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List:       mozilla-general
Subject:    Re: To give you an idea of QtScape code...
From:       Eirik Eng <eiriken () troll ! no>
Date:       1998-04-14 21:15:16
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> If the Qt folks had said "Hey, we have a new front end! Could it be
> added to the source tree?", that probably would have been fine. But
> instead, it seems like their attitude has been "Hey, we have a new
> frontend using the world's best toolkit! Throw everything you have out
> and follow us, because your stuff sucks!"

I guess that basically what we said was "Hey, we have a new front end". I
guess we should have added "Could it be added to the source tree?". We
thought that that was so obvious that we didn't state it directly. So, let
me do so now:

	Could the Qt FE be added to the source tree?

When we said it was released under the NPL, and that everybody is free to
continue working on it, we meant just that. The Qt FE is a contribution to
the mozilla project.

Let me also add that the suggestion of replacing the X FE or the Windows
FE with the Qt FE did not come from us. Questions were asked by others on
this list and members of the QtScape team answered.

Of course we wanted to show the world that Qt is a good toolkit, we always
try to do that, it's our bread and butter.

But we also wanted to contribute to the mozilla project. We've designed a
new FE that's object-oriented and is based on a totally object-oriented
toolkit. That's part of the explanation why the Qt FE is so much smaller
than e.g. the X FE. This doesn't mean that the people who made the X FE
did a bad job. Their starting point was different.

I've seen on the mozilla-gtk list that the gtk-mozilla team is looking at
our code to see if they can use parts of our design. That is a good thing,
a very good thing. By sharing code and design ideas like this the free
software world advances. I will certainly take a look at the gtk-mozilla
code when it is released and see how they have solved the design
challenges of making a new FE.

    Eirik Eng (CEO, Troll Tech)
    -----
-- 
    Eirik.Eng@troll.no                                    Fax: +47 22646949
    Troll Tech AS, PB 6133 Etterstad, N-0602 Oslo, Norway

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