[Interest] Well there goes Nokia

[Bo Thorsen]

Den 01-08-2012 20:32, Jason H skrev:
> Would I?
>
> I'm no expert at making money, however I think that if there was an
> organization staffed with people who could modify Qt and interested
> companies that companies could contract for the desired modifications.
> The problem is playing nice with the open governance. And you could also
> offer sponsored development projects. Heck, use some crowd funding to
> cooperatively bust through some barriers. True, companies could contract
> directly, but they would have to be more hands-on and if there was a
> company they could centrally manage development so there is no overlap
> during simultaneous projects.

It's difficult to really do this for several reasons:

1) The open governance is great for everyone using Qt, but it makes a 
Trolltech business model more difficult. You can't just promise anyone 
to get code into Qt anymore. It's still possible, of course, but you 
have to argue the case for the code.

2) Digia has the right to sell commercial licenses. This means a *big* 
chunk of the revenue stream Trolltech had is gone. I haven't heard 
anything about this reverting right to Nokia so others could pick it up.

3) The copyright of the code is still Nokia owned. This means you can't 
do anything with Qt that's not GPL or LGPL. So another possible revenue 
stream - selling custom developed close source versions to customers - 
is also gone.

Those three were big parts of Trolltechs business model. There are still 
some left - for example certifications. Anyone can set up a 
certification system, the trick is convincing people it's worth 
anything. I have all three Qt certifications from Nokia, and you would 
have a *really* hard time convincing me I'd need one from you.

What you have left is something I do every day in Fionia Software: Qt 
expert contracting. All the things you have left is about coding - 
either on Qt itself or with Qt. And that's the definition of what we 
consulting companies do.

It's very much a possibility that the consulting companies will be the 
biggest commercial driving force behind Qt. If you look at the numbers 
of git commits (excluding Nokia), that's already the case. Digia is far 
behind. And now KDAB and ICS is hosting Qt conferences this winter.

In this scenario, we'd be working in a pure open source project where 
there would be no benevolent dictator. That's still a viable and working 
model. Meaning even if Nokia goes poof today, Qt will still live. And 
possibly even better than today - impossible to know.

Bo.

> On Wed, Aug 1, 2012 at 8:08 PM, Jason H <scorp1us at yahoo.com
> <mailto:scorp1us at yahoo.com>> wrote:
>  > Anyone else feel like starting a company called TechTroll and giving Qt
>  > another shot?
>  >
>  > On 02/08/2012, at 4:00 AM, Mark wrote:
>  >> As far as i know, only the part to sell support/licenses has been sold
>  >> to Digia. The development of Qt is still in Nokia's hands. Please do
>  >> correct me if i'm wrong.
>  >
>  > The development of Qt is in qt-project's hands.
>
> Sure, you just need a big pile of money to do that ;)

Bo Thorsen,
Fionia Software.

-- 

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