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Qt 3.3 Released; OSNews Talks With TrollTech's CEO

Posted by timothy on from the little-trolly-footprints dept.

JigSaw writes "The new version of Qt (to be released Wednesday) features .NET support, full 64-bit support, IPv6 and backend support for two more databases. In light of the release, OSNews features an article with TrollTech's CEO, Haavard Nord. Nord says that he sees Linux strengthen its position in both business computing and embedded systems, while he forsees Qtopia and Linux taking over PDAs and Smartphones in the next few years." It's Wednesday, and Qt 3.3 has been officially released -- read on below for some more info.

Cronopios writes "The Norwegian company TrollTech has just released version 3.3 of their excellent cross-platform Qt toolkit, which is the foundation of KDE. This version adds support for .NET framework, 64-bit processing, IPv6 and gcc on MS Windows. The announcement and the complete list of new features and improvements are available at their website. As usual, the Qt libraries are released under several licenses, including the GNU GPL :-)"

28 comments

  1. Qt and Windows by eric2hill · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The main problem is that as a C++ developer on Windows, I cannot do /any/ development with Qt without paying a $2000 license fee. The only way to get a GPL version on the Windows platform is to purchase a $50 book that comes with a "limited edition" of Qt/Windows, but lord knows what that means. I wish they had a development version of Qt/Windows that didn't include any deployment licenses...

    --
    LOAD "SIG",8,1
    LOADING...
    READY.
    RUN
    1. Re:Qt and Windows by grrussel · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Actually, you of course could use the X11 version in combination with Cygwin or Services for Unix and any X Server for windows. The X11 version of QT is QPL, GPL and commericial, but it is not restricted to Linux due to the cross platform nature of X11.

    2. Re:Qt and Windows by Soul-Burn666 · · Score: 1

      That WAS how it went in the beginning. The reason they removed the free Windows version is becuase too many people used it to write commercial, non GPL software, which goes against the license agreement.

      --
      ^_^
    3. Re:Qt and Windows by bangular · · Score: 1

      I can't access the trolltech right now (too slow) but I'm 99% sure that was true at one point, but NOT true anymore. The timeline iirc was it was free on windows, then not free, and sometime in the 3.x series it became free again. I can't confirm this though til their site lets up some.

    4. Re:Qt and Windows by Brandybuck · · Score: 4, Informative

      Having received that $39 book this week, let me offer a quick review of the enclosed Qt for Windows.

      The Non-Commercial Qt 3.2.1 for Windows is fully functional. You don't get source code, but you do get binary libraries for VC 6 and .NET, and Borland 5 and 6. Included is the Borland 5 compiler. Compare this to the earler noncommercial 2.3 version which only supported VC6. The library is a DLL, so you can't statically link. I don't think this should be much of a problem for most people, though.

      Functionally, it is identical to the Free Qt. Nothing has been removed. OpenGL, XML, tables, etc. Everything you're used to with the X11 Qt is there. The database component only supports SQL-Lite (included), and not OBDC or MySQL. Not being a database developer, I don't know how much of a problem this is. One might be able to create db plugins with the x11-free source code.

      Licensing-wise, it's the standard noncommercial license. Your resulting applications must be freely redistributable and source code available. And they have to be strictly non-commercial. Any Open Source license is satisfactory, though you might need to add an exception if you use the GPL. The DLL is freely redistributable WITH your open source application. The license does stipulate that your app must not be a mere wrapper around Qt, so as to export its functionality.

      This version does stick a "[Non-Commercial]" string in front of your title caption. This is the only functional change from the GPL/QPL version that I could find anywhere.

      The upshot: If you intend to write noncommercial Open Source software for Windows, this version of Qt is far from onerous. If your purpose is to provide Windows versions of your X11 or Mac Qt software, this will more than meet your needs.

      --
      Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
    5. Re:Qt and Windows by LukePieStalker · · Score: 1

      This capsule review was extremely useful to me. On the basis of it, I'm going to buy the book. Many thanks for taking the time to share your experiences.

    6. Re:Qt and Windows by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Any chance of somebody posting the free edition online so those that can't buy the book can get it? (yes, the book is expensive for some people in other countries).
      That's if I got it straight and it's like a GPL library without source code, just dlls and headers. Or does it have any time constraints?
      I'm currently developing a program I want to distribute for free but it works only on Linux (and Mac if I get someone with a Mac to compile it for me) right now.

  2. SuSE to use Qt3.3 with their KDE 3.2? by advocate_one · · Score: 3, Informative
    I've noticed the following passage in their readme for the SuSE KDE 3.2 build:
    "Known issues:
    * Qt 3.3.0 final has not been released yet, we expect it next week
    and it will be avaible on ftp.suse.com.
    The qt packages in these directories contain a late snapshot
    (Qt 3.2 would need many patches, so we decided to go the 3.3 way)"

    As far as I can tell then expect a rebuild of KDE 3.2 now that the final of QT 3.3 is available... so SuSE users who've just upgraded to that KDE 3.2 you should have read the readme first if you have problems later when stuff built with the real Qt3.3 gets released... :)

    --
    Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
    1. Re:SuSE to use Qt3.3 with their KDE 3.2? by rzei · · Score: 1
      In the readme of Qt-3.3.0b1, it says:
      The Qt version 3.3 series is binary compatible with the 3.2.x series - applications compiled for 3.2 will continue to run with 3.3.
      So I guess that means no rebuild after final Qt-3.3.0 is available because of the source and binary compability.
  3. PHP bindings for QT by TekZen · · Score: 3, Funny

    I keep hoping that they will create PHP bindings for QT. They have been created for Python, they have been created for Perl, when is PHP's turn?

