The Dot reports: “Trolltech, maker of the Qt toolkit which forms the basis for KDE, announced today that the Qt version for Microsoft Windows will be available under the GPL in addition to its current commercial license offerings for that platform. This change will take place with the release of Qt 4. The Qt version for Linux has been available under a similar dual licensing scheme for several years already. The availability of a GPL’ed Qt for Microsoft Windows will make it much easier to distribute KDE applications that run on the Microsoft Windows platform.“
Trolltech to Extend Dual Licensing to Qt for Windows
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Adam Scheinberg
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Anyone else see the double morale of people wanting to sell closed source software without paying for the toolkit? Why don’t you go make your own tookit, if the price isn’t worth what you get, that is. Or you can leech off of the open source community, in a somewhat similar fashion to an illness-faking wellfare exploiter (in the way that both get payed for someone else’s work without giving anything back).
>Confused is right. Where did I say any of this? I didn’t.
*sigh* Well, one more time:
GTK is used for more commercial apps, but commercial desktop apps are not significant on Linux yet.
we are talking about this new liscence for qt getting qt used by more of the big visible, popular, and commercial projects. you countered with “there arnt many commercial apps on linux”. all i am saying is that the amount doesnt change the fact that the companies dabbling in linux right now are not going the trolltech route.
>You spend so much time talking about the demographic of LQ. So what is it? As I understand, the demographic is linux users, so asking Linux users about their choice in Linux applications seems perfectly reasonable. You cannot compare this with a slashdot poll on operating systems, since slashdot has an obvious bias towards one operating system. Please, show me how LQ has a bias towards QT applications.
ok, i would say the vast majority of lq people are linux newbs, or they would be asking questions in a more specialised forum, so as not to get lost in the general noise. when i think “newbie distro”, i think xandros, lindows(or whatever they are calling themselves this week), lycoris. if i were to expand it a bit more, i would add stuff like fedora, mandrake, suse, and the rest of those distros that offer fancy tools to edit the /etc files. out of the seven i just mentioned, one is a gnome distro. the vast majority of distros aimed at the new in linux are also built around kde (personally, i think it would be because kde can be customized to offer a very “windows” like experience, but that is a guess). so, the majority of users are people who use kde based distros and are scared of installing software that isnt on their distro cds.
all that is just a guess, but you asked…
>visible, popular != commercial
Your arguments on how visible is not the same as popular are not convincing. Sure they’re not the same thing, but there is a very strong correlation between the two.
indeed there is. k3b vs juk would be a good example. most people love k3b, most people love juk. most people would consider both as best of breed in linux. however, k3b is a far more visible application. see what i mean? its more then just how good it is, or how much people like it. its how easy it is to discover, and how many people actually use it. there is a strong correlation, but they arnt the same thing. there are quite a few gtk apps like that, there are very few qt apps.
…the main reason remains: the future of QT is controlled by a single, commercial entity. What if they decide to stop development on QT?
—-
Oh, this I can tell you very precisely. Read on.
What if they just slowed down development on QT (lack of resources) to the point where it is no longer competitive with other platforms?
—-
Ouch, Jason — with every additional mail you send you seem to display *more* un-informedness rather than less.
Lemme explain to you about how the future of Qt is unshakeably cast into concrete foundations rooting on the side of Free Software:
* There is a contract.
* The contract is legally binding.
* The contract guaruantee Qt’s eternal availability as Free Software.
* The contract is signed by Trolltech and the “KDE Free Qt Foundation”
* The contract covers the case that Trolltech goes bust
* The contract covers the case that Trolltech becomes lazy and doesnt release a new version or update within 12 months.
* The contract covers the case that Trolltech is taken over by some bigger company which would stop Qt being GPL
In case Trolltech doesn’t continue the development of the Qt Free Edition for any reason including, but not limited to, a buy-out of Trolltech, a merger or bankruptcy, the then most recent version of Qt may be released by the “KDE Free Qt Foundations” under a BSD-style license.
