Qt Going GPL 268
summer was the first to note that it looks like Qt 2.2 will be released
under the GPL. This removes the licensing problem that is central to the age old (and very boring) KDE/GNOME flamewar. There's still nothing official appearing on Troll Tech's site, but this looks reasonable.
Quality and Freedom - What could be better? (Score:2)
Like every other developer in my acquaintance, I believe QT stands head and shoulders above the competition in terms of its technical merit. It is one of a very few libraries that is beautifully designed, combining elegance, efficiency and full support for reusable components.
I believe even those who are strongly committed to the principles of Free Software (as defined by FSF) have long been enamoured with QT's high quality - but until now we/they have been prepared to forgo its benefits for the sake of Free Software ethics. At last, the release of QT under the GPL will relieve many a frustration for those of us who believe in the ethics of Free Software, but also want the highest quality tools available. This is truly excellent news!
Although I wish Gnome all the best (two high quality desktop environments can harm nobody), I strongly believe that QT and KDE (esp KParts) offer a much more technicaly sound platform for developers to build the fast and robust desktop systems of the future.
With KDE2 we'll have a visually appealing and functionally useful desktop environment. We'll have a web browser that has much better potential than Mozilla. But best of all, for developers, we've now got an advanced (but easy to learn and use) component architecture, a high quality free GUI toolkit, visual GUI development tools, language bindings for Python - and now we've got a community of talented AND committed people who can use all of this without reservations or uncertainties. For mine, this is almost too good to be true. The best technology is now free to win, and I sincerely hope it does.
Great work Trolls.
Re:That's just your sick imagination (Score:2)
What I ment to say, is that GPL's viral effect is a good thing, and we have just seen another victory of it. QT is brilliant piece of code, a fact that has been overseen while we have been fighting over the licences.
Re:Porting QT/Unix (Score:2)
If you want to make a native win32 port of Qt Free Edition, Cygwin would probably not be of help.
Good going TrollTech (Score:2)
gnome is language-neutral (Score:3)
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If this is true... (Score:2)
At last these two great products, GNOME and KDE can compete on their merits alone. That's surely in everyone's interest.
Re:Except Qt is copylefted. (Score:4)
IMO, big companies will still prefer GTK+, however, because they wouldn't like depending on Trolltech for strategic issues like a GUI toolkit.
dept: its-about-frigging-time (Score:5)
Trolls (Score:3)
Well, I guess we're going to be forced to rate each one on it's merits now. What a strange concept! It feels... kinky :)
QPL is still an option (Score:2)
If you want to make your software unfree, you won't get Qt for free either. Basically, you choose the rules (free or non-free), and they will apply to both your software and Qt. What you cannot choose, is to play by different rules for Qt and your own software. Somehow, this fair to me.
Re:We have a level playing field (Score:2)
to many corporate developers. There is of cource the anti-competitive
advantage of GPL to corporate developers: it can't find itself in a
commercial offering by a rival.
I have to say the whole QPL vs. GPL spat has me disillusioned with
the GPL: the GPL doesn't just ensure that it can only find itself in
free software (no-one disputed that the QPL license guarantees this),
it also ensures that it can only find itself in software that conforms
exactly to RMS's conception of free software. This reeks of
ideological intolerance, though I suppose one shouldn't expect
anything else of RMS.
Oh, DEBIAN GOOD! (Score:2)
Excellent.
Rami
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Re:If it ain't broke, don't fix it! (Score:2)
Just a thought...
Re:Oh, DEBIAN GOOD! (Score:3)
I don't think that's true. You can quite easily have a program which uses Qt (under the QPL), an LGPL library (eg, the KDE libraries) and is itself licenced under a variety of other possible licences (eg BSD, GPL with exception caluse for linking to Qt, etc) and remain definitely legal.
Programs which main-code is qpl and using libraries under gpl are still illegal, until the program itself is gpl.
Such programs might infringe the GPL author's copyright, so there may indeed be a problem if he chose to sue. Assuming, that is, that dynamic linking produces a 'derived work' which I personally don't think is true. Since the only significant code out there under the QPL is Qt which is now dual licenced I don't think this is a problem anyway...
