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posted by Fnord666 on Thursday January 07 2021, @01:21AM   Printer-friendly
from the shooting-yourself-in-the-foot dept.

Open-source contributors say they'll pull out of Qt as LTS release goes commercial-only:

The Qt Company has followed up on its plan to make long-term support releases commercial-only by closing the source for 5.15 today, earning protests from open-source contributors who say that the 6.0 release, which remains open, is not yet usable.

[...] Yesterday senior VP Tuukka Turunen posted: "With Qt 6.0.0 released and the first patch release (Qt 6.0.1) coming soon, it is time to enter the commercial-only LTS phase for Qt 5.15 LTS. All the existing 5.15 branches remain publicly visible, but they are closed for new commits (and cherry-picks)... closing happens tomorrow, 5th January 2021.

"After this the cherry-picks go to another repository that will be available only for the commercial license holders... first commercial-only Qt 5.15.3 LTS patch release is planned to be released in February."

[...] The problem is that these releases are in effect no longer maintained. If there is a security issue, or a fix needed to support some change in one of the target operating systems, open-source users will not get that fix other than in the not-ready version 6.0.

Open-source contributor Thiago Macieira, an Intel software architect, said of the decision: "That means I will not be participating in the development of those fixes, commenting on what's appropriate or not, reviewing backports, or bug reports."

"Tend to agree," said Konstantin Ritt, another developer. "If there is a decision to close 5.15 sources, there'll be no more work from external/unpaid contributors."

Turunen responded that: "This is well understandable and expected. The Qt Company is prepared to handle the Qt 5.15 LTS phase work."


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Thursday January 07 2021, @01:41AM (47 children)

    by fustakrakich (6150) on Thursday January 07 2021, @01:41AM (#1096084) Journal

    There are a lot of dependencies that would need it

    --
    La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
    • (Score: 1, Troll) by barbara hudson on Thursday January 07 2021, @02:03AM (43 children)

      by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Thursday January 07 2021, @02:03AM (#1096105) Journal

      ' The company owns the code. Including the copyrights. If you fork it you get sued. You need to do a clean room implementation. Same as Phoenix did with their bios. Same as openjdk.

      In this case it's worse than re-implementing Java because Qt is not, and never has been, a standard language with multiple implementations, like c, c++, pascal, basic, xbase, etc. So don't hold your breath.

      None of the other open GUI toolkits, not even wxWidgets, is anywhere near a drop-in replacement.

      KDE is gonna have major problems going forward. From Wikipedia:

      KDE Frameworks provide more than 80 free and open-source libraries built on top of Qt.

      --
      SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
      • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Thursday January 07 2021, @02:09AM (26 children)

        by Grishnakh (2831) on Thursday January 07 2021, @02:09AM (#1096115)

        The company owns the code. Including the copyrights. If you fork it you get sued.

        Citation needed. The Qt code is available under the GPL license. ALL GPL code can be forked; that's part of the license. Owning the copyright doesn't give you the right to revoke a license after it's been granted. This has been tested in court.

        • (Score: 1, Troll) by barbara hudson on Thursday January 07 2021, @02:48AM (23 children)

          by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Thursday January 07 2021, @02:48AM (#1096140) Journal
          A's of tomorrow, the 5x series is closed source. You better have a copy of the source tree from before that date.

          Oracle tried the same bs with Java. Fortunately some of us have a license for really old versions from Sun with unlimited redistribution rights. And honestly for stand-alone programs, 1.5 has everything you need.

          --
          SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
          • (Score: 4, Informative) by https on Thursday January 07 2021, @05:41AM (3 children)

            by https (5248) on Thursday January 07 2021, @05:41AM (#1096284) Journal

            ...or, have downloaded binaries from them any time in the last three years.

            Apparently, nobody reads the license [gnu.org] any more.

            --
            Offended and laughing about it.
            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @06:55PM (2 children)

              by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @06:55PM (#1096589)

              ...or, have downloaded binaries from them any time in the last three years.

              Apparently, nobody reads the license [gnu.org] any more.

              This is not only completely irrelevant, but also wrong.

              It is irrelevant because Trolltech is (presumably) the copyright holder. A copyright license is permission from the copyright holder to do things that are ordinarily prohibited by copyright. So a license like the GPL mostly says things of the form "you can do X if you also do Y". This is articulated in fairly plain language in §9 of the GPL-3. Trolltech is simply not subject to copyright restrictions on their own copyrighted works so the license as a whole is legally irrelevant to what they do.

              It is wrong because the "for 3 years" thing is only relevant when using the option to distribute binaries accompanied with a written offer for source code (because such offers would normally need to be executed at a later date). I'm not sure what version of the license Qt uses but if it is GPL-3 then this option is only permitted when distributing binaries in a physical product. So for GPL-3 it would simply never apply to "downloaded binaries".

              The other options for distributing source code, such as including it with the binaries or providing access from a network server at no cost have no timeframes. Once you stop distributing binaries with these other methods you can also stop distributing source.

              The GPL-2 had less options for source distribution but it is common practice to provide separate download links for source and binaries, and most people would agree that this counts as "accompanying" the binaries with source under §3(a). (The GPL-2 comes from a time before the world wide web and network distribution of binaries was not common).

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 08 2021, @12:26AM

                by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 08 2021, @12:26AM (#1096765)

                Trolltech is simply not subject to copyright restrictions on their own copyrighted works so the license as a whole is legally irrelevant to what they do.

                Nonsense. If you grant a license and promise source will be available, and companies make plans based on your assertion, you absolutely have to keep up your end of the bargain. Companies using Qt and contributors who contributed code under the terms of the license agreement would all have grounds to sue to enforce the license to get the GPL source code, or else be awarded monetary damages.

              • (Score: 2) by driverless on Friday January 08 2021, @09:37AM

                by driverless (4770) on Friday January 08 2021, @09:37AM (#1096940)

                There's also a good reason to make the older Long-term Support releases paid ones, because Support isn't free. Developing Qt as a community service is one thing, but being expected to provide Support for the rest of eternity at no cost is a very different thing. I can see why they'd be taking steps to recover costs on this.

