Re: UserLinux with MySQL - Mailing list pgsql-advocacy

shridhar_daithankar@myrealbox.com (Shridhar Daithankar) writes:
> On Sunday 21 December 2003 10:43, Christopher Browne wrote:
>> The point that KDE partisans bring to the fore is that there's
>> quite a lot of third-party support for "business use" of use of Qt,
>> whereas there isn't so rich a set of visible "business use" of GTK.

> Hmm.. HP and SUN declaring GNOME their default desktop wouldn't
> count as business use?

It doesn't involve deploying "bespoke" applications written using GTK,
so no, it doesn't.

>> Of course, that probably has a great deal to do with there being a
>> company with a not-insignificant marketing budget pushing that
>> usage of Qt, whereas there is no large company with a big marketing
>> budget behind GTK.  (Other than maybe Ximian...)
>
> Again.. HP and Sun..

They aren't spending $Big Buck$ promoting its use, they're merely
deploying it.

In contrast, it is very much in the interests of TrollTech to actively
market Qt because that leads to them getting a substantial stream of
revenue from selling Qt licenses.

> Qt has no fee associated with usage of libraries in end
> products. KDE libraies are LGPL'ed. The licensing requirement for Qt
> is only for development of closed source applications and it is not
> that high for a business, counting the value and support TrolTech
> provides..

That is only true for applications being deployed on free Unixes like
Linux or FreeBSD.  If you are deploying applications on other
platforms, you're expected to build using the commercially-licensed
version of Qt.

And the matter of having to deploy software under the GPL very much
_is_ the reason why "UserLinux" rejected Qt as unacceptable for their
purposes, and GTK as preferable.

>> They are missing the entire point of why "UserLinux" was being
>> created in the first place.  It is being created because of
>> _licensing_ concerns, and with a specific need to reject things
>> that "perpetuate the lock-in situations that exist today."  Qt has
>> that lock-in problem, as does MySQL.
>
> I don't see a lock in problem with Qt. If TrollTech goes bust, they
> will release the source code unde free license(IIRC GPL). That is a
> well known documented policy for long time. And till it is in
> business it will provide support to it's users.

The only case where there _isn't_ a "lock in" would be if TrollTech
_did_ "go bust."  And if they did do so, they would _not_ release
under the GPL, but rather under a BSD license.
<http://www.kde.org/whatiskde/kdefreeqtfoundation.php>

> MySQL could avoid the problems by licensing the client library under
> LGPL but they revoked that term recently.

You are missing the point that this isn't a problem they would want to
"avoid."

What they very clearly want to do is to discourage people from using
the "free" version, and to convince them to use the "commercial"
version instead.  The nonavailability of LGPLed libraries is not a
"bug;" it is a "feature" in that it pushes people to send them money.
--
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