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Nokia Gives Some Hints On the Future of Qt
An anonymous reader writes "Continuing the damage control following the announcement of the Nokia-Microsoft partnership, Nokia has a post on their official blog outlining the future of Qt which includes some (cherry picked) comments from Qt users. Phil from Nokia writes, 'Lots of great questions and comments coming from you all on the future of Qt. One thing is for sure: Qt remains to play an important role in Nokia. We'll have more Qt-related posts coming this week during Mobile World Congress, but for the time being, the Director of Qt's ecosystem, Daniel Kihlberg, wrote a post on Qt's official blog on the future of Qt.'" An anonymous reader points to one unattractive possible future for Qt.
Will Nokia send a takedown notice to that parody of their documentation website? Or just grin and bear it?
Parody by regexp.... I love it!
KDE's Qt developers should split off and form a separate company -- named Trolltech -- and continue work on a forked Qt.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/12/nokias-marginalization-of-meego-came-as-a-surprise-to-intel/
I wonder whether there is any point in continuing on with QT? I mean it's awesome and all *now*, but will still be awesome after one year of neglect?
I am an ACCA student. Got a query on Accountancy/Finance? Maybe I can help!
Despite the fact there's already a Visual Studio Add-in for Qt.
The only possible scenario for QT under Microsoft's control is gamesmanship to dilute it and undermine its usefulness to KDE and other open source projects. The only rational response is a quick and clean fork under a new name. In this way QT will develop better and faster than it ever has before, guided by the needs of a community and not handicapped by the vagaries of corporate politics. This has to be spearheaded by the KDE project, the largest participant in the QT ecosystem.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
Lots of great questions and comments coming from you all on the future of Qt. One thing is for sure: Qt remains to play an important role in Nokia. We’ll have more Qt-related posts coming this week during Mobile World Congress...
I'm used to PR people spray painting happy faces all over everything, but this is some of the gaggiest PR barf I've had spilled in my path.
Back last autumn, Nokia had promised that it had finally gotten its platform house in order:
-S40 for dirt-cheap phones. No apps anyway, so it doesn't matter for developers.
-Symbian for feature phones.
-And Meego for advanced phones and devices.
But devs would only have to use one platform (Qt) to target both Symbian and Meego. Oh, and Qt will also run on Win/Mac/Lin. Icing on top.
That's a story. And after all the bungling, it looked like devs and users would forgive Nokia, and give it another shot.
But now, it changes the platform story once again. No stability. No trust. And no reason why users and devs shouldn't abandon Nokia for Android.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
I would love to hear all the reasons this is such a bad thing.
Why Nokia getting into bed with MSFT is bad:
In a single stroke, three high-profile open-source components are potentially endangered. If you care about open-source, this is a bad thing.
Uh... "for future disruption"? What does that mean?
And "will continue with MeeGo as an open source project".... Does that mean the community of folks who buy it have to provide their own updates, much like what has happened with the N900?
Program Intellivision!
But if Microsoft's incompatible QT.net were to be official and recommended and supported up there with C#. It would be a nightmare.
We all know Microsoft doesn't like cross-platform.
FTFY
The only thing that makes Linux usable is the fact that Microsoft hasn't crippled it yet.
FTFY
Motives of Stephen Elop, doesn't own any Nokia shares, but hundreds of thousand Microsoft shares? Where is the loyalty?
