[PyQt] PyQt Licensing

[Henrik Pauli]

On Wednesday 06 May 2009 06:03:17 A Corsaire wrote:
> On Wed, May 6, 2009 at 2:47 AM, Phil Thompson
>
> <phil at riverbankcomputing.com>wrote:
> > First off, many thanks for not pestering me about this - it is greatly
> > appreciated.
> >
> > In a nutshell, the PyQt licensing will not be changed in the short term.
>
> Thanks for clarifying, Phil - I am sure that this is a decision made after
> a lot of thought. Without in any way implying that you are obliged to give
> your handiwork (or your income) away, I do think that this is a worst-case
> outcome for the Python community as a whole. It means that PyQt development
> won't open up and become more community driven, that we (and other
> customers) still have to worry about the what-if-Phil-gets-hit-by-a-bus
> scenario, and that Python misses out on PyQt becoming the de-facto standard
> GUI library we sorely need. Furthermore, there is little incentive for
> anyone (apart from someone like Trolltech themselves, perhaps) to start a
> competing project that matches Qt's licensing, because you might just
> decide to LGPL PyQt at that point and make their work obsolete. A sad
> outcome for Python, and an unenviable position for you to be in.
>

Hmm... I think strictly said, the licensing of the final product and the 
development model do not have anything to do with each other.  Afterall, it’s 
not LGPL per se that made Qt’s development model more open, that’s just a 
separate, just well timed decision.