####
Jason, get your facts. They are public knowledge. Look here:
* [ http://www.trolltech.com/newsroom/announcements/00000171.html ]
* [ http://www.kde.org/whatiskde/kdefreeqtfoundation.php ]
The latter URL also provices links to the scanned pages of the contract I mentioned.
It is up to you to follow the links, Jason. Or, make a fool of yourself and continue to spread FUD, now that the Trolls even are GPL’ing their Windows version of Qt4.
How can the KDE libs be licensed under the LGPL if Qt is under the GPL then?
They can’t. You’ve been misinformed.
They can, you’re misinformed.
KDE may be licensed under the LPGL because it is less restrictive than the GPL.
But KDE libs are effectively GPL, if you use them with Qt/GPL.
kdelibs has been LGPL for a long time. Read the KDE Licensing Policy:
http://developer.kde.org/policies/licensepolicy.html
Anything in kdelibs must be either LGPL, BSD, or X11 licensed.
So kdelibs doesn’t link against or depend on Qt? Or how does it work?
KDE libs can be licensed under the LGPL because the lgpl is a gpl compatible license. Basically, at runtime, since lgpl code meets the requirements of the GPL, the lgpl code becomes gpl code while resident in memory and dynamically linked against the gpl QT. The advantage of the lgpl in this scenario thus is that it is possible to have commercial kde apps that link against the lgpl kde libs and the commercial version of QT.
How can the KDE libs be licensed under the LGPL if Qt is under the GPL then?
They can’t. You’ve been misinformed.
#####
Oh? So were is your authoritative source of information, dear Anonyomous?
Well, mine is here:
konrad@einstein:~> grep -R “GNU Library General Public License” src/kdelibs/* | wc -l
4490
That pretty much conclusively proofs what the licsense for the kdelibs is. It is YOU, who is misinformed, damn!
And you are spreading misinformation even, creating new victims of that stupid FUD. Are you proud of it?
>*sigh* Well, one more time:
>GTK is used for more commercial apps
Well, that is pure and simple a big fat lie. Actually I think the product range from Synopsys alone includes more commercilal apps than GTK apps mentiond in this whole trad.
How can the KDE libs be licensed under the LGPL if Qt is under the GPL then? Am I missing something? Is KDE using Qt under the QPL license?
Most of the KDE libs are LGPL, but you still have to buy a commercial license from Trolltech to write a closed source app because most KDE apps would still have to link to Qt.
So this solves the problem of crossplatform GPL apps, but does n’t solve the underlying problem that KDE has, which is the reliance on a restrictive license, and that most developers avoid the GPL whenever possible.
most developers avoid the GPL whenever possible.
Most commercial developers, you mean. If you go to sourceforge, you’ll notice that most developers there choose the GPL.
Wow, they revamped the homapage. Anyaway, a selection of commercial apps:
http://www.trolltech.com/success/index.html
Qt embedded:
http://www.trolltech.com/devices/index.html
Hope this puts an end of “gtk used more by commercial vendors” kinda posts.
ps. @noname: haha
ps2: some more (not only) commercial apps using qt:
http://www.trolltech.com/products/hotnew/index.html
ps3: more pda/devices screenshots:
http://www.trolltech.com/screenshots/qtopia.html
NOw show me such an impressive list of commercial and device vendors for gtk.
http://www.trolltech.com/developer/faqs/duallicense.html
Commercial compiler support – the tools shipped with the GPL version support the popular GNU CC compiler. The C++ compilers from Microsoft, Intel and Borland are not supported by the tools in the GPL version.
stupid discussion, but here is another commercial software that uses QT: Skype (works great)
After reading the first 50 or so comments, I’ve come to a conclusion. OSNews should put in a nice filter in its comment entry php script that strips out all instances of the words Qt and Gtk. Just to see what happens. I think it’d make life here much better.
(although I do favor Gtk, I know that Qt is much easier to program for and all. But ruby-gtk is so…much…fun!)
Qt/Windows Dual License FAQ: “The C++ compilers from Microsoft, Intel and Borland are not supported by the tools in the GPL version.”
That’s too bad! They could use an exception clause for binding the (GPLed) Qt to a proprietary runtime from eg. Microsoft.
