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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."
Novell is slowly changing my opinion of them...
- Will they be writing a GTK-on-top-of-QT layer?
- Ditching GTK apps?
- Using GTK apps but not encouraging their creation?
- Just using QT for Novell-specific stuff (like Redhat uses GTK for its configurators, etc)?
*confused*Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
You mean the GPL?
But I am *not* a license expert. This is pure hearsay.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
The prospect of using Mono to code against Qt makes me drool in advance.
Boy, you really need to get out more.
Not anymore, most of them have been resolved some time ago.
Besides, whats wrong with software you have to pay for?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
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."
Hey, if programming were easy, people would do it for free.
taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
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...
This does make a lot of sense, actually. And it might actually be early enough in the game for it to work.
.NET API's. .NET might, in fact, actually be the fastest route there (aside from Java, which I think people ought to be using for this purpose, but let's set that aside for a moment). Perhaps if, boosted by a Novell push, developers begin writing and publishing .NET code that uses Qt libraries, there will be that many more cross-platform desktop apps available that won't be bound to Windows.Forms, Avalon, or whatever other Windows-bound API's Microsoft wants everyone to use.
.NET is, on its face, a good design, but that we have to worry about Microsoft using it as a cudgel to beat back its competition.
Right now, there is still the opportunity to attract developers to cross-platform
It would be a double-bonus if Novell could make Mono a unified framework for writing apps that can be backended by KDE, GNOME, or Microsoft Windows without a rewrite. Let's see what happens. What's really a shame is that
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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.
Besides, whats wrong with software you have to pay for?.
Inappropriate for basic foundations of Linux software.
the most obvious is that it is a barrier to adoption. if your model is to sell software and make yr money that way, everything's fine... but if you're model is have free wares to drive sales of other commodities (hardware, support, data &c) then the extra pricetag on the software can tank your business.
since you asked....
2 1337 4 u!
The german newsmagazine HEISE a very popular and creditible organisation was reporting about that as well. As they got told from first hand QT/KDE is doing the run.
You can read more here on their site.
The old Microsoft approach is to Embrace an Extend. I often hear people say that Mono is going to die because MS has the staff to write more and more APIs and Mono will not be able to keep up. But my thoughts are that Mono and other Open Source projects should be able to implement some impressive and highly usable C# and .NET implementations completely independent of MS influence and support. Essentially the community will have the ability to Embrace and Extend a MS created technology with just the ECMA standard C# and CLI recommendation.
.NET framework are very robust when compared to traditional network communications such as CGI or OLE. It is clearly an ideal glue language for a diverse Linux desktop which often mixes many programming and scripting languages together.
I have been impressed with the CLI implementation and the SOAP and Web Services technologies that are a part of the
Brennan Stehling - http://brennan.offwhite.net/blog/
I can say that there is nothing easier outside of web development. I am an old MFC programmer. I am often lost in developing Qt apps, but I am very comforatable with that because the documentation is copius cnad clear. Whats more is it is soooooooo well thought out. It makes MFC look like the crap that it is (C++ wrappers for C objects). Learning Qt is like learning to walk the right way. It's amazingly simple. I will always request that Qt be used regardless of platform in future jobs.
Now the license is different. I often wish there was a small-business or starting-business license, but this is only pertanant if you are going commercial work. for GPL work it is completely free.
Right now I'm doing some advanced work with QSA (Javascripted Qt apps) It is easy and cross platform. I can now replace a browser (and the rendering issues with a user interface file (loaded at run-time) and ECMA script code (platform indep. cause we run on various architectures with limited space, whose list may change at any time)
The Troll Tech stuff is top notch.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
The combination of Mono with Qt and Linux is great. The Open Source nature of these applications means that they are virtually bug free. I am glad to see that Novell is in top form once more, supporting Linux. I have used Mono extensively and it really is great. It is not proprietary like Java, and it is a wonderful tool to use. Mono is the programming platform that will put Microsoft to rest once and for all!
---
Find out more about the impending downfall o
I'm surprised redhat has stuck with gnome this long as their DE of choice. It is more usable, and that's why I am glad personally they have.
With so many of the gtk programs riviling the qt equivalents, I wonder why companies always flock towards Qt.
- tristan
Hmm. I hope you mean free as in speech not as in beer because otherwise that's not much of an argument.
The point of "free" software is that it is open for perusal, poking, sharing, etc. not that it's gratis so you don't have to pay for it. Granted because of the first the gratis part is often the case but the mentality that free speech software MUST mean free beer software is just wrong.
Sure information wants to be free, but how much are you willing to pay for the packaging?
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.
> Inappropiate for basic foundations of linux software.
Says who? Oh, nevermind.
I think that many commercial development companies would consider the GPL to be "annoying license restrictions" if all they want to do is write a GUI app.
