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Nokia to acquire Trolltech
Nokia has announced the signing of an agreement to acquire Trolltech. "The acquisition of Trolltech will help Nokia accelerate its cross-platform software strategy for mobile devices and desktop applications, and develop its Internet services business. With Trolltech, Nokia and third party developers can develop applications that work in the Internet, across Nokia's device portfolio and on computers." More information is available on Trolltech's web site.
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Nokia to acquire Trolltech Posted Jan 28, 2008 3:43 UTC (Mon) by and (guest, #2883) [Link] I'm a bit confused, since I thought Nokia was a GTK shop when they're not using symbian. Maybe the main motivation behind this accquisition is qtopia, possibly in an attempt to have something against android.
Nokia to acquire Trolltech Posted Jan 28, 2008 4:06 UTC (Mon) by rossburton (subscriber, #7254) [Link] Nokia are a Symbian shop who has a small division which uses GTK+. Nokia sell something in the order of hundred of millions of phones every nanosecond which all run Symbian. As the press release mentions S40/S60, my guess is that they are planning on re-invent Series 60 on Qt.
Nokia to acquire Trolltech Posted Jan 28, 2008 4:18 UTC (Mon) by kripkenstein (subscriber, #43281) [Link] > As the press release mentions S40/S60, my guess is that they are planning on re-invent Series 60 on Qt. Yes, that was my thinking as well - clearly there will be some connection to Nokia's S60 somehow. Perhaps it'll use Qt or some part of Qt, who knows. I'm sure Nokia has a specific goal in mind when it decided on this move. Not sure what Qt will bring, though - letting people code apps that are cross-platform and can hence run on other platforms than S60 seems counterproductive for Nokia. Or perhaps Nokia was concerned about competition from Qtopia? No idea. But it seems obvious that Nokia is primarily interested in Trolltech for use on mobile devices (Nokia being, well, *Nokia*), and not on desktop computers. What this means for KDE, time will tell. P.S. Looks like I predicted this just last week, missing only by 5 years or so ;) http://lwn.net/Articles/266069/
Nokia to acquire Trolltech Posted Jan 28, 2008 5:36 UTC (Mon) by jpetso (subscriber, #36230) [Link] > P.S. Looks like I predicted this just last week, missing only > by 5 years or so ;) > http://lwn.net/Articles/266069/ Heh. I'd say they've read your comment and then instantly decided on doing so :P
Nokia to acquire Trolltech Posted Jan 28, 2008 7:40 UTC (Mon) by nhippi (subscriber, #34640) [Link] Not sure what Qt will bring, though - letting people code apps that are cross-platform and can hence run on other platforms than S60 seems counterproductive for Nokia.
Nokia to acquire Trolltech Posted Jan 28, 2008 10:42 UTC (Mon) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] 5. Nokia gets to license the QT/Nokia platform to proprietary-software-making third parties and control the platform. If they move to the Linux kernel, decide to license to third parties, and is able to make QT very attractive for developers they get a strong chance to unite the Linux mobile phone market around their banner.
Nokia to acquire Trolltech Posted Jan 28, 2008 10:12 UTC (Mon) by sbishop (subscriber, #33061) [Link] I don't follow Trolltech and KDE very closely, but I do know that Nokia is using WebKit in its S60 phones: http://opensource.nokia.com/projects/S60browser/ WebKit is the Apple fork of the KDE HTML library (KHTML) which Trolltech has recently decided to include in Qt proper. (WebKit is used in Apple's Safari browser, among others.) The code gets around. :) There's even been talk of using WebKit with Konqueror, taking it full circle.
Nokia to acquire Trolltech Posted Jan 28, 2008 10:47 UTC (Mon) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] Two other webkit browsers for Linux that I've noticed is the Epiphany-webkit varient.. were they swapped out Gecko for webkit (for the purpose of reducing resource usage for Gnome users) and the Midori browser. For those people seeking a lightweight GTK-only C-only browser for their desktops should check out Midori. Should go nice with XFCE when it's mature.
Nokia to acquire Trolltech Posted Jan 28, 2008 13:21 UTC (Mon) by HoserHead (subscriber, #828) [Link] I have two questions regarding Midori: How is C-only a feature? Why would a user care what language his/her applications is programmed in? How is C-only possible? WebKit is written in C++.
