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Given that the Trolltech GPL exception applies to more licenses than just the GPL, including the Apache License (see: http://doc.trolltech.com/main-snapshot/license-gpl-exceptions.html), yes it is legal.

Out of curiosity have you tried asking for an OS X or Linux port of Blackthorne? If others have the same bottleneck for upgrading, it can be possible to show demand, or at worst pool resources and get WINE or Cedega to support it. Tools built with normal cross-platform languages like Java, C, C++ and so on can use cross-platform GUI toolkits like Qt and GTK+

Alternately, what is the one thing that Blackthorne does that similar tools don't? (Aside from you have it installed already and are presumably familiar with it.) Maybe there's a new tool or new version of an old tool that scratches that itch.

Thanks for adding some clarity to my comment.

I agree that the core libs are a port, as there are a serious amount changes under the hood. Do you consider an application a port if no code changes occur and it builds and runs using the native widgets in an OS?

Recent versions of QT use the native widgets for Mac [1] without changes. There are always cases where an application taken from the Windows centric UI style (KDE, Win32) to OSX might need some extra code to make it look more OSXy, but QT at least tries to give you a leg up.

I think there is a middle ground between the high expectations I set, and the rather grim picture painted by yourself.

[1] http://doc.trolltech.com/4.4/qtmac-as-native.html

>> There is a philosophy in computer science that classes should be kept as simple as possible, and that utilities unrelated to the basic maintenance of the class should be relegated to separate functions.

In computer science? Not really. Anyway, defining "as simple as possible" is impossible.

>> I can do anything with an STL container that I can with a Qt container;

I can do anything with assembly that you can do with an STL container. That's not the point. The point is that things can be done more easily and in less lines of code with a more convenient API.

>> I just use free functions that can operate on any container rather than bloating the class with unnecessary functionality that then needs to be duplicated for other container types.

Qt containers are STL compatible, so you can use stl algorithms on them. Of course, there is a QtAlgorithms module which contains a lower_bound function. http://doc.trolltech.com/4.3/qtalgorithms.html#qLowerBound

>> I appreciate Qt's motivation for creating their own containers but STL really is a more consistent and rigorously documented paradigm (try finding the timing constraints on any of their functions)

Overall I find that Qt's docs are much better organized than any stl source I've found. Hell there's a dedicated app to browse and search the Qt docs which is insanely useful. I agree that in some cases I would like more information about algorithmic complexity, but if you look at the sort functions on that QtAlgorithms page, it does tell you that where it's important.

Also they have the information about the algorithmic complexity of the operations on Qt container classes.
http://doc.trolltech.com/4.3/containers.html#algorithmic-complexity

>> There is a philosophy in computer science that classes should be kept as simple as possible, and that utilities unrelated to the basic maintenance of the class should be relegated to separate functions.

In computer science? Not really. Anyway, defining "as simple as possible" is impossible.

>> I can do anything with an STL container that I can with a Qt container;

I can do anything with assembly that you can do with an STL container. That's not the point. The point is that things can be done more easily and in less lines of code with a more convenient API.

>> I just use free functions that can operate on any container rather than bloating the class with unnecessary functionality that then needs to be duplicated for other container types.

Qt containers are STL compatible, so you can use stl algorithms on them. Of course, there is a QtAlgorithms module which contains a lower_bound function. http://doc.trolltech.com/4.3/qtalgorithms.html#qLowerBound

>> I appreciate Qt's motivation for creating their own containers but STL really is a more consistent and rigorously documented paradigm (try finding the timing constraints on any of their functions)

Overall I find that Qt's docs are much better organized than any stl source I've found. Hell there's a dedicated app to browse and search the Qt docs which is insanely useful. I agree that in some cases I would like more information about algorithmic complexity, but if you look at the sort functions on that QtAlgorithms page, it does tell you that where it's important.

Also they have the information about the algorithmic complexity of the operations on Qt container classes.
http://doc.trolltech.com/4.3/containers.html#algorithmic-complexity

I'd like to try Qt, I reall would. But I only have Visual C++ Express Edition available to me at home, and there seems to be conflicting information as to whether Qt will support VC++ Express.

First there were a bunch of postings indicating that it would.

But then, when you check the Qt download page, you're told that "Please note that the Open Source Edition of Qt will support the MinGW compiler".

So which is it?

There are some guides to getting it working, but they appear to involve strange nonstandard patches, and a whole bunch of manual configuration - frankly, it's all just too much damn work. I may only qualify as a hobbyist programmer at home, but my time is still precious.

