Real networks invented the streaming standards of today, RTSP to begin with. Apple was also quick to adopt them based on their needs. MS was the LAST company to have a working "live streaming" solution.
Real Networks, Adobe, Apple and various open source apps (all current versions) support my CPU and I wouldn't care less if a joke in multimedia scene didn't. Ever wonder why they are considered a joke? This is the reason. Not being able to ship a product for a different CPU rather than x86. If people actually goes with their solution trusting to their usual "soon" arguments, good luck with the RISC empire named "mobile/3G/console/set top box market".
Several times transcoded by amateurs video is not a benchmark for any video codec or container.
There are 4 high end codecs now which have very similar results. H264, VC1, Sorenson Spark family and On2 family. If you have uncompressed,raw video in hand, even most junk codec can create miracles. If you have consumer level, several times transcoded stuff (like youtube) and if you even lower the quality on purpose (Audio), you won't make it look good whatever codec or technology you use.
Codec companies generally showcase their products on their sites. Youtube is the last place to check a codecs/plugins quality level. I would look to BBC who is wise not to affiliate with a single product for real life benchmarks.
Joost quickly abandoned Silverlight when they figured where it was heading and currently they brag (rightly) that their app is now PowerPC compatible.
Unlike some MS bought out organisations, every "media site" tries to reach highest possible population. While I still insist it was never designed to do what it does, h264 embedded in FLV container is currently the most popular and most compatible down to smart phones.
If I was American, I would be really concerned about how easy to direct a committee to serve as a poster child for a never popular wannabe plugin and I would actually mail and protest them.
Sadly MS lies on that spec page they submitted to Apple. The Download link will eventually land you to 1.0 Download which is not anything like 2.0 which everyone uses.
In fact, they actually let PPC macs download the Intel only binary once and left everyone with a non working, initialising plugin on their Internet Plugins folder. Such pages are planted on purpose so they will have a FALSE answer when a real pro media IT manager asks about multi platform support. Same trick they do with Windows Media Player. Instead of warning Intel users NOT to install it, they let them download (also submit to Apple downloads) and they end up with a non compatible crap breaking every single browser on their OS.
That is the company we deal with here. A company who doesn't hesitate pulling such kid like tricks.
It is a issue because the vendor has horrible record with multiplatform support, dropping the support without giving any explanation (in case of OSX/PPC) and trick people via unofficial open source implementations of frameworks which always lacks an important part.
Right after Apple announced Intel switch, instead of partying there as the Endian issue is gone, it will be easy as cake to port to x86 which they have very deep knowledge, they dropped Windows Media Player for OS X. It wouldn't matter to you but it really matters to companies who spent almost a million to their pay for view over net and did the mistake of choosing wmedia drm solutions. Now they are watching 30% of site visitors come and go without a chance of buying anything from them.
After years in a job which really requires to know the "media players" scene, I can easily tell that Microsoft is the last alternative to consider especially in this massively multiplatform scene which people started to expect their TV set top box or phone to show Youtube.
"Lot of new software" is lots of new games, directly ported from Windows using a technology named "Cider", a very high end, customized WINE as framework.
Other software includes software having lots and lots of x86 asm code like that Adobe Sound thing (which nobody takes serious), Premiere etc. They shipped as Intel only because they are ONLY possible on x86.
Once iLife, Graphic Converter, AVID, FCP class of software doesn't ship their major version upgrades, you will be correct. It is not a time to abandon PPC users on a mass market plugin yet. It is either the codecs were coded on x86 (huge mistake btw), the framework basically doesn't compile on PPC (another mistake) or basically incompetent and rushing developers. The issue is, PPC means "another processor" in this case, it is not like Apple will return to PPC. These days, people do crazy things like expecting similar, same functionality as their PC from their smart phones (which runs RISC). Once you have a multi (b)million product that can't be easily shipped to every platform easily, you have really started very wrong. For example, Adobe keeps their Linux, Symbian (as Flash lite) , Windows, OS X plugins in same generation since they want to keep multi platform, open to any OS or CPU. That is what MS would do if they were really interested in competing with them.
Even the usual suspect (Apple) ships all their software for PPC Macs, including consumer level (non pro) things like iLife 09. Snow Leopard doesn't (?) ship because running "pure 64bit" on PPC64 is pure 133t fantasy. It will even run slower, ask Linux guys or people installed 64bit linuxes. There is no extra bonus like x86-64 extra commands or no such thing as 3.2 GB limit exists on PPC Macs.