Nokia to acquire Trolltech Posted Jan 28, 2008 13:37 UTC (Mon) by i3839 (subscriber, #31386) [Link] It's using the Webkit version ported to GTK, WebkitGTK, and GTK is C. Users should care in what language their software is written because if it's in a language they don't know or like, they won't hack on it. (And please no programming language flame war here, there are enough hooks to grab for the bored and inclined. And no GTK versus Qt silliness either, thank you.)
Nokia to acquire Trolltech Posted Jan 28, 2008 14:59 UTC (Mon) by HoserHead (subscriber, #828) [Link] Sure, GTK is C-only, but WebKit (even WebKit-GTK; WebKit is written in C++, even if its widget bindings are written in C) isn't. It seems silly to ignore a hugely important component of a web browser in its description.
Nokia to acquire Trolltech Posted Jan 28, 2008 16:34 UTC (Mon) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] Well C/C++ then. Doesn't realy matter to me.' There isn't any higher level languages like XUL, Python, Mono, or whatnot being added to the mix, which was my point. Should be very lightweight and being GTK should work well in other minimalist environments and XFCE.. no big Gnome or KDE dependancies required.
Nokia to acquire Trolltech Posted Jan 30, 2008 13:33 UTC (Wed) by i3839 (subscriber, #31386) [Link] I tried Midori out, and it uses much less memory than Firefox (half or less), but it's as slow or slower, at least rendering and scrolling. It also doesn't render all pages correctly, so all in all it has a long way to go.
Nokia to acquire Trolltech Posted Jan 28, 2008 3:53 UTC (Mon) by erwbgy (subscriber, #4104) [Link] Please read the joint Nokia/Trolltech Open letter to KDE and the Open Source community before coming up with an further conspiracy theories: We will continue to actively develop Qt and Qtopia. We also want to underline that we will continue to support the open source community by continuing to release these technologies under the GPL.
Nokia to acquire Trolltech Posted Jan 28, 2008 4:12 UTC (Mon) by jpetso (subscriber, #36230) [Link] > We also want to underline that we will continue to support > the open source community by continuing to release > these technologies under the GPL. These? Yes. New ones? Maybe. More pressure on the market to go open source and against software patents? Hardly. So the question is not if Nokia will cripple the existing frameworks (they won't) but if they will slow down the cause of free software by stagnating new developments. I can't give an answer to that question, but overall I'm concerned that Qt will receive less love than before and fall behind in terms of development speed and free software friendly advances instead of fighting for freedom like Trolltech did all the time.
Nokia to acquire Trolltech Posted Jan 28, 2008 4:18 UTC (Mon) by Jel (guest, #22988) [Link] They could well see this as one of few possible ways to compete with google in the increasingly open source mobile platform market
Nokia to acquire Trolltech Posted Jan 28, 2008 6:20 UTC (Mon) by erwbgy (subscriber, #4104) [Link] I'm not sure how they could slow down the cause of free software by stagnating new developments. What scenarios did you have in mind?
Nokia to acquire Trolltech Posted Jan 28, 2008 8:42 UTC (Mon) by dkite (guest, #4577) [Link] One comes to mind immediately. Trolltech lived on the desktop. Their revenue streams were a library for developers, and their marketing was KDE. When KDE looked good, Qt looked good. Their moves into the portable/phone/handheld market was built on the foundation of their desktop business. Nokia is a phone company. How interested is Nokia in the desktop? What was a primary business now becomes not even secondary. How does KDE advance Nokia? Why would Nokia care about KDE? Words don't matter to me, revenue streams do. Derek (who uses KDE and am wondering)
Nokia to acquire Trolltech Posted Jan 28, 2008 9:02 UTC (Mon) by michaeljt (subscriber, #39183) [Link] > How interested is Nokia in the desktop? ... > Why would Nokia care about KDE? This is just a thought, not an informed opinion, but since mobile phones are increasingly desktop-like, and KDE is increasingly multi-platform Nokia might just be interested in KDE.