          • (Score: 3, Informative) by Grishnakh on Thursday January 07 2021, @06:13AM (17 children)

            by Grishnakh (2831) on Thursday January 07 2021, @06:13AM (#1096304)

            Um, no. The cannot simply close the source. For new releases, sure, you can change the license, and all the new code will fall under that license; the XFree86 project did this many years ago, causing the fork to X.org. But they cannot arbitrarily change the license on anything that's already been released under GPL. Yes, they can take down any public download servers, but I'm sure many, many people have full source trees already.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @08:16AM (13 children)

              by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @08:16AM (#1096363)

              >Um, no. The cannot simply close the source.

              Yes they can, if they own the copyright to the code.
              https://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/creating-written-contract-transfer-or-license-rights-under-copyright [dmlp.org]
              >Nonexclusive licenses also do not require consideration in order to be valid. However, nonexclusive licenses are revocable (meaning the copyright owner can revoke the license at any time) in the absence of consideration. This means that, whether or not you set a fixed time limit for the duration of the non-exclusive license in the licensing agreement, you (as the copyright owner) can revoke the license at any point if you do not receive consideration for it. Conversely, if you (as the copyright owner) receive consideration in return for the grant of the license, then you cannot revoke the license unless you provide for revocation in the license agreement

              How much did you pay for your GPL license grant? Nothing? It can be unilaterally revoked by the Copyright holder.

              • (Score: 3, Interesting) by PiMuNu on Thursday January 07 2021, @12:33PM

                by PiMuNu (3823) on Thursday January 07 2021, @12:33PM (#1096424)

                > Copyright holder.

                Does Qt own the copyright, even to community-contributed bug fixes etc?

              • (Score: 2) by Fnord666 on Thursday January 07 2021, @04:10PM (4 children)

                by Fnord666 (652) on Thursday January 07 2021, @04:10PM (#1096494) Homepage

                >Um, no. The cannot simply close the source.

                Yes they can, if they own the copyright to the code.
                https://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/creating-written-contract-transfer-or-license-rights-under-copyright [dmlp.org]
                >Nonexclusive licenses also do not require consideration in order to be valid. However, nonexclusive licenses are revocable (meaning the copyright owner can revoke the license at any time) in the absence of consideration. This means that, whether or not you set a fixed time limit for the duration of the non-exclusive license in the licensing agreement, you (as the copyright owner) can revoke the license at any point if you do not receive consideration for it. Conversely, if you (as the copyright owner) receive consideration in return for the grant of the license, then you cannot revoke the license unless you provide for revocation in the license agreement

                How much did you pay for your GPL license grant? Nothing? It can be unilaterally revoked by the Copyright holder.

                Any chance you can provide a citation to case law that confirms this interpretation? Has a court ruled that this can be done?

                IANAL so please forgive my ignorance in the correct terms and I don't have access to legal sites. Thanks.

                • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @04:19PM (1 child)

                  by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @04:19PM (#1096501)

                  He's making things up. He has no clue what he is talking about.

                  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2021, @01:52AM

                    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2021, @01:52AM (#1104963)

                    I'm not "making things up"
                    >Lawrence Rosen - Open Source Licensing - Sofware Freedom and
                    >Intellectual property Law
                    >https://www.amazon.com/Open-Source-Licensing-Software-Intellectual/dp/0131487876
                    >
                    >p46 "There is one important caveat: Even a perpetual license can be revoked.
                    >See the discussion of bare licenses and contracts in Chapter 4"
                    >--Lawrence Rosen
                    >
                    >p56 "A third problem with bare licenses is that they may be revocable by
                    >the licensor. Specifically, /a license not coupled with an interest may
                    >be revoked./ The term /interest/ in this context usually means the
                    >payment of some royalty or license fee, but there are other more
                    >complicated ways to satisfy the interest requirement. For example, a
                    >licensee can demonstrate that he or she has paid some consideration-a
                    >contract law term not found in copyright or patent law-in order to avoid
                    >revocation. Or a licensee may claim that he or she relied on the
                    >software licensed under an open source license and now is dependent upon
                    >that software, but this contract law concept, called promissory
                    >estoppel, is both difficult to prove and unreliable in court tests. (The
                    >concepts of /consideration/ and /promissory estoppel/ are explained more
                    >fully in the next section.) Unless the courts allow us to apply these
                    >contract law principles to a license, we are faced with a bare license
                    >that is revocable.
                    >--Lawrence Rosen
                    >
                    >p278 "Notice that in a copyright dispute over a bare license, the
                    >plaintiff will almost certainly be the copyright owner. If a licensee
                    >were foolish enough to sue to enforce the terms and conditions of the
                    >license, the licensor can simply revoke the bare license, thus ending
                    >the dispute. Remeber that a bare license in the absence of an interest
                    >is revocable."
                    >--Lawrence Rosen

                    --

                    > David McGowan, Professor of Law, University of Minnesota Law School:

                    > "Termination of rights

                    > [...] The most plausible assumption is that a developer who releases
                    > code under the GPL may terminate GPL rights, probably at will.

                    > [...] My point is not that termination is a great risk, it is that it
                    > is not recognized as a risk even though it is probably relevant to
                    > commercial end-users, accustomed to having contractual rights they can
                    > enforce themselves.

                    --
                    https://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/creating-written-contract-transfer-or-license-rights-under-copyright [dmlp.org]
                    >Nonexclusive licenses also do not require consideration in order to be valid. However, nonexclusive licenses are revocable (meaning the copyright owner can revoke the license at any time) in the absence of consideration. This means that, whether or not you set a fixed time limit for the duration of the non-exclusive license in the licensing agreement, you (as the copyright owner) can revoke the license at any point if you do not receive consideration for it. Conversely, if you (as the copyright owner) receive consideration in return for the grant of the license, then you cannot revoke the license unless you provide for revocation in the license agreement

                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @05:45PM (1 child)

                  by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @05:45PM (#1096542)

                  "American copyright law, as presently written, does not recognize moral rights or provide a cause of action for their violation, since the law seeks to vindicate the economic, rather than the personal rights of authors."

                  https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=17776182574171214893&hl=en&as_sdt=6&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr [google.com]

                  So in certain countries, where the purpose is to vindicate the personal 'rights' of authors, such licenses may be revocable. In the U.S. where the purpose should be to promote the progress of the sciences and useful arts it makes less sense to allow them to be revocable since so much public good comes from the GPL being irrevocable.

