Novell Desktop To Standardize On Qt [updated] 615
Balinares writes "NewsForge reports that Novell has settled for Qt as its Linux desktop development environment, casting more light on their strategy to unify KDE and GNOME. This ought to be interesting. The prospect of using Mono to code against Qt makes me drool in advance. Maybe programming will suck no longer!" Update: 03/30 00:01 GMT by T : Sounds like that story doesn't quite hold water; Nat Friedman writes in this Slashdot comment that "We have not decided that we are standardizing on Qt for the desktop. ... We support development with a variety of toolkits, and our internal development is done using the right tool for the right problem. This includes Qt, Gtk, VCL, XUL and others, depending on the application."
Re:QT? What about licensing? (Score:5, Informative)
I'm pretty sure you can use QT with all your GPL stuff all you want.
Given that Qt is available under the GPL itself [trolltech.com], it's an absolute certainty you can use Qt in a GPLed project.
How Much to dev with? (Score:5, Informative)
From the trolltech site: http://www.trolltech.com/products/qt/licensing.ht
" Use the Qt Commercial License to:
Build commercial software.
Build software that is not sold, but that advances the business goals of a commercial enterprise."
Re:QT? What about licensing? (Score:5, Informative)
Somehow, this is still news to people...
Discussions elsewhere say this article is invalid. (Score:5, Informative)
Many BrainShare attendees have already dismissed this as a badly written article, as it combines statements from Novell about their desire to see a unified Linux desktop (see one of the worst examples of tech reporting in years [slashdot.org]) with rumors and rampant speculation. There is no basis of truth in the heise article.
I'm sure Novell will send out someone with authority in due time to stomp this out, but this is just what I've heard so far.
Re:How Much to dev with? (Score:2, Informative)
HEISE confirms (Score:2, Informative)
You can read more here [heise.de] on their site.
Re:QT? What about licensing? (Score:2, Informative)
mono and linux is a wonderful combination (Score:2, Informative)
Re:How Much to dev with? (Score:5, Informative)
Persons who develop GPL-incompatible software for the new desktop will probably have to GPL their code or purchase both a Qt license and a separate Novell license. Not cheap, but other than that, definitely fun.
$0.00 (Score:5, Informative)
The fact that Novell is going to use QT is very telling. Novell is a software corporation whose existence past, present and future relies on selling software. That means that while they will throw the open source community a GPLed bone (Yast, Evolution) they will also offer up lots of closed source applications and some will be QT based.
Novell is not afraid of having to pay a very reasonable licensing cost for commercial development and neither are most other software companies. They already pay licensing for MS Visual DEs, Borland DEs and probably many others. Paying for a QT license is a minor cost of doing business and it will not deter any serious software house.
Re:How Much to dev with? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:GTK is out, then? (Score:2, Informative)
So, if you want to do your closed source software with Qt, you can pay through the nose. However, if you develop GPL software you are free and free. Like with GTK, right?
Re:Give me a break! (Score:3, Informative)
False. GTK is licensed under LGPL, which is far less restrictive. Do some research before you spout this drivel.
Re:How Much to dev with? (Score:4, Informative)
(Either Qt/Windows or Qt/X11 or Qt/Mac)
Prices per developer. Includes one year of support and maintenance. See also the Professional/Enterprise Comparison Chart
Developers Professional Edition Enterprise Edition
1 $ 1550,- $ 2490,-
2 - 5 $ 1500,- $ 2250,-
6 - 10 $ 1410,- $ 2120,-
11 - 20 $ 1330,- $ 2000,-
Which sort of sucks, because it sounds like I buy a license to develop under X and then need another to debug the problems that crop up under win32.
It's not a lot of cash, but it's sort of tough to compete with a robust, free product.(i.e. GTK)
Re:GTK is out, then? (Score:5, Informative)
You can do object oriented and event oriented programming in c fine.
Besides C is much more portable and there is a C++ interface for GTK to.
