2

As I understand, if the copyright holder accepts external contributions under GPL / LGPL, they are no longer the sole copyright owner and cannot charge for a commercial license.

Or does this only apply to adding contributions to the closed sourced version?

https://www.qt.io/legal-contribution-agreement-qt

It is important to note that the contributor retains ownership of the contribution as the Qt Project does not require copyright assignment for contributions made to the Qt Project.

Improve this question
1

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
4

As I understand, if the copyright holder accepts external contributions under GPL / LGPL, they are no longer the sole copyright owner and cannot charge for a commercial license.

That understanding is correct, but in the case of Qt, they are not accepting external contributions under the (L)GPL license.
Qt uses a Contributor License Agreement that gives Qt a very different license to the contribution, which includes the right to re-distribute the contribution under any license of their choice.

Improve this answer
2
  • Just curious -- so could I still fork a copy of Qt in the usual way? Or does their contributor license somehow prohibit that? And if it does, could I still fork the very original Version 0.0001, released before any such contributions?
    – John Forkosh
    Commented Mar 13, 2019 at 9:35
  • 2
    @JohnForkosh: You can fork an open-source copy of Qt in the same way as you can fork a copy of any other open-source project with a similar license. The Qt maintainers will just not accept any changes from you unless you sign their CLA. And there might be some trademark issues with the Qt name, but I haven't looked into that.
    – Bart van Ingen Schenau
    Commented Mar 13, 2019 at 9:54

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our privacy policy.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.