As of version 4.5.0, Qt will be released under the LGPL version 2.1. Jaw off the floor yet? Good.
The motivation for the licensing change is summed up by the mantra: "Qt Everywhere". Nokia and Qt Software are committed to removing every single blocking objection against using Qt that it feasibly can. This includes licensing quibbles. Whatever the merit of the GPL vs LGPL arguments were, this is a pragmatic decision taken to make it all a moot point and broaden acceptance of Qt.
As can be seen here, the LGPL v 2.1 is compatible with all the LGPL / GPL version combinations. License exceptions for other Free software licenses will remain in place and commercial offerings for those who need or desire them also remain, complete with commercial support.
Just as exciting is Nthat okia will also be opening up development of Qt to the broader F/OSS
community. The maintainership, governance and overall ownershp of the core products will remain with Qt Software as they have, but a path for external contribution is being built. That includes public repositories and the whole nine yards. Details on this will be provided by Nokia as it becomes available.
This is next step in the evolution of policies around Qt will grow the market for Qt substantially, both in the F/OSS as well as the proprietary software worlds.
Qt everywhere, indeed!
This is not a signal of Qt Software or Nokia distancing itself, slowly or otherwise, from Qt as a viable product and simply "giving it out" to the community as a move towards abandonware. Nokia and Qt have reiterated their commitment to a commercially viable Qt and Qt remains the Nokia mandated toolkit for all their internal development. The simple fact of the matter is that Nokia is not nearly as reliant on the income from Qt licensing as Trolltech was, and this gives them greater latitude to try new approaches to the market.
All-in-all this means tremendous things for Free and Open Source software in general. The possibility of extending the reach of all of our work is exciting in and of itself, and this will undoubtedly lead to a veritable explosion of Qt and KDE adoption.
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39 comments:
IMHO That is fantastic news!
GREAT! Now GTK zealots lost one of their main arguments, and of course it will spread Qt around the world
please digg story from dot: http://digg.com/software/Qt_to_be_relicensed_as_LGPL_Huge_impact_for_KDE_desktop
I hope this is the announcement you referred to here:
"Just as in 2008, 2009 will start with a bang as announcements get made as early as January that will leave people excited and giddy with the possibilities.
Yes, I know .. I'm such a tease. January isn't that far away, however."
because if there's anything else to come on top of this, I swear my head will explode :)
When you said that 2009 will start off with a bang, this was one of the things I had in mind. Superb news indeed!
yes, this is the Big announcement for January, but it is not the last. =)
WOW! WOW! WOWIES!
AWESOME!
NOKIA rocks!
Qt rocks!
KDE rocks!
Life rocks! (I know .. I know .. but come on .. it does!! B) )
I think another Bang of this year begining is that Aaron used Capitalized Letters :)
It looks like the official KDE 4.2 release will not be Qt 4.5, is that right? It seems a shame.
"opening up development" does that mean that it will be easier for KDE developers to hack Phonon etc?
""opening up development" does that mean that it will be easier for KDE developers to hack Phonon etc?"
Phonon is KDE-technology, so I don't think that KDE-devels have any problems hacking it as it is....
That said, am I the only one who is giddy as a schoolgirl because of this announcement :)?
Can You please explain to me how having QT LGPL is any better if not worse than having it GPL3 as free-software is concerned??
I can see the advantage to proprietary software (being able to link to it without paying licences) but for free-software the way I see it it reduces the stimulus for companies thinking of using QT to switch to free-software. Hence I believe it does nothing of positive for free-software and it may even hurt it.
Am I the only one who sees it this way?
Am I wrong, please do elaborate?
Thanks
Marvellous. The last thing I'm lacking here is Nokia PC Suite for Linux. If you can tell Nokia cell phone division about Qt, cross platform, and KDE-synchronization, it would be a great advancement for Linux.
@maninalift:
KDE 4.2 will run on Qt 4.5, it just won't require it.
Wow, this is a big change especially for those entities that are not comfortable with sticking GPL on their code.
Does anybody know what it means for KDE? We will probably start seeing more and more proprietary apps that fit nicely with KDE. Not only from large enterprises like the Skype app but also from individual developers.
