Interview With Trolltech's CEO and CTO Eirik Eng 266
jlp2097 writes "There is a great and lengthy interview at the The Dot with Eirik Eng, CEO of Trolltech, and Matthias Ettrich, founder of the KDE project and CTO of Trolltech. They talk about the recent X(Free86) trouble, accessibility in QT, Trolltech's finances, Qtopia, the OS X Port and a GPL'd Windows QT - it's probably not going to happen. And, did you know that Qt is pronounced 'Cute' by its creators?"
Bad HTML (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Cute (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Bad HTML (Score:4, Informative)
Chicken and egg . . . (Score:4, Informative)
All of my questions have been answer and my (Score:5, Informative)
I feel much relieved now...
Re:Chicken and egg . . . (Score:5, Informative)
The code you write is YOURS. The EULA of the compiler and provided libraries doesn't even TRY to control your licensing scheme.
In fact, the GPL isn't even mentioned in the EULA for MS Visual Studio 6.
The only thing you're prevented from doing is giving away the provided libraries, header files, or source code that come with the compiler and tools.
Don't get me wrong, MSFT sucks big floppy donkey dick, but FUD in either direction helps none of us.
Re:Chicken and egg . . . (Score:3, Informative)
GCC has been ported to Windows. If you just want a minimalistic setup, try MinGW (Minimalist GNU For Windows) [mingw.org]. This just installs things like GCC and 'make' and a few GCC-related tools. If you want GCC with an entire unix-like environment running under Windows where you can do builds that rely a lot on unix-tools, and build programs that assume a unix-environment, I suggest you install Cygwin [cygwin.com].
As for the Windows libraries, I'm not sure if the EULA that applies to Visual studio that prevents you from writing GPL'd code also applies to using the Windows librasries with GCC-based compilers as well.
Qt on Windows (Score:4, Informative)
Well, sort of. At the very least, it won't be done with Trolltech's support [iidea.pl].
Re:Definitely needs a non-commercial Windows licen (Score:5, Informative)
That's _NOT_ the reason they give. The reason they gave is that too many commercial companies used the GPL version of the library in their commercial software instead of using the pricy commercial version of the library, and they said it's impossible to go and sue all of them.
Re:Windows Developers (Score:2, Informative)
QT is not preventing you or others from using their tools. You only need to pay for the license.
Re:Definitely needs a non-commercial Windows licen (Score:2, Informative)
I got a copy of Qt with the book "C++ Programming with Qt3" [slashdot.org]
It looks pretty slick. I won't use it at work but everything else is fair game.
Re:Accessibility in KDE (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Closed Source Licensing of QT (Score:3, Informative)
What real reasons are there for QT to change it's licensing for the Windows platform? The interview clearly states why they won't. Your logic makes no sense to me. Someone who embraces the predatory licensing of MS-Windows will be afraid of the licensing of non-Free QT? I doubt it. If someone doesn't like non-Free QT license, but will tolerate MS licensing, then they have some weird conflicting views.
Your insight about the QT logo is a bit off the wall, if you ask me. read into it what you want, though.
Re:Canopy Representatives Sit on Trolltech Board. (Score:0, Informative)
Wrong!
There is nothing in the Free Qt Foundation Agreement [kde.org] that deals with Trolltech being bought.
The "BSD" clauses in the agreement state:
> The Foundation shall have a non-exclusive, irrevocable right to grant a license based on the BSD license (exibit 3) on the latest version of the Qt Free Edition, in the event of stoppage or discontinuation for more than 12 - twelve - months of the release of the Qt Free Edition under the Qt Free Edition license. The Foundation shall have the same right if the license is unilaterally terminated or changed.
> Such right will also come into existance if no new edition of importance (major release) is launched within 12 - twelve - months, and the Foundation regards the said edition for stopped or discontinued.
> Furthermore, whenever unanimously decided by the Board, the Foundation shall have the same non-exclusive, irrevocable right to grant a license based on the BSD license.
As I said, nothing about the company being sold.
So let's say that Microsoft pays $1 billion to buy Trolltech.
The Trolltech representatives on the board, having decided that they want the $1 billion, are not going to vote againt themselves, so the third clause, which requires unanimous agreement, does not come into effect.
And the first two clauses won't have an effect for 12 months, and even that can be avoided if Microsoft continues to release new versions of the Qt Free Edition. Even if those versions were to tie Qt to
Thus, Microsoft could end up with lock-in control of all proprietary Qt-based applications on Linux.
And there is nothing we could do about it.
The growing use of proprietary Qt for proprietary Linux applications (Kylix, Opera, etc.) is one of the greatest threats to the freedom of Linux. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft and Trolltech are already working together, with a Microsoft plan to lock-in Linux.
Re:Cute (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Don't pick surprising pronunciations (Score:3, Informative)
The correct pronunciation is Ess-Queue-Ell, according to this documentation entry [mysql.com]:
Re:Definitely needs a non-commercial Windows licen (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Canopy Representatives Sit on Trolltech Board. (Score:5, Informative)
What is Ralph J. Yarro of Canopy infamy doing on the Trolltech board of directors?
Early 1999 Trolltech had helped Utah-based Caldera to create their award-winning graphical Linux installer. Around the same time we also started developing Qt/Embedded for the embedded Linux market. Lineo, another Utah company, was the king of embedded Linux at the time, and they needed a product like Qt/Embedded for Linux-based consumer devices.
Canopy was a major VC and stakeholder in both Caldera and Lineo. Ralph Yarro, President and CEO of Canopy, recognized that Trolltech could help two of their porfolio companies succeed and decided to make an investment in Trolltech.
I met Ralph Yarro in Utah in August 1999 and we agreed on an investment term-sheet (with very reasonable terms for Trolltech, by the way).
Did we do the right thing? Definitely. Canopy was the first investor in Trolltech and their investment made it possible for us to grow the company and build new products. Canopy was later followed by Borland and a syndicate of three Norwegian VCs.
As part of the investment agreement, each investor got a seat on the board: Ralph Yarro from Canopy, Dale Fuller from Borland and Ingar Ostby from Northzone. Ralph Yarro has been on our board since late 1999.
Sorry, sitting on the board means "influence".
Ralph Yarro has about zero influence over how we run the company. When you have a person on your board that might have a conflict of interest in certain areas you will make sure that this person does not participate in all discussions or get access to all company information.
What is financial relationship between SCO/Canopy and Trolltech?
The deal in 1999 also involved a stock swap with Caldera. As all of you know, Caldera became SCO a couple of years ago and changed their Linux agenda. Trolltech owned stock in SCO but we decided to sell them last year after the interview took place. But SCO still owns a tiny portion of Trolltech shares.
Does Trolltech owe money to SCO/Canopy?
No.
Does Canopy have contractual rights to seats on the board?
Yes, this is part of the investment contract we have with all our investors.
Does SCO/Canopy have warrants or other agreements to take control of Trolltech later?
No, are you nuts? We would be pretty stupid to sign an investment contract that would give a minor (or even major) shareholder the ability to take control of our company.
Do I support Canopy's or SCO's actions? No way.
Haavard