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Feature: Is Open Source for Windows Less Important?
The following was written by Frank Faubert
With the release of Qt 2.0, Troll Tech has been kind enough to license the Unix/X11 version of their flagship product under an open source license for use with other open source projects. Why are they doing this? According to their web site it's because they "have a strong dedication to the free software movement" and "believe that it is the most interesting alternative to Microsoft's near-monopoly situation on desktop software". What do they get out of it? From the same page, they hope to "spread usage of Qt around the world". This is all well and good, and looks like a win/win for everyone involved, but I have one lingering question... What about Windows?
If two of the goals of the Qt Free Edition are to help the free software movement and spread the usage of Qt, why not release the Windows edition under the same license? There are many open source projects which run on Windows as well as Unix (Apache, Mozilla, Perl, CVS, and AbiWord just to name a few); why should these packages be discriminated against.
Consider Apache for a moment. Porting Apache to Windows has helped it capture roughly 57% of the web server market which has caused Microsoft no end of aggravation. However, if somebody wanted to write a cross platform GUI configuration utility for Apache using Qt, they would not be able to release it under Windows. I fail to see how this meets the goals of the Qt Free Edition.
Like it or not, Windows has a monopoly on the desktop market, and it is going to take quite a while for anything to change that. Having more open source software that runs on Windows as well as UNIX can only help facilitate that change. Releasing the Qt Free Edition for Windows would be a big step in that direction.
Open source software that runs on Windows is no less open than its Unix counterparts, and should not be treated that way. I ask anyone who is reading this to either tell me that I am insane, or to write to Troll Tech and ask them to consider releasing the Qt Free Edition for Windows. Questions 20 and 21 of their FAQ prove they often get requests for this. If more of us ask...
Ed: Me personally, I believe that Troll Tech has the right to market their product in whatever way they wish, and I honestly believe that Qt under Windows is a huge achievement and wish them the best in its development. However, what about the folks that wish to port their Open Source Qt Application from Unix to Windows? Does development under Windows intrinsically cut a developer off from a few of the most important resources found in any Open Sourced project (those being right tools for the job, and the programming minds themselves)? Is there even a good solution for this situation?
I think that windows needs more open source projects. 'Nuff Said.
It seems as though Troll Tech is tailoring its releases by OS. Free versions for the Unix/Linux/BSD/etc community, and, as their FAQ states, $1000 a piece licenses for Windows. As states, I don't think there is a good solution to this problem. It seems to come down to TT marketing their product in what they think is an efficient manner.
Read the QPL icense in question yourself and figure out what's going on if you code QT apps.
I prefer GTK+, which is free (LGPL) on all platforms.
I agree wholeheartedly with the above statement. Unfotunatly, Linux users often consider ANYTHING windows to be below them. That leads to things like Qt's non-open windows edition. Pepole, it is the Open Source Movement, not the Open Source For Stuff That Runs On Unix Movement. and open source Windows program is just as good for the OSS movement as a Open Source Unix program, if not better. (OSS vs. OSFSTROUM)
Even people who develop on Windows don't care about open source.
I don't think open source is about world domination, it's about sharing software with people who want it, and the number of people who benefit from open source on windows will be next to none.
Porting Apache to Windows has helped it capture roughly 57% of the web server market which has caused Microsoft no end of aggravation.
Really? What percentage among those servers (ones that are visible from "the outside") runs on Windows? 0.1%? 0.01%? What percentage of them are even administered by people who have Apache for Windows elsewhere?
The only thing, Windows port of Apache did, was slowing down the development of Apache and its modules -- look at Apache or mod_perl source and count #ifdef'ed Windows-isms and various hacks made to deal with them. The same applies to almost eveyt other unix-project-ported-to-Windows.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
It's not whether Open Source for Windows is more or less important than Open Source for Unix. The issue is more properly defined in terms of the respective marketplaces for products on the two operating systems. The right question is "Is Open Source less important in a commercially-driven marketplace than in a freeware/shareware/public domain marketplace?"
The obvious answer is yes, Open Source (at least as far as it is defined with respect to the GNU Copyleft definition) is not only less important, but almost undesirable in the commercial marketplace. There are certain areas where commercial advantage can be gained by "open sourcing" libraries, protocols, and other building block technologies. But companies with millions in revenue and hundreds of employees to support will not be able to build a credible business case for engineering based on a concept that boils down to "whatever innovations we create will be made immediately available to our competitors."
Contrary to popular myth, companies that open source their product line don't survive in this industry (in any meaningful way). They simply cannot generate the revenue required to compete with all the companies that retain their competitive advantage.
On platforms where the commercial developer community is small (i.e., Linux et al.) relative to the industry as a whole, open sourcing makes a lot more sense since most of the products are still small enough in scope to be engineered by a handful of individuals sharing technologies. At the point a 20 person team is required to engineer, distribute, and support a Linux app, you'll quickly see how little of it ends up being open sourced simply due to the economics.
And I'm not talking about 20 people hacking a Linux kernel in their spare time. I'm talking about a full time staff of engineers, tech writers, QA personnel, tech support, and management. You can't make that sort of enterprise function without revenue and positive cash flow.
Shut up and eat your vegetables!!!
It's simple: Troll Tech believe they will make more money from selling/supporting Qt for Windows under the traditional software product model than from selling/supporting it under the alternative free software one.
I assume that they've estimated and factored into their costings the less tangible items such as the negative perceptions caused by the licensing.
The trouble is, of course, that it's so easy to estimate the intangibles incorrectly.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
I agree, it would be beneficial to all to allow an open source version for M$ for further development into that arena. The more open source out there, the better. I wonder if they thought against the MS open source for potential revenue.
"For software to be reusable, it first has to be usable." - Stroustrup
Eric VanAlstine All comments posted are mine alone, not Intel's
Oh you silly child of the evil empire. If you knew anything about the Microsoft software engineering process you would know that it is about how to come up with some stupid kludge that will work to get the product out the door. Microsoft isn't worried about compatibility, it's money they want. Which is why NT Alpha sucks and Win64 for the Merced sucks so much.
_________________________
Words of Wisdom:
_________________________
Words of Wisdom:
Never pet a burning dog.
I just don't feel for it.
Actually the MFC is completely open source. The only thing you don't have access to is the code for the Groundwork API's
Conscience is the inner voice which warns us that someone may be looking.
-- H. L. Mencken
It seems to me that TrollTech have every right to want to make money off of their hard work. By open-sourcing the *nix side of it, they allow open source developers to use their product. Let's face it: most open source developers are *not* using Windows, and if Qt had not been open-sourced, these programmers simply would have found a solution that was. However, people working in the Windows world are *used* to paying through the nose for every piece of software they run; from the operating system right down to their text editors. TrollTech is much more likely to be able to make a buck here, and probably had to do a lot more work to get their product to run.
