Re: Qt license change
>On Wed, Nov 18, 1998 at 09:17:54AM -0800, Joseph Carter wrote:
>> You can sell it. Realize that when you buy a Debian CD it was sold to you.
>> You're only paying for the media of course, but the GPL software was sold to
>> you on that media. You payed to have the stuff distributed to you, not to
>> have the right to have the code. And you can't under the GPL or QPL take
>> away the ability for someone else to distribute the results as far and wide
>> as possible should they choose to do it.
luther@maxime.u-strasbg.fr wrote:
>Yes, but there is this clause :
>
>6.a. You make your items available in machine-readable source code form free of
>charge to all users of those items. You may charge a reasonable fee for the
>physical act of transferring a copy.
>
>Which say that you have only have to charge a reasonable (small ?) fee. This
>mean i cannot charge $10000000 for it ? or does it say it ?
You're misinterpreting it: that clause is talking about source code.
If someone is a "user" (this is a stricter requirement than the GPL! I
consider it a flaw in the GPL that not all users of a program can
necessarily get source code ;-) ) then you must only charge a
"reasonable" fee for the act of supplying them with the source code.
You can charge ten million for the executables if you like. You can
charge that for the source if the recipient is not (yet) a "user" of
your program. This is similar to the GPL's requirements.
>i think this license is not clear enough, if they mean it, they should say it
>without doubts.
Licences will always have to be interpreted. It's simply not possible
to spell out EVERYTHING.
Perhaps this will set your mind at rest: copyrights can only restrict
your copying of the copyrighted code, or deriving new works from it.
It cannot place you under any other obligation unless it is explicitly
spelled out in a licence (or contract), and you accept the licence
(perhaps implicitly, by copying the code; something which is otherwise
forbidden by copyright law).
(This is why we require that licences explicitly give permission to
copy, and to modify and distribute (which each involve copying). If
the licence doesn't mention these things, you can't do them. For the
other freedoms we require, the absence of restrictions is sufficient.)
The code being referred to by clause 6 of the QPL is not the code being
licensed by (that instance of) the QPL. Thus, no restrictions are
placed on it apart from those explicitly mentioned (and even those are,
in fact, restriction on YOU, not on the code; you are required to
license your code in certain ways in return for being allowed to copy
the QPLed code).
--
Charles Briscoe-Smith
White pages entry, with PGP key: <URL:http://alethea.ukc.ac.uk/wp?95cpb4>
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