After thinking about this move for a little while, I think we can start to see where Elop (MS) wants to go with Qt. It seems obvious that Qt was heavily discussed between the parties involved and it was agreed upon to allow for Qt to be marginalized. Otherwise, Elop would have stated the (seemingly obvious) strategy of using Qt as a differentiators and catalyst for all its platforms, including WP7.

We all know that Ballmer feels very threatened by Qt. However, Qt is not destroyable.

http://kde.org/community/whatiskde/k...foundation.php

"Should Nokia discontinue the development of the Qt Free Edition under these licenses, then the Foundation has the right to release Qt under a BSD-style license or under other open source licenses."

While being LGPL ensures that Qt will survive and be maintained indefinitely into the future, being supported only through the community will likely mean a much slower development pace. That is, unless there was a massive incentive for third party companies to contribute to its support. However, if Qt was released under a BSD style license it is much more likely that another company, or even a number of companies, might become interested in pursuing Qt as a business through closed source or dual license strategies, as Trolltech used to do.

I don't believe MS wants to see a BSD Qt. Therefore, it is more likely that Elop will keep Qt in some sort of light, lip service, development indefinitely, while trying to sabotage it and discourage its use every way he can. That is the worst thing I can think of happening to Qt.

What about the best things that could happen? Lets brainstorm a bit.

Well, maybe the Nokia board will have a change of hart, fire Elop, and go full speed ahead with a Meego strategy.

Another possibility is for KDE Free Qt Foundation to take over development with the aid of some angel investors.

No? Well, then what about this? Since Nokia's interest is no longer aligned with Qt success, but are interested in its temporary use for the dying Symbian, why not sell it to someone that would like to have a go at it? They could negotiate a contract that continues to give them access to Qt for as long as Symbian remains viable. Since Nokia is likely not allowed to develop a WP7 implementation of Qt, they could allow for a third party to do that. They could try to have some sort of advantage over other device makers by specifying in the sell contract that any WP7 implementation should be optimized for Nokia's phones.

Don't like that idea? OK. Here is another interesting scenario. The Finish government nationalizes Nokia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationalization

Strangest things have happened. I would be surprised if this idea is not being tossed around by someone.

Any way, I just thought I would share some thoughts. I'd like to hear more on this subject.