Are computers 3 years old outdated? Even back in 1998, sites could provide 3 alternatives (Qt, Real, Wmedia) on same page. What happened to that magnificent technology? Is such a historical event suited for another DRM framework install advertisement? I am not for flash too. It is giving user (citizen) the choice. It is possible, even basic pages on shared hosts can do it. Apple, Real, VLC and Adobe guys will happily install their servers too.
Linux Moonlight PRE ALPHA is not Silverlight 2. I was always wondering if anyone would fall into that trick and there we go. Microsoft doesn't support YOU, your OS. It supports Developers to make a clone of the real Silverlight. Just like Windows Media Codecs for Quicktime, even while excellently coded, can't replace a full feature Windows Media Player. E.g. it can't do DRM streams/music store. You know why they exist? So they can claim unofficial support when a media companies IT guy asks about "What about multi platform support? Mobile support?"
It is not sub 5% levels yet as you know, PPC macs didn't explode in horror right after Intel switch announced at WWDC. What I know is, Adobe ships Flash 10 for PPC, even enhancing it to use multiple CPU/cores.
Gaming is a very different matter and some people will of course switch to Mac Intel immediately but if we speak about population, it is not at stage of abandoning. It is like "Lets cut 4:3 compatible TV airing, everyone is on 16:9 now". The "everyone" is the trendy people who keeps up with latest.
It is extremely easy fro White House to figure PPC users as Mac browsers will tell which arch they run on browser headers. That committee site too. Hell, even Apple can provide stats, guy is the President.
It is Intel only. Lots of people , especially G5 home/business users excluding big time gamers didn't upgrade to Intel yet. Apple knows this fact very well as they still ship iLife/iWork 09 as Universal binary. Adobe Flash 10 for example is both universal binary and recently SMP enabled for PPC dual G4s etc.
Like the dotcom boom days, MS can air a "exclusive Madonna concert" via silverlight, to make it popular and make people install it but this event isn't a Madonna concert or a Hollywood trailer. They couldn't convince their own OS users yet.
I did very well. Mac PPC means Macintosh PowerPC. You know, not everyone switched to Intel and MS left out PPC users on release of Silverlight 2.0 without any kind of explanation. Mono Silverlight 2.0 support is in pre-alpha stages and there is no guarantee it will do a trick like that (live streaming).
There should be another way of doing it and if I was Mr. Obama, I would really check that committee's ties with that convicted monopolist as this is not the first time they do this trick. It doesn't really give a good image. Even MS themselves offer Flash or at least WMedia alternatives on their own site.
Speak about Indians, especially IT outsourcing in a non racist way in India prime-time while some random Indians are moderators and see what happens to your comment.
I am just saying that it could be not organized by some massive Chinese secret service conspiracy organization. Some of these 1+ billion people may actually be proud of how Olympics organized and they could be speaking their minds here. It doesn't have to be conspiracy. The Chinese online population is huge, really huge. Anyone tried to download opening ceremony over torrent learned it in a very bad way:)
Unsuspecting users were tricked to install WGA to their systems (it is still done) via security update.
Don't you understand that people will never, ever trust to their vendor again?
Install free MS Virtual PC or Sun Virtual Box, install XP Pro clean, the third update with a cryptic KB number is Windows Genuine Advantage. Ask yourself if you would trust to that company ever again?
Also watch the CPU/Disk activity next time XP boots thanks to that WGA junk.
I recently saw something amazing. Software Update checker coming with "multimedia support" of older blackberry sw (2008, not that old) disables the Windows firewall while checking for updates and enables it back. You see an automatically ignored (by user) "Windows firewall has turned off" warning. That is all.
So, the firewall which most of Windows users trust can be software disabled that easy. Same company will also bundle AV with their OS instead of disabling the freaking server service and we will see how many users will live the hassle of downloading a free AV while "it is already there".
You guys are way technical users so you manually forward ports etc.
In reality, a goodly coded, end user friendly application such as P2P stuff, Quicktime, Real transparently opens their ports on home routers. So a worm can be clever and open a port on router before running which user (who wonders around with never changed admin pwd) will need to read cryptic looking logs.
Interestingly a free tool coded by a white hat that only prevents horrible boot time wga check is marked as "trojan" in Clam database while actual people from very respected AV vendors personally say "It isn't".