So the only difference between QT and GTK from a language perspective is that with GTK you get a choice, QT you only get C++. (Not counting even higher languages such as C# since both have wrappers for that and are sort of equal)
Jeroen
Re:QT? What about licensing? (Score:4, Informative)
It seems to be confusing that one can buy a commercial version of Qt. That version however is extra. If you don't want it, just stick to plain old GPL'ed Qt.
MySQL is doing something similar. Nobody seems to be confused by that one though.
QT vs. GTK (Score:2, Informative)
Re:GTK is out, then? (Score:5, Informative)
Setting the record straight. (Score:5, Informative)
We're not really sure where the rumor came from that Novell is standardizing on Qt as its desktop platform. Chris Stone said no such thing during his keynote; the video for the keynote is available here:
http://www.novell.com/brainshare/keynotes2004.h
Novell supports GNOME and KDE, Qt and Gtk. We have not decided that we are standardizing on Qt for the desktop. First of all, most software developed for the Linux desktop is developed by the broader community, and Novell could never impose a standard platform on the community at large. We support development with a variety of toolkits, and our internal development is done using the right tool for the right problem. This includes Qt, Gtk, VCL, XUL and others, depending on the application.
We do not regard the variety of toolkits and platforms in the Linux world as a problem, as long as there are standards and shared code which allow applications to work together.
And frankly, today's Linux toolkits and platforms are one of the least interesting topics on the Linux desktop today. The important issues for this industry and market are our opportunity to innovate in information management and collaboration, improving interoperability with Windows users and services, bringing more ISVs and developers to the Linux platform, enhancing the usability and consistency of the various components that make up the desktop, enabling Windows migration with tools and training and documentation, and creating a manageable Linux desktop to enable large-scale deployments.
We see freedesktop.org as one of the most important and central elements of the Linux desktop for the next several years. The desktop today is made up of a number of components, including OpenOffice, Mozilla, Evolution, and of course GNOME and KDE. Over time we hope to work with freedesktop.org to unify the key interfaces and functionality of these components, to improve integration for users and provide a common open
source desktop platform.
Nat Friedman
Novell/SUSE Linux Desktop Lead
Re:Give me a break! (Score:4, Informative)
The first correct statement in your post. Nothing stops your customers from using Qt to develop software, as long as the software is either GPL'd or for internal use only. If your customer wants to develop proprietary software to distribute for profit, perhaps you can do them a favor and recommend Windows, since windows users are more likely to buy into (literally) the proprietary software model.
Complete Bullshit (Score:5, Informative)
Re:C++ and binary compatibility (Score:3, Informative)
Re:GTK is out, then? (Score:5, Informative)
My team and other teams within Novell continue to
develop and use Gtk as their toolkit (recently
open sourced Simias/iFolder for instance) and
all of the Mono GUI development tools.
The only use of Qt that am aware of today
is SUSE's recently open sourced YAST.
Btw, if you have been following my posts on
my blog and on the desktop-devel-list, you will
know that my feeling is that all of the existing
toolkits today (Gtk, Qt, XUL and VCL) will
become obsolete and we need to start looking
at the next generation toolkit system.
Miguel
Re:How Much to dev with? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:GTK is out, then? (Score:3, Informative)
It's been a long time since I looked at this stuff but this is what I knew back then.
C# is a lot like Java in that is it "portable" but not really. That is, all the underlying API's have to be there or it won't work and Mono does not currently have all the stuff that you get with Microsoft.
For example, on Windows the default C# GUI API is using the Windows.Forms interface (or whatever it is called). Mono doesn't have that interface yet. Last I heard they were planning to use Wine to provide the GUI
And the same holds for other API's not yet in Mono.
So some apps will work but most won't even though the bytecode is compatible.
Re:Give me a break! (Score:3, Informative)
On Novell Linux, there will be a cost. So-long, shareware market! Not that there is really a Linux shareware market now, but this would be pretty effective in stopping one from appearing. I also wonder if Trolltech will try to submarine Linux at some point in the future, ala SCO.
Novell could sell "Novell Developer Studio," which includes KDevelop, QT Designer, etc. plus a QT license. This would make it look like "Windows plus Visual Studio," except more expensive.
