[Fedora-legal-list] Re: JpGraph and "open source use"
On 11/26/2017 11:13 PM, Randy Barlow wrote:
Hello!
It's me again with another question about a weird license wording on a
library.
tl;dr;
JpGraph's download page[0] says:
"JpGraph is released under a dual license. QPL 1.0 (Qt Free License) For
non-commercial, open-source or educational use and JpGraph Professional
License for commercial use."
I don't know what "open-source use" means, but does that wording make
this licensing unacceptable for Fedora?
Yes. While the Q Public License itself does not contain any restrictions
on commercial use, his wording on the download page makes it clear that
commercial use under the QPL is not permitted.
Even clearer is the page discussing the JpGraph Professional Version [1]:
If you plan on using JpGraph in a commercial context you will need to
acquire the professional license. Commercial use is for example if you
use JpGraph on a site to provide a service for paying customers or for
example if you are using JpGraph in an intranet to provide support for
internal business processes, i.e. in benefit for a commercial company.
In short, if you use JpGraph where you have an economic advantage
(either through paying customers or improving internal business
processes) this most likely falls under commercial use.
This restriction on commercial use means that the license is not really
QPL, but rather, a custom license that says "You may use this under the
terms of the QPL, as long as you are not using it in a commercial
context." That license is non-free and non-open source.
Sorry. :/
~tom
1: http://jpgraph.net/pro/