The irony is that, because Visual C++ Express doesn't come with MFC, there appears to be a gap in the market for a C++ windowing library for hobbyist Windows programmers. And who knows, if I like Qt at home, I may end up recommending buying it at work.

I'd like to try Qt, I reall would. But I only have Visual C++ Express Edition available to me at home, and there seems to be conflicting information as to whether Qt will support VC++ Express.

First there were a bunch of postings indicating that it would.

But then, when you check the Qt download page, you're told that "Please note that the Open Source Edition of Qt will support the MinGW compiler".

So which is it?

There are some guides to getting it working, but they appear to involve strange nonstandard patches, and a whole bunch of manual configuration - frankly, it's all just too much damn work. I may only qualify as a hobbyist programmer at home, but my time is still precious.

The irony is that, because Visual C++ Express doesn't come with MFC, there appears to be a gap in the market for a C++ windowing library for hobbyist Windows programmers. And who knows, if I like Qt at home, I may end up recommending buying it at work.

Just as a side note, since this isn't known enough: If you're going to use the open source version of Qt, you're not required to use the GPL and only the GPL. Trolltech grants a broad license exception that allows the use of about two dozen other open source licenses, among them all the popular ones, such as LGPL, BSD, X11, Eclipse, Apache, Mozilla. See: http://trolltech.com/products/qt/gplexception/

There is an initial port of gtk+ to Mac OS X (and an older, less complete port: gtk+osx). The Java toolkits run on OS X. Tk supports OS X natively (according to this -- I can't say I've ever come across a Tcl/Tk script on a Mac). There might be others.

wxWindows is just a wrapper around the Mac APIs, so it shoudn't be ugly.

As far as non-native toolkits go, I think qt actually looks pretty good under OS X. Here's a good link: Qt/Mac is Mac OS X Native

You can see Ars Technica's writeup on the Cocoa port of QT4 for more information on how they've actually done so far.

The Cocoa API is also being unofficially open-source ported to other platforms (most actively Windows platforms) through the intriguing Cocotron project. It's still a work-in-progress, mind you.

Every portable API uses Carbon, not because of high-level vs. low-level, but because Carbon can be easily integrated with existing C/C++ code, whereas Cocoa requires a little more effort. Carbon provides what a lot of Mac users consider a sub-standard experience, and worse integration, but for most people porting their apps to Mac, they rarely know or care.

In OS X, there's not a lot of 'communication' that needs to be done to make the window 'less blank', though I'm not sure exactly what that means. You can put together a UI in Interface Builder, put your code into XCode and add whatever the Mac port needs, compile it together, and off you go.

You can write most of your app in C++, write the GUI-management code in Obj-C (or Obj-C++), and then glue it all together with Obj-C++.

Adobe should port Photoshop to use Trolltech QT. They already use it in Photoshop Elements since 2003.
http://trolltech.com/company/newsroom/announcements/00000120/
http://trolltech.com/customers/allcustomers/adobe/

It also has the advantage of working on Windows and Linux with little or no changes.

Adobe should port Photoshop to use Trolltech QT. They already use it in Photoshop Elements since 2003.
http://trolltech.com/company/newsroom/announcements/00000120/
http://trolltech.com/customers/allcustomers/adobe/

It also has the advantage of working on Windows and Linux with little or no changes.

Looks like you didn't even bother to check out Jambi. I've never heard of it before but it appears to be an implementation of QT for Java.
Only Java is required and it's completely platform independent, no separate installers for different operating systems as you claimed. Check out the demo: http://dist.trolltech.com/developer/download/webstart/index.html.

That's more than a generalization, that's just incorrect. Java makes use of GUI Toolkits just like many other languages. Just this morning I was taking a look at Jambi.

I'd disagree on pointers and references. If you pass something in by reference, you need to know it goes in there by reference, it's not visible in the calling code. If something's not visible - well, that's a bug just waiting to crawl in there. If you pass something by pointer, the calling code shows it clearly and you know that whatever was passed is likely to be changed by the called function. That's the rationale used by Trolltech and it is quite convincing to me.

Besides, using char * is a must sometimes, when using C libraries that accept, modify and return strings or just some chunks of arbitrary data as char *.

Except you shouldn't be writing code in C++ either, you should be writing it in a higher-level language like Python

I dunno.. I've never used Python for anything big, but I just like C++ pretty well. It's fast, and statically typed, which I think is important for anything large. I haven't really liked any apps written in python, mostly for their memory usage. I don't mind it if the apps are things I use rarely, but everything that's running constantly I want to be native (for example, I quickly replaced the power manager in kubuntu which was python based with kpowersave and cut the memory usage of it down quite a bit).