KDE itself is a mixture of licences. The libraries are LGPL, so you can link a BSD licenced program to the KDE libraries and Qt with no problems. Much of the rest of KDE is GPL with some portions BSD licenced. Since anything which is BSD licenced satisifies the conditions of the GPL (in fact, the BSD licence is such that I believe you can relicence code under the GPL (or a closed source licence) if you want to) that doesn't present a problem either.
There shouldn't now be any problem with Debian including all of KDE now, as far as I can see. Previously there was no problem with including KDE libraries anyway, but they didn't all the same.
Re:Red Hat covets non-free software? (Score:2)
Using the LGPL rather than the GPL for key libraries, is one way to attract unfree software.
Re:Another GPL victim... (Score:2)
The QT framework was the only thing making KDE not qualify for being GPL'd, since it was proprietary software.
QT has several advantages over the GTK - it is written in object-oriented C++, and the libraries are cross-platform between UNIX and Windows. IMHO, if you want to build a cross-platform GUI in C++, QT is the best way to go. Supposedly it offers better Windows support than MFC, although I haven't confirmed this myself. However, it was becoming unpopular with Linux developers because it wasn't GPL'd, and having all the industry giants unite behind GNOME looked like the kiss of death for KDE and QT development on Linux.
My hat is off to TrollTech. Now I can feel comfortable using QT, knowing it will be around for years to come because of their wise decision to GPL the code.
Re:yay (Score:2)
However, the release frequency seems to confirm you are right about enlightenment being obsolete.
Re:dept: its-about-frigging-time (Score:3)
Unfortunately, a significant number of people have obfuscated the issue to say Qt is not free, which unfortunately hurts the free software and open source movements.
Re:yay (Score:2)
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Re:yay (Score:2)
Now about the linux kernel. If it had been developed in C++ from the beginning, it would probably have moved past the point the current linux kernel is at. Rearchitecting it now is probably not feasible. I wouldn't be surprised, though, if a C++ kernel took over in the future.
Re:Geez! Can we please kiss and make up already! (Score:3)
Bruce
Re:I don't think so. (Score:2)
Don't toss shareware aside so casually, especially in reference to games. First Person Shooters pretty much owe their current popularity to the shareware Wolfenstein, and the next wave (whatever it is) could come from anywhere.
-jpowers
Re:NT isn't C++ (Score:2)
This is just not true. The NT kernel uses the Pascal calling convention because it's marginally more efficient spacewise, but the operating system itself has always been written in C and C++.
Re:More Debian-valid Software -- is this really go (Score:2)
Re:Gtk/QT use for commercial products (Score:2)
Re:yay (Score:2)
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Re:GPL (Score:2)
Re:QPL is still an option (Score:2)
Geez! Can we please kiss and make up already! (Score:4)
Troll Tech has done everything necessary to accomodate the requests of the free software community. They have my sincere thanks, and should have yours, too.
Thanks
Bruce
Re:A GPL Windows/QT could fork from the free codeb (Score:2)
The way to bring Windows desktop users over to Free Software is to create cross platform Apps which reduce the need for Windows as a base platform in order to create a migration path for users
Exactly, and thats why I started GNUSoftware.com.
We should think about cross-platform issues though. I spend a lot of time trying to compile "portable" applications, which use GTK+, on Windows - and fail because people are using Linux specific calls when they really don't need to.
Even the Qt app's I see on Freshmeat are often very Linux specific, for no good reason, and this stops me using them on Windows. (I've got a professional license).
Steve
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Re:That's just your sick imagination (Score:2)
Sure, we all know of the historic fragmentation of Unix. But since then, the few examples of major forks in Open Source / Free software are notable for being rare exceptions to the general rule.
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Re:What Miguel doesn't want you to know about GNOM (Score:2)
I'm not aware of this code, but if you post (or email me) the modules or files it's found in I'll be sure it has the proper credits on it. Unless you post specifics though I'm guessing this is a troll.
