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Digia Spins Off Qt As Subsidiary

Posted by Soulskill on from the musical-overlords dept.

DeviceGuru writes: Following through on an announcement from August, Digia has spun off a subsidiary called The Qt Company to unify Qt's commercial and open source efforts, and debuted a low-cost plan for mobile developers. The Linux-oriented Qt cross-platform development framework has had a tumultuous career, having been passed around Scandinavia over the years from Trolltech to Nokia and then from Nokia to Digia. Yet, Qt keeps rolling along in both commercial and open source community versions, continually adding support for new platforms and technologies, and gaining extensive support from mobile developers. Now Qt is its own company, or at least a wholly owned subsidiary under Digia. Finland-based Digia has largely been involved with the commercial versions of Qt since it acquired the platform from Nokia in 2012, but it has also sponsored the community Qt Project as a relatively separate project. Now, both efforts are being unified under one roof at The Qt Company and the new QT.io website, says Digia. Meanwhile, Digia will focus on its larger enterprise software business.

33 comments

  1. Linux-oriented? by mattack2 · · Score: 2

    Since it is by definition a cross-platform framework (and first showed up on Windows and X windows), how is it "Linux-oriented"?

    1. Re:Linux-oriented? by Jane_Dozey · · Score: 2

      I'm guessing (and it really is just a guess), that it's because neither Windows or Mac have ever used it as their primary desktop toolkit, while Linux has.

      --
      Silly rabbit
    2. Re:Linux-oriented? by Bill_the_Engineer · · Score: 1

      Because the majority of their users are running Linux systems?

      I think that was just added by DeviceGuru to make the story Linux related to the reader. By all accounts, this is probably correct.

      --
      These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
    3. Re:Linux-oriented? by tepples · · Score: 1

      or are fucking stupid writing software to run on a desktop that noone uses

      Peter Noone uses Linux? :p

    4. Re:Linux-oriented? by mattack2 · · Score: 1

      OK, but I've run into plenty of third party apps using it.

    5. Re:Linux-oriented? by Arker · · Score: 0

      It's not.

      What, you are surprised? You expected accuracy in a slashdot blurb?

      --
      =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
      Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
    6. Re:Linux-oriented? by JoeMerchant · · Score: 1

      Feed Qt.io, not the trolls.

    7. Re:Linux-oriented? by laffer1 · · Score: 1

      Have you tried to compile qt 5 on *BSD? I'd say it's at best a big 3 OS system now and at worst turning into linux only.

      --
      MidnightBSD: The BSD for Everyone
    8. Re:Linux-oriented? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      KDE.

    9. Re:Linux-oriented? by donscarletti · · Score: 1

      Linux has uses it as a primary desktop toolkit

      Don't get me wrong, it is extremely well used, but nothing close to universal.

      Now that it's been LGPL for a while, possibly if it ditched moc and used standard C++ templates for signals and introspection it could be the primary desktop toolkit. Though to be honest plenty of Linux developers have no love for C++ either.

      --
      When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
    10. Re:Linux-oriented? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, their development tools are still mostly linux only (and mac).

    11. Re:Linux-oriented? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What the hell are you talking about? Ever heard of QT Creator?

    12. Re:Linux-oriented? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I agree. If they also allowed using STL datatypes and eased developing without that qmake, perhaps some could add QT as a UI option for their applications. But now it is just a Q* everywhere, which seriously limits its usefullness on a truely multiplatform and C++ standard compilant applications. No matter what the business management says, a forced vendor lock will also work as a deterrent.

    13. Re:Linux-oriented? by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      Noone is stronger than Chuck Norris.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    14. Re:Linux-oriented? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      What is the problem with QList fromStdList ( const std::list & list ) and related functions?

      Qt does not use standard STL containers for convenience (the Qt containers are easier to use for people with a Java background) and because STL containers do not have a defined ABI.

      If you do not like qmake (What I can fully understand) then you could either try qbs, or just use cmake like most people. Personally I hope qbs matures and gets some more traction soon, because I think it is really good.

