Is Nokia pulling the plug on Symbian? (About time!) And will it use Windows Phone 7?

[aamer4yu]

Am wondering how those trolls ( ex - Trolltechs ) at Nokia are feeling
Its quite disappointing about having a dream - Qt Everywhere being shaken

Really wish Qt goes to someone with caring and safeguarding hands.

[wysota]

Am wondering how those trolls ( ex - Trolltechs ) at Nokia are feeling
Its quite disappointing about having a dream - Qt Everywhere being shaken

I think I know how they feel but I don't want to share my knowledge here and now.

Really wish Qt goes to someone with caring and safeguarding hands.

Don't worry, everything is in order so far. From good source I know Qt Development Frameworks has been functioning as usual today.

@everybody: We are the Qt Community. We make Qt strong. If we don't abandon it, there is no possibility for it to vanish. So let's keep being strong and supportive for the people who have been making us proud to know Qt and promote Qt. I dare you to express your support for Qt here and now in this potentially difficult moment.

I know that whatever happens I will keep supporting Qt because it is a good framework that is a friend of a C++ developer. Period. "I support the Trolls".

[hashb]

I think M$ will not allow this kind of thing happen.

if they are not gonna use Qt..
I do agree with high_flyer and nish. Its hard Qt will die, and if Qt port for android happens, it will be best for developers and business.

---

Added after 4 minutes:

The only thing to do is to separate QT from Nokia,
and QT should never been sold to any companys !!!
why I like QT before? because I think it is independent to any platform and its graceful design

the time it was acquired by Nokia ,I think it was a really really BAD idea
and now QT and all QT fans get a bitter pill to swallow

[aamer4yu]

I know that whatever happens I will keep supporting Qt because it is a good framework that is a friend of a C++ developer. Period. "I support the Trolls".

Same here.. I support Qt too. Apart from being a good framework, Qt is a passion to most of the developers out there. And it wont vanish


@hashb

the time it was acquired by Nokia ,I think it was a really really BAD idea
and now QT and all QT fans get a bitter pill to swallow

I dont think it was that bad.. There have been a lot of work in Qt and also Nokia has tried to promote Qt a lot. Industry is now AWARE of something called Qt. So lets not forget the good things that have happened amidst this one announcement.

Also even if Nokia stops support for Qt, there is community. And am sure the first thing that will happen is port to android.(It will be again a hitback for Nokia) If that happens the obvious thing for companies using android will be to support Qt.
So its a win-win situation for Qt !!

["BumbleBee"]

So,if MS wants to killl/destroy Qt,so that there is no cross-platform IDE?

[ComaWhite]

So,if MS wants to killl/destroy Qt,so that there is no cross-platform IDE?

Microsoft can't kill it even if they wanted to. The poison pill would take effect immediately and going directly in control of KDE.

["BumbleBee"]

So,Qt will remain cross-platform for C++?

[nish]

>>the time it was acquired by Nokia ,I think it was a really really BAD idea
I dont think it was that bad.. There have been a lot of work in Qt and also Nokia has tried to promote Qt a lot.

It was both bad and good for me.
First they killed Qtopia. But not before making it QtExtended. What this did was, when they made it QtExtended we all were very exited
and waiting for it. QtExtended could have challenged Android. But suddenly they killed it.

They made it LGPL, this is very good move. But that made sure that now Qt Dev as a separate company cannot survive. If you look at the fate
of QtExtended and QtJambi ( both were adopted by community ), i see the same fate of Qt if it gets separated from nokia now.

Industry is now AWARE of something called Qt. So lets not forget the good things that have happened amidst this one announcement.
Also even if Nokia stops support for Qt, there is community. And am sure the first thing that will happen is port to android.(It will be again a hitback for Nokia) If that happens the obvious thing for companies using android will be to support Qt.
So its a win-win situation for Qt !!

I am not too optimistic about this. Port of android or iphone is in works for ages now, i dont think we can get any closer without the original tolls working on it.

[bunjee]

@everybody: We are the Qt Community. We make Qt strong. If we don't abandon it, there is no possibility for it to vanish. So let's keep being strong and supportive for the people who have been making us proud to know Qt and promote Qt. I dare you to express your support for Qt here and now in this potentially difficult moment.

Dear Qt enthusiasts,

I thought I would drop a few thoughts about Qt. Considering the climate, now is the best moment to do it.

