Given that Qt and PySide UIs are so ubiquitous for tools, I’m hoping someone can shed some light on the legal consequences of making PySide UI for a proprietary product. The hours I spent googling weren’t very fruitful so far.
The issue is:
Same as their respective Qt version, PySide is licensed as LGPLv2.1, and PySide2 as LGPLv3. Other legal stuff aside, when using an LGPL library in your code, you have to provide a mechanism that would allow the user to replace said library with a different one (in the case of LGPLv3 the result also has to be runable, aka. anti-tivoization clause). Likely to this end, the license also states that you explicitly allow backward-engineering of your code, even though you can keep most parts of your code closed-source.
Now: if I develop a C++ plugin, and a companion python script that exposes the functionality of said plugin to GUI by using PySide/PySide2; would that allow backward-engineering of the C++ plugin itself (since it’s part of the same “project”)? Or would it only allow backward-engineering of the GUI-implementing script?
Of course, for conclusive advice I’d have to pay a lawyer, but I’m wondering if anyone has encountered this or similar LGPL issues before, and how did it play out for you? Any input is very much appreciated.