Re:QT? What about licensing? (Score:3, Informative)
From the Trolltech website:
When Qt Free Edition is Open Source and GPL, can I use it to make commercial (proprietary/closed-source) software?
No.
You will still need to purchase the Professional or Enterprise Edition to make commercial (proprietary/closed-source) software with Qt.
Which suggests that I cannot make a GPL'ed commercial application? Perhaps that should be clarified. I also cannot make a GPL'd native (non-Cygwin) Windows application at all. QT is nice to work in, but it's a long way from being truely free software. I guess that theoretically, QT Free could be ported to Windows by a 3rd party, or that you could go to court over commercial GPL'd software, but I doubt it's worth the hassle while there's other free-er alternatives.
Uh, what? (Score:-1, Informative)
Re:GTK is out, then? (Score:3, Informative)
Yeah, but it will be spaghetti code, using type-unsafe macros. Have you looked at a custom GTK+ widget implementation in C before? It is some real ugly code.
So the only difference between QT and GTK from a language perspective is that with GTK you get a choice, QT you only get C++. (Not counting even higher languages such as C# since both have wrappers for that and are sort of equal)
Actually, there are a lot of bindings for Qt. PyQt, for instance. Many consider them to be superior to their GTK+ equivelents.
Writing something in C so it can have a lot of bindings is IMHO not the way to go. There should be other good reasons for writing it in C. You can always add a C interface to it, even one that doesn't use sockets. And many high-level languages have their binding interfaces specifically designed to support C++.
Re:QT? What about licensing? (Score:5, Informative)
Where did you read that? It only says you cannot make proprietary/closed-source software with Qt, just as you can't with the GNU Readline library or the GNU Scientific Library or any other GPL'd software.
Re:QT? What about licensing? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:How Much to dev with? (Score:4, Informative)
Sure you can. The GPL does not require that you *RELEASE* your software to the rest of the world. This would work quite well, if your users were mostly ignorant, and didn't go on demanding the source and sharing with the outside world. But for most internal business users, they wouldn't care less.
However, you cannot use the free Qt version to create software that you intend to keep closed- whether you're giving it away as freeware or if you're selling it. Or, if you want to use a license other than the GPL- for example, the LGPL, BSD or MIT. For that you need the commercial license.
OK (Score:1, Informative)
Evolution. [ximian.com]
Re:QT? What about licensing? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Setting the record straight. (Score:2, Informative)
It seems this /. article is based on an anonymous post to newsforge, which in turn is based on a german news article tranlated to english.
No wonder he's misquoted.GTK (and most GNOME libs) are LGPL (Score:5, Informative)
So please mod parent down.
This is inaccurate (Score:3, Informative)
GTK has no such restriction. It is released under the LGPL. [gnu.org]
Re:How Much to dev with? (Score:5, Informative)
Otter replied: You're assuming wrong. This has to do with QT development -- ie, you can't develop proprietary internal apps with the free Qt version. As opposed to the GPL which only deals with release. (Apple has similar restraints on using modified Darwin internally.)
I don't think that's right either. Qt is available under two licenses:
...and the big thing with the GPL is that you application can only be distributed under its terms if it's based on any GPL software (including Qt/X11).
That's not a problem with internal applications. They're not distributed at all. Thus, you can develop internal apps against the GPLed Qt/X11. No money required.
Where you do need to buy a license is if you are doing any of these things:
Of course, you should read the GPL [gnu.org] yourself, where the terms are stated much more precisely.
Re:GTK is out, then? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:How Much to dev with? (Score:4, Informative)
a correction:
Qt/Mac and Qt/Embedded are available under the GPL:
http://www.trolltech.com/download/index.html [trolltech.com]
It seems it's just the Winblows version which isn't GPL'd
Re:QT? What about licensing? (Score:1, Informative)
To release GPL software, you're covered under QT's GPL license, so you pay nothing.
Re:QT? What about licensing? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:C++ and binary compatibility (Score:3, Informative)
CORBA vs. DCOP (Score:2, Informative)
Re:QT? What about licensing? (Score:5, Informative)
It also sounds like you don't recognize the legitimacy of dual-licensing models. Do you support or oppose the LGPL? The LGPL enables companies to use GPL libraries, free of charge, to build closed source software (just like the BSD licenses).
