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by jacobush 2395 days ago
LGPL is problematic for App Store, since the user should be able to relink the app with a newer version [of QT] if they wanted to.
1 comments

They can relink. The object files for relinking aren't required to go through App Store.

Static/dynamic linking isn't a problem.

Interesting. If I install this [0] app, how can I relink it against my patched QT5?

0: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/qt-5-showcases-by-v-play-apps/...

Normally you ask them for the object files, but those specific guys are middleware developers so they provide QtCreator configured to build with their library (to get a different Qt version, select a different Qt Kit in QtCreator settings).

Additionally, the nature of the library is that it's probably a plugin that's loaded by a regular Qt application, as a result you've got their classes available in the QML scripts. It isn't very intrusive on the practical level.

They don't say what license they use though.

Felgo most certainly uses Qt through the commercial license so nothing is LGPL here.
Right. Now imagine it didn't. What then?
you ask them for the LGPL package, they send it to you, you compile ?

The onus is on the person making the app that links against the LGPL library to provide you with the build instruction.

At worse they would give you their main static library and Qt LGPL source code and you just have to relink them and open Xcode to upload it to your iDevice ?

Here is for instance the source code for the telegram app for iOS which is under GPL : https://github.com/TelegramMessenger/Telegram-iOS

there is no difference with... basically every other open source project ? Open the .xcodeproj, build, run.

I am not talking primarily about open source projects, but about closed source projects with LGPL components on app stores. You’d need the proprietary main object from them. Also, requiring that your users have an Apple dev account before they can execute their rights is problematic at best. I am not alone in rejecting Qt on these grounds, in favour of some MIT or similarly licensed alternative.