OSNews should put in a nice filter in its comment entry php script that strips out all instances of the words Qt and Gtk
Hehe. Good idea. I propose to add the words “Gnome, KDE, bloated, slow, usability, FUD, lies, M$, windoze, zealot, fanboy” That should take out about 90% of the crap
(mea culpa, I know)
You should actually thank the Trolls for this one too, it’s another win-win situation for Free software. It will increase GNU CC compiler usage on windows, which over time result in a better GCC for windows(more developers and testers) And as usual if you insist on using non-free tools you have to pay TrollTech for Qt, resulting in a better toolkit for the rest of us.
It seems that:
GTK app gets great success if it is heavily kicked by years and lot of people/organisations. Like: gimp, evolution, gaim. And they become power apps.
Qt programs, on other side, do not reauire massive hammering development – Konqueror, amaroK, K3B (I has to name it here, it is vital too, unmatched, and KDE only), KDevelop.
They are developed in shadow, with some cute number of developers, but the result is usable and even sometimes very good. It is not as polished as kicked-for-years-gnome-one, but it is very usable for 10 times less manhours.
I read all the explanations saying kdelibs is GPL, but I dont understand like the previous poster. So I ask how?
I thought if Qt was GPL then kdelibs must also be GPL because they are linked?
That’s a GPL peculiarity. It is ok to link GPL code into LGPL/BSD/MIT, but the resulting binary then becomes GPL. It’s a case of most restrictive license wins.
In the case of KDE this means the binary kdelibs become GPL if you link with a GPL Qt (or QPL for QPL Qt). But if you have a commercial license for Qt, kdelibs stays LGPL/BSD/MIT and gives no additional restrictions.
I thought if Qt was GPL then kdelibs must also be GPL because they are linked?
The LGPL is GPL compatible, which in short means that the license does not impose any further restrictions upon the code or its usage than the GPL, and any additional terms to the license only give additional rights and freedoms with regard to the code. The lgpl allows all the same freedoms as the gpl, plus additional freedoms that the GPL does not allow. Thus, programs or libraries that link against the GPL do not necessarily have to be explicitly licensed under the GPL. They do however, have to be licensed under terms that provide the same freedoms as the GPL, not add any additional restrictions than the GPL has, and only add additional freedoms beyond what the GPL offers.
what I don’t really understand is how people arguing on a news-site claiming this and that basing it on how things have been for years back, and not how it is now
(as of now, kde seem (in my eyes at least) to be the standard shipped desktop, kopete seem to be the most normal choice for new users to take etc.)
(as of now, kde seem (in my eyes at least) to be the standard shipped desktop, kopete seem to be the most normal choice for new users to take etc.)
There is no standard desktop or toolkit for Linux – which is a bad thing IMO. KDE can never be the standard desktop with its reliance on the QT toolkit.
KDE libraries and any KDE app using Qt/X11 can choose any open source license they like due to the QPL which allows any license as long as it ensures the availability of the application’s source, see http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/kde-3-2.ars/11
Note that this indeed isn’t the case with Qt/Mac and the upcoming Qt/Win, those have only GPL and no QPL so all of KDE will when compiled as binaries and accessing those Qt version indeed be shipped under the GPL, but this doesn’t affect the sources.
Wow, both the Gnome/GTK and KDE/QT trolls are out in force today.
1. This change is a good thing. It will make non-commercial, cross-platform apps possible with QT (I’m not sure about cross-platformness of KDE).
2. This does not get rid of all QT licensing issues QT is GPL, not LGPL. Though this may be a positive depending on your philosophy (Stallman vs. Perens).
3. There are good reasons to use QT (often without KDE).
The KDE community can’t agree on anything.
http://dot.kde.org/1107786164/
About half the posters are up-in-arms about this because they don’t want to see QT/KDE apps on windows.
Of course what they don’t realize that many KDE/QT developers could care less about platform wars and just want to have their apps on as many desktops as possible.
I agree it’s not the be all end all of results, but this is a fairly extensive survey of Linux users’ preferences.