I really wish I could find something as polished as glade3 for KDE that I can use in Python.

Can't you use designer with python? Never used glade3 so I dont know how it compares.

Also, GTK+ is LGPL-licensed, but Qt is GPL2 licensed, so programming for GNOME doesn't tie you to whichever version of the GPL that TrollTech likes this week.

Actually, Qt 4.3.4 can be used with the GPLV2 or GPLV3, as well as a boatload of other licenses as documented here: http://trolltech.com/products/qt/gplexception

Judging from some of the activity here, that's probably not a serious question. But let's pretend it is. However, a lot of little Bill fans will get their feelings hurt.

Bill's toy bag is just that, a toy bag, that what little it does is on and for Windows -- only. And it's near a few decades late in coming. A comprehensive answer could go on for pages if you start to include various languages like Java, Python, Perl, C, and Ada. or Tomcat, Lenya, Swish, and many others staples. That's not even counting PHP and PHP-based kit, CPAN and others.

However the press release does not say what the MS "tools" do or, more correctly, claim to do. Students would be more employable playing WoW. For those that have been living in a cave for the last 15 years here's a recap of the main professional tools you will find in industry. There are others, but they're mostly open source, too, except a few big items like Oracle and DB2. None are MS.

IDEs

• Netbeans
• Eclipse
• Emacs - it's underrated
• Kdevelop - it's also underrated

Databases

• MySQL (now Sun)
• Postgresql

GUI toolkits

• Qt (now Nokia)
• GTK+
• wxWidgets

MS has held back computing far too long. The sooner it gets out of the way, the sooner both business and research can get back on track. Bill and his anti-American movement can go take a hike, there's no place for either MS or MS boosters in today's economy.

Let's pretend that's a serious question. Well, the press release does not say what the "tools" do. However, for those that have been living in a cave for the last 15 years here's a recap of the main professional tools you will find in industry. There are others, but they're open source, too, except a few big items like Oracle and DB2.

IDEs

• Netbeans
• Eclipse
• Emacs - it's underrated

Databases

• MySQL
• Postgresql

GUI toolkits

• Qt
• GTK+
• wxWidgets

The list could go on for pages if you start to include various languages like Java, Python, Perl, C, and Ada. or Tomcat, Lenya, Swish, and many others staples. That's not even counting PHP and PHP-based kit. Bill's toy bag is just that, a toy bag, that what little it does is on and for Windows. And it's near a few decades late in coming.

MS has held back computing far too long. The sooner it gets out of the way, the sooner both business and research can get back on track. Bill and his anti-American movement can go take a hike, there's no place for them.

You must be daft. Apparently you are to anxious to plug your own agenda rather than actually listening. Qtopia has been around longer than you obviously realize. I ran it on my 200 mhz ARM Zaurus PDA... fast/complete as you could want.

Here's what frustrates me about QT: You have to know what license you are going to use before you write any code. If you download the free version of their library and start writing code, that code can never be part of the same product as the proprietary version of their library, even if you never distribute the code until you purchase a proprietary license. So if there is the remotest chance that your application is going to be proprietary or dual-license, then you must get a proprietary QT license before writing a line of QT-using code.

I understand that if they didn't do this, people would develop proprietary applications internally, then only purchase a proprietary license when they were ready to release. But it seems wrong to me that they effectively put restrictions on your unreleased code; other dual-license companies (like MySQL and Sleepycat, given as examples by TrollTech itself) do not make such restrictions, so it's not clear to me that this choice is benefiting TrollTech. There is some irony in the fact that it is more legal to prototype your undecided-licence QT application internally either using free GTK or "free" Microsoft UIs than it is to prototype using the free version of QT itself.

Agreed, Microsoft makes good development tools. And a powerful GUI designer helps if you need to create some dialogs fast.

I think you missed some OSS solutions though, judging from your wx reference. Take a look at this Qt demo video (yay, no reading!), and compare it with the VS.Net solutions. There is a reason KDE has so many apps, Qt makes it possible to develop applications just as fast and customers drool over the API's. ;-)

How will this affect Trolltech's relation to the OpenMoko project?

http://trolltech.com/company/newsroom/announcements/press.2007-09-17.9260755578/

http://trolltech.com/company/newsroom/announcements/press.2007-10-21.0880321862/

How will this affect Trolltech's relation to the OpenMoko project?

http://trolltech.com/company/newsroom/announcements/press.2007-09-17.9260755578/

http://trolltech.com/company/newsroom/announcements/press.2007-10-21.0880321862/

Take a look at the Qt Interest newsgroup and the Qt Labs blog.