Will some apps appear that are as annoying as some proprietary firefox extensions? Please share some more optimistic scenarios :)
@David
Aaron is using Capital Letters as President of KDE e.V.
I wonder if he abandnon them after stepping down from position :)
*This* is great mystery of 2009 ;)
Yes, this is great news and should greatly accelerate the use of Qt, both on desktop and embedded platforms now that the cost of Qt for most people will be zero even for developing commercial applications.
At ICS, as Qt Software's largest consulting partner we are very excited about the new opportunities this will bring.
We have a whitepaper on our web site at http://www.ics.com/ that talks about the implications of Qt being available under the LGPL.
"Can You please explain to me how having QT LGPL is any better if not worse than having it GPL3 as free-software is concerned??"
Well, the thing is that up until now, many developers user GTK+ because they found Qt's licesing to be unsuitable. End-result is that free, but technically inferior toolkit gained ground at the expensive of techincally superior, but also free toolkit.
This change means that more developers will be choosing Qt instead. Now, if this change only attracts former GTK+-developers, this thing is pretty neutral as far as free software is concerned. If it attracts developers who were using proprietary tools before, this becomes a benefit for free software.
At worst, this wont have any effect (positive or negative) effect of free software as a whole, apart from the fact that technically superior toolkit becomes more popular, and that benefits free software. What it does benefit hugely is Qt itself, and KDE.
And what's important, it does not harm free software in any shape or form.
At best, this would be a huge boost to free software. After all, Qt is free software, and if this change makes Qt more widely used, then that's a benefit to free software.
"I can see the advantage to proprietary software (being able to link to it without paying licences) but for free-software the way I see it it reduces the stimulus for companies thinking of using QT to switch to free-software. Hence I believe it does nothing of positive for free-software and it may even hurt it."
Has LGPL'ed GTK+ harmed free software and/or GNOME/GTK+ in any shape or form? No, quite the contrary.
Now, I might understand your concern if we were still dealing with Trolltech, after all, Trolltech relied on sales of Qt-licenses for their livelyhood. So improvements to Qt needed Qt-licenses to be sold. With Nokia it's different. Nokia does not rely on sales of Qt-licenses. they can afford to do this, Trolltech could not.
So Nobody else but me thinks that having our [free-]desktop populated with proprietary software is not a good thing?
From what I've been reading everyone's really happy with that prospect.
But I think that the more you get confortable using proprietary software the more you start relying on it and the less incentive you have to write free alternatives especially from big corporations point of view.
I'm really not looking forward to seeing an increasing number of proprietary apps especially with functionality that I want poping up in *nix environment, because that's one step away from big distros starting to prefer them to investing in ground up free alternatives and not passing on to *nix newbs the need for freedom.
Its not even LGPL3 and even this one is called lesser for a reason.
Think about it. Lesser GPL, less freedom it spreads. Is this really what you guys want?
"So Nobody else but me thinks that having our [free-]desktop populated with proprietary software is not a good thing?"
Your desktop will be populated by whatever apps you want to put there. If someone wants to write a proprietary KDE/Qt-app, they have that right. And you and me have the right to not use that app.
Is GNOME infested by proprietary apps? No. It's still free software, running free software.
"From what I've been reading everyone's really happy with that prospect."
We are happy, because this further spreads free software. Even if someone writes a proprietary Qt-app, it's still an app that uses free software as it's library. Would you rather see them using some proprietary toolkit instead?
"But I think that the more you get confortable using proprietary software the more you start relying on it and the less incentive you have to write free alternatives especially from big corporations point of view."
GNOME doesn't have that problem, even though GTK+ has been LGPL for years.
"I'm really not looking forward to seeing an increasing number of proprietary apps especially with functionality that I want poping up in *nix environment"
Again, that hasn't happened in GNOME.... And if someone writes an useful, non-GPL'ed app, great! If the app is really useful, a free-software-version of that app will appear sooner or later.
No-one is going to be forced to run proprietary software. Each user can make their own choice regarding the software they run If proprietary software becomes available on KDE.... So what? Simply make the decision to not use that software. Just like someone else might make the decision to use that software. Should we force our opinion on that user and tell him that "you must not run proprietary software!"?
