Dual-Licensing Situation

[AR]

Jacob Head wrote:
> AR wrote:
>> I agree that they can license their stuff on whatever terms they want 
>> to.  My complaint is that they must tell licensees up-front what they 
>> are agreeing to, and they are not doing that, and that there must be 
>> some kind of license violation as a result.
>
> I think you are making a mistake in assuming that because the reason 
> you have been given relates to you accepting the GPL, that that 
> condition must be written into the GPL.
>
> The company is allowed to deny a propriety licence to whoever they 
> want. There is no obligation to sell a product to whoever asks. They 
> don’t need to give you a reason. The reason you have been given 
> relates to already taking a licence for one of their products. 
> However, it could just as well be a product which has nothing to do 
> you with them. For example, if they say “you cannot buy a propriety 
> licence as you have a licence for GTK” and what you are saying is 
> correct, the GTK’s GPL is wrong as it lacks the term saying “you 
> cannot buy a propriety licence for QT”.  This cannot be the case.

Thanks for your input.  You are expressing the opinion that others have 
as well, but I don't agree for the following reason:  In the Qt case, 
the acceptance of the GPL is changing my relationship with the Qt 
licensor without stating so.  In the GTK+ case, the acceptance of the 
GTK+ LGPL is in no way changing my relationship with the GTK+ licensor 
without stating so.  I'm no lawyer, but I would expect that there is a 
problem if a license changes my relationship with the licensor in a way 
it does not state.  As I mentioned in other email, too, there is 
potentially monetary harm.

> Equally, these “terms” do not, to me, seem to be terms. A licence term 
> is a binding obligation on a party. These do not seem to exist here.

Again, I disagree.  I am bound to forfeit the ability to get a 
proprietary license from the same licensor without being told.

> You are being allowed to apply for a licence and they were exercising 
> their rights as copyright holders to deny one. It would be a very 
> different story if you were being told “you have broken the GPL 
> because you have applied for a propriety licence” or if the company 
> were to say “we cannot give you a propriety licence because doing so 
> breaks the GPL”. In those cases, additional terms would have been 
> written into the GPL, but not in this case.
>
> What, I think, you are actually looking for is a warning, not a 
> licence term. Of course, it would make sense for such a thing to be 
> provided, but there is no obligation.