                  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2021, @01:55AM

                    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2021, @01:55AM (#1104964)

                    It doesn't matter what you think the duty of copyright is, what matters is how the law developed. In the US, these free licenses are revocable from the free-takers.

                    >Lawrence Rosen - Open Source Licensing - Sofware Freedom and
                    >Intellectual property Law
                    >https://www.amazon.com/Open-Source-Licensing-Software-Intellectual/dp/0131487876
                    >
                    >p46 "There is one important caveat: Even a perpetual license can be revoked.
                    >See the discussion of bare licenses and contracts in Chapter 4"
                    >--Lawrence Rosen
                    >
                    >p56 "A third problem with bare licenses is that they may be revocable by
                    >the licensor. Specifically, /a license not coupled with an interest may
                    >be revoked./ The term /interest/ in this context usually means the
                    >payment of some royalty or license fee, but there are other more
                    >complicated ways to satisfy the interest requirement. For example, a
                    >licensee can demonstrate that he or she has paid some consideration-a
                    >contract law term not found in copyright or patent law-in order to avoid
                    >revocation. Or a licensee may claim that he or she relied on the
                    >software licensed under an open source license and now is dependent upon
                    >that software, but this contract law concept, called promissory
                    >estoppel, is both difficult to prove and unreliable in court tests. (The
                    >concepts of /consideration/ and /promissory estoppel/ are explained more
                    >fully in the next section.) Unless the courts allow us to apply these
                    >contract law principles to a license, we are faced with a bare license
                    >that is revocable.
                    >--Lawrence Rosen
                    >
                    >p278 "Notice that in a copyright dispute over a bare license, the
                    >plaintiff will almost certainly be the copyright owner. If a licensee
                    >were foolish enough to sue to enforce the terms and conditions of the
                    >license, the licensor can simply revoke the bare license, thus ending
                    >the dispute. Remeber that a bare license in the absence of an interest
                    >is revocable."
                    >--Lawrence Rosen

                    --

                    > David McGowan, Professor of Law, University of Minnesota Law School:

                    > "Termination of rights

                    > [...] The most plausible assumption is that a developer who releases
                    > code under the GPL may terminate GPL rights, probably at will.

                    > [...] My point is not that termination is a great risk, it is that it
                    > is not recognized as a risk even though it is probably relevant to
                    > commercial end-users, accustomed to having contractual rights they can
                    > enforce themselves.

                    --
                    https://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/creating-written-contract-transfer-or-license-rights-under-copyright [dmlp.org] [dmlp.org]
                    >Nonexclusive licenses also do not require consideration in order to be valid. However, nonexclusive licenses are revocable (meaning the copyright owner can revoke the license at any time) in the absence of consideration. This means that, whether or not you set a fixed time limit for the duration of the non-exclusive license in the licensing agreement, you (as the copyright owner) can revoke the license at any point if you do not receive consideration for it. Conversely, if you (as the copyright owner) receive consideration in return for the grant of the license, then you cannot revoke the license unless you provide for revocation in the license agreement

              • (Score: 2) by Fnord666 on Thursday January 07 2021, @04:33PM

                by Fnord666 (652) on Thursday January 07 2021, @04:33PM (#1096512) Homepage

                >Um, no. The cannot simply close the source.

                Yes they can, if they own the copyright to the code.
                https://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/creating-written-contract-transfer-or-license-rights-under-copyright [dmlp.org]
                >Nonexclusive licenses also do not require consideration in order to be valid. However, nonexclusive licenses are revocable (meaning the copyright owner can revoke the license at any time) in the absence of consideration. This means that, whether or not you set a fixed time limit for the duration of the non-exclusive license in the licensing agreement, you (as the copyright owner) can revoke the license at any point if you do not receive consideration for it. Conversely, if you (as the copyright owner) receive consideration in return for the grant of the license, then you cannot revoke the license unless you provide for revocation in the license agreement

                How much did you pay for your GPL license grant? Nothing? It can be unilaterally revoked by the Copyright holder.

                Wouldn't this apply though if they are invoking copyright?

                Terminating a Transfer or License

                For works created after 1978, section 203 of the Copyright Act provides that the creator (or "author" in copyright terminology) of a work may terminate a transfer, exclusive, or non-exclusive license of any or all rights under copyright for that work during the five-year period:

                    - starting at the end of thirty-five years from execution of the grant;

                    - for a grant that covers the right of publication of a work, the five-year period beginning at the earlier of:
                          - the end of thirty-five years from the date of publication of the work; or
                          - the end of forty years from the date of execution of the grant.

                To terminate a grant or license, you must serve notice of termination upon the grantee (the recipient of the transfer or license) or the grantee's successor in title (meaning the person or entity to whom the original grantee transfered his interest). The notice must be in writing and state the date of termination, which must fall within the five-year period outlined immediately above. You are required to serve the notice not less than two, nor more than ten, years before the termination date designated in the notice. Additionally, you need to file a copy of the notice with the Copyright Office prior to the termination date.

                To be valid, a termination notice must comply with the form, content, and manner of service set out in the Copyright Regulations. You can find these regulations at 37 C.F.R. 201.10.

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @04:49PM (3 children)

                by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @04:49PM (#1096521)

                Consideration is not always needed. There is a thing in law called promissory estoppel

                https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estoppel [wikipedia.org]

                • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @05:26PM (1 child)

                  by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @05:26PM (#1096536)

                  and to answer the question with case law more specifically

                  Robert JACOBSEN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Matthew KATZER and Kamind Associates, Inc. (doing business as KAM Industries), Defendants-Appellees.

