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First KDE 4 App ('Kind of') Running
An anonymous reader writes "It looks like the first KDE 4 application is running. Click the link for screenshots." In short, "Kate now kind of works."
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I am a small business owner. The price for 50 developers is a quarter million dollars.
Look at it this way, the cross-platform market is small. There just isn't much money to be made there so the cross-platform toolkits should be cheap. Most of the time I would like to support other platforms but the cost can't be justified due to Qt's huge price and the relatively small cross-platform market. The only people it hurts are the users.
If it weren't for the one or two cash-cows Trolltech has they would already be out of business. They're like a government contractor sucking the teet of wasteful spending (I wonder if one of their cash cows is some government).
The reason I want Qt to be cheap is specifically so it does become massively widespread. This will make platform dependance a thing of the past. This helps us all.
The ratio of people to cake is too big
First of all, 50 software developers kicks you out of the realm of "small business owner". But regardless whether you are small or medium, the price of Qt is per developer. So treat it as a per developer cost. This isn't a monthly, or even yearly cost, it's a one time cost.
If you think $2500 is too expensive for tools of the trade, then talk to an automechanic, or someone in the building trades. I knew a tile setter who had his van stolen, and it cost him a heck of a lot more than $2500 to replace his tools of the trade. And that's not counting the van!
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Sure it is. IF it saves just one week worth of work it is well worth it. Where I work we have our own custom tool kit, that contains much less than QT. Way back when (early 90's - before STL did things better, but in a different way) we paid someone to spend months making the tool kit. Just this year I personally spent several weeks tracking down bugs in it (And I know of some I was unable to fix). I also have to re-do things that QT includes already.
A successful business owner needs to consider the cost of not buying QT, not just the cost of buying QT. It is likely that those who don't buy QT will spend several weeks doing things that QT makes easy. No matter what toolkit you choose there with be something that is harder than it should be. QT isn't perfect for everyone, and there are good reasons to choose something else. However choosing based only on cost is one of the things engineers hate about management.
The reason I want Qt to be cheap is specifically so it does become massively widespread. This will make platform dependance a thing of the past. This helps us all.
No, you want QT to be cheap so you can make more profit through Trolltech making less profit. If, as another poster has mentioned below, it's so easy to offer a cross platform toolkit on par with QT at such a great price and still remain a viable company, why don't you do it? Why doesn't someone else do it? (Remember, Microsoft is not cross platform).
Do you really believe that Microsoft wouldn't charge more for a cross platform toolkit? Honestly?
Trolltech has already helped us all. KDE uses QT for free and has produced an excellent environment. Developers that have a grasp on their cash flow buy commercial QT licenses and make money selling their programs. Then there are people like you that can bitch about having to pay Trolltech money by trolling on Slashdot. See? Everybody wins!
Here before all but 8486 of you.
One interesting comparison is memory usage of new kate compared to present one. KDE developers do an amazing job when it comes to code optimizations - and it seems they will do it again for KDE 4.
This may just be down to the new GCC and Qt. KDE developers do do an amazing job, with KDE getting quicker every release since 3.1 for me, but in this case, they are sitting on top of some pretty major optimisations themselves.