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How many times does this need to be pointed out? QT/KDE does NOT require the purchase of a licence to be used in developing commercial products!!

Then why does their Qt Commercial Licensing page state that you should "[u]se the Qt Commercial License to: 1)Build commercial software. 2)Build software that is not sold, but that advances the business goals of a commercial enterprise"?

I know as well as you do that "commercial software" does not equal "closed-source software", but that distinction seems to be lost on TrollTech ; either that or they need to choose their wording more carefully, as they seem to use "commercial" and "non-free" interchangably.

Read the QT FAQ. You can freely (free as in speech and as in beer) develop software for whatever purpose you desire using QT, including commercial purposes.

Not true; if you do, you're apparently in violation of the Qt Free Edition's license. From that selfsame FAQ:

Can we use the Free Edition while developing our non-free application and then purchase commercial licenses when we start to sell it?

No: our commercial license agreements only apply to software that was developed with Qt under the agreement. They do not apply to code that was developed with the Qt Free Edition prior to the agreement. [Emphasis mine] Any software developed with Qt without a commercial license agreement must be released as free/open source software.

Using the Free Edition, can I make non-free software for internal use in my company/organization?

No. Software developed with the Free Edition is always free software, i.e. it can only be distributed under a free software license. In particular, all the source code for all the modules your software is based on, regardless of whether they have been written by you or by others, must be free software. This is part of our commitment to the free software community, and enables those who contribute to the free software pool to do so without paying license fees. Although it is possible to write free software for internal use, it is difficult to ensure that such software is used and distributed legally. For example, if your free software requires any modules that impose conditions on you that contradict the conditions of the GNU GPL, including, but not limited to, software patents, commercial license agreements, copyrighted interface definitions or any sort of non-disclosure agreement, then you cannot distribute it at all; hence it cannot be given to consultants, employees for their personal computers, subsidiaries, other divisions, or even to new owners. [Emphasis mine] Consequently we recommend using commercial licenses for all internal software development.

And this barely touches on the fact that Qt Free Edition is not available for Windows or Mac OS X, so my "freedom" in developing software is limited to X11-based platforms; I'm supposed to pay $1550 for the privilege of developing Qt-based applications for Mac and Windows users, regardless of the license I plan to distribute it under.

It is certainly TrollTech's right to license their software however they see fit; however, they don't get to charge developers of commercial software for their toolkit and then complain about not being included in a distribution that seeks to avoid those costs.

Jay (=

How many times does this need to be pointed out? QT/KDE does NOT require the purchase of a licence to be used in developing commercial products!!

Then why does their Qt Commercial Licensing page state that you should "[u]se the Qt Commercial License to: 1)Build commercial software. 2)Build software that is not sold, but that advances the business goals of a commercial enterprise"?

I know as well as you do that "commercial software" does not equal "closed-source software", but that distinction seems to be lost on TrollTech ; either that or they need to choose their wording more carefully, as they seem to use "commercial" and "non-free" interchangably.

Read the QT FAQ. You can freely (free as in speech and as in beer) develop software for whatever purpose you desire using QT, including commercial purposes.

Not true; if you do, you're apparently in violation of the Qt Free Edition's license. From that selfsame FAQ:

Can we use the Free Edition while developing our non-free application and then purchase commercial licenses when we start to sell it?

No: our commercial license agreements only apply to software that was developed with Qt under the agreement. They do not apply to code that was developed with the Qt Free Edition prior to the agreement. [Emphasis mine] Any software developed with Qt without a commercial license agreement must be released as free/open source software.

Using the Free Edition, can I make non-free software for internal use in my company/organization?

No. Software developed with the Free Edition is always free software, i.e. it can only be distributed under a free software license. In particular, all the source code for all the modules your software is based on, regardless of whether they have been written by you or by others, must be free software. This is part of our commitment to the free software community, and enables those who contribute to the free software pool to do so without paying license fees. Although it is possible to write free software for internal use, it is difficult to ensure that such software is used and distributed legally. For example, if your free software requires any modules that impose conditions on you that contradict the conditions of the GNU GPL, including, but not limited to, software patents, commercial license agreements, copyrighted interface definitions or any sort of non-disclosure agreement, then you cannot distribute it at all; hence it cannot be given to consultants, employees for their personal computers, subsidiaries, other divisions, or even to new owners. [Emphasis mine] Consequently we recommend using commercial licenses for all internal software development.