Nokia to acquire Trolltech Posted Jan 28, 2008 12:50 UTC (Mon) by martinfick (subscriber, #4455) [Link] "How does KDE advance Nokia? Why would Nokia care about KDE? Words don't matter to me, revenue streams do."Since KDE happens to be highly tied to TrollTech's revenue stream today, what makes you think that a company would waste its money buying another company to just intentionally destroy its current revenue stream? While over time this revenue stream could be replaced with another one (and that *may* be the intent), it would seem to be a loss to eliminate an existing one as long as it doesn't interfere with the new one that you think might actually outperform the old one. So, yes, revenues streams are extremely important, and smart/successful businesses don't just pay money to throw them away for some pie in the sky future potential revenue stream.
Nokia to acquire Trolltech Posted Jan 28, 2008 20:42 UTC (Mon) by dkite (guest, #4577) [Link] Are you saying that Nokia bought Trolltech so they could get into the desktop software business? Somehow that doesn't make sense to me. Nokia does phones. They have tried to extend the phone, along with the rest of the market. Trolltech has some technology that fits that purpose and market. How does KDE fit into that? http://www.kdedevelopers.org/node/3235 tells us that the price isn't high and Trolltech hasn't been enormously profitable this last while. I have this strange need for business arrangements to make sense. If there isn't a symbiotic relationship between a business and a free software project that makes sense, I take that into consideration. So for you, how does KDE make sense for Nokia, notwithstanding the soothing words? Derek
Nokia to acquire Trolltech Posted Jan 29, 2008 3:30 UTC (Tue) by kripkenstein (subscriber, #43281) [Link] Trolltech is terribly small compared to Nokia, which is one of the largest companies in the world, in fact. It has more annual revenue than Microsoft. The acquisition may have nothing to do with Trolltech's revenue stream. Perhaps Nokia believes that incorporating parts of Qt in its System 40 and S60 will grow those revenue streams by 1%; that would make this a worthy investment, even if all Trolltech revenue vanishes overnight. If it raises them by 10%, well, pacts have been made with the devil for far less. All of Trolltech's current revenue is completely dwarfed by these business interests. Now, this is just speculation, time will tell. But based on the press releases, Nokia does in fact intend to continue to push System 40 and S60, with Qt included in some manner (sadly, no move to Linux...). As this is Nokia's *core* business, I presume that this is the reason for the acquisition. The thing to remember is that Trolltech needed money to survive somehow. They built a nice business model around Qt, and KDE was a big part of that. Nokia has completely different interests; it can run its Qt division with no revenue whatsoever if it helps out other departments, like, again, its core business.
Nokia to acquire Trolltech Posted Jan 28, 2008 11:29 UTC (Mon) by jd (guest, #26381) [Link] I'll stop coming up with conspiricy theories when Nokia explains why they hold a patent on file tranfer by multicast. Ignoring the fact that there's prior art, this would have been a perfect opportunity to work with the Open Source community, rather than issue threats against projects using FLUTE and related protocols.
Ultimately, nobody is going to trust a company that has shown itself as willing to cause harm for no obvious personal gain. Plenty of phones have access to the Internet, plenty of phones can get streaming content, yet multicast-enabled phones cannot receive mainstream multicast-delivered content, nor can they join in multicast-enabled conference calls. And now we're supposed to believe that they "get it" when it comes to Open Source and Trolltech's technology? (Which isn't limited to Qt. They have other projects simmering from time to time.) We're supposed to trust that a software-patent monster is a safe guardian for critical infrastructure? Perhaps they are, but I expect Nokia to prove it, not just claim it.
Fork Qt Posted Jan 28, 2008 5:34 UTC (Mon) by markc (guest, #4419) [Link] I'd say there is not too much to worry about regarding the open future of Qt because Nokia is always at the mercy of any interested group forking the entire Qt codebase if their sponsorship is unsatisfactory, after all, it is GPLv3 licensed. If Nokia does not want that ever to happen then they have to stay on the ball and, if anything, push it even harder in an open direction to avoid the threat of a fork. Could a forked codebase maintain any vitality without the Trolls? A few years ago... no, these days... probably yes. It's times like this when "fork" is one the best four letter words I can think of. It's our guarantee of longevity for Qt.
