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Your argument is invalid. See http://doc.trolltech.com/4.3/license-gpl-exceptions.html.

Academic Free License 2.0, 2.1, 3.0 Apache Software License 1.0 or 1.1 Apache License 2.0 Apple Public Source License 2.0 Artistic license From Perl 5.8.0 BSD license "July 22 1999" Common Public License 1.0 Eclipse Public License 1.0 GNU Library or "Lesser" General Public License (LGPL) 2.0 or 2.1 Jabber Open Source License 1.0 MIT License (as set forth in the addendum file) Mozilla Public License (MPL) 1.0 or 1.1 Open Software License 2.0, 3.0 OpenSSL license (with original SSLeay license) "2003" ("1998") PHP License 3.0 Python license (CNRI Python License) (as set forth in the addendum file) Python Software Foundation License 2.1.1 Q Public License v1.0 Sleepycat License "1999" W3C License "2001" X11 License X11R6.6 Zlib/libpng License (as set forth in the addendum file) Zope Public License 2.0, 2.1

The press statement says:
  Qt is already available under the GPL v2 and will continue to be so in addition to the GPL v3.

Let's face facts, there is tons of software that is not on Linux that people want. How much longer is the Linux community going to ignore this fact?

WTF?

Maybe you've heard of VMWare?

Or, perhaps, Wine?

Or maybe you've noticed that software like Open Office and FireFox is cross platform, running on Win/Mac/Linux ? Toolkits such as GTK Java, Flash and QT allow for easy, straightforward cross-platform development?

Or, perhaps, that there's a whole operating system being put together utilizing all these parts?

Get your head out from under that rock! (or is it... Mom's basement?)

You can use your QT skills in Java with Trolltech's QT Jambihttp://trolltech.com/products/qt/jambi libraries. I haven't tried them myself, but the feature set looks pretty good.

Qt no longer requires that your open source application be GPL'd to link with it. You can use it with many other open source licenses, as listed on their website.

And I never will again. He's as bad as the people he is criticizing, if not worse. He does exactly what he accuses the "Microsoft shills" of doing. From another article on the site: "I explained that he could just drag the application to the trash, and that in the Mac OS there are no DLL files to worry about."

Riiight. Mac OS doesn't have libraries. There are no possible library mismatch issues on Mac OS. Okay, buddy, whatever."

Not sure about the C++ problems you mention, but in Python there is Kamaelia and a dozen of other libraries targeted for creating scalable parallel systems.

Btw. an earlier post mentions the upcoming QT concurrency framework - if Trolltech is able to pull this out on all C++ platforms they support, then it kind of justifies Stroustrup's position, isn't it?

Full disclosure: I am a Qt Developer (user) I do not work for TrollTech

The new Qt4.4 (due 1Q2008) has QtConcurrent, a set of classes that make multi-core processing trivial.

From the docs:

The QtConcurrent namespace provides high-level APIs that make it possible to write multi-threaded programs without using low-level threading primitives such as mutexes, read-write locks, wait conditions, or semaphores. Programs written with QtConcurrent automaticallly adjust the number of threads used according to the number of processor cores available. This means that applications written today will continue to scale when deployed on multi-core systems in the future.

QtConcurrent includes functional programming style APIs for parallel list prosessing, including a MapReduce and FilterReduce implementation for shared-memory (non-distributed) systems, and classes for managing asynchronous computations in GUI applications:

        * QtConcurrent::map() applies a function to every item in a container, modifying the items in-place.
        * QtConcurrent::mapped() is like map(), except that it returns a new container with the modifications.
        * QtConcurrent::mappedReduced() is like mapped(), except that the modified results are reduced or folded into a single result.
        * QtConcurrent::filter() removes all items from a container based on the result of a filter function.
        * QtConcurrent::filtered() is like filter(), except that it returns a new container with the filtered results.
        * QtConcurrent::filteredReduced() is like filtered(), except that the filtered results are reduced or folded into a single result.
        * QtConcurrent::run() runs a function in another thread.
        * QFuture represents the result of an asynchronous computation.
        * QFutureIterator allows iterating through results available via QFuture.
        * QFutureWatcher allows monitoring a QFuture using signals-and-slots.
        * QFutureSynchronizer is a convenience class that automatically synchronizes several QFutures.
        * QRunnable is an abstract class representing a runnable object.
        * QThreadPool manages a pool of threads that run QRunnable objects.

