[Development] The place of QML

[d3fault]

On 5/14/12, Turunen Tuukka <Tuukka.Turunen at digia.com> wrote:
> Just very short comment to this part - Digia, Qt Commercial does also
> quite significant R&D. Whereas we do have consulting, and support, we do
> also our share of development. For example we are working in making sure
> that Qt runs nicely on those platforms that are important to the
> commercial customers. Some of these are well aligned with Qt Project, for
> example Win, Mac, Linux, and some we work on our own or together with the
> OS vendors (mainly embedded and real-time).

not R&D, but thank you for platform testing!

> We are also investing quite
> much to the releasing and testing, which also benefits the whole Qt
> ecosystem.

not R&D, but thank you for helping the release + testing process!

> We do a hefty amount of error corrections, and contributions to create new
> functionality.

not R&D, but thank you for the bug fixes (<3 4.8.1)!!! The 'create new
functionality' almost counts, except that it's typically only created
upon request by a commercial customer (or customers). Where's a Qt
module that Digia has created from scratch just because they 'thought
it was a good idea and would bring more people to use Qt'? I've seen
the Charts stuff you guys made... it's just so small compared to
Nokia's R&D projects: QML/QtQuick. Nokia is in position to be the ones
pushing R&D... and they are trying too. The problem is that the Nokia
R&D has the objective of solving Nokias financial problems -- not the
bettering of Qt as a whole. Anybody could make the argument that
QML/QtQuick are aimed at bettering Qt as a whole... and I'd agree...
that's where it is aimed. But it is a miss and the core Qt user
(developers) want something else/better... but Nokia just keeps on
trucking along with 'their' vision, blatantly disregarding the core Qt
user.

I have a question for you over at Digia: is your Commercial License
agreement with Nokia permanent? If it is permanent, then I could see
how an R&D department would make sense (hey guys here's a cool idea if
you want to help Qt: Hardware Accelerated C++ GUI API with Bindings).
However, if the agreement is only for a few years, your R&D could be
ripped out from underneath you as Nokia owns all your contributions
:-P. Nokia could simply choose another support company for their next
contract term.

I just don't see Digia R&D being the bleeding edge R&D type that Qt
needs to stay ahead of the game. Digia will focus on/get distracted by
their core business: client work.
Prove me wrong (please (and not with words)).

> Digia has been an active participant in the Qt community
> for well over 5 years. We have created various different solutions with
> Qt, improved Qt in many platforms and created a hefty amount of code for
> Qt 4 and Qt 5. We looked back into some numbers and calculated that in the
> past few years Digia has done well over 3000 contributions to Qt and Qt
> Mobility making Digia the biggest contributor to Qt after Nokia/Trolltech.

and for that, I thank you. Even though it was done in your own
interest, thank you. That's the beauty of open source.

I _don't_ want Qt to fork, it's just a [long-term?] prediction. I want
to eventually be in a position where I am able to contribute to Qt
(this has nothing to do with Qt and everything to do with me). I want
to want to contribute to Qt (this has everything to do with Qt). In
it's current set up, Nokia gets resale rights to my contributions
("get our code and run" is not at all what I'm implying. It's more
like "get our code, profit from it in ways we can't, release it back
to us under a license where we can't profit from it (in the ways they
can)"), and is _NOT_ using the profits (however minimal) towards the
common goals of the core Qt user (which, as polls have shown, is
currently a Hardware Accelerated C++ GUI with Bindings). This does not
make me want to contribute. I don't think it is a healthy open source
project. Err, maybe that's too strong of a way to say it (Nokia or
not, this project isn't dying! Long live Qt [or whatever it is called
in the future]!!!). Better wording: Qt is not as healthy as it could
be. I want to see it thrive. I want to want to contribute... because I
know that if I want to contribute, others will too.

Atlant: thank you for the story/history lesson

d3fault