And this barely touches on the fact that Qt Free Edition is not available for Windows or Mac OS X, so my "freedom" in developing software is limited to X11-based platforms; I'm supposed to pay $1550 for the privilege of developing Qt-based applications for Mac and Windows users, regardless of the license I plan to distribute it under.

It is certainly TrollTech's right to license their software however they see fit; however, they don't get to charge developers of commercial software for their toolkit and then complain about not being included in a distribution that seeks to avoid those costs.

Jay (=

How many times does this need to be pointed out? QT/KDE does NOT require the purchase of a licence to be used in developing commercial products!!

Then why does their Qt Commercial Licensing page state that you should "[u]se the Qt Commercial License to: 1)Build commercial software. 2)Build software that is not sold, but that advances the business goals of a commercial enterprise"?

I know as well as you do that "commercial software" does not equal "closed-source software", but that distinction seems to be lost on TrollTech ; either that or they need to choose their wording more carefully, as they seem to use "commercial" and "non-free" interchangably.

Read the QT FAQ. You can freely (free as in speech and as in beer) develop software for whatever purpose you desire using QT, including commercial purposes.

Not true; if you do, you're apparently in violation of the Qt Free Edition's license. From that selfsame FAQ:

Can we use the Free Edition while developing our non-free application and then purchase commercial licenses when we start to sell it?

No: our commercial license agreements only apply to software that was developed with Qt under the agreement. They do not apply to code that was developed with the Qt Free Edition prior to the agreement. [Emphasis mine] Any software developed with Qt without a commercial license agreement must be released as free/open source software.

Using the Free Edition, can I make non-free software for internal use in my company/organization?

No. Software developed with the Free Edition is always free software, i.e. it can only be distributed under a free software license. In particular, all the source code for all the modules your software is based on, regardless of whether they have been written by you or by others, must be free software. This is part of our commitment to the free software community, and enables those who contribute to the free software pool to do so without paying license fees. Although it is possible to write free software for internal use, it is difficult to ensure that such software is used and distributed legally. For example, if your free software requires any modules that impose conditions on you that contradict the conditions of the GNU GPL, including, but not limited to, software patents, commercial license agreements, copyrighted interface definitions or any sort of non-disclosure agreement, then you cannot distribute it at all; hence it cannot be given to consultants, employees for their personal computers, subsidiaries, other divisions, or even to new owners. [Emphasis mine] Consequently we recommend using commercial licenses for all internal software development.

And this barely touches on the fact that Qt Free Edition is not available for Windows or Mac OS X, so my "freedom" in developing software is limited to X11-based platforms; I'm supposed to pay $1550 for the privilege of developing Qt-based applications for Mac and Windows users, regardless of the license I plan to distribute it under.

It is certainly TrollTech's right to license their software however they see fit; however, they don't get to charge developers of commercial software for their toolkit and then complain about not being included in a distribution that seeks to avoid those costs.

Jay (=

And you can write closed-source in-house apps with for free qith Qt just fine! GPL allows that!

But the Qt Free Edition isn't available for any platform other than Unix/Linux; which means your GPL-licensed application has to use the non-GPL-licensed versions of Qt if you plan to port it to Mac OS X or Windows.

And Trolltech would prefer you use their Qt Commercial Licensed version if you "[b]uild software that is not sold, but that advances the business goals of a commercial enterprise," regardless of the platform.

Jay (=

And you can write closed-source in-house apps with for free qith Qt just fine! GPL allows that!

But the Qt Free Edition isn't available for any platform other than Unix/Linux; which means your GPL-licensed application has to use the non-GPL-licensed versions of Qt if you plan to port it to Mac OS X or Windows.

And Trolltech would prefer you use their Qt Commercial Licensed version if you "[b]uild software that is not sold, but that advances the business goals of a commercial enterprise," regardless of the platform.

Jay (=

So, let me get this straight - he wants to discourage the use of GPL'd code in UserLinux in order to have businesses create proprietary applications that can not in turn be included into UserLinux because they will not be free?

The proprietary applications he's talking about would never be distributed with UserLinux anyway; he's talking about in-house applications.

Example: I used to be a supervisor at Fry's Electronics, where much of their software used in-house is developed in-house; two in particular are "Store Master", where supervisors can track stock flow, place reorders or special orders, etc.; and a similar program called "Merchant Master" that I've never seen it firsthand myself, but I assume that buyers use to manage relationships with vendors.

