Nokia funding of Qt will probably be discontinued.
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http://allthingsd.com/20120614/nokia-to-end-meltemi-effort-for-low-end-smartphones/
The much anticipated Meltemi as a platform for Qt is canceled, just as Meego and Symbian. On WP7 Qt is blocked. We were told to stay with Qt because there would be the next billion platform. How do you guys see the future of Qt for mobile development? Do you see a need for KDE to execute their right to fork a BSD licensed version?
[Moved to The Lounge -- mlong]
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Absolutely, and the sooner the better.
It's just not only mobile development, think also about lots and lots of applications developed for the desktop relaying on Qt and having their future/destiny tied to Qt's own roadmap and years to come.
I also believe that along with KDE, there are some other key players also interested in keeping Qt improved and maintained, i.e. Digia, QNX (now part of Research In Motion), may be Google as well?
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Don't count on RIM to save Qt! Their QNX plan is for Android, to be able to migrate those Android apps over to future RIM devices. They have already ported the Dalvik VM that Android runs on top off. RIMs focus is to survive also, they are not going to try to save other projects and spread their engineers out thin. Remember RIM has its round of layout not too long ago and they are busying hiring new blood to save QNX right now!
I do hope KDE steps in to fork Qt, I love Qt for the desktop and gave up hope of ever seeing Qt on mobile. I can't think of one thing Google has done for Qt? Enlighten me if anyone knows.
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The decision to not invest the main development force into supporting existing established mobile platforms, as well as the failure to develop, let alone establish a mobile platform dedicated to Qt are both ENTIRELY on Nokia.
The failure of Qt in the mobile world is not some flaw of Qt itself, but of its management. Without Nokia, Qt not only has very good chances to establish itself, but if it offers support for both major desktop and mobile platforms, combined with the efficiency and performance of native code, Qt can be a unique solution without competition, very attractive to software developers, the vast majority of which are more than interested in a framework with a wide and complete platform support and top notch performance.
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Google is using Qt, as per Nokia site:
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shop nokia qt link is dead : http://shop.qt.nokia.com/
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Because Digia has acquired the commercial licensing and professional services components of Nokia's Qt software group back in 2011. So if you need a commercial Qt license professional support you should look there:
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[quote author="ryadav" date="1339777679"]Don't count on RIM to save Qt! Their QNX plan is for Android, to be able to migrate those Android apps over to future RIM devices. They have already ported the Dalvik VM that Android runs on top off. RIMs focus is to survive also, they are not going to try to save other projects and spread their engineers out thin. Remember RIM has its round of layout not too long ago and they are busying hiring new blood to save QNX right now!
I do hope KDE steps in to fork Qt, I love Qt for the desktop and gave up hope of ever seeing Qt on mobile. I can't think of one thing Google has done for Qt? Enlighten me if anyone knows.[/quote]
Actually, RIM is using Qt for the core of BB10 and the Cascades framework is also built on top of Qt as you can see here: "Cascades reference":https://developer.blackberry.com/cascades/reference/
So I'm quite confident that they'll stay with Qt and they're even sponsors of the latets Qt Contributers Summit. Please get the facts before spreading this kind of information.
They're already able to run Android application on the Playbook (I own one and have a couple of Android apps running on it). I can also confirm that the Playbook executes Qt apps fine aswell, that was actually the reason why I bought it besides the great user experience and cheap price tag.
RIM is actually looking for talented Qt developers right now and I assume some of the Trolls will end up at RIM.
This will probably be the last attempt of seeing Qt on mobile devices.
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[quote author="dialingo" date="1339767922"]http://allthingsd.com/20120614/nokia-to-end-meltemi-effort-for-low-end-smartphones/
The much anticipated Meltemi as a platform for Qt is canceled, just as Meego and Symbian. On WP7 Qt is blocked. We were told to stay with Qt because there would be the next billion platform. How do you guys see the future of Qt for mobile development? Do you see a need for KDE to execute their right to fork a BSD licensed version?
[/quote]Just for clarification: The KDE Free Qt Foundation is a last-ditch measure, and only becomes available about a year after the owner of Qt has released the last Qt version. The right does not depend on whether Nokia is developing Meltemi or sees Qt as a strategic asset. The obligations of the agreement also transfer along with Qt should it be sold. See here for details: http://www.kde.org/community/whatiskde/kdefreeqtfoundation.php
I hope KDE does not need to invoke this right, should it ever become available. At the moment, KDE does not have this option, since Nokia did fulfill all their obligations. Also, unlike a fork of the GPL/LPGL version, developing Qt under BSD will lead to fragmentation, and probably end any serious commercial effort of developing Qt as a product. I hope it will never happen.
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I would suggest to take a look a development mailing list. Dust has settled after that news boomed, now devs are back in development, and a lot of healthy discussion is going on.
There are also lots of people and companies (ICS for example) willing to help. And Nokia still did not say, what it intends to do with Qt (I mean in short-term).