I was one of the people who petitioned Troll Tech to put Qt under the GPL. I would have preferred that, but the QPL is not really that bad, when you get down to it.
And the non-free status of the Windows port is all for the better.
Wake *UP* people - they are doing us a favour! They are funding development which helps the cause of Linux, BSD and friends, and they are doing it at the expense of the Windows market *only*.
This solution is not only acceptable to me - it's damned near ideal. If the windows port was open-source, then it would retard the cause of free software in two ways:
1. It would deprive Troll Tech of revenues which allow them to *pay* engineers to work on the *free* X11 port.
2. It would allow Windows users to use cool, free software that normally runs on *nix platforms - thus reducing their incentive to switch. We want to drive the application availability situation to the advantage of Linux, etc. people!
-- Mike Greaves
I'm assuming we're talking about Microslop Windows, eh? Well, the problem, as I see it, is there is no standard free complier for the Win32 platform; Linux has GCC (EGCS), BSDies has whatever they use, etc. Windows has none. What we need is some defacto Windows Compiler, perhaps (obviously) based on the the GNU code.
This is possibly the most uneducated and idiotic statement I've seen in the slashdot forums in a long time.
Even people who develop on Windows don't care about open source. Really... that's funny I develop for Windows I care about Open Source. I feel it's possibly one of the greatest movements in programming history. Every Windows Developer I know (which granted is only a handful) thinks Open Source is a great idea.
it's about sharing software with people who want it, and the number of people who benefit from open source on windows will be next to none.
I'm really curious where you get this idea that Windows developers don't want Open Source. Do you know programmers who say "No I don't want any helpful ideas I'd prefer to do everything from scratch". The fact is that Open Source is equally beneficial whether you're developing for UNIX, Linux, Windows, Be, or the TRS-80. Unfortunately Windows has a large already established base of Closed Source Software and the developers for Windows lack the fanatic devotion to OSS that Linux has, so there's much less incentive to develop OSS for Windows but this has nothing to do with whether it's appreciated, or beneficial to the community.
Conscience is the inner voice which warns us that someone may be looking.
-- H. L. Mencken
No one knows... Yeah Yeah open source is good, open source is great. But what good is open source when the things that the software is built upon (win32) are changing? I personally wouldn't even want to see (much less improve) a program built upon shaky ground.
I retract my prior attack until I can evolve enough to format HTML correctly.
Conscience is the inner voice which warns us that someone may be looking.
-- H. L. Mencken
So that it will be easier to convert to Linux later.
But Troll Tech owns the code and can do whatever they like with it. Both GTK and wxWindows is available on Windows. Instead of whining about Qt, I think people should use wxWindows or gtk. When Troll Tech start losing money on their strategy they will surely change to a more open approach.
Hmm. The majority of my recent open source coding efforts have been in Java. I'm still not positive whether Sun's licence counts as Open Source (TM) or not, but it means that the code I write can run very nicely on both closed and open operating systems.
For that matter, when I write in C, I seldom rely on more than just the standard C library (plus Pthreads and a few Posix calls), which is a "platform" that also works more-or-less unmodified on both closed and open operating systems.
My point is, who cares? As long as my license doesn't prevent it (and for my purposes that would be ridiculous), porting for me is either zero or trivial effort. So why not?
And if I didn't do it myself, the very nature of open sourcing my code would make it easy and legal for someone else to do the port for me. Witness the Cygnus ports of the GNU tools. Don't tell me Stallman was planning to do Windows ports himself!
-- Div.
But my grandest creation, as history will tell,
But my grandest creation, as history will tell,
Was Firefrorefiddle, the Fiend of the Fell.
Okay, get your imagination juices flowing. Imagine that Troll Tech released their free edition under the GPL instead of the QPL...
...nothing is different. The X11 version is GPL and the Win version is closed. Same 'ol thing. The license doesn't matter, the Freedom does. Get a clue.
People who want Qt or any other Free Software project to die are not interested in Freedom at all. They are the worst sort of hypocrites and are no better than Bill the Gates.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Does anyone not realize that MacOS does still exist? I perosnnally use a mac running Linux. The main reason i got into linux was programming and open source something which isn't very accessible in MacOS. I didnt see a lot of Open Source projects for MacOS and not a lot of source code released. I think there should be some sort of open source alternative for MacOS. Also i think a lot of this might change when MacOS X comes out, but who knows. (Sheesh there isnt even a free compiler for MacOS, and Codewarrior aint cheap.)
I honestly don't know the answer, but I do know that free software is dead upon arrival in an environment without free development tools. People who pay $100 for a compiler always want to retrieve their "investment" with shareware fees.
--
"the number of people who benefit from open source on windows will be next to none."
I can't agree. Being a long time djgpp gcc user under Windows, I valued open source a long time before I heard about Linux as a serious alternative.
I've talked to some young computer owners that had outgrown Basic and wanted to know if there is a decent C/C++ compiler that doesn't cost hundreds of dollars. Their usual reaction on hearing that djgpp is free is - wow, must be really bad huh? After they try it, they are usually amazed at the completeness and high quality, not to mention better standards. They are forced to think about how that can happen, and they get used to unix-like tools in the process.
I agree that people should switch their OS to Linux as soon as possible, dual boot if not. But a good way to get people to switch is to associate high quality zero price software on the Windows platform with the names "open source" and "free software". This lends credibility to the idea that Linux can be as good as people say.
That's all tactics though. The real issue is that "open source" and "free software" isn't about any one operating system. GNU is NOT Unix!
Jim
Open source is the greatest thing since sliced bread. When a completely computer illiterate person hands me a 486 DX25 and wants it to perform tasks moistly dedicated to pentiums, I need to start shaving the fat off an application AND the OS to make it run as lean as possible. Under an OS like Win, MacOS or OS/2 I can tweak the code to an app but the fat from the OS itself still remains. So even though the app runs leaner the bulky OS won't. I must say that Open Source is important to all platforms, but moreso on an Open Source OS.
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
Actually, GNOME and KDE are not standing on opposite sides of No Man's Land. KDE apps run perfectly on a GNOME desktop and visa-versa. The plethora of window managers are all converging to meet the same standards for interaction with the users desktop of choice, and users have never had it so flexible... and compatible.
On the other hand, communication between GNOME and KDE (and Enlightenment, WindowMaker, FVWM, etc...) is less than desired, but that does not inhibet using ANY of the apps.