From http://www.tracked.com/person/stephen-elop/
Aug 31, 2010: SOLD 23,250 MSFT shares [SEC Filing]
Jan 21, 2010: SOLD 8,434 MSFT shares [SEC Filing]
Sep 25, 2009: BOUGHT 136,308 MSFT shares [SEC Filing]
Sep 25, 2009: SOLD 12,422 MSFT shares [SEC Filing]
Aug 31, 2009: SOLD 11,614 MSFT shares [SEC Filing]
Sep 26, 2008: BOUGHT 51,301 MSFT shares [SEC Filing]
Sep 26, 2008: SOLD 4,675 MSFT shares [SEC Filing]
Aug 31, 2008: SOLD 6,939 MSFT shares [SEC Filing]
Aug 29, 2008: BOUGHT 76,141 MSFT shares [SEC Filing]
Jan 22, 2008: BOUGHT 62,520 MSFT shares [SEC Filing]
Nov 24, 2006: SOLD 1,315 ADBE shares [SEC Filing]
Oct 24, 2006: SOLD 1,315 ADBE shares [SEC Filing]
Oct 16, 2006: BOUGHT 100,000 ADBE shares [SEC Filing]
Oct 16, 2006: SOLD 100,000 ADBE shares [SEC Filing]
Oct 13, 2006: BOUGHT 116,124 ADBE shares [SEC Filing]
and microsoft-beware-stephen-elop-is-a-flight-risk
When the Q&A starts you see this:
Q: Anonymous Coward February 12, 2011 at 1:29 pm
Thanks. Please answer one more question as soon as you are able to: Will Qt be ported to Windows Phone? Iâ(TM)d assume it would be technically possible, but would you be allowed to do that business-wise â¦?
A: Aron (Nokia) February 12, 2011 at 1:38 pm
Qt will not be ported to Windows Phone 7. One of the key benefits of joining an established ecosystem is that there is an established toolchain that everyone uses. All Windows Phone apps will run on all WP7 devices. Adding Qt to the mix would only cause fragmentation.
Unfortunate from a Qt perspective but wise from a developer ecosystem perspective.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
But we all know Microsoft doesn't like cross-platform.
Yep, that's why the .NET framework is designed to be platform agnostic and the whole thing is submitted to ECMA and ISO for standardization
Yes yes, The OOXML is also ECMA certified. Do you see where I'm going with this?
Stephen Elop kept using the word "disruption", I'm don't think even he even knows exactly what he means by that...
the whole thing is submitted to ECMA and ISO for standardization
What, like OOXML? Do you reckon they would have to buy votes again or is the ISO process now sufficiently damaged to just push it through? I'm not even talking about ECMA, that's just rubber stamp based marketing.
Insert
They are not. All non-Microsoft paths will end, I suspect the remnants of the MeeGo path will be out by year's end, if not earlier. Symbian will have a longer tail due to its installed base and pipeline.
They will both charge on down the WP7 path, pushing closed, locked down systems with Microsoft firmly in control.
1. Microsoft Fat Cat Exec leaves for heading Nokia.
2. Nokia ditches internal Linux development and saves MSs limping phone OS.
3. Profit!
How could that be a surprise?
Yeah. There will be exactly one first class implementation, available on one operating system [Windows].
Then there will be partial implementations elsewhere.
For an example of this see...Microsoft SilverLight.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Yeah, it is. Good luck with that. You effectively just canceled their platform (Symbian) and the only platform with any viable migration strategy (MeeGo). You also just removed the incentive for developers to create new apps for the Symbian platform.
You could have done something special by turning MeeGo into a platform that allows users to run Symbian, Qt, and Android, giving people a viable migration path. But none of that is going to happen with Windows Phone 7. And nobody is going to believe you are going to keep spending money on MeeGo now that you are in Microsoft's pocket and have your company run by an ex-Microsoft exec.
Developers are perceiving that MeeGo is dead, and with it, Qt is dead for your products. You might as well stop investing money in them now.
The only possible scenario for QT under Microsoft's control
Qt is not under Microsoft's control. Nokia is not under Microsoft's control to begin with.
My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
I am a nerd.
I am a nerd who watch the stock market closely.
After the announcement of Nokia jumping into the sack with Microsoft, this is what happened ---> http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/software/elop-gambles-nokias-future-on-microsoft-partnership/articleshow/7486397.cms " .... with Nokia's stock closing down a staggering 14.22 percent at 7.00 euros
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Fortunately Qt, being open source, can be forked, but that's only the second best alternative.
No, it's the best alternative. That way the development ends up being needs driven instead of agenda driven.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
This is why you can't port Qt to .NET/Silverlight. This is not even pointing out the marshalling issues.
I had great hope that the new CEO would have shed - attachment to his former employer.