Some factual corrections: the GNOME Foundation does not write code (and in fact is not yet legally incorporated), so it certainly should not be the subject of your sentence there. We also do not consider KDE a "bitter rival."
Politics (Score:2)
Don't Get To Cocky, Chummer. (Score:2)
Re:Clean C++? (Score:2)
The only thing going for C++, when you think about it, is easy compatibility with C. That's all that stopped it losing to a cleaner OO language like Eiffel.
It is a bit of a pity that open source projects have tended to ignore higher level languages and stick rigidly to C... C++ is at least a bit better, especially if you have a need to work at a low level sometimes.
Compatibility is always going to be an issue, though. There is a huge body of free C code out there which projects such as KDE draw on heavily (consider, for instance, OpenSSL, libjpeg, libpng and xdm). It's possible to write bindings for other languages, like the Qt bindings for Python, say, but that barrier is always going to be there and there's no guarantee that the bindings will always be well maintained, up to date or clean when the main project doesn't have the language as one of its priorities.
Finally, I'd far rather have OO code written as cleanly as possible in a 'dirty' OO language like C++ than have OO code written as cleanly as possible (ie, not very cleanly at all) in C. I've always found trying to write OO C to be a somewhat painful and messy experience.Re:dept: its-about-frigging-time (Score:3)
To me it seems that Troll Tech will take this step because they see that some big commercial players have decided to go Gnome rather than KDE for the reason of being Open Source.
The good and right reaction is to go Open Source as well. Because 'proprietary' pieces of software will in the long term not be able to compete with OSS.
So let's celebrate this as a success fpr Open Source!
May the best Desktop Manager win!!!!
Graf Zahl
Re:A GPL Windows/QT could fork from the free codeb (Score:3)
Bruce
NT isn't C++ (Score:2)
However, the biggest problem with using C++ for shared libraries under any platform is that there is NO spec for
As a result, it is not possible to guarantee that file x.so, created with g++, is linkable to y.so, created with Borland C++. It's a shame that with all the other CRAP the ANSI committee dragged into the language during standardization, they couldn't have spelled out at least how to mangle the damn names!
As a big fan of C++ myself, I'd LOVE to see the kernel, X, and the windowing toolkit be true C++ classes: this is systems programming and that's what Stroustrup created the language for.
However, I take exception (pun intended) at the claim that QT is C++: It isn't. It is another language, that you then must run through Qt's MOC preprocessor to make C++. If TrollTech had truly make Qt C++, they would have used virtual functions or functors to implement the connection to the windowing message system, not this mutant "Signals and Slots" stuff. That's what got me when I looked at KDE: I want to write in C++, not some mutant version of something that is almost C++. It's almost as bad as working with somebody who uses
There. I said it. I feel better.
me->Attire(Attire::Flamesuit);
GPL and internal-use software (Score:2)
In short, we have been convinced that the GPL does indeed protect a library from being used to develop non-free software. Non-free software, in this respect, of course, includes software developed internally in an organization.
They seem to imply that code from Qt, or any GPL-licensed program, may not be used in any in-house software projects which are not distributed to the public. This conclusion flies in the face of the FSF's own interpretation of the rights granted by the GPL and free software [gnu.org]:
I'd be very interested in finding out if the Qt/KDE developers really intend to say that I have no right to make in-house-only modifications or use of Qt.Re:FSF now prefers Qt/KDE over Gtk/Gnome (Score:4)
I don't think so.
The idea behind the RMS editorial you're thinking about is that the GPL is preferable when you are providing functionality not available in other libraries. The LGPL is meant for situations where you provide functionality that the non-free competition already provides.
Since there's plenty of GUI toolkits around, free or otherwise, I don't think it matters a bit. And, since Troll will sell you licenses to develop non-free software with Qt, the whole RMS anti-LGPL argument is kinda demolished in this case.
But this is all speculation, isn't it?
We have a level playing field (Score:5)
At last KDE and Gnome can go completely head-to-head because they are now both totally grounded in GPL licensing. So what does the future now hold?
