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2011-02-14
, 06:23
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Posts: 35 |
Thanked: 19 times |
Joined on Sep 2010
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#11
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2011-02-14
, 06:30
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Posts: 1,746 |
Thanked: 2,100 times |
Joined on Sep 2009
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#12
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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.
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2011-02-14
, 13:31
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Posts: 963 |
Thanked: 626 times |
Joined on Sep 2009
@ Connecticut, USA
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#13
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Fracturing it like that would be a surefire route to killing it. All the successful BSD projects have a defined trunk, regardless of being able to be taken proprietary as that's the only way for such a project to survive.
MS would love a BSD Qt, they could take and borrow stuff freely without concern of license violations or having to contribute back to the developers.
The worst thing that can happen is he tries that and KDE decides to force the issue and fork it. They can take the GPL and LGPL license and run with it. No BSD license, no proprietary licensing schemes.
Much like other unresponsive managing bodies (that passively or actively ignore user complaints, like XFree86), they can be bypassed by virtue of the license. You'll have to change the name, but like LibreOffice and Xorg, it will become the new trunk and the old, dead branch will wither.
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2011-02-14
, 13:41
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Posts: 735 |
Thanked: 1,054 times |
Joined on Jun 2010
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#14
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My hope/dream/wildest imagination is if a group of hackers came together and ported Qt to WP7.
That would be the most distruptive thing that can ever happen to Mr Elop's plans with Microsoft.
In fact I'd wager so far as to say that Qt is ported to WP7, then there is actual merit to joining up with Microsoft (from Nokia's point of view).
Suddenly, Qt isn't just on a soon-to-be-dead Symbian, a niche-market Maemo and yet-to-be-born Meego, all of which are Nokia supported - it will be on a brand new platform that has thus far rejected everything other than .NET.
Given that the world is now looking at Nokia and Microsoft, this new direction will not go unnoticed.
If Qt on WP7 were announced soon enough this entire episode may turn out to be an astounding PR win.
If only...
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2011-02-14
, 13:52
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Posts: 94 |
Thanked: 59 times |
Joined on Jun 2010
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#15
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2011-02-14
, 21:03
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Posts: 963 |
Thanked: 626 times |
Joined on Sep 2009
@ Connecticut, USA
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#16
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Now paid Qt developers are another issue, sadly. Having been on this market for 20 years, my only advice to them would be to wait for a month to see whether Qt is sold in some form or another to a reasonable entity (Intel, Canonical, whoever) and if not, escape while you can. Unless, of course, you discover a sudden interest in yourselves for .Net and C# :-)
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2011-02-14
, 21:20
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Posts: 619 |
Thanked: 691 times |
Joined on Feb 2010
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#17
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2011-02-14
, 21:28
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Posts: 963 |
Thanked: 626 times |
Joined on Sep 2009
@ Connecticut, USA
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#18
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About forking
http://blog.qt.nokia.com/2011/02/12/...future-for-qt/
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Everyone, stop talking about forking!! Be realistic, look at the number of commits from Nokia versus everyone else combined. NOTHING is going to replace the hundreds of thousands of man hours a paid, full-time team can afford to put in. If you think so, then simple question: are YOU planning to hack QT for 40 hours a week? If Nokia ditches the Trolls and it’s not picked up by anyone else (Intel, are you listening?), it is OVER outside of KDE. You’d be crazy to develop on a practically stationary platform when WPF, Cocoa, etc. keep moving fast ahead.
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Disclaimer - I know nothing about Qt personally, was just reading the blog.
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2011-02-14
, 21:35
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Banned |
Posts: 974 |
Thanked: 622 times |
Joined on Oct 2010
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#19
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2011-02-14
, 21:47
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Posts: 1,746 |
Thanked: 2,100 times |
Joined on Sep 2009
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#20
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While I do agree that having a single common trunk is the best option, I'm not sure I agree that spawning several slightly incompatible QT-derived tool kits would be good for MS. We are talking about developer tools, each with a different name/trademark, not OSs.
I doubt this too, frankly. But, it is possible. I just don't think that the benefit they would get from it could compensate for the level of threat of having a viable, top notch, cross-platform, tool kit in the market.
The worst thing for who? For MS? I don't think this is their worst case scenario.
I could live with this scenario, but I am not sure it is the best that can be had.