So we also have a vendor sparing time to poison a free, open source apps database instead of thinking why their legal users want the tool. I submitted this information to Clam people many times but they somehow ignore that false positive. If I were them, I would do a full investigation about the jerk/company submitted it.
ps: Tool just disables the boot time "check" portion, it is no way a cracker or anything. Genuine Advantage apps will still refuse to run.
They already did. Windows "Onecare" and the bundled AV of Windows 7.
Instead of getting the basic idea of "A client should serve only if user wants", they bundle an AV and milk the "windows registry cleaning" fake market.
If every single windows boots with something called "server service" enabled, they are already coding ideal platform to spread bots. Just imagine if every single OS X came with everything enabled in "Sharing" preference pane.
Run a never updated virtual machine in it which traditionally has no anti virus and see what happens. You would never do it? Well, strange amount of people does it. Bootcamp should really warn people TWICE and even install a licensed/free antivirus to Windows on first boot along with drivers. That troll like small caps warning on boot camp page is not enough. Mac people didn't see an actual virus/worm and degree of things it can do since 1990s. It is really hard to convince them so better is, install a light weight AV with it.
I am not a Windows user but every single Windows user who doesn't update or spare a 3-4 mp3 or single youtube video sized download to free AV is a threat to entire Internet.
Well MS planted the WININET and supported all third party companies including their rivals (Real Networks, AOL) to use it exactly for that reason. You can't really remove IE from Windows unless you code a 100% compatible (not 99.9999%) replacement library which will seamlessly work.
As there are free Virtual machine solutions now, on a full setup Windows machine's virtual disk image, remove the IE and shared libs. You will be surprised how many apps will fail to run including the products of the companies who won in anti-trust case. You can't blame them too, see how easy to embed Webkit and everyone (Adobe,Google) goes with that method today.
Show a big screen with all major browsers big icons when Windows first installed/boots. They already do "Lets help setup your system" thing on a horrible VGA resolution even with animation. Let user pick what to use.
Whatever... It is too late for both USA and EU now. MSHTML dll, com object whatever... Everyone linked to it and it will stay forever. So, it won't be really different from the trick MS currently does such as removal of icon. Can the de facto standard OS of Planet function without IE shared dlls? That is the question.
This should be done back in "Windows 98 lite" day. Remember a Windows hacker teacher could remove entire IE (along with dlls) from system? Today you can remove too, it is just 90% of third party apps will refuse to run.
As a UIQ3 (recently dead variant/GUI of Symbian) user, I would really hope that Motorola (and Sony-Ericsson) stays away from _any_ kind of smart device or anything can be applied on smart device and keep shipping their "design" dumb phones.
They are inconsistent and have awful management. That is why their UI is too. I am not joking.
They, along with the schizoid company Sony Ericsson killed the UIQ. Hope Nokia never answers any of their calls regarding Qt.
They had the interface which is ages ahead of anything running on rock solid Symbian kernel in hand. Know what happened?
Trust me, don't expect anything consistent from Motorola and SE. One day they sign up for Google Android and next day they ship a high end Windows Mobile device thinking developers will trust them and spend months coding for it.
If GIMP people really listened and acted on user feedback, they wouldn't wait until 3.x to ship a native widget using GIMP (not native in Qt sense) or they would already add that CMYK thing which some DTP guys whining (!) about.:)
Re:Comparison to WPF or other non stone-age tools?
on
Qt Becomes LGPL
·
· Score: 1
Don't forget Nokia bought Trolltech for a reason, mainly for their own smart phones (micro laptops). So, the Symbian market which is truly gigantic and even Windows Mobile market will be possible for your application.
Just to say you made the right choice.
Re:Large uptick in Qt usage?
on
Qt Becomes LGPL
·
· Score: 1
I got KDE 3.5.9 (Fink compiled) installed to my OS X Leopard on Quad G5 (quad is not very relevant in this case) and kicker, the main component of KDE and the stuff it triggers (most of KDE shared libs) runs in less than 2 secs.
Konqueror takes 2 more secs to start. Psi (which I have in native form) is really hard to time, must be way less than 1 secs.
I wonder where that "Qt apps start slower" thing comes from. Windows? Well, Opera would have horrible load speed if it was the case while we all know it starts even faster than IE sometimes. Linux? Filesystem? Some really badly coded application or a real complex scientific application?
