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Trolltech Discontinue Non-Commercial Qt

Posted by timothy on from the tradeoffs-and-obligations dept.

An anonymous reader submits "Trolltech has quietly discontinued their non-commercial version of Qt for Windows. This eliminates Qt as a choice for those wanting to develop free multi-platform software." 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," and Trolltech points out that one can buy the current edition of Qt -- seems fair enough.

3 of 101 comments (clear)

  1. Perhaps they are waiting for the Bill? by leonbrooks · · Score: 4, Interesting

    When Microsoft get around to Freeing Windows, perhaps TrollTech will Free the Windows version of Qt?

    As another poster points out, wxWindows does a lot of the Qt stuff in the WIMP arena, and I'd like to add that systems like libSDL pretty much cover the unWIMPy, less structured stuff anyway. Having a spectrum of alternatives is good, and since the smallest disk I can buy these days without going out of my way is 40GB, I don't have a problem with installing a dozen or so sets of libraries.

    --
    Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
  2. I must be missing something here... by shadow255 · · Score: 3, Interesting
    From the QT website:
    If you write Free software (Open Source software covered by the GPL) you are welcome to download and use the Free Edition of Qt
    Since there is no Free Edition of Qt for the Windows platform, is Trolltech making some kind of statement that Free software does not exist for Windows? I can think of an example off the top of my head of a GPL program which is available only on Win32: FileZilla.

    I'm not saying Trolltech is obligated to make a Qt Free edition for Windows, but perhaps they should word things a bit differently on their website, along the lines of "If you write Free software for X11/Mac..." It's just plain misleading, to my thinking, to state it the way they are.

    --

    Logic is a wonderful thing but doesn't always beat actual thought. -Terry Pratchett

  3. Re:Corrections to Timothy's $0.02 by Brandybuck · · Score: 4, Interesting

    After all, cross-platform Open Source software can't possibly succeed, can it?

    How much money has GTK+ made for GNU? How much money has LGPL wxWindows made? How about plain XFree86? I'm not talking about donations from Redhat or SuSE, I'm talking about actual revenue from actual customers. Now ask yourself if that's enough to support even one full time developer?

    I do wish that Trolltech would release a QPL/GPL version of Qt for Windows. But they'll still have to charge proprietary prices for proprietary development if they want to stay in business.

    MSRP of Microsoft Visual C++ .NET Standard Edition: US$109. MSRP of Qt/Windows Professional Edition: US$1550.

    Rather than repeat the tired cliche about apples and oranges, let me merely remind you that filet mignon costs a lot more than canned tuna, yet no one complains about the discriminatory and punitive pricing of fine steaks.

    --
    Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!