If you did a similar poll on the Ubuntu forums, you’d get a totally different result since most people on those boards use GNOME and love GNOME and Ubuntu as a distro favours GNOME.
Such surveys are questionable at best, and LinuxQuestions.org isn’t frequented by all Linux users. In fact, you have no idea what percentage of Linux users go to those forums as I’ve never been there myself.
If you did a similar poll on the Ubuntu forums, you’d get a totally different result
Please do and prove it. Until then, my point holds that LQ is not inherently biased towards either GTK or KDE.
@mattb
<Quote>
im not trying to trash qt or anything, i like it alot more then gtk for all kinds of reasons. but my like or dislike of something has nothing to do with how many people are using it (other then +/- 1 i guess). as it stands now, the world of commercial linux is in gnome. whether that is a good or bad thing is a completely different issue.
</Quote>
If number of people using is a yardstick, then definitely Win32 SDK is the best one! Over to you, now …
This was one thing that I was really hoping for.
It’s quite a great day for QT because it is really great… and I really mean it! I do some development in QT with Kdevelop and it really whips the llamas’ asses.
But for some reason, I don’t see this as an amazing news. For some reason, I have never liked the look and feel of KDE nor of its apps, be it JuK, amaroK, Kopete, Konqueror or KMail/Kontact & co. I find them ugly. I find them bloated. Not in the sheer number of features but rather their interface (save from Konq: it’s a decent browser but it’s by far the worst filemanager I ever used). I don’t find them really stable (especially Kontact). Note the I in all these statements, though. That’s my experience on KDE with three distros and four different computers. Anyway, the lone exception for me is Kdevelop.
Perhaps porting KDE apps to Win32 via the new licence will bring new blood. Perhaps the Kubuntu project will change some of my nitpicks. But at the moment, I am not that enthusiastic to see KDE apps in Windows in a near future, especially if they share the same issues as the ones I have encountered in Linux.
I say QT on any platform is good news.
The more platforms that an app can run on the better!
Its good for everyone. If the developer doesn’t want to support a platform then don’t.
Perhaps porting KDE apps to Win32 via the new licence will bring new blood. Perhaps the Kubuntu project will change some of my nitpicks. But at the moment, I am not that enthusiastic to see KDE apps in Windows in a near future, especially if they share the same issues as the ones I have encountered in Linux.
Kubuntu would be interesting and what will be more interesting will be to see them clean up the interfaces to major KDE apps and see the KDE whiners howl like banshees, as they did when RedHat tweaked some things. But since it’s all GPL-compatible they can’t have their cake and eat it too.
Some trolls seems to have NEVER used evolution, yet they trash it like a hell…
Get a grip, people!
Linux needs native killer apps like scribus that exist only on the linux platform
No, the more killer Linux apps are ported to windows, the greater the chance that people will actually run them on Linux.
In the ideal situation all Microsoft, Macromedia, Adobe,…
should be replaced by free software running on both Linux and windows. Then people would have no need for windows and switch to a free platform.
As it is today, a switch to Linux is often hindered by some single app available only in windows. But these apps get fewer and fewer somtimes the app is only used by parts of the organization, and if all other apps are cross platform one can start switching the desktops where the users have all the applications they need running on both platforms.
Having cross platform, free, applications is Microsofts worst nightmare as it prevents them from using their usual lock in strategies.
This is an enormous win for FOSS and the implications of this move are mind boggling.
I wonder if the Trolls know enough about the GPL to realize that GPL style Free Software CAN BE COMMERCIAL. and that therefore QT/Free CAN be used for commercial software. Commercial does NOT mean proprietary and closed source, just simply means product that is sold in the marketplace. In fact no less of a Free Software leader thab Richard Stallman himeslf supports the Free Software Foundation by SELLING its GPLed software and he even encourages others to do so. This is where we get companies like Red hat, MandrakeSoft, Novel/SuSE, Lycorus and others from. I notice that many of the people on Souce Forge ask for monetary donations for their software. Who knows maybe a GPL based donation software system may even replace “Shareware” as we know it today. I think one thing that the Trolls should consider is a donation system similar to the one used on SourceForge for those making COMMERCIAL Free Software with either of the QT/Free editions. (They should even consider an LGPL option and the privelege of closing source other than the library itself if the donations are on a large enough or persistent enough basis, Say equivalant to half the price of the pro edition either way from a given donor.) I think this would bring a lot of money their way from GPL edition users as well as their closed source customers and assure that QT never has to be placed under that BSD license.
