www.digitalmars.com         C & C++   DMDScript  

digitalmars.D - Qt C++ GUI library is now set to die, as a result of the MS takeover

reply Nick_B <nick.NOSPAMbarbalich gmail.com> writes:
Here is a comment by Jeff_S, near the bottom of the comments re 
Microsoft taking over Nokia.

I now worry that the wonderful Qt C++ GUI library, that Nokia now owns 
with it's acquisition of Trolltech a few years ago, will now founder in 
stagnation.

The optimist in me hopes that it will ported to Win Phone 7. But the 
realist in me says "fat chance". With this huge deal with MS, and Qt 
being cross platform, and MS being all about MS platforms and dev tools, 
Qt is now likely toast. Sad.

Good thing it's open source. It will still have life as a separate open 
source entity, but without the paid developers at Nokia working on it, 
it's progress will slow dramatically. There is only so much slack the 
community is capable of taking up.

I'm also scratching my head on this, in terms of what Nokia gets out of 
this. They are essentially trading a larger, more successful, more 
established, platform and ecosystem (Symbian) and large developer mind 
share, for a much smaller, much less successful, much less developer 
mind share platform and ecosystem (Win Phone 7 and Silverlight).

original URL here
see: 
http://www.betanews.com/joewilcox/article/Nokia-swaps-one-burning-platform-for-another-in-Microsofts-silent-takeover-of-the-Finnish-phone-maker/1297438206?awesm=betane.ws_yJ&utm_content=api&utm_medium=betane.ws-twitter&utm_source=twitter.com

cheers
Nick
Feb 13 2011
parent Jonathan M Davis <jmdavisProg gmx.com> writes:
On Sunday 13 February 2011 16:09:43 Nick_B wrote:
 Here is a comment by Jeff_S, near the bottom of the comments re
 Microsoft taking over Nokia.
 
 I now worry that the wonderful Qt C++ GUI library, that Nokia now owns
 with it's acquisition of Trolltech a few years ago, will now founder in
 stagnation.
 
 The optimist in me hopes that it will ported to Win Phone 7. But the
 realist in me says "fat chance". With this huge deal with MS, and Qt
 being cross platform, and MS being all about MS platforms and dev tools,
 Qt is now likely toast. Sad.
 
 Good thing it's open source. It will still have life as a separate open
 source entity, but without the paid developers at Nokia working on it,
 it's progress will slow dramatically. There is only so much slack the
 community is capable of taking up.
 
 I'm also scratching my head on this, in terms of what Nokia gets out of
 this. They are essentially trading a larger, more successful, more
 established, platform and ecosystem (Symbian) and large developer mind
 share, for a much smaller, much less successful, much less developer
 mind share platform and ecosystem (Win Phone 7 and Silverlight).
 
 original URL here
 see:
 http://www.betanews.com/joewilcox/article/Nokia-swaps-one-burning-platform-
 for-another-in-Microsofts-silent-takeover-of-the-Finnish-phone-maker/129743
 8206?awesm=betane.ws_yJ&utm_content=api&utm_medium=betane.ws-twitter&utm_so
 urce=twitter.com
There's no way that Qt is going to die, even if Nokia goes up in flames. It's open source and heavily used. _KDE_ uses it, after all, and is a major driver behind it. It could be that if Nokia were really to effectively drop Qt (which I have a _hard_ time believing) that fewer commercial products would be willing to use it, but it would still be used. I've frequently heard it called the best C++ GUI toolkit in existence. No, even if Nokia stops developing Qt properly, the worst that that means is that the development slows down. But enough people have a stake in it that the slack would likely get taken care of to a large extent by either open source folks or other companies which use Qt. It would certainly be a major blow, and development might slow down, but it would be far from fatal. Regardless, I think that it's too early to say where this is really going and what it means for Qt. - Jonathan M Davis
Feb 13 2011