Slashdot Mirror
Real networks invented the streaming standards of today, RTSP to begin with. Apple was also quick to adopt them based on their needs. MS was the LAST company to have a working "live streaming" solution.
Real Networks, Adobe, Apple and various open source apps (all current versions) support my CPU and I wouldn't care less if a joke in multimedia scene didn't. Ever wonder why they are considered a joke? This is the reason. Not being able to ship a product for a different CPU rather than x86. If people actually goes with their solution trusting to their usual "soon" arguments, good luck with the RISC empire named "mobile/3G/console/set top box market".
Several times transcoded by amateurs video is not a benchmark for any video codec or container.
There are 4 high end codecs now which have very similar results. H264, VC1, Sorenson Spark family and On2 family. If you have uncompressed,raw video in hand, even most junk codec can create miracles. If you have consumer level, several times transcoded stuff (like youtube) and if you even lower the quality on purpose (Audio), you won't make it look good whatever codec or technology you use.
Codec companies generally showcase their products on their sites. Youtube is the last place to check a codecs/plugins quality level. I would look to BBC who is wise not to affiliate with a single product for real life benchmarks.
Joost quickly abandoned Silverlight when they figured where it was heading and currently they brag (rightly) that their app is now PowerPC compatible.
Unlike some MS bought out organisations, every "media site" tries to reach highest possible population. While I still insist it was never designed to do what it does, h264 embedded in FLV container is currently the most popular and most compatible down to smart phones.
If I was American, I would be really concerned about how easy to direct a committee to serve as a poster child for a never popular wannabe plugin and I would actually mail and protest them.
Sadly MS lies on that spec page they submitted to Apple. The Download link will eventually land you to 1.0 Download which is not anything like 2.0 which everyone uses.
http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/resources/install.aspx?v=1.0 (notice the 1.0 mentioned).
In fact, they actually let PPC macs download the Intel only binary once and left everyone with a non working, initialising plugin on their Internet Plugins folder. Such pages are planted on purpose so they will have a FALSE answer when a real pro media IT manager asks about multi platform support. Same trick they do with Windows Media Player. Instead of warning Intel users NOT to install it, they let them download (also submit to Apple downloads) and they end up with a non compatible crap breaking every single browser on their OS.
That is the company we deal with here. A company who doesn't hesitate pulling such kid like tricks.
It is a issue because the vendor has horrible record with multiplatform support, dropping the support without giving any explanation (in case of OSX/PPC) and trick people via unofficial open source implementations of frameworks which always lacks an important part.
Right after Apple announced Intel switch, instead of partying there as the Endian issue is gone, it will be easy as cake to port to x86 which they have very deep knowledge, they dropped Windows Media Player for OS X. It wouldn't matter to you but it really matters to companies who spent almost a million to their pay for view over net and did the mistake of choosing wmedia drm solutions. Now they are watching 30% of site visitors come and go without a chance of buying anything from them.
After years in a job which really requires to know the "media players" scene, I can easily tell that Microsoft is the last alternative to consider especially in this massively multiplatform scene which people started to expect their TV set top box or phone to show Youtube.
"Lot of new software" is lots of new games, directly ported from Windows using a technology named "Cider", a very high end, customized WINE as framework.
Other software includes software having lots and lots of x86 asm code like that Adobe Sound thing (which nobody takes serious), Premiere etc. They shipped as Intel only because they are ONLY possible on x86.
Once iLife, Graphic Converter, AVID, FCP class of software doesn't ship their major version upgrades, you will be correct. It is not a time to abandon PPC users on a mass market plugin yet. It is either the codecs were coded on x86 (huge mistake btw), the framework basically doesn't compile on PPC (another mistake) or basically incompetent and rushing developers. The issue is, PPC means "another processor" in this case, it is not like Apple will return to PPC. These days, people do crazy things like expecting similar, same functionality as their PC from their smart phones (which runs RISC). Once you have a multi (b)million product that can't be easily shipped to every platform easily, you have really started very wrong. For example, Adobe keeps their Linux, Symbian (as Flash lite) , Windows, OS X plugins in same generation since they want to keep multi platform, open to any OS or CPU. That is what MS would do if they were really interested in competing with them.
Even the usual suspect (Apple) ships all their software for PPC Macs, including consumer level (non pro) things like iLife 09. Snow Leopard doesn't (?) ship because running "pure 64bit" on PPC64 is pure 133t fantasy. It will even run slower, ask Linux guys or people installed 64bit linuxes. There is no extra bonus like x86-64 extra commands or no such thing as 3.2 GB limit exists on PPC Macs.
