Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 20:30:24 -0800 (PST) From: "Brian W. Buchanan" <brian@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU> To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: A BSD-licensed GUI toolkit? Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.05.9903052010250.422-100000@smarter.than.nu>
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Well, Troll Tech just unveiled version 1.0 of their QPL (Qt Public
License) for Qt Free Edition, and after a quick read-over, I don't think
it's compatible with BSD-licensed software. Excerpt:
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6. You may develop application programs, reusable components and other
software items that link with the original or modified versions of the
Software. These items, when distributed, are subject to the following
requirements:
a. You must ensure that all recipients of machine-executable forms of
these items are also able to receive and use the complete
machine-readable source code to the items without any charge beyond the
costs of data transfer.
b. You must explicitly license all recipients of your items to use and
re-distribute original and modified versions of the items in both
machine-executable and source code forms. The recipients must be able
to do so without any charges whatsoever, and they must be able to
re-distribute to anyone they choose.
c. If the items are not available to the general public, and the
initial developer of the Software requests a copy of the items, then
you must supply one.
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First and foremost, this is invalid. One cannot assert a copyright on an
API, and therefore they cannot declare that anything that will link with
their library falls under their license.
The previous clause, however, states ("Software" == Qt):
5. You may use the original or modified versions of the Software to
compile, link and run application programs legally developed by you
or by others.
If one takes the phrase 'legally developed' to mean 'compliant with section
6', this means that BSD-licensed software cannot be linked with Qt, but
GPLed software can. This, well, sucks. Basically, if one wants to
distribute software linked with Qt, or that the end-user can legally link
with Qt upon compiling, it must be released under a GPL-like license.
So...
I think that it's about time that a good GUI toolkit for X be developed
and released under the two-clause BSD license, both so that developers
like myself can release software with a clean conscience, knowing that's
*free* and completely unencumbered, not just "Open Source(r)", and to
encourage commercial developers to port their software to Unix/X11, as
they would not have to purchase a Motif or Qt license, use some LGPLed
library, or write their own toolkit from scratch.
Would anyone here be interested in participating in such a project by
leading it, hosting it, writing code for it, helping to design it, or in
any other way?
--
Brian Buchanan brian@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU
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