An easier to start license for singular developers / really small companies
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I have been creating an internal application with Qt Webassembly for some weeks and I must to say that I am really impressed! It works really well, there are some minor caveats but I am sure that those can be fixed with the evolution of the technology.
Though I am seeing that the license is not great for singular web developers / really small companies that are really starting.
For instance if I actually want to create a website / webapplication that makes some revenue I can't use Qt webassembly:
- When starting the website it will generate 0€ (no revenue), so I can't even pay the Qt for Small Business license (which is around 42€ per month)
- If I don't pay I must use the open source license that forces me to share the frontend code to someone that asks for it (so basically I will give away the frontend work for free to anyone before making any revenue)
Having a new free license just for companies / singular developers that make a very small amount of revenue would be perfect I think (you could restrict the license only to Qt Webassembly, the full suite is not needed).
This would give us time to see if our Qt Webassembly application generates revenue and would likely considerable increase the Qt Webassembly usage as a web framework, likely bringing indirect revenue to the Qt company (if more developers know and use webassembly in their personal projects they will likely want to use it in their companies for instance).It would be really good if something like this could be implemented, at the moment the GPL license is too restrictive in my opinion to someone that is just starting to work with a web framework with the intent of making money.
I don't know what the maximum revenue amount would be, but something between 5000-15000€ would probably be reasonable (especially if applied to the project specifically, instead of the whole company), then if in the future we make more than such revenue we could acquire a Small Business license to continue to use the framework.
Other option and probably even more flexible and easier to start with would be to use a license model based on royalities like the Unreal Engine is doing:
https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/faq
This way it starts free for everyone and once the project reaches a certain threshold in revenue then we need to pay certain percentage in royalities to the Qt company.If this is not possible I will probably need to look for Qt Webassemly alternatives like other C++ Gui toolkits that can compile to webassembly with more approachable licenses (at the moment Qt webassembly looks by far the best solution though).
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I have been creating an internal application with Qt Webassembly for some weeks and I must to say that I am really impressed! It works really well, there are some minor caveats but I am sure that those can be fixed with the evolution of the technology.
Though I am seeing that the license is not great for singular web developers / really small companies that are really starting.
For instance if I actually want to create a website / webapplication that makes some revenue I can't use Qt webassembly:
- When starting the website it will generate 0€ (no revenue), so I can't even pay the Qt for Small Business license (which is around 42€ per month)
- If I don't pay I must use the open source license that forces me to share the frontend code to someone that asks for it (so basically I will give away the frontend work for free to anyone before making any revenue)
Having a new free license just for companies / singular developers that make a very small amount of revenue would be perfect I think (you could restrict the license only to Qt Webassembly, the full suite is not needed).
This would give us time to see if our Qt Webassembly application generates revenue and would likely considerable increase the Qt Webassembly usage as a web framework, likely bringing indirect revenue to the Qt company (if more developers know and use webassembly in their personal projects they will likely want to use it in their companies for instance).It would be really good if something like this could be implemented, at the moment the GPL license is too restrictive in my opinion to someone that is just starting to work with a web framework with the intent of making money.
I don't know what the maximum revenue amount would be, but something between 5000-15000€ would probably be reasonable (especially if applied to the project specifically, instead of the whole company), then if in the future we make more than such revenue we could acquire a Small Business license to continue to use the framework.
Other option and probably even more flexible and easier to start with would be to use a license model based on royalities like the Unreal Engine is doing:
https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/faq
This way it starts free for everyone and once the project reaches a certain threshold in revenue then we need to pay certain percentage in royalities to the Qt company.If this is not possible I will probably need to look for Qt Webassemly alternatives like other C++ Gui toolkits that can compile to webassembly with more approachable licenses (at the moment Qt webassembly looks by far the best solution though).
@RandomGuy it is likely nobody from Qt Company will read this message. Consider writing to some sales rep from Qt Company, or to Qt development mailing list.
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@RandomGuy it is likely nobody from Qt Company will read this message. Consider writing to some sales rep from Qt Company, or to Qt development mailing list.
@sierdzio said in An easier to start license for singular developers / really small companies:
@RandomGuy it is likely nobody from Qt Company will read this message. Consider writing to some sales rep from Qt Company, or to Qt development mailing list.
Thanks for the answer. I will try to look at those.
I also found this:
https://www.qt.io/blog/qt-webassembly-qa-part-1- If our application uses other third-party libraries like VTK, ITK, and boost, how easy will the deployment process in WebAssembly be using Qt 6.4?
VP: Dynamic linking is not currently supported due to some platform limitations. However, work is ongoing to change that in upcoming versions. Static linking can already be used.
Does this mean that dynamic linking with Qt in webassembly is planned? This would probably also solve the license problem. As we could keep our front end code closed as long we don't modify Qt source code (and we link dynamically).
