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Novell Desktop To Standardize On Qt [updated]
Balinares writes "NewsForge reports that Novell has settled for Qt as its Linux desktop development environment, casting more light on their strategy to unify KDE and GNOME. This ought to be interesting. The prospect of using Mono to code against Qt makes me drool in advance. Maybe programming will suck no longer!" Update: 03/30 00:01 GMT by T : Sounds like that story doesn't quite hold water; Nat Friedman writes in this Slashdot comment that "We have not decided that we are standardizing on Qt for the desktop. ... We support development with a variety of toolkits, and our internal development is done using the right tool for the right problem. This includes Qt, Gtk, VCL, XUL and others, depending on the application."
I'm pretty sure you can use QT with all your GPL stuff all you want.
Given that Qt is available under the GPL itself, it's an absolute certainty you can use Qt in a GPLed project.
How much will it cost to use QT to write business apps?
m l
From the trolltech site: http://www.trolltech.com/products/qt/licensing.ht
" Use the Qt Commercial License to:
Build commercial software.
Build software that is not sold, but that advances the business goals of a commercial enterprise."
No. Qt hasn't had annoying license restrictions in years, as it was released under the GPL four years ago, allowing for such projects as a GPL'd Qt3/Win32.
Somehow, this is still news to people...
It's a bit odd that this article wasn't posted to /. sooner, as most people first noticed it when it made osnews almost a week ago.
Many BrainShare attendees have already dismissed this as a badly written article, as it combines statements from Novell about their desire to see a unified Linux desktop (see one of the worst examples of tech reporting in years) with rumors and rampant speculation. There is no basis of truth in the heise article.
I'm sure Novell will send out someone with authority in due time to stomp this out, but this is just what I've heard so far.
It costs nothing to develop business applications qith the QT toolkit. The only requirement is that if you use the $0.00 license(GPL) the app must be GPL. It really isn't much to ask.
The fact that Novell is going to use QT is very telling. Novell is a software corporation whose existence past, present and future relies on selling software. That means that while they will throw the open source community a GPLed bone (Yast, Evolution) they will also offer up lots of closed source applications and some will be QT based.
Novell is not afraid of having to pay a very reasonable licensing cost for commercial development and neither are most other software companies. They already pay licensing for MS Visual DEs, Borland DEs and probably many others. Paying for a QT license is a minor cost of doing business and it will not deter any serious software house.
Actually it doesn't matter much...
You can do object oriented and event oriented programming in c fine.
Besides C is much more portable and there is a C++ interface for GTK to.
So the only difference between QT and GTK from a language perspective is that with GTK you get a choice, QT you only get C++. (Not counting even higher languages such as C# since both have wrappers for that and are sort of equal)
Jeroen
Secure messaging: http://quickmsg.vreeken.net/
No, GTK is licensed using the LGPL license. Meaning that you can develop GPL software with it and commercial software without paying a dime.
We're not really sure where the rumor came from that Novell is standardizing on Qt as its desktop platform. Chris Stone said no such thing during his keynote; the video for the keynote is available here:
http://www.novell.com/brainshare/keynotes2004.h
Novell supports GNOME and KDE, Qt and Gtk. We have not decided that we are standardizing on Qt for the desktop. First of all, most software developed for the Linux desktop is developed by the broader community, and Novell could never impose a standard platform on the community at large. We support development with a variety of toolkits, and our internal development is done using the right tool for the right problem. This includes Qt, Gtk, VCL, XUL and others, depending on the application.
We do not regard the variety of toolkits and platforms in the Linux world as a problem, as long as there are standards and shared code which allow applications to work together.
And frankly, today's Linux toolkits and platforms are one of the least interesting topics on the Linux desktop today. The important issues for this industry and market are our opportunity to innovate in information management and collaboration, improving interoperability with Windows users and services, bringing more ISVs and developers to the Linux platform, enhancing the usability and consistency of the various components that make up the desktop, enabling Windows migration with tools and training and documentation, and creating a manageable Linux desktop to enable large-scale deployments.
We see freedesktop.org as one of the most important and central elements of the Linux desktop for the next several years. The desktop today is made up of a number of components, including OpenOffice, Mozilla, Evolution, and of course GNOME and KDE. Over time we hope to work with freedesktop.org to unify the key interfaces and functionality of these components, to improve integration for users and provide a common open
source desktop platform.
Nat Friedman
Novell/SUSE Linux Desktop Lead
Bullshit. I've watched that keynote from Novell's website. (and you can too) All he said is that SuSE 9.1 will be getting a QT-based Openoffice. THAT IS ALL. nothing more. The journalist completely missinterpreted this, saying that SuSE is going to standardize on QT. It's all a missunderstanding.
Life is offtopic.
As Nat has posted elsewhere, the Heise article is wrong.
My team and other teams within Novell continue to
develop and use Gtk as their toolkit (recently
open sourced Simias/iFolder for instance) and
all of the Mono GUI development tools.
The only use of Qt that am aware of today
is SUSE's recently open sourced YAST.
Btw, if you have been following my posts on
my blog and on the desktop-devel-list, you will
know that my feeling is that all of the existing
toolkits today (Gtk, Qt, XUL and VCL) will
become obsolete and we need to start looking
at the next generation toolkit system.
Miguel
Where did you read that? It only says you cannot make proprietary/closed-source software with Qt, just as you can't with the GNU Readline library or the GNU Scientific Library or any other GPL'd software.
Maybe for unix and mac, but there is no windows version. The windows version was 2.something, and if you buy a book you get an older 3.1 version as well.
Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
GTK (and most GNOME libs) are LGPL. As in: Permits linking with proprietary apps.
So please mod parent down.
It specifically clarifies commercial to mean closed source/proprietary. That's the whole purpose of the parenthetical. If that statement is unclear to you (the figurative 'you', not BiggerIsBetter specifically), then you probably shouldn't be responsible for making legal decisions on behalf of a company.
It also sounds like you don't recognize the legitimacy of dual-licensing models. Do you support or oppose the LGPL? The LGPL enables companies to use GPL libraries, free of charge, to build closed source software (just like the BSD licenses).
All Trolltech is saying is that if you want to use Qt to build closed source software, then you have to pay for Qt. They don't offer a GPL version for Windows because people were abusing it.
At core is whether or not an application built on Qt is a derivative work or not. If it is, the GPL means you can't build a closed source application on top of. This is a feature that has prevented corporations from using GPL libraries. Hence the LGPL, and dual-licensing in general.
It sounds like you're just mad that Trolltech decided not to go with a "free for commercial use" model like the LGPL.
> Ironic, that a GPL'ed toolkit should be considered inappropriate for
> basic foundations of Linux software..
But that is the reality. Core libraries should be LGPL to prevent no end of problems. Imagine trying to get Mozilla or OO.o up and running in a world where Qt was the only suitable toolkit. Either the Windows & Mac ports would have to be dropped or each and every developer would need to possess a license for the commercial version of Qt.
Democrat delenda est