Forking hell...

Take a look at the Qt Interest newsgroup and the Qt Labs blog.

Forking hell...

The QT libraries are supposed to be licensed under GPL3 (see Trolltech ) and KDE and anyone else for that matter can use them so if a court case is held it is going to be very interesting.

Even if the QT libraries are under GPL3 this still does not stop propriety and even closed source software from using them and remaining proprietary. Of course if you or Nokia modify the QT libraries the changes must be made available as per what the GPL3 requires. This still allows Nokia to provide paid support which is no different from what Trolltech does already.

See the following article for an interesting slant on why Nokia purchased Trolltech Businessweek .

You're trying to create a controversy where none exists.

The essence of your argument is "Microsoft or $PROPRIETARY_TOOLKIT_VENDOR has a single licensing model, regardless of what you plan to do with the software, while Trolltech has a flexible licensing model (if you want to write Free/Open Source software, you can use GPL QT; if you want to write proprietary software, you need to buy a QT license), and therefore $PROPRIETARY_TOOLKIT_VENDOR is superior." That holds about as much water as a sieve.

It also claims that "Trolltech's current licensing scheme attempts to set them up as the toll collector for software development on Linux." That is simply untrue. Trolltech's licensing scheme goes like this:

-If you want to write proprietary software, you need to buy a proprietary license. There are no runtime fees, royalties, or other costs for desktop systems.
-If you want to write Free/Open Source, you can use GPL QT.
-If you're doing embedded systems development, you may need distribution license

For further reading: http://trolltech.com/products/qt/licenses/licensing/qtlicensing

None of this is in any way different from what you get with other proprietary toolkits or compilers, with the exception that Free software developers have the option of using GPL QT. Neither Microsoft nor any other proprietary vendor that I'm aware of even offer you the option of using their toolkit for free if you want to write [Ff]ree software, let alone offering you their toolkit under the GPL.

People who use QT to write proprietary software for Linux (does anyone do that at all, let alone successfully?) are not up the creek and aren't going to be. Why do you think Nokia bought Trolltech? Number one reason: They won't need to buy licenses for embedded development, but any Nokia competitor that uses QT will still have to. Advantage Nokia.

The overwhelming majority of QT development is done on Linux, is done as FOSS (and is mostly KDE apps), so the acquisition of Trolltech by Nokia is going to mean absolutely nothing to any desktop systems developers, regardless of whether they are writing Free of proprietary software.

The bottom line is that it's going to be business as usual for anyone using QT to develop FOSS desktop apps, and it's going to be business as usual for anyone using QT to develop proprietary apps. I don't expect to see anything change for embedded development either. If Nokia made it a PITA for embedded developers to continue using QT, they'd just all drop it for something else, and that would not be in Nokia's best interests.

However, even if it did inconvenience proprietary developers on Linux (or other platforms), so what? The central goal of the FOSS movement is to encourage more Free software, not to encourage more proprietary software. GTK has nothing over QT in that area; it's not even as good as QT in that area. GTK does nothing to encourage Free licensing other than to be [Ff]ree itself. QT, on the other hand, may tend to encourage Free licensing by saying "If you don't want to use a FOSS license, you have to pay us for QT."

Ok, so copy paste isn't at all that easy... This is the url that should have been in there: http://trolltech.com/28012008/28012008-opensourceletter

Can be found here: http://trolltech.com/28012008/28012008

I assume that over the next day or two an official announcement will be made about Nokia's intentions for the Qt licensing.

Seems like they really want to give the impression they don't intend to screw anyone over. Time will tell.

This being Slashdot, the summary's pretty light on details like for example what will happen to KDE and Qt's relationship with Free Software at large. Well, there is an open letter to the community, so you can read it here. The letter's pretty encouraging insofar as it reaffirms the Qt team's commitment to the current symbiosis, and it says that Nokia is going to become a "Patron of KDE"(TM). Additionally, the Free Qt Foundation offers protection in case a buyout turns things nasty.

Having said all of the above, I can't help but remain a bit concerned about this turn of events. I was under the impression that Nokia have a rather tarnished reputation in the eyes of the Free Software world, since they seem to be pro-patents for software and there was that opposition from them concerning Ogg Vorbis as a web standard or something. Things like this make me worry. On the other hand, it seems like there is still a large gap between the cultures of proprietary software and free software, and maybe Nokia will gain a more balanced standpoint by getting involved with GPL projects like Qt. Ah well, I suppose we'll have to see how things turn out, but I don't really think a project the size of KDE can be killed so easily as this.

