Re: Will the FreeQt foundation actually work?

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Re: Will the FreeQt foundation actually work?
by KOffice fan on Monday 28/Jan/2008, @05:03

...for the time being.

We don't know what Nokia will feel like in a few years.

I'm not happy about this. It's one thing to cooperate with a small company composed of engineers, programmers, hackers and software lovers, and a completely different thing to have the very heart of your desktop environment controlled by a multinational behemoth involved with software, telecommunications and a million other things, which started off as a cable manufacturer.

I had a far easier time trusting Trolltech than I do trusting Nokia. While things will probably stay pretty much the same in the short term (or even improve due to new funds), in the long run I'm not sure Nokia will care enough about Free Software or KDE to stop them from hurting the community if they deem it profitable.

I'm not doing this to spread the FUD, I'm simply uneasy about this.

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Re: Will the FreeQt foundation actually work?
by matze on Monday 28/Jan/2008, @07:22

well, I might add that small companies "composed of engineers, programmers, hackers and software lovers" usually aren't around for long. Those companies tend to go out of business quickly or become acquired by a "multinational behemoth". If they're lucky.

But still, I think you're mostly correct about the implications for KDE. We're no longer close to the Qt business model. KDE had a good leverage versus Trolltech because they knew well to thrive on KDEs success on the desktop. "Look how fancy things are done with our product". I wonder if Nokia cares so much...

Also I'm wondering whether the possibility exists of Nokia BSD'ing (or LGPL'ing) Qt, and whether this was good or bad. Clearly they don't need the turnover Trolltech achieves through Qt license sales.

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Re: Will the FreeQt foundation actually work?
by José Alarcón on Friday 01/Feb/2008, @03:37

Well, companies have the obligation to bring revenues to their share holders. Both big and small companies. So I don't understand this romantic view of small company composed of engineers and SW lovers... if you don't want a company to control your desktop (I don't see how Nokia could do so), use a Desktop that is not based on any technology owned by any company (I don't know if that is the case with Gnome).

Nokia started by doing paper and rubber boots. I don't think it is easy to find a company that reinvent itself as Nokia does. I just think this is positive, specially when thinking about the resources and the market penetration nokia has.

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