[jjoonathan]

Yeeeeahhh.... at the moment. They have gotten really aggressive about commercial licensing recently, and even a conservative extrapolation should give one pause.

Today they might limit themselves to forced registration, SEO, and spamming business contacts with carefully crafted statements designed to stir fear, uncertainty, and doubt around free licenses by strongly suggesting (without actually claiming) that commercial use without a commercial license is illegal. But tomorrow? Also, keep in mind that a business partner who isn't already familiar with Qt and LGPL is going to be about 10x more susceptible to the FUD. That's the whole idea.

My guess: 30% chance of an ugly fork and lots of drama in the next few years. Then, absent a change in direction, another 30% chance in the few years after that, and so on.

[nabla9]

Qt will be free because there is agreement with KDE Free Qt Foundation

https://dot.kde.org/2016/01/13/qt-guaranteed-stay-free-and-o...

[jjoonathan]

The Qt Company went over my head and tried to deceive my boss (as I perceive it).

We don't even use Qt. I was just evaluating it. A year before they "reached out."

I still see that as a strike against Qt, even though I understand that the existence of a technically free fork is effectively guaranteed.

[stormdennis]

Yes, there is a lot of FUD about the licensing for Qt when you search online, definitely not helped by how unclear the Qt site's explanation of it is (to me at least)

[jjoonathan]

> unclear

That's charitable. The FUD is consistent, persistent, and targeted enough that I'd call it "intentionally deceptive."

Monetizing open source is hard. Maybe this is necessary, and if it is, maybe that's fair. But it's also fair to stay away because of it.

[Frondo]

I don't find this unclear at all. I'm not sure what you would do to make it clearer. Thoughts?

https://www.qt.io/download-open-source?hsCtaTracking=9f6a217...

[jjoonathan]

My boss looks at this page, he sees that open source programs can use Qt for free and that commercial programs need to pay. That's not the case, but the page is carefully worded to prevent him from confidently coming to the correct conclusion.

If this were the extent of the shenanigans, I wouldn't be mad. I like having a "help me sell this to my boss" page. But it isn't the extent of the shenanigans. They went around me to shake someone down on my behalf (as I perceive it). Last time it was my boss. Next time I choose a GUI framework for an open source side project, I'll primarily worry about it being my users.

[cycloptic]

>he sees that open source programs can use Qt for free and that commercial programs need to pay.

Where does it say that? Can you mention what he is having trouble with? I just took a quick glance at that link in GP and it seems to spell out the obligations of the LGPL pretty clearly on the right side, which are somewhat specific and notably don't include a requirement for your program to be open source. That requirement is only for the GPL components, which is included in the small print on the left.

[jjoonathan]

So, by your own admission, the critical piece of information my boss cares about must be inferred from the fact that it is absent from a sizeable pile of relatively technical details and from the fact that no detail (especially the GPL sub-component callout) implies it in turn.

Making this inference requires you to not only have outside knowledge of open source licenses and the Qt licensing situation, but to be rather confident in said outside knowledge. That's what he had trouble with.

[michaelmrose]

Wouldn't it be logical to expect someone to consult a lawyer when making such a decision?

[stormdennis]

Are you being sarcastic?

[minraws]

> Make "open" consumer devices

So Macs are out of question... Can't be signed can they?

What if we get a commercial license? Apple disallowes GPL...

Can't support GTK either, Expat Licensed GUI alternatives please...(I suggest Godot but it comes with a bit of pain and some baggage as well)

There are also other corner cases that they might want to cover, with more documentation.(Not sure if I have missed something)

If anyone has more info pls do share it. :)

[jcelerier]

> So Macs are out of question... Can't be signed can they?

... you know that even Apple ships some GPL software on every Mac right ? GPL is 100% fine mac hardware. There are even GPL apps on the appstore. Signing does not prevent you to upload a new version of the app to your own device.

[justinclift]

> There are even GPL apps on the appstore.

Are you sure they're GPL?

Maybe they're dual-licensed, and the Apple app store is using "the other licence"?

[minraws]

Only works if you are the sole copyright holder, and not using code from someone else.

> https://github.com/peter-iakovlev/Telegram/issues/157

> http://meta.ath0.com/2012/02/05/apples-great-gpl-purge/

> https://thenextweb.com/dd/2019/06/04/why-does-macos-catalina...

[guug]

> Apple ships some GPL software on every Mac right [..] re are even GPL apps on the appstore.

To my knowlage and IANAL, this is only possible with older pre-v3 licenses. v3 licenses specifically prohibit tevoisation, something that Apple's App store TOS effectively mandates by placing restrictions on what App users are allowed to do. I believe this is why apple doesn't ship recent versions of Bash.

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

[michaelmrose]

While users are still allowed to run software of their choosing on the Mac I would think it would be perfectly acceptable to provide software that could be built and run outside of the mac app store.

If I'm mistaken please clarify.

[yjftsjthsd-h]

LGPL != GPL

[pjmlp]

How dare them, wanting to be paid for their work!

A business partner has enough money to actually pay for licenses.