After Nokia purchsed Trolltech last year, doubts arose about how Nokia would handle the dual licensing model of Qt, the advanced cross-platform toolkit which lies at the base of the KDE Free software desktop. As it turns out, these doubts were unfounded, as Nokia today announced it's going to add the LGPL to Qt's licensing model, starting with Qt 4.5.
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Member since:2005-07-06
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I believe Free software is a great thing: one of the greatest feats of human engineering, with millions of hours of work that are being donated to humanity for free, forever. That can only be good.
However, I don't buy into Stallman's idea that software *has* to be free. It is nice to write a book and donate it to the world, but hardly anybody argues that all literature should be free and that authors should never receive any money in return. There has to be a way for those that want to monetize their work for whatever reason they find, and they should be reasonably free to decide how to do it.
With Trolltechs previous model, writing closed-source software was only possible by paying A LOT of money per programmer seat, which not only was only feasible for large companies, but also got into the hot waters of license management. Suits them right, many would say, for pushing the closed-software ecosystem.
Of course this was fully within Trolltech's rights. They have the same right as anyone else to cash on their work, and they even provided a faultless way for free software writers to use it. Those who defend that model say the price was worth it, because you got great tech support. Well, then I'm sure that tech support business is not going to be any worse now.
I'm sure, though, that this was a barrier for many software writers that Nokia has, extremely generously, removed. This puts Qt squarely against GTK+ in the eyes of any company that writes software, not pushing it anymore to decide in square one whether all or part or none of their software is going to be open or closed.
I think this is going to be very good for Qt/KDE, and the GTK+/Gnome camp will have to put a lot more wood in the furnace to keep the competition going, which should also be good. So let competition begin! Or rather, let the next round of competition begin!
Member since:2005-07-06
Stallman never claimed that software "has to be free". He has never made any statement (that I'm aware of) to the effect that non-free software should somehow be outlawed or illegal. All he has said is that, for the general good, software *should* be free. And that people on the whole would be better off if the software they used was free. Also he says that he personally does not want to use any software that he doesn't consider free, and that he will personally work to make as much software as possible available under a license he agrees with. This is all very different stating that software "has to" be free.
Stallman probably wouldn't disagree with any of that.
I disagree with much of what Stallman says, but I don't think anybody wins by mis-representing his ideas.
Member since:2006-09-27
However, I don't buy into Stallman's idea that software *has* to be free. It is nice to write a book and donate it to the world, but hardly anybody argues that all literature should be free and that authors should never receive any money in return. There has to be a way for those that want to monetize their work for whatever reason they find, and they should be reasonably free to decide how to do it.
Well, I don't agree that "hardly anyone" is against intellectual property in all its forms. Just search "against intellectual property" in Google. That's not the same as saying that authors should never receive any money in return. In a society of free knowledge, intellectual production is a service and the market determines its price. Several new ways of collective bargaining would be developed, which are not seen today because of the overwhelming competition of IP-based mechanisms.
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2005-11-05
This is fantastic news!
Hopefully now the whole basis of competition between QT & GTK will be on merit...not a rabid debate of licensing ideology