Development of Creative Commons licenses

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

> > 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.
>
> It may be simpler that you think.
>
> If you want your program to be GPL, use the otehr license. For any other
> license you want to use, get the Qt Commercial License. Icould of course be
> wrong, ask them.
> >
> > 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...
>
> I think you may be making a mistake with respect to the GPL as it applies to
> the copyright holder as opposed to those being granted rights by the GPL. (I
> am not sure, I see two possibilities and will talk to both.)
>
> 1. The copyright holder can offer a license other than the GPL that in no way
> has to take the GPL into account. It is only people who avail themselves of
> the rights the GPL offers that need be concerned with it.
>
> 2. A dual license scheme can in no way change what is allowed under the GPL as
> a result of what the other license says. If you are availing yourself of the
> GPL, that is all you need concern yourself with. Does the GPL allow it? Yes?
> Good, off you go. No? Well, better see what the other license allows.

I read both of those points as being equivalent.  Most companies,
ignore the government example i gave, can claim that they meet the
conditions of the GPL when developing in house software.

For example, an investment bank develops an internal electronic
trading platform.  They all do this, because in modern markets its the
only thing which differentiates them from their competitors.  It uses
loads of middleware, mathematical packages, QT as the desktop, maybe
even some vector processing code to take advantage of their graphics
cards for quants modelling.  It all runs on linux and is completely
free.  They dont pay a cent, and they make millions every year.

Whether the license is copyleft or free they will still do it.  And
they will absolutely not contribute their changes back to the
community since that would be commercial suicide, especially if they
make some really good changes.