"Think about it. Lesser GPL, less freedom it spreads. Is this really what you guys want?"
We want people to use as much free software as much as possible. And this change makes Qt available to developers to whom it was not an option earlier. So this is a GOOD thing!
If those developers then write proprietary software, well, they have that right. Should we force them to write free software only? Should we make it next to impossible to run proprietary software on Linux? No. People should be free to run and write proprietary software if they want to. And we should be free to shun such apps if we want to. This goes both ways.
Is it really freedom, if you force it on others?
We should spread free software as wdely as possible. This change spreads Qt like wildfire. How exactly is that not a good thing?
Besides, this isn't just about free vs. proprietary, this could also be about some other free licenses that were not possible before, but now become available to developers.
@kiberlynx: "Nobody else but me thinks that having our [free-]desktop populated with proprietary software is not a good thing?"
i'm not a fan of proprietary software either.
however, the motivation for this licensing change is as much to remove the licensing issues from the table as possible for all software, including Free software.
some Free software projects have skipped over Qt due to the licensing. i think that's silly, but it's been the reality of things.
some people were afraid of a "Trolltech tax" and later of the possibility of Nokia holding control of the platform.
and for those who do rely on proprietary software, this raises the odds that that software will not be stuck on Windows only, because now there is a high quality libre and gratis toolkit for people writing such software to use. it just makes it simpler to make the Right Decision by removing money as a hard requirement (though still an option) from the equation.
both KDE and Qt Software remain as committed to Freedom in software as we ever have been. =)
The LGPL is a godsend for me. As a scientific researcher, I have to work with a pile of weirdly licensed in-house codebases that are not easily duplicated.
As part of my work I try to make sure that what I write is open and free.
I can't use GPL libraries and frameworks where it matters most to me...when I need to interact with a set of specially purposed legacy libraries.
This relicensing lets me start to look at qt for my development needs, because the LGPL lets me do what the GPL did not, link to legacy libraries which are not GPL compliant.
-jef
So Nobody else but me thinks that having our [free-]desktop populated with proprietary software is not a good thing?
Well no, but the world has never been quite that simple and it does take at least some licensing questions away that existed before and simplify things. The downside that has existed with a LGPLed piece of software like GTK is that it just hasn't had the time, effort and development put into it as Qt has.
There's always been a downside, and for me it remains to be seen whether Qt continues the development that it has done over the past few years.
Alright,
I'm still not entirely convinced but some good arguments have been exposed, and I'm certainly better informed, so thank you everyone.
I sure hope I am wrong about my fears of LGPL
By the way What I still don't get is way choose an outdated license instead of LGPL3 I'm sure some protections will be missing like patents and tivoization?
I've been programming with Qt since version 1.4x (and KDE 1.x), and have seen all the licensing changes over the years. The (g)critics have complained every step of the way. It was only free-as-in-beer, then not GPL compatible, then only GPL on one platform, and finally that the GPL wasn't Free enough. The harping even causes a couple of distros to officially drop KDE for a while.
Will the LGPL finally silence the license critics? Probably not all of them, but I do suspect their shrill cries will be lowered a few decibels.
"By the way What I still don't get is way choose an outdated license"
Um, it's not outdated. Neither is GPL v2. Just because there is a newer version of something available, does not mean that the old version is "outdated".
And rest assured: good things will come from this. You are afraid that this will bring proprietary software to KDE. But that's not automatically a bad thing. Many people take the pragmatic approach when it comes to software. They use whatever lets them get this job done, regardless of the license. If we get a kick-ass piece of proprietary software on KDE, those users could then migrate to KDE, and that's an option that didn't exist for them before. So that's one additional user for KDE/Linux, while being one less user for proprietary OS.
Of course those who subscribe to mode idealistic take on software are still completely free to use only free software. Having some proprietary software available does not take anything away from them, quite the contrary. It brings more users to the platform, and those could then be exposed to free software.
Right now those users are usually using Windows, a platform that sucks when it comes to free software. If those users find out that the proprietary app they rely on is available on Linux, they might move to Linux. And then we can expose them to more free software, and in the future they might replace that proprietary app with free app.
