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

[high_flyer]

Now it's official...
Nokia joint with Windows Phone 7...
And they are not going to adapt QT to develop for Win7Phone.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/11/n...s-phone-devel/
Qt is dead for Nokia.

Dead - not yet at least, based on what I read in the link.
However:
In the statement, it is clear (to me) that Qt is not going to be used for the new Win7Phones.
This means, that Nokias main energy (==money) will be invested in using Win7.
Based on this link, they are not planing to use Qt for that - but what ever MS tool kits, and they will allow Qt to live for the sake of Symbian (as wasota correctly noted, they have too many devices out there to just ignore them).
However, if Nokia will stop producing new Symbian phones (which I think is likely), then its just a matter of time, (2-3 years?) when Symbian wont be a strong enough reason to keep Qt alive.
My guess is that porting Qt to W7Phone is going to be a rather easy port - so there are good chances a community port is going to appear soon.
I wonder, if the community will then sway with Nokia and MS and leave Qt, or will Qt still continue to be a major player for the Nokia phones - by the community.
I think the community will have to brace its self for the day, that Qt is officially abandoned by Nokia, and probably it will have to turn to be a pure community project.
Thank god, Qt is GPL and now the LGPL licensed, so that MS wont be able to take away (legally) what is already available.

But, we'll have to wait and see, these are turbulent times for sure.

[wysota]

Remember the "Qt poisson pill" scheme is still in effect so Qt will certainly not be dead nor will it be hijacked or somehow ruined by partnership with MS. This is a much stronger guarantee than the LGPL licence.

[high_flyer]

Remember the "Qt poisson pill" scheme is still in effect so Qt will certainly not be dead nor will it be hijacked or somehow ruined by partnership with MS. This is a much stronger guarantee than the LGPL licence.

Well, yes and no, and depends :-)
The KDE poison pill is in effect very similar to the GPL/LGPL license, its just a stronger legal form of it, and its good.
But it only means what I said - that IF Qt gets abandoned by Nokia, at least the community gets to keep what is already there - so its not conflicting with what I said, just making it stronger.
But, even though it allows the community to keep Qt (which is very important) it does not guarantee that any major player (Trolltech/Nokia) will continue to develop it - and that I call "dead".
Not in the sense that its not there and available, but that it will not be actively developed.
But there are live community project which live quite good - for example WxWidgets.
However, even KDE is dependent on companies to give it is power for a quality and steady development and maintenance.
So "Dead" here is a relative term.

[TorAn]

"Qt poisson pill" scheme is still in effect

I would not be so sure. It is only a matter of legal budgets between parties that are going to the courts. Nokia vs MSoft? It is not even funny.

I am not following Qt development outside official Nokia-supported branch, but may be someone here can comment on what is going on with Qt outside of Nokia. Is KDE team developing core Qt or they are using Nokia Qt?

[wysota]

I would not be so sure. It is only a matter of legal budgets between parties that are going to the courts. Nokia vs MSoft? It is not even funny.

Microsoft has nothing to do with this. The clause says that if Qt stops being published as open source or the changes in the closed source version of Qt are not propagated to the OS version then the last published OS release of Qt automatically goes into public domain (i.e. is also published on BSD licence) so anyone can do anything with it including continuing development and selling as their own product.

[TorAn]

Microsoft has nothing to do with this. .

Microsoft has everything to do with this. They deliberately target competing platforms. Qt is a competing platform. I personally moved from .NET to Qt. For me Qt won and .NET lost and I am sure there are many people like me who chose Qt over .NET and their C++ frameworks. I think that MSoft/Nokia will start with severely lengthening release schedules and reduction of Qt team. They will save legal budget by keeping Qt alive - on life support. And if necessary they will go to courts. One does not have to win if it has the money, it will be enougth to stall and delay.
I am very pessimistic on Qt future now. The only way that is good for "us" is a quick sale of Qt division to an interesting party, but I have a feeling that MSoft will not allow this to happend. And now Nokia might see advantage in killing Qt, since it competes with MSoft offering which they plan to use.

[tbscope]

Does Nokia already have phones that rely on Qt?
(edit: I mean large series, not a few development models)

Personally, I was very very annoyed during the last year because Qt on the desktop wasn't developed anymore, just a few bug fixes here and there. :-(

[stampede]

Few months after former M$ worker starts as CEO of Nokia, the company abandons Symbian and decides to switch to Windows Phone. Well, I'm almost surprised...

[high_flyer]

the company abandons Symbian and decides to switch to Windows Phone.

At the moment, they did not abandon Symbian - read the links through.
It might happen, but not yet.

In my personal view, abandoning Symbian is not a bad move - and one that Nokia should have done years ago, and in part, is responsible for their current dire straits.
The problem is more the switch to W7Phone, and the treatment of Qt as a result.

Lets see how this turns out.

[stampede]

At the moment, they did not abandon Symbian - read the links through.

Yes, you're right. Just after reading this:

(Symbian) has proven to be non-competitive in leading markets (...) is proving to be an increasingly difficult environment in which to develop to meet the continuously expanding consumer requirements, leading to slowness in product development (...)

I think it's just a matter of time.

[wysota]

I think that MSoft/Nokia will start with severely lengthening release schedules and reduction of Qt team. They will save legal budget by keeping Qt alive - on life support. And if necessary they will go to courts. One does not have to win if it has the money, it will be enougth to stall and delay.

Qt is still an asset for Nokia, killing it the way you say would be like cuting your own veins and spilling your own blood. I know this used to be considered healthy in the dark ages but we're past dark ages now. Qt might possibly lose priority for Nokia but it doesn't become its adversary.

I am very pessimistic on Qt future now. The only way that is good for "us" is a quick sale of Qt division to an interesting party, but I have a feeling that MSoft will not allow this to happend. And now Nokia might see advantage in killing Qt, since it competes with MSoft offering which they plan to use.

Nokia doesn't merge with Microsoft, they are to cooperate. Nokia will not kill Qt just because it is in Microsoft's interest. Besides, what is most important is that Qt is open-source, nobody can take it away from us. Whatever happens in future, Qt 4.7.1 LGPL is here to stay.

Does Nokia already have phones that rely on Qt?
(edit: I mean large series, not a few development models)

It depends what you mean by "rely". Every recent Symbian based phone comes with Qt on-board. How many applications use it, I'm unable to say.

Personally, I was very very annoyed during the last year because Qt on the desktop wasn't developed anymore, just a few bug fixes here and there. :-(

Trust me, you are not alone. I would even say a majority of people developing with Qt feels the same.