                  "Traditionally, copyright owners sold their copyrighted material in exchange for money. The lack of money changing hands in open source licensing should not be presumed to mean that there is no economic consideration, however. There are substantial benefits, including economic benefits, to the creation and distribution of copyrighted works under public licenses that range far beyond traditional license royalties. For example, program creators may generate market share for their programs by providing certain components free of charge. Similarly, a programmer or company may increase its national or international reputation by incubating open source projects. Improvement to a product can come rapidly and free of charge from an expert not even known to the copyright holder. The Eleventh Circuit has recognized the economic motives inherent in public licenses, even where profit is not immediate. See Planetary Motion, Inc. v. Techsplosion, Inc., 261 F.3d 1188, 1200 (11th Cir.2001) (Program creator "derived value from the distribution [under a public license] because he was able to improve his Software based on suggestions sent by end-users.... It is logical that as the Software improved, more end-users used his Software, thereby increasing [the programmer's] recognition in his profession and the likelihood that the Software would be improved even further.")."

                  https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=17776182574171214893&hl=en&as_sdt=6&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr [google.com]

                  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2021, @01:46AM

                    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2021, @01:46AM (#1104958)

                    >Jacobsen v. Katzer
                    Have you read Jacobsen v. Katzer? The 9th circuit appellate court ruled that the Artistic License was /not/ a contract, and was instead a simple copyright license. It found that the lower court erred in construing the Artistic License as a contract, and reversed the lower courts finding: telling the lower court that the Artistic License is not a contract.

                    That is, if anything, supportive of the "revokists" position.

                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2021, @01:48AM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2021, @01:48AM (#1104959)

                  Sorry, dipshit, promissory estoppel is for when someone relies on your words, performs an action on your behalf, or benefits a third party for you, and then you stiff them in payment claiming "there was no contract". That is not applicable here.

              • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 08 2021, @12:28AM (1 child)

                by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 08 2021, @12:28AM (#1096768)

                Um, no. The cannot simply close the source.

                Yes they can, if they own the copyright to the code.

                You've misunderstood the process. They can "close the source" in the sense that new version are only available under a closed source license. The can't revoke the GPL license after the fact on existing code. They just aren't making new code available under the GPL.

                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2021, @01:42AM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2021, @01:42AM (#1104957)

                  I didn't misunderstand anything. They can revoke the GPL from free-takers.

                  >Lawrence Rosen - Open Source Licensing - Sofware Freedom and
                  >Intellectual property Law
                  >https://www.amazon.com/Open-Source-Licensing-Software-Intellectual/dp/0131487876
                  >
                  >p46 "There is one important caveat: Even a perpetual license can be revoked.
                  >See the discussion of bare licenses and contracts in Chapter 4"
                  >--Lawrence Rosen
                  >
                  >p56 "A third problem with bare licenses is that they may be revocable by
                  >the licensor. Specifically, /a license not coupled with an interest may
                  >be revoked./ The term /interest/ in this context usually means the
                  >payment of some royalty or license fee, but there are other more
                  >complicated ways to satisfy the interest requirement. For example, a
                  >licensee can demonstrate that he or she has paid some consideration-a
                  >contract law term not found in copyright or patent law-in order to avoid
                  >revocation. Or a licensee may claim that he or she relied on the
                  >software licensed under an open source license and now is dependent upon
                  >that software, but this contract law concept, called promissory
                  >estoppel, is both difficult to prove and unreliable in court tests. (The
                  >concepts of /consideration/ and /promissory estoppel/ are explained more
                  >fully in the next section.) Unless the courts allow us to apply these
                  >contract law principles to a license, we are faced with a bare license
                  >that is revocable.
                  >--Lawrence Rosen
                  >
                  >p278 "Notice that in a copyright dispute over a bare license, the
                  >plaintiff will almost certainly be the copyright owner. If a licensee
                  >were foolish enough to sue to enforce the terms and conditions of the
                  >license, the licensor can simply revoke the bare license, thus ending
                  >the dispute. Remeber that a bare license in the absence of an interest
                  >is revocable."
                  >--Lawrence Rosen

                  --

                  > David McGowan, Professor of Law, University of Minnesota Law School:

                  > "Termination of rights

                  > [...] The most plausible assumption is that a developer who releases
                  > code under the GPL may terminate GPL rights, probably at will.

                  > [...] My point is not that termination is a great risk, it is that it
                  > is not recognized as a risk even though it is probably relevant to
                  > commercial end-users, accustomed to having contractual rights they can
                  > enforce themselves.

                  --

                  https://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/creating-written-contract-transfer-or-license-rights-under-copyright [dmlp.org]
                  >Nonexclusive licenses also do not require consideration in order to be valid. However, nonexclusive licenses are revocable (meaning the copyright owner can revoke the license at any time) in the absence of consideration. This means that, whether or not you set a fixed time limit for the duration of the non-exclusive license in the licensing agreement, you (as the copyright owner) can revoke the license at any point if you do not receive consideration for it. Conversely, if you (as the copyright owner) receive consideration in return for the grant of the license, then you cannot revoke the license unless you provide for revocation in the license agreement

            • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday January 07 2021, @11:57AM (2 children)

              by JoeMerchant (3937) on Thursday January 07 2021, @11:57AM (#1096410)

              I think some of the issue here is that people were delivering patches on 5.15.2 expecting them to appear in an open 5.15.3 but the Trolls are taking 5.15.3 commercial only.

              Sounds like a simple fork to O5.15.3 is all that's needed - the Trolls can continue to feed their customers C5.15.3 and beyond while KDE and the rest of the world can take care of O5.15.3 and beyond.

              Having it sprung like this with minimal notice sucks, but as I recall the switch to LGPL by Nokia was similarly sudden.

              --
              🌻🌻 [google.com]
              • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday January 07 2021, @04:16PM (1 child)

                by Grishnakh (2831) on Thursday January 07 2021, @04:16PM (#1096499)

                Yes, exactly. I don't see what the problem is here, other than it being a big annoyance. It's not hard to fork GPLed code, and this has been done countless times in the past. Just stick it up on GitHub with a different name (how about "Ru" or "Ps"?) and take the patches there.

                • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @05:00PM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @05:00PM (#1096526)

                  Nah, it should be called Cutie.

          • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday January 07 2021, @11:54AM

            by JoeMerchant (3937) on Thursday January 07 2021, @11:54AM (#1096408)

            You better have a copy of the source tree from before that date.

            There are hundreds of copies of every revision of the Qt source tree hosted all over the internet, probably millions of copies around the world.

            Just about anyone who contributes patches to Qt builds it from source to test their patches.