Besides, whats wrong with software you have to pay for?
Nothing if you aren't using it as a core library for a free desktop system
I personally have been hoping for a while now something like this would happen for the Linux desktop. It's going to take a corporation to step up and unify this effort in order to gain mass acceptance. I'm sure there will be some grumbling in the community, but open source is open so feel free to customize to your hearts content if you don't like it. Most people don't want to have to go to this effor though.
The only potential problem I see is Trolltech's insistance on license fees for commercial development. Not that this is any different in the Windows world, but it'd be nice to give ISVs a completely royalty free solution. I'd like to see Novell take that $50 million that IBM gave them and purchase TT outright and put Qt under a more liberal open license. The wording on the KDE Free Qt clause seems a bit unclear to me. Does Qt get automatically BSD'ed when any company buys Trolltech. What if the purchasing company doesn't make the license any more closed that currently, does that have an effect.
Anyway, I've never understood the reasons people chose to write a whole desktop environment in straight C. C++ just seems a far more natural fit. I've looked over both GNOME and KDE fairly extensively, and there is no doubt in my mind that KDE has a cleaner code base and architecture. With all the "higher level language" rumblings going on in the GNOME community, I suspect that those developers are hitting a brick wall in terms of where they want to go and what the current code is capable of becoming. That sort of thing isn't happening in the KDE world, so I think that speaks volumes.
Good luck Novell, you've got at least one supporter here.
-- Fighting mediocrity one bad post at a time.
> That is the same as GTK,
False. GTK is licensed under LGPL, which is far less restrictive. Do some research before you spout this drivel.
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I hate QUICKTIME!!! /should I rtfa?
This is what good widespread systems need, and it's understandable that Novell is aiming for consistency.
In the whole world of UI/Desktop use, choice is a good thing. It means complete customisation control from one purpose such as industrial process control, to corporate desktop, to games system (humor me and look to the future when this is the case with Linux. It will happen eventually). However for Novell who will be supporting a system, and selling it as a solution for businesses, then there needs to be stability, if not from a support point of view then for a User point of view.
Users don't care, and shouldn't, about the technicalities of their tools, and that's what support is for. Only when they have a well constructed and supported toolset (their desktop in this case) can they perform with 100% concentration on their REAL job be it marketing, secretarial, analysis and so on
Acker's Nude & Anime Desktop Gallery
It seems to be confusing that one can buy a commercial version of Qt. That version however is extra. If you don't want it, just stick to plain old GPL'ed Qt.
MySQL is doing something similar. Nobody seems to be confused by that one though.
This is your sig. There are thousands more, but this one is yours.
What about wxwidgets (the GUI development library formerly known as WxWindows? Sounds like a safe compromise with strong portablility and no licensing hassles.
The only source of this so far has been Heise. In their original article, they word this quite unclear (I'm german) basically just mentioning that this information "slipped through during the day", without any source or confirmation.
However, derStandard.at asked for confirmation at Novell and they assured that no decision would have been fallen yet.
They (Novell) also demoed quite a few new Gtk applications at the keynotes, most notably the interesting iFolders (using Gtk on Linux), while I don't think there has been shown any _new_ Qt program.
So take this all with a grain of salt, I can't really imagine that this is a clear decision yet.
If only Sun had embraced Open Source the way Microsoft did, maybe Java/Swing would find itself beginning to be the consensus cross-platform GUI development platform instead of Mono... pity
Why, oh why, did they choose a C++ toolkit? Issues of gcc binary compatibility aside, C++ suffers from the Fragile Base Class (FBC) problem, where adding new instance variables to base classes can break binary compatibility for every derived class. This is why QT has broken binary compatibility twice already in the past. C structures suffer from this same problem, but Mono classes, Objective C classes, et al do not.
I still don't understand the popularity of QT. It's as if people don't want linux to be taken seriously as a deployment platform. Why target a host that won't run your binaries next year?
Linux has been free for years and yet only accounts for 5% of the desktop max. So what is the real barrier to people adopting Linux then?
Support the First Amendment. Read at -1
keeping kde and gnome separate for a little while longer, or possibly forever, might be a good plan. There's one catch though, they need to be completely interoperable. I want to be able to install the same program on both desktops and have it work seamlessly. I also want an icon put on the desktop or the taskbar menus. Is this possible? I don't have the expertise but I'm sure it can be done if these programs are on top of a standard api.
Why do I think this is a good idea? Keeping them separate but equal promotes competition between them. It makes them work harder to fix those little glitches that annoy users. KDE is looking kind of like windows xp, and gnome mac os X. It'd be nice if they took on more of an original look, but hey rome wasn't built in a day. I think that having the choice between both desktops knowing that most applications will work the same without needing a hundred different rpms for each thing is what's needed. I also think that libraries need to be consolidated. Basically I guess I'm saying this: the ease of installing programs on windows, but the ability to run them on a mac. Sound difficult? eh, look how far things have come.
