[Texmacs-dev] QT licence problem

[Frédéric Parrenin]

Hello,

I am new on this list. I discovered the texmacs project a few days ago, 
and I am very impressed ! Very good work !

I am not a specialist of the licence problems, but it comes to me some 
ideas :
- Qcad is a GPLed software, that runs on both linux and windows with the 
QT GUI toolkit. It would be helpful to ask the developper for his 
licence scheme;
- ok, QT is copyrighted by trolltech, and it allows them to change the 
QT licence. But if QT becomes proprietary, some developpers will take 
the last version of QT GPLed, and make a new GUI toolkit named for 
example QTfree that would be GPLed. I think trolltech can't change the 
licence of the former version of QT, only of the new versions;
- personnally, I prefer the LGPL licence of GTK. I think LGPL is better 
than GPL. GPL only authorizes non proprietary softwares. If no 
developper have the time to developp a particular free software or 
feature of a software, I prefer that a compagny could developp this 
software. It is better for the end user.
Proprietary software is freedom for compagnies.
GPL software is freedom for end users.
LGPL software is freedom for both.
So, I prefer LGPL softwares. And if you want to improve a GUI toolkit 
with the particular features of texmacs, like the tex fonts and the 
antialiasing menus, I think it is better to improve GTK and to give a 
LGPL licence to these pieces of software.

I hope it helps the discussion.

Regards.

               Frédéric