Nokia's Buying Out Trolltech ASA

[showcontrolbruce]

i think commercial qt licence is/was 1000$ . that's dirt-cheap for any software company. commercial version provides additional sql modules (e.g. oracle) and some extra tools.

As I remember, a multi-platform Qt license was more like $7000, with another $3000 or so a year. Way out of a small software companies budget - at least mine.

Regards,

Bruce

[Svartalf]

Maybe, but when they can release it under BSD they can virtually release it under any license.
I think, that would be LGPL.

They would have to officially release it under BSD to comply with the terms of the foundation rights grant- from there you'd find that they'd also release it immediately afterward under an LGPL grant most likely.

But to comply with the terms of what Trolltech established, for it to be completely legal from start to finish, it would have to visit being licensed under BSD first. Copyright law's a funny beast as is Patent law.

[Berniyh]

FreeQt foundation was created when Qt was licensed under Qt license. Now, when Qt is licensed under GPLv2 & v3, it is likely that even if Trolltech stops releasing Qt Open source edition KDE people can still develop Qt under GPL without releasing it under BSD.

Maybe, but when they can release it under BSD they can virtually release it under any license.
I think, that would be LGPL.

[Svartalf]

i think commercial qt licence is/was 1000$ . that's dirt-cheap for any software company. commercial version provides additional sql modules (e.g. oracle) and some extra tools.

Depends on the size of that company. $1-1.5k can buy a whole new dev machine, pay for a week's salary, etc. Someone Dell or Intuit, etc. it'd be chicken feed. For a small shop or one-man show, it's quite a bit of cash that could be applied to other things.

[Svartalf]

FreeQt foundation was created when Qt was licensed under Qt license. Now, when Qt is licensed under GPLv2 & v3, it is likely that even if Trolltech stops releasing Qt Open source edition KDE people can still develop Qt under GPL without releasing it under BSD.

The biggest problem with that is that there's issues with GPL licensed commercial software. There's still a lot of people out there that think that they have to be proprietary- which is something they're entitled to. If the stuff that's available is GPL only, then there's no good past KDE that will come of it. Honest. Now, if they licensed it under the proposed BSD license, one could relicense it under the LGPL, if you get where I am going with that- then you'd have the best of all worlds at that point.

[yoshi314]

i think commercial qt licence is/was 1000$ . that's dirt-cheap for any software company. commercial version provides additional sql modules (e.g. oracle) and some extra tools.

[Mithrandir]

That is not completely true.
BTW, if Nokia decides, that they won't release QT under an Open Source license anymore, then the KDE people can release the last GPL version under a BSD license.

FreeQt foundation was created when Qt was licensed under Qt license. Now, when Qt is licensed under GPLv2 & v3, it is likely that even if Trolltech stops releasing Qt Open source edition KDE people can still develop Qt under GPL without releasing it under BSD.

[Berniyh]

The main problem of QT, however, is its dual license: it is not possible to produce QT software incompatible with the GPL without paying Trolltech (unless I missed something ...). As a result, most commercial companies chose to support GTK instead. Nokia has said they intend to continue to dual license as before, creating an even bigger problem for third parties (Trolltech was a small independent company, while Nokia is huge and competes with a lot of folks).

That is not completely true.
You are only forced to pay for QT if you want to use a closed source license, but you may use an incompatible license from the official list (like BSD) and you may also use it commercially.

I don't think, that a lot of companies prefer GTK+ over QT (if they do at all) because they don't have to pay for a license.
Actually I would rather think, that companies prefer QT because of it's excellent Windows support.

BTW, if Nokia decides, that they won't release QT under an Open Source license anymore, then the KDE people can release the last GPL version under a BSD license.

[mlau]

The main problem of QT, however, is its dual license: it is not possible to produce QT software incompatible with the GPL without paying Trolltech (unless I missed something ...).

If you intend to earn money by selling closed source using Qt,
then Trolltech wants a small share. In return you also get support,
and if coded properly, a source base which runs on 3 platforms, maybe more.
I don't see any problems here.

[remm]

The main problem of QT, however, is its dual license: it is not possible to produce QT software incompatible with the GPL without paying Trolltech (unless I missed something ...). As a result, most commercial companies chose to support GTK instead. Nokia has said they intend to continue to dual license as before, creating an even bigger problem for third parties (Trolltech was a small independent company, while Nokia is huge and competes with a lot of folks).