Some other people have remarked that it's interesting that Nokia should acquire Qt, seeing as how they use GTK in a few of their products. It seems fine to me though - I reckon heterogeny is a pretty big part of what Free Software is all about.

If only IBM would buy Trolltech, switch QT to the LGPL and open up another, perhaps more viable, option.

Sadly, this is not true. The underlying GUI toolkit is Qt which is not based on Cocoa yet.

At least in my experience Java programs are not so slow as they used to be. Have you tried using a newer VM? When it comes to looking out of place you are referring to Swing. You can use other GUI toolkits. Even QT. It's called Jambi.

Technically, this violates QT's license. Yes I could do it if I was willing to knowingly violate their license. I'm not.

Take a look at their license, which nobody seems willing to do: http://trolltech.com/products/qt/licenses/licensing/qtlicensing

"You must purchase a Qt Commercial License from Trolltech or from any of its authorized resellers before you start developing proprietary software. The Commercial license does not allow the incorporation of code developed with the Open Source Edition of Qt into a proprietary product."

So, in fact, any project which did it that way was breaking Trolltech's license agreement. This is not something I'm willing to do.

From http://trolltech.com/company/about/businessmodel:

"Please note that it is necessary to choose either the Open Source or Commercial license at the outset of development. Trolltech's commercial license terms do not allow you to start developing proprietary software using the Open Source edition."

and from http://trolltech.com/developer/knowledgebase/182/:

"Can we use the Open Source Edition while developing our non-opensource application and then purchase commercial licenses when we start to sell it?

Answer:
No. Our commercial license agreements only apply to software that was developed with Qt under the commercial license agreement. They do not apply to code that was developed with the Qt Open Source Edition prior to the agreement. Any software developed with Qt without a commercial license agreement must be released as Open Source software."

From http://trolltech.com/company/about/businessmodel:

"Please note that it is necessary to choose either the Open Source or Commercial license at the outset of development. Trolltech's commercial license terms do not allow you to start developing proprietary software using the Open Source edition."

and from http://trolltech.com/developer/knowledgebase/182/:

"Can we use the Open Source Edition while developing our non-opensource application and then purchase commercial licenses when we start to sell it?

Answer:
No. Our commercial license agreements only apply to software that was developed with Qt under the commercial license agreement. They do not apply to code that was developed with the Qt Open Source Edition prior to the agreement. Any software developed with Qt without a commercial license agreement must be released as Open Source software."

Qt is now GPLv2 + GPLv3 + commercial + QPL (in the case of the X11 version) + any future GPL version as publicly accepted by Trolltech and the Free Qt Foundation. Additionally your own code can be under one of various licenses as stated in Trolltechs gpl exception.

Qt is now GPLv2 + GPLv3 + commercial + QPL (in the case of the X11 version) + any future GPL version as publicly accepted by Trolltech and the Free Qt Foundation. Additionally your own code can be under one of various licenses as stated in Trolltechs gpl exception.

Qt is now GPLv2 + GPLv3 + commercial + QPL (in the case of the X11 version) + any future GPL version as publicly accepted by Trolltech and the Free Qt Foundation. Additionally your own code can be under one of various licenses as stated in Trolltechs gpl exception.

The EPL is already in Trolltech's license exceptions, so such a thing would have been possible before. Well, since August, as a quick Googling suggests that's when it was added.

Not a valid point any longer: since Qt 4.3 Trolltech has added a so-called "GPL Exception". Basically, they have listed plenty of licenses, such as MIT and Apache, that you can legally use in your project while linking against the GPL-licensed version of Qt. Here: http://doc.trolltech.com/4.3/license-gpl-exceptions.html/

( -1, RTFA )

Qt is now triple-licensed :

So, I hope your fears are thoroughly allayed, and you can go about your business today with piece of mind that at least on commercial software vendor understands your software licensing worries.

You must purchase a Qt Commercial License from Trolltech or from any of its authorized resellers before you start developing proprietary software. The Commercial license does not allow the incorporation of code developed with the Open Source Edition of Qt into a proprietary product.

Well Java language bindings are officially supported: http://trolltech.com/products/qt/jambi
Also python is very well maintained: http://www.riverbankcomputing.co.uk/pyqt/
And you can do a lot of scripting with QtScript.