Nokia Sells Qt Licensing, Services Business to Digia
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 7th Mar 2011 15:50 UTC, submitted by Geoff Floding
Qt Since the web has a tendency to overstate things: no, Nokia is not selling Qt. Today, Nokia announced that Digia will acquire the Qt Commercial software licensing and professional services business from Nokia. So I repeat: Nokia is not selling Qt.
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The commercial variant is required
by Nth_Man on Mon 7th Mar 2011 16:05 UTC
Nth_Man
Member since:
2010-05-16

> The commercial [license] is required for some niches
> of the market - medical, aerospace, and defence, for
> instance - and also entitles the buyer to professional
> support from Nokia.

You can use the GPL license in medical, aerospace, defence, etc. You can use the LGPL there, too.

And you can purchase support, too, if you use the GPL or LGPL license.

For more details, we can see the "License Comparison Chart" in http://qt.nokia.com/products/licensing

Edited 2011-03-07 16:10 UTC

Reply Score: 4

Bill Shooter of Bul Member since:
2006-07-14

Yeah... The unstated implication is that those in the medical, aerospace and devencse industries might not want to comply with the GPL/LGPL license for business reasons.

The marketing material from dual license companies always seems to neglect to mention little facts like this, although I give Nokia props for having such nice easy to understand chart on their website. Try finding something like that on Mysql's site.

Reply Parent Score: 7

MrWeeble Member since:
2007-04-18

You can use the GPL license in medical, aerospace, defence, etc. You can use the LGPL there, too.


Legally, yes. Practically, maybe not be as easy. I suspect what Thom means, is that due to the requirements in the contracts in these industries, it can be far cheaper to purchase a commercial agreement with a licensor than to use the free licence, but have to your IP lawyers pour over it, to ensure you can't be sued

Reply Parent Score: 6

Nth_Man Member since:
2010-05-16

The advantages of reading:
http://qt.nokia.com/about/licensing/frequently-asked-questions/
"Qt users may create proprietary applications that dynamically link to the LGPL-licensed Qt libraries [...]"

Reply Parent Score: 3

Thom_Holwerda Member since:
2005-06-29

"You can use the GPL license in medical, aerospace, defence, etc. You can use the LGPL there, too.


Legally, yes. Practically, maybe not be as easy. I suspect what Thom means, is that due to the requirements in the contracts in these industries, it can be far cheaper to purchase a commercial agreement with a licensor than to use the free licence, but have to your IP lawyers pour over it, to ensure you can't be sued "

Bingo. I kind of thought that was obvious ;) .

Reply Parent Score: 1

Read more of this thread... >
BloopFloop Member since:
2010-12-23

you CAN != you SHOULD or you WILL. those users just NEED someone to sign a commercial contact for supporting, so they can use it with confident and resuranceļ¼Œand maybe for legal reasons.

Edited 2011-03-07 16:40 UTC

Reply Parent Score: 2

Nth_Man Member since:
2010-05-16

you CAN != you SHOULD or you WILL. those users just NEED someone to sign a commercial contact for supporting, so they can use it with confident and resurance.


As it was written:
And you can purchase support, too, if you use the GPL or LGPL license.

For more details, we can see the "License Comparison Chart" in http://qt.nokia.com/products/licensing

Reply Parent Score: 2

tchristney Member since:
2005-09-21

IANAL, but I think that one of the biggest stumbling blocks in using the LGPL in these industries is actually the lack of warranty protection in sections 15 and 16. Those clauses are simply not acceptable in those industries (and others).

Reply Parent Score: 2

Nth_Man Member since:
2010-05-16

> > The commercial variant is required for some niches
> > of the market

> IANAL, but I think that one of the biggest stumbling
> blocks in using the LGPL in these industries is
> actually the lack of warranty protection in sections
> 15 and 16.

Let's notice that the discussion was about if the commercial variant was required. That "commercial" license does not give a "warranty protection", so that "commercial" license it's not required (talking about the "warranty" factor).

Those clauses are simply not acceptable in those industries (and others).

We would like to know what software library gives you what Qt gives you... and also gives you "warranty protection". If you find no one, it's normal :-(

Reply Parent Score: 2