Corporate take-up? Don't knock it - this is a potentially huge environment. Companies like to know where they stand, and simplified licensing is a huge bonus. Gnome already as a level of corporate acceptance as embodied by the formation of the Gnome Foundation to further the GNOME project. KDE may soon see itself in a similar position.
Interoperability? Both KDE and Gnome are continuing to push their infrastructures forward and both desktop environments are likely to start eclipsing the competition sooner or later (already have eclipsed the competition in some areas). It's likely that Gnome programs will always talk most efficiently to other Gnome programs, and similarly for KDE to KDE, it would be nice to see the arrival of some bridge mechanism to allow the two camps to exchange and inter-embed each others applications across the divide.
Flamewars? Almost certainly :-) At least now there won't be any (meaningful) wars over licensing ...
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Re:This makes Microsoft look good (Score:2)
B) You do make a good point however. Microsoft (and Sun, Borland, RogueWave, etc) doesn't care how I license my code. GPL libraries do. Qt under the QPL/GPL does as well. It's my only beef with Trolltech, but since I am already writing OSS, it isn't an urgent issue with me (so sue me for apathy
C) On the other hand, if you need no restrictions on your own code, purchase Qt just like you purchased your Windows libraries. It's strange bitching about how free libraries don't give you as many rights as purchased ones do. So just go purchase it!
Re:Porting QT/Unix (Score:2)
Announcement on Troll Techs site. (Score:5)
There are two new announcements; Qt 2.2 released and Qt/Unix 2.2 being released under the GPL.
Re:GNOME's name is pointless... (Score:2)
Re:yay (Score:2)
It will be interesting to look back in ten years. (Score:2)
In ten years we'll be able to look back at this episode in the history of computing with the benefit of hindsight, perhaps in the way we can now look back at the history of Unix [dannyreviews.com] - there are still arguments, but they are a lot more subdued.
Danny.
Re:GNOME Foundation helping KDE (Score:2)
In any case, the GNOME Foundation itself is an advisory board, to the world outside GNOME it will probably look like they do little else than release the occasional statement (or press release or propaganda if you prefer).
It's the individual companies that make up the Foundation that we should be expecting things from and it seems to me that many of the newer companies to GNOME are coming to the table with some fairly substantial quantities of code.
In many ways it's better that such contributions come in slowly rather than overwhelming/changing the character of the GNOME project in a massive code drop.
GPL not LGPL (Score:5)
Re:Quality and Freedom - What could be better? (Score:2)
In what way is KParts especally superior to Bonobo?
Re:yay (Score:2)
I agree that C++ in the hands of C programmers is dangerous stuff. Most likely they don't understand most of the features in the language. Hopelessly stuck in the sixties/seventies procedural paradigm they can do nothing but shoot themselves in the foot. But then, should these people really be implementing the next generation GUI? Me thinks not.
Wrapping doesn't solve anything, you still need to maintain the wrapped stuff + the additional bloat (double trouble). Besides why wrap if you can implement in C++ directly (more maintainable code if done properly), or are we trying to cover up for a lousy implementation here?
Finally binary compatibility, your apps will depend on the wrapper, not the wrapped piece of C blop.
Re:FSF now prefers Qt/KDE over Gtk/Gnome (Score:2)
> Motorola (which they could only do because they
> require copyright to be signed over to them).
At least anonymous
Re:dept: its-about-frigging-time (Score:2)
Wait...okay, I can still use it...whew! (Score:2)
But reading the announcement closer, there towards the end, I see that it will be dual licensed under the QPL and GPL. Whew! Thank goodness those of us who use unrestricted licenses can still use Qt.
This appears to be a dual-license (I have sent mail to Erik to verify). In this case, using the GPL makes all the sense in the world, since now everyone who uses *any* Free Source license can use Qt.
And about time too... (Score:2)
... because it now means that the vastly unproductive whining about the Qt license that /.ers seem to love can now finally be declared a thing of the past. KDE can now stand (or fall) on its merits rather than on the basis of an ideology devised by a man who doesn't even have to work for a living.
