
Digia bought Qt licensing business from Nokia - bergie
http://www.digia.com/C2256FEF0043E9C1/0/405002251
======
bergie
Reminds me of this post:
<http://www.ecyrd.com/ButtUgly/wiki/Main_blogentry_130211_1>

_I think the way to figure out which way Nokia is going to go can be seen on
how they treat Qt. If they choose to keep it, Meego is going to be the future.
If they choose to let it wither and die (or sell it off), Meego will become
just a curiosity. Qt is the key for Meego developer adoption, and the only way
it could become a feasible smartphone platform. In my opinion there's no point
to develop Meego just for the tablet market; it would be really hard when you
couldn't leverage the same development effort as on the phone side._

~~~
blub
Don't know what to make of it. On one hand they're transitioning just the
commercial license, which makes some sense. On the other hand, my spidey sense
is tingling a bit.

~~~
abrahamsen
It does sound a little bit like the sale of UNIX rights by Novell to SCO,
which may account for the tingling feeling.

------
forgotAgain
In blog postings after the Microsoft announcement Nokia Qt technical leaders
stated that Qt desktop development had pretty much reached the end. They would
concentrate new work on the mobile releases of the framework.

This sale is an attempt to extract value from the desktop part of the
framework. The alternative was to be left with a worthless asset after a few
years of withering on the vine.

If I was a commercial Qt developer I would consider the desktop portion of the
framework in permanent maintenance (fee) mode. Yes they said development would
continue but that is what is always said in this type of situation. There is I
suppose a chance that this company means it but that would not be the typical
situation.

~~~
joe_the_user
If that is the case, that it would seem it is time to activate the agreement
they have with KDE (ie, release Qt with an even more open license).

If Nokia has mandated an end to Qt Desktop development and we can reasonably
expect an end to Qt Mobile development given Nokia's priorities, well then we
can expect an end. (that's a period after end)

If Nokia had actually sold all of Qt to an actual software house, it would
have been good. This looks much more like a "fragment to destroy" strategy
instead.

------
bergie
There is also a blog post from the Qt side of things:
[http://blog.qt.nokia.com/2011/03/07/nokia-and-digia-
working-...](http://blog.qt.nokia.com/2011/03/07/nokia-and-digia-working-
together/)

------
adulau
I like the paradox in the press release:

 _Through the proposed acquisition, around 3500 desktop and embedded customer
companies from various industries are targeted to be transferred to Digia._

and

 _Nokia will continue to invest in future development of Qt for the benefit of
all users, both Commercial and LGPL._

Why do they sell it in the first place? If Nokia will continue to invest in
future development, it will be a direct benefit of Digia not really Nokia...

~~~
bryanlarsen
_Why did they sell?_

Because the licensing/support business is way outside of their area of
expertise, and they were almost guaranteed to screw it up.

 _Why would they continue to invest?_

For the same reason anybody invests in open source. Even with the big Windows
shift, QT is still a part of their success moving forward. Without investing
in QT, that part of their success would be controlled by a third party (or
even worse, nobody).

Do I necessarily buy the above 2 statements? Not necessarily. Actions speak
louder than words, but this action might not say much. How many QT developers
they lay off is the action that means something. Currently, they're still
hiring, so...

~~~
huxley
Not sure if I understand your second statement. I had thought Nokia had stated
at some point that QT wasn't being ported to WP7.

~~~
bryanlarsen
Yes, but they're still selling Symbian phones, and still developing Meego for
"research purposes".

------
eliben
What does this mean for Qt, in you opinion?

~~~
bergie
Via talk.maemo.org
([http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=962346&postcount=28...](http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=962346&postcount=282)):

 _They bought the Consulting side basically - where it was possible to buy
commercial licenses (didn't buy the core developers). Qt's moving towards open
governance and Nokia (as stated) has developers contributing to Qt._

 _This makes sense, really, to avoid commercial Qt users from despairing about
Nokia's plans._

~~~
mullr
Unless I'm missing something big, this means that the only part of Qt making
money is now divorced from Qt development. So the development staff inside
Nokia is not profitable and no longer strategic. In a large company, this is
when you start looking for a new job.

~~~
Maakuth
Good point, except that Qt licensing has never bought in very big money to
Nokia or Trolltech before it, especially after they changed the license from
GPL to LGPL. I think Qt's being strategic lies in their being part of Nokia
platforms.

On the other hand, Digia has been doing a lot of Qt work for Nokia, so it's
good news for their developers.

~~~
mullr
How did trolltech ever make money, except for Qt licensing? They had Qtopia
and what not, but I don't think Nokia is continuing that.

~~~
eliben
Consider how Digia used to make money (taken from Qt's blog on this news item)

 _Employing hundreds of Qt experts, Digia has 7 years experience in providing
top-class Qt competence, and is dedicated to continue and grow Qt Commercial
relationships as well as to contribute innovation to the overall Qt LGPL and
commercial community._

~~~
teyc
I'd take that "hundreds" and divide it by 4 to arrive at the upper bound of
the number of actual Qt developers Digia have.

------
p0ppe
Doesn't seem to be that big a deal from a business perspective. Digia (DIG) is
+0,46%, compared to +0,75% for OMXH as a whole.

We will have to see how good a home Digia will be for Qt. They did come out
with a profit warning just a couple of days ago, due to problems in the Mobile
Solutions segment.