Fork Qt Posted Jan 28, 2008 5:54 UTC (Mon) by alonso (subscriber, #2828) [Link] Dont't forget this(more information at http://www.kde.org/whatiskde/kdefreeqtfoundation.php): KDE Free Qt Foundation The KDE Free Qt Foundation is an organization founded by Trolltech and the KDE e.V. in 1998 with the purpose of securing the availability of the Qt toolkit for the development of Free Software and in particular for the development of the K Desktop Environment (KDE). To fulfil the purpose of the Foundation, an agreement between Trolltech and the Foundation was made. This gives the Foundation the right to release Qt under a BSD-style license in case Trolltech doesn't continue the development of the Qt Free Edition for any reason including, but not limited to, a buy-out of Trolltech, a merger or bankruptcy. In May 2004 an updated agreement was made. This new agreement replaces the original one from June 1998 by adapting it to the current situation and providing new text which addresses the problem in a more precise and complete way. The intention and basic content however, are still the same. The board of the Foundation consists of two members from Trolltech and two members from KDE e.V. Decisions of the Foundation are taken by vote of the board members. In case of a tie the votes of the KDE representatives decide. The KDE e.V. appointed as board members of the KDE Free Qt Foundation the following people: Martin Konold Olaf Schmidt The current voting members from Trolltech (elected by the Trolltech general assembly) are: Eirik Eng Haavard Nord
FreeQtFoundation Posted Jan 28, 2008 11:31 UTC (Mon) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link] > http://www.kde.org/whatiskde/kdefreeqtfoundation.php You beat me to it! =8^) What that amount(ed|s) to (was|is) a "poison-pill", to be activated in case of hostile takeover and attempt to take Qt proprietary. Anyone that tried it, either trying to delay or weaken the free version as opposed to the proprietary one, or cutting off releases entirely, would trigger the release of the code under a BSD style license, thus losing the ability to demand payment for the proprietary version as the code under the BSD license, /unlike/ the current GPL (now (2|3) dual) license as proprietaryware developers would be free to pick up and use the BSD code at zero license cost instead. So Nokia really has no choice but to continue the free Qt, unless they simply drop it entirely and let it go BSD -- but that's one particular advantage of FLOSS already, that if the sponsoring company drops the product, the community can pick it up and continue development as they have the code and the license to do so -- this arrangement just poison-pilled any attempt to take it 100% proprietary since doing so would release the code that brings in the money on the proprietary side! It's also worth noting that Haavard Nord, Trolltech CEO, credited KDE for bringing in "almost half of their customers" ( http://dot.kde.org/1200788475/ ). Thus, unless Nokia's going to simply abandon Qt to the BSD style license as above, it'd make little sense for them to do anything to hurt that relationship. Finally, it should be pointed out that this will have been in the works for some time. All the recent activities including the KDE/Trolltech partnership on Photon, now being integrated into Qt as well as KDE while still in the KDE repository and under nominal KDE control, must have at minimum not been something Nokia would have vetoed. They'd have also needed to approve the move of Qt to GPLv3, and the GPLing of all Qt platforms including the MS side, not just the X side of things. In particular, note the specificity of the patent guarantee language in the GPLv3 -- unless Nokia intends to directly attack the GPLv3 itself, that's significant given their earlier history (see below). All that said, there's some serious mixed-messages going on here, and Nokia has anything but a friendly history toward FLOSS, particularly with their pro-software patent work in Europe during the recent software patent push there, and their anti-Ogg pro-proprietary/pro-DRM position in regard to HTML-5. Are they going to be another Sony, now, with one very pro-FLOSS side and another very anti-freedom side, different departments of the same umbrella corp, or another Sun, who had the same problem for many years tho it seems to be coming out more pro-freedom recently, or another SCO or MS, with the light side of the force entirely absorbed, for practical purposes anyway, into the dark side? In any case, as always seems to be the case in the FLOSS community, there's always something interesting going on, and this year it's the Nokia/Trolltech thing. How it'll ultimately turn out remains to be seen, but there's certainly comfort to be had in both the GPLv2/v3 thing, and the KDEFreeQTFoundation (which BTW Nokia has reaffirmed) thing. One way or another, if the freedomware community isn't happy with where Nokia takes things, we *DO* still have the code to work with, something that'd NOT be the case with proprietaryware. For that code and the freedom to use it, AND for the additional specific patent assurances we now have under the GPLv3 which Qt is now licensed under, we can be thankful! =8^) Maybe Nokia IS trying to turn over a new leaf, or maybe they've got something else up their sleeve. Regardless, time will tell. Duncan
Why BSD? Posted Jan 28, 2008 20:31 UTC (Mon) by Max.Hyre (subscriber, #1054) [Link] Since Qt is GPLed, why worry about BSDing it? Is this to provide an equivalent to buying a non-GPL license from Trolltech? I'd appreciate hearing from anyone with the real scoop.
