Qt and the GPL

[kmself at ix.netcom.com]

On Tue, Sep 05, 2000 at 01:29:36AM -0500, Nelson Rush wrote:
> Are you kidding? The fact that Sun is actually going to, let alone actually
> considered to, release Star Office under the GPL is more than a mere, "How
> do you do?" It's quite astounding, and in fact quite improbable.

StarOffice is not Solaris.  It isn't even Java, by a long shot.

Yes, release under the GPL is very noteworthy.  Dual (actually triple)
licensing under SISSL, GPL, and LGPL is more so.  But there is a
distinction I'm making between acceptance of the license in a corporate
sense and betting the fscking farm on it.  Sun's adopted.  The farm
remains to be bid.

> And if you think that Star Office isn't that important to Sun I think
> you're wrong. They want to compete directly with MS Office, I think
> this is why they chose to GPL it.

But they're building, not risking, a market in doing so.  Troll is
putting the business on the line.  Sun is lifting a finger to MSFT.  The
goal *isn't* competition in the Office market, it's destroying MSFT's OS
market.

> I think they knew that for SO to be widely popular they had to
> distribute it quickly. 

Agreed.  Common knowledge.  Testimony during MSFT v. DoJ:  New consumer
software must distribute 1m copies *free* to gains sufficient mindshare
to produce a viable market.

> Also, consider that major profits can still be made off it even though
> people have the right to redistribute freely.  RedHat, etc., point in
> case. 

Disputed.  SO is worth more in SPARC sales than it is in SO boxed sets,
by orders of magnitude.  

And the Office Suite is Dead (tm).  A posthumously written essay of
mine.  Key point:  the suite served a marketing problem (how do I sell
mediocre SW bar and baz with decent SW foo, and cannibalize my
competition's market at the same time -- see _Information Rules_ by
Shapiro and Varian (http://www.inforules.com/) for more information on
tying and bundling).  

When the product is no longer monetized, the bundling is no longer
strategic.  Sun's first architectural announcement WRT SO was that they
were disaggregating it -- pulling out the desktop and making it seperate
apps.

> I also think they saw the value in embracing free software, since it
> gets a company noticed by the techies at large. 

Yes.

> And, last but not least it gives them leverage in the Gnome open
> office effort. 

Yes.  Pity as IMO AbiWord is the better designed project (KISS).

> In addition, I'm sure there are workers at Sun who really like free
> software. They probably use a great deal of the stuff.

I know several of them.  Similar sentiments to those expressed
elsewhere:  "My first allegience is to foo technology, Sun just pays the
bills".  I've heard that from a number of sources, both at Sun and other
companies.  And the companies acknowledge this.  The big current fight
is Java licensing.  Solaris is next after that.  Event dates are likely
targets, mark ALS and LWE/New York on your calendar.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: kmself at ix.netcom.com [mailto:kmself at ix.netcom.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, September 05, 2000 12:42 AM
> To: License-Discuss
> Subject: Re: Qt and the GPL
> 
> 
> On Mon, Sep 04, 2000 at 05:57:53PM -0700, David Johnson wrote:
> > On Mon, 04 Sep 2000, Nelson Rush wrote:
> > > I mentioned the idea of triple licensing (or dual licensing) qt in
> > > this way in June to Trolltech. They told me where I could stick it
> > > then and it looks like they've reconsidered it now.
> >
> > You also have to consider the history of Trolltech. Everytime they have
> > taken one step forward, huge sectors of the community have jumped
> > them enmass and bitched that they didn't take a big enough step.
> 
> It could have been worse -- they could be Sun.
> 
> Note that both Troll and Sun have come around to at least a partial
> embrace of the GPL (I'd say Troll's taken the larger step -- Qt is a
> bigger part of their business by orders of magnitude than StarOffice is
> of Sun's).  The problem was with Troll, KDE, and Sun making noises that
> they were in fact:
> 
>    1). OSI/OpenSource
>    2). GPL compatible, and/or
>    3). Unfairly persecuted
> 
> ...which IMO really crossed up a lot of folks.  If you want to play the
> FS/OS game, play it.  If you want to be close, but not quite, there,
> then 'fess up.  BitMover (BitKeeper License) is an example of the other.
> Larry McVoy unabashadly says it's not OSI Open Source certified, but
> it's close enough.  Larry's also trying to make a buck, and by reports,
> he's at least moderately successful.  KDE and Sun were trying to
> hand-wave the problem away, and we're sorry, but that just didn't work.
> We're now seeing substantive change.  Yes, it would have been nice to
> see it six, nine, twelve, eighteen months ago, but....
> 
> > Letting people use the library with no cost for OSS wasn't good enough
> > (and it wasn't). Changing to a OSS license wasn't good enough.
> > Considering a GPL-compatible v2 of the QPL wasn't good enough.
> 
> I'd have a difference of opinion here.  A GPL-compatible license
> (essentially:  a GPL-convertible license) would be good enough for me.
> But it would have to be what it said it was.
> 
> > The reason it would have been impossible is that it would cause a huge
> > number of Qt based applications, including major portions of KDE, be
> > become illegal. With a GPL/Proprietary dual-license one has to either
> > write a GPL application or pay for a license. This would leave all of
> > the BSD, MIT, Artistic and even LGPL authors out in the cold.
> 
> No.  BSD, MIT, Artistic, and LGPL are all convertible to GPL.  You'd
> leave out those people who were using these licenses to interoperate
> with software licensed under non-GPL terms as a single work.
> 
> > But the triple licensing is a stroke of genius the more I think about
> > it. Qt is Free for Free Software, Open Source for Open Source Software
> > and proprietary for proprietary software. You can't get much more
> > equitable than that. If you were the one who planted this idea in their
> > heads, congratulations!
> 
> Ditto, both counts.

-- 
Karsten M. Self <kmself at ix.netcom.com>     http://www.netcom.com/~kmself
 Evangelist, Opensales, Inc.                    http://www.opensales.org
  What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?   Debian GNU/Linux rocks!
   http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/    K5: http://www.kuro5hin.org
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