And, like it was already said: This isn't just about free vs. proprietary. There are free licenses out there that are not compatible with GPL, but those licenses become now available to developers.
"way choose an outdated license instead of LGPL3"
if you visit the GPL compatibility matrix http://gplv3.fsf.org/dd3-faq, LGPL 2.1 is compatible with the entire set. LGPL v3 isn't and it also has some terms that not everyone is comfortable with. LGPL 2.1 was something legal, business and development could get behind and so was the license selected.
@Janne:
If we get a kick-ass piece of proprietary software on KDE, those users could then migrate to KDE, and that's an option that didn't exist for them before. So that's one additional user for KDE/Linux, while being one less user for proprietary OS.
So you're saying that it's bad to be using a proprietary OS but not using proprietary software?
What do you mean? the OS is a piece of Software like any other that makes the puzzle of software on your PC. So if you think using proprietary software is ok you shouldn't have a problem with people using w$ndows, £eopard or some other shit either, right!
My point is about Freedom people, I'm not into open-source per se, I'm into Free-software. So I care much less which app is better than which better preserves and stimulates the 4 essential freedoms protected by the GPL. Unfortunatelly the same can't be said about the LGPL, hence the lesser :P
nor can it be said for those "other" mentioned not-proprietary licenses, which contribute to the economical success of many proprietary software programs without them ever giving back anything to the community from which they took the code.
Do you think this is a good thing, honestly?
I'm sorry but I just don't!
aseigo:
I figured you'd say that, I'm sorry for not being better informed about it, but like I said I don't much care for anything called or materially being lesser, lol
I'm sorry also for monopolizing the debate :P
I'll shut up now hopefully :)
So you're saying that it's bad to be using a proprietary OS but not using proprietary software?
No he's not, but the fact is, we have to get along with it and with software that doesn't have a compatible license. You always could with a commercial Qt license and with kdelibs being LGPLed all along, but now the answer to this question becomes a whole lot easier.
If people can do that as part of a wider open source 'ecosystem' then so much the better.
- So you're saying that it's bad to be using a proprietary OS but not using proprietary software? -
To me the point is not propriety vs free but to be free to choose what you want. If someone makes a useful little program I don't mind to pay a fair price for it.
To me MS is very unhealthy for our society because they do everything to lock you in. Every dirty trick in the book, and maybe some self invented ones... And once they got you it's about milking more and more money not about really giving a good product.
That's the main problem with capitalism in the form of big corporations. There are no checks and balances anymore. It's profit centered, at any cost, not human centered. Capitalism can work on small scale where there is true and level competition. But anything bigger and sooner of later it will get exploitative. In this sense Apple is no different, they are just too small to get as nasty as MS. (and the product is better... which is most likely because they have to... they can't afford not to)
So to be able to abandon such OS is a great step. The OS is the base for everything on it so surely much more vital to be open and free than the programs running on top.
I use but I dislike SKype because they lock you in to their format. Still it's free... For the user it would be ideal to have one place for all contact details and use that with what ever program you need it with, but from business point of view it's ideal to have all those details in closed format so it's hard for the user to switch/escape... Same with the protocol, by keeping it closed so to switch you'd need to switch all your friends to the alternative in order to keep communicating with them.
So I think the most and vital issue is about open (and free) standards and protocols. In that way the user can not be locked in. So to me the license change for Qt is very good news indeed.
If than people write programs and charge for it no problem. They also know they have to innovate and really care for the User or they will surely lost them to an alternative free or other propriety program.
PS I am not sure if propriety necessarily means closed source. I think if one pays or not it's important the source is open even if one can not modify it or use for other purposes.
"So you're saying that it's bad to be using a proprietary OS but not using proprietary software?"
Using proprietary software on proprietary OS is worse than using proprietary software on free OS.
Lets compare Linux (a free OS) and Windows (a proprietary OS): Linux is a goldmine as far as free software is concerned. Most of the apps in Linux as free. By default, the apps user uses are free.
Windows is the opposite. Free software is quite rare there and by default, the app the users uses is proprietary.