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
That's bullshit.
The first correct statement in your post. Nothing stops your customers from using Qt to develop software, as long as the software is either GPL'd or for internal use only. If your customer wants to develop proprietary software to distribute for profit, perhaps you can do them a favor and recommend Windows, since windows users are more likely to buy into (literally) the proprietary software model.
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
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.
Give it up man. Everytime I see Qt mentioned, someone posts this FUD. Yeap, you're uding your own FUD against Linux.
I D=60
I'll admit it, the first time I read this conspiracy thoery I was worried. I looked into it. Trust me there are no black helicopters being dispatched from SCO.
KDE Myths #60: http://kdemyths.urbanlizard.com/viewMyth.php?myth
"According to http://www.trolltech.com/newsroom/investors.html the Canopy Group only has 5.7% shares of Trolltech while 64.7% are in posession of Trolltech employees with an additional 5% controlled by the Trolltech founders. One can hardly say that the Canopy Group owns or controls Trolltech."
Don't forget Canopy is just an investent group. They'd probably like to see TrollTech get this boost because SCO is a loss at the moment, and they aren't going to get better.
It is like saying that you own a mutual fun that invests in two competitors, and that you are going to devalue one so the other can rise. The problem is that you want BOTH to perform.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
Novell is trying to create a professional desktop environment for Linux. To this end, choosing the highest quality toolkit is much more important than having to pay a small fee for the development of non-GPL applications.
Gtk's licensing only has an advantage over Qt's for those shops that want to create commercial non-GPL applications yet are too small to afford Qt's relatively cheap license. Novell have obviously decided that those shops aren't such an important market to sway their choice.
-- Repeat with me: "There is no right to profits".
Your company's stance on the GUI toolkits available for Linux is a good one, and makes a lot of sense - as you said, Novell should not standardise on one particular toolkit.
So how could the keynote speech have been misconstrued?
SCREW THE ADS! http://adblock.mozdev.org/ Proud user of teh Fox of Fire - Registered Linux User #289618
I find that Gnome's apps are far more primitive than KDE's, and behind the times. Let's take a look at your examples:
The Gimp: Well, it uses Gtk+, but it isn't officially a part of the Gnome platform, is it? It doesn't use too many other Gnome libraries. I don't really count it as a Gnome app. And, er, why was it in development for three frickin' years to get to 2.0?
Gaim: Yes, Gaim is very good, but you should see the new Kopete messenger in KDE 3.2. Very slick, supports MSN, Yahoo, AIM, ICQ, and IRC, with a plugin interface, XSLT to generate the chat windows, etc. etc. It's at least comparable to Gaim.
Rhythmbox: Hmm, looks like a pretty nice music player. But have you seen the new JuK in KDE 3.2? Very serviceable, and very solid MP3 player. It even looks similar to Rhythmbox. On the other hand, it lacks net Radio... maybe in the next version?
Galeon: Umm... Galeon is just a wrapper around Mozilla, the 10-thousand pound gorilla of a web browser. I prefer Konqueror and the KHTML widget. KHTML, though not perfect at CSS, is way faster, and is far easier to embed that Mozilla. It now supports mouse gestures with KHotKeys, and conforms properly to your UI theme.
And look, I seriously have to point out that Konqueror beats Nautilus. The KIOSlave system means drag-and-drop "just works" across many protocols (ftp, sftp, fish, audiocd ripping, http, samba (smb protocol)). I have yet to see Nautilus do anything like this, except with CD Burning (but KDE has K3b, so I don't mind).
KDE is an extremely capable desktop with many more mature applications than Gnome. Plus, most companies prefer dealing with standard C++ for GUI apps, as opposed to learning some weird custom OO model like glib, even if they have to pay a bit.
Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so. --Ford Prefect
On Windows and Mac there is no cost for a license to use the bult-in widget kit, only for extra tools, like compilers, IDEs, etc.
On Novell Linux, there will be a cost. So-long, shareware market! Not that there is really a Linux shareware market now, but this would be pretty effective in stopping one from appearing. I also wonder if Trolltech will try to submarine Linux at some point in the future, ala SCO.
Novell could sell "Novell Developer Studio," which includes KDevelop, QT Designer, etc. plus a QT license. This would make it look like "Windows plus Visual Studio," except more expensive.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
What are the legal ramifications of using something like Mono? I'm guessing there isn't, as I'm sure Novell would've taken it into consideration any possibility of Microsoft trying to patent .net technology.
.net and totally screw over any open source projects that use Mono?
I don't know if it's just heresay, but could MS patent
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
From the Trolltech website:
When Qt Free Edition is Open Source and GPL, can I use it to make commercial (proprietary/closed-source) software?