All Trolltech is saying is that if you want to use Qt to build closed source software, then you have to pay for Qt. They don't offer a GPL version for Windows because people were abusing it.
At core is whether or not an application built on Qt is a derivative work or not. If it is, the GPL means you can't build a closed source application on top of. This is a feature that has prevented corporations from using GPL libraries. Hence the LGPL, and dual-licensing in general.
It sounds like you're just mad that Trolltech decided not to go with a "free for commercial use" model like the LGPL.
Re:GTK is out, then? (Score:4, Informative)
Microsoft clumsily exposed a lot of the Win32 API underneath the Forms API. Bindings must either reimplement significant portions of the Win32 API (good luck!), or call through and let Wine handle the messy bits.
Either way is sub-optimal, but at least using Wine is realistic!
Re:GTK is out, then? (Score:3, Informative)
The Ximian purchase was for a number of reasons most importantly Mono and Red Carpet. Novell hopes to leverage RedCarpet into Zenworks for Linux. If you aren't familiar with Zenworks you should read up, because that is what will catalyst large scale Enterprise client rollouts (that aren't terminal based).
Re:QT? What about licensing? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:QT? What about licensing? (Score:5, Informative)
> basic foundations of Linux software..
But that is the reality. Core libraries should be LGPL to prevent no end of problems. Imagine trying to get Mozilla or OO.o up and running in a world where Qt was the only suitable toolkit. Either the Windows & Mac ports would have to be dropped or each and every developer would need to possess a license for the commercial version of Qt.
Re:QT? What about licensing? (Score:3, Informative)
They offer versions(Mac/X11) under either the GPL, or you can buy any version under a license for commercial apps. TrollTech also recently released a version for Windows for non-commercial apps [trolltech.com], this license doesn't seem to require you to distribute your source.
Pricing info is here [trolltech.com], it's pretty reasonable, they have some decent GUI design tools too.
Re:How Much to dev with? (Score:3, Informative)
The issue is that there is no GPL version from Trolltech that you can use and deploy to Windows even internally.
If you have to deploy to Windows, internally or not, you have to fork over major dough to Trolltech. I think this is a major obstacle to even evaluating Qt for many IT organizations, because they rely upon pilot projects to prove a technology's value.
Qt really needs one more license in its arsenal: a per deployment commercial license. This would allow people who have to target windows to conduct pilot projects affordably before they decide to "drink the kool aid". Something like $50-100 per runtime user, nothing per developer, ability to distribute under standard commercial license later provided each developer is bought a seat.
That way people who want to develop in the open source world can create GPL software for open source operating systems. People who need to operate in the commercial software world could affordably test the waters, and once the value of the system was proven they would be incented to buy the commercial license. Granted they'd lose a few commercial licenses in shops that don't like the software, but this would be offset by many more shops adopting the software, and paying a number of per user seat licenses before going for the developer seat.
Trolltech 'commercial' clear as mud (Score:2, Informative)
Software created with Qt Free Editions is governed by the terms of the GPL and QPL.
The Free Edition licenses do not allow the development or distribution of commercial software.
Re:QT? What about licensing? (Score:2, Informative)
It doesn't matter because the topic of the day is "Novell Linux Desktop".
Re:Setting the record straight. (Score:1, Informative)
Nat Friedman -- VP of Product Development for Ximian [novell.com]
You can also have a look here [novell.com] for exactly where Nat and Miguel sit in the executive organizational tree. Hmm, not quite consistent with how Nat and Miguel have been presenting themselves. Huh.
For the actual lead of Novell's desktop look here [novell.com].
Marcus is a SuSE executive.
Re:Well. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I wonder... (Score:1, Informative)
But it's about freedom of choice. Hasn't that been the free software movement's cry for years? The bottom line is that GNOME/Gtk gives me more freedom than Qt. Heck, even Microsoft gives me more freedom than Qt.
Why should Trolltech be more entitled to make money from software than anybody else?
Is someone suggesting their software business plan is only to sell like 10 copies of their software, so they can't afford to by a real development license??
