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Commit 347ecb92 authored by Seth Schoen's avatar Seth Schoen
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Improve AGPL and Qt discussion details

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...@@ -158,8 +158,6 @@ that their market of commercial, embedded developers were paying to avoid the ...@@ -158,8 +158,6 @@ that their market of commercial, embedded developers were paying to avoid the
A/GPL, and that the time-delay did not significantly change these companies' A/GPL, and that the time-delay did not significantly change these companies'
incentives to pay for licenses.\footnote{CITE to Rosen's book?} incentives to pay for licenses.\footnote{CITE to Rosen's book?}
% Rosen also says that sendmail may have had a dual license in the same % Rosen also says that sendmail may have had a dual license in the same
% era or even before Ghostscript. I found references to sendmail having % era or even before Ghostscript. I found references to sendmail having
% a ``traditional'' dual license but so far have not found references to a % a ``traditional'' dual license but so far have not found references to a
...@@ -184,19 +182,33 @@ release.\footnote{See \textit{id.}, which includes the exact language of the ...@@ -184,19 +182,33 @@ release.\footnote{See \textit{id.}, which includes the exact language of the
licensors' contractual commitments; a portion of the historical context is also licensors' contractual commitments; a portion of the historical context is also
described in \otsurl{https://tinf2.vub.ac.be/$\sim$dvermeir/manual/KDE20Development-html/ch19lev1sec4.html}.} described in \otsurl{https://tinf2.vub.ac.be/$\sim$dvermeir/manual/KDE20Development-html/ch19lev1sec4.html}.}
In practice, we didn't find any documentary evidence of significant time The Qt licensors did maintain separate ``Qt Commercial Edition" and ``Qt
delay. That is, while the agreements allow a lag between proprietary release Open Source Edition" releases for some time; the latter complied with
and FOSS (or Qt/Free license) release, it appears that in practice this lag has the licensors' commitments under the agreements. We haven't identified
been insignificant or non-existent.\footnote{CITE? TODO: maybe we can ask the KDE evidence of a significant gap in time or functionality between these
folks if this is true?} The agreements established minimal standards for the releases, although such gaps may have existed. The agreements established
protection of KDE, but Qt's various copyright holders appear to have generally minimal standards for the protection of KDE, but Qt's various copyright
exceeded those standards. In this case, DOSP was a fall-back scenario for a holders appear to have generally exceeded those standards. In this
conditions that never arose. case, DOSP was a fall-back scenario for two different conditions that didn't
arise in practice (unreasonably delayed open source releases, or
KDE and GhostScript are the two earliest projects we found making documented use complete discontinuation of upstream development).
of DOSP. They use them in different ways, but both appear to contemplate DOSP It appears that Qt licensors usually understood their commercial strategy
as a way to protect a period of proprietary commercial exploitation. As we will as akin to a more conventional dual license, where proprietary adopters
see from later projects, this is the most common use of DOSP. would pay for the Commercial Edition in order not to incur copyleft
obligations. Making generalizations about this strategy is complicated,
as several different commercial entities acquired Qt over time and may
have had somewhat different understandings.
Today, all of Qt is released simultaneously under LGPL/GPL and proprietary
dual licenses.\footnote{The Qt Group states that there is currently one
exception where it doesn't have the right to grant a proprietary license
for a specific module:
\quote{A few modules in Qt, however, use code from 3rd party open source projects such as the Qt WebEngine is using the Chromiu[m] project licensed under LGPLv2.1. So when using these modules, you will need to fulfill the corresponding license obligations, in case of Chromium the LGPLv2.1.}. See \otsurl{https://www.qt.io/download-open-source}.}
GhostScript and Qt are the two earliest projects we found making
documented use of DOSP. They use them in different ways, but both relate
in a broad sense to attempts to protect a licensor's commercial interests.
As we will see from later projects, this is the most common use of DOSP.
\numberedsection{Scheduled Relicensing}\label{scheduled} \numberedsection{Scheduled Relicensing}\label{scheduled}
...@@ -544,14 +556,6 @@ rather than adding it as an optional additional permission. ...@@ -544,14 +556,6 @@ rather than adding it as an optional additional permission.
% TODO: double-check whether any of the others were time-limited % TODO: double-check whether any of the others were time-limited
% I think it's interesting that the AGPL doesn't seem to appeal to most
% companies that are pursuing this kind of thing. I don't know if any of
% them have commented on their views about it.
% TODO (from Karl on 2023-11-07): It's worth raising the question of
% why more companies don't just choose AGPL instead of resorting to
% BUSL? E.g., https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38162275
\numberedsection{``Grace Period'' Reciprocal Licensing}\label{grace} \numberedsection{``Grace Period'' Reciprocal Licensing}\label{grace}
% TODO: This can go as a subsection of the ``differences from % TODO: This can go as a subsection of the ``differences from
% other licensing strategies'' section? % other licensing strategies'' section?
...@@ -709,8 +713,12 @@ collapse down to a dual-licensing scheme with proprietary and A/GPL options. ...@@ -709,8 +713,12 @@ collapse down to a dual-licensing scheme with proprietary and A/GPL options.
\begin{itemize} \begin{itemize}
\item DOSP versus AGPL licensing. \item DOSP versus AGPL licensing.
The GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL) arguably aims to address % Sample discussion at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38162275 but
some of the same concerns as the BUSL or the FSL --- particularly % it isn't the only one. But we plausibly don't necessarily need to point
% to specific discussions.
The GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL)\footnote{See
\otsurl{https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.html}.} arguably aims to
address some of the same concerns as the BUSL or the FSL --- particularly
concerns about some forms of free-riding by downstream adopters. Instead concerns about some forms of free-riding by downstream adopters. Instead
of forbidding commercial (or competitive) uses, the AGPL imposes a of forbidding commercial (or competitive) uses, the AGPL imposes a
copyleft-like requirement to publicly disclose and publicly license the copyleft-like requirement to publicly disclose and publicly license the
......
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