This makes multi-core programming almost a no-brainer.

Check out QT Jambi. It's basically a port of QT4 to Java (done by Trolltech) using the QT libraries as the native backend to the Java classes. Combined with Java Web Start you've got pretty much what you're asking about. Licensing for QT 4 and Jambi is free for Open Source apps.

It is still impossible to write a BSD-licensed application using Qt.

>It's damn near impossible to find a Qt based program on Windows, and that's surely a roadblock to adoption, since if I can write an app that uses Qt on >Windows, moving to Linux would be easier. But you'd rather just insult the Windows users instead.

Wrong, http://trolltech.com/downloads/opensource/, look there I can see Windoze downloads! Better start programming! :-)

GP was saying, amongst all the hyperbole, that some developers rather run a pirated version of Visual Studio than pay for a development-license for Qt. Which sadly is true even for commercial shops, for who it shouldn't matter.

Qt from a programmer's point of view is a lot better than MFC, which is a horrible toolkit that looks like it's from the stone age. For example you have to hack the classes to add stupid stuff a tooltip on top of an edit box. It hasn't been updated or changed in like forever. I never understood why Qt didn't manage to break the MFC monopoly. Oh well, crap always wins. That's why so many people use Windoze.

KDE is being re-licensed to GPL 3+ as we speak. See the draft licensing policy. Once that is near completion, it is likely that Qt will also be relicensed to GPL 3 since Trolltech has proven to be receptive to the idea.

Do you really believe that C# is more portable than C++?

The only thing that gives it even a hint of appearing to be cross platform is that you're writing using a standard library (the .net api). Such libraries already exist in C++ and have for some time.

C# does not run as well on any other platform as it does on Windows - just a fact. Winforms support is still heavily lacking, etc. I can guarantee it never will, either. .NET is said to be a move towards a cross-platform development stack because Microsoft badly needs to maintain the image of 'playing nice' so they won't get the legal smackdown again, but it never will be fully compatible. Microsoft wants it that way.

The finished product, expected within months, will unabashedly favor Google applications and services. "What's being developed is unlikely to be easily transportable to Yahoo (YHOO) and other (service) providers," says Morgan Gillis, executive director of the LiMo Foundation

Consumers are potentially the biggest beneficiaries. Currently, many cellphone carriers limit the services and applications that their customers can use.

>>Er, Isn't this what Linux is about? I

Yes, I was wondering when someone will mention TrollTech's QTopia Green Phone:

    http://trolltech.com/products/qtopia/greenphone

There seems to be some interesting overlap between the gPhone and the Green Phone.

WTF are you talking about? What parts of KDE (the base libraries, the desktop environment or the applications) are "owned" by Trolltech? KDE uses Trolltech's Qt toolkit that is LICENSED UNDER THE GPL and (in version 4) ON ALL SUPPORTED PLATFORMS (unless you're interested in a proprietary license, you can buy one from them too) So learn the facts before you troll or shut the fuck up.

WTF are you talking about? What parts of KDE (the base libraries, the desktop environment or the applications) are "owned" by Trolltech? KDE uses Trolltech's Qt toolkit that is LICENSED UNDER THE GPL and (in version 4) ON ALL SUPPORTED PLATFORMS (unless you're interested in a proprietary license, you can buy one from them too) So learn the facts before you troll or shut the fuck up.

• GNOME http://library.gnome.org/devel/glib/stable/glib-Perl-compatible-regular-expressions.html
• Qt http://doc.trolltech.com/4.3/qregexp.html
• WxWindows http://www.wxwidgets.org/manuals/stable/wx_wxregex.html
• .Net http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.text.regularexpressions.aspx
• Java http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/api/java/util/regex/package-summary.html

I think being open for development isn't enough, you also need to spend a couple $100 million or so in marketing...

Unfortunately, it looks Qtarded.