Given that TrollTech's page for Qt Commerical Licensing says that you should use Qt Commercial Licensing if you "[b]uild software that is not sold, but that advances the business goals of a commercial enterprise", that means Fry's would have to pay a minimum of $1500 per developer per year to port Store Master and Merchant Master to using Qt. And that's just for a single-platform license; if they wanted to maintain a Windows version as they convert their desktops to Linux(1), that jumps to $2300 per developer per year. (If they were to go with the Enterprise Edition licensing, which inlcudes platform-independant extensions for database and network access, those prices jump to $2300 and $3500 repsectively.)

If they were to port these programs to GTK+, their licensing costs to developers is $0. And the last I checked, it's not against the terms or the [L]GPL or otherwise illegal to keep private modifications private.

Thus Bruce Perens' decision to go with GTK+ and GNOME; it may not be in the spirit of the Linux community to let people be selfish with their code and keep it to themselves, but it is within the rights granted by that community.

If he took this commercial-friendly argument to its logical conclusion he would dump the GPL'd Linux from UserLinux in favour of BSD.

A disguised BSD troll are we, then? Because your logic is flawed if you believe being "commercial-friendly" only means you have to be willing to let people sell your freely-given code back to you in a proprietary system. The GPL may not be commercially friendly to businesses who sell software to make a living, but it's sure commerically friendly to businesses that use software to make a living.

Jay (=

(1) This is a rhetorical example only. No knowledge of Fry's IT planning should be inferred.

the GPL allows them to write internal applications and keep them secret

You would think so wouldn't you? But TrollTech don't!

But TrollTech don't!

SCO's bosses at Canopy controls Trolltech

Not according to Trolltech's investor list, which claims that the employees own nearly two-thirds of the stock. Even Borland owns more than Canopy and SCO, which put together control less than 6 percent of Trolltech.

Although Qt is an excellent toolkit in many aspects, it is not a C++ toolkit.

Qt sources have to be preprocessed before they can be passed through a standard C++ compiler, and the preprocessor has many limitations.

However, it can't really serve as an argument in the GNOME vs KDE debate.

Actually a single developer is $1,550.

But that's still nothing if you're a company selling software in the US. Maybe if you're selling it somewhere like Australia where everything has to be made to sell cheap thanks to competition from across the ocean.

How many times does this need to be pointed out? QT/KDE does NOT require the purchase of a licence to be used in developing commercial products!!

Read the QT FAQ. You can freely (free as in speech and as in beer) develop software for whatever purpose you desire using QT, including commercial purposes. Millions of people use software developed with free QT for commercial purposes every day.

To make this even more clear: QT is released under the GPL. The GPL forbids anyone from restricting the use of QT or products derived from QT under that licence. In other words, you CANNOT develop a product derived from GPL'd code and say "you can only use this for non-commecial purposes."

The GPL is an excellent licence for commercial software for reasons to numerous to mention, vastly superior to, say, a typical Microsoft licence.

Lets say a business has to choose between two software products with equal capability but different licences. The first product is free to use, can be used on many machines, comes with its source code, and can be modified and redistributed. The second product needs to be licenced seperately for each machine it runs on, cannot be copied internal let alone redistributed externaly, and does not even reveal its source let alone allow for it to be modified. Which is product is superior for commercial purposes?

I think this confusion about licencing arises because far too many people confuse COMMERCIAL software development with CLOSED SOURCE software development. COMMERCIAL does not equal CLOSED SOURCE!!! I use Free (open source) Software every day for commercial purposes. Millions of people do.

Now, for those people who want to write a closed source software product, they can also use QT for this purpose... however in that case they must purchase a commercial licence from TrollTech, instead of licencing it under the GPL. This is only logical... if you want to sell a software product under a closed source, proprietary licence, and not allow your customers to get the source or have the right to freely use it, why the hell should Trolltech (and other developers of Free software) have to give you THEIR source for free?

This is why I think that QT/KDE has a SUPERIOR licencing scheme to that of GTK/Gnome... QT/KDE allows for closed source development but ENCOURAGES open source.

I have great respect for Bruce Perens, but he is way off base on this. If there must be only one desktop environment in UserLinux it should be KDE. It is very disapointing to see him get behind the platform that is LESS beneficial to free software.

Does Qt require royalty payments? No.

However, if you make a commercial closed source product (and do not wish to use the GPL) you will need to buy a one-time commercial Qt license for the developers that work on your product.

You can read more about commercial Qt licensing here.

So next time you hear someone talk about Qt royalties you now know that that person either doesn't know what he is talking about or he is trying to sell you a bridge.

I don't mean to stalk you in this story!

You can see KDE go the same way as netscape if UserLinux ever becomes popular.

