Many thanks for all your fantastic work on and around Qt! And good luck with your new startup :-)
On Wed, 18 May 2022 at 10:30, Lars Knoll <lars.kn...@qt.io> wrote: > Hi all, > > Let’s take the big news first. I’ve resigned from my position at The Qt > Company. More on that and what it means for the Qt Project further below. > > But as I’ve spent almost exactly 25 years in the Qt ecosystem, 22 of those > working for the various companies owning Qt, I hope it’s ok if this gets a > bit longer and I spend some paragraphs looking back into history. > > As said, it’s been almost exactly 25 years, since I first heard about Qt. > At that time, I read an article in the German C’t computer magazine about a > new Desktop project for Linux called KDE. The underlying technology being > used was Qt. As a person that used Linux extensively during his studies, I > immediately got interested and it didn’t take long until I started my first > steps learning Qt. > > As some of you might know I got involved rather deeply about a year or two > later, when I started the KHTML project to create a new HTML engine for KDE > in 1998/1999. That project was later forked by Apple to form the basis for > their WebKit project, the Safari browser and Google’s Chrome browser. It's > cool to think that the browser engine(s) that most people use today started > off as a Qt based project all those years ago. > > I remember getting to know some of the people working for Trolltech back > then at KDE conferences. In the winter of 2000, they invited me over to > Oslo to have a look at Qt. The company was at that time still tiny with 11 > or 12 employees. I got a great tour of Oslo including the ski jumping > tournament at Holmenkollen and signed up for the job. > > I was originally expecting to spend 2-3 years at Trolltech and then at > some point move back to Germany. As you all can see, that’s not how it went > though. I ended up staying in Norway and have been working with and for Qt > ever since. > > Starting with Qt 1.0, Trolltech released the source code to Qt (at that > time only for Linux/Unix), and the Open Source nature of Qt played a big > part in its success. I’m very happy that we could continue on that path, by > over time making all platforms Qt supports available as Open Source as well > as moving over to more standard and freer licensing (first GPL, later LGPL). > At the end of the Trolltech years, we started looking into how to make it > easier for the community to contribute to Qt, and first had a model where > our users could submit patches to us. That never really worked very well, > and I’m really happy that we moved over to our current governance model in > 2011. Since then Qt has truly been an Open Source project. > > When Qt got sold by Nokia in 2012, many people considered it a dead > technology. But I and many of you believed in the technology, and together > we’ve managed to turn this into a great success. > > As you all know, Qt is a dual licensed technology. That Qt has the backing > of a commercial business behind it, is what made the required investments > possible to keep the technology competitive. > > I’m extremely proud of what we achieved with Qt over the last 10 years. It > happened because everybody on this list put in a lot of work into making Qt > one of the best development frameworks on this planet. > > Qt is something that I care deeply about. I’ve been with it all the way > and through all the ups and downs from when Trolltech got its first larger > investment to now. But seeing what you all are doing, I know it’s in very > good hands moving forward. > > > Leaving The Qt Company and in the future spending most of my time outside > the Qt ecosystem has been a difficult decision. But in the end, after those > 25 years, it does feel very much like the right decision for me. I want to > try out something else. > > So I will be joining a small Norwegian startup with one of the founders of > Trolltech. While still in Software, it’ll be something rather different, > not related to C++ or developer tools. > > > So how do things continue from here? > > First of all, I’ll still be working for Qt until my summer vacations at > the end of June. > > After that, I will have significantly less time for Qt, but I certainly > won’t be completely gone. I will continue to read the Qt project mailing > lists and maybe come by for events such as the Contributor or World Summit. > Also, feel free to send me a mail at any time, I’ll try to help where I can. > I will also keep my position as a maintainer for Qt Multimedia. I believe > the module is now in a decent shape, and I should be able to spend some > hours per week on it. > > But a few hours per week will certainly not be enough to fill the work I’m > currently doing for Qt. So, I have decided to resign from my position as > the Chief Maintainer of the Qt project. I’ll send more details around this > in a separate mail. > > I’d like to thank everybody whom I’ve worked with over the years. I’ve > made many friends in Qt and through Qt. It’s been a fantastic ride and will > always be grateful for the time I could spend on the technology and with > the people developing it. > > Cheers, > > Lars > _______________________________________________ > Development mailing list > Development@qt-project.org > https://lists.qt-project.org/listinfo/development >
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