Annual Report about the KDE Free Qt Foundation

[Olaf Schmidt-Wischhöfer]

Dear KDE community,

please find below my annual report 2019/2020 about the KDE Free Qt Foundation.
It is for me and Martin Konold. We are representing KDE in the board of the 
foundation.

See also: https://kde.org/community/whatiskde/kdefreeqtfoundation.php

Best regards, Olaf


Goals of the foundation: „securing the availability of the Qt toolkit for the 
development of Free Software and in particular for the development of KDE 
software”

The foundation has a legal Agreement with The Qt Company to ensure that Qt 
stays Open Source.

Activity in 2019/2020:

* Negotiations about updating the Agreement with The Qt Company
  - Goals:
    * continue protecting Qt as an Open Source library
    * allow The Qt Company to make the paid Qt version more attractive without 
compromising Open Source
    * update from X11 to Wayland without harming the business of The Qt 
Company, e.g. “embedded” products
  - Status:
    * Negotiations have been delayed by a number u-turns from The Qt Company.
    * We repeatedly resisted pressure to accept far-reaching changes on short 
notice “or else”.
    * We are currently waiting for a signal from The Qt Company on how to 
continue with the talks.
  - Our motivation for the future is unchanged:
    * find solutions that are good for all stakeholders (KDE, The Qt Company, 
Qt contributers, Qt users)
    * protect Open Source Qt
    * help to keep the ecosystem of Qt business and Qt contributors healthy

* Resolving contradictions between the paid Qt licensing terms and the LGPL
  - Qt customers were not allowed to use products “created with” Open Source 
Qt.
  - In October 2019, we suggested changes to the paid licensing terms.
  - By July 2020, these have been partially accepted by The Qt Company.
  - It seems there is still a conflict between paid licensing terms and Open 
Source contributions.
  - We believe it is in the best interest of The Qt Company to fully resolve 
this.
  - Qt itself incorporates products based on Open Source Qt (example: Qt Web 
Engine is based on a khtml derivative).
  - Should the KDE Free Qt Foundation continue to pursue this topic? It is 
only indirectly related to the legal Agreement with The Qt Company. It is in 
scope of the stated foundation purpose.

Comments and questions are welcome on the (public) kde-community at kde.org 
mailing list or at the (non-public) KDE AGM on Monday, 7 Sept 2020