Edit:
I also found this:
https://forum.qt.io/topic/92810/qt-webassembly-license-issues-with-lgpl-v3/7
https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTBUG-63925Seems dynamic linking is already a work in progress! I think this will be enough for most people that are planning to create a website with Qt webassembly to generate some revenue. (we could then use the LGPL v3 license by distributing unmodified dynamic Qt libraries)
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@sierdzio said in An easier to start license for singular developers / really small companies:
@RandomGuy it is likely nobody from Qt Company will read this message. Consider writing to some sales rep from Qt Company, or to Qt development mailing list.
Thanks for the answer. I will try to look at those.
I also found this:
https://www.qt.io/blog/qt-webassembly-qa-part-1- If our application uses other third-party libraries like VTK, ITK, and boost, how easy will the deployment process in WebAssembly be using Qt 6.4?
VP: Dynamic linking is not currently supported due to some platform limitations. However, work is ongoing to change that in upcoming versions. Static linking can already be used.
Does this mean that dynamic linking with Qt in webassembly is planned? This would probably also solve the license problem. As we could keep our front end code closed as long we don't modify Qt source code (and we link dynamically).
Edit:
I also found this:
https://forum.qt.io/topic/92810/qt-webassembly-license-issues-with-lgpl-v3/7
https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTBUG-63925Seems dynamic linking is already a work in progress! I think this will be enough for most people that are planning to create a website with Qt webassembly to generate some revenue. (we could then use the LGPL v3 license by distributing unmodified dynamic Qt libraries)
@RandomGuy yes, this is being worked upon at the moment. But that does not change the license situation, WASM is available only under GPLv3 or commercial: https://doc.qt.io/qt-6/wasm.html#license
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@RandomGuy yes, this is being worked upon at the moment. But that does not change the license situation, WASM is available only under GPLv3 or commercial: https://doc.qt.io/qt-6/wasm.html#license
@sierdzio said in An easier to start license for singular developers / really small companies:
@RandomGuy yes, this is being worked upon at the moment. But that does not change the license situation, WASM is available only under GPLv3 or commercial: https://doc.qt.io/qt-6/wasm.html#license
So after dynamic linking is supported adding LGPL v3 license is not planned?
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@sierdzio said in An easier to start license for singular developers / really small companies:
@RandomGuy yes, this is being worked upon at the moment. But that does not change the license situation, WASM is available only under GPLv3 or commercial: https://doc.qt.io/qt-6/wasm.html#license
So after dynamic linking is supported adding LGPL v3 license is not planned?
@RandomGuy said in An easier to start license for singular developers / really small companies:
@sierdzio said in An easier to start license for singular developers / really small companies:
@RandomGuy yes, this is being worked upon at the moment. But that does not change the license situation, WASM is available only under GPLv3 or commercial: https://doc.qt.io/qt-6/wasm.html#license
So after dynamic linking is supported adding LGPL v3 license is not planned?
I don't know. I don't see any suggestion of it in the ticket, also the changes linked to it do not modify the license information in the docs.
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@sierdzio said in An easier to start license for singular developers / really small companies:
@RandomGuy yes, this is being worked upon at the moment. But that does not change the license situation, WASM is available only under GPLv3 or commercial: https://doc.qt.io/qt-6/wasm.html#license
So after dynamic linking is supported adding LGPL v3 license is not planned?
@RandomGuy said in An easier to start license for singular developers / really small companies:
So after dynamic linking is supported adding LGPL v3 license is not planned?
Dynamic linking is not a requirement to be able to fulfill the LGPL. It is just the easiest way to do so. Therefore, don't get your hopes up that one they implement dynamic linking they will add the LGPL.
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I will try the contacts that @sierdzio mentioned before soon.
Meanwhile other issue with the qt webassembly license that came to my mind is that if we as developers sell an application to a customer, the customer will also require a webassembly license as well which doesn't make sense for who is developing. At least if I understood it correctly.<-- this is likely wrong, see below. -
I will try the contacts that @sierdzio mentioned before soon.
Meanwhile other issue with the qt webassembly license that came to my mind is that if we as developers sell an application to a customer, the customer will also require a webassembly license as well which doesn't make sense for who is developing. At least if I understood it correctly.<-- this is likely wrong, see below.@RandomGuy said in An easier to start license for singular developers / really small companies:
the customer will also require a webassembly license as well
What is this and where do you come to this conclusion from?
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@RandomGuy said in An easier to start license for singular developers / really small companies:
the customer will also require a webassembly license as well
What is this and where do you come to this conclusion from?
@JonB I am not a lawyer but from my understading of GPL3, if the website is public (used by other people outside of the organization that owns it) the source code (for the frontend) must be made available in case of a request. Otherwise you will need a comercial Qt license to keep it private (and I am not sure if the acquired license from the developer will fulfil this when the developer delivers the website to the customer and the project ends).
Edit:
Nevermind, I am most likely wrong here, according to here:
https://www.qt.io/faq/tag/qt-commercial-licensing
"Can I continue to distribute my application after my developer license has expired?"It should be ok if the project ends, and the customer should be able to continue the website without licensing issues, well at least as long they don't modify the source with Qt tools.
