[maemo-developers] Qt to be available under the terms of the LGPL

[From: Bruce Stephens]

On Wed, Jan 14, 2009 at 10:35 PM, Lorn Potter <lpotter at trolltech.com> wrote:
> Bruce Stephens wrote:

>> My guess is that internally they regard Qt commercial licensing as a distraction
>> from their main business, and (though it may be at some level
>> irrational) they prefer
>> to exchange the income (and distraction) for the positive publicity.
>
> We are still selling Qt as a multi licensed software, we still sell commercial licenses to those
> companies and people that want to keep their code closed.

Ah, good point.  Some companies will prefer a commercial license to LGPL.

> At the same time, we are offering support as a separate offering, so Nokia can now also make money
> from selling GPL, LGPL users support.

True, while removing some licenses from companies who can live with
LGPL, you may well gain
some support money from such companies.  For all I know that's an
overall increase in revenue.

> As well, it removes restrictions for being able to use community contributions.

I don't get that.  Surely it means contributions need to be
licenseable in an extra
license (LGPL) in addition to the commercial license and GPL, so it's
an extra restriction (though
a minor one)?

In any case, your first comment makes sense: quite likely it's a
commercial win for Nokia, or
at least not as much of a loss as it might appear at first glance.