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List:       kde-freeqt
Subject:    Re: [freeqt] Future of Harmony
From:       Carl Thompson <cet () elinux ! net>
Date:       1998-11-20 18:33:41
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Mosfet wrote:

> ...

> I don't think you really understand how closely TT interacts with and
> depends on the free software community. Your whole argument seems based
> on something like "What if they make QT free edition suck", which makes
> no sense from their prospective.

No, your completely missing my point.  I am writing about the ramifications
for commercial software, and only indirectly about QT free edition and free
software.  I'm saying what if they make the free edition so good that all
open source projects, especially KDE, use it?  QT based programs would be
the defacto standard on the desktop.

But commercial software to be used in this environment can't use the QT free
edition.  Because commercial software would need to integrate with the
desktop (KDE), they would need to purchase QT professional edition and this
would give TT a great deal of control over Linux commercial development that
I don't think any one company should have.  Why give TT Microsoft-like
control?  Remember how in the Halloween II memo Microsoft talks about
decommoditizing open protocols?  Well, this development could decommoditize
commercial software development on Linux.

If you hate all commercial software, then you probably like this.  But if
you feel (as I do) that some commercial software is necessary and can be
good then this is a very bad thing.

(Just so you know, I have worked in the past for commercial software
companies.  Currently I am NOT in the software business.  All the
programming I do now is for completely open source projects such as FLTK GUI
toolkit and my configuration file library, which are both released under the
LGPL.  I believe free software is a "better" concept that will eventually
take over the software industry but commercial software will still have a
very important roll for at least the next few years.)

Carl Thompson

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