            --
            🌻🌻 [google.com]
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @08:26AM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @08:26AM (#1096371)

          Free licenses are revocable. Yes, IAAL.

          https://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/creating-written-contract-transfer-or-license-rights-under-copyright [dmlp.org]
          >Nonexclusive licenses also do not require consideration in order to be valid. However, nonexclusive licenses are revocable (meaning the copyright owner can revoke the license at any time) in the absence of consideration. This means that, whether or not you set a fixed time limit for the duration of the non-exclusive license in the licensing agreement, you (as the copyright owner) can revoke the license at any point if you do not receive consideration for it. Conversely, if you (as the copyright owner) receive consideration in return for the grant of the license, then you cannot revoke the license unless you provide for revocation in the license agreement

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 08 2021, @06:27AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 08 2021, @06:27AM (#1096911)

            Anonymous Coward

            Yes, IAAL

            lol

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @02:10AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @02:10AM (#1096116)

        Qt for Application Development is dual-licensed under commercial and open source licenses. The commercial Qt license gives you the full rights to create and distribute software on your own terms without any open source license obligations. With the commercial license you also have access to the official Qt Support and close strategic relationship with The Qt Company to make sure your development goals are met.

        Qt for Application Development is also available under GPL and LGPLv3 open source licenses. Qt tools and some libraries are only available under GPL. See

        https://www.qt.io/licensing/ [www.qt.io]

      • (Score: 2, Informative) by fustakrakich on Thursday January 07 2021, @02:31AM (14 children)

        by fustakrakich (6150) on Thursday January 07 2021, @02:31AM (#1096128) Journal

        If you fork it you get sued.

        It appears that is incorrect. I mean, yeah, they can sue, but then you can wave the GPL at them and make them pay court costs, maybe even get something for causing emotional trauma

        --
        La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
        • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Thursday January 07 2021, @02:55AM (13 children)

          by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Thursday January 07 2021, @02:55AM (#1096147) Journal

          If you own the code, you can revoke the license. What you can't do is take away existing copies in the field from before revokation.

          Same thing with any updates - you better have a pre-existing copy of all the sources and documentation, and be prepared to maintain it independently of Qt.

          And any future revisions better use a different name. Just too risky otherwise. Looks like Qt learned something from Larry "I want a bigger super yacht" Ellison.

          --
          SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
          • (Score: 3, Informative) by fustakrakich on Thursday January 07 2021, @03:00AM (3 children)

            by fustakrakich (6150) on Thursday January 07 2021, @03:00AM (#1096151) Journal

            Only on future versions. Released copies under the GPL are forever under the GPL. Yes, they will have to use a different name, like any other fork.

            --
            La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
            • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @08:29AM (2 children)

              by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @08:29AM (#1096372)

              > Released copies under the GPL are forever under the GPL.
              WRONG. The GPL is not US law. The GPL is NOT a copyright Transfer: it is a free non-exclusive license.
              There is a reason the FSF requires copyright transfers from contributors.

              Free licenses are revocable. Yes, IAAL.

              https://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/creating-written-contract-transfer-or-license-rights-under-copyright [dmlp.org]
              >Nonexclusive licenses also do not require consideration in order to be valid. However, nonexclusive licenses are revocable (meaning the copyright owner can revoke the license at any time) in the absence of consideration. This means that, whether or not you set a fixed time limit for the duration of the non-exclusive license in the licensing agreement, you (as the copyright owner) can revoke the license at any point if you do not receive consideration for it. Conversely, if you (as the copyright owner) receive consideration in return for the grant of the license, then you cannot revoke the license unless you provide for revocation in the license agreement

              • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday January 07 2021, @04:49PM (1 child)

                by fustakrakich (6150) on Thursday January 07 2021, @04:49PM (#1096520) Journal

                Well, if it really works out that way, it's unacceptable. Since no store bought politician will ever change that, we'll have to get it overturned in the courts.

                --
                La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @06:15PM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @06:15PM (#1096557)

                  Agreed. If it really does work out that way this would be totally unacceptable.

          • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday January 07 2021, @05:52AM (7 children)

            by Immerman (3985) on Thursday January 07 2021, @05:52AM (#1096294)

            >If you own the code, you can revoke the license.

            Not quite - you got it more right in your comment a bit above.

            You can change the terms under which you license future copies - but you can't revoke the licenses you already granted in the past.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @08:18AM (6 children)

              by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @08:18AM (#1096364)

              >You can change the terms under which you license future copies - but you can't revoke the licenses you already granted in the past.

              Yes you can. If you paid nothing for the license it can be revoked.
              And yes, IAAL. This will be easier with the new CASE small claims copyright court being set up also.

              https://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/creating-written-contract-transfer-or-license-rights-under-copyright [dmlp.org]
              >Nonexclusive licenses also do not require consideration in order to be valid. However, nonexclusive licenses are revocable (meaning the copyright owner can revoke the license at any time) in the absence of consideration. This means that, whether or not you set a fixed time limit for the duration of the non-exclusive license in the licensing agreement, you (as the copyright owner) can revoke the license at any point if you do not receive consideration for it. Conversely, if you (as the copyright owner) receive consideration in return for the grant of the license, then you cannot revoke the license unless you provide for revocation in the license agreement

              • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @04:20PM (2 children)

                by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @04:20PM (#1096503)

                Is this still true if the license itself states it's irrevocable provided its conditions are met? From GPLv3 [gnu.org]:

                All rights granted under this License are granted for the term of copyright on the Program, and are irrevocable provided the stated conditions are met.

                IANAL, but something seems to be fundamentally wrong if you can explicitly give up your right to revoke a license, as part of the license, and then just decide your promise doesn't count. I also know that the lawyers involved in writing GPLv3 were keen on getting details like that right, it is *meant* to be irrevocable for anyone who doesn't violate its terms.

                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2021, @01:35AM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2021, @01:35AM (#1104951)

                  Illusory promise if you didn't pay anything. Worth nothing. You can say "HE PROMISED IT WAS IRREVOCABLE" all you want: it's worth nothing if you paid nothing for that "promise"
                  Believe what you want though.

