qmake, qt and license question

[Alexander Neundorf]

Hi,

On Sunday 15 January 2006 06:49, Alvin wrote:
> On Sunday 15 January 2006 01:08, kitts wrote:
> > On Sunday 15 January 2006 05:59 IST, Alvin wrote:
> > > On Saturday 14 January 2006 18:57, Jim Bodkikns (Dakotacom) wrote:
> > > >    My question is: is it possible to use kdevelop and kdevelop
> > > > designer without encountering the Qt license? (Commercial) What I am
> > > > doing is commercial, but has less value than a single Qt workstation
> > > > license :).
> > >
> > > I used to use Qt (for in-house apps) cause the look'n feel matched KDE
> > > very nicely. However, I found the compile time too long; even for the
> > > smallest of apps. I have since switched to FLTK (http://www.fltk.org).
> > > It's lightweight, fast and its Plastic scheme looks great. AFAIK,
> > > there's no commercial license needed as it's LGPL.
> >
> > Let me get this right... Does this mean that one can make proprietary
> > closed source KDE application using KDevelop and KDesigner without having
> > to purchase any license? At best i remember qt requiring a license for
> > commercial use and KDE apps tend to use QT!?
> >
> > Or does this hold true if the application uses only the KDE API and never
> > the Qt API? I am a little confused.
>
> I may have confused things? I meant that FLTK doesn't require a commercial
> license. I checked again and FLTK uses the LGPL license with a few
> modifications (http://www.fltk.org/COPYING.php) that allow for greater
> flexibility.
>
> AFAIK, anything created by/using kdevelop can be redistributed without a
> kdevelop license. This only applies to the KDevelop IDE not any libraries
> you use. In your case, QT has it's own licensing requirements. I don't know
> QT's full licensing details, but I do know that QT does require a
> commercial license to sell the app you create. I believe, and I could be
> wrong, no license is required to develop the app or if the app is open
> source. The license is only needed when selling the app (that uses QT).
>
> As for the KDE's API, I'm not sure as I have never used the KDE API. I
> would guess that no license is required if the app uses the KDE API and the
> app is open source. As for a commercial app, I'm not sure if a license is
> required?

If you write an application, which links to the Qt-library and which is 
distributed and which is not GPL-licensed, you need a commercial Qt license.

The GPL is all about distribution and redistribution, but it doesn't force you 
to distribute your software.

Bye
Alex
-- 
Work: alexander.neundorf AT jenoptik.com - http://www.jenoptik-los.de
Home: neundorf AT kde.org                - http://www.kde.org
      alex AT neundorf.net               - http://www.neundorf.net

-
to unsubscribe from this list send an email to kdevelop-request at kdevelop.org with the following body:
unsubscribe »your-email-address«