Re: GPL Apps linked to Qt/Windows

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Re: GPL Apps linked to Qt/Windows
by Evan "JabberWokky" E. on Monday 12/Apr/2004, @15:24

The program would have a dependancy on it. The key part is the "and give the executable to somebody else". You have to provide source to build that app under the GPL... including all dependancies and licensing dependancies.

Now, if you count Qt as a system library (there is a specific clause in the GPL about those), you can do it. But would you say that Qt is a system library?

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Re: GPL Apps linked to Qt/Windows
by Richard Stellingwerff on Monday 12/Apr/2004, @23:53

Maybe Qt is not a System Library, although it is used by many apps on my system. The app would not have an excplicit dependency on it either. It could just as well be compiled with Qt/X11 for Windows. So why is it a problem if I chose to compile (and release) it with my own non-free library.

What defines a system library anyway? Is Java for windows a system library? And it's not GPL, is it? How come GPL'ed JAVA apps exist then. Are they violating the GPL?

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Re: GPL Apps linked to Qt/Windows
by Anon on Tuesday 13/Apr/2004, @09:38

If you give away the binary it will either be linked to Qt/Win32 or to Qt/X11. The latter is not a problem because the two licenses are not incompatible. The former is a problem because the license on Qt/Win32 restricts you from meeting your obligations under the GPL. You will have infringed on one or the other copyright depending on which action you take.

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Re: GPL Apps linked to Qt/Windows
by Evan "JabberWokky" E. on Tuesday 13/Apr/2004, @11:07

The GPL defines it in the following paragraph:

The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for
making modifications to it. For an executable work, complete source
code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any
associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to
control compilation and installation of the executable. However, as a
special exception, the source code distributed need not include
anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary
form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the
operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component
itself accompanies the executable.

I don't think Qt is "normally distributed" with the "major components" of Windows. Thus it is not a system library and does not fall under the special exception.

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