                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2021, @01:37AM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2021, @01:37AM (#1104953)

                  Yes it is still true.
                  Illusory promise if you didn't pay anything. Worth nothing. You can say "HE PROMISED IT WAS IRREVOCABLE" all you want: it's worth nothing if you paid nothing for that "promise"
                  Believe what you want though.

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @07:11PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @07:11PM (#1096606)

                sounds like a good way for small foss projects to get funded. offer two versions. one paid with unrevocable license and one free with revocable license.

              • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 08 2021, @01:01PM (1 child)

                by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 08 2021, @01:01PM (#1096963)

                Well, the Mr. Anonym Lawyer, you should read the license terms before talking about it,

                2. Basic Permissions.

                All rights granted under this License are granted for the term of copyright on the Program, and are irrevocable provided the stated conditions are met.

                If you grant something under irrevocable license, it's kind of difficult to go back to court and claim that you just want to revoke it.

                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2021, @01:32AM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2021, @01:32AM (#1104950)

                  >If you grant something under irrevocable license, it's kind of difficult to go back to court and claim that you just want to revoke it.

                  Wrong, illusory promise if you didn't pay anything. Worth nothing.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @08:21AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @08:21AM (#1096366)

            > If you own the code, you can revoke the license.
            Correct.

            >What you can't do is take away existing copies in the field from before revokation.
            Wrong: you can revoke Free licenses at will, including existing copies.

            >Same thing with any updates - you better have a pre-existing copy of all the sources and documentation, and be prepared to maintain it independently of Qt.

            If the Free license is revoked, distributing copies would be Copyright infringement. Regardless of what the Free License claimed.

            https://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/creating-written-contract-transfer-or-license-rights-under-copyright [dmlp.org]
            >Nonexclusive licenses also do not require consideration in order to be valid. However, nonexclusive licenses are revocable (meaning the copyright owner can revoke the license at any time) in the absence of consideration. This means that, whether or not you set a fixed time limit for the duration of the non-exclusive license in the licensing agreement, you (as the copyright owner) can revoke the license at any point if you do not receive consideration for it. Conversely, if you (as the copyright owner) receive consideration in return for the grant of the license, then you cannot revoke the license unless you provide for revocation in the license agreement

    • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday January 07 2021, @04:24PM (2 children)

      by Freeman (732) on Thursday January 07 2021, @04:24PM (#1096508) Journal

      I've avoided using Qt like it was the plague. Mostly due to their restrictive license. I don't want to use a license that forces me to give away my source code, if I want to sell something. I also am mostly fiddling with stuff, so don't want to pay for a commercial license. Thus, Qt is the plague. This just proves that I used good judgement.

      In reality, I likely will never make a dime on my side projects, but putting out something that could theoretically make me money is a nice dream. As opposed to me working all day to make money. At the least it would be nice to have a little pizza money or something. Still, I likely don't have the time and will to make it happen. I'm much more interested in making sure I can support my family, make sure my kid sees me around, make sure I play with my kid, and go on the occasional fun outing with family. Everything else is gravy.

      --
      Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
      • (Score: 5, Interesting) by stormreaver on Thursday January 07 2021, @10:41PM

        by stormreaver (5101) on Thursday January 07 2021, @10:41PM (#1096724)

        This just proves that I used good judgement.

        Qt is LGPL. If your reason for not using it is because you think you have to give your work away for free, you were avoiding it for the wrong reason.

        I stopped using Qt with version 4 because the API change broke everything I had made before that. The compatibility libraries weren't, and it took me a year to rewrite a SINGLE large program. I decided I was never going to do that again.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 08 2021, @06:24AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 08 2021, @06:24AM (#1096909)

        I've avoided using Qt like it was the plague. Mostly due to their restrictive license. I don't want to use a license that forces me to give away my source code

        then why are you even commenting on this article

  • (Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @01:58AM (6 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @01:58AM (#1096100)

    I finally forgave them for screwing up Qt licensing and cursing us with gnome... and now they're gonna do it again?!

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Mojibake Tengu on Thursday January 07 2021, @03:25AM (5 children)

      by Mojibake Tengu (8598) on Thursday January 07 2021, @03:25AM (#1096174) Journal

      This is not the first time they did it, not the second time and not the third time. It's a history pattern.
      Remember KDE4 affair? Remember KDE3 affair?
      They exploit stupid naive FOSS community only for dirty debugging work, once it is done they take the cream and keep it for themselves.

      It's just like a domestic violence: dropping a shameless bully completely or leaving for good is the only serious option for life.

      Get life.

      I mean, seriously: imgui, Magnum Engine, EFL/Enlightenment or something else.

      --
      Respect Authorities. Know your social status. Woke responsibly.
      • (Score: 1) by multistrand on Thursday January 07 2021, @03:58AM (2 children)

        by multistrand (13836) on Thursday January 07 2021, @03:58AM (#1096205)

        We get a little abuse from both sides, gnome not being as configurable and QT screwing over KDE users. Over the years I've learned to live with gnome and currently like it for the most part, though I also quit bothering with extensive customization some time ago.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @09:33AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @09:33AM (#1096381)

          Except that GTK's MO currently is to break everything at every opportunity. Which is… less than ideal.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @07:13PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @07:13PM (#1096611)

          unfortunately they are currently in the process of ruining the shell GUI.

      • (Score: 2) by chromas on Friday January 08 2021, @02:47AM (1 child)

        by chromas (34) Subscriber Badge on Friday January 08 2021, @02:47AM (#1096817) Journal

        Remember KDE4 affair?

        The only thing I remember is they ported KDE to Qt4 (KDE 3.80) then threw away all their effort to start all over, making the desktop a Windows Vista-style widget soup featuring retarded technologieses like Strigi and Akonadi (which is still broken even today). I don't blame Qt for that. Perhaps the abused became the abuser.

        EFL/Enlightenment

        Well there's this [thedailywtf.com].