I've been using KDE for a while at home now, and it's slick, especially compared to the lumbering dinosaur that is GNOME. For an operating system with a set of tools designed to be small and modular, it's amazing that most of the applications written for it are so slow and bloated, with "value added" features taking precedence over quality and performance. With people like this on the side of Linux, Microsoft's continued desktop dominance seems to be secured.
Let's hope we see more apps like KDE, where a decent product counts for more than ideological squabbles.
Re:A GPL Windows/QT could fork from the free codeb (Score:2)
How does the GPL effect this change? Under the QPL one had every right to port it as well.
Re:Announcement on Troll Techs site. (Score:3)
Linux Power's Christian Schaller? (Score:2)
Re:GPL not LGPL (Score:2)
Left it a little late. (Score:4)
I think they may have missed the bus on this one. If they had released Qt under GPL earlier, the whole KDE/gnome idiotic split could have been avoided.
Why is it companies never open source stuff when things are going their way? (eg Netscape waited til Microsoft had them by the balls).
not_cub
Re:GPL and internal-use software (Score:2)
The GPL and QPL seem similar in this regard: you cannot keep an internal *product* private, only stuff in development can ignore the terms of the GPL. If you write an in-house word processor and give it to your HR department to use, you may not restrict them from redistributing it.
Re:Geez! Can we please kiss and make up already! (Score:3)
I never thought at the time though that I'd see the events that I've seen since then, let alone this post. But like the one a long time ago this seems to be like going to a charred building and screaming "Fire" with a gasoline can and a match.
Things were settled for most people then by an excellent Freshmeat essay on how the CDE and OpenLook wars almost killed UNIX. Most everyone felt good about letting things go on their merry way until your post brought it to a new idealogical and mud slinging level. Even then the issue was more your integrity as a even handed leader after showing such childish predjudice more than the QT liscencing.
And now that its GPLed you scream something needs to be done to make peace, and your sorry? I'm glad. Its good to see. But once again a little self important and too late.
But most of us really are moving on with our lives quite nicely without really much concern over this liscencing issue. I do publicly thank your in your efforts that made QT liscencing more friendly to our scheme of software development. You deserve thanks, but yelling sorry for being the kid who turned the lights out when the city went dark is kind of, well, you know...
Re:GPL and internal-use software (Score:2)
Assuming it's only a question of copyright violation, I doubt that's true. Of course, if you're giving this GNU GPL'd software as a personal gift to members of your HR department, sure, you've distributed it. But in the situation you suggested, even though the company has copied their own (GPL'd) work, they really haven't redistributed it. The company has given copies, or access to copy, to company employees acting as such, not to a separate recipient. The HR department can no more redistribute or copy it at will than they can take home office supplies at will.
If it's strictly a question of misappropriating trade secrets and/or violating an NDA, it gets a little confusing, but I still very much doubt it. The difficulty is that the copyright license allows a recipient to redistribute a GPL'd work, yet it may still be considered confidential. For example, software for monitoring a specialized manufacturing facility could embody many trade secrets, even if the code itself was not of particular independent economic value.
The GPL forbids further restrictions, such as an NDA, on those who are distributed works under its terms. But even though it's improper to do so, that does not mean that the NDA has lost effect, or that reasonable secrecy measures were not taken. Therefore, the work and information in the work would still be eligible for protection as a trade secret.
For example, let's assume such a thing happened: a company distributed a copy of GPL'd trade secret code to a third party under an NDA. The third party discloses the code publicly. Will the NDA be nullified in order to comply with the GPL? Unlikely, I think. The originating company will be at fault for violating the original work's GPL and maybe also for providing the third party with the GPL'd work under false pretenses. Meanwhile, the third party will still be at fault for violating the NDA.
Oh, by the way, I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. (Customer activation required. Cape does not enable wearer to fly. Tax-free in 49 states -- sorry, Tennessee!)
Re:More Debian-valid Software -- is this really go (Score:2)
BTW> OBJC=objective C.