Yep. Here is the web page: http://www.linuxjournal.com/issue/162 and Trolltech's web site:

http://trolltech.com/products/qtopia/greenphone/index

QTopia based Linux phones/PDA's are already able to sync with QTopia Desktop under Linux, Windows & MAC. Admittedly I don't know of many QTopia based phones out there; search through here if you are interested enough : http://www.linuxdevices.com/ Also check out the QTopia Greenphone: http://trolltech.com/products/qtopia/greenphone

I think it's great that OpenMoko is embracing FOSS, and the Neo 1973 looks even more promising now that Qtopia Phone Edition will run on it. However, I'm looking forward to a more-likely candidate for an "iPhone killer", the Meizu M8...that is if there's some way I can run a FOSS OS on it...anyone know about something like that in the works?

And a little bit of research is a little different to posting to Slashdot, isn't it?

FWIW http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Supported_Hardware. Of course, on any platform, it's clearly WIP.

In any case, the Greenphone is way too expensive to purchase for personal use:

http://trolltech.com/products/qtopia/greenphone/greenphone_pricing ($695)

The user version of the Neo will be around $450 or so - still pricey - but I might be able to justify it. I'm still considering one of the iPhone clones (Cect P168 et al at $160 or so), despite some of their nastiness (including being nothing to do with Linux). Either way, I'd only make $5 of calls per month.

Personally I find this announcement much more interesting and relevant to the goal of getting Linux on the mobiles. In short: Trolltech has made available the telephony service, DRM and SaX available under GPLv2, thus making Qtopia Phone edition completely free. Besides, they have ported Qtopia to Neo 1973. This is most certainly very good news!

Is the engine on GIMP seperate from GUI? If not, being Carbon on Leopard MAY MEAN (not essentially) 32bit,not 64 bit. On image manipulation programs it is big deal , one may need to work on 39 mpixel Leica image you know. The only maxed up (16GB) Quad G5 I saw was in use in professional photography.

http://www.carbondev.com/site/?page=64-bit+Carbon

Trolltech (Qt) is rewriting Qt in Cocoa for that reason.
http://trolltech.com/company/newsroom/announcements/press.2007-06-19.6756913411

There are lots of professional apps using WxWidgets so I bet they are working on it too. E.g. Vuescan, almost the standard on professional image scanning is using WxWidgets.

Also if you aren't on OS X developer scene, you might not know, Carbon vs Cocoa is almost a religious fight so there are lots of misinformation, e.g. Carbon isn't removed from Leopard, it is just lacking some features because of 64bit OS as far as I could understand as user.

There's Qt Jambi for you: here. Seriously, Qt is plainly the best toolkit around, and with Jambi, it has come to Java, too. Much more useful than Swing, IMO.

If you want to have a phone to hack and play with, why not use the linux based phone from Trolltech>
The software i currently in use on cellphones from Siemens and Samsung and others(?)

http://trolltech.com/products/qtopia/greenphone

I wonder if this actually means that WebKit will become a standard Qt (and not just KDE) component.

Yes, that's what it says in the article.

Or you can simply get the info straight from the source at Trolltech.

With Nokia already backing Maemo based on GTK, and Trolltech's Qtopia based on Qt, what perceived need did Intel have for starting a new project to develop a mobile UI rather than joining an existing effort? Vendor specific fragmentation is just going to result in duplicated effort.

For a requirement like that, you would have likely wanted to implement your own model backing a QTableView. You would have extended QAbstractItemModel and handled data updates there, and let notifications to the GUI flow when needed. You would probably have seen better performance. See http://doc.trolltech.com/4.3/qtableview.html , http://doc.trolltech.com/4.3/qabstracttablemodel.h tml , http://doc.trolltech.com/4.3/qabstractitemmodel.ht ml , and http://doc.trolltech.com/4.3/sql-tablemodel.html for more information.

For a requirement like that, you would have likely wanted to implement your own model backing a QTableView. You would have extended QAbstractItemModel and handled data updates there, and let notifications to the GUI flow when needed. You would probably have seen better performance. See http://doc.trolltech.com/4.3/qtableview.html , http://doc.trolltech.com/4.3/qabstracttablemodel.h tml , http://doc.trolltech.com/4.3/qabstractitemmodel.ht ml , and http://doc.trolltech.com/4.3/sql-tablemodel.html for more information.

For a requirement like that, you would have likely wanted to implement your own model backing a QTableView. You would have extended QAbstractItemModel and handled data updates there, and let notifications to the GUI flow when needed. You would probably have seen better performance. See http://doc.trolltech.com/4.3/qtableview.html , http://doc.trolltech.com/4.3/qabstracttablemodel.h tml , http://doc.trolltech.com/4.3/qabstractitemmodel.ht ml , and http://doc.trolltech.com/4.3/sql-tablemodel.html for more information.

