
>> reduced.
>        I was interested in what the LGPL for QT would mean.  I am starting to
> get better at programming and soon will want to decide on which graphics
> toolkit to learn.
>
>        I have always feared the restrictions on the QT and wounder what this
> changes.  I mean, are you now allowed to sell something written with Qt
> as long as you give the source code away without paying any fees?  When
> you write something with Qt how is your program restricted and when
> would you pay the fees?

Actually, Qt is GPLv2 since many years (must be some 9-10 years now),
and has switched to GPL v3 last year, some weeks before the
Trolltech/Nokia deal. This means it has always been possible to use Qt
for writing Free Software, but one was not allowed to link to
proprietary software because of the GPL requirements.
The new scheme is now allowing to link to proprietary software without
the need to pay license fees per developer/per platform. In essence Qt
will be triple licensed from the version 4.5 on, so this will mean
that it is likely to be adopted by many more developers/firms.
Ryan Paul wrote a very good article about the meanings of this license change:

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20090114-nokia-qt-lgpl-switch-huge-win-for-cross-platform-development.html

Greets

Myriam

-- 
Protect your freedom and join the Fellowship of FSFE for 2009:
http://www.fsfeurope.org/2009
Please don't send me proprietary file formats,
use ISO standard ODF instead (ISO/IEC 26300)