An Open conversation about the future of Qt.
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No, I just think that this should not be another QtQuick discussion, as we know how such discussions tend to be conducted (also with a view to the mailing list). This has nothing to do with a personal opinion about someone else, but rather that this thread deserves better.
However, I'm not the authority who is to decide what is allowed to be discussed here, or not; I just ask to keep the potential consequences in mind.
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There are a lot of issues in terms of "what Qt future should be"
I want to keep the fucus of this thread on "How make future possible"
What needs to be done, to keep the development team going.Software developers are not interchangeable. If we want Qt to be able to survive outside of Nokia, we are going to need some action.
I for one want to see the Open Governace process maintined and moving forward.
I am leaving for Berlin now, see some of you there.
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Just reading an article on the "BBC":http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-18527509 and it mentions Windows Phone 8 having native C/C++ API support. Does this mean a Qt port to WP8 is possible / allowed? If so, it might be an interesting option...
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I vaguely recollect that this is more like "native" - but it's not full c++ support, just a subset that MS will allow. There was a separate thread for that on DevNet, you might want to look it up there, as I can't guarantee my memory to work well :)
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it's not the thread I was talking about, but close: "link":http://qt-project.org/forums/viewthread/6751/P15.
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bq. "I commissioned a deeper investigation into the scope of work required for Qt to work fully on Windows 8. I will receive the full review of this investigation early next week. I will make sure to share this detail with everyone as soon as I am able to."
"Chuck Piercey":http://lists.qt-project.org/pipermail/interest/2012-June/002751.html
Director Product Management & Key Accounts -
Well, for one, Qt is open-source so it is impossible to "kill" it. As far as I understand, Qt Project itself is also now not dependent upon Nokia per se for governance. I think the administrative costs and server costs etc. are paid by Nokia but those probably could be taken care of.
The question really is, where do the Qt contributors and maintainers employed by Nokia go now? How do we ensure that they can keep working on Qt full-time? I hope that divison of Nokia is sold to a home(s) where they can still keep working on Qt open-source.
As for mobile platforms, port to WP8 is a non-trivial endeavor. Android is a more likely destination, with some success already by Bogdan and others.
(About me: You have not seen me much around here, but I do love me some Qt and would love to contribute to Qt in my spare time, especially Android port.)
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There is more to come.
Microsoft is "rumored":http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericsavitz/2012/06/21/microsoft-first-branded-tablets-next-their-own-cell-phone/ to be activly working on their own (non-Nokia) mobile devices; Research In Motion (BlackBerry) is "rumored":http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/24/us-rim-split-idUSBRE85N0D320120624?feedType=RSS&feedName=businessNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+reuters/businessNews+(Business+News) to split or sell mobile devices division.
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My two cents is this: I hope that in an ideal world the Trolls can be sponsored by a foundation like the FSF and also that Nokia would do the right thing and donate Qt to the same foundation and keep it free from commercial interests forever. Why Nokia has gone down the Windows 8 Phone route makes me shake my head in absolute disbelief.
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OK. So this joint venture wasn't about using M$'s OS, but for Microsoft to put it's OS on Nokia devices. That makes more sense. I didn't even think of it that way.
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My theory was MS actually wanted for Nokia to fail, so it can grab a nice chunk of Nokia's market share, which was pretty much dominating the mobile market a few years ago. Unfortunately for MS this plan didn't work out all that well, surely, Nokia lost its market, but it was immediately taken over by Apple, Samsung and a few other smaller Android platform players, MS is a big and slow to respond company...
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I readed all the thread and nobody mentioned nothing about the "KDE Free Qt Foundation":http://www.kde.org/community/whatiskde/kdefreeqtfoundation.php, that means that in the worst, case the KDE proyect will aquire the ownership of Qt, and Qt will be controled by a real FOSS community.
The open source Qt is guaranted, there are no need to make a fork or to worry about the future. -
Sure, KDE Free Qt Foundation could end up with the rights on Qt. However, I doubt that would be a good thing for Qt. It is more like a last resort in case all else fails. With the transfer of the rights on Qt to the foundation, none of the infrastructure needed to run the project comes with it, let alone the resources needed to keep all those kick-ass developers working on Qt full time to make it the great toolkit we all love. So no, I'd much rather see a take-over by a company that actually can invest the resources to keep Qt running and keep it moving forward.
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bq. With the transfer of the rights on Qt to the foundation, none of the infrastructure needed to run the project comes with it, let alone the resources needed to keep all those kick-ass developers working on Qt full time to make it the great toolkit we all love
You finally came to your senses, if KDE, a fairly big foundation and community cannot move Qt, what about the few volunteers you kept on repeating should stop "complaining" and write a complete modern GUI API...
On the other hand, the majority of effort, exerted by Nokia went in direction QML, the framework itself is fairly complete and most APIs are stable and done, KDE will have no problem maintaining what already exists, unfortunately, it won't have the capacity to innovate.
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So no, I’d much rather see a take-over by a company that actually can invest the resources to keep Qt running and keep it moving forward.
It depends on which company, although nokia did sponsor Qt a lot, yet also in charge of
the road map of Qt.Could you imagine Qt taken by Oracle or MS?