Cost is an issue. (Score:2)
But so is cost. I have worked at both large and small companies. $1500/developer is a lot of money, and you don't get a whole lot for it with Qt compared, say, to an MSDN subscription.
honest license, but probably not competitive (Score:2)
But ultimately, I think it won't help much. GTK+ is covered by the LGPL, and there are nearly a dozen other free toolkits out there that can be used for both free and commercial software without paying anyone anything. Qt is competing against software that is much cheaper (i.e., free) for commercial usage, and the cheap competition is pretty good.
Another issue that now needs to be revisited is what happens to commercial users of Qt if Troll Tech goes out of business or stops development. Will the FreeQt foundation continue to exist? In the past, it attempted to guarantee that a BSD-style version of Qt would be available.
Re:GNOME's name is pointless... (Score:2)
Yes. That's where CORBA fits in. CORBA is basically an object oriented RPC (Remote Procedure Call) specification.
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Re:Politics (Score:2)
Re:MODERATORS: sucked in by reverse psychology! (Score:2)
Because claiming that GNOME is "obsolete" on the grounds that it uses C instead of C++ is, IMHO, grossly uninformed, and didn't even deserve explanation. 90% of what makes code easy or hard to maintain is how well it is designed and presented, and maybe 10% is due to the language. I'd much prefer to have to maintain well-written FORTRAN than badly written Java, and, from most of the stuff I've looked at, GTK+ and GNOME are well-written.
Bad news for C coders and Ada coders. (Score:2)
KDE has a far superior architecture to GNOME (its main rival), since it is written in C++
And has no C or Ada/GNAT bindings; do the C++ booksellers have stock in Trolltech?
<O
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XGNOME vs. KDE: the game! [8m.com]
Re:I don't think so. (Score:2)
Don't get me wrong, I feel the same way about FPSes. I'd much rather play strategy games or RPGs, which I'm happy to pay for. What I was suggesting was that shareware has been and still could be an important route for NEW, DIFFERENT, and as yet UNDISCOVERED types of games to be introduced, and shouldn't be tossed aside while it still has potential value.
Of course, to understand what I was trying to say, you'd have to have the capacity to grasp things in context, which would require that you NOT be a moron... too bad you couldn't manage.
-jpowers
Re:yay (Score:2)
OK, so it's flamebait (you even said so yourself), but I'll rise to it. What is obsolete about GNOME's codebase? Are you claiming it's obsolete purely because it's written in C? If so, do you propose retiring the obsolete Linux kernel in favour of the obviously more advanced NT kernel (written in C++)? That argument just doesn't hold any water. BTW, I too am dissatisfied with both GNOME and KDE (and enlightenment, for that matter), and am quite happily using fvwm2.
Re:yay (Score:2)
Debian (Score:5)
Re:GPL (Score:2)
BTW> People who correct spelling are the most anal-retentive jack-holes you'll ever meet.
GPL virus has yeat another victim (Score:4)
The widespread virus called 'GPL' is spreading at alarming rate. Because most patients don't notice any symptoms, 'GPL' has managed to lurk it's way into so many lines of code, that many anylysts believe that all other copyright forms are about to become extinct. RMS, the author of the virus, has been spotted partying like a wild animal and laughing his beard off.
It'll mean that... (Score:2)
<O
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XGNOME vs. KDE: the game! [8m.com]
Re:GNOME/KDE = GPL ; QT = GPL ; GTK+ = *L*GPL. (Score:2)
LGPL is a good license for an open source or free software GUI toolkit if it furthers the goals of open source or free software. I think it does.
Windows port finally a possibility? (Score:2)
This would be REALLY nice for all those open source projects that have been residing only on Linux due to Trolltechs strange marketing scheme for the professional version.
Re:yay (Score:2)
End of OTT accusations? (Score:3)
A GPL Windows/QT could fork from the free codebase (Score:3)
The way to bring Windows desktop users over to Free Software is to create cross platform Apps which reduce the need for Windows as a base platform in order to create a migration path for users. That means porting the new StarOffice and KOffice to Windows, giving users a chance to feel comfortable with the new environment, and then waiting for the next costly Windows upgrade to convince the users "there's a cheaper way..."