No.
You will still need to purchase the Professional or Enterprise Edition to make commercial (proprietary/closed-source) software with Qt.
Which suggests that I cannot make a GPL'ed commercial application? Perhaps that should be clarified. I also cannot make a GPL'd native (non-Cygwin) Windows application at all. QT is nice to work in, but it's a long way from being truely free software. I guess that theoretically, QT Free could be ported to Windows by a 3rd party, or that you could go to court over commercial GPL'd software, but I doubt it's worth the hassle while there's other free-er alternatives.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
Except wouldn't the entire point of Novell's current initiative-- the one as part of which they are standardizing on Qt-- to be to open up Linux such that it appeals at least to some extent to persons beyond the rather limited OSS set that uses it now?
I would hope that Novell will try to do this by bringing those persons into *our* way of doing things, not by trying to change the Linux community into the Windows community. If the latter is their goal (which I seriously doubt), then I say no thanks.
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
No not really. You can licence it through GPL, if you do open source work, or you can buy licences from Trolltech at a reasonalble price if you want to do closed source work.
The fact that you have to buy a licence for closed source may be a problem for hobby developers that have more time than money. To companies like Novell the quality is more important than the price . To them, time to market is everything. And they will spend far more money on developer saleries and marketing than they will spend on QT licences. So they will go for the best tool. And QT is one of the best there is. (Cross platform, good development tools, well designed framework...)
And if they want to release free software they have less risk of being hurt by some competitor if they release it under GPL than under LGPL or BSD type licences. I guess this was the reason MySQL AB changed the licence on their client libs to GPL.
So, QT would be a very good choise.
God is REAL! Unless explicitly declared INTEGER
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.
Whatever they say in the FAQ is bollocks. They have released their code under the GPL, hence you follow the GPL, not any "extra rules" they've come up with. The GPL says nothing about whether software is "commercial" or "non-commercial", it only states you must make available and distribute the source under the GPL. They've violating their own software license if they try and enforce extra rules (see clause 4). I agree that the Windows think is a big PITA, however IIRC there is a project attempting to write a GPL'd port of QT for Windows.
First off, the cost of the software was only listed as a barrier to adoption, not the only one. As for what the additional barriers there are, two that I can think of quickly are learning curve and OEM buy-in. It is human nature to be reluctant to learn to use product B when you already are comfortable using product A. It takes a pretty good incentive to push people to expend the necessary energy. As for the OEMs, if they aren't already locked into a restrictive exclusive contract with Microsoft, they are probably reluctant to spend the resources to support installation of an alternative operating system on the machines they sell unless they see a sizable market. Given that it's a chicken and egg argument, adoption of Linux on the desktop will be slow until the market gathers enough mass. If and when that point is reached, you'll probably see very quick gains in market share. Getting large companies like IBM and Novell behind the push will go a long way in helping adoption.
GreyPoopon
--
Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
I don't rate $1000 per seat as a reasonable price when I could give each developer Windows XP and bulk-licensed Visual Studio for a much lower price. I think QT is a great toolkit and am glad it's licensed under the GPL, however their closed-source version is much too expensive and I have to wonder whether many people actually buy it when there are equally as valid business models that involve GPL'd products these days anyway.
How can I say that? Well let's see, there are many boxed versions of Redhat & Suse that have been sold and I don't think anyone was ripped off.
While it is probably impossible for Redhat not to create a free as in beer version of their free as in speech software, the fact that it can and is paid for is very telling.
The main advantage of Open Source to most people is absolutely NOT the free binary whether they know it or not. It is not a "few geeks such as yourself" there is a very large world of geeks out here that value the source to their programs for many reasons other than that it may be free as in beer as well.
If in fact you value the monitary freeness of your software over the freedom of the source than I would argue that your not a geek at all but just someone who wants to ride a gravy train.
Furthermore the dichotomy you used between KDE & gnome is false because both are GPL'd. Would you rather pay for an Open Source KDE or get a closed source Windows for free? If you choose the Windows option than you definitely don't understand freedom and your no geek I want to hang out with.
The fact is that people have to stop with this idea that "free" in the GPL'd way means "free beer". Free software is a costly thing,I have spent untold hours of my valuable time helping to code free software, but that's fine I don't expect payment for that work because I was paid in kind by other coders. But users who just take and never give back must understand exactly what they are doing. I can't force anyone to pay for software they can get for "free" but your mentality that software MUST be free as in beer is totally antithema to the actual freedom that is espoused by free(dom) software.
Freedom software is about having the source, never looking over your shoulder for the thought police, adding to something and feeling you've contributed, learning, sharing. "Free beer" software is about being a leech!
Sure information wants to be free, but how much are you willing to pay for the packaging?
Please specify a single popular commercial app that uses GTK...
