[Gambas-user] eXtremgui is now downloadable again

[Rob]

On Thursday 22 April 2004 03:37, Daniel Oxley wrote:
> Rob, I think we all already know the answer to your
> questions.......

Olivier may not have known the questions needed to be asked, 
though.  I think people need to be aware now (while Gambas is 
still in its infancy) that if you check off the "gb.qt" 
component in your project, you are (from a legal perspective) 
probably linking against Qt/Free and thus your Gambas project 
probably must be GPL.  From the GPL FAQ:

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#IfInterpreterIsGPL

Q.  If a programming language interpreter is released under the 
GPL, does that mean programs written to be interpreted by it 
must be under GPL-compatible licenses?

A. [..] when the interpreter is extended to provide "bindings" to 
other facilities (often, but not necessarily, libraries), the 
interpreted program is effectively linked to the facilities it 
uses through these bindings. So if these facilities are released 
under the GPL, the interpreted program that uses them must be 
released in a GPL-compatible way. [...]

(end quote)

Now, the GPL FAQ is not itself part of the GPL, but it does 
reflect the intent of the GPL's creators and the intent of 
people who license their code under the GPL unless otherwise 
noted.  So personally, I wouldn't take the risk of releasing a 
closed-source Gambas program that used the Qt module.  I suppose 
you could ask Trolltech what their interpretation of the GPL is 
in this case, but I think we all know again what their answer 
will be, as they are not a charity for commercial endeavors.

As an aside, Gtk and wxWidgets are both LGPL, meaning this issue 
would not exist if you used them (LGPL lets you link closed 
source programs against LGPL'ed libraries.)  So those who would 
like to distribute closed-source Gambas programs should consider 
contributing to the Gtk or wxWidgets component efforts that may 
or may not still be underway.  I am happy with Qt myself but I 
understand there are people who don't want to GPL their Gambas 
projects.

If someone could translate the gist of what I'm saying into 
French, it might help Olivier and other people understand this.  
It is very difficult to discuss legal ramifications across 
languages (at least for me.)

Rob