
What is the future of Qt? - sathyabhat
http://blog.qt.nokia.com/2011/02/12/nokia-new-strategic-direction-what-is-the-future-for-qt/
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gregschlom
This is a sad story... Qt was gaining huge momentum under Nokia's acquisition.
QML, their new technology for mobile interfaces was just pure joy to use. The
platform was moving fast, and it seemed that nothing was impossible, including
ports of Qt to Android or iOS.

Now, it just seems that it's slowly going to die.

As an enthusiastic Qt / QML developer, I'm sad...

~~~
cookiecaper
I really hope Qt doesn't die. As I'm sure you know, Trolltech nourished Qt for
more than a decade until they were bought by Nokia a couple of years back, and
Qt is an awesome toolkit that has wide support on Linux et al. I can't fathom
Qt just dying out -- even if what used to be Trolltech fades, people will at
least continue to hack on the codebase, and hopefully professional support is
absorbed by the remaining Linux companies.

Qt is the widget toolkit for _many_ first-class Linux applications, including
VLC and all of KDE. KDE and Qt specifically are very closely linked, so KDE-
based distros should be especially anxious to absorb any Qt refugees from
Nokia.

~~~
mbreese
I'm sure the KDE project would absorb as many people from Qt as possible. But
who is going to pay them? Which distros a) still use KDE exclusively and b)
have the resources to pay for a number of Qt refugees?

~~~
joe_the_user
1\. Trolltech was profitable when Nokia bought it. 2\. Nokia could sell
Trolltech/Qt. They justify their actions on the basis of needing some money.
Selling Troll/Qt could bring in some money (let's exclude the small detail
that MS wants QT dead, not sold...) 3\. If KDE demanded the Qt source out of
escrow, it would be one more black eye on the already nasty look Nokia, so
Nokia might just let the Trolls go...

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another_ali
The way I read it is, they will maintain Qt to maintain the past ... but not
to build their future

which I think is bad for anyone who wanted to invest in Qt, we all want to
develop for platform of the future not the past

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leoc
This seems to support my hunch that far from planning to bet irrevocably on
WinPho, Nokia is actually trying to keep its options open: pick up a sweet
deal to be Microsoft's premium partner in smartphones for a couple of years,
use that time to shuck off Symbian, keep MeeGo alive as a tablet OS. Then
after that couple of years, when the MS smartphone exclusive expires, take a
fresh look around and decide whether to go with one or more of WinPho,
Android, MeeGo or whatever may be around at that point. Doesn't seem like a
self-evidently terrible strategy, though there's an obvious risk that WinPho
will continue to founder and that Nokia won't have the time or money or brand
loyalty to tough it out through another couple of years of failure in
smartphones.

~~~
leoc
Another risk for Nokia is that this deal doesn't so much change MeeGo's status
as keep it the same. I get the impression that MeeGo can remain a "promising",
half-finished project indefinitely, for as long as Nokia keeps it in
development. The technically accurate name for this state is not 'vaporware'
but 'GNOME stew'. :) Perhaps only the raw terror of betting Nokia on MeeGo
smartphones could get it to coalesce into a really competitive platform.
(Competitive in technical/UI terms, leaving aside other problems like market
share.) Or fail to coalesce and be cancelled.

MeeGo's apparently going to see commercial use as a tablet OS, but unless
Nokia shakes its apparent attitude that a tablet is a little thing you do with
your Linux-based platform when you don't dare to put it on your smartphones
then the tablets won't be the crucible that MeeGo apparently needs. (And they
aren't likely to do well in the market either.)

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elehack
It's sad, but not unexpected, to see Qt in trouble. Qt is an amazing
development environment, and I was getting rather psyched for the prospect of
being able to use it to develop for phones, tablets, netbooks, and the
desktop. I only hope that if Nokia is done with it, they spin it off or drop
it completely (thus activating the FreeQt agreement) rather than defunding it
so they maintain control but starve it to death.

