Jörg,
Comments below.
Jörg von Frantzius wrote:
Achim Lörke schrieb:
On Wed, 16 Apr 2008 10:18:37 +0200, Jörg von Frantzius
<joerg.von.frantzius@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Doug Schaefer schrieb:
If there is a question, then no corporate lawyer would allow such a
release. So, yes, even if a Qt port existed, I'm pretty sure none of
the SWT committers would be allowed by their employer to work on it
because of the legal implications.
I doubt there would be legal implications if the Qt port was released
under the EPL. There would be legal implications if anybody sold a
commercial product on top of it, without paying Trolltech.
The EPL allows everyone to sell a (even closed source) product based
on Eclipse technology. So every part used throughout Eclipse must be
licensed this way.
EPL says:
"b)
Subject to the terms of this Agreement, each Contributor hereby
grants
Recipient a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free
patent license under Licensed Patents to make, use, sell, offer to
sell, import
and otherwise transfer the Contribution of such Contributor, if any, in
source
code and object code form
The Contributor could here e.g. be IBM, assuming they contribute a Qt
port. To me this sounds like the Contributor himself must not be able
to hinder anyone from selling the contribution in any form, i.e. the
Recipients rights cannot be restricted by Contributor's claims.
It does not state that Recipient must not be bound to other
restrictions set forth somewhere else for using the Contribution.
As far as I understand it, EPL must apply to all distributed content.
So if it's distributed under EPL, no part of the distribution may have
a license more restrictive than EPL itself. A contributor cannot wipe
away restrictions by virtue of taking something from somewhere else and
contributing it to Eclipse.
I'd still think that IBM could release a Qt port under EPL, with
anybody wanting to sell it additionally being bound to Trolltech's
terms:
"2) The right to link non-Open Source
applications with
pre-installed versions of the Licensed Software: You may link
applications with binary pre-installed versions of the Licensed
Software, provided that such applications have been developed and are
deployed in accordance in accordance with the terms and conditions of
the Qt Commercial License
Agreement."
Trolltech's terms would be binding only as soon as the Contribution
leaves the OpenSource-space, so to say, with that space explicitly
being extended from what GPL covers to what EPL covers. IBM would be
kind of "passing through" those obligations for commercial use. In the
commercial space, IBM would of course themselves be bound to
Trolltech's terms as anybody else for their commercial offerings.
It's certainly more of a gray zone if only EPL content itself was
distributed and the recipient themselves needed to fetch the GPL
content and drop it in to make it work. As Mike says, these kinds of
questions involve paying lawyers to make decisions about topics for
which there is little in the way of legal precedents and hence in an
area rife with risk. Lawyers really don't like risks...
So unless there is a group that wants to staff a Qt port and maintain
it, the legal costs associated with answering the question doesn't seem
like a cost effective way to spend the foundation's money...
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