KDE made a choice when it based itself on Qt. Times change and KDE's problems have changed - KDE is a good Free Software* desktop environment. But because Qt is GPL'd, it presents a barrier to proprietary development that is against the goals of UserLinux.

If being the default desktop of UserLinux is so important to KDE, why don't they re-implement their desktop ontop of an LGLP'd toolkit?

If it's not so important that they are willing to do that, then people should stop being upset. In the choice of a default there will be a winner and one or more losers. XFCE lost here too, but they're not whining. Only one desktop can be the default!

As for the Netscape comparison, I think there were other factors which led to Netscape's demise, like a bloated product (Communicator). Look how people prefer Firebird over Mozilla. There's still time for IE to be ousted - all the time in the world, from now to the end of time.

* Or is it? Look at what TrollTech say here - TT don't want you using Free Qt on inhouse projects, but the GPL says you can. This makes me distrust TrollTech.

Isn't Gnome's own, independent, development near being trifled since Ximian took on? And, then, where does Ximian lead us for Free Desktops?

See this:

The suggested retail price is $99 (U.S.)

In addition to the Bitstream fonts bundled with GNOME 2.2, Ximian Desktop 2 includes MS-Windows compatible fonts from AGFA*, so your applications, documents and web pages look their best. AGFA fonts available only with Ximian Professional Edition - Buy it now!

Access virtually all print, media, audio and video web content with the bundled Adobe Acrobat Reader, Real Audio Real Player, Macromedia Flash Player 6, and Java 2 Run-time Environment. Available only with Ximian Professional Edition - Buy it now!

In my view there are a lot of "By it now"s, being based on a "free desktop". When did a Windows user pay for Acrobat Reader, Real Audio Real Player, or Macromedia Flash Player 6; apart from the fancy versions?

Where is the incentive in opening the gates for Ximian hell here?! Who is duped? Perens?! Aren't Ximian just like any other money drainer?! To me, it sure looks like that. But, as always, I may be wrong again...

Adobe payed for using Qt and they can probably afford it. How many Mexicans can afford Miguel de Icaza's Ximian? 99$ for a desktop(!) with Acrobat Reader, Real Player, and Flash Player?!

How many Mexicans can afford Miguel de Icaza's Ximian, apart from Miguel himself?

Here are some brave words: "Ximian is offering a complete, low-cost productivity solution for Linux." Mike Rogers, VP and General Manager Desktop and Office Productivity Software Sun Microsystems

Hrmmmm... Somehow, my thoughts are in the direction that this LGPL talk is a setup for giving Ximian a get-go start harvesting all the multimillion dollar berries. But, I may be as wrong as many a time before.

Yes, sure: ftp://ftp.ximian.com/pub/xd2/redhat-9-i386. But, the one who has the copyright on the code does set the agenda to a large extent, and that may be what all this is about.

I have no idea who is pushing the LGPL agenda besides Perens, but Ximian seems to me being a likely candidate. Maybe, I should RTFA... ;)

Isn't Gnome's own, independent, development near being trifled since Ximian took on? And, then, where does Ximian lead us for Free Desktops?

See this:

The suggested retail price is $99 (U.S.)

In addition to the Bitstream fonts bundled with GNOME 2.2, Ximian Desktop 2 includes MS-Windows compatible fonts from AGFA*, so your applications, documents and web pages look their best. AGFA fonts available only with Ximian Professional Edition - Buy it now!

Access virtually all print, media, audio and video web content with the bundled Adobe Acrobat Reader, Real Audio Real Player, Macromedia Flash Player 6, and Java 2 Run-time Environment. Available only with Ximian Professional Edition - Buy it now!

In my view there are a lot of "By it now"s, being based on a "free desktop". When did a Windows user pay for Acrobat Reader, Real Audio Real Player, or Macromedia Flash Player 6; apart from the fancy versions?

Where is the incentive in opening the gates for Ximian hell here?! Who is duped? Perens?! Aren't Ximian just like any other money drainer?! To me, it sure looks like that. But, as always, I may be wrong again...

Adobe payed for using Qt and they can probably afford it. How many Mexicans can afford Miguel de Icaza's Ximian? 99$ for a desktop(!) with Acrobat Reader, Real Player, and Flash Player?!

How many Mexicans can afford Miguel de Icaza's Ximian, apart from Miguel himself?