People fail to understand that you don't pay only for the right for developing commercial programs when you buy a QT licence. You are also paying for SUPPORT.
There exist lot of free software for Linux, thus if you want to SELL your software, you need to invest lot of money in any case to create something much, much better.
Last time I checked, there were lot of undocumented widgets in the GTK. How are you supposed to figure them out? $1000-$2000 QT licence pays itself quickly back with faster development times.
GTK is much prettier than QT.. But seriously, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. There are just as many people who prefer Gnome's look over KDE's as there are who prefer KDE's over Gnome's.
Use GNOME/Gtk, because you can USE Gtk as much as you want for COMMERCIAL development without paying anything.
Don't use KDE/Qt, because you can only develop FREE software using it, otherwise it costs money.
So.. NOW KDE/Qt is the champion of free software, whereas GNOME/Gtk is for the COMMERCIAL (and apparently not so evil after all) PROPRIETARY closed source solutions.
You make me laugh!
If GNOME/Gtk is REALLY a friend, let's see them place everything under GPL (for true software protection) rather than the LGPL.
What's the big deal about support Qt is you use the toolkit? Yep.. it's commercial...and if you use it for commercial development, it costs money... so?? Is someone suggesting their software business plan is only to sell like 10 copies of their software, so they can't afford to by a real development license?? Just seems weird.
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
Now the license is different. I often wish there was a small-business or starting-business license, but this is only pertanant if you are going commercial work. for GPL work it is completely free.
There's no reason a small business can't do commercial work and license it under the GPL. It's done all the time by the Linux distributors both large and small, and many other development groups.
Anyway, I see this misconception about QT's licensing all the time, and I think part of it stems from Trolltech's own use of the word commercial to describe their other license. The word they (and you) are looking for is proprietary, not commercial. If you don't want to use the GPL (usually because you're paranoid about people stealing the ideas, or because you want to link with some other proprietary code), then you have to pay for commercial (i.e. proprietary) Qt licensing. However, you're free to use the free (GPL) version of Qt commercially, as long as you follow the GPL.
GTK (and most GNOME libs) are LGPL. As in: Permits linking with proprietary apps.
So please mod parent down.
If they don't want to pay for a commercial QT license, they are in exactly the same boat that they would be if they wrote a GTK app; i.e., if they want to distribute, they have to distribute under GPL.
GTK has no such restriction. It is released under the LGPL.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Not that there is really a Linux shareware market now, but this would be pretty effective in stopping one from appearing.
What's stopping a shareware market from appearing is OpenSource, not Qt licenses.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
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.
Well, it appears that it was actually SuSE, with their Trolltech connections, that took over Novell, and not the other way around.
And if we are not careful, Trolltech is going to end up controlling Linux. [We also need to consider the possibility of a backroom deal between Trolltech and Microsoft, similar to the deal between Microsoft and SCO.]
The danger, of course, is not the GPL'd version of Qt. KDE is also not a problem. Both of those are Open Source, so we don't have to worry about them, and I have no reason to talk about them.
The real danger of Trolltech is the proprietary version of Qt and the applications that depend on it.
Or, in more general terms, the danger is proprietary middleware.
Let's look at an example from history. Remember when the PC platform was open, from bottom to top? Remember when you could not only buy the hardware from any number of vendors, but there were also competing vendors for the BIOS, there was more than one windowing architecture (Gem, Geoworks, Borland's GUI libs,...), and there were dozens of development environments, and thousands of code libraries? Remember when standards were simple, when it was easy to write code to interface directly with printers, with video cards, and so on?
What happened? Microsoft introduced Windows.
After a while, Windows became an indespensible component of the PC. Applications depended on it, and hardware manufacturers had to support it. And there was only one supplier of the Windows component, namely, Microsoft.
Soon, Microsoft started using its control of Windows to make itself the winner in the applications market. And today, Microsoft (with a few accomplices) also dictates the standards for PC hardware, its BIOS, its peripherals, and its network protocols.
What was special about Windows? It was proprietary middleware!
Windows sat in the middle, in between the applications and the PC. Any applications that wanted to access PC hardware used (and became dependent on) Windows APIs. And any PC manufacturer that wanted applications had to support Windows APIs. Bill Gates once said that by controlling the APIs, he controlled the industry.
Likewise, PC users became locked in. They could replace their hardware. They could replace an application. But they couldn't replace Windows. As the PC became cheaper, Windows became more expensive, as did the Microsoft applications that Windows "encouraged" users to use.
The proprietary version of Qt is just like Windows. It is proprietary middleware. It sits between the applications and Linux. The applications that use Qt are dependent on its APIs. And if Linux wants to be able to run those applications, then it has to support Qt.
