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Warwick Allison Of QT And KDE Fame
Posted by
timothy
on Mon Jul 10, 2000 02:38 AM
from the telecommuting dept.
from the telecommuting dept.
Konqi the Dragon points to this BeOpen interview with Warwick Allison of Troll Tech's Qt Library, writing: "Warwick is also a longtime KDE contributor with interesting things to say about GPL, QT Embedded, KDE, The Mythical Man Month, Distributed Development and scaling projects." If Warwick's words make you say "hmmm" (for whatever reason), you might also want to revisit earlier Slashdot stories about Embedded QT and Trolltech. [Updated noon GMT 10 July 2000 by timothy] Thanks to jdfox, who pointed out that I had perpetuated the misspelling of "Warwick" in the headline. Sorry, Warwick!
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Open Source and Business (Score:3)
Looks like Mister Allison isn't a big believer in business being able to make a profit from an OSS business model. I'm not sure this is a healthy thing for the OSS movement, especially when voiced by someone with some visibility like Warrick.
Now, i can't naysay how he sees thing. Currently the money is definitly more likley to come from a company hiring an Open Source programmer who's got a good track record writing free software, but I'm hoping (and betting on) ESR's services-based model. Allison says it breeds non-user firendly code. Hogwash. Only if your company or programming team is unscrupulous or lazy.
I am hoping that most leading OSS companies like VA and Red Hat don't fit into that particular category. We've all had enough of unscrupulous and lazy software companies. Or at least I have.
So yeah, Warrick is right about why he got a job, but by saying that's the way it should work, he may be pronouncing self-fulfilling prophesy.
I hope not. We all have too much to lose if OSS can't make the big leap to big business.
And the overall point being......? (Score:4)
The only thing standing in the way (as I see it) of KDE being the dominant desktop for Linux is this persistant, irritating, annoying, pointless debate over the nature of the Qt libraries. Its a boat anchor that has been dragged behind KDE for far, far too long. Get it over with, guys.
Its only by pure luck that GNOME development has been centered more on building pointless foo-foo options as of late, rather can concentrating on basic usability issues. Both efforts have boat anchors. One has to do with politics, the other has to do with direction.
Want KDE to win? Make Qt free. Game over.
Bowie J. Poag
Re:If only I could ask him... (Score:3)
Besides, QString is UniCode (while std::string is not, since it's just std::basic_string) and reference counted, so you get a performance bonus as well.
As for bidirectional scripts: there's some support in KDE I think, but as I don't speak any of the involved languages I'm not too sure about it, ask someone. Heck, write to Trolltech and ask them to pay you for writing it!
Chill out, it's just a different opinion.... (Score:3)
What Warrick Allison states is a very valid opinion which myself and many others have had. I've often asked myself, "if I was a developer working for a company whose livelihood depended on being able to sell support for the software I wrote wouldn't I be less motivated to write easy-to-use and bug free code as someone who worked for a company whose lifeline wasn't based on selling support contracts?"
I've never been in that situation but from the attitudes of most OSS developers today usability isn't a key word they are interested in. Frankly I feel that the whole selling support concept only adds the current esoteric nature and general poor documentation of Open Source projects. Second question "Why spend time developing comprehensive training manuals, online help and documenting APIs if you are trying to get users to buy a support contract?". Laziness is a well documented trait of good programmers and bad ones as well, so why would one not expect that programmers would take the easy way out especially when it would be beneficial for their employer?
PS: Exactly what do we have to lose if OSS doesn't make the leap to big business? I'm in it cuz I like it not for the IPO money, aren't you? I hope you realize that VA Linux is a hardware company that sells relatively overpriced servers which has nothing to so with making money on supporting OSS. VA Linux subsidizes its OSS forays by marking up their server prices, which to me seems like an alternate business model to ESRs.
PPS: This isn't a troll, if you disagree, post a response instead of moderating this down and making this place seem more like a mad house for raving zealots instead of a forum for rational discussion.
Open source money (Score:3)
I have planned on going the same route that the author took in my software developement career. I am planning on doing some development work on some open source projects as an experience and resume builder so that I can fill in the part that talks about experience on my resume. It is a perfect place for new programmers to gain useful experience programming, but I have concerns about a market that is totally open source.
For all products to be open source is scarey. Now I know that open source doens't necesarily mean free. It means letting everyone know what your software is doing, possibly fixing it for their own use. This type of use is great. But what should a company do if they are making some true innovations. Release that software for the world to look at.
For example, Oracle may or may not have the most scalable and fastest database. But lets say that their programmers have developed some new methods that enable there database server to be faster and more scalable than the competition. How do the open source gurus claim that opening that software up would help Oracle. This is precisely the part that I have yet to understand. It is the same as patenting a new device. It lets the inventor or inventing company protect there investment for awhile so that even doing the research to begin with is worth it. The patent gives the garantee that the innovation is protected.
The article didn't help clarify my view of the issues with open source either. There method of dealing with the problem is by having some products open source and free and other products closed source and for sale. This doesn't really answer the question of how to deal with open source software and make money, unless this happens to be the final solution.
For example, Microsft opens the source to DirectX, IE, etc.. but keeps the source on NT and Office. Of course, this isn't really the core of what they do, it would be like giving out some toys, but not the real thing. Do people think this is the answer to the open source questions, or do people really think everything can go open source?
Re:If only I could ask him... (Score:3)
don't free Qt, just don't use it (Score:3)
But users of Qt and KDE should realize that the Troll Tech QPL license is bad for open source and for Linux. If Linux had been licensed like Qt, it would have never caught on. And if KDE succeeds at displacing other Linux desktops, it will largely spell the end of Linux as a competitive, open source client desktop operating system: if you have to pay Troll Tech under the conditions they require you to pay, as a developer, you might as well go with BeOS or Windows, pay less money, get more development tools, and (in the case of Windows) cover a much bigger market segment.
However, I disagree with your statement that "Troll Tech has been very nice to the Linux community". Troll Tech was merely business savvy and opportunistic. Adoption of Qt by KDE was one sweet deal for the company: they made software available to people who otherwise wouldn't pay for it anyway, they got a huge user community, lots of naive university students started hacking free software in it, and they got lots of feedback, bugfixes, and improvements, and adoption by several big companies in return. Without the exposure from KDE, Qt would have remained just one of many mediocre, tool-poor cross platform toolkits with a tiny user community. Troll Tech's "donation" paid handsomely for them. The open source community has nothing to excuse for or be thankful for.
Altogether, I agree: don't ask Troll Tech to free Qt, or KDE to change their license. Instead, just don't use those systems. Develop and support truly free desktop software instead.
Re:And the overall point being......? (Score:3)
The point I was trying to make was this: Very few people have anything to complain about when it comes to KDE's aesthetic qualities. It looks nice, and runs nice. The only thing standing in the way of KDE's mainstream success is the hangup they've got with the licensing issues surrounding Qt. It borders on the idiotic. Theyre trying to make money off licensing the libraries, when they could make 1000x more money by getting KDE out there, and in the hands of the public. Its like stopping two feet before the finish line to tie your damn shoes.. its rediculous.
Troll Tech has only themselves to blame for the lack of acceptance of KDE. Licensing issues scare OSS developers. Its a fact. So long as Troll Tech insists on scaring off the developers, GNOME will creep closer and closer to beating them at their own game.
The whole thing is just rediculous. As a Linux developer, which would you rather do? Pay cash for Qt, or develop with gtk for free? See what I mean?
Bowie J. Poag