I'm a young developer. I spent 8 years coding in C++ and 6 using Qt.

The Qt framework is hands down the best framework I've ever used.

So what's so special about it ?

1. It's developed by super talented people: Kent Hansen, Thiago Macieira, GUNNAR, Henrik Hartz. They're not just great engineers they're also listening a lot.
2. The framework itself is the best product for multiplatform PC development.
3. It has the best community I have ever seen.

Take a look at Qt Centre, It's not even an official Qt website but it's one of the most supportive service one can use.

This website has contributed greatly to the success of the Qt Framework. Thanks to you wysota for coming up with this.

Now is the time for the community to show support and love. We are stronger than marketing choices. If you decide to support the Qt Framework it will continue to improve and surprise us.

Beside, I don't know about you but I don't see myself using any other framework for the next decade.

So let's trust and support the Qt team. This is not a failure, it's an opportunity to bring beauty from pain.

Benjamin Arnaud.

[high_flyer]

@everybody: We are the Qt Community. We make Qt strong. If we don't abandon it, there is no possibility for it to vanish. So let's keep being strong and supportive for the people who have been making us proud to know Qt and promote Qt. I dare you to express your support for Qt here and now in this potentially difficult moment.

I wish I could see things the same way, but sadly I don't.
What made Qt strong in my view were two things:
1. As you say, "us" the community.
2. A paid team of top developers, in a company with a commercial interest to keep Qt a tool kit which is targeted at developers.

Trolltech found the golden path - they understood that what will make Qt big is its attractiveness to developers, and for companies through its being cross platform.
This allowed them to release Qt to OpenSource, and still know they are going to make money on it.

Now, one part of the equation is missing.
While we, the community are still here, and will continue using Qt, the commercial interest has flipped.
So its true, that no one can take Qt away from us, which is good and important, but with out a commercial interest to invest in further Qt development, Qt will come to a still stand (in relation to the pace in which is was developed so far) even if the community will continue to actively work on it.
And that is what worries me.

[javimoya]

What made Qt strong in my view were two things:
1. As you say, "us" the community.
2. A paid team of top developers, in a company with a commercial interest to keep Qt a tool kit which is targeted at developers.

Let me correct you...
What made Qt strong in my view were:
1. A paid team of top developers, in a company with a commercial interest to keep Qt a tool kit which is targeted at developers.
2. A paid team of top developers, in a company with a commercial interest to keep Qt a tool kit which is targeted at developers.
3. A paid team of top developers, in a company with a commercial interest to keep Qt a tool kit which is targeted at developers.
4. A paid team of top developers, in a company with a commercial interest to keep Qt a tool kit which is targeted at developers.
...
99. A paid team of top developers, in a company with a commercial interest to keep Qt a tool kit which is targeted at developers.
100. "us" the community.

Have you seen the number of commits of the "community" compared with the number of commits of the paid developers?

sadly...
if Nokia stop supporting qt development... Qt is dead.

[wysota]

Now, one part of the equation is missing.
While we, the community are still here, and will continue using Qt, the commercial interest has flipped.

It's not that bad. There are many companies using Qt and actively contributing to Qt and KDE.

Have you seen the number of commits of the "community" compared with the number of commits of the paid developers?

That's an unjustified statement. Have a look at the number of bug reports filed in by the community. Thanks to them the paid developers as you say know what needs fixing. Also have a look at QtCentre and similar sites. Community based support is very important for the ecosystem.

[balticherring]

Qt will be in safe hands: http://www.msqt.org/

[Walter]

How sad is it to read on the blog

Have just spent more than a year developing a Qt application that is almost ready for release in the ovi store to hear this great news. So my application won’t be available on nokia’s high end phones because Nokia has now a different toolkit! Bloody great! Colleagues said that I should target android, but I’ve been using Qt for more than 10 years and looked like a sure thing with Nokia’s backing, unfortunately looks like they were right.
Now to help out with the android port and hopefully google sees a new opportunity and throws some developers at the android Qt lighthouse port.

http://blog.qt.nokia.com/2011/02/12/...future-for-qt/

[marcvanriet]

Hi,

Read a comment from Nokia :

Question is, will Nokia put Qt on Windows Phone? Our initial response is no, that’s not the plan. The reason is that if we encourage a fork in Windows Phone’s development platform, we could create a situation where we confuse developers and consumers.