What applications are we talking about? Applications like Kylix, Hancom Office, Opera, the professional versions of Quanta and Rekall and various other TheKompany products, ATI's setup utility, Quasar Accounting, Adobe Photoshop Album, and so on. If a Linux distribution wants to be able to run those applications, then it must support the proprietary version of Qt.
So how bad is it? Has Linux been taken over by proprietary middleware, the way the PC was taken over by Windows?
In other words, Have we reached the point where the proprietary version of Qt, with its single supplier, is an indedpensible component of Linux?
If this article is correct, and Novell is standardizing on Qt as the foundation of its desktop and development environment, then things are very bad.
Others have also argued that it has become almost impossible to have Linux without proprietary Qt...
In their paper Conquering the Enterprise Desktop, a group of developers argued that Bruce Perens' UserLinux would have trouble succeeding, unless it included the Qt Library in its basic install. Were those developers just talking about the GPL'd version of Qt? No, as shown by these statements:
I've used Swing on small projects, but never used GTK, Qt or GNUStep.
I had a job for part of which I spent about four or five months writing WxWindows. It seemed fairly easy to pick up, entirely reasonable as a development platform, and the quibbles I had with the functionality and documentation only came up a couple of times (one of the class docs was misleadingly written at one point, and one of the classes, WxListBox or something, turned out to only work on the Windows platform). Is Qt "better" than it? I wouldn't know. All I know is I had no objections to WxWindows whatsoever.
Most of the stuff I do is not GUI. However what I do all of my personal GUI development in is Cocoa, one of the two Mac OS X GUI libraries, which I consider as elegant, complete and (usually) well-documented as I could possibly imagine a GUI library to be. From my perspective, it is generally a joy to use. And, um, well, it doesn't cost me anything to use. The development tools came free with the OS. Now, given, I had to pay money for OS X itself, and anyone who uses my programs will have to have paid money for the OS as well. But, um, you know what? I don't really mind paying for the OS so much. Personally. I feel like I'm getting what I paid for there. And I CERTAINLY prefer paying money to use the OS and then getting dev tools and a lovely dev library that I can do anything I want with to either YOU WILL USE THE GPL PERIOD or having to pay, um, what appears to be a per-year, per-developer, per-platform fee of at least either $500 or $1500, i can't tell which, to develop software. What I'm currently getting just sounds like a better deal to me, so personally I'm going to stick with it.
(And since Cocoa is what GNUStep aims toward, who knows, if I really wanted to I think I could probably port my software to GNUStep without *too* much trouble. I know GNUStep is woefully incomplete, but this is why I mentioned it.)
But this is of course totally just my opinion. And it isn't entirely germane. But hey, you asked.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
My question is what about the interapplication communication issues. GNOME uses CORBA and KDE (Qt?) uses DCOP; then there is also DBUS, an extension (superset?) of DCOP. Is Novell planning on causing GNOME to move away from CORBA and toward DCOP/DBUS? Are they planning to add CORBA support to Qt? Are they ignoring this issue and hoping it will go away?
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.
Maybe programming will suck no longer!
At first I read this as 'Maybe programs will suck no longer!"
Good luck with that one, given the direction of the current corporate development climate.
Probably applies to programming also, same reason.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
I'm perennially amazed that the GNOME zealots, who started out from the GNU "all software must be free" zealot camp, now argue that Qt is bad because it doesn't allow proprietary applications. (Actually, it does, if you buy a licence from Qt. Unlike, say, GNU's readline library, which was deliberately GPL'd and not LGPL'd by Stallman, who will not issue you a commercial licence.)
In fact, RMS even wrote an article on why you shouldn't use the LGPL for your next library. Without the backing RMS gave GNOME in its early days, when it was an unusable piece of crap and KDE had already hit a high-quality 1.0, it would never have got off the ground. (Remember GNOME 1.0? *shudder*) And yet the selling point now is that GNOME is more suitable to proprietary apps? I just can't figure out where all this is coming from.
If anything, Qt is a shining success story on how to make money with GPL'd software using a dual-licensing strategy. Far from continuing to vilify Troll Tech, the GNU/GNOME zealots ought to trumpet this story as a way to encourage more proprietary software companies to play nice with the linux world. (Peter Deutsch did the dual-licence thing long back with ghostscript, but he only released year-old versions of ghostscript under the GPL, and that's still the practice. Troll Tech releases current versions of Qt under GPL as well as their commercial licence.)
You can licence it through GPL, if you do open source work, or you can buy licences from Trolltech at a reasonalble price if you want to do closed source work.
"Reasonable" is a very relative word. Visual C++ costs $100 for the standard edition. QT standard edition for a single platform costs 15 times as much and doesn't include an IDE. Forget for a moment about all the other things that are included with Visual C++ and pretend it's just a license to distribute software developed with MFC. It's an absoloute bargain compared to QT.
