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List:       kde-freeqt
Subject:    Re: [freeqt] Future of Harmony
From:       Mark Hamstra <mark.hamstra () bentley ! com>
Date:       1998-11-22 4:53:10
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Olivier Galibert wrote:
> 
> On Sat, Nov 21, 1998 at 10:45:44PM -0500, Mark Hamstra wrote:
> > Exactly which mix of these and other objectives
> > motivated specific Harmony developers is difficult to say, but it is
> > certainly not fair to dismiss creation of common libraries that could be
> > used for both open and closed source development as an objective and
> > motivation for Harmony developers.
> 
> In my case,  you can  dismiss the "use  for  closed source developers"
> part right now.  I don't fucking care about closed source developers.

[...]

> BTW, you  seem  to forget   something.   If, because of  TT  excessive
> pricing or whatever,  there is a  market for an alternative commercial
> GUI for KDE, some startup will write and market it.


Certainly you are entitled to your own opinion wrt closed source
development, but you leave me curious as to why you were and are
involved in Harmony development and discussion. 
Modifications/bugfixes?  GPL entanglement?  Something I've missed?  Are
all of your motivating concerns addressed by the draft QPL?  If so, then
be happy and go run with the Trolls; else, what itch do you have that
still needs to be scratched?

As for an alternative toolkit alleviating excessive pricing pressure,
that is, in a way, how I see Harmony.  My approach to open vs. closed
source is, in a nutshell, that I don't think any horizontal
code/applications/libraries should be closed, but that closed source may
be an expedient, perhaps temporary, necessity in a vertical context.  In
other words, anything that essentially every end user needs (horizontal)
--like an OS, GUI, various runtime libraries, up through basic
applications like mail, web browser, text editor, etc.-- should
definitely be open source, as should reference implementations of
interoperability standards and protocols like SMTP, XML, DNS, etc.  That
pretty much prevents the Bill Gates Billionaire Bully problem.  However,
specialized, development intensive applications that are not needed by
everyone can be legitimate (vertical) markets for closed source
applications --at least as long as these applications can stay ahead of
open source efforts.

I've got no quarrel with a development company that wants to try to make
money off an advanced bit of horizontal code (whether that's a GUI
toolkit or a high-performance X server or whatever), but I certainly
don't want to see that code being anything other than optional.  I'd
much prefer a free and open common foundation, whether you intend to
build open or closed source, horizontal or vertical applications on top
of it.  However, I will have little pity for a horizontal development
company that gets overrun by Open Source development: they were simply
in the wrong place or not moving fast enough.

In that context, any fee charged by TT for commercial development using
Qt is excessive if the same functionality can be provided in Open
Source.  Harmony is the alternative startup that can replace Qt.

Take it or leave, agree or disagree, but don't simply assert that there
is no justification for Harmony now that Qt will be under the QPL --it's
not that simple for all of us.
    
--
Mark Hamstra
Bentley Systems, Inc.

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