Oh no ! Please don't confuse us ! We are so stupid, so please decide for us which toolkit we want to use !

It appears that it wouldn't be too difficult for 'the community' or for some dissident Trolls to create a Qt version for WP7 anyway, because WP7 is build on top of Windows CE. That would be a be a great "up yours" to Mr. Elop

Regards,
Marc

[Walter]

Losing all what market? Nokia phones are among the most popular phones on the planet. They haven't done well in the US market, but in Europe and Asia they rule.

Have ruled. See development of market shares, Nokia nowadays only rules the cheap sector.
For years and years I have bought Nokia phones and what do I use now? An Android phone.

[javimoya]

qt response:
http://blog.qt.nokia.com/2011/02/12/...future-for-qt/

[wysota]

Nokia will not abandon Symbian for a very long time since they have literally tens of millions of devices running that platform and Android or Win7 PE are unfit for handling low-end solutions. I doubt they would switch to Win7 Phone Edition because it's... well... not a good platform, so to speak. For me MeeGo is the way to go. Maemo is already ahead of iOS or Android if you compare the requirements and capabilities. What MeeGo is still lacking is the codebase which just has to appear some time and time and money needs to be invested in it. MeeGo is not just the phones, it's also a range of other types of devices (which is maybe a secondary issue for Nokia but not for Intel).

To be honest the conclusions drawn in both the quoted articles are somewhat farsighted. I don't see anywhere that Nokia intends to switch platforms or anything. The argument about switching to Win7 is probably based on the fact that the guy used to work for Microsoft, I think it is one of those "news" where the editor is paid to release a number of news a day and he needed one more article before going home. The quoted memo might as well mean that Nokia wants to focus on selling wellington boots again or merge with some fruit company. It's definitely not some inside-company memo, just look at the expressions used (e.g. how many times the company name is used, do you do that in your talks with co-workers?), it "leaked" to public on purpose and I'm sure Nokia's CEO wasn't struck by lightning yesterday and doesn't want to prepare a new company policy within two days behind everyone's backs. If you're expecting a thunderstorm, I'm afraid you'll be disappointed.

[javimoya]

For me MeeGo is the way to go. Maemo is already ahead of iOS or Android if you compare the requirements and capabilities. What MeeGo is still lacking is the codebase which just has to appear some time and time and money needs to be invested in it. .

Maemo maybe is ahead of iOS and Android... but that doesn't mind....
You need the best professional developers in the world craving to develop in your system...
Nowadays iOS is the only interesting platform for professional developers.... because you can earn a lot of money selling your apps in the App Store.
Maemo is far far far away from that.
So... why happy iOS developers are going to develop for maemo now?
That's a chimera.

Nokia must go to Android...
is the only platform capable of beat iOS. (because for developers is a very attractive platform)

[wysota]

Maemo maybe is ahead of iOS and Android... but that doesn't mind....
You need the best professional developers in the world craving to develop in your system...
Nowadays iOS is the only interesting platform for professional developers.... because you can earn a lot of money selling your apps in the App Store.
Maemo is far far far away from that.

Note this is not the fault of the platform. iOS had to start from something too. This is all related to marketing and technical base for developers.

So... why happy iOS developers are going to develop for maemo now?
That's a chimera.

Nokia must go to Android...

"So... why happy iOS developers are going to develop for Android now?"

This is not really an argument. All those happy developers used to develop for other platforms a couple of years ago and something caused them to switch. If Qt bridges the difference between different platforms, it's a good motivation for developers to use it. If one can write an app for iOS in native API and sell it to X people or can write the same application in Qt (assuming it'll eventually get ported to iOS) and sell it to X+Y+Z people using iOS, Android and MeeGo, I'd say that was a good trigger to think about not being tied to a specific platform. That was always Qt's advantage and I don't see why this advantage shouldn't be carried to the mobile world. For me the biggest thunderstorm would be if Nokia decided to officially port Qt to iOS and Android to attract developers. To me it's a win-win situation for Nokia, at least on the software market. Hardware then needs to follow. Knowing the fact that you can install Linux on practically anything, I wouldn't be suprised if there appeared solutions for reflashing Android or iOS-based devices to Linux (MeeGo). It's not something Nokia (as in hardware vendor) would take advantage of but that's their problem.