You're argument is not backed up by fact. Rather, KDE and GNOME are moving TOWARDS interoperability instead of away from.
screw the buggy windoze, no open and free stuff of that money-sucking deadly crap
screw the buggy windoze, no open and free stuff for that money-sucking deadly crap
Why on earth would you possibly consider helping open-source projects on a closed, proprietary operating system?! So let's consider the best case scenario:
1) Troll Tech makes QT/Windows free
2) New Killer Linux/QT App X is ported to windows
3) Everyone buys Windows to run Killer App X
4) More cash rolls in to Microsoft
Isn't it obvious the entity that profits most here is Microsoft? Like I really want to ENCOURAGE people to buy more copies of Windows. I'm eagerly anticipating the day when Windows goes the way of everything else proprietary. The only open-source project related to Windows I think would make sense currently would be clones.
Developers are the operating system's lifeblood- no developers, no apps, relatively worthless OS. I never intend to write an open-source Windows app and actually admit to it. Why do you think MS invests all kinds of money to pull developers over to Windows? I think they know that's one of their last weapons left.
Hmm... I think I'll stick with Linux. I hope Troll Tech continues to suck the MS developer market dry, personally.
Is Troll Tech encouraging the spread of the love across the land so that they can get a PLATFORM / PROGRAMMER BASE using their library. Now when someone wants to make a piece of for profit software (this includes desktop apps just for your corp net, or ANYTHING you aren't gonna give the source code to the world for) then you have to pay them. Does this also mean that KDE is relegated to ONLY running OSS software?
To mean this seems like the perfect form of vendor locking and virial infection marketing
Maybe I am being a little to skeptical but common, software shops have been doing this for years. This smells of
GTK seems like the answer. Would I submit changes to the QT OSS project if I can't use it in my commercial apps? no.
Remember that as a community, we Open Source folks get our strength from building off each other's strengths, and sharing our own for what I hope is some kind of greater good. Part of that greater good, I hope, is alleviating the need for developers to reinvent the wheel, as there are so many things that developers need in common, that we can benefit from sharing and improving common tools and libraries. The other part of that greater good is to help people like myself, when I was younger and more naive, and scraped together enough money to buy a computer only to find I could not afford the software to do anything useful. Open Source, and at that time shareware, was the only way I could claw my way out of ignorance and learn how to program to harness the power of my machine.
That has nothing to do with Microsoft, and I know that restricting Open Source technology from the Windows platform certainly does not strengthen any Open Source ideals. It is not going to make anyone ``switch'' away from the Bad Way. In fact, it can only serve to do the opposite, to paint the picture of the Open Source movement as a bunch of elitist and closed(!) minded individuals, who are willing to share only if you agree with their ideals! How is that going to help people join the cause?
On the other hand, let's imagine that someone that has never experienced the Open Source Way, using his/her Evil Operating System, discovers a ray of hope in some small library, or some other project. Suppose he/she benefits from it, or submits a change and discovers what Open Source is really all about? Then won't that have been part of the greater good?
Open Source is about creating, not about destroying, whether it be closed-source development, or Microsoft. Make sure that people realize that, and that we're not just a bunch of petty Linux and BSD bigots.
My Freakin Blog
> Actually the MFC is completely open source.
MFC is nowhere near open source. The source is provided "for reference only". There is no guarantee that the source you have is the source that was used to compile the library you're linking against. There are no makefiles, or build environments to allow you to fix a bug if you find it. I once found a one-line-fix memory link in an old version of MFC (CString wouldn't free memory on reallocations for larger strings, for those keeping score), but had no means to fix it for my program. I just had to pray the program wouldn't be running long enough for it to be a problem.
At least the Symantec compiler guaranteed they library source and the batch files they give you were used to build the libraries, so you *could* fix any bugs you found. You were allowed to redistribute the product of such repairs, but not the source used to create them. Still not "Free", but closer...
How's my programming? Call 1-800-DEV-NULL
But I think we can all admit moving native-level code from UN*Xen to Windows is a non-trivial task (not counting Java, and Perl/Python/friends have their own cross-platform nuances). Thus, the differing licenses cover porting cost/effort in order to satisfy Windows consumers who are used to paying up the nose for all software anyway ("Want to change your startup screen? We have a nice shareware app to do that for just 10 dollars...").
If Windows becomes a better environment for writing/testing open software, maybe we'll see more work being done for it. But at present I just don't see that happening. So I expect UNIXen will continue to dominate in the open software category.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
It's simply a question of the principle of the thing: If we want to push the open-source way of doing things, we shouldn't define exceptions. Simply put, MS is still the area where most developers work at. If we want to turn them to our point of view then we have to show open source working under the conditions which they're used to. .... *CRUNCH*)
Besides, saying that open source is cool for everything except M$-Windows reminds me of "everyone is equal, but some are more equal than others"...
No, I can't spell!
-"Run to that wall until I tell you to stop"
(tagadum,tagadum,tagadum
-"stop...."
Many people use both Linux and Windows and would like to have the same tools available on both, including tools and software they develop themselves.
And making free Linux/UNIX software like the Gimp available on Windows makes Windows users more familiar with Linux software. That makes it easier for Windows users to transition onto non-Windows platforms, and it makes it easier for institutions to deploy a single set of tools across all platforms.
As a developer, I look carefully at where I invest time to learn new tools. A tool that is free on only some platforms and costs lots of money on other platforms is not very attractive to me.
I believe that Qt could probably succeed as well as it does if both its UNIX and Windows versions were released under GPL (not LGPL), with separate commercial licenses for commercial developers. I still find the current licensing situation of Qt to be a major obstacle to using it.
Choices are:
1) Release both X11 and Win versions under a Free Software license. Result: severe and fatal drop in revenue. Would you spend even 10$ on a free software library? Can you name even one person who paid for GTK? Some large corps will pay for it but few others. Under Qt you don't need support at all. It's built too well to need it. But Linux users will still complain. As long as there exists a price list for Qt, they'll bitch about it. They don't want Free Software, they want freeware. "Why should I pay $1000 for Qt?" is the same as saying "Why should I pay $80 for Redhat".
2) Release both versions as Free for Free development and proprietary for proprietary development. Result: possibly only a slight drop in revenue. This option is probably optimal. However, the bitching won't stop because the average Linux user is an irrational creature. They don't want to create Free Software, they want to destroy proprietary software. Their zeal in condemning any and everything that isn't 100% GPL is proof enough that they don't want choice. They could care less that Qt is Free Software. If Troll went out of business and Qt transferred to a BSD license, they would still bitch about it.