    Maybe with the new object model in Zend Engine 2, PHP5 will be deemed worthy.

    -Jackson

    1. Re:PHP bindings for QT by uwmurray · · Score: 1, Funny

      Seriously, who gives a fuck?

    2. Re:PHP bindings for QT by mattgreen · · Score: 1

      Methinks you have the wrong tool for the job.

    3. Re:PHP bindings for QT by Dr.Dubious+DDQ · · Score: 1

      Hey, if they can have PHP-GTK, why not?

      If they did, I'd certainly experiment with it.

      --
      Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
  4. Re:TROLLTECH? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    1999 called. It wants its trolltech joke back.

  5. Look and feel problem by LeftOfCentre · · Score: 1, Insightful

    When I tried QT for Windows last time, perhaps a year ago, it did not appear use the look and feel of the Windows platform, despite the company implying that QT adjusts to the native platform. If they would use actual native widgets, then not only would the user interface automatically change as the Windows controls are updated, but it would also at all times feel like a true Windows GUI -- because that is exactly would it would be! It's possible that QT's architecture is not well suited to mapping the controls to the native API, but I think that is a crucial feature for a lot of people. So far, VwWindows seems like a better choice IMHO.

    1. Re:Look and feel problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think YOU have a look and feel problem. Qt looks great on XP. Spare us your advertising for "VwWindows" (sic).

    2. Re:Look and feel problem by Brandybuck · · Score: 3, Informative

      Using the 3.2.1 noncommercial version for Windows, the look is indeed native. Either "classic" or XP. In fact, the XP version uses the native rendering stuff.

      --
      Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
  6. Why not Ruby? (was: Re:PHP bindings for QT) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I long for Ruby bindings instead. Singleton methods are great for customizing widgets without creating tons of subclasses, so it could be very handy as a RAD language, IMO. Not as much as Erlang, though! :)

  7. Frustrations with Trolltech-Qt by osewa77 · · Score: 1

    At several times in my career I would have simply gone with Qt but for the price and my unwillingness to be forced into releasing my code for free (freedomn is important even for developers). I mailed them and they won't even allow you to develop with the free edition and deploy with the commercial edition. Good luck to Troltech, their bottom line probably matters most.

    1. Re:Frustrations with Trolltech-Qt by IainHere · · Score: 1

      I mailed them and they won't even allow you to develop with the free edition and deploy with the commercial edition

      That's because you could buy one commercial license and have your other 1,000 programmers using the free edition.

      As I understand it, the reason that the windows version of Qt has different licensing from the other versions is that many people were using the free version for their internal development (which the majority of software development is), so they were theoretically GPL, but never actually released. Therefore no money for Trolltech. And their bottom line does matter - they're a company.

    2. Re:Frustrations with Trolltech-Qt by black+mariah · · Score: 1

      So basically your frusrations come from having to abide by the terms of the GPL. If you don't like it, buy QT and you can develop all the commercial apps you want. Or you could just use any of the dozens of other completely free GUI toolkits that are available, such as wxWindows or GTK+.

      And wow, I never would have guessed that a company would be concerned about making money. Who'd have thunk it? What would you have them do? Pay for their software development with t-shirt sales? Whatever.

      --
      'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
    3. Re:Frustrations with Trolltech-Qt by LWATCDR · · Score: 1

      " So basically your frusrations come from having to abide by the terms of the GPL. "
      Well not quite. The last time I looked and it might have changed is that you can not do any development under Windows using QT for Windows. I looked at there downloads so I am sure no GPL development using the latest version of QT for Windows.
      Also using GPL software for internal development and use is not a violation of the GPL. You have to give the souce away if you distribute it. Most people would not count internal development as distrabution.
      I think that the real complaint is that there is NO GPL version of the current QT for windows.

      --
      See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
    4. Re:Frustrations with Trolltech-Qt by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      At several times in my career I would have simply gone with Qt but for the price and my unwillingness to be forced into releasing my code for free (freedomn is important even for developers). I mailed them and they won't even allow you to develop with the free edition and deploy with the commercial edition. Good luck to Troltech, their bottom line probably matters most.

      Why should they give you their software for free if you're not willing to subsequently give your software for free.

      And of course their bottom line matters you dope, how else are they going to pay the 80 odd staff they have working on a toolkit for Windows, Mac and half a dozen Unices.

      Grow up, and if you can't grow up, try wxWindows - coming soon to Borland C++ Builder X

  8. Re:TROLLTECH? by scorp1us · · Score: 1

    Actually Norwegiens are very fond of their troll folk lure. Trolls in american culture are ugly and live under a bridge and eat children. Trolls in

    Norwegian culture they are smarter than humans, and are very well respected. Since the company is based in Norway and they deal with technology, there is no joke.

    --
    Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
  9. Qt and video i/o by janimatic · · Score: 1

    I was wondering how u all consider using together Qt and quicktime api for video capture and as a basis for developing video editing tools. Did anyone started writing some capture, playback, image processing QT widget based on quicktime ? If some sample code could be published just as a starting point (the quicktime api in itself is well documeted but attached to win32 api on windows) , i am sure that would help many people frustrated by the lack of video i/o object oriented API. Thanks for any replies...

  10. QT and video i/o by janimatic · · Score: 1

    I was wondering how u all consider using together Qt and quicktime api for video capture and as a basis for developing video editing tools. Did anyone started writing some capture, playback, image processing QT widget based on quicktime ? If some sample code could be published just as a starting point (the quicktime api in itself is well documeted but attached to win32 api on windows) , i am sure that would help many people frustrated by the lack of video i/o object oriented API. Thanks for any replies... I hope it's not too off topic, but i think it's a question many QT developpers..sorry for my poor english!