    15. Re:Linux-oriented? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why does the client need to wrap every call to API with a fromStdList() and likely do something similar with the strings and containers coming backwards. I am not arguing if QT containers are better or not, but if my application uses C-strings and/or STL containers all over the places, they should be usable with the QT too. It would be much, much easier to adopt and maintain multi platform applications if the QT didn't try to shovel its own containers, qmake, javascript ui and moc:s. Just add another lib into makefile, IDE project file, or whatever one uses, import some headers as in any other library and off you go.

    16. Re:Linux-oriented? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It also works on Android, iOS and for that matter Windows Phone.

    17. Re:Linux-oriented? by TemporalBeing · · Score: 1

      Linux has uses it as a primary desktop toolkit

      Don't get me wrong, it is extremely well used, but nothing close to universal.

      Now that it's been LGPL for a while, possibly if it ditched moc and used standard C++ templates for signals and introspection it could be the primary desktop toolkit. Though to be honest plenty of Linux developers have no love for C++ either.

      You do realize that there are more and more parts of the Linux Desktop using Qt directly, even outside of KDE?

      For example, LightDM uses Qt and Qt5's QML.

      --
      Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
    18. Re:Linux-oriented? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you're going to make that joke, just link to Encyclopedia Dramatica.

      https://encyclopediadramatica....

  2. Sink or Swim time. by Bill_the_Engineer · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I like Qt, but being spun off as its own subsidiary makes it easier to shut it down without affecting the parent company's stock.

    So I wish them more luck than usual. May Qt not only be a boon for the open source community but also prove that this can not only be self-sustaining but profitable too.

    --
    These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
    1. Re:Sink or Swim time. by KiloByte · · Score: 1

      It's so needed after GTK went to the crapper.

      --
      The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
  3. Don't feed the Trolltech by tepples · · Score: 1

    Except The Qt Company is Trolltech reborn. Or was this part of your joke?

  4. KDE will fork by tepples · · Score: 5, Informative

    If the Qt project goes under, the KDE Free Qt Foundation has authority to distribute it under a BSD license.

    1. Re:KDE will fork by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If the Qt project goes under, the KDE Free Qt Foundation has authority to distribute it under a BSD license.

      But who will maintain and improve it and fix the bugs ? You need a commercial company for this, otherwise Qt will being free will bit rot and that'll be the end of it.

    2. Re:KDE will fork by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or speed it up thanks to the wonderful BSD license :)

    3. Re:KDE will fork by Kjella · · Score: 1

      And? Part of being a cross-platform toolkit is that you must keep up with the underlying platforms, if you start failing to look native or behave native or integrate nicely or lack interfaces to new functionality you'll quickly cease to be useful for that. It'll still function as a toolkit for building KDE though since they define their own native, but then it will gravitate back towards being a Linux-only thing.

      P.S. Despite Qt being cross-platform, most KDE SC applications don't seem to be. There's been an ongoing project to make them cross-platform for years, but many still have trouble compiling or working correctly.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    4. Re:KDE will fork by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thank you for that. This worried me a bit until I read your comment.

  5. KDE will fork by matthekc83 · · Score: 2

    That may be true but the community would lose paid developers... probably slowing down QT development.

  6. Finland is not Scandinavia by orzetto · · Score: 1

    [...] having been passed around Scandinavia [...]

    For the record, Finland is not part of Scandinavia, since they speak a completely unrelated language. Scandinavia plus Finland and others are correctly referred to as The Nordic Countries".

    --
    Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
  7. Focus, focus by descubes · · Score: 1

    This move increases the focus of the Qt team. Most developers know what Qt is, but who can tell off the top of their head what Digia does, and why Qt is strategically important to them?

    --
    -- Did you try Tao3D? http://tao3d.sourceforge.net
    1. Re:Focus, focus by TemporalBeing · · Score: 1

      True - I had to look up Digia at first. But simply put - Digia is one of 3 main Qt commercial contractors (KDAB, and ICS being the others). That is to say, their bread & butter is implementing Qt software for companies.

      --
      Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
  8. Bugs... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And my hopes that the long-existing and incredibly stupid bugs related to Wacom mice will be fixed slip lower and lower.