For a requirement like that, you would have likely wanted to implement your own model backing a QTableView. You would have extended QAbstractItemModel and handled data updates there, and let notifications to the GUI flow when needed. You would probably have seen better performance. See http://doc.trolltech.com/4.3/qtableview.html , http://doc.trolltech.com/4.3/qabstracttablemodel.h tml , http://doc.trolltech.com/4.3/qabstractitemmodel.ht ml , and http://doc.trolltech.com/4.3/sql-tablemodel.html for more information.

I'm sure you'll find the chip that actually connects your calls will be totally separate. They won't want you accessing that as mobile phones use proprietary communication protocols so that a cartel of a few companies can maintain their control of the market. (They do say, under software, that there is some proprietary firmware on separate chips which the main processor can communicate with using open protocols.) PDA/phone hybrids usually come with separate processors for the calls and the PDA functions for this reason.

I'm wondering how this compares with Trolltech's Greenphone. (I think that is only available to developers ATM though.)

If and when you can show me a company where GPL is a significant asset over BSD/MIT, great, please fill me in.

That's easy: Trolltech and Qt. Trolltech release Qt under both the GPL and a proprietary license so they can make money from people wishing to write proprietary software linking to Qt.

I agree about the features of Java 6 & 7. I code to Java 5 but run in the latest and greatest VM because they continue to make performance enhancements there.

As for GUI development, I believe that we will see some progress made there. Right now, there is some good competition going on between Swing, SWT, and other toolkits. And now, QT just came out with QT Jambi which looks really cool. The bottom line is that eventually, one of these toolkits will emerge and become the defacto toolkit. Remember, cross platform UI is a hard problem to solve. They'll figure it our eventually. Or, you may get tired enough and write one yourself :)

Pricing development software for a global is inherently very hard, because as you point out the context varies so widely. We've priced Qt according to the value we believe it provides, but recognize our pricing won't work for everyone. FYI, if you are a small business or a startup, our Small Business Program will provides licenses at a comfortable discount (http://trolltech.com/products/qt/licenses/pricing /licensing/smallbusiness).

This is complete and utter FUD.

Say its $3k without explaining anything is just adding fuel to the fire.

Most people may not know this, but if you are a small business, you can get a 65% reduction in the price of QT.

http://trolltech.com/products/qt/licenses/licensin g/smallbusiness

This is a HUGE discount, you must earn under 200k per year to get that, and for most small businesses that is easy to do. If you are earning more than that then sure you can should pay for the license to reap the benefits because you should be able to afford it.

I've thrown out GTK, wxwigets because its just not there in terms of a consistant approach to GUI programming, vast amount of excellent libraries etc.

I'd prefer to *pay* for licenses for a decent toolkit if it will reap benefits.

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.

For example, you couldn't create something as simple as a statusbar item with QT, AFAIK.

I think this is what you want: http://doc.trolltech.com/4.2/desktop-systray.html/

Nope. EACH developer who needs to compile sources which use QT should have a developer license (that's what our legal department said after talking with Trolltech). In practice, it's easier to buy license for every developer.

BTW, I was wrong with the price. It's $6600 per developer for three-platform desktop edition - http://trolltech.com/products/qt/licenses/pricing

And while we're at it: Trolltech also sells the Greenphone, a Linux-based phone running Qtopia. This is not really for end-users, but meant as a development platform for Qtopia applications. I find it very neat. Smaller screen than iPhone and the NEO, but still very nice! Have a look at:

  http://trolltech.com/products/qtopia/greenphone

And yes, the software is GPL'ed when you buy the community edition of the phone.

you might already be able to do that.

i think you can make your own computer into a cellphone if you get a certain type of adapter, like the ones this comany sells. i think you just need to get a SIM card and plug it in. and you'll need to find/write some software, i'm sure.

and gumstix makes a variety of very small linux computers.

now you'll need some type of interface thing. not sure about the hardware, but you could find something that works with qtopia

granted, $10 says the end-result doesnt fit in your pocket.

I think Java's weakness is definitely its UI though.

And here is another map reduce implimenation, but written for C++: QtConcurrent

Qt is not under the GPL itself, though it's used to create GPL code.