Have you ever worked in a commercial software environment? Probably not.
(1) You're not likely to be using a cross-platform library unless you're making applications on at least two platforms (say: Linux and Windows). A Qt licence for two platforms is $3000. This is significantly more than the cost of an entire new computer. Try asking your boss to replace your computer equipment for you now - or else. Yeah, didn't think so.
(2) If you're planning on a shareware-type scheme, at, say $20 a pop - you now have to sell 150 copies just to make back your investment on the QT licence before you see a dime (not counting bandwidth, hosting & support fees, etc). Low key, shareware-type projects generally don't sell that many copies. Plus: hey, buddy, can I borrow $3000 for a Qt licence? I'll pay you back if my software sells 200 copies, I promise.
(3) Even for commercial development, $3000 is far too much. A full copy of Microsoft Visual C++ Professional (which includes the MFC framework) costs $600. For one $3000 Qt seat licence you could outfit five developers with top-of-the-line Microsoft tools.
The larger the software development environment, the worse the problem because the $3000 per user adds up very, very quickly.
Re:GTK is out, then? (Score:2, Informative)
Novell is not continuing with anything at the moment. Besides, Suse hasn't been a part of Novell for long.
Also, a lot of KDE users use Evolution as well.
Don't know where you get that idea. I certainly don't.
Take a look at the design of each, Evolution's is superior (well, except in the case of imap - they both suck there, but I've noticed just today that there is an all new IMAP implementation in the Evolution source tree in CVS which looks to be _really_ good).
I have. Kontact is nice and modular, meaning you can embed its components in other things. Besides, it depends on what you're looking for.
I've also looked at KMail sources as I'm overall a KDE fan and was the first mailer I had thoughts about contributing to but their codebase is a complete mess.
Your opinion. I could say that no one in their right mind develops object-oriented GUI applications in C.
Evolution has at its core (asked on irc once) around 10 developers total, including GtkHTML development and QA. Kmail (which is only *part* of the KDE PIM suite) has approximately 50 developers (according to their website - kmail.kde.org)
Mmm, nice try. There are a core of developers paid to work on Evolution, and then there are numerous contributors. It is, afterall, a Ximian product. With KMail I expect you are looking at the authors page and every person who ever contributed to the project! This doesn't mean that they are still involved and it certainly doesn't mean that they are paid to work on it. Besides, I'm not talking about KMail.
Lets assume for the sake of argument that the contacts portion of the KDE PIM suite is only 1 developer and that there is only 1 developer on the KDE PIM Calendaring component. That's still 40+ developers more than the Evolution team, which, until recently, had almost no outside contributors (even if you add up all the contributors and count them as Evolution developers, you'd still have a far smaller count than 50).
See above. Besides, you're saying that if KDE PIM has one developer then that is 40+ more than Evolution. So Evolution has -39- developers does it?
Oh, and KMail at the very least has been in development for a number of years longer (ie. at least 2+ years).
I'm actually talking about Kontact here, which is something I can actually compare to Evolution. Kontact as a whole has been around for less than two years.
Re:GTK is out, then? (Score:2, Informative)
We've also been busy extending GroupWise's protocol so that Evolution can talk to it for remote Calendaring (and Contacts too I think?).
This will all be available with Evolution 2.0 and the next release of GroupWise (6.5. something er other).
There are also plans to integrate iFolder as an Evolution backend for Contacts.
-- fejj
Re:Bad comparison, QT !~ Windows. (Score:3, Informative)
Not in the area that is being discussed. We are discussing control. Money usually follows control but it does not need to be "per-user" charge. Merely ridiculous "per-deployment" surcharge on the toolkit. It amounts to the same thing since you will then collect per-user form of a tax on all revenues of software vendors. Better, since you yourself do not need to deal with those pesky users directly.
So in your example: to install Opera you pay Opera who in turn pays portion of thier per-user revenue to Trolltech. Etc. Right now the per-developer fee is flat but thats only because QT is not an indispensable part of Linux desktop... yet. Wait utill it becomes so and you will find out there is no limit to corporate greed once a company has a lock-in control of something.