Nokia Sells Qt

Google85 writes "Now that Nokia has shifted to a Windows Phone-centric smartphone strategy, it's only natural for the company to divest itself of responsibility with regard to the Qt framework. It has been announced Digia will acquire the Qt commercial licensing and services business from Nokia, including the transfer of some 3,500 desktop and embedded customers actively using Qt today."

Comments

So much for plan B...

[houstonbofh]

I guess they are really going "all in" on Windows mobile. Kinda risky making your entire company totally dependent on a single outside vendor with a track record for not caring about partners.

Re:So much for plan B...

[Gubbe]

Elop already sold all MS stock and bought 150K Nokia stock on 17th of February.

Re:So much for plan B...

[DrXym]

'Kinda risky' is putting it mildly. Watching Nokia is like watching an alcoholic drinking themselves to death. It's tragic.

I doubt it's death, so much as transformation. Before the announcement Nokia was an innovator producing distinct hardware & software. After the announcement they become one of Microsoft's bitches pumping out handsets which are substantially similar to the likes coming out from LG / Samsung / HTC. Perhaps it's cheaper to do, but at the end of the day Nokia's brand will be severely tarnished.

It's also worth noting that Nokia is the only manufacturer to bet the farm on a single phone OS vendor. LG, Samsung and HTC all have their fingers in many pies (e.g. WP7, Android, Bada, Brew). It seems like a good way to hedge if the WP7 ship sinks which is entirely possible.

Re:So much for plan B...

[JabberWokky]

Well, Nokia still owns Qt... Digia is only handling the commercial software licensing and professional services for Qt. Basically, Digia are licensed to sell the product, but Nokia still owns and develops it in-house.

Not exactly going "all in".

They sort of had to

[tomhudson]

... while they still could. There was a "poison pill" in the QT acquisition

(For those of you who don’t know what it is, the KDE Free Qt Foundation is what we call a “poison pill” for Trolltech: should we ever stop releasing open source versions of Qt, the foundation is given the right to unilaterally release the last version of Qt under the BSD license.

So, why not get some $$$ while you can, right?

Nokia did not sell Qt

[rminsk]

Nokia did not sell Qt to Digia. They sold the Qt commercial license business to Digia. Digia will now sell Qt licenses to companies like Adobe or Google who want to make closed-source modifications to Qt. Development of Qt itself will remain inside Nokia. Nokia will continue to develop Qt.

Re:Nokia did not sell Qt

[jrumney]

So let me get this straight. They're no longer making phones that will use Qt. They no longer have a financial interest in other companies adopting Qt for use in closed source products. They are still letting their developers work on Qt on company time. Exactly how long do you think they are going to maintain this state of affairs, given the time that elapsed between the announcement of the adoption of Windows Phone 7 ("but don't worry, we're not abandoning Qt") and this announcement?

Wow, that was fast

[dingen]

So I guess when Nokia stated on their official blog that Qt would remain to play an important role in Nokia they actually forgot to add "...for about three weeks".

Re:Wow, that was fast

[olliM]

I guess in the spirit of fairness you should also link to the qt blog post detailing this sale: Nokia and Digia working together to grow the Qt community

But what does it mean for development?

[starseeker]

This is the commercial licensing side of Qt, *NOT* Qt. The major thing that will matter to the open source community is whether Qt will still be developed as a robust cross platform toolkit, not so much what happens to the commercial licensing business. Even Qt's future on phones doesn't concern me too much - the smart phone industry moving towards "app store" models and locked down platforms is a much bigger concern. (I'm just waiting for Apple to announce they're moving to an App Store model for all their desktop machines...)

Where Qt really shines is as a toolkit for graphical applications on the desktop. THAT's what ultimately concerns me - will the developers who have made Qt such an outstanding cross platform graphical toolkit will be allowed to continue their work as a paid, full time job? Never mind the phones, KDE and a vast array of non-KDE desktop applications that are important parts of the open source ecosystem rely on Qt (especially those that have to deploy on Windows). Would the commercial Linux vendors step in to keep the Qt devs programming, much as they have hired Linux kernel folk in the past? Libreoffice indicates they will act to protect key elements of open source, so fingers crossed. A statement along those lines would be reassuring, if they are in fact able and willing to fall back to that solution if necessary.

Response from David Stone @ Qt

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi all
Here are a few points that might add clarity.

Nokia did not 'sell Qt'. It selected a partner to sell commercial licenses and support services, a task that is currently done by Nokia. Qt is offered under two licenses - commercial and LGPL - and the large (majority in fact) base of non commercial users are not impacted by this change.

The agreement lets Nokia focus on Qt for its core businesses, and ensures Qt commercial customers - mainly in the desktop and embedded space - are given top service by a company that has commercial Qt licensing at the core of its interests.

The development of Qt has not been sold or outsourced and is not impacted by this change. Nokia's commitment to advancing and developing Qt for all Qt users has not changed - it remains commited.

You can read some more details at http://blog.qt.nokia.com/2011/03/07/nokia-and-digia-working-together

Regards
David Stone
Communications Manager, Qt

search terms = microsoft digia

[Locutus]

the results show Digia as a big Microsoft fan, supporter, customer, partner.

Watch Qt licensing and support fees to skyrocket to drive Qt out of the market. Nokia won't be implicated but that is probably the plan. Anything cross platform has _always_ been a threat to Microsoft and they have done everything legal and many time illegal to destroy these. Qt is a threat to Microsoft and destroying Qt also helps them hurt companies like Google and Adobe who base many of their tools and products on Qt. IMO

I figured this would happen but hoped it wouldn't. it sucks.

LoB