The KDE Free Qt Agreement: What You Need to Know
If you`re involved in software development, you`ve likely heard of the KDE Free Qt Agreement. This agreement, also known as KFQA, is a licensing agreement that governs the use of the Qt toolkit by the KDE project.
Qt is a popular toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces (GUIs) and applications for a variety of platforms. It`s used by many software developers and companies, including KDE, the globally-known open source community behind the KDE Plasma desktop environment.
In 1998, Trolltech (now a subsidiary of The Qt Company) released the Qt toolkit under the Q Public License (QPL), an open source license that allowed free use and distribution of the toolkit. However, the QPL was largely seen as incompatible with the GNU General Public License (GPL) that many open source projects, including KDE, used.
To address this issue, the KDE Free Qt Foundation was established in 1998 to ensure that Qt remained available to the open source community. The foundation and The Qt Company subsequently created the KDE Free Qt Agreement in 2000 as a way to license Qt to KDE under terms that were compatible with the GPL.
So what does the KDE Free Qt Agreement entail? Here are the key points:
1. KDE is granted a license to use, modify, and distribute Qt under the terms of the GPL.
2. The Qt Company agrees to provide the KDE project with the source code of Qt and to ensure that it remains available to KDE under the terms of the agreement.
3. In exchange for the license, KDE agrees to use and distribute Qt in accordance with the terms of the agreement, and to release any modifications to Qt under the GPL.
The KDE Free Qt Agreement has been instrumental in ensuring that the Qt toolkit remains available to the open source community, including KDE. It`s worth noting that while the agreement specifically applies to the KDE project, it`s also seen as a model for other open source projects that use Qt.
If you`re a developer interested in using Qt in your project, it`s important to understand the licensing implications. The KDE Free Qt Agreement provides a path for open source projects to use and modify Qt in a way that`s compatible with the GPL. However, if you`re developing a closed source application, you`ll need to obtain a commercial license from The Qt Company.
In summary, the KDE Free Qt Agreement is a licensing agreement that allows KDE to use and distribute the Qt toolkit under the terms of the GPL. It`s a key example of how open source projects can work with proprietary software to create mutually beneficial arrangements, and it serves as a model for other projects and companies to follow.