But what about cross platform development, you're saying... Well, if you go the QT route your price jumps up to $2490 for both X11 and Win32. If you go the MFC/Visual Studio route your price stays at $100 and you invest a little effort in porting your MFC app to wxWidgets (they are very similar.) If you were thinking ahead you would have started with wxWidgets from the get-go and porting would be a non-issue.
Like I said though, "reasonable" is relative. Maybee you have thousands of dollars just burning a hole in your pocket. Personally, I don't.
Yes, but Gtk+ doesn't restrict you to C, whereas Qt is almost entirely C++ (except for some scripting language bindings, like Ruby, Perl, and Python).
I despise C++. Hate it. It is an abomination both to C, and to OO programming. The syntax extensions to C are complex, as is the OO model. The only thing I think C++ did right is the templating system.
I prefer Objective C, which takes a minimalist approach, and the late dynamic binding makes templating irrelevent. It's a much cleeaner language.
So, the issue comes down to choice. I know a lot of people prefer C++ to Objective C. You can't account for taste-- it seems more people prefer Budweiser to any other beer, and McDonald's to any other food source, and MS-Windows to any other desktop OS. But the point is, there is choice. I know I don't want to declare a single standard language for all programmers to use, and I distrust anyone who does.
If they standardize on any one toolkit, we are screwed as developers. Instead, they should concentrate on standardizing protocols. And, from a comment Nat Friedman made somewhere along the line in this topic, that's exactly what Novell is doing.
Anyway, just my two bits.
- Tony
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
I couldn't tell if you were directing that at me or not, but since only quoted that one like and mention zealots, I'll assume you weren't. I totally agree with you. I actually use GNOME as my desktop, but have used a commercial version of Qt, and commercially licensed Psi, to produce a closed source app. I think the big thing is when people talk about freedom for the developer and freedom for the consumer without realising they're contradicting themselves when they change point of view between developer and consumer.
> 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
You almost have it.
I haven't actually been arguing about profit in a monetary sense at all. What I'm trying to argue is that users of freedom software must be conditioned to know that the expectation is that they give back something. I don't care what it is, coding, documentation, word of mouth of how freedom helps them or money.
In your case I've been trying to condition you to react by both giving back software and evangelizing freedom NOT free beer.(since you mentioned your a coder)
This started because it seemed to me that you expect that software must be free of cost in a monetary sense. Monetary free is only a possibility from freedom source not a mandatory requirement.
"The only way to make money with information is to either generate new information or to provide a more efficient way to spread,gather or copy information"
There you go you got it. Well at least you have part of it. Where in your above statement does it say anything about the nature of the license attached to the information? It doesn't matter if the information is licensed under the GPL, if I make my product more attractive, easier to use, more worth while, more...something. Than people will pay, either through their own hard work, word of mouth or with money. In fact it should be expected that people do pay in one of these manners. Anyone not paying somehow, not necessarily with money, is a free loader pure and simple. In the long run enough people will see the value of paying for freedom software to make it profitable.
As to the music,movie, television industries. Their problem isn't that they are losing control of distribution it's that they are LAZY. They refuse to charge the correct amount for the information or they refuse to provide sufficient value-added to make buying the information desirable.
I will pay a reasonable amount to have a CD,book,DVD or easy cable access. Currently all of these are too high for the product that is sold. I care not a wit for "Top 40" music it's not worth even a penny to me. If a music exec asked himself why than maybe they'd understand. The reason is there is absolutely no value in that information to me. I won't even waste bandwidth on it. However, if you somehow got George Clinton and Parliament back together, put together a good CD of funk, with bitchin' liner notes and maybe throw in the possibility of tickets to see them at a concert in New York(e.g. put a coupon in random jewel cases) I might pay $30,$40 or even more dollars for that. In both cases the information is free(the music) but only in the latter is there a value added service that I'd pay for.
As a physicist by training and a coder by profession I KNOW information wants to be free. The question is what are you willing to pay for sharing in it?(Again pay is not just in a monetary sense.)
Sure information wants to be free, but how much are you willing to pay for the packaging?
They offer versions(Mac/X11) under either the GPL, or you can buy any version under a license for commercial apps. TrollTech also recently released a version for Windows for non-commercial apps, this license doesn't seem to require you to distribute your source.
Pricing info is here, it's pretty reasonable, they have some decent GUI design tools too.
Restrictions
Software created with Qt Free Editions is governed by the terms of the GPL and QPL.
The Free Edition licenses do not allow the development or distribution of commercial software.
Last time I checked, the GPL license for QT is only avaliable for QT/X11, NOT on QT for Windows.
It doesn't matter because the topic of the day is "Novell Linux Desktop".