3) Continue as they are, X/11 Free, Win non-free and proprietary usage non-free. Result: same as today. People irrationally bitching about it. Any valid argument for additionally freeing the Windows version is drowned out in the cacophony of hatred.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Why should Windows benefit from Open Source? What contributions has the windows camp given to the Open Source community? (I've seen Windows benefit from OSS but not the other way around.) Last I checked, you must pay for almost all Windows software, be it shareware or commercial. This is the Windows way. On the other hand, I can see possibly some benefit from Opening up the source on Windows PROVIDED said source is portable to other platforms. From what I can tell the main reason Open Source on alternative platforms like Linux is so successful is because of tools like GCC which is available on just about all Unix boxen. Opening the source to say a Visual Basic program doesn't really do a whole lot of good if the program has to be ported to another platform anyway. The whole idea of OSS to me is making the program available on a variety of platforms with just a simple recompile. I just dont see Windows programmers flocking to GCC anytime soon to accomidate the OSS community. In the end let the Windows camp live in the world of greed and cutthroat closed shareware/commercial software. Besides, most Windows software I've seen is cluttered with worthless features and eye candy that does nothing but chew up cpu cycles and eat ram. Do we really want to open ourselves up to these type of programs?
My 2 cents worth
Actually the MFC is completely open source.
It isn't. Being able to see (and possibly modify) the source code doesn't make it open source.
The MFC source is available purely to make debugging and working around its bugs easier.
I disagree with you all who say that it's okay that Qt is not free for windows, or that it's a good thing, or that open source has no place under windows or whatever. Free portable multiplatform toolkits bring developers from other platforms towards writing portable code, which is a Good Thing.
I use and develop under Windows. I just deleted two paragraphs of excuses as to why I do this. I imagine if you really need to see them they won't help.
I've been working on a project for a while - it's not useful or anything I could make a lot of money on, but it can be a lot of fun to use, and a lot of fun to hack on. (hint: realtime controllable abstract 2d graphics a la euro-demos (eg, second reality)). I think that other people would also have fun playing with it, and poking at the code too, so I would like to open up the source.
Though I do use and develop under windows, I am not a bad person - The basic rendering and display routines are portable. Platform specific code is localized in one module, everything else is generic enough C++ that it compiles under 3 or 4 compilers, on 3 or 4 platforms (Win32 (directdraw& dev studio | c++builder), linux (svgalib & gcc), MacOS (hell if I know & metroworks), and DOS (int10 & djgpp)).
This is important, since I don't feel I can reasonably expect a lot of positive results if I open up source code that's too closely tied to commercial development tools and Windows, and I'll definately be able to find a lot more interested geeks who tinker with open source projects if things work under linux.
However, another requirement for this to work is that the programme be usable by people other than me. Right now I've been forced to make an obscure interface which relies on memorizing a list of reasonably random keyboard commands, and it doesn't even work well for me. What it really needs is a GUI.
But how do I implement a GUI in a portable way? It's important that things still work on Windows, but if things are only usable under windows, it's probably not worth the bother of opening up the source.
If there were something such as the QT widget library available (I don't have $1000 to throw at this project.) it would be easier for me to open up my code which already runs under Windows. This is good for everybody.
I care enough about open source and portability that I think I'm going to end up making an entirely separate programme out of my UI (written in Java/Swing) which communicates with the "engine" (which needs to be faster - C++) through TCP/IP or something. This is not the simplest solution I can imagine.
I am aware that this solution does has some advantages, but it's enough of a pain in the ass that if I merely think open source is only a kind-of-good idea, it wouldn't be worth the hassle.
-me
Trees can't go dancing
So do them a big favor
Pretend dancing stinks!
windoze coding is pretty horrible - few tools, unreliable software etc etc..most ppl dont do open source for windoze cause its not any *fun*. its a proprietary bloated OS and no one wants to run a streamlined open source app on it. Personally, i couldnt care less about windoze, and if anyone wanted to use my apps on it, i wouldnt care enough to port em..not worth my time.
Anybody know if GTK exists for W95? I'm about to develop some software for my High School (looks good on a transcript. Otherwise I'd burn the place down to the ground) and if I could give them W95 and Linux support, then I think that they'd like that. I'm trying to convert them to Linux and using it as my development platform while supporting a W95 version as well would probably be enough of an excuse to put it on at least a box or 2.
Try writing an application for Windows that uses JPEG, PNG, or compression. Then tell me that OSS is not valuable on the windows platform.
A lot of people here seem to be interested in eliminating Windows, and are trying to do so by going from the kernel "up" to higher level applications.
Why not start with applications, high level APIs (like widget sets), and eventually work down to the kernel? If The windows GUI becomes irrelevant, then you can change the kernel and the users won't have to go through as much OS changeover shock.
comments@vrml3d.comPeople run Windows so they can run applications--not the other way round.
The more applications (free--he-he)that run under M$ the weaker the hold M$ has on its desktop users.
Most users right now don't care/know about advantages of free/open-source software NOR that there is a better operating system out there.
So words about the advantages of Linux are mostly wasted on them.
But if they see, for instance, that WordPerfect and Netscape are running on Linux, THEN you have something to talk about!
Then they can understand there is an alternative.
* More LINUX - Less CUNT (Computers Using NT) *
Mae Ling Mak doesn't use Windows. That's one of the things that's cool about her. I think she should be turned to stone. Then she could be cool forever.
Maybe I'm missing the point of this, but...
As far as I know, all the "standard" development
tools under Windows are commercial software
anyway. I always thought one of the great
things about *nix open-source was the availability
of good, free tools (gcc, perl etc.) tools so
that ANY user could use and make changes to that
source code.
And I don't see that with Windows. The last thing
I am is an applications programmer under Windows,
but everybody I know uses VC++/C++ Builder/Delphi/
Powerbuilder/VB to do their work. That $400, not
to mention 800MB of disk space for VC++, is a
pretty big barrier to entry for open source
software running on Windows. Perl is the
exception, but I don't know a lot of major
projects that use perl as the sole language for
development. Besides that, some parts of perl
don't work the same way between different versions
of Windows. Whoops.
What good is source if you can't compile it?
(Don't answer that. I know it's nice to see how
things work). It's good that people can see it,
but since 99% of Windows users don't even have
access to development tools, what difference does
it ultimately make?
-
Sam
my copy of visual studio 6 is still in shrink
wrap
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
You've made the common mistake of confusing commercial for proprietary.
The old Qt license wouldn't let you create commercial apps without paying for it, but the new one is 100% Free Software. This means you can write a commercial app as long as it's Free and/or Open Source.
But if you really, really want to write a proprietary app under Qt, just go buy a proprietary Qt license and have at it. Look carefully at the KDE libraries though, since they're (L)GPL. Same thing goes for the GTK.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
no one really uses macs anymore, do they?
Did I say anything about Win/QT ? NO! Whats wrong with just using GTK+? It's GPL'd throughout, that means that whatever platform it is ported to is GPL'd as well! (Win/GTK+!). If people would just write their apps in GTK+ we wouldn't have this stupid issue in the first place!