Here are some brave words:
"Ximian is offering a complete, low-cost productivity solution for Linux."
Mike Rogers, VP and General Manager
Desktop and Office Productivity Software
Sun Microsystems

Hrmmmm... Somehow, my thoughts are in the direction that this LGPL talk is a setup for giving Ximian a get-go start harvesting all the multimillion dollar berries. But, I may be as wrong as many a time before.

Yes, sure: ftp://ftp.ximian.com/pub/xd2/redhat-9-i386. But, the one who has the copyright on the code does set the agenda to a large extent, and that may be what all this is about.

I have no idea who is pushing the LGPL agenda besides Perens, but Ximian seems to me being a likely candidate. Maybe, I should RTFA... ;)

In fact ISV's who program for windows are already happily paying for Qt.

> Derived objects, on the other hand, don't seem too useful for GUIs
> so long as you have interfaces or a good implementation of generic
> functions and type inference.

That's where you're wrong, with my apologies for putting it so bluntly.

Derivation is the #1 thing that makes the difference between a good widget set and a bad one, for several reasons.

The major reason is that in any complex application, you'll need custom widgets (entry fields with browsable history, viewing pane with custom repaint, etc). If you have to provide the functionnality by manually appending it to the native widget everywhere it's needed, your LOC (and the potentiality for bugs) explodes. The right way is to derive a self-contained widget from the general case, specialize it for the need once for all, and use it instead of its parent where needed, which only requires adding code in -one- place.

Typical example is KDE's file dialogs, that all derive from a common root, but can be expanded on an as-needed basis (and without even adding bloat since the common logic is in the parent class).

Typical counter-example is the MFC, which are absolutely awful to code against, because they're based on a non-object-oriented framework and have very little extensibility (WinForms is thankfully a major improvement in that regard).

Second important reason is granularity. Derivation allows an API to provide very high-level widgets (text editors, MDI areas...) -and- their lower-level parents, which in turn allows you to use the high-level widget where it's the fitting tool, and derive your own from the parent where it isn't, all the way down to the lower level widgets if they're what you need. Lack of the extensibility derivation offers in an API means your API will either have to remain very low-level, thus requiring you to reinvent higher-level wheels everytime you'll need them, -or- overbloating the API with countless specialized widgets to try to cover most of your needs (that's the MFC approach).

Typical example of why that matters is GTK's handling (or lack thereof) of MDI interfaces. Another saddening example is Gimp 1.3, and the considerable amount of time that has been spent on nothing but interface code rather than actual features.

Third reason is, of course, as you rightfully point out, event handling, which derivation allows to specialize as needed (for instance, tablet XInput events on a drawing widget -- see how Qt does it for a good example) -without- building a dedicated widget from the ground up -or- special-casing against XInput. Once again, Gimp 1.3 and its XInput handling problems are a good example of why it matters.

There are no two ways around it. There is virtually NO pure-C widget API left in existence (if you except GTK, which pays it dearly in LOC and slowness). This is not without reason.

Once again, I'm sorry, but while you're right about event handling, that is a -runtime- issue and pretty much orthogonal to widget development. You'll note, by the way, that Qt provides signals and slots -precisely- so that you don't have to think about that orthogonality in the common cases -- its widgets handle events on their own and emit the appropriate signals as required, which allows you to design your code according to WHAT is to be done in response to something, as opposed to HOW that something happened. Best example is the concept of QAction, which can be triggered from a butten, a menu, a context menu, or a key shortcut. You only have one signal to slot against, regardless of which way that action was triggered.

There, that's it for now. I hope I managed to make it a bit clearer why object orientation is primordial to a good GUI toolkit?

Rosegarden developper Guillaume Laurent has a few interesting thoughts about why he switched from a GTK-based backed to some random object-oriented toolkit, if you'd care for a slightly different point of view on the same topic.

Q: Using the Free Edition, can I make software for internal use in my company/organization?

A: The Qt Free Edition is not intended for such use; it is our policy that when you are using Qt for free, you should in return contribute to the free software community. If you cannot do that, you must get Professional/Enterprise Edition licenses instead.

Note that software developed with Qt Free Edition must be distributed as free/Open Source software; i.e. the receivers must be free to give it to whomever they like. In-house distribution is no exception to this rule, of course.

According to these guys, Qt is distributed under the GPL.

Some people have said that Gnome has an advantage over KDE because you need to buy a licence to make commercial software with QT.

First of all, this is wrong. Read the QT FAQ. Developers can write commercial apps to their hearts content using QT with complete freedom (beer & speech) as long as your apps are GPL'd. Now, if a developer wants to write PROPRIETARY, NON-FREE apps -- programs where the developer keeps the source code secret and does not allow the users to review, change, or share the program or source with others -- well, the developer can do that, but then they need to buy a QT commercial licence from Trolltech.

