Qt and Nokia’s new strategy

jorj · wrote on 11 Feb 2011, 13:14

i would be interested to hear what a troll has to say about this...

luca · wrote on 11 Feb 2011, 13:28

Please tell me that I haven't loosed 6 years of my life with Qt...

goetz · wrote on 11 Feb 2011, 13:29

The Trolls I've talked to today don't know any more than what is made public on the press releases.

tobias.hunger · wrote on 11 Feb 2011, 13:35

"This morning’s strategy announcement was a significant shift for Nokia, and all of the parts within Nokia, including Qt.

Given the many implications of this strategy change, we are taking a little bit of time before we contact all of our stakeholders to talk directly with them about what it all means."

I would like to point out though that your investments into Qt are secure, independent of what Nokia will do. The whole code is available to you after all. Nobody can take what is released under LGPL (or whichever licensing option you took) away from you.

luca · wrote on 11 Feb 2011, 13:41

All articles in "conversations.nokia.com":conversations.nokia.com doesn't talk about Qt...

In LGPL we trust...!

qtnext · wrote on 11 Feb 2011, 13:42

Ok it's LGPL ... but if there is no more evolution and maintenance, it's the end .. I am afraid... What's happen today clearly said that Trolltech need to be an independant (perhaps fundation ?) company (no more dependant on manufacturer) and Nokia is for sure not the good bet ... Trolltech need to be self profitable and now that it's LGPL it's for sure no more the case.

Algirdasss · wrote on 11 Feb 2011, 13:55

In may point of view having investor for Qt was (or IS???) a big thing. Qt changed quite a lot comparing what was before acquisition, and most of these changes were welcomed (like LGPL ...). Yes, I hope and believe that Qt will not dye. In worsest case community will keep it alive. But without major investor it would be much harder to maintain innovation speed and penetration to new platforms, especially mobile ones.
But in either case ... be strong QT ...

Smar · wrote on 11 Feb 2011, 13:57

[quote author="Tobias Hunger" date="1297431339"]"This morning’s strategy announcement was a significant shift for Nokia, and all of the parts within Nokia, including Qt.

Given the many implications of this strategy change, we are talking a little bit of time before we contact all of our stakeholders to talk directly with them about what it all means."

I would like to point out though that your investments into Qt are secure, independent of what Nokia will do. The whole code is available to you after all. Nobody can take what is released under LGPL (or whichever licensing option you took) away from you.[/quote]

This is more about mobile platform; for desktop KDE, if no one else, will atleast maintain Qt, but for mobile platform I doubt no company will pick up the maintenance if it isn’t main platform of a device.

I’d like to point out that in one of those announcements was mention that Qt isn’t dropped (now) and Meego will use it whereas it will be used in Symbian too. It looked like it won’t get into WP7, but we can hope for it, I hope.

Losing great contributions of trolls to desktop Qt is huge drawback though, so I don’t want Nokia really discontinuing Qt... Or selling / transferring rights of code to some other company.

But I hope all of you remember that Nokia is not Trolltech; a company who lives from Qt. Nokia lives from mobile phones; I suppose Ovi Market isn’t that profitable like Android’s or Apple’s alternatives are.

troubalex · wrote on 11 Feb 2011, 14:45

Wow, you sound like the end is near. It's not. Things are admittedly tricky over here right now but so far, we have no indication of Qt going away or let alone being discontinued. We need clarification in many areas but for now, we're doing business as usual.

The communications team is preparing messages and I hope I can share some more information soon. Ideally, over the weekend.

qtnext · wrote on 11 Feb 2011, 14:54

Hopes ... but ...
at short term, qt will continue .. for sure ... Elop needs you for the transition ... But after...
For small company like mine, It's very disturbing to read Nokia new Roadmap ... I have invested since years in Qt ... and I see no commercial raison (the new roadmap for Nokia ...is clearly not technicall but just commercial ) why Nokia will continue Desktop and mobile Qt platform ... in fact good day for microsoft : find a way to sell wP7, kill meego and symbian and kill the only good commercial C++ platform ... viva dotnet ...

Hopes you can communicate on news that we can trust (see previous communication about meego and symbian ... http://wiki.forum.nokia.com/index.php/Porting_Android_(Java)_applications_to_S60_5th_Edition

I suppose now we will have porting Qt app to .Net

Algirdasss · wrote on 11 Feb 2011, 14:54

Yep, maybe in some places there is too much drama but developer moods are not at the best ... it is as is ...
We'll welcome all the news that says any official position about this situation.

qtnext · wrote on 11 Feb 2011, 15:01

the joke :(

http://qt.nokia.com/about/events/mobile-world-congress-2011

troubalex · wrote on 11 Feb 2011, 15:14

Okay, look. I know nobody is happy about this. I also know that you worry about where we're going. You may have bet your business on Qt. But so have we. I am confident enough that we will see a solution soon.

CreMindES · wrote on 11 Feb 2011, 15:20

"My opinion about this.":http://developer.qt.nokia.com/forums/viewthread/2675/P45/#23187

Algirdasss · wrote on 11 Feb 2011, 15:31

It's interesting. This move was really inevitable or it's because Elop is former employee of Microsoft ... of course stupid question, we'll never know the truth ... but its in my mind...

I remembered some time ago there was a message from outgoing Nokia CEO saying:

bq. Anssi Vanjoki, outgoing head of Nokia’s smartphone division, likens mobile phone makers that adopt Google’s software to Finnish boys who”pee in their pants” for warmth in the winter. Temporary relief is followed by an even worse predicament.

So it seems Nokia started to pee also ...

sfilippidis · wrote on 11 Feb 2011, 15:39

I think that this period of time (just after the announcement of the new strategy) is a time to wait! I hope that Qt will evolve (once more) and adapt to the new status quo. We will just have to wait. :)

Algirdasss · wrote on 11 Feb 2011, 15:46

If there would be silence, you could start thinking that everybody is happy about this ...

CreMindES · wrote on 11 Feb 2011, 15:47

Algirdasss that was the quote that I've just quoted in another forum about 5 second ago :) I totally agree.

sfilippidis · wrote on 11 Feb 2011, 15:49

[quote author="Algirdasss" date="1297439162"]If there would be silence, you could start thinking that everybody is happy about this ... [/quote]

I was not commenting against posting opinions. I was just commenting against not-well-thought-decisions: you don't give up on an investment* so "easy". ;)

*learning a framework is an investment

Algirdasss · wrote on 11 Feb 2011, 16:03

Yep, head is too hot to make good decisions today. Obviously our company will continue on Qt, because price is too hight to move (and thats makes me nervous) ... at least for nearest future. Besides I started making some program on QT for mobile devices. But after todays announcement I started to lean to Android ... that was always my second choice after Nokia's former ecosystem:)