Linked by Andrew Youll on Sat 6th Aug 2005 08:30 UTC, submitted by tbutler
In a series of articles (part I, part II) during the month of July, OfB's Timothy R. Butler explained why he felt that KDE needed to move beyond the Qt toolkit it uses as a foundation. In that series, he asserted that the licensing of Qt is becoming a stumbling block to the desktop's adoption. Eric Laffoon, the project lead for KDE's Kdewebdev module, takes exception to Butler's arguments and makes the case for his view on the issue of Qt at OfB.biz.
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Member since:
2005-07-09
> > They chose a business model where development could be free.
>
> It's about as free as the postal service.
In many cases it *is* free to develop for some business models. I can develop a Java/Oracle app without purchasing an Oracle license as long as I don't care about support. All I have to do is sell my app to someone who purchases an Oracle license for deployment. The subsidy money is still being paid, but not by me. Trolltech doesn't use this business model or the "shareware/ISVs authors pay nothing unless someone purchases their app" model or the "charge for support" model or the Alladin Ghostscript "street performer's protocol"-like model or the custom plugin model (of Reiser) or .... But who cares? Trolltech can choose whatever business model it wants as long as it is legal and ethical. Trolltech's business model passes both tests..
But getting back to the postal service analogy. As far as the average tax payer is concerned, they've already paid for postal service so it's what most people use because it is "free".
Companies like FedEx can't just bury their heads in the sand sand say it's unfair. They could try to lobby government to get rid of subsidized postal service, but it would more than likely be a wasted effort. If they want to have a business model that works, they need to accept reality and provide more value than typical postal service, which is what they do. If the value is worth the extra cost, you use FedEx (and FedEx is happy). If the value isn't worth the extra cost, you don't (and FedEx is sad).
Similarly, if Qt is worth the value to you, go ahead and use it and pay the fee. If not, then choose a free (or lower cost) alternative. No-one is holding your feet to the fire.