[Foss-cafe] NI: OfB.biz: Debate Without End: On KDE and Qt Licensing

[Timothy Butler]

>
> it's always something isn't it? =) KDE has progressed through a  
> litany of such
> supposed "platform killing" problems over the years and yet KDE  
> just keeps
> getting bigger, better and stronger.

     Yup. If a project isn't being told it has fatal flaws, it should  
be disappointed: all the big ones do. :-)

> despite the recent flapping from all corners about the GPL being  
> evil (ESR,
> you and several articles eminating from other corners of the world)  
> the GPL
> is not such a horrible thing. it encourages and supports open source
> development. if you don't understand how that is, then you haven't  
> paid
> attention to corporate adoption of open source over the last  
> several years.

     I don't think the GPL is evil at all. I think it is bad for  
library licensing... that's what the LGPL should be used for.
>
> and if you took Tim's rational to enterprise customers, they'd  
> laugh at your
> face because they aren't the ones who tend to have problem with Qt  
> licensing
> (so i found it doubly odd that you kept implying it was an enterprise
> problem). you can find exceptions, but it's the general not the  
> exceptions
> that count. it's an issue for shareware developers and devel shops  
> that are
> "skating by the skin of their teeth". for the latter, i understand  
> that
> Trolltech has set up specific deals with such companies in the past  
> on a
> case-by-case basis.

Right. But I think the second issue (control of handing out these  
licenses) is the thing that worries enterprise decision makers. I'd  
also assert companies like Red Hat, even if it weren't so tied to  
GNOME, wouldn't like this situation for this reason.
>
> and some corrections: Novel Desktop is not GNOME only. it gives you  
> a choice

     Right. But it seems to me Novell is mostly promoting the GNOME  
side of it, from what I've seen.

> between KDE and GNOME on install. i'd also suggest there are other
> "enterprise desktops" out there as well, e.g. Xandros and Mandriva,  
> but those
> use KDE and as such don't fit your thesis so well ;)


     Well, I don't count Xandros because I'm dubious as to its  
success. Right now, I'd count the big players as Mandriva, SUSE, Red  
Hat, Linspire and Debian. I haven't seen hard comparison figures, but  
the basic feel I get is that Xandros is not widely used, nor would I  
count on them long term.

     Mandriva seems to be essentially neutral. They seem to like KDE  
a bit more than GNOME, but they use GTK+ for their config apps, which  
makes them fit better into GNOME. I'd say its a toss up these days.  
Gael always points out that Mandrake, err... Mandriva, does not have  
a preference.

> leaving Qt for KDE4 would also almost certainly kill the project.  
> not only
> would the loss in knowledge assets be immense and probably  
> crippling, there
> are no suitable options to replace it with. comparing replacing Qt  
> classes in
> webcore to what would be required to replace Qt in KDE is what  
> happens when
> people write about things they don't have much insight into. and  
> no, we can't
> afford to take 5+ years to release KDE4.

     I don't suggest it would be easy, but I think it could be done  
in a reasonable amount of time applying the same principles used in  
WebCore's Qt compatibility layer (one of which being that it fit as  
an adapter, Apple did not create a whole new toolkit).

     Why didn't Apple just license Qt? Control, I'd wager.

>
> and finally, it's really no secret that coming out of GUADEC, one  
> of GNOME's
> PR group's primary messages for the next year is that KDE is  
> expensive to

     Huh. Well, if it is any comfort, I didn't get the memo. Then  
again, I'm just catching up on GNU/Linux news. I've been doing some  
non-technical writing lately, and I'm writing from a OS X running  
PowerBook. :-)

     -Tim

---
Timothy R. Butler | "Now  that  I am a  Christian  I  do have moods
Editor, OfB.biz   | in which the whole thing looks very improbable:
tbutler at ofb.biz   | but when I was an  atheist I had moods in which
timothybutler.us  | Christianity looked terribly probable."
                                                       -- C.S. Lewis