Mosfet wrote:
> ...
> > But commercial software to be used in this environment can't use the QT free
> > edition. Because commercial software would need to integrate with the
> > desktop (KDE), they would need to purchase QT professional edition and this
> > would give TT a great deal of control over Linux commercial development that
> > I don't think any one company should have. Why give TT Microsoft-like
> > control? Remember how in the Halloween II memo Microsoft talks about
> > decommoditizing open protocols? Well, this development could decommoditize
> > commercial software development on Linux.
> >
>
> Not true at all. The existance of the Free Edition pretty much
> eradicates that fear. What makes you think the two versions are
> different? AFAIK they are not. Commercial developers will not want to
> force users to have two different versions of the toolkit (the
> OpenSource one for KDE and a commercial version for their app), so the
> two would seem to most likely remain the same.
>
> Actually when you think about it, they will have to remain the same - or
> at least API compatible in order to support both KDE and commercial
> applications with the same API... If they add tweaks to the commercial
> version and not the free one there is nothing stopping you from adding
> it yourself, but that does not seem realistic with KDE around...
Your still missing my point. I'm not saying that TT will make the actual
libraries different. I'm saying that the commercial license can be whatever
TT wants it to be and that gives them too much power. They can further
restrict the commercial license. They can increase their license fees. If
a company writes software they don't like, they could deny them a license to
force them out of business. They can give advance notice of API changes to
their "favorite" companies to give them an unfair advantage. All things
that Microsoft does now and this scenario has no protection against it. Now
do you understand what I'm talking about?
> I don't think the "Microsoft like control" argument is valid under
> scrutiny.
See above.
> ...
Thank you,
Carl Thompson