Are computers 3 years old outdated? Even back in 1998, sites could provide 3 alternatives (Qt, Real, Wmedia) on same page. What happened to that magnificent technology? Is such a historical event suited for another DRM framework install advertisement? I am not for flash too. It is giving user (citizen) the choice. It is possible, even basic pages on shared hosts can do it. Apple, Real, VLC and Adobe guys will happily install their servers too.
Linux Moonlight PRE ALPHA is not Silverlight 2. I was always wondering if anyone would fall into that trick and there we go. Microsoft doesn't support YOU, your OS. It supports Developers to make a clone of the real Silverlight. Just like Windows Media Codecs for Quicktime, even while excellently coded, can't replace a full feature Windows Media Player. E.g. it can't do DRM streams/music store. You know why they exist? So they can claim unofficial support when a media companies IT guy asks about "What about multi platform support? Mobile support?"
It is not sub 5% levels yet as you know, PPC macs didn't explode in horror right after Intel switch announced at WWDC. What I know is, Adobe ships Flash 10 for PPC, even enhancing it to use multiple CPU/cores.
Gaming is a very different matter and some people will of course switch to Mac Intel immediately but if we speak about population, it is not at stage of abandoning. It is like "Lets cut 4:3 compatible TV airing, everyone is on 16:9 now". The "everyone" is the trendy people who keeps up with latest.
It is extremely easy fro White House to figure PPC users as Mac browsers will tell which arch they run on browser headers. That committee site too. Hell, even Apple can provide stats, guy is the President.
It is Intel only. Lots of people , especially G5 home/business users excluding big time gamers didn't upgrade to Intel yet. Apple knows this fact very well as they still ship iLife/iWork 09 as Universal binary. Adobe Flash 10 for example is both universal binary and recently SMP enabled for PPC dual G4s etc.
Like the dotcom boom days, MS can air a "exclusive Madonna concert" via silverlight, to make it popular and make people install it but this event isn't a Madonna concert or a Hollywood trailer. They couldn't convince their own OS users yet.
I did very well. Mac PPC means Macintosh PowerPC. You know, not everyone switched to Intel and MS left out PPC users on release of Silverlight 2.0 without any kind of explanation. Mono Silverlight 2.0 support is in pre-alpha stages and there is no guarantee it will do a trick like that (live streaming).
There should be another way of doing it and if I was Mr. Obama, I would really check that committee's ties with that convicted monopolist as this is not the first time they do this trick. It doesn't really give a good image. Even MS themselves offer Flash or at least WMedia alternatives on their own site.
Speak about Indians, especially IT outsourcing in a non racist way in India prime-time while some random Indians are moderators and see what happens to your comment.
I am just saying that it could be not organized by some massive Chinese secret service conspiracy organization. Some of these 1+ billion people may actually be proud of how Olympics organized and they could be speaking their minds here. It doesn't have to be conspiracy. The Chinese online population is huge, really huge. Anyone tried to download opening ceremony over torrent learned it in a very bad way :)
So there can't be 300.000 people who would favor Chinese and the Government runs them?
You know, I suspect a cold war like propaganda against China too, in some occasions at least.
Unsuspecting users were tricked to install WGA to their systems (it is still done) via security update.
Don't you understand that people will never, ever trust to their vendor again?
Install free MS Virtual PC or Sun Virtual Box, install XP Pro clean, the third update with a cryptic KB number is Windows Genuine Advantage. Ask yourself if you would trust to that company ever again?
Also watch the CPU/Disk activity next time XP boots thanks to that WGA junk.
I recently saw something amazing. Software Update checker coming with "multimedia support" of older blackberry sw (2008, not that old) disables the Windows firewall while checking for updates and enables it back. You see an automatically ignored (by user) "Windows firewall has turned off" warning. That is all.
So, the firewall which most of Windows users trust can be software disabled that easy. Same company will also bundle AV with their OS instead of disabling the freaking server service and we will see how many users will live the hassle of downloading a free AV while "it is already there".
You guys are way technical users so you manually forward ports etc.
In reality, a goodly coded, end user friendly application such as P2P stuff, Quicktime, Real transparently opens their ports on home routers. So a worm can be clever and open a port on router before running which user (who wonders around with never changed admin pwd) will need to read cryptic looking logs.