Fortunately, as DJGPP, Cygwin and other similar tools are being created, it is opening up these doors a bit wider.
Reality being what it is, the Win* world still blows the Linux world away hands down in terms of users. I, for one, would be way happy to be coding for the largest possible audience, especially if I could make everyone happy without going through herculean efforts to do so.
Perpetuating the idea that Linux is free while Windows products cost (especially when the Linux development is the same) is poor, doubly so when we're talking about a library which would only help foster code development.
On the other hand, if I want to sit down and write an open-source application in my spare time, using C or C++, why should I do it for Windows rather than Linux/*BSD? I'd have to invest a lot of time and effort into learning the Win32 API, and that knowledge will become obsolete in three months. The time that I spend fixing Windows-specific bugs will cut into the time I have available for fixing Linux/*BSD-specific bugs. I don't see how experience with Win32 (as opposed to, say, EROS or PalmOS) would help me learn things about the general craft of programming that I couldn't learn from experience with Linux/*BSD alone.
send all spam to theotherwhitemeat@ropine.com
Troll Tech shouldn't make the Windows version open source. It's a completely different development community and people would very likely abuse it. IT would also substantially reduce the incentive for Win users to migrate to Linux. I'd be just as happy to see Windows land completely starved of open source software.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
Several months ago, i've set my Litestep windows windowmanager (or shell as the windows world like to call it) under GPL.
Since then, many new win-windowmanagers saw light, some of them GPL.
At that point, though it was not the first GPL software for windows, it was one of the first windows-only softwares GPL'ed.
The point is, a new development team took back the code, removed its high dependance over C++ Builder, set up a CVS tree and some dev mailing lists, and all seems to run smoothly (last stable version was out about a week ago http://floach.pimpin.net/).
During this period, there were some people willing to speed up things about Win GPL... i can remember some people tried to get attention from the slashdot community and try to get some support from the *nix GPL world. Unfortunately, though many people welcomed the effort, many others were close-minded and were just looking at us as bugs...
GPL under Windows DOES work, but *nix GPL defenders should not consider that GPL is only good for *nix plateforms.
At first i though it was a question of code openness, but for MOST people, it is definitly a question of windows vs *nix.
lone.
Well the only time you need Win32 is the workplace where you've got formality, good rapport with Microsoft, and anti-hackerware mindsets to deal with. Your only use for it will be contracted work and the client pays for your libraries so open source on Win32 doesn't matter.
At home you're using Linux, trying to optimize expenses and code the best software you can. You'll want everything to be free because Linux software you must buy yourself with no clients to foot the bill.
If Troll really wants to become a world power, then they would release Qt as free for open source software under Win32. I can't imagine something that would make M$ shake more than to see a serious competitor to MFC and Visual Studio. Qt is it, and I can't help but think that Troll is short-sighted to not realize yet just how powerful their library would be if made available for Open Source developers on Windows. Now that would *change* the world.
This is not to somehow imply that Windows with Qt is better than Linxu (bleh). It's just a reality check that many people, like myself, are confined to Windows by the powers that be, for one reason or another. Not to mention the fact that if I want to create some software for my friends/relatives I'm not about to start signing my life over to them to support Linux on their machines when they are perfectly happy in the M$ setup [for now]. I'd love to write software, but I am definitely not paying for MFC...definitely not an elegant library there.
Just a thought....who in god's name would want Windows source code? I personally wouldn't pollute my hard drive with it.
Meghan
Apache for Win32 cannot be considered as a production standard web server. The developers make no bones about this on their web page. If you want to use Apache for busy web servers, you run it on Unix.
Apache for Win32 DOES make an excellent replacement for MS Personal Web Server, for use in development. PWS and the associated MTS used to hang up with my laptop's management software and/or virus scanning software; Apache just runs fine on its own without side effects.
While there are few real open source programs out there for Win32, any longtime Delphi or VB programmers will tell you there are plenty of open source components written in such languages.
Some have lamented the lack of free development tools for Windows. To say there are none is too broad a statement. You have Perl/Tk, Perl::GUI, and Java (not open source, but free).
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
I have worked with Qt under windows and I just wanted to say that it is open source. When you pay the 1000 bucks or whatever it is, you are given a zip of their source, then you choose the compiler, either MSVC, Intel, or Borland and compile the code yourself.
I'm not sure why they don't release a free one under windows, it woulkd be really handy. But I think we need to take a step back and look at the facts. Qt under windows _is_ open source.
-mike
Honestly, don't most people who want OSS for Windows want it to lead people away from Windows? Seems to me the fact that they are doing any open source at all gives them the marketting win they were looking for. And as an added bonus, they don't really have to support the free version because the source is right there, and you can bloody well fix it yourself.
Using Microsoft software is like having unprotected sex.
Bite the hand.
I consider my comments to be beneath you...:)
Open source == good software, or it dies...
What a blessing to bring it to the Windows underworld!
"It could happen!!" - Judy Tenuda
-=[ Lord 'Fighting' Jack Krch^H^H^H^H Kitchener ]=-> KDE apps run perfectly on a GNOME desktop and
> visa-versa.
I just love running multiple widget sets concurently though, don't you? All that wonderful memory usage... Why won't everyone just use GTK+ ? It's completely GPL'd on all platforms. Just use it ok?
The problem is that if the OSS movement doesn't make a big name for itself on other platforms it will collapse if Linux should for some reason fail. I don't know if it has already been done, but a port of GCC with an easy to use IDE addon would be a very big step towards getting more OSS Mac software.
---Got Coffee?---
There is one serious practical problem with Open Source on Windows.
What do you use to compile it?
Using Microsoft tools is problematic, as they don't support familiar makefiles, they change often and there are a number of grungy places that require even more #ifdefs than you would have with Unix-like systems.
Also, I think that Open Source is not advanced by requiring a pricey language platform purchase before you can get started. Open Source, in my observation, has greatly benefitted because people with few resources can really contribute, and contribute right away.
There is cygwin, but it's not entirely mature. Also, there is the issue of cygwin.dll licensing. I personally feel that releasing a library under GPL and selling another licensed version of the same library is against the spirit of Open Source. It is explicitly granting a license to one group of users that another group does not hold. This license issue probably frightens away a lot of potential workers to improving cygwin. Has RMS ever weighed in on this issue?
There is a call for people to help with the cygwin project, currently. If the tools were really mature, the split licensing wouldn't bother me so much as I believe that a ton of Linux software would be ported to Windows if cygwin could really do it. One really great benefit to this is that people would upgrade more often from Windows to Linux when they compared their poorly performing Open Source code running on Windows/cygwin to what they could be doing on Linux.
