Lambda the Ultimate

Merely using the IDE to edit source code can't possibly infect it with the GPL

For the most part, no, though I wouldn't be too cavalier about the issue. It would be very easy in an IDE to use a wizard, template, or some other kind of boilerplate code without even thinking about it.

Anyways, I just wanted to point out the limitations of the license model they chose. Of course Eiffel-corp will do what it thinks is best for Eiffel-corp, and GPL coders will be happy, but others will have some thinking to do.

But don't make claims like Trolltech hurting KDE unless you're going to actually back them up with some reasoning or evidence. Trolltech employs the guy behind the Plasma desktop behind KDE 4.0. Somehow I think he'd disagree with you. If you read KDE hacker's blogs a lot of them speak glowingly of Qt, I've never once seen them rant against Trolltech. Once you've submitted some patches to the KDE project and have worked with Trolltech on fixing bugs or getting features into KDE you can be qualified to determine whether or not their model hurts the project. I realize it's more popular on LtU to credit project's success on the language used to implement them, and plenty of people debate Gtk+C vs. Qt+CPP, but if I had to point to the one major reason the latter is leap years ahead I'd have to say it's that Qt has a big commercial backer.

Yet, I still agree it hurts KDE when some applications (both commercial and opensource - I find Eclipse/SWT a good example) cannot be “ported” to QT because of license issues. QT is too fundamental a library in a KDE environment to have GPLed. I wouldn't have a GPLed libc (etc...), no matter how well supported it was.

I wouldn't have a GPLed libc (etc...), no matter how well supported it was.

That's a good argument that I've used in the past. If some company owned glibc, like Trolltech owns Qt, then Linux would have never taken off on the server.

Novell and RedHat and Sun chose Gnome for their environments. It wasn't just such random event of why that occured. Some guy being employeed by Trolltech to work on KDE isn't someone that could give an objective view on the matter.

Let's face some facts. If Novell or RedHat or Sun or anybody else ever hopes to get desktop linux into the mainstream, that includes ISVs, shareware developers and others, and they weren't going to be held hostage by whatever pricing scheme that Trolltech had for the week.

So you might not like it, but having a dual-licensed GPL/commercial toolkit as the basis for KDEs desktop hasn't done it any favors.

The software is GPL. That only qualifies as being held hostage if you openly acknowledge that you're developing a platform intended for closed source software.

My point with the KDE hacker wasn't that he was a great objective source. My point was that he's evidence that KDE hackers aren't distraught by QT's licensing scheme.

Redhat choosing Gnome is almost insignificant. They are a server focused distribution. This becomes pretty obvious when you look at the usability pushes from Ubuntu and Novell and the complete lack of headlines about similar efforts from Redhat.

Novell's SUSE has been a KDE based distribution for longer than it has been a Gnome based one. The shift started when they bought Ximian, which was Gnome based. I haven't read anything that suggests the shift was due to licensing.

Ubuntu, although primarily Gnome based at this time, has a spin off Kubuntu. Mark Shuttleworth, Ubuntu's creator, has stated that Kubuntu is now his primary desktop and he wants to make it a full fledged distribution. I would think ISV's would be something he's considering seeing as he's poured quite a bit of money into these projects. Linspire also helps fund KDE development.

If Trolltech's licensing was hurting KDE/Qt, then I would expect it to be of lower quality. GTK+/Gnome have been playing catch up up until very recently. Before Cairo, KDE clearly had fancier eye candy (and in some areas still does -- Metacity still doesn't support fading widgets for instance).

ISV's have proven in the past they will subject themselves to far greater lock in than they get with Qt. Developing MS software in the past has meant buying a compiler suite that was at one time more expensive than Qt, not getting any source code in the deal, and having your resultant software only run on one platform.

Also, just to clarify: the kdelibs are LGPL. If you buy a Qt license you can make closed source KDE apps.

These aren't business-level trade-offs!

If Trolltech's licensing was hurting KDE/Qt, then I would expect it to be of lower quality. GTK+/Gnome have been playing catch up up until very recently.

and your earlier post:

plenty of people debate Gtk+C vs. Qt+CPP, but if I had to point to the one major reason the latter is leap years ahead I'd have to say it's that Qt has a big commercial backer.

1. Gnome has big commercial support (the project's leader is the VP of Developer Technologies at Novell).
2. Gnome lost serious ground to KDE when the lead developers went down the Bonobo route, and KDE went with D-Bus.
3. Gnome's Object Model previously used languages with poor support for component-oriented programming; these languages lacked a Delphi-style Properties, Methods and Events (PME) Model. By contrast, GNU GNUstep, Apple Cocoa and Trolltech Qt frameworks had full-fledged compilers and languages. Qt had the Moc, and GNUstep and Cocoa both had Objective-C. Gnome has spent time investing in doing similar things with Vala, but this is more recent. Yet the call to create something like Vala (or just use Objective-C) was heard in 2001.

So, bringing this back to languages, the differences in the two platforms, in my eyes, boils down to languages, not licenses or business support!

As an aside, I don't understand why Public Domain isn't used more often. Most people want to contribute back, and don't want to be long-term responsible for maintaining their own source tree.

At least according to my IP lawyer, under the Berne Convention, it's pretty much impossible to intentionally release your work into the public domain. Only passage of time can do that, in any way that your users can trust. The best you can do is release your IP with an unencumbering license.