Hi everybody ! I'm a subscriber of the QT mailing list and I got today the following announcement : next version of Qt will be Open Source !! GOOD NEWS !! :-) Here is the announcement from Troll Tech : ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TROLL TECH ANNOUNCES PLANS TO MAKE NEXT GENERATION OF Qt OPEN SOURCE Troll Tech AS today announced that the Free Edition of Qt, its popular Graphical User Interface toolkit, will be released under an Open Source license. With the new license, programmers will be able to distribute and share any modifications they make to the Qt Free Edition. The lack of such permission in the previous Free Edition license has been the source of some dispute in parts of the Linux community since KDE, the widely used Linux desktop environment, is based on Qt Free Edition. In early 1996, Troll Tech released the first Free Edition of its GUI toolkit, with full source code included, gratis to programmers of Open Source software. Earlier this year, Troll Tech initiated the KDE Free Qt Foundation to legally guarantee the continued availability of Free Editions of all new versions of Qt. Now, with this new license offering, Troll Tech is affirming its intention for Qt Free Edition to be a non-controversial option for development of Open Source software, and the best in its class as a application development framework. "I am very pleased that we have been able to overcome the final obstacles to releasing the Qt Free Edition under an Open Source license" said Eirik Eng, Co-President of Troll Tech. "The Open Source development model is showing sustained success, particularly in the Linux area." A draft version of the new license text, dubbed the QPL, is available at <A HREF="http://www.troll.no/qpl/"><A HREF="http://www.troll.no/qpl/</A">http://www.troll.no/qpl/</A</A>>. It will be first applied to the next major release of the Qt Free Edition; version 2.0. "After reviewing the QPL, I find that it meets all the criteria to be considered Open Source," said Eric Raymond, author of The Cathedral and the Bazaar paper and joint copyright holder of the Open Source trademark. "This license should allow Open Source software to compete on features and polish rather than ideological position, which will be better for the Open Source community." Linus Torvalds, father of Linux, is happy with the new license, saying, "I am delighted to see that the Trolls have found a license that suits both them and the free software community. I hope this finally stops the divisive license flaming that has been going on, so that we can all get on with writing code." "Caldera Systems is very excited about Troll Tech's decision to publish Qt under an Open Source license," said Ransom Love, President and CEO of Caldera Systems. "Customer response and feedback to the KDE desktop environment included in our OpenLinux 1.3 release has been overwhelming. Offering Qt under an Open Source license will allow KDE to stand on its technical merits without causing undue concerns to the development community over licensing terms." "SuSE congratulates Troll Tech for their wise decision to put Qt under an Open Source License. SuSE thinks that this step will (hopefully) unite the Linux community again," said Burchard Steinbild, Managing Director of S.u.S.E. GmbH. "SuSE wishes Troll Tech much success with their products and hopes their reputation in the Linux community rises after this move, they have deserved it." Troll Tech continues full support for the Qt Professional Edition, for companies and developers not choosing the Open Source model. Software written for either of the official versions will remain completely compatible. Troll Tech AS is a computer software company, and has since 1994 delivered high-quality and powerful multi-platform C++ software libraries for graphical user interface development. Its flagship product Qt is currently used as the basis for a wide range of successful commercial and Open Source applications world wide. Troll Tech is located in Oslo, Norway. Further information is available at <A HREF="http://www.troll.no"><A HREF="http://www.troll.no</A">http://www.troll.no</A</A>>, or by contacting info@troll.no. Open Source is a registered certification mark; <A HREF="http://www.opensource.org"><A HREF="http://www.opensource.org</A">http://www.opensource.org</A</A>>. Qt is a trademark of Troll Tech AS. Information about the KDE project is available at <A HREF="http://www.kde.org"><A HREF="http://www.kde.org</A">http://www.kde.org</A</A>>. Information about Caldera OpenLinux is available at <A HREF="http://www.caldera.com"><A HREF="http://www.caldera.com</A">http://www.caldera.com</A</A>>. Information about SuSE Linux is available at <A HREF="http://www.suse.com"><A HREF="http://www.suse.com</A">http://www.suse.com</A</A>>. 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