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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 The problem is that these releases are in effect no longer maintained.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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @08:18AM (6 children)
>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)
Is this still true if the license itself states it's irrevocable provided its conditions are met? From GPLv3 [gnu.org]:
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
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
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
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)
Well, the Mr. Anonym Lawyer, you should read the license terms before talking about it,
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
>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.