🚀 go-pugleaf

kfitzner@nexus.v-wave.com (Kurt Fitzner) writes:
> 
> I'd be interested if there are any of the legal profession and/or FSF  who
> could give an oppinion.
> 

I think the FSF has an opinion on their page - and you're unlikely to
find lawyers giving legal advice on Usenet. :-) (I think it exposes
them to liability.)

It's actually quite clear; the GPL says "anything linked with this
code must also be GPL"; the Qt license does not permit the library to
be GPL'd. End of story.

There is a slight complication; namely that in most GPL-Qt cases the
author of the program is the one who chose to use Qt. So they are in
effect "violating" their own license, which is weird but not illegal
(since they won't be suing themselves, presumably). This is the case
with KDE. Oddly enough when distributing KDE/Qt linked binaries you do
not actually have a license giving you permission to do so; though
they have stated that you are intended to be able to use Qt with their
GPL code, it is not in the license. So with KDE you are probably OK
though you don't actually have a guarantee in writing.

However, if you were to take GPL code which does not use Qt, and use
it in a program which does use Qt, or port it to Qt, you would be on
very shaky ground and exposing yourself to a lawsuit. Because in that
case the original author did not authorize linking with Qt. 

Havoc Pennington ==== http://pobox.com/~hp