On Fri, 17 Apr 1998, Richard Stallman wrote:

> I am sure that Troll Tech put a lot of work into Qt.  If Qt were free
> software, I would be very appreciative of this work.
> 
> Motif and Qt are a good comparison.  Both of them are useful if judged
> solely by technical criteria, both are non-free, so both of them are
> off limits for free operating systems.  That is why people are working
> on free replacements for both Motif and Qt.
> 
> The free replacement for Motif is called LessTif; it took many years
> to write, but it is working usefully now.  The free replacement for Qt
> should take much less time, because a lot more work is going into it.
> Perhaps that is because the free software community is bigger now.

Yes, I agree they're a good comparison.  However, I think that the Trolls
have proven that software need not fit the very liberal defination of Free
Software as defined by GNU to be useful en-masse w/out excessive spending
of money.  It's my understanding that Motif charges a per (dynamic) 
library distributed.  That's IMO outrageous, as it taps into the profit
margin quite steeply.  With Qt, you're paying based on how many people are
contributing work.  This is much more reasonable IMO.

As far as I'm concerned, people directly comparing Motif+LessTif and
Qt+Harmony are missing the mark.  Not only has Motif established quite a
wide installed base.  Not only that, the source isn't freely available to
anyone, so undocumented functions may be present, and harder to
re-impliment using clean room techniques.  Qt OTOH has its source out in
the open, AND, it's not quite as well established.  All in all Qt is a
much easier target for emulation that could just as well put them out of
business.  Look at the top IBM PC Clone makers and compare them to IBM.
Sure it's nice having open arch, but look at IBMs past attempts to control
the Bus arch. again, or dominate the desktop enviroment. Hrm.

- alex

"Contrary to popular belief, penguins are not the salvation of modern
technology.  Neither do they throw parties for the urban proletariat."