And what is wrong with that? If a developer refuses to share his source freely with others, why should Trolltech have to share their source with him??!

This kind of licenceing encourages the development of free (as in speech) software (including commercial free software--COMMERCIAL NON-FREE). Isn't advancing free software supposed to be the whole point of userlinux?

And Qt is made by Trolltech.
And Trolltech is part of the Canopy Group.
Which pulls SCO strings.

Gee, trolling about Trolltech. How novel. Okay, before any more people swallow this bait:

Two seconds of googling would show that this is not the case. Look at Trolltech's investors. For crying out loud, Borland owns a bigger stake in Trolltech than Canopy Group, and nearly 2/3 of the stock is owned by employees:

• 64.7% Employees
• 8.3% Borland
• 5.2% Trolltech Foundation
• 4.3% Orkla ASA
• 4.3% Northzone Ventures
• 4.3% Teknoinvest
• 4.1% Canopy Group
• 3.4% Previous employees
• 1.6% SCO Group

Even if every outside investor (including Borland :-) were merely a shell corporation controlled by Canopy, they'd still have nowhere near the votes to influency anything at Trolltech.

http://kde.openoffice.org/ooo-qt/index.html

...The second step in my KDE integration plans was to replace the OOo's VCL layer (GUI toolkit) with its Qt implementation....

...You should have signed Sun's JCA and release your patches both under LGPL and SISSL...

But from TT:

http://www.trolltech.com/developer/faqs/free.html, it gets a lot more complex.

Sun seems to say "DO WHAT YOU WILL IT MUST BE OURS!!!", and Troll Tech is saying "PAY US OR IT IS OPEN!!!"

Which to a shrewd person, maybe the answer simply is OO is dual licensed, so it is both Troll Tech's "open" and Sun's posession.

I need more coffee... or more sleep.

This could accelerate a native Mac port, since Qt has been ported to Mac OS X.

Next, if you think you can do it right and still make money, release your source code. Namesys has done this right, and though they make less money than they would otherwise, if you believe in good karma, they must be basking in it. A somewhat less successful way is to do what Netscape did with Mozilla and Sun did with StarOffice, which is based on OpenOffice -- create an open project, then make and sell a product based on that, possibly with a few added killer features (Netscape had spell checking before Mozilla did).

Even though they've officially discontinued it on the website, you can still download it from their FTP server, as of this writing:

ftp://ftp.trolltech.com/qt/non-commercial/QtWin230 -NonCommercial.exe
ftp://ftp.trolltech.com/qt/non-commercial/QtWin230 -NonCommercial.bz2

Even though they've officially discontinued it on the website, you can still download it from their FTP server, as of this writing:

ftp://ftp.trolltech.com/qt/non-commercial/QtWin230 -NonCommercial.exe
ftp://ftp.trolltech.com/qt/non-commercial/QtWin230 -NonCommercial.bz2

Actually, according to the linked page, "if you write Free software (Open Source software covered by the GPL) you are welcome to download and use the Free Edition of Qt,"...

Actually, if you read what the submitter wrote, he said "free multi-platform" software. OK, I'll grant that X/11 and Mac are "multi-platform", but when those platforms make up ~7% of the market, it's nothing to brag about. Trolltech continues to aggresively deny Qt developers the ability to distribute their works to the vast majority of the computing product. After all, cross-platform Open Source software can't possibly succeed, can it?

...and Trolltech points out that one can buy the current edition of Qt -- seems fair enough.

MSRP of Microsoft Visual C++ .NET Standard Edition: US$109. MSRP of Qt/Windows Professional Edition: US$1550. <sarcasm>Oh, yeah. That's fair.</sarcasm> It's really discriminatory and punitive. And it's still not Open Source. What makes them think that taking the low road like that will convince Windows devlopers to consider Qt?

Look here. Trolltech is not a "Canopy Company". The Canopy Group owns 4.1% of Trolltech shares. Borland owns 8.3%--is Trolltech then a "Borland Company"? The employees own nearly 64.7%--is Trolltech then an "Employee Company"?

Do you see how fucking inane your claim is?

I thought QT was released under the QPL

Qt works on Mac and Windows if you pay the fees, which are hefty.