Now, suppose some user uses Windows because he needs proprietary app X that only runs on Windows. And, because he's using Windows, all the other apps he's using are also proprietary. And because he's using Windows, Microsoft keeps on dominating the OS-market, which means that Linux continues to be shunned.
Suppose that the proprietary app X gets ported to Linux. Now that user can move to Linux as well. And since just about all the other apps in Linux are free, all the other apps he will end up using would be free, instead of proprietary. And Linux gains an user at Windows's expence. More users: better support from vendors and OEMs. Better support: better OS.
That is a big boost to free software.
Besides: if someone wants to write a proprietary KDE-app, who are you to deny him that right? And if someone likes that proprietary app better than some free alternative, who are you to deny him from using that app? Hell, I use some proprietary apps, am I a bad person because of that? In fact, my main OS at the moment is OS X, a proprietary OS. Am I somekind of antichrist or something?
We should not dictate to others what apps they should write or use. I really fail to see how that sort of dictation is compatible with the idea of "freedom". If you support freedom, you must also accept the fact that some people might make choices that you personally disagree with.
"Do you think this is a good thing, honestly?"
Yes I do. the people who really care about free software (like, KDE-developers) will keep on writing free software. If some developer of proprietary software now decides to write proprietary app for KDE, how does that harm KDE? I mean, no-one is being forced to use that app. KDE does not become "tainted" just because there's a proprietary app available for it somewhere. There already are proprietary apps available for KDE, so nothing really changes.
"I'm sorry but I just don't!"
You have that right. You can choose to use only free software. Someone else might want to use some proprietary app instead, and they have that right. Trying to force people to use free software and only free software is.... well, dumb.
Great Replys you guys,
Now I feel obligated to respond.
Thank you for bearing with me.
So here it goes trying to be shortest and sweetest possible :)
I think, has you do, that if we believe in freedom, we ought to allow proprietary software to exist, altough I personally don't like it at all. Take Flash for example it sucks and you can't do anything about it (I believe it could be much improved in a small amount of time), or skype which has been proved to use an insecure protocol and everybody freakin loves it (just makes me sick. why don't they use and improve SIP, we would but we can't because skype is closed source ).
Don't get me started with w$ndows or £eopard that throws YOUR CPU cycles away by trying to stop YOU from doing what YOU want with YOUR computer and YOUR music and YOUR video, specially after YOU already payed and alot for the damn OS... It's just loonacy. (DRM, TPM, ring a bell)
I don't care how pretty they are, they're not getting a dime from me, nor am I going to make free publicity for them, by using it without paying.
So almost with all proprietary apps we see this kind of problems: either stability, security, or plain design idiocy, and we become forced to use them no matter what because everybody else does and we want to keep being social.
My next point is Making money != proprietary and that's what we should be spending time teaching companies, that and the importance of giving back, not acomodating their fears of opening up, with yet another license. Free software can make money and have a much lower cost of development and be much more secure and stable etc.
The last point is we live in a free-software ecossystem, in which everybody uses great software and gives something back: code, translations, bug reports, fame, money.
Enter proprietary apps and mostly they just want to make money and give nothing back.
Well I say let them, but let them also develop their own code ground up or pay for the previlege of using free-software libraries, I mean if they are not going to give anything else back at least money to help keep the development going, that's only fair don't you think?
And that's why I agree with the previous model, altough I would lower the price to a reasonable level since nokia got the pockets for it.
sic
"Don't get me started with w$ndows or £eopard that throws YOUR CPU cycles away by trying to stop YOU from doing what YOU want with YOUR computer and YOUR music and YOUR video, specially after YOU already payed and alot for the damn OS... It's just loonacy. (DRM, TPM, ring a bell)"
I'm not going to defend those crappy features that infest proprietary OS'es. But life is about picking your poison. Like I said, I use OS X. Is there DRM in there? Yep, probably is. But I never run in to it, so it might as well not exist.