It might help if a commercial Linux distro, or perhaps a Power Tools CD, included the full cygwin package, complete with all the known ported releases of Open Source software. You could cross develop cygwin on Linux with a Windows target. Such a thing might be used to spread GPL software through the Windows community more. A good free X-Server might be handy here too.
If someone was to start a project to create a Qt clone on windows that was GPL, I have a feeling trolltech might change their tune.
Pretty evil if you ask me.
Yes. Open source for Windows will always be less important until Windows comes out of development, and becomes a stable platform. If we had the source, and we could fix it, maybe this wouldn't be a problem.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
here are some more freeware development tools for win32 The only free windows c++ compiler for awhile http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Heights/906 9/index.html but I belive borland has released their old c++ compiler that probably can do windows also Cygnus has ported gcc/egcs to windows and I belive also includes win32 stuff and if you really want it to be free there is a mod for it mingwin32 that removes the win32 dependency on the proprietary cygwin.dll not to mention pgcc and DJgpp which may not do windows native(didn't when I checked but may have changed) but are free and make dos console programs just fine. I could also enumerate a large number of graphics libraries and programming libraries that support both windows and linux but you get the idea. there is stuff in place. and anyone who wants to can program free stuff for windows.
Let's face it, if a company spends X million dollars installing OS Y for its corporate needs, then it will be very relunctant to change (you mean we thrown away $M X???). Thus, the general market can be segmented into Linux (hackers/engineers/generic), Windows (corporate), Java (embedded, components), Mac/BeOS (Education/Consumer) plus variants depending on specialised nichese (portables, real-time, etc). Thus a package can be developed on one platform, then the rights to port it can be sold off (e.g. Lokki with games). In this scenario everyone wins because it concentrates on your expertise, ports only occur for perceived successful applications reducing risk, and the market is charged what it can bear due to asymmetric information (ie you pay for not knowing how to grok the open source).
However, the point that probably hasn't escaped most people is that it is very hard becoming a large successful application specialist on the Windows platform as a certain comapany's desire for maximum profits has a tactic of embracing markets initially created by others. In an OpenSource environment, different business rules apply and it would be foolish of people to expect the ideals of OpenSource will translate unchanged into a CloseSource Environment.
LL
Here is MPW for download at no cost (if that's what you really meant). Here is the direct link to the FTP site for downloading it. Here is a big list of Mac open source software, which also includes my own stuff, mostly GPLed (anything serious is GPLed).
:)
I support the initiative to charge MS-Windows developers for the Qt libraries, for the following reasons :
1. TrollTech will increase their revenues.
2. Their increase in revenues will translate into Qt library innovations for the Open Source community.
3. Educating folks who choose to implement software solutions based on Microsoft technology in pay-for-use; in lieu of the day when Microsoft license fees are charged annually.
Check out the following web page and ftp site:
http://www.xraylith. wisc.edu/~khan/software/gnu-win32/gcc.html
ftp://ftp.xraylith. wisc.edu/pub/khan/gnu-win32/mingw32/gcc-2.95
I personally use these tools.
Here is a link to a Win32 API help file as well.
http://www.borlan d.com/devsupport/borlandcpp/patches/BC52HLP1.ZIP
Two options: 1. Yay Linux, Boo Windows! 2. Yay free/open software! Consider working as a Network Administrator on a all MS Windows network (I did it for a couple years, blah!) and wanting to convert the company over to a free/open system. Server side? No problem, just put in Samba and you are good to go. Client side? Good luck! What if KDE installed on MS Windows (hopefully as the GTK+ port to MS Windows matures Gnome will install on MS Windows), and I could transition to a new desktop interface? Then once people got used to KDE/Gnome I could switch from MS Windows to X, and no one would really know the difference. That is the only way I can imagine Linux taking the desktop. One more note. Really more of a question. How about the X replacement projects out there? YAX, Berlin, Y, etc, etc, etc? QPL is free, but as I understand it, all changes must be patches. Would that makes porting to a new graphical platform (while staying on Linux and with free/open software) a pain in the butt? I don't know of any of the X replacements aiming at getting KDE up on them, but almost all of them are planning on getting Gnome up. Anyways, enough of my ramblings... Daniel
It occurs to me that one of the biggest problems with Windows, aside from the OS itself, is the high cost of entry for any would be programmer. MS thinks it's doing a favour to students by only charging us $140 CDN for their tools, when I can code under Linux for free.
I read above somebody make the comment that if the tools are not free, what difference does it make if the source is? I mean, if it costs me $100+ just to compile the stuff, then forget it.
This to me is the essence of the stranglehold MS has over that market. I can live with paying for the OS (don't flame me, but it just doesn't bother me.... as long as it works) but I should not have to pay to write software. Think about it, MS makes everyone pay for their OS, pay for the tools to develop more apps for their OS, so that more people will buy it. so that more people will develop for it, thus selling them more tools... it's a viscious (sp) cycle. I think that what would start to make a big difference to this would be if decent, free tools were available for Windows, which allow aspiring and experienced programmers alike to write source portable apps.
Think of it, if you could write an app which used GTK+, and have that program source compatible with Windows, would that not rock? For one it would kill Java (which I think is dead with the rise of OSS anyhow.. different story) and it would allow platform agnostism (is that a word?) for programmers.
Personally, I would think this great, since I write Windows apps at work under MFC, and at home I tinker with GTK+, QT, and other *nix based tools and libraries, and would prefer to develop there.
Like it or not, Windows exists, and MS is now plotting directly against Linux/OSS, and MS will win unless the Linux community starts to actively attempt to undermine MS' platform. Take the battle to their own ground. If MS thrives on closed libraries and technologies, start making sure people write to open ones, especially for their windows apps. Everything under windows which MS cannot control is one more thing which lossens their hold on the market.
This is becomming a rant, but I think a lot of the Linux "snobs" need to wake up and smell the stench coming in through the Window, becuase it's time we all work together to freshen the air. (If that was not a well crafted piece of CHEESE I don't know what is).
--------------------
five fingers make a fist
amalgamate and resist
avail (cldale@uwaterloo.ca)
five fingers make a fist amalgamate and resist
Damn hypocrites...
"I believe that Troll Tech has the right to market their product in whatever way they wish"
Unless of course they choose the normal commercial software license and then it's a load of whining about how they should GPL it.
God I get so sick of Linux zealots and their two-faced attitudes.
Non-portable code is a kludge - temporarily acceptable, but a Bad Thing in the long run.
Sure, Troll Tech has the right to choose whatever license they like for their product, but they have to live with the consequences of their choice. And at the moment that means that an application written in GTK+ is easier to port than one written in Qt - with all the consequences..
Chilli
-=- Just a random lambda hacker
How come I never see a positive Qt article on Slashdot, since it is the most used free GUI toolkit on Linux?
