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Trolltech to Extend Dual-License to Qt/Windows

Posted by Hemos on from the excellent-moves dept.

scc writes " Trolltech announced today that Qt 4 will be available on Windows under the GPL. While Trolltech has long dual-licensed Qt on X11 (Linux, various Unixes), Mac, and embedded, Windows developers have had no options other than a commercial license."

6 of 436 comments (clear)

  1. Just what the doctor ordered! by osho_gg · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is exactly what has been requested by many Qt/KDE developers over many years. This will bring about a flourish of new applications being ported from linux to windows (whether you like that or not). This will heat up the Gtk vs. Qt arguments as a major argument against Qt no longer holds. This will also help push KDE Enterprise efforts as many enterprise concerns will be resolved by this move. Good move Trolltech!

  2. Re:Is TrollTech trolling? by Nurgled · · Score: 5, Informative

    I think by "use" they mean linking the library to your application. The application developer is the user of Qt, not the application user.

    If you want to write an application and not release it under the GPL, you must purchase a commercial licence.

  3. Re:Is TrollTech trolling? by eivindthrondsen · · Score: 5, Informative

    No, we are not trolling. The point of the dual license model is that we are _dual licensing_ Qt. We offer the Commercial license for proprietary use, and the Open Source Edition for Open Source use. You are of course free to download and redistribute the Open Source Edition, but you need to comply with the provisions of the GPL (distribute source with the binary, accept the freedom of your users to redistribute and modify the source). This is not the same as use under any setting at all.

    --
    Eivind Throndsen, Trolltech AS
  4. Yea! by LoveTheIRS · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Yea! Hopefully, now since cross platform OSS programs can now use QT, the GTK will die an awful awful death. No more hassle making custom widgets in C. Thank the lord. I hope that there is at least some very good competition between QT and GTK now. They are now fighting on relatively equal licensing ground now.

  5. Re:I wish trolltech was associated with canopy by EirikChambeEng · · Score: 5, Informative

    We have asked Canopy to divest since SCO turned against Linux. Unfortunately under US and Norwegian law you cannot force someone to sell something. We have sold all our investments in Canopy companies a long time ago. We do not like the fact that Canopy and SCO owns shares in Trolltech. The irony is that they became shareholders because the old Canopy/Caldera wanted us to continue to create good Linux software. Canopy/SCO owns a very small share of Trolltech and has no control or influence whatsoever on the strategy and operations of Trolltech. Trolltech is controlled by it's employees. Eirik Chambe-Eng (President, Trolltech) -----

  6. Re:Is TrollTech trolling? by vohi · · Score: 5, Informative

    There are roughly two things that are likely to happen:

    - your fix points out an actual bug or deficiency, but is for numerous reasons not something TT wants to apply against their source code. In this case, TT will probably implement a fix for that actual bug, and most likely not use your patch as it came.

    - the code you submitted is substantial, correct, of excellent quality and follows TT's own coding style. Then Trolltech will most likely ask you to transfer the copyright for this code to them before they include your code, or to provide the code under a suitable license. Then they will send you a job offer :)

    The source code of the Open Source edition of Qt is identical to the source code of the Commercial edition of Qt, so if there is any contributed code in Qt then it went through the above process.