Why do I use OS X, as opposed to Linux (I do use Linux as well, it just happens that my "main machine" runs OS X)? Well, I like the UI more (although that might change in the future). I also got tired of struggling with software that kinda works, kinda doesn't (although that is getting better in Linux). I also do digital photography, and I use Aperture to manage my pictures (because I think it does the best job at it), and Aperture is an OS X-app.
Now, you might be right that OS X wastes CPU-cycled trying to prevent me from doing some things. Maybe, but I have never run in to that. But if I used Linux as my main OS, it would mean that I would not have Aperture anymore, and that means that I couldn't do all the things I can do at this very moment with OS X.
So I would be limited in Linux as well. The difference would be that instead of being limited by DRM, I would be limited by lack of functionality.
"So almost with all proprietary apps we see this kind of problems: either stability, security, or plain design idiocy, and we become forced to use them no matter what because everybody else does and we want to keep being social."
I'm not a "social" person and I don't use my apps to "socialize". I use them to get things done.
And, to be honest, free software is not free from the vices you listed. I have had apps crash on me. And in fact, before I switched to OS X, I used Linux and only Linux. And I felt that KDE of the time (3.something) was filled with "design idiocy", where everything was confusing and complicated, where doing things was too complicated and difficult.
I had numerous discussions about this, and usually it went to deaf ears, but luckily KDE4 is improving by leaps and bounds in that area.
If you are interested, some of my opinions of the time can be read at my old blog here:
http://anti-luddite.blogspot.com/
So it's not like only proprietary software suffers from bugs, instability of general stupidity.
"The last point is we live in a free-software ecossystem, in which everybody uses great software and gives something back: code, translations, bug reports, fame, money.
Enter proprietary apps and mostly they just want to make money and give nothing back."
Everybody does NOT give back at this moment. I would say that most users merely use the software, they never make suggestions, file bugs or submit patches.
Proprietary software does not really change that. Even there, most users simply use the software. Like I said: I use Aperture, but I don't use it to "make money". I also play some proprietary games, and I don't do that to "make money".
And FWIW, I have submitted bugreports, both to free software and proprietary software.
"Well I say let them, but let them also develop their own code ground up or pay for the previlege of using free-software libraries"
Instead of doing that, they would use GTK+, an inferior toolkit. Or they would not use free code at all, they would just stick to Windows. Is that a "win" for free software? No.
"I mean if they are not going to give anything else back at least money to help keep the development going, that's only fair don't you think?"
If they use a LGPL'ed library, it's in their interest to see that library kick ass. So they would probably file bugreports and submit patches.
"And that's why I agree with the previous model, altough I would lower the price to a reasonable level since nokia got the pockets for it."
So you would lower the price but keep it GPL'ed? Well, how would it help free software if developers could write proprietary apps by paying a token sum, as opposed for not requiring them to pay anything? Nokia doesn't need that money, so why should the charge money? They want to see Qt used as much as possible, and this is the optimal way of ensuring that.
This is about lowering the barrier of using Qt, a free software library. If more people use Qt, that is a win for free software.
Ok Janne,
I think I've stated my arguments clearly now and can't clear it up any better.
Altough I think you don't really respond to my arguments, you go around them, ignoring some of it's major implications, anyway, I know where you come from, and get your point.
I think this is one of those cases in which we can agree to disagree, and move on.
I really enjoyed this discussion, hope you did too.
"Altough I think you don't really respond to my arguments, you go around them, ignoring some of it's major implications"
No I don't. I have tried answering them to the best of my ability. Your argument seems to basically be "we must not allow proprietary apps in KDE". While each of us can make the choice to not use proprietary apps, we can't really start banning them.
Ironically: the "official" desktop of the GNU-project is GNOME, and it uses LGPL'ed toolkit. FSF is obviously not that concerned about the LGPL vs. GPL-issue....
I know. they created LGPL as a compromise.
Of course LGPL isn't inherently bad or it wouldn't have been created by Stallman. On the other hand, releasing something which was already licensed under GPLv3 with LGPLv2.1 under the premise that GPLv3 isn't free enough! Now that's just cucu crazy. GPLv3 is the only license that tackles all currently known challenges to the freedom of software, and compared to that LGPLv2.1, which always was released has a compromised for those who needed it, is a downgrade at best.
