[Vtigercrm-developers] Very important question about JpGraph

[Fathi BOUDRA]

Le Samedi 4 Mars 2006 13:24, Marcin Antczak a écrit :
> I got extremely important question about JpGraph license.
>
> VtigerCRM contains JpGraph library and in vtigercrm-4.2.4rc2 version there
> is only COPYING.txt file that says that JpGraph is on QPL 1.0 license.
>
> While it's true but only partially. Because on http://www.aditus.nu/jpgraph
> we can read that:
>
> "JpGraph is released under a dual license. QPL 1.0 (Qt Free Licensee) For
> non-commercial, open-source or educational use and JpGraph Professional
> License for commercial use."
>
> So while propably some VtigerCRM users will use this software for fun, we
> need to be honest and we all know that VtigerCRM is software designed
> specifically for commercial usage.
>
> Then anyone that uses VtigerCRM commercially violates JpGraph license.
>
> Please comment this. And if some VtigerCRM developers could say what to do
> with this issue? Simple remove JpGraph or maybe add an option to
> config.inc.php that could allow to turn on and off this library. What is
> your opinion?
>
>
> Marcin

from debian jpgraph copyright file:
---BEGIN---
For licensing reason only GPLed 1.5.2 is now packaged by Christian Bayle 
<bayle at debian.org>

To be clear for those that would ask why I don't upload the new 1.16 QPLed 
version. You can read on home page:

"JpGraph is released under a dual license. QPL 1.0 (Qt Free Licensee) For 
non-commercial, open-source and educational use and JpGraph Professional 
License for commercial use."

This is not compliant with DFSG #6 

"The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a 
specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from 
being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research."

It was downloaded from:
http://www.aditus.nu/jpgraph/downloads/jpgraph-1.5.2.tar.gz
---END---

with this, we can agree that we fall under QPL license because "open-source" 
term :
"JpGraph is released under a dual license. QPL 1.0 (Qt Free Licensee) For 
non-commercial, open-source and educational use and JpGraph Professional 
License for commercial use."

but there's also "non-commercial" term. We can see on jpgrah website:
http://www.aditus.nu/jpgraph/proversion.php
"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."

with this statements, my interpretation is:
we use jpgraph QPL licensed in vtigercrm, an open-source product. We don't 
sell the product ("open-source" term related)but some people sell services 
around it("non-commercial" term related). They use jpgraph in an "economic 
advantage" and need professional license.

This is just facts, from licenses informations that we have. Is it jpgraph 
professional license legal ? is it QPL compatible ? i don't know.

We seem to use jpgraph version 1.20.3. Do we need to use version 1.5.2, last 
GPL version ? Remove jpgraph and provide alternative ?

cheers,

Fathi