Interestingly a free tool coded by a white hat that only prevents horrible boot time wga check is marked as "trojan" in Clam database while actual people from very respected AV vendors personally say "It isn't".
So we also have a vendor sparing time to poison a free, open source apps database instead of thinking why their legal users want the tool. I submitted this information to Clam people many times but they somehow ignore that false positive. If I were them, I would do a full investigation about the jerk/company submitted it.
ps: Tool just disables the boot time "check" portion, it is no way a cracker or anything. Genuine Advantage apps will still refuse to run.
They already did. Windows "Onecare" and the bundled AV of Windows 7.
Instead of getting the basic idea of "A client should serve only if user wants", they bundle an AV and milk the "windows registry cleaning" fake market.
If every single windows boots with something called "server service" enabled, they are already coding ideal platform to spread bots. Just imagine if every single OS X came with everything enabled in "Sharing" preference pane.
Run a never updated virtual machine in it which traditionally has no anti virus and see what happens. You would never do it? Well, strange amount of people does it. Bootcamp should really warn people TWICE and even install a licensed/free antivirus to Windows on first boot along with drivers. That troll like small caps warning on boot camp page is not enough. Mac people didn't see an actual virus/worm and degree of things it can do since 1990s. It is really hard to convince them so better is, install a light weight AV with it.
I am not a Windows user but every single Windows user who doesn't update or spare a 3-4 mp3 or single youtube video sized download to free AV is a threat to entire Internet.
Well MS planted the WININET and supported all third party companies including their rivals (Real Networks, AOL) to use it exactly for that reason. You can't really remove IE from Windows unless you code a 100% compatible (not 99.9999%) replacement library which will seamlessly work.
As there are free Virtual machine solutions now, on a full setup Windows machine's virtual disk image, remove the IE and shared libs. You will be surprised how many apps will fail to run including the products of the companies who won in anti-trust case. You can't blame them too, see how easy to embed Webkit and everyone (Adobe,Google) goes with that method today.
Show a big screen with all major browsers big icons when Windows first installed/boots. They already do "Lets help setup your system" thing on a horrible VGA resolution even with animation. Let user pick what to use.
Whatever... It is too late for both USA and EU now. MSHTML dll, com object whatever... Everyone linked to it and it will stay forever. So, it won't be really different from the trick MS currently does such as removal of icon. Can the de facto standard OS of Planet function without IE shared dlls? That is the question.
This should be done back in "Windows 98 lite" day. Remember a Windows hacker teacher could remove entire IE (along with dlls) from system? Today you can remove too, it is just 90% of third party apps will refuse to run.
As a UIQ3 (recently dead variant/GUI of Symbian) user, I would really hope that Motorola (and Sony-Ericsson) stays away from _any_ kind of smart device or anything can be applied on smart device and keep shipping their "design" dumb phones.
They are inconsistent and have awful management. That is why their UI is too. I am not joking.
They, along with the schizoid company Sony Ericsson killed the UIQ. Hope Nokia never answers any of their calls regarding Qt.
They had the interface which is ages ahead of anything running on rock solid Symbian kernel in hand. Know what happened?
http://www.newmobilecomputing.com/story/20734/UIQ_Files_for_Bankruptcy
Trust me, don't expect anything consistent from Motorola and SE. One day they sign up for Google Android and next day they ship a high end Windows Mobile device thinking developers will trust them and spend months coding for it.
If GIMP people really listened and acted on user feedback, they wouldn't wait until 3.x to ship a native widget using GIMP (not native in Qt sense) or they would already add that CMYK thing which some DTP guys whining (!) about. :)
Don't forget Nokia bought Trolltech for a reason, mainly for their own smart phones (micro laptops). So, the Symbian market which is truly gigantic and even Windows Mobile market will be possible for your application.
Just to say you made the right choice.
I got KDE 3.5.9 (Fink compiled) installed to my OS X Leopard on Quad G5 (quad is not very relevant in this case) and kicker, the main component of KDE and the stuff it triggers (most of KDE shared libs) runs in less than 2 secs.
Konqueror takes 2 more secs to start. Psi (which I have in native form) is really hard to time, must be way less than 1 secs.
I wonder where that "Qt apps start slower" thing comes from. Windows? Well, Opera would have horrible load speed if it was the case while we all know it starts even faster than IE sometimes. Linux? Filesystem? Some really badly coded application or a real complex scientific application?