However, spinning it off (as some are suggesting in the comment thread) has
major difficulties. In particular, since buying Trolltech, Nokia has LGPLed
Qt. That seems to me to drastically change the situation for prospective
commercial licensing, as companies can ship commercial, proprietary products
with Qt without paying licensing fees. How would Trolltech 2.0 make money?
Sure, there would be a number of companies that still pay the commercial
licensing fee, particularly for embedded systems or for support, but would
there be enough to continue funding Qt development?

~~~
mpyne
> However, spinning it off (as some are suggesting in the comment thread) has
> major difficulties. In particular, since buying Trolltech, Nokia has LGPLed
> Qt. That seems to me to drastically change the situation for prospective
> commercial licensing, as companies can ship commercial, proprietary products
> with Qt without paying licensing fees. How would Trolltech 2.0 make money?

The business model would have to be different, that much is true. But where
does the funding come from now for GTK+ for instance? Or the Linux kernel?

There are enough Qt-using companies out there that maintaining and improving
Qt should not be an issue if it is divested from Nokia. The concern would be
making sure there is a neutral platform for the companies that contribute.

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joe_the_user
Keith Rusler, from comments section of the article: "I have to say, Nokia made
a bad decision jumping to WP7 knowing that Qt wouldn’t be on it. Now that
Nokia did this, they basically went from Qt “Code once, run everywhere” to
“Code once, run nowhere”."

Nokia needs to sell Trolltech _NOW_. The _apparent_ conflict of interest is
too great _regardless_ of what the _real_ conflict of interest might be.

And I, like most Qt programmers, don't know what the real level of conflict-
of-interest level is. But if I've learned one thing in the corporate world,
it's that appearances matter. The appearance that Nokia wants to kill Qt is
enough to screw-up a _lot_ of decisions.

 _Otherwise_ , KDE should _take steps_ to force an Apache release of QT
source. Better now than later. See:
[http://www.kde.org/community/whatiskde/kdefreeqtfoundation.p...](http://www.kde.org/community/whatiskde/kdefreeqtfoundation.php)

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brudgers
The big change for Nokia is not the adoption of WP7 as an OS,it is the
adoption of .NET as the development platform of choice - not to mention that
Nokia's Symbian emulators already used Windows as the development platform. In
.NET Nokia is adopting a development platform which provides tools and
standards for integrating handsets, slates, and desktops into the back office
and cloud while reducing issues of fragmentation. While Qt held that promise,
it was a long way from the maturity (10+ years) that .NET provides.

Adoption of .NET will still allow C++ development for people with those skills
and inclinations while not adding any more complexity than exists. More
importantly .NET will allow more flexibility going forward - even reusing
existing VB code or writing new code in F# or IronPython. Qt was not the
future for mobile app development because of the relatively high barrier to
entry imposed by C++ for casual app developers and enterprise IT departments.

~~~
vrruiz
"While Qt held that promise, it was a long way from the maturity (10+ years)
that .NET provides."

What? Qt 3.0 is even older than .NET.

~~~
Ingaz
Funny.

I'm frequently saying that .NET 1.1 (and java) is just VCL(Delphi) with
virtual machine.

My friend corrects me: In his opinion delegates came from QT.

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mariusmg
Nokia will drop QT like a rock if they'll run out of money. Say what you want
but Nokia is NOT a software company.

~~~
joe_the_user
Say "have dropped" and I agree...

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EricButler
One of Nokia's problems has been lack of focus. I am a huge fan of Qt so I
hate to say it, but keeping Qt, MeeGo, and especially Symbian alive (even with
reduced investment) makes it sound like this problem has only gotten worse now
that WP7 is thrown in the mix.

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macco
Actually great new - but the should support the Android-Port of Qt. This is
very important - make it easy for Qt developers to stick their head into other
revenue sources.

~~~
masklinn
> but the should support the Android-Port of Qt

That makes absolutely no sense for Nokia, at any level of resolution.

