Re: Qt4Ada: Qt for Ada

[Yves Bailly <kafka.fr@laposte.net>]

Philippe Bertin wrote:
>> Yves Bailly wrote:
>> After "deep" thinking, I'll go with GPL for now. Maybe one day, if
>> needed, some dual-licensing will be applied. As soon as I have placed
>> everything on the SourceForge SVN I'll announce it here for those
>> interested.
> Are you aware of this project at http://www.websamba.com/guibuilder ? I
> haven't looked at it in detail; it seems to be GPL.

Yes, I've looked at it. For one thing, it's for Qt 3.3 : my proposal
targets Qt 4 - and only Qt4, so both are complementary. Second, it's
a binding for Ada95, I'm targetting Ada2005.
 
> Me on my side, I think that if you do not release your binding under
> the GMGPL, you inhibit any (closed source) commercial use of your
> binding. Because closed source software can't use your binding for
> writing commercial programs released under GPL, whereas they could if
> you'd release it under the GMGPL.

Note that the GPL doesn't prohibit *commercial* software, it "only"
prohibits *closed source* software. I guess we could argue on this till the
end of times, but I do believe that "commercial" /= "closed source". And
I also believe (again an arguable opinion) that open source is better to
produce good software. For now I'm producing closed source software, for
which I'm paid so I can live. Despite the fact it pleases some consumers,
who don't want to pay too much, it's badly written, and it's the case of 
almost all closed source software I've had the opportunity to read the
source code. On the hand, most open source software are better written.
At least, this is my own experience until now, I won't say it will never
change in the future.

> I share Jeffry's concern that you may very well be unable to switch
> back to GMGPL later on, once the community has started sending source
> updates on your binding.

I understand this. But given the previous opinions, it's not really a
concern for me.

I've reached the conclusion that the "best" model would be some kind of
dual-licensing, something like TrollTech does for Qt. However I don't see,
at least for now, how I could "enforce" a commercial license, charge fees
for it, and so on (not to mention that this project is still at its
beginning and not yet really usable). Dual licensing implies many legal and
administrative stuffs, which I'm not ready nor able to handle by myself.
Again, this might change. I have to discuss of all this with a lawyer I
know and with my current boss. Who knows...

So, to sum things up: for now, I tend to prefer the GPL. But if something
new happens soon (some legal knowledge I don't have, some administrative
support...), I might go for a dual license.

Thanks a lot anyway for your words.

Best regards,

-- 
(o< | Yves Bailly  : http://kafka-fr.net   | -o)
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