Why BSD? Posted Jan 28, 2008 23:16 UTC (Mon) by felixfix (subscriber, #242) [Link] Because the BSD license allows binaries to be distributed without also distributing the code. The BSD license is friendlier to companies that want to add proprietary changes to the code without having to release them for their competition to pick up for free. There are many many people who hate the BSD license for this, and many many who despise the GPL for not having this. Regardless of that particular flame war, that is the difference, and that is why the BSD license *in this case* is seen as a poison pill to keep the code base under the GPL.
Fork Qt Posted Jan 28, 2008 10:05 UTC (Mon) by mightyduck (subscriber, #23760) [Link] I'm sorry but have you looked at the list of KDE/Qt developers and their employers? Do you REALLY think Nokia would allow their employees to work on a forked Qt? I don't think there are enough Trolltech/Nokia-independent developers around to maintain a forked Qt and KDE. And if Nokia drops the ball I could imagine that some distributors will follow suit and reassign/cut their KDE developers. So, let's all hope that Nokia stays on it but I'm not so sure.
your fears are unfounded, I think Posted Jan 28, 2008 11:03 UTC (Mon) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] It's premature to assume that Nokia will mismanage Qt or that a fork will be necessary. Nokia deserves the benefit of the doubt.However, should they try to take Qt in a proprietary direction, I would expect many of their newly acquired employees, especially the KDE folks, to leave the company. They would have no difficulty finding employment elsewhere.
What about Motorola? Posted Jan 28, 2008 10:24 UTC (Mon) by ajross (subscriber, #4563) [Link] One has to wonder where this leaves Motorola, who to date have been the only manufacturer to commit to Qt in any serious way in the mobile world (E680, A780, A900, ROKR, RAZR2, some others I'm sure). Obviously they could fork and continue to use the GPL verison, but they can't be pleased with a core part of the environment being owned by a competitor. I wonder how much of this was done less to power a new platform for Nokia's phones than to muck with the platform of one of its rivals?
What about Motorola? Posted Jan 28, 2008 11:34 UTC (Mon) by tetromino (subscriber, #33846) [Link] Nokia will switch to Qt on its maemos. Motorola will switch to Gtk on its razrs. Thus the balance of the force will be restored.
What about Motorola? Posted Jan 29, 2008 1:29 UTC (Tue) by alankila (subscriber, #47141) [Link] Perhaps this is what "acceleration of its cross-platform strategy" (or whatever it was again) meant. It is presumably world domination, no company should settle for less.
Nokia to acquire Trolltech Posted Jan 28, 2008 10:50 UTC (Mon) by jwb (subscriber, #15467) [Link] I wonder what this means for the future of GTK+ on the N800 series handheld computer.
Nokia to acquire Trolltech Posted Jan 28, 2008 12:03 UTC (Mon) by Sho (guest, #8956) [Link] Not much, I'd say. Nokia said during their webcast press conference that it would continue to use GTK/Gnome. It'll probably gain official Qt support, I suppose.
Nokia to acquire Trolltech Posted Jan 28, 2008 12:07 UTC (Mon) by hawk (subscriber, #3195) [Link] Well, I guess it may mean that it'd make sense to switch to Qt, if Nokia will continue making N800-style devices at all. On the other hand, it seems that the general idea is that Qt would be part of the replacement for Symbian in their regular phones.
Nokia to acquire Trolltech Posted Jan 29, 2008 7:31 UTC (Tue) by kripkenstein (subscriber, #43281) [Link] http://lists.maemo.org/pipermail/maemo-users/2008-January... It seems Nokia's plan is to have Linux/GTK on N800-type devices, and Symbian/Qt on phones. Nokia appears to not intend to standardize on either operating system or environment. I guess this makes sense, in a way, they are hedging their bets. If Intel's MID platform takes off with GTK, Nokia would want to be able to quickly utilize it, and vice versa if Qt on Symbian is a hit. Nokia is a big company, it can afford to be careful.
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