Not quite. For Mac there is also the QT Free Edition

Canopy owns a whopping 4.1% of the stocks in Trolltech. 64.7% of the company is owned by employees, it is more true to say that Trolltech is owned by Borland (8.3%) than Canopy

Numbers from Trolltech investors page

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with, or stockholder in, SCO, Canopy Group or Trolltech.

theKompany will sell you a version for Windows. The code, however, requires Qt Free Edition. To quote rekallrevealed.org:

Rekall can build to run under Windows, however since this (currently) requires a commercial license for QT, we have not included the windows-specific parts of the code tree.

You can thank Trolltech for that.

Signals and Slots are the metaphor of Qt, yes. And it's true that in order to use the GUI, you have to use the GUI library. It's also true that Qt is written in C++, but Qt apps do not have to be. KDE is an example - every KDE app is a Qt application, but they can be written in C++, C, Python, Perl and other languages. PyQt is quite a nice package. If you think you have to use C++ to program a Qt app, you're sorely mistaken.

Qtopia is also licenced under the same licence scheme as QT, dual licenced under the GPL and QPL. This sceme allows development of open source applications using the GPL and proprietary applications using the QPL after per-developer fees have been payed.

The QPL is a Open Source Inititive certified license. It gives you different rights than the GPL, but it is a very open and friendly license that meets all the OSI criteria. In addition, it's applicable to the full, freely downloadable Qt source. I.e., the QPL is another open source license you can use at no cost to write and distribute your software under, if you happen not to like the GPL.

You're thinking of the commercial license, which allows you to release your software under any license you care to make up. Binary only, EULAs, guarentees and warrantees (which are not allowed under the LGPL), patented algorithms (again, the LGPL does not allow these), etc. If you choose to abandon Open Source, be prepared to pay.

Thirdly in order to port the application to another platform, an activity in-keeping with the Free Software spirit, licence fees must be payed even for an open application.

Wrong. Qt is GPLed. It runs under Windows, OSX and other OSes. Qt for Windows is a different product entirely that has support for DirectX and other Windows specific features. Qt itself, however, runs just dandy on any modern OS, and the community has ported it to experimental and very niche OSes.

It should also be noted, since you're hitting on many of the famous Qt myths that if Trolltech were to go out of business or get bought out, not only will the GPLed code stay with the community, there is the KDE Free Qt Foundation, which mandates that in the event of a buy-out, merger, bankrupty or even lack of prompt releases, the latest codebase immedately reverts to the BSD licence.

--
Evan

The huge difference of QT/Embedded Vs X11/GTK _and_ glib is that QT has an API that an eight y/o could code with. Have you ever tried to make "Hello world" with Xlib?

Commercial developers have to pay to use QT? Big deal, it only means that their commercial margin will be a bit lower. And if they don't want to, they can distribute their software as GPL.

But meanwhile there are lots of free software products hitting the internet instead of the shelves from the non-commercial developers. And guess what, they (the developers) don't need to buy a set of OS+IDE+Embedded tools to do so.

Trolltech people had a propietary development and they set it free, under the GPL license. What else do you want, a box of free donuts with it?

QT/Embedded GPL FAQ

Oh, and I think there is a pretty lot of applications for qt embedded already in the market, that could be another good reason for Motorola, don't you think so?

So, sad day for Linux and Open Source? If you want to be a zealot pray Ximian (now Novell) to work out a full implementation of a GTK Framework for embedded devices.

For a page of fags (and one bitch) go here

Trolltech's shares are currently owned by employees, the Trolltech Foundation and investors, with the following distribution:

Employees 64.7%
Borland 8.3%
Trolltech Foundation 5.2%
Orkla ASA 4.3%
Northzone Ventures 4.3%
Teknoinvest 4.3%
Canopy Group 4.1%
Previous employees 3.4%
SCO Group 1.6%


What do you think?

Source

Davak

I don't think I'll be giving them any money soon.

Disclaimer: I've used wxWindows (in the guise of wxPython) for some years. All this time, I had attributed the general flakiness and unreliablity of the library to the difficulty of doing cross-platform GUI coding.

Then I switched to C++ and Qt. WOW! What an incredible difference. Qt made C++ usable, and its crossplatform support was actually *supported*. Imagine that. Qt works great under Windows and Unix, the only platforms that 99% of us have to deal with. And its free. As in LGPL. Qt made GUI programming fun and easy. So go download, check the tutorials, and realize just how great GUI programming with C++ can be ;)

Qtopia Phone Edition is likely to appear on a phone soon.

The Motorola A760 is using Linux/Qt, not Qtopia Phone Edition, but it's basically the same thing.

