[Qgis-psc] QGIS for Mobile (Android)

[Martin Dobias]

Hi Vincent

On Wed, Oct 16, 2019 at 12:20 PM Vincent Picavet (ml)
<vincent.ml at oslandia.com> wrote:
>
> As far as I know, and under the disclaimer "not a lawyer", GPLv2+
> applications are not allowed on the app store.

The reality is that GPLv2+ apps _are_ present on their app store - and
those are also well-known apps like VLC which Apple would remove from
the store if they were against their terms & conditions. I am not a
lawyer either, but these are my data points which I can use. I have
read a bunch of discussion threads about GPL and App Store and there's
no clear conclusion, so the presence of GPL apps in App Store is the
closest to a proof it is OK.

Also, there are other means of installing apps on iOS than just going
through the app store, e.g. using https://altstore.io/ - they are just
less convenient for the users. But my point is that iOS != App Store.


> There are many levels of decisions required here :
> A/ do we want to distribute our software on a platform which is clearly
> hostile to the licence we use ? GPL hostility from Apple is something
> which can not be denied.
> B/ if so, is the distribution of a GPLv2+ software on the app store even
> legal ? This is not as clear as it could
> C/ if B has not be verified and stated as valid, is QGIS.org and the
> QGIS project ready to take a legal risk, officially endorsing a GPL
> application distributed on the app store ?
>
> In our current knowledge, I would strongly be against QGIS.org and the
> QGIS project supporting officially the iOS version of any software based
> on QGIS. The legal risk is too high.

Again, iOS != App Store. Having iOS version does not necessarily mean
it needs to go through App Store (although that would be a better
option).

> Should a study by an IP lawyer be made and published, that could ease a
> decision. But I guess the cost would be quite high. If it validates
> point B, then we would still have point A to evaluate.

The target of the effort is to make QGIS available to more users. Just
because they use phones or tablets of a company we do not like (for
various valid reasons), shall we ignore such a large group?

Anyway I would suggest to move this discussion to a separate thread so
that we do not hijack the original thread :-)

Cheers
Martin