What's in it for Trolltech? [LWN.net]

What's in it for Trolltech?

Posted Oct 4, 2007 8:21 UTC (Thu) by anandsr21 (guest, #28562)
In reply to: What's in it for Trolltech? by giraffedata
Parent article: Two free software choices for the Neo phone

"What is the business advantage of offering the code under GPL?"

There are several.
1) Free Advertisement.
2) Training to people who may further buy the proprietary version. You could do this with NDAs but who would want to sign one.
3) Free developers.
a) People who use the GPL version may find bugs and would have an interest in getting the upstream fixed.
b) Some give ideas that may be useful.
c) Others give code with new features.
4) Free Goodwill. This last is not considered by many as a business advantage but it should be there. People will prefer to buy from an ethical company given the chance. There is a perception of a reduced chance of getting screwed by an ethical company.

Without the GPL there is nothing that differentiates Qt from others. With Qt the benefit may not be so apparent but consider why MySQL is even considered against the big brand name DBMS. You will find the GPL to be at the base of the competitiveness of MySQL.

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