Re: Petition for TrollTech to GPL Qt

["Richard E. Hawkins Esq." <hawk@eyry.econ.iastate.edu>]

> Unfortunately I am still a bit confused about the issues involved.  I
> would be interested in hearing the muse and views of people who know more
> about the issue than I.

The current status (it changed late last week) is that code may be 
forked and freely distributed (though under a different name than QT), 
but that TrollTech is allowed to incorporate any changes into their 
proprietary version as well.  

QT remains free of charge and open source for free software; commercial 
software must still pay trolltech royalties.

And the requirement that changes be distributed only as patches is gone.

There are still complaints that the QPL "isn't compatible" with the 
GPL.  BUt then, I know of no license that is.  And many of these 
complaints come from folks who flatly don't understand the legal issues 
involved--releasing code linked to a non-GPL-approved library as GPL 
does *not* violate the GPL; it modifies the license under which the 
license has shipped.


rick, esq.

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