Trolltech has disassociated itself from Canopy as far as it can. from /.
“We have asked Canopy to divest since SCO turned against Linux. Unfortunately under US and Norwegian law you cannot force someone to sell something. We have sold all our investments in Canopy companies a long time ago. We do not like the fact that Canopy and SCO owns shares in Trolltech. The irony is that they became shareholders because the old Canopy/Caldera wanted us to continue to create good Linux software. Canopy/SCO owns a very small share of Trolltech and has no control or influence whatsoever on the strategy and operations of Trolltech. Trolltech is controlled by it’s employees. Eirik Chambe-Eng (President, Trolltech) —–“
In the ideal situation all Microsoft, Macromedia, Adobe,…
should be replaced by free software running on both Linux and windows. Then people would have no need for windows and switch to a free platform.
Spoken like a true zealot. People like you can’t accept that lots of people prefer Windows. Linux is better in some ways and so is Windows. Linux is in no way universially, fundamentally superior. It’s sad that this even needs pointing out.
i’ll support a community product (GTK+) over a commercial product (QT) any day… better community involvement, as well as some commercial interest (Sun, Redhat..) Makes for a good toolkit.
>KDE whiners howl like banshees, as they did when RedHat tweaked some things.
What ReadHat actually did in their first tweaked version was not only breaking binary compability but also source compability. Making it harder to run and build 3rd party KDE software. And the funny thing is, most of those changes could have been achieved by editing XML and RC files, not needing any code changes at all. At leas get your facts right when you are OT flaming.
>Spoken like a true zealot. People like you can’t accept that lots of people prefer Windows. Linux is better in some ways and so is Windows. Linux is in no way universially, fundamentally superior. It’s sad that this even needs pointing out.
spoken like a true zealot, you didnt even take the time to consider what he was saying. if everyone used cross platform applications, it would prevent companies (any company, not just microsoft) to use their operating system to leverage vendor lock-in with their clients. we are talking about leveling the playing field, where operating systems would be used based on their merits rather then what software they will run. in that world, all the people such as yourself that likes windows, will run windows. anyone who likes another operating system will run that operating system.
Wow. 144 posts of mostly Gnome vs KDE flames. Don’t some of these posters have anything better to do? And why can’t loyalists in both camps get over the fact that other people might prefer the other desktop environment?
So you prefer Gnome’s simplicity, pure GPL/LGPL licensing, and clean interface? Don’t get your briefs/panties in a bunch because someone else prefers KDE.
So you prefer KDE’s rich feature set, high configurability, great development framework, and tons of eye candy? Don’t get get your briefs/panties in a bunch because someone else prefers Gnome.
I’ve been using both since I first started using Linux 3 years ago, regularily switching back and forth, going through periods where I used mostly one over the other, and enjoying the entire process. After being in mostly a Gnome mood for the last few months, I’m now mostly in a KDE mood. I really love QT Designer, KDevelop, Kate, Qmake, KOffice, Konqueror, Kontact, etc. Plus there are extra features in KDE that I find very useful. And I like the fact that KPPP makes dial up connectivity a no-brainer. But alas, I’m sure I’ll be in a Gnome mood in another 2 or 3 months, as Gnome is really simple and clean and the apps are really nice.
Thus, the flame wars seem incredibly silly to me.
And btw, QT making QT for Windows GPL (for non-proprietary projects) is a great thing. This will help accelerate QT development on Windows, bring KDE apps to Windows, and expose more end users to open source, QT, KDE, and finally Linux (peaking people’s curiosity).
?”
…And that fellow was me (beaming)! Just for fun, un-install GTK+ from your box, and see which of your favorite applications still run.
”
There is a QT PORT.