        • (Score: 4, Informative) by tangomargarine on Friday January 08 2021, @06:45AM

          by tangomargarine (667) on Friday January 08 2021, @06:45AM (#1096916)

          Just going to drop this bit here

          An interesting topic is layouts. A layout (except for box layout which is actually a widget for some reason) is a definition of a collection of GUI elements written in some forsaken language. You create those files, put widget definitions inside them, compile with custom compiler (edje_cc) and use the resulting file. This leads to some problems, unknown to the sane world. For example, a layout is immutable. You make it, you stick with it. That immutability is pretty far reaching. If you place an image in a layout, you not only cannot move the image widget anywhere, but you also cannot do anything with the image data itself. The author recognized this can be a problem, especially when all competing libraries offer dynamic modification of widget layouts. An obvious solution would be making layouts dynamic, but it’s not the EFL way. Instead you can add a pseudo-element to the layout called SWALLOW (given the previous error messages, I suspect the author designed EFL while watching Redtube). This SWALLOW can them be substituted by a real widget. Therefore, if you want your layout to be truly dynamic, make a bunch of SWALLOWs in the layout which makes it extremely readable. The compiler is also worthy of noting. It always returns exit code 0, even when it fails. Have fun designing a build system with EFL in mind. This is especially entertaining when you have a previously compiled version of a layout – it gets silently used and you’re left with hours of debugging why is nothing changing on screen.

          In typical lovecraftian C fashion, EFL disregards any notion of memory ownership. It frees some data you pour into it, and it doesn’t free other. Which is which? You’ll only know when your process crashes on double free. Or when your memory fills up. Or never.

          One example of this memory mismanagement is a thing called a Genlist. It in essence is a list widget with some items. It has a special “feature” – it deletes items when they go out of view and allocates memory for them when they get into view. Make a quick swipe on such list on your mobile device and you can actually hear your RAM scream in agony.

          Those times when you're not sure whether you should laugh or cry

          --
          "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by PinkyGigglebrain on Thursday January 07 2021, @05:59AM

    by PinkyGigglebrain (4458) on Thursday January 07 2021, @05:59AM (#1096299)

    Dependancy [xkcd.com]

    not exactly the case here but close enough.

    --
    "Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
  • (Score: 2) by Frosty Piss on Thursday January 07 2021, @06:06AM

    by Frosty Piss (4971) on Thursday January 07 2021, @06:06AM (#1096301)

    The suits at the top of the management pile have calculated it’s time to plan on the golden parachute. News at 11...

  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @07:49AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @07:49AM (#1096340)

    Herewith the Qt Company recognizes the ex-competing GTK project as FUBAR. Sincere thanks to dear GNOME devs, keep up the good sabotaging!

  • (Score: 2) by DECbot on Thursday January 07 2021, @08:03AM (1 child)

    by DECbot (832) on Thursday January 07 2021, @08:03AM (#1096352) Journal

    I was planning to install plasma on a new laptop this weekend and then they pull this stunt. Dick moves like this is what prevents open source from ever getting wide stream adoption. I'm sure there's plenty of examples, but this reminds me of OSS which forced ALSA upon us. It makes me curious about Apple's plans for cups.
     
    Anyway, there's been rumors that Trolltech would do this very thing for a long time, so the KDE dev community shouldn't be caught off guard. Actually, the alarm is more about the sudden shift to 6 and outrage that 6 isn't ready for production rather than the current LTS version going closed source only. This move is going to make the KDE devs succumb to their rolling releases or fork--neither of which sounds popular to the KDE devs.
     
    And KDE was just starting to get really exciting with their last several releases. Should I stay on XFCE, rock Mate, or risk it all and install plasma? This sucks. Maybe ask those console jockeys were right. The DE is a passing fad and the command line is the only right way. But what's the best shell? Bash? Dash? zsh? tsh? Emacs? There's a flash plugin for emacs, right?

    --
    cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
    • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday January 07 2021, @12:02PM

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Thursday January 07 2021, @12:02PM (#1096413)

      The shift to 5 was less than smooth, too. Back around 2013 timeframe I was still building new systems in 4 because 5 just wasn't "there" yet. I think in late 2013 I finally made the switch to 5 because I was moving into something that was simple enough to not be bitten by all the "lack of" in 5.

      Now Quick vs Widgets: Quick still seems to have plenty of lack to it, as compared to the Widgets development experience. Quick clearly has a bit more power, but that power comes at a high cost.

      --
      🌻🌻 [google.com]
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @08:23AM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @08:23AM (#1096370)

    https://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/creating-written-contract-transfer-or-license-rights-under-copyright [dmlp.org]
    >Nonexclusive licenses also do not require consideration in order to be valid. However, nonexclusive licenses are revocable (meaning the copyright owner can revoke the license at any time) in the absence of consideration. This means that, whether or not you set a fixed time limit for the duration of the non-exclusive license in the licensing agreement, you (as the copyright owner) can revoke the license at any point if you do not receive consideration for it. Conversely, if you (as the copyright owner) receive consideration in return for the grant of the license, then you cannot revoke the license unless you provide for revocation in the license agreement

    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @09:36AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @09:36AM (#1096383)

      As soon as they break KDE Free Qt Foundation agreement they are toast either way.

    • (Score: 2) by RamiK on Thursday January 07 2021, @10:44AM (2 children)

      by RamiK (1813) on Thursday January 07 2021, @10:44AM (#1096396)

      1. The GPL has a specific clause that effectively wavers that: "However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance."

      2. Contributing back to the project is a form of consideration in the context of collaborative works like free open source software.

      3. If they wish to close source they'll lose the licenses to the thousands of contributions done to their codebase over the years and won't be able to continue distributing until they remove those contributions.

      4. Copyright is a distribution license so as long as you're just using Qt and its sources and aren't handing out copies of it, you don't need a license to continue using it internally.

      Combine the above and you end up with the current status quo as everyone understand and apply it.

      --
      compiling...
      • (Score: 4, Interesting) by RamiK on Thursday January 07 2021, @11:44AM (1 child)

        by RamiK (1813) on Thursday January 07 2021, @11:44AM (#1096406)

        Oh, there's the old groklaw piece [groklaw.net] disproving the revocablity thing but the site is down so here's the internet archive copy: https://web.archive.org/web/20200530023740/http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2006062204552163 [archive.org]

        --
        compiling...
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2021, @01:39AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2021, @01:39AM (#1104955)

          The groklaw article is bullshit. It was written by a paralegal. It disproves nothing.