Looks to me he's still in love with microsoft.
His actions are those of a Microsoft employee and apparently he is one of the largest owners of Microsoft stock. If this doesn't cause a shareholder lawsuit then Finnland might as well go back to making paper.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
Wait, what? The Qt documentation is by far the best I've seen. Care to point out a few examples where it's conflicting and/or lacking?
PlusFive Slashdot reader for Android. Can post comments.
I think he means disruption as in disruptive technologies i.e. technologies that make present tech redundant. So the iPhone was a disruptive technology in that it changed the market for mobile smart phones.
I think that the statement is meant to imply that Meego was being kept so that they can produce a product in the future that was disruptive to the competition in the mobile market
Whether that is a genuine possibility or a carrot to retain staff is open to speculation
Eh, the N900 is Linux on a phone. You don't buy Linux enabled hardware because the hardware manufacturer is going to give it great support (when has that ever happened?). You buy it because when the hardware manufacturer quits supporting you, you're still running Linux and you have support and source elsewhere.
I'm certainly happy with my N900, there simply aren't any devices even close without a lot of serious hacking. If anything, this makes me think about getting another one as a spare.
If Nokia releases a Meego phone I might buy that; again, Linux devices don't depend on the manufacturer as much as others do. But I'm hardly about to buy a WP, because when Windows Phone is discontinued (which might happen any day, considering Ballmers luck), there ain't gonna be no community support on that.
I think it just sums up the situation succinctly:
"Nokia got trapped by that win32.elop.trojan."
Has look and feel of a Zero Day exploit, and is creating that sort of confusion as well.
One could easily say it's not Zero Day, but then all ZD's are developed quietly over time and simply 'sprung' on the unsuspecting and unprepared innocent victims one day. Pretty much what happened.
QT has merit, and if the merit is good enough, and I think it is, it will have a strong future... just probably not with Nokia. (and yes I am a GNU/OSS/FLOSS fan boy, just not a zealot about it).
Anyway much credit to "eMPee584" for such a fine summation (assuming he was not quoting some one else, without attribution).
For the N900? I was on the open source developer program for the 770. About a year after I got mine (a week before the official release), they released an update to the OS that only ran on the newer model. It was eventually back-ported as a 'community edition', but it was clear that Nokia had no interest in supporting older devices - if you weren't buying a new one each year, they didn't want to know.
Trying to replace Symbian with Linux was an incredibly stupid idea. The Symbian kernel has better power management, lower memory usage, a cleaner capabilities model, better realtime support, and the microkernel design scales nicely to multicore phones (the kernel services are all in largely independent processes already). The only bad thing about it was the old C++ APIs that were heavily optimised for devices with under 4MB of RAM and made life hard for programmers who didn't care about obsessive-compulsive memory conservation, but you've been able to program for Symbian without going near these for some time now.
They even had a POSIX subsystem for Symbian that would have been used to port *NIX apps (no fork(), but most code uses vfork() anyway).
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Greed.. They're hoping for short-term profits, no matter the impact on the long term, they'll have bailed out by then.
Dude, your OWN LINK states that Firefox are the people who are not going to craft Firefox for the iPhone.
Now that Apple has relaxed the stance on interpreters, it could be the case that Apple would allow it. Although if they will, we should see some other browser before too long, like Opera...
Have you read the 3.2.2 (if I remember correctly)? It states that all interpreted code must come with the application and everything else must be interpreted by webkit. I guess you could make a HTML rendering engine, but good luck with JavaScript etc.
It is what it is.
- MS. EULA agreement when installing qt
- kde4 will now come with regedit and Tweakui-95
- will ship with Norton antivirus
- all kde system services will now run as root
- system tray icons in Kde will mysteriosly multiply like drunken gerbils
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
It could be something kept in reserve in case WP gets canned when Ballmer gets canned.
But I suspect it's mostly just words to keep Intel from blowing a fuse and to keep the ship jumping to a managable rate.
all slashdot icons got updated with the new design, why the hell you still use that old kde logo? those are the logo you should use http://www.kde.org/stuff/clipart.php
Trying to replace Symbian with Linux was an incredibly stupid idea.