Next flamewar subject (Score:2)
- X is more stable
- X has a better GUI
- X uses much less memory
- X also works on older computers
- X compiles on more platforms!
- X is/should be default on distro Y
(where X is your favorite Desktop Environment)I'm sure you can make up more of these....
Doesn't solve all the problems (Score:2)
Now, the KDE libraries are LGPL, but if Qt is GPLed, that makes no difference. Anyone who wants to write non-free software in KDE will still have to pay for the Qt Professional License. Otherwise the whole lot will have to be GPLed, or released under a GPL compatible license.
I suppose it's up to personal taste whether you regard this as a problem or not, but it's something to think about.
http://www.trolltech.com/company/announce/generalp (Score:2)
That links to the old QPL announcement.
Re:It's officical! (Score:2)
(although I would be more worried if the date was 31st march 23:59:59 :) )
GNOME Foundation helping KDE (Score:2)
As some people had predicted, the formation of the GNOME Foundation is having more of an effect on KDE than the KDE leaders had claimed possible.
Since Qt 2.2 should be compatible with KDE 2.0, I'll be checking it out in a couple days. Didn't like KDE 1.0 much, but I didn't like GNOME 1.0 much either.
Hooray! (echo) (Score:2)
This took a long time. I only hope it will prove profitable for Trolltech - that would show the way for other companies as well. Profitability is actually quite likely, due to more spread (Debian etc) with GPL and the fame of QT's ease of use (I haven't tried out doing user interfaces with anything else but HTML for years, so I really don't know myself).
http://www.trolltech.com/company/announce/generalp (Score:2)
QT/Unix only (Score:3)
Large caveat: This applies only to QT free edition; that is, QT/Unix. Those who wish to develop cross-platform applications will still have to look elsewhere [gtk.org] for their toolkit.
Note: Don't bother replying with flames about GTK+ sucking for Windoze. At least the port exists, is free software, and has the chance to improve eventually.
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FSF now prefers Qt/KDE over Gtk/Gnome (Score:4)
Since companies like Red Hat have a interest in promoting development af Linux software, free or unfree, they should still have an interest in Gtk, because the LGPL allows their customers to develop unfree applications.
Reasons from GPLing from the authors (Score:5)
Another win for freedom of choice! (Score:3)
> of choice.
Well, Qt 2.2 gives the developer the *choice* of two licenses, QPL or GPL. Qt 2.0 only offered one license, the QPL. So it seems to me that the freedom of choice has increased, not decreased, with this announcement.
Re:Another GPL victim... (Score:2)
Why is there only one form of not kicking people in the face? I thought not kicking people in the face was about *freedom*, freedom of choice. But it seems that "not kicking people in the face" doesn't allow other violence-level paradigms.
Seriously though, OSS does give freedom of choice. People like Sun were freely choosing GNOME over KDE, which must have been at least partly because of the legal issues with GPL+QPL. Troll, it seems, have chosen to keep themselves competitive, by going with what the market wants.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it! (Score:2)
> when things are going their way?
It would be silly to change a business model that *worked*. Only when the currect business model breaks down, you go looking for alternatives.
Or do you believe companies should make free software for the good of their hearts?
Nothing Changes (Score:2)
Now GNOME code can be copied to KDE! (Score:2)
On another note, I wonder what it means for Red Hat's C++ toolkit, GTK++, etc. They may gain from copying Qt code too.
Except Qt is copylefted. (Score:5)
<O
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XGNOME vs. KDE: the game! [8m.com]
Re:Doesn't solve all the problems (Score:3)
The GPL licensing of Qt will be our guarantee that the KDE desktop will remain free and that we won't end up depending on one or more proprietary, closed-source components, which the LGPL would have permitted. After all, is not free software why most of us became Linux converts?
Do not disregard Trolltechs announcement. Today might be the happiest day of the Linux desktop! Oh, the euphoria!
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Re:GNOME Foundation helping KDE (Score:3)