[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

[Fwd: ANNOUNCE: Open Source license for Qt]



Will this bring us a little closer towards the end of the GNOME/KDE war?

--
> TROLL TECH ANNOUNCES PLANS TO MAKE NEXT GENERATION OF Qt OPEN SOURCE
> 
> Troll Tech AS today announced that the Free Edition of Qt, its popular
> Graphical User Interface toolkit, will be released under an Open Source
> license. With the new license, programmers will be able to distribute
> and share any modifications they make to the Qt Free Edition. The lack
> of such permission in the previous Free Edition license has been the
> source of some dispute in parts of the Linux community since KDE, the
> widely used Linux desktop environment, is based on Qt Free Edition.
> 
> In early 1996, Troll Tech released the first Free Edition of its GUI
> toolkit, with full source code included, gratis to programmers of
> Open Source software. Earlier this year, Troll Tech initiated the KDE
> Free Qt Foundation to legally guarantee the continued availability of
> Free Editions of all new versions of Qt. Now, with this new license
> offering, Troll Tech is affirming its intention for Qt Free Edition to
> be a non-controversial option for development of Open Source software,
> and the best in its class as a application development framework.
> 
> "I am very pleased that we have been able to overcome the final obstacles
> to releasing the Qt Free Edition under an Open Source license" said Eirik
> Eng, Co-President of Troll Tech. "The Open Source development model is
> showing sustained success, particularly in the Linux area."
> 
> A draft version of the new license text, dubbed the QPL, is available
> at http://www.troll.no/qpl/. It will be first applied to the next major
> release of the Qt Free Edition; version 2.0.
> 
> "After reviewing the QPL, I find that it meets all the criteria to be
> considered Open Source," said Eric Raymond, author of The Cathedral
> and the Bazaar paper and joint copyright holder of the Open Source
> trademark. "This license should allow Open Source software to compete
> on features and polish rather than ideological position, which will be
> better for the Open Source community."
> 
> Linus Torvalds, father of Linux, is happy with the new license, saying,
> "I am delighted to see that the Trolls have found a license that suits
> both them and the free software community. I hope this finally stops the
> divisive license flaming that has been going on, so that we can all get
> on with writing code."
> 
> "Caldera Systems is very excited about Troll Tech's decision to publish
> Qt under an Open Source license," said Ransom Love, President and
> CEO of Caldera Systems. "Customer response and feedback to the KDE
> desktop environment included in our OpenLinux 1.3 release has been
> overwhelming. Offering Qt under an Open Source license will allow KDE
> to stand on its technical merits without causing undue concerns to the
> development community over licensing terms."
> 
> "SuSE congratulates Troll Tech for their wise decision to put Qt under
> an Open Source License. SuSE thinks that this step will (hopefully)
> unite the Linux community again," said Burchard Steinbild, Managing
> Director of S.u.S.E. GmbH.  "SuSE wishes Troll Tech much success with
> their products and hopes their reputation in the Linux community rises
> after this move, they have deserved it."
> 
> Troll Tech continues full support for the Qt Professional Edition, for
> companies and developers not choosing the Open Source model. Software
> written for either of the official versions will remain completely
> compatible.
> 
> Troll Tech AS is a computer software company, and has since 1994
> delivered high-quality and powerful multi-platform C++ software libraries
> for graphical user interface development. Its flagship product Qt is
> currently used as the basis for a wide range of successful commercial
> and Open Source applications world wide. Troll Tech is located in Oslo,
> Norway. Further information is available at http://www.troll.no, or by
> contacting info@troll.no.
> 
> Open Source is a registered certification mark; http://www.opensource.org.
> Qt is a trademark of Troll Tech AS.  Information about the KDE project
> is available at http://www.kde.org.  Information about Caldera OpenLinux
> is available at http://www.caldera.com.  Information about SuSE Linux
> is available at http://www.suse.com.

-- 


Regards,
Yannai.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Yannai A. Gonczarowski        _____..---======~~~~~=======---.._____
 ______________________ __,-='=====____  ================ _____=====`=
(._____________________I__) - _-=_/    `--------=+=-------'
    /      /__...---===='---+---_'                System Administrator
   '------'---.___ -  _ =   _.-'            yannaigo@leyada.jlm.k12.il
                  `--------'         The Hebrew University High School
"Si vis pacem, para bellum"    http://www.leyada.jlm.k12.il/~yannaigo/
----------------------------------------------------------------------