          >Lawrence Rosen - Open Source Licensing - Sofware Freedom and
          >Intellectual property Law
          >https://www.amazon.com/Open-Source-Licensing-Software-Intellectual/dp/0131487876
          >
          >p46 "There is one important caveat: Even a perpetual license can be revoked.
          >See the discussion of bare licenses and contracts in Chapter 4"
          >--Lawrence Rosen
          >
          >p56 "A third problem with bare licenses is that they may be revocable by
          >the licensor. Specifically, /a license not coupled with an interest may
          >be revoked./ The term /interest/ in this context usually means the
          >payment of some royalty or license fee, but there are other more
          >complicated ways to satisfy the interest requirement. For example, a
          >licensee can demonstrate that he or she has paid some consideration-a
          >contract law term not found in copyright or patent law-in order to avoid
          >revocation. Or a licensee may claim that he or she relied on the
          >software licensed under an open source license and now is dependent upon
          >that software, but this contract law concept, called promissory
          >estoppel, is both difficult to prove and unreliable in court tests. (The
          >concepts of /consideration/ and /promissory estoppel/ are explained more
          >fully in the next section.) Unless the courts allow us to apply these
          >contract law principles to a license, we are faced with a bare license
          >that is revocable.
          >--Lawrence Rosen
          >
          >p278 "Notice that in a copyright dispute over a bare license, the
          >plaintiff will almost certainly be the copyright owner. If a licensee
          >were foolish enough to sue to enforce the terms and conditions of the
          >license, the licensor can simply revoke the bare license, thus ending
          >the dispute. Remeber that a bare license in the absence of an interest
          >is revocable."
          >--Lawrence Rosen

          > David McGowan, Professor of Law, University of Minnesota Law School:

          > "Termination of rights

          > [...] The most plausible assumption is that a developer who releases
          > code under the GPL may terminate GPL rights, probably at will.

          > [...] My point is not that termination is a great risk, it is that it
          > is not recognized as a risk even though it is probably relevant to
          > commercial end-users, accustomed to having contractual rights they can
          > enforce themselves.

          https://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/creating-written-contract-transfer-or-license-rights-under-copyright [dmlp.org]
          >Nonexclusive licenses also do not require consideration in order to be valid. However, nonexclusive licenses are revocable (meaning the copyright owner can revoke the license at any time) in the absence of consideration. This means that, whether or not you set a fixed time limit for the duration of the non-exclusive license in the licensing agreement, you (as the copyright owner) can revoke the license at any point if you do not receive consideration for it. Conversely, if you (as the copyright owner) receive consideration in return for the grant of the license, then you cannot revoke the license unless you provide for revocation in the license agreement

  • (Score: 2, Informative) by John Bresnahan on Thursday January 07 2021, @10:07AM (3 children)

    by John Bresnahan (5989) on Thursday January 07 2021, @10:07AM (#1096391)
    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday January 07 2021, @12:05PM (2 children)

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Thursday January 07 2021, @12:05PM (#1096414)

      Do you know it well enough to say: have they been incorporating the patches and extensions from Qt since their fork? FFMpeg and libav/avconv cribbed each others' notes for years and that worked pretty well as a cooperative competition.

      --
      🌻🌻 [google.com]
      • (Score: 1) by John Bresnahan on Thursday January 07 2021, @12:54PM (1 child)

        by John Bresnahan (5989) on Thursday January 07 2021, @12:54PM (#1096428)

        Do you know it well enough to say

        Sorry, I don't. I just discovered it the other day.

        It started as a fork of QT, but has been diverging since then. For instance, they've changed the SIGNAL/SLOTS code to use native C++ 17 features instead of Moc. They do have a utility program that will make the necessary changes to header files to make porting easier.

        I wouldn't have bothered even looking at it, but with this move by QT, it may be worth investigating.

        • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday January 07 2021, @04:07PM

          by JoeMerchant (3937) on Thursday January 07 2021, @04:07PM (#1096492)

          I started using Qt in 2006, and the one thing that has been "superior" about it as compared to all other libraries I have used before and since is its ubiquity and continuing development/support. This move with 5.15.3 certainly smells of Richard - and I expect as much given their return to a "for profit, licensed" organization - but it doesn't change the utility / power of 5.15.2 at all, and frankly starting with around 5.5.1 the 5 generation was better than anything else I have evaluated, and back in 2006 4.whatever they were at when I started then was already better than available alternatives.

          During the 4-5 transition, there were some "new" technologies like JSON that were getting support in 5 but not 4 and stuff like that drove my eventual migration to 5 (although, porting the 5 JSON handling code back into 4 wasn't all that hard to do...) I imagine there will be "new shiny" stuff that gets worked into 6 that 5 lacks, but whatever it is, I'm not missing it yet... well... except for 64 bit QString and QByteArray length support... I'm sure there will be more in the future.

          --
          🌻🌻 [google.com]
  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Rich on Thursday January 07 2021, @03:23PM

    by Rich (945) on Thursday January 07 2021, @03:23PM (#1096469) Journal

    The interesting thing will be what the KDE makers and those with prominent Qt applications are going to do now. Eerie silence so far on the lists when I just checked. They are so exposed that they absolutely need security updates, so a "get off my lawn, i'll just use Qt 5.15" (or even Qt 4...) will not do, as it would for people doing just a few in-house hacks.

    Options I see:

    - Fork Qt from 5.15 and continue to maintain it as KDE project
    - Migrate to CopperSpice
    - A combination of the above
    - Port to Qt HEAD

    The latter is of course pure lunacy which will end in a broken KDE, but far from unlikely. Qt just have to bait a couple of their lead devs with six-month contracts and that path will be voted for. As a result, Qt gets to milk off the other contributors work, before that collapses.

    But I don't see Krita jump on that train, for example, their project leader really knows how to keep such a large project on course.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @04:54PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @04:54PM (#1096524)

    Guess I was right to prefer wx to QT.

    Then again, that had nothing to do with this lunacy, just that wx seemed easier to use.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @08:27PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @08:27PM (#1096667)

    Gnome may be out for me too. Disgusting changes coming

    https://blogs.gnome.org/shell-dev/2021/01/07/a-shell-ux-update/ [gnome.org]

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