OT ? PyQt: how is the commercial license not GPL ?

[Arthur Pemberton]

On Mon, Jan 19, 2009 at 2:48 PM, Linuxguy123 <linuxguy123 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm looking at using PyQt for a project.
>
> I've gone to the Riverbank Computing homepage to learn more about PyQT
> and I ran into the following.
> (http://www.riverbankcomputing.co.uk/commercial/pyqt)
>
> ==========================================================================
> PyQt Commercial Version
> Like Qt itself, PyQt is provided under a number of licenses depending on
> how it is going to be used. In fact, we try and follow Trolltech's
> licensing model as closely as we can.
> ==========================================================================
>
> Comment: As far as I know, this page is out of date.  Nokia bought
> Trolltech and Qt is licensed under either GPL or LGPL.
>
> Anyway... carrying on...
>
> ============================================================================
> The free version of PyQt is licensed under the GNU General Public
> License. If your use of PyQt is compatible with the GPL then you do not
> need to buy a commercial PyQt license. Similarly you do not need to buy
> a commercial Qt license.
> <snip>
> If your use of PyQt is not compatible with the GPL then you require a
> commercial PyQt license.
> ===========================================================================
>
> So if I buy a "commercial license" from Riverbank, I can violate the
> GPL ?  I don't get this.
>
> The website goes on...


It's dual licensed. If you are going to write an application under a
GPL compatible license, you can use the GPL version for free. If you
can doing otherwise, you need to purchase a "commercial" license. Both
are legal, at least as far as one considers copyright legal.


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