Development of Creative Commons licenses

["Emerson Clarke" <emerson.clarke AT gmail.com>]

> > As i mentioned before, i think that 90% of commercial software is
> > never made public.  And my understanding of existing open source
> > licenses like the GPL is that they only place restrictions on software
> > which is actually distributed to the public.
> >
> > Or does the dual license somehow revoke the existing commercial
> > conditions in the GPL ?    For instance, if i were a large government
> > consulting firm hired to develop a piece of software worth millions of
> > dollars for the government, there would be nothing to stop me from
> > using QT internally as the basis for this implementation.
>
> If you make use of the other license for QT and not the GPL one, you can use
> QT as the basis for this implementation whether the project is an internal
> one or an external one.
>
> If you can manage to develop the software such that the government is actually
> the developer and would have the copyright if they could, (KEY: such that
> there is not distribution) then the code would have to be under the GPL, but
> there would be no compulsion to distribute the code. It could be kept
> private. Non-distribution could not be a condition though. (IANAL though so
> check this all out for yourself.)
>
> http://www.trolltech.com/products/qt/licenses/licensing - Qt Commercial
> Licensing link.
>
> "You must purchase a Qt Commercial License from Trolltech or from any of its
> authorized resellers before you start developing proprietary software. The
> Commercial license does not allow the incorporation of code developed with
> the Open Source Edition of Qt into a proprietary product."
>
> You will have to pay though, if you want the non-GPL license. Up front.

That does not really answer the question.

"The Qt Commercial License is the correct license to use for the
construction of proprietary, commercial software."

And neither does that.  The dfinition of proprietary, commercial
software is loose, and i dont know if it is inclusive of software
developed and used in-house as accounts for most software in the
world.

I can only assume though that you cannot diminish the GPL, and if the
GPL allows for such in-house commercial development, then such a dual
licensing scheme cannot prevent its use.  Perhaps QT knows this and
the wording is deliberately non specific...