Your petition to GPL Qt
Mr. Russell,
I am writing you with regard to your petition[1] to Troll Tech, AS asking
them to GPL their Qt library. I felt I could not with clear conscience
sign this petition and I would like in this letter to address the
concerns in my mind as they relate to it. I am sending Carbon Copies of
this letter to other parties; I am therefore including URL references for
those reading not familiar with the issues addressed herein.
I am quite familiar with the language and intentions of version 0.91 of
the Q Public License[2] as I was the author of many of the changes
between this current version and the version which preceded it. I will
unilaterally agree this current draft is not compatible with the GNU
General Public License[3]. While this is a concern of mine, I believe
your petition does not adequately address the needs of Troll Tech nor for
that matter the needs of the Free Software community as a whole.
Your web page lists the following argument for use of the GNU GPL as the
license for Troll Tech's Qt Free Edition product:
Why GPL?
TrollTech make money by charging for the right to use Qt in
proprietary products, and for support. So the GPL, which disallows
such use, supports this model: it is a feasible option (see FAQ).
The fact of the matter is that this argument is actually exactly why the
GNU GPL is inappropriate for use with Qt. The very nature of the GNU GPL
prevents use in a proprietary manner. Only holder(s) of the Copyright may
allow code released under the GNU GPL to be used in a proprietary manner
by granting additional license terms selectively. This is what you
advocate here.
The holder of the Copyright for the Qt library is Troll Tech, AS. The
holder of the Copyright for any GNU GPL licensed patches which apply to
Qt is not Troll Tech, AS unless the author of the patch transfers their
Copyright to Troll Tech. A combined work would have a shared Copyright
and still be under the GNU GPL which would prevent Troll Tech from
releasing the combined work under other licensing terms.
This would almost certainly cause a rift to develop between their
Professional Edition and their Free Edition as development forks into at
least two directions, the Free Edition gaining all of the enhancements
made to the Professional Edition but the converse would not be the case.
Another argument against your petition is that the GNU GPL is compatible
with only a small subset of Free Software licenses, using the definition
of Free Software found in the Debian Free Software Guidelines[4] which
describe a commonly accepted definition of Free Software far beyond the
scope of the Debian GNU/Linux distribution.
By licensing Qt Free Edition under the GNU GPL, Troll Tech will have
guaranteed incompatibility with each of these other Free Software
licenses which include the original BSD license, Netscape's NPL and MPL,
perl's Artistic License, as well as others. Several of these licenses
have clauses in them which are sometimes inconvenient, but they are
nonetheless Free Software. And still, they are incompatible with the GNU
GPL.
It is my understanding that Troll Tech, AS does not wish to limit their
Qt Free Edition product to use by software which is under either the GPL
or a less restrictive license. Troll Tech wishes anyone to be able to
use their Free Edition to produce Free Software, under any Free Software
license.
Debian and Troll Tech will continue to work together on the Q Public
License. It is my hope that we can quickly resolve current issues the
Free Software community has with the license and yet retain profitability
for Troll Tech. It is my belief that we can reach this goal together,
even to the goal of GNU GPL compatibility. However, as we work toward
these goals, the input of the community is vital and welcome.
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[1] http://www.rustcorp.com/petition/
[2] http://www.troll.no/qpl
[3] http://www.fsf.org/copyleft/gpl.html
[4] http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines
--
NO ONE expects the Spanish Inquisition!
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