Nokia Acquires Trolltech

[bigtomrodney]

Nokia have purchased Trolltech, the creators of Qt which in turn is the base for KDE development.

Nokia Acquires Trolltech — Trolltech

Any thoughts?

[daark.child]

Its another one I didn't see coming. At the moment I am not really worried because qt is available under the GPL (amongst other licenses) and there is a clause that allows the KDE devs to fork qt under a bsd style license if there is a buy-out of trolltech, a merger or bankruptcy (more info here).

Whats surprising about the whole thing is that generally Nokia favoured GTK, so its surprising that they purchased the creator of qt. Maybe they just wanted the mobile platform that Trolltech has been working on over the last few years.

[bigtomrodney]

I know that Nokia have been pumping some money into Qt and also KDE as far as I remember. When aKademy was in Dublin in 2006 Nokia were one of the sponsors. I think that it probably won't make a lot of difference, but if it does it may be for the best. It may just be a case that Nokia want to use the technology and are investing in it to ensure its availability going forward.

[elija]

I voted "Indifferent" although "Unsure" would be more accurate

I don't use KDE so it doesn't directly affect me, but there is always
an element of fear when a big for profit corporation buys an OS
product...

Will they carry it on?
Will it remain OS?
Will it remain free?

I usually adopt a lets see what happens policy as it can also be a
damn good thing.

[bigtomrodney]

I've added that to the poll...a fair point that not caring and undecided are not quite the same. (I have moved your vote accordingly, I hope that's not a problem)

[fingal]

I voted 'bad' because although this might work out well, Nokia are hardly glowing patrons of all that is good and free on planet Earth. In the end it all depends on their corporate culture and their sense of 'rightness'.

I suspect the KDE project will fork, but also agree that Nokia wanted the mobile phone tech., possibly seeing the idea of an open source mobile platform as a huge threat.

These large companies work by shooting down the opposition before they manage to encroach on market share. As with all things, only time will tell, but Nokia? I don't trust them.

[MikeTbob]

I agree with fingal, show me the open source first, then I'll change my vote.
(off topic)
Can the GPL be revoked by software creators?

[daark.child]

Can the GPL be revoked by software creators?

Once you release software under the GPL, you cannot change the licensing agreement for that version. You can however change the license for future releases.

[bigtomrodney]

It's interesting that you ask - I don't think it can but there was an article on Slashdot the other day about someone trying to do just that...

Slashdot | Author of ATSC Capture and Edit Tool Tries to Revoke GPL

[djap]

Not sure about this. It might be bad for KDE or it might not. However I sure hope this will affect symbian somehow. From what litle experience I got from a course in school, programming symbian is something nobody likes to do and when things don't work and you need to start debugging, it's going to be an experience you wish you never had.