qBittorrent/COPYING

18 lines
1.0 KiB
Plaintext
Raw Normal View History

The qBittorrent source code is licensed under the GNU General Public License, version 2 or (at your option) any later version (GPLv2+).
However, the binary distribution is licensed under GNU General Public License, version 3 or (at your option) any later version (GPLv3+),
because it contains GPLv3+ assets (eg images). In both cases, the following special exception is added:
In addition, as a special exception, the copyright holders give permission to
link this program with the OpenSSL project's "OpenSSL" library (or with
modified versions of it that use the same license as the "OpenSSL" library),
and distribute the linked executables. You must obey the GNU General Public
License in all respects for all of the code used other than "OpenSSL". If you
modify file(s), you may extend this exception to your version of the file(s),
but you are not obligated to do so. If you do not wish to do so, delete this
exception statement from your version.
Clarify that the license is GPLv2+ Regarding this license clarification there are 3 commits of interest (commits A, B, C). Before commit A the COPYING file contained only the text of the GPLv2 license, while all source files had a license block at the top saying that they are under the terms of "GPLv2 or later". With commit A there was a temporary change to GPLv3. The COPYING file contained only the text of the GPLv3 license, while all source files had a license block at the top saying that they are under the terms of "GPLv3 or later". Then with commit B the COPYING file and the license block of the source files was reverted to their state before commit A. Afterwards, with commit C a license summary(or clarification) block was put at the top of the COPYING file. This block indicated that the license was GPLv2 without having the "or later" clause and it also included the OpenSSL exception. However, the license block of each source file continued to contain the "or later" clause which was not removed. The same license block continues to exist in all current source files. Thus it is concluded that the ommision of the "or later" clause with commit C in the COPYING file was accidental. OR ALTERNATIVELY (OR IN ADDITION) At the time commit C was made Christophe Dumez was not the sole contributor. There is no record that the other contributors agreed with the supposed GPLv2 only change or that there was a Contributor License Agreement, transfering their rights to him. Thus making his license change decision invalid/void/illegal. Commit A: 54f9375b325cc03f8d5da9abbf6c4e25e8ee698f Commit B: 8df61db644a7fcb19170d60da3b7b5297215439c Commit C: 9835af49627e65d314668387b6ec9d029707c186
2021-03-20 06:01:29 +08:00
See also the AUTHORS file
See COPYING.GPLv2 file for the GPLv2
See COPYING.GPLv3 file for the GPLv3