[Twisted-Python] Twisted & Qt

[James Y Knight]

On Oct 5, 2006, at 2:08 PM, Wilfredo Sánchez Vega wrote:
> This is bunk.

Yes, I agree (again). Look at KDE. If it's okay for the library parts  
of KDE to be licensed under the LGPL (which they are)...how can it be  
improper for qtreactor to be licensed under the MIT license. If the  
argument is that qtreactor is a derivative work of Qt, firstly,  
that's utterly insane, and secondly, KDE is *much* more arguably a  
derivative work than qtreactor.

In addition, the proposed "license" terms:
> """
> This code is licensed under either the Twisted license or the GPL
> depending on the license of the copy of PyQt being used.
>
> If the GPL version of PyQt is being used then this code is also  
> licensed
> under the GPL. Given the viral nature of the GPL this means that any
> application must also be licensed under the GPL.
>
> If any other version of PyQt is being used (eg. commercial,  
> evaluation,
> educational) then this code is licensed under the Twisted license.
> """
>
make very little sense. The license under which we make the code  
available shouldn't depend on something the user does with it. What I  
think he's trying to say there is that the code is available under  
the MIT license, but if you're putting it together with a GPL'd qt,  
you have to treat it as GPLd as well. Which is necessarily the case  
(because of the GPL), whether or not *we* say that. If it would make  
people happy, we could say something like:

"This module may be used under either the MIT or GPL license, at your  
option. However, note that your license of the underlying PyQt and Qt  
libraries may influence which you may use. (in particular, when using  
the GPL version of Qt, this module in turn must be treated under the  
GPL as well, as per Qt's GPL license)."

That is, of course, identical to the MIT license in actual meaning,  
but might make things clearer for people. Yes, you cannot really take  
advantage of its non-GPLness unless you pay for a commercial license  
of PyQt and Qt, but that's not our problem. We have no interest in  
forcing people to abide by the GPL with regards to the code in  
qtreactor, and the license should make that clear (by remaining an  
MIT license).

In addition, I think this whole thing has been a waste of time.  
Nobody was upset by qtreactor's license, there was no reason to even  
worry about it in the first place.

James