Disqus
Nokia announced that its Qt cross-platform UI and application framework for desktop and embedded platforms will be available under the Lesser General Public License (LGPL) version 2.1 license from the release of Qt 4.5, scheduled for March 2009. The idea is to entice developers to adopt the platform by providing them with more permissive licensing. In addition, Qt source code repositories will be made publicly available and will encourage contributions from desktop and embedded developer communities.
This, however, doesn’t mean commercial licensing is dead. Quite the contrary, interested parties will be able to purchase the license in case they have some special needs (I’m not quite sure how this works). Furthermore, licensing for previous versions of Qt will remain unchanged.
Commenting on the announcement, Nokia-Qt Software’s Sebastian Nystrom said: “Broader use of Qt by even more leading companies will result in valuable feedback and increased contributions, ensuring that Qt remains the best-in-class, cross-platform UI and application framework. The accelerated development of Qt will allow developers, including Nokia, to deliver better devices and applications, reduce time to market and enable a wider deployment base for their solutions.
Previously, Qt has been made available to the open source community under the General Public License (GPL) license.
About The Author
Dusan Belic
Dusan has been using smartphones since their introduction and is now following the latest trends in the industry. The "convergence" is what he's most excited about, and writing about it is the next logical thing to do. He thinks that using a smartphone is what everyone who cares about their time should do. In addition to his interests in mobile phones, Dusan also loves to experiment with the latest web and mobile 2.0 services. The idea of accessing and managing your information from any device no matter where you are simply amazes him. Whether it's an online to-do list, note taking service or a video sharing social network, he's there to try it out. He admits though, he's still searching for the ultimate web-based organizational tool, which "sings" perfectly with the mobile PIM application. Dusan used to run SymbianWatch.com which later became part of IntoMobile. He lives in Serbia, South-East Europe, from where he edits the site on a daily basis.