Linux is where it is today because of the GPL. If you undermine the power of the GPL, you have weakened Linux and the community.
Linux is where it is today because of the GPL. If you undermine the power of the GPL, you have weakened Linux and the community.
Qt is nice but not the only solution. If you need to do cross-platform Linux/Windows development without having to suffer too much here are some pointers based on my experience:
I'd personally recommend FLTK: http://www.fltk.org for a nice, easy to use C++ toolkit that works flawlessly between many Unices, Linux and windows, and of course wxWindows which is now well-proven (http://web.ukonline.co.uk/julian.smar t/wxwin/).
FLTK is very simple and fast but has its own look and feel (on the plus side Unix and Windows application look exactly the same). WxWindows is a wrapper on top of win32 and GTK+ or Motif (your choice) so is a bit slower, but the toolkit itself is a bit richer.
You can use the cygwin or the mingw32 compilers to work with FLTK on windows, which makes it really totally free, not quite as good a development environment as Linux, but close enough. WxWindows requires VC++ I believe (I'm not sure, I use the python bindings with a pre-compiled version. Very fast development cycle: http://alldunn.com/wxPython/).
I hope this helps.Open Source apps should definitely, appear for Windows. Why? It helps peoples awareness of how powerful Open Source apps are. Currently most people probably think the apps are hacked together , and difficult to use, they have no real experience with them. Developing and distributing for Windows as an equal allows you to preach to the unwashed masses and not to just the choir as it were. Most end users (accountants, secretaries, VPs the vast majority of users, remember we are the minority) get to know apps they do not care about what runs them (until it crashes a loses a day of work) I work in a Mac shop and I can't count the number of times I have had client's new to the Mac whine that they do not like Macs because they are so different than Windows and that they just cannot get used to them. I then remove AppleWorks (formally ClarisWorks) and give them Office 98 and suddenly the Mac runs just like Windows, to them. My point is that getting users to run Linux apps smooths the way to a transition. If they all know how to run StarOffice, then what runs it, is not their worry but their IT staff. Enter Linux's stability strengths that win over the IT staff, who now do not face resistance from the Marketing VP or some other dumb ass because Linux does not run like Windows. Also it makes for a much easier sell when you do not have to say to a company, hey get those Windows boxes out of here because you what to run application "X" and it only runs on Linux (I know Linux can run on Windows boxes, but even in a small Office a complete OS change is not a quick or easy thing), it is much easier to say here we have a solution that can leverage your existing technology and incorporate the new (accountants love this phrase). This is one of the reasons Linux has become so popular in the server area, because of SAMBA, it says we'll play nice with you current NT and 9X client's, no fuss, no muss.
They are funding development which helps the cause of Linux, BSD and friends, and they are doing it at the expense of the Windows market *only*.
...
We want to drive the application availability situation to the advantage of Linux, etc. people!
You're hampering interoperability, limiting your program's customer base, and excluding a pool of talented programmers, all for the sake of being politically correct. Making the source available only to the "right" OS is just as bad as not making the source available at all.
To paraphrase Planet of the Apes, it appears some operating systems are more equal than others.
Keith Russell
OS != Religion
This sig intentionally left blank.
Your argument hinges on pigeonholing people into one of two disjoint sets: one the set of people who buy Windows software and who are not aware of free software, and the other the set of people who are aware of free software and who do not buy Windows applications.
Reality is much more complex than that. People cross over between the worlds all the time, they may use more than one computer or dual boot, they may experience both worlds by using computers at home and at work or at college, they have friends, colleagues and professors who tell them about the other world, and they read magazines and they surf the web and find out stuff for themselves.
As a result, there is a very real audience of people who inevitably feel the negative perceptions which result from Troll Tech Windows licensing when buying Windows products. For there not to be such an audience would require all Troll customers to be quite dumb.
I am afraid that your worldview is far too simple. Reality is more complex than that.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
As much as the linux community loves open source, the windows community doesnt need it. As a programmer myself I've never needed or wished i had the source to windows for anything. Microsoft gives you everything you need to do anything you want to with windows and unlike linux (no offense), windows is supported by 20,000 full time employees with bug fixes and service packs coming out every month instead of me manually having to tweak the OS. With all this i've never wished windows was open source.
i seem to come across more gtk apps than qt.
i just use whatever toolkit seems appropriate in my silly opinion for the purpose.
usually as light a toolkit as possible.
Notice how he only posts anti-Qt articles?
I, for one, would never choose Qt for an OSS project, simply because I do not want to be bound in the future by the licencing strategy of TT - or any other similar organization for that matter.
But even if for some reason I chose to go with Qt, I would not feel entitled to the right to bicker about TT's licencing. After all, *I* chose to go with it.
I agree that OSS is not platform-specific, I agree that releasing Open libraries for GUI development on Win* will aid the promotion of GNU/Linux. I just don't see why I should blame TT for *their* choices, and accuse them for limiting *my* choices. Nobody forced me to use their library. And if I did, that should be my own problem.
Some time ago people where screaming about Qt and their licencing terms and suggesting to go with gtk instead. (which, IMHO, is much better looking, too) TT, instead of releasing their toolkit under GPL, made their own licence. The mere fact that they *needed* to issue their own licence, means that they could not be fully GPL compliant. Perhaps I'm not a legal expert and within the licence I would not be able to see where the dodgy points are back then. But I would be reluctant to take the risk of going with a non GPL licence. Some people were less reluctant. Now they feel they have the right to blame TT for their own mistakes.
Hello all,
I have the strange feeling, that nobody ever talked with Troll Tech people kindly enough to see their point of view.
It's some time ago I've asked Troll Tech to make Qt cheaper aviable let's say for Shareware programmers. I told them I understand the fact that Qt is their business and they need to get money in a way from it (which is simply a fact! Troll tech is not university driven...). So to make a sort of "shareware"-licence to spread their product over the world and give poeople working with Qt the chance to build a business would be a way to get more money in a long term.
And what they told me? They told me they HAD a shareware-licence for cheap products made with Qt. The licence cost 100 $ (which is really cheap). With this licence you where even be able to sell the product instead to just give it away GPLed.
But they don't have this package anymore.
Why?
They sold only one (!) package. It was a total desaster!
So I think instead to always getting down Troll Tech and tell them how they could do it better and how they could make money instead of selling the package in any way: please be realistic. It seems like there is no better chance to get money out of Qt instead of selling it for 1000$ per package on Windows.
KDE uses Qt for widgets because it is a good library. But just because KDE is GPL means not that Troll tech has to be fully GPLed too.
Windows is not GPL and I think this is the bigger problem than Qt.
