[Qgis-developer] QGIS License (was Qt 4.X)

[Luca Casagrande]

Alle 11:35, giovedì 07 settembre 2006, Radim Blazek ha scritto:
> On 9/7/06, Gary Sherman <sherman at mrcc.com> wrote:
> > > I support licensing QGIS under the LGPL. Hopefully it's not too late
> > > to make a change.
> >
> > Its not too late as long as we can get all the code contributors to
> > agree. Are we sure that LGPL covers everything or should we consider
> > another license as long as we are talking about change?
>
> I believe that it is important to allow distribution of proprietary
> extensions (plugins)
> for any desktop GIS. I am not sure if realy everything should be LGPL/MIT,
> probably not. The best IMO whould be to allow only proprietary plugins and
> data providers. That way we can be sure we get all the improvement for
> the base application back in free version.
>
> But, I don't believe it is possible! You cannot
> use a library developped with Qt free edition in a proprietary application
> built with Qt commercial edition!

While searching on the net about this issue, i found a guys that explain me 
this issue with Qt. This is the answer:

"you'll need to grant an exception in your license to allow proprietary 
plugins and the developers of the proprietary plugins will need to purchase a 
license from Trolltech to link against the Qt libraries; you should also 
specify that closed source plugins developed for your application will 
require a license from trolltech"

> Qt free edition is GPL and if you use, the free edition of Qt you must 
release your application as GPL.

It seem that you need to use GPL compatibility license, and according to this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_software_licenses#GPL_2_compatible

Hope this help
Luca
-- 
"Chiunque può simpatizzare col dolore di un amico, ma solo chi ha un animo 
nobile riesce a simpatizzare col successo di un amico (Oscar Wilde)"

LINUX User #411601
GENTOO-GIS Development Team
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