You say Linux/Qt needs a lot of work to become as functional and polished as Symbian, so I'm assuming you have used one of these phones as it's the only one around that uses Linux and Qt so far. What's it like? I haven't found any reviews yet.

Rik

Qtopia Phone Edition is likely to appear on a phone soon.

The Motorola A760 is using Linux/Qt, not Qtopia Phone Edition, but it's basically the same thing.

You say Linux/Qt needs a lot of work to become as functional and polished as Symbian, so I'm assuming you have used one of these phones as it's the only one around that uses Linux and Qt so far. What's it like? I haven't found any reviews yet.

Rik

Ok, now I know: faq

Additionally, Motorolas choice of Qt/Embedded for the A760 opens the way to a vibrant 3rd party developer community. There are already thousands of existing mobile applications created for Trolltechs platform, all of which can be ported to the A760.

of course it uses QT and not this crappy Gtk stuff...

see trolltechs pressrelease

The closest Trolltech ever came to a Free version of Qt for Windows was Qt 2.3 Non-Commercial Edition for Windows. It was binary-only (for obvious reasons), there was no official TT support, and the license was not compatible with most (if not all) OSI licenses. Trolltech suggested that developers include an exception clause if their License Of Choice allowed it.

Of course, some cheap rat-bastards decided to piss in the pool and use the Non-Comm version for closed-source commercial software, and TT caught them violating the license. Once burned, twice shy, so there's no 3.x version, now or probably ever. And without source or support, the 2.3 version is pretty much abandonware.

Yeah, we all know the GPL sucks! Lets get rid of it.

...the privaty equity firm that is the controlling shareholder of SCO (I forget its name) managed to persuade another investor of the likelihood of a multimillior dollar settlement from big names.

The name you're looking for is the Canopy Group.

The /. crowd is generally unable to affect stock prices, but if we (a) start a campaign to hurt SCO sales and, even better (b) isolate the leading shareholders of SCO, figure out what other business interests they have, and boycott the whole lot of them, we're likely to have justice prevail.

Here's a list of the Canopy Group's portfolio companies, including some that should know better and might be encouraged put some pressure on their investors to stop this nonsense. Do you do business with these companies or recommend their products? If suing their partners and customers is just part of "the Canopy Way" should you or your company worry about litigation from them next? If you're an investor or employee and Canopy loses, should you worry about your stocks or your job? Maybe it's time to start the "reverse slashdot effect."

Altiris
Axiom Press
Center7/Inc.
Cerberian
Cogitoinc
Communitect
Data Crystal
Devicelogics
DirectPointe
Fat Pipe
Geolux
helius
homepipeline
iArchives
Industrial Training Zone
LearningOptics
Linux Network
luxul
MaxStream
Mi-Co
mti
MyFamily.com
Perimeter Labs
PlanetEarthTools
Power Innovations
SCO/Caldera
Trolltech
Tuglet
viawest
Wrenchhead

The Freedom referred to in Free Software is freedom for the software under the GPL. Because of the license, the Software has gained Freedom from being exploited in a commercial sense. It is Free from the possibility of being exploited for personal gain of a company.

Not strictly true, the copyright holder may dual-license their software under the GPL and a traditional closed-source license. Examples are TrollTech who dual-license QT for Linux and MySQL AB who dual-license their database products. Of course, it's the copyright holder who gets to decide whether to dual-license their software or not.

The last few times I've installed djbdns, all I've had to do was type in emerge djbdns, go away for a few minutes, come back, and start adding data.

emerge: Bad command or file name. Installing and configuring Gentoo Linux on a production system is not always an option.

Distribute an unmodified tarball, along with whatever patches you want to apply

Applying a patch to a copyrighted program prepares a derivative work of that program. Will it be lawful under all nations' copyright laws for end users of DJB's programs to apply such patches, compile the patched programs, and run the compiled binaries? Though DJB claims that 17 USC 117 seems to allow this, not all U.S. district court judges interpret section 117 the same way, and not all jurisdictions have adopted corresponding legislation. Until DJB explains the specific terms for distribution of patches to his software (Trolltech's QPL might suit his liking), distributing patches will remain only quasi-lawful in many cases.

IMPORTANT NOTE FOR KDE USERS: The Canopy group is a major part owner of TrollTech...

64.7% Employees
8.3% Borland
5.2% Trolltech Foundation
4.3% Orkla ASA
4.3% Northzone Ventures
4.3% Teknoinvest
4.1% Canopy Group
3.4% Previous employees
1.6% SCO Group

Canopy happens to be big investors in Trolltech, the makers of QT.