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Anyway, I wonder what in the world would make Novell pick QT? I don't have a problem with the QT license since it is free for GPL'ed code and if you want to do closed source, you pay, just like the rest of the world. I am fine with that. What I don't understand is what is Novell's game plan concerning all the Ximinan "IP" that they bought? There is no acceptable QT based groupware application that is ready _NOW_, while there is GTK+ based Ximian Evolution that even works very well with MS Exchange. There is Mozilla that is GTK+ based. Novell is not going to get all those users to switch to konq when, IMO Konq is not standards compliant enough yet and the rendering engine is not up to snuff with Gecko. What about OOo? Again, it uses GTK+, I cannot see Novell porting that beast to QT. These three apps are critical to the Linux desktop, everything else is fluff in comparision.
Maybe they plan to do some good QT/GTK+ integration? I hope so, since the two tool-kits have issues with simple interoperation such as drag-n-drop and copy-n-paste, not to mention how different the widgets look. I personally don't want a Linux desktop that has no consistency between the widgets. This is the main reason I always look for Gnome apps over KDE apps to keep my desktop consistent (with the exception of K3b, since it is one great app).
Oh, there is also the issues of the different technologies that the two desktops use. What sound server are they going to use? arts or esd? Are they going to make the coding changes to to the all the other apps or do they expect a user to have both running? DCOP or Orbit? etc vs etc. IMO, Novell should have picked one desktop and then ported any of the very good apps from the other desktop over. It would take a long time to port Evolution, Mozilla/Firefox and OOo to QT and have it be stable.
Since Redhat dropped interest in the desktop, I was hoping for Novell to help push Desktop Linux, though this move makes me less optimistic.
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
News at 11:00!
Seriously, the only threat that Qt provides to the Free status of Linux is thanks to non-Free code built on top of it. If you build GPL code with Qt, then you can always from now until the end of days use the GPL version of Qt. The only products that can be screwed by an about-face attitude from Trolltech are the ones that Free Software advocates AREN'T USING IN THE FIRST PLACE. If Trolltech turns into a monster, the GPL Qt libraries can be forked and Trolltech can be told to go hang themselves.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Bliss = Python + wxWindows
What's the difference between an orange?
That doesn't make any sense. Novell is competing against Microsoft, so the MS toolkit(s) aren't a choice for them. Besides, Qt is better than anything MS has yet to release. Even the .NET toolkit is stone-age compared to Qt. Its not font-sensitive, it doesn't have a layout manager, etc. So MS won't have a toolkit competitive with Qt until the next iteration of the .NET toolkit, which is slated to have these features, comes out with Longhorn.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Though note that the Windows version is based on an old version (2.3, released March 2001), and they seem to have no intention of releasing newer versions (and oddly, I couldn't find it linked at all from their page, I could only find that by searching).
;)
A shame - I got all excited when I thought there might be a reasonable GUI toolkit available for Windows that didn't rely on visual-designing and x/y absolute coordinate layouts, but I'm not sure if it's worthwhile learning what is effectively going to be a discontinued and already outdated version of the product (no, I'm not paying $1550, that might be reasonable for a company, but not for someone who wants it for programming for fun in their spare time!
I am really missing the point of all of this. We have a link to a German article that is uninteligble to the majority of posters here, and a lot of people talking absolute nonsense. Why?
When the previous article about Novell merging KDE and Gnome I immediately thought, which platform will they use as the base. I guessed KDE since the KDE people are already doing all the work whereas the Gnome people don't seem so interested. Nobody asked that fundamental question. Why?
Now, assuming that article says what it is claimed, I am left wondering why people think Gtk is being dropped, and scratching there heads over the Ximian aquisition. Why do people think that Gtk is being dropped, and what does integration mean to you anyway?
When Novell say *they* are standardising on Qt why do people then say that everyone else must now develop their apps in Qt too? How do you explain the fact that Gtk apps have long worked under KDE, and now Novell wants to integrate them more tightly?
To me this all sounds like Novell are going to make more use of Qt for their own future development, are going to use KDE as a base system for their OS, but are going to continue and extend the work being done in the KDE camp so that Gtk based applications work flawlessly in KDE (print dialogs, file dialogs, look 'n feel, font settings, control center options, etc).
The only question I am left wondering is whether they will also offer a Gnome desktop and do the exact same integration the other way round so that KDE applications work flawlessly in Gnome. Anyone care to comment?
impossible to have Linux without proprietary Qt...
that a Linux distribution must include support for proprietary Qt
In effect, they are saying that proprietary Qt is to Linux, as Windows has been to the PC.
etc.
There's a BIG difference between windows and Proprietary QT here, and the difference is that Windows costs money per-user. So to use the windows middleware, your *users* have to pay Microsoft.
However, with Proprietary QT the only cost is per-developer. So to install opera, hancom office, etc, I don't have to pay a penny to Trolltech. Only the companies developing these proprietary apps need to.
For that reason alone, trolltech is not going to fall into the control of trolltech.