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Nokia Sells Qt

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the yeah-who-needs-it dept.

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."

7 of 193 comments (clear)

  1. They sort of had to by tomhudson · · Score: 5, Informative
    ... 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?

  2. Nokia did not sell Qt by rminsk · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:Nokia did not sell Qt by jrumney · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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?

  3. Wow, that was fast by dingen · · Score: 5, Funny

    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".

    --
    Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
  4. Re:So much for plan B... by Gubbe · · Score: 5, Informative

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

  5. Re:So much for plan B... by JabberWokky · · Score: 5, Informative

    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".

    --
    "$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
  6. Response from David Stone @ Qt by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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