BTW if you don't like the whole Qt-business, use GTK+, which is aviable on Windows too and you'll find GTK+ on every serious Linux-machine because of GIMP.
There is absolutely no reason to use Qt under KDE and Windows if you don't like their licence.
Cheers
Boessu
Anyone who owns a Qt professional edition license for Windows can compile whatever he/she wants on Windows and release it for free, even code from another developer (I read something to this effect on a posting by, if I remember correctly, a Troll Tech employee on one of the KDE lists a few months ago). If one or two developers who own such Qt professional licenses want to form a new organization, say www.freecompile.org, for free Qt-based projects on Windows, they could do so. So poor programmer X can write his/her program on X11, compile & test it, send source to developer @freecompile.org, let it get compiled and posted as freeware for Windows. This is perfectly legal as far as I know and provides the foundation for what I believe is a real solution. Surely there are at least one or two profesional Qt developers willing to contribute to this. If not, a group of, say, 25 interested freeware programmers for Windows can form freecompile.org, contribute $40 each to buy a single license for one developer (perhaps someone working on a very important OSS project as well), who will then personally compile freeware for Windows. An advantage to this scheme for Troll Tech is that they will not have to worry about someone sneaking off and selling their application; freecompile.org will keep a list of all contributions.
The above are meant to be just initial ideas. Hopefully some discussion based on this will generate a real solution. (Wouldn't that be amazing?! An actual SOLUTION to a problem generated by a Slashdot discussion!)
---
"Go Metallica. Die RIAA." -- Linus Torvalds
In the case of a GPLed or LGPLed library, I could do Windows development. If you do Windows development with the QPLed version of Qt, you are in violation of the licensing because it's not licensed for that use under Windows. While in the case of the person in question, you're right- the larger case, it's not even CLOSE to acceptable.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
You still have to pony up the $1200-1500 from what I understand if you're doing ANY Windows development. It's my understanding that the QPL only applies to Linux/UNIX development. If this is the case, then if I want to do true Open Source development (meaning NO restriction on which platform it's running on) I can't use Qt. If the QPL applies to Linux/UNIX use, then using the version under the QPL for Windows development violates the license because it was not licensed for that use under the QPL.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Which is EXACTLY what you've described. And please, while RMS is the guy who kick-started the whole thing, and I appreciate his advice- HE DOES NOT SPEAK FOR EACH AND EVERY ONE OF US.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
GTK+ and Fltk both work cross-platform. Both are under very usable licenses for both proprietary and open sourced projects (unlike Qt...) and are easy to use.
GTK+ is available at http://www.gtk.org.
Fltk is available at http://www.fltk.org.
Go check them out. I think you might find what you're looking for there- I know I have.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
I'm wandering *way* off topic here, but can you provide any pointers (preferably web, but paper would do) to a correct technical explanation of the airfoil?
In a prior life (before anti-trust attorney and professorof economics), my B.S. was in physics, and aerodynamic engineering was pretty much the only program I considered other than law . . .
Nothing ever stays on top forever. At one time IBM was the biggest player in computers and look at them now. At one time Henry Ford had the lions share of the automotive market, not anymore. Today, like it or not, MS has control of the PC O/S market. That won't last forever but something has to happen to change it and that something looks like it will be Linux but the jury is still out on that and it is far from a sure thing. Why is Windows so successful? It is because of the products that run under it. Not the shareware and freeware stuff, the business apps like MS Word, MS Excel and so on. Business dictates what everyone needs on their computers and business says "this is what we use." If a number of exceptional open-source products for Windows were to appear that would save business significant money and be compatible with MS applications, that would help but it would not be enough to truly dilute MS' market share. If these products were open source and were able be modified for a particular companies particular purpose then you would have something that MS would have a very hard time fighting! Especially if the software was built with extensibility in mind! The primary disadvantage to doing this is the fact that MS can always tell what is being done, the source is available to them, giving them an advantage when it comes to development. I don't know how to avoid this while keeping the software open source however, I suspect that by developing a process where businesses can easily share hacks and developments, the problem can be reduced because of the significant advantage in addition to creating mounds and mounds of more paper the MS developers would need to digest. In the long run, MS would feel the loss all the way down to the O/S level as businesses would realize that the majority of the products that they were using would also be available on other platforms. When fighting a battle, the smart generals usually try a flanking move and that is what this really is, attack an area of vunerability so that you gain a foothold.
If you do Windows development with the QPLed version of Qt, you are in violation of the licensing because it's not licensed for that use under Windows.
So what?
a) Who cares fir Windows.
b) Just use an Win X server with the free Qt version
c) port the QPL'd version to Windows yourself (hard to do and pointless, but legal)
MP3 has a patent, and rightfully so. Fraunhofer Institute did an enormous amount of scientific research and patented it.
GIF is a bogus US patent, nothing patentworthy, but still patented.
Qt is licensed under certain terms, but not patented, so a clean room implementation like Harmony is legal.
You can use Qt in commercial apps, you just have to pay for it when they are proprietary.
And what, exactly, do you, as an alleged OSS programmer, have to do with proprietary sw?
1) Troll Tech makes QT/Windows free
2) New Killer Linux/QT App X is ported to windows
3) Everyone buys Windows to run Killer App X
4) More cash rolls in to Microsoft
There is a gaping flaw in your reasoning here. It lies in your third step, ``Everyone buys Windows to run Killer App X''. Setting aside for a moment the fact that the vast majority of computer users already have (access to) Windows, this statement still is not a logical deduction from the preceding two events. That is, if people learn about App X, and App X runs on Linux/QT and Windows/QT, there is no system-internal reason to choose Windows over Linux. So, a priori, one might expect half these people to go with Linux, and half with Windows.
Now let's return to reality. Most people have access to Windows these days. Many have access to Linux. When they hear about App X, they'll just get it for their system and install it. But if they use Windows, and they like App X, then that's one more thing they know will run on Linux, if they ever decide to switch. The more such things there are, the easier switching will become in their mind. And that's a Good Thing, because it promotes a true marketplace for OSes, rather than the current situation where your choice of OS is by necessity influenced by what you want to run on it.... Ideally, we could each choose an OS on its merits, knowing that we could run all the applications we'd want on it. And that should be the goal of the OSS movement, not a promotion of Linux. Linux can rise to the top on its own merits. We don't need to force people to use an OS just to get the cool apps---that's a Micros~1 tactic.
``This, too, shall pass.'' ---Eastern proverb
Keith Russell writes:
"To paraphrase Planet of the Apes, it appears some operating systems are more equal than others."
That's not Planet of the Apes you're paraphrasing, it's George Orwell's _Animal Farm_.
Unless it's even older, and *he* was paraphrasing someone else, too.
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
Christian R. Conrad
mail me at iki.fi ; same user ID as here