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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 The problem is that these releases are in effect no longer maintained.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."
(Score: 3, Informative) by fustakrakich on Thursday January 07 2021, @03:00AM (3 children)
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)
> 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)
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
Agreed. If it really does work out that way this would be totally unacceptable.