TOra Project Looking for New Maintainer

cerberusss writes "TOra is a GPL'ed, QT-based Oracle/PostgreSQL client, one of the most full-featured for many years. The lead developer Henrik Johnson was hired by Quest Software to work further on TOra. After some time of inactivity, Henrik has put a request on the developer list, saying: 'I'm sorry for not being able to spend that much time on TOra as I should. I am now working full time on future versions of TOAD by Quest. (...) I am wondering if someone on this mailing list is willing to step up as a new maintainer of this project.' Also interesting is that the GPL'ed code base compiles for both Windows and Linux, but compiling for Windows is not allowed anymore because of the license of Trolltech's QT."

Comments

Re:Trolltech

[vanza]

The problem is that this would not work, according to Trolltech.

Trolltech the reason?

[Yokaze]

According to Mr. Johnson

The reason for it not being compilable for Windows is the fact that Qt is not available for Windows in any GPL compatible version and the license of the GPL:d TOra specifically prohibits it from being linked with the commercial versions of Qt. The reason for this is that previously I and now Quest does not want it to interfere with out commercial products.

So, it seems to me more an issue with TOras license, than Trolltechs. For example, I fail to see how it should be incompatible with the GPL to link a product with a commercial library, when you don't distribute it.

Quest Blows

[Unoti]

Quest sucks. They've been doing everything they can to block competition in their market. After buying up their competitors, at least SQLNavigator, now they buy the leading open source maintainer. Did you notice the price for Toad skyrocket a short time after they bought SQLNavigator?

And what have their customers gotten in return? Higher prices (a lot higher) and software bloat.

Have you ever tried to buy a copy of TOAD? The pricing is massive-- it's way more expensive than a copy of Microsoft Office, and does a lot less. They're one of the few software companies that bug me as much as RealNetworks.

Re:Can't port to windows?

[tricaric]

Quoting from the mailing list on SF: The reason for it not being compilable for Windows is the fact that Qt is not available for Windows in any GPL compatible version and the license of the GPL:d TOra specifically prohibits it from being linked with the commercial versions of Qt. The reason for this is that previously I and now Quest does not want it to interfere with out commercial products.
This is the author's decision, not a limit imposed by the Qt's license. Qt can very well be used in OSS projects, and it is possible to release windows ports just by allowing it in the license (small extension of GPL) and by finding someone with a Commercial Qt license that is willing to compile and release it. There are many examples of this. Back to your msg, it's _NOT_ really that simple: Qt offers many features that are difficult to find in other libs, and using Qt it is really simple to port from Linux to Win.

Re:TOra is (was) better than Oracle's Native Conso

[AndyElf]

I dunno, but in my experience both TOAD and PL/SQL Developer offer much better Oracle development/administration environment (and the latter does not cost you an arm and a leg of the former).

As far as TOra'a PostgreSQL support -- that was, agian IMHO, was always lagging far behind PgAdmin or plain psql...

GPL Qt for Windows

[khanyisa]

But the folks at kde-cygwin.sourceforge.net are producing a GPL version for windows ... by porting the X11 version and filling out the missing parts. They seem to be making good progress. I wonder what response Trolltech will give...