I don't think GNOME nowadays can in any way be used as an example to follow. The way they are pushing for microsoft Technologies like mono/c# and OOXML, instead of inovation like KDE4 (altough still developing mono bindings for plasma, always thought WTF). But that isn't due to FSF's influence. I don't know the whole complexity of the issue. What I do know is that it's instead due to Icaza's influence.
So that is an intentionaly misleading argument.
And you've just proven that you don't get my arguments at all when you say: "Your argument seems to basically be \"we must not allow proprietary apps in KDE.\" "
Because I've never said what you put between ""
And what I said is much more complex and isn't reflected in that phrase at all.
It's much more in the lines of: Proprietary software isn't desirable in any context imaginable. But if someone wants to make it, with free[dom] tools, it ought'nt be forbiden, but it sure ought to be made to pay for not giving anything else back.
So like I said We better just agree to disagree, because we're not getting anywhere and this isn't a public forum but aseigo's blog.
Thank you
"Proprietary software isn't desirable in any context imaginable."
That's a narrow viewpoint. Proprietary software is desireable if no free alternative exists. If I need to do task X and there is no free software to do it, what do you suggest I should do? Should I just sit there and don't do anything, since using proprietary software would be "wrong"?
Most people use computers because they want to carry out certain tasks. To them, it does not matter if the software is free or not, what they care about is whether they can get their tasks done or not.
Many people DO care about the freedom of the software, and they would continue to use and write free software. So I fail to see how that would change.
"But if someone wants to make it, with free[dom] tools, it ought'nt be forbiden, but it sure ought to be made to pay for not giving anything else back."
What has happened so far is that the developers who wanted to write proprietary software used GTK+, instead of Qt.
And what makes you think that they would not give anything back? It would be in their interest to have as good library as possible for their use. And besides, most users of free software don't give anything back when they use free software. Why do you tolerate them? I would claim that most users never submit code or bug-reports. They just use the software, without giving anything back.
To claim that that "leeching" is a problem only with LGPL and not GPL is misguided, IMO.
"So like I said We better just agree to disagree, because we're not getting anywhere and this isn't a public forum but aseigo's blog."
Why did you then decide to use this blog as your soapbox?
come on Janne,
As I said earlier, I already understood your arguments and disagree with most, there's just no point in keep rewriting them.
The reason I commented here is beacuse I greatly respect and admire aseigo, and so I wanted to humbly ask his reasoning for liking this change so much, which he did, and I thank him.
you are the one who kept twisting my arguments, once and again. I just kept clearing you on what my thoughts really are, so I'm sorry to say that it's more of your soapbox than it is mine.
"Proprietary software isn't desirable in any context imaginable."
"That's a narrow viewpoint. Proprietary software is desireable if no free alternative exists."
this is an interest pair of point and counterpoint.
both are right, imho.
there is no conceivable context where one would *prefer* to have no access possible to the engineering behind the product. having the source code does no harm even if not used, but not having it leads to all sorts of harmful end games.
there are some exceptions where having the engineering openly available does expose one to risk, but that's due to problems with the product itself. an example is the case of poorly contrived encryption attempts that get laid bare by the source code. this is a problem with the software, however, and not having access to the code is simply an obfuscation of the root problem.
so Free always trumps non-Free in terms of user rights.
on the other hand ... in the case where there is no Free product available and you must be able to perform a task,then one is forced into a decision to give up on that task, create a Free alternative themselves or use the proprietary solution.
in some cases, the practicality of the situation dictates using the proprietary solution.
this does not mean that having a Free software solution would not be better and more desirable.
it's a waterfall of priority based decision making, and i think that you are both observing different stages of that waterfall. =)
"on the other hand ... in the case where there is no Free product available and you must be able to perform a task,then one is forced into a decision to give up on that task, create a Free alternative themselves or use the proprietary solution.
in some cases, the practicality of the situation dictates using the proprietary solution.
this does not mean that having a Free software solution would not be better and more desirable."
Where would he he saying that the Free would be worse? He's just saying what to do if no Free alternative exists. That is not at all the same as saying to use proprietary software even when a Free alternative exists.
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