PyQt license

[rhfogh]

As agreed in the last two meetings, we must comply with LGPL license conditions. This means that any group that is developing code that uses PyQt must have a commercial license before the code starts shipping. The cost is 450 Euro (+ VAT) as a one-off payment, for each seat. See https://www.riverbankcomputing.com/commercial/ for details.

GPhL has now bought a license; could the rest of you check whether you 1) never develop Qt-related code? 2) Already have a commercial Qt license? or 3) are going to buy one now?

The operative part of the Riverbank license FAQ is as follows - I gather we are not distributing PyQt, but having the users use their own copy:

Q. | Can my proprietary application be used with the copy of the GPL version of PyQt that the user already has installed (as part of their Linux distribution for example)?

A. | Yes, so long as you meet the following conditions:

    - you are using the LGPL version of Qt

    - your proprietary application has been developed with the commercial version of PyQt

    - your commercial PyQt license covers the version of PyQt that the user has installed.

Q. | Can I distribute my own copy of the GPL version of PyQt with my proprietary application?

A. | Yes, so long as you meet the following conditions:

   - the GPL version of PyQt is packaged and installed separately from your proprietary application

   - you meet all of the obligations of the GPL regarding your PyQt package

   - you are using the LGPL version of Qt

   - your proprietary application has been developed with the commercial version of PyQt

   - your commercial PyQt license covers the version of PyQt that you are distributing.

[marcus-oscarsson]

Thanks @rhfogh for looking into this again, and this of course applies even though we are not really distributing MXCuBE as a product ? The fact that we have to pay this licensing fee have more to do with that MXCuBE would become LPGL licensed and that as nothing to do with how its distributed, except for that we cant distribute it bundled with PyQT ?

[rhfogh]

As of 20230830, it seems liek this issue is STILL not sorted.

The steps we need are clear:

• Every group that develops with Qt needs a commercial license per contributing programmer.

• • We need to clarify which versions we are licensed to use
• • We need to i9nstall and test code that throws an error if any user uses a version of Qt that we do nto have a license for. I have added such code to mxcube1t/utils.qt_import already a while ago, but we need to confirm that it works. As of August 2023, Global phasing is licensed for the following Qt versions:

• PyQt4: 4.12.3

• PyQt5: 5.15.7 - 5.19.9

• PyQt6: 6.4.0 - 6.5.2 Our current license will also give us all versions released until January next year.

Could other groups comment with their current status?