Right, that's why everyone and their mom is doing this or something just like it.
The Symbian kernel has better power management, lower memory usage, a cleaner capabilities model, better realtime support, and the microkernel design scales nicely to multicore phones
So Symbian uses less resources but now we're using more powerful devices so this doesn't matter, and their POSIX model is incomplete unlike Android... I'm not seeing the strengths here. Linux is pretty great at multiprocessing, by the way.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Nokia Oyj announced that in connection with the need to reduce the operating costs as well as costs for research and development, it plans to reduce personnel as soon as possible.
2011-02-11
So, they sell support and training. Apparently (according to a Qt blog) there are 400,000 Qt developers, so a reasonable base to support. It's really quite an opportunity to be given Qt at it's current (advanced) state LGPL'd and be able to build a support business for that, without having to incurred the $millions it took to develop or the $150million or so it took Nokia to aquire!
Irrational? Definitely not. I shall not infect any of my Linux boxes with patent-encumbered bloatware waiting to explode any time Microsoft decides to go for it.
You run Java? You run C++? You run the Linux kernel? They all are "patent-encumbered bloatware". In fact, unlike Mono, people actually already pay patent licensing fees for some of those.
The patent situation for Mono is actually a lot simpler and clearer than for other systems.
Except, of course, for morons like you.
I bought an N900 too, and i did it not because was hoping that Nokia improves it after, but the community, and it delivered. Now is a better device than it was at the start, not just because of apps (that if well could had been far more, there are several quality ones), but also core features, like kernels with enabled overclocking that improved battery life a lot or libraries that enable apps to do nice tricks with the camera like taking HDR photos.
Regarding Nokia, i bought it to the old company. It delivered me a linux mobile computer with phone capabilities, with desktop flash that took other vendors 6 months or a year to match, with 32 gb of storage plus a great hw keyboard, that in the updates added little pearls like skype/gtalk video calls 3-6 months before any other device. Even a year and half of the original release it compares well against current smartphones.
I don't think i was wrong when I bought it, nor had lost it usefulness because the mole they hired as CEO. And there are room to improvements for the phone. The Community SSU improving things at the core, with a bit of luck the Alien Dalvik opening the door for a bunch of new apps, a possible near future PR that could bring Meego dual boot, or just dual booting Nitdroid on it.
To put it even more bluntly: "commodity" services and protocols are good things for customers; they promote competition and choice. Therefore, for Microsoft to win, the customer must lose.
Microsoft truly behaves as though it corporately believes that there's only a fixed pool of key ideas, most already discovered, which software designers must squabble over in zero-sum competition until the end of time. In that game, the only definition of `winning' is cornering enough goodies to guarantee you a monopoly lock.
assert one's viewpoint at the potential expense of another. It can be useful when achieving one's objectives outweighs one's concern for the relationship.
Here's the definition of accommodation:
surrender one's own needs and wishes to accommodate the other party.
Let's analyze the Nokia-Microsoft "deal". What has Microsoft gained?
Qt IS tied to OpenGL. In fact, the design is centered around OpenGL ES and it's quoted many times in their docs and source.
There's only THREE graphics systems, default (which is basically raster), raster (cpu-based) and OpenGL (1.x and 2.0). Widget system is either Qt custom, or Native. There's nothing in between, and they've gotten rid of the legacy rest.
I've before dived into the 4.7 and 4.8 (HEAD) source and written a custom DirectDraw backend for WinMob 6.5 because there was no existing support for it. I've been very intimate with how the graphics system works.
Of course the DD backend was pointless because it didn't solve the fact that Qt's footprint swallows 12-15MB of virtual (out of the precious little ~24MB for a WM process). Nor did it solve Qt's full-of-memory-fat cpu-based handing of graphics buffers, so I abandoned the project entirely.
Qt is very tied to OpenGL because it's the ONLY graphics API that consistently exists on the majority of the platforms out there and what it's been ported to (Windows, Mac, embedded, Symbian, WinMob, etc).