Digia Looking At Windows WinRT Support In Qt 5.2

[Awesomeness]

Perhaps it's sour grapes due to GTK+'s flakey cross platform support

Flaky cross platform support?
GTK runs on both Debian and Fedora!

[jrch2k8]

No, no and no. Qt is broadly licensed, offered as closed source and open source. KDE Qt agreement can do nothing about Digia stops developing the open source version. They just need to do a minimal release every year. Citing some non-features and remove others for performance. And what happens if worst case happens? KDE gets to relicense the LGPLed Qt for the X window system. They can't touch Qt for Linux Embedded or any other platform, and they can't touch non-free Qt. The Agreement is worthess and can only be used to remove software freedom, not defend it. Since Qt is already LGPL, KDE can only retalitate by doing a MT/BSD relicense. And that kills software freedom.

And the worst part is KDE is exclusive to this agreement. Other free Qt stakeholders are told to go away. This just adds up to the inequality, unfairness and freedom hating. KDE is better off without this moot agreement. Burn it.

every line of code currently in qtproject repository is protected by GPL and therefor cannot be hide or removed without face litigation, the CLA only allows digia to copy the code to their own repos and add an closed license to the same code but even so if they make modifications to the base code in qtproject repos they have to release that code to comply with GPL, CLA or not

qt for embedded ceased to exist in Qt4 series and Qt for Vxworks and other obscure platforms never were open to start with, with Qt5 QPA abstract the platform aka i can just git clone qtproject repo and compile for every supported platform [X11,wayland,OS X, Windows, Android, iOS -- X86/arm/powerpc/etc -- using Gcc/ICC/clang/etc] just switching flags in the configure phase.

this agreement is for future code not yet released as GPL in the git repo so digia cannot longer relicense the gpl code for their closed use hence is true too KDE cannot block or remove the GPL version either, just the new code that is not licensed yet and since KDE is a non-profit organization i doubt they use anything different than lgpl or gpl3 like it is right now

please literate yourself before spout crap about a project you ovbiously never used in your life or an organization you ovbiously know nothing about or a set of legal terms you never even understood properly

[n3wu53r]

Well the problem is the you in your example. If the 'you' is a for-profit corporation that controls the code, then yes, it stagnates. However, if everything is completely open then the 'you' is just the developing community at large and project leads. Developers everywhere can keep evolving open software to their needs. Take Linux, for example. I don't think Linux gained popularity on servers and devices because of it's competition with Windows and Unix. It's because projects everywhere needed a OS solution they could control and modify to fit their purpose, and Linux is the "best" open-source option, so they use that. Sure, other OSs encouraged Linux growth by trying things different.. but that's simply the flow of ideas in general at work.

I don't know much about Webkit, but I highly doubt that a heavily used open-source project could stagnate anywhere close to the degree of IE6... those where dark days.. but if you remove the corrupt church, the dark-ages disappear as well

Even if it's not for profit it still applies. Linux desktops environments compete for users. If one were to utterly dominate, the developers wouldn't be so motivated to advance and just whatever they felt like since they are dominant. But at least with open things, if stagnation like this happen, it's much much easier for new players to make disruptions.

[F i L]

Not necessarily. If your dominant you have little competition and thus reason to advance. This is why android dominance and webkit monoculture is bad and scary. The webkit monoculture could return us to IE6 days.

Well the problem is the you in your example. If the 'you' is a for-profit corporation that controls the code, then yes, it stagnates. However, if everything is completely open then the 'you' is just the developing community at large and project leads. Developers everywhere can keep evolving open software to their needs. Take Linux, for example. I don't think Linux gained popularity on servers and devices because of it's competition with Windows and Unix. It's because projects everywhere needed a OS solution they could control and modify to fit their purpose, and Linux is the "best" open-source option, so they use that. Sure, other OSs encouraged Linux growth by trying things different.. but that's simply the flow of ideas in general at work.

I don't know much about Webkit, but I highly doubt that a heavily used open-source project could stagnate anywhere close to the degree of IE6... those where dark days.. but if you remove the corrupt church, the dark-ages disappear as well

[n3wu53r]

I agree with most of what you're saying, but I disagree with this part. It would be true if the dominant platform was commercial, but not if the dominate platform is free to use & learn from by everyone. In the case of Open Source, "market" dominance is a good thing (less fragmentation, more unified open efforts which benefit everyone).

Not necessarily. If your dominant you have little competition and thus reason to advance. This is why android dominance and webkit monoculture is bad and scary. The webkit monoculture could return us to IE6 days.

[F i L]

You never want one dominant platform to rule them all with 90%+ marketshare. That monopoly and monoculture leads to stagnation. You also don't want users to be locked-in to one platform due to vendors. All of this is "anti-freedom".

I agree with most of what you're saying, but I disagree with this part. It would be true if the dominant platform was commercial, but not if the dominate platform is free to use & learn from by everyone. In the case of Open Source, "market" dominance is a good thing (less fragmentation, more unified open efforts which benefit everyone).

[n3wu53r]

I don't want "quality" for Linux. I want Linux to be supported as mush as possible, and that means compromise with multiplatformism. I want tool kit level software to be as free and fairly governed as possible, and that means compromise with commercial Qt.

Qt has amazing linux support, in many ways better then other platforms since you can use it as the native toolkit here. That is what I mean by quality.

Qt is LGPL like gtk.
Qt is FOSS, and the KDE Qt agreement make sure it will always be FOSS and can never be closed.

But yes, there is a CLA, and if you do not like, that is a valid point against Qt. But that is a licensing reason, not a technical one. Digia cannot dual license Qt to make money and would therefore not exist with the CLA so I do not mind it.

If you do not like it the solution is simple: do not write your software with Qt.

[TheBlackCat]

I don't want "quality" for Linux. I want Linux to be supported as mush as possible, and that means compromise with multiplatformism. I want tool kit level software to be as free and fairly governed as possible, and that means compromise with commercial Qt.

"You needn't love your enemy, but if you refrain from telling lies about him, you are doing well enough."
- Ed Howe

You can't even manage that much.

[n3wu53r]

You are on a linux centric forum. Expect to meet a few people caring about Linux and Freedom. im one of them.

Caring for quality on linux is good.

Wanting people to only support linux, saying any support for non-linux is bad, and non-linux platforms should burn and die is bad. You never want one dominant platform to rule them all with 90%+ marketshare. That monopoly and monoculture leads to stagnation. You also don't want users to be locked-in to one platform due to vendors. All of this is "anti-freedom".

[kaszak]

I doubt it's even possible without hitting the wall of patents.