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Apple Businesses

Qt Released For OS X 244

Posted by timothy from the merging-venn-diagrams dept.
AxsDeny writes: "It looks like Macslash is also reporting this, but Trolltech is now offering Qt for OS X. Long live cross platform development." Doesn't look like there's a Free version, but there is a non-commerical license called the "Qt Academic License," which "Allows schools and universities to acquire and use Qt for free in relevant courses."
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Qt Released For OS X More

Qt Released For OS X

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  • Another good link (Score:5, Informative)

    by wiredog ( 43288 ) on Monday October 22, 2001 @10:43AM (#2460077) Journal
    To a good article at Kuro5hin [kuro5hin.org].

  • Qt non-free versions (Score:3, Interesting)

    by No-op ( 19111 ) on Monday October 22, 2001 @10:45AM (#2460089)
    I've been using the Win32 Qt 3.0 for a while, and I have to say that I've vastly enjoyed it. Trolltech earns my vote for one of the best companies I've worked with so far.

    Don't flame them too much for charging money for stuff- everyone has to earn a living somehow :P

  • This is good news. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anton Anatopopov ( 529711 ) on Monday October 22, 2001 @10:46AM (#2460095)
    Only purist 'license zealots' will worry about the terms of the license. This is great because it means a whole load of great apps can now be ported to run native on Macs.

    MacOS X really is the best of all worlds. You have the stability reliability and scalability of Unix/Mach with the familiar ease-of-use of the mac. Too bad the clunky old PC still seems to rule the roost with the general public :-(

    • This is great because it means a whole load of great apps can now be ported to run native on Macs.

      Technically yes, but legally no. Many common apps that use Qt are under the GNU GPL and may not be linked with non-free libraries nor compiled with non-free headers.

      • Re:Yes, but you're breaking the law (Score:4, Informative)

        by pi_rules ( 123171 ) on Monday October 22, 2001 @11:31AM (#2460362)
        That is absolutely not the case.


        You can write a GPL app and link it to non-free applications. What you cannot do is link to a GLPed library and release it with a non-free (well, non GPL) license. If the library is written under the LGPL you -can- link a non-GPL application to the LGPL library though.


        If your above stated take on the license was true it would be impossible to write a GPLed application for any OS which isn't GPLed from the ground up. You can write a GPL app for Win32 or Solaris, right? Last I checked their standard C library wasn't GPL.

        • Re:Yes, but you're breaking the law (Score:1, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward
          You need to do more research, man. You can link GPLed applications to non-free libraries, that ship with particular OS (e.g. to Cocoa.framework or Carbon.framework in MacOS X case, or to some dll in Win32). You can't link to arbitraty non-free library. Read the GPL license, ok?

        • Trolltech says.. (from the FAQ) (Score:1, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward
          Can I make software with the Qt Free Edition and release it under the GPL, BSD, or Artistic license?

          Yes. Since Qt Free Edition is provided under both QPL and GPL, all license conflicts are avoided.

          Is software based on the Qt Free Edition really free? Does it carry Trolltech license restrictions?

          Yes, it is really free. No, there are no special Trolltech license restrictions on free software produced using the Free Edition. In fact, the opposite is true: The Qt Free Edition licensing demands that the software must be free. The receivers must have the rights to obtain the source code, change it, and redistribute it.

          BUT!

          Qt non-commercial edition and the GNU GPL
          The GNU General Public License (GPL) is a popular free software license widely used in the Unix/Linux world. The GPL is published by the Free Software Foundation (see http://www.fsf.org ). One of the key features of the license is that it does not permit the distribution of software linked to non-system libraries that are distributed under different licensing terms. Although Qt non-commercial edition is available free of charge this prohibition nonetheless applies to it.

          If you wish to port one of the many GPL'd Qt-based Unix applications to another operating system using the Qt non-commercial edition, you need to get that application's copyright holders to add an exception to its license. Similarly, if you develop a new application with the Qt non-commercial edition and wish to license it under the GPL you may wish to add such an exception to your license. The Free Software Foundation has provided the following wording for such exceptions:

          As a special exception, gives permission to link this program with Qt non-commercial edition, and distribute the resulting executable, without including the source code for the Qt non-commercial edition in the source distribution.

          Note that such an exception is not required for code released under other free software licenses like the GNU LGPL and BSD-style licenses.

          AND!

          The Qt Non Commercial Edition for Microsoft Windows is a binary only distribution requiring Microsoft Visual Studio version 6.

        • Read the fine license!!! The GPL says

          "However, as a special exception, the source code distributed need not include anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary
          form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component itself accompanies the executable."

          There's a big difference between QT/OSX and the standard C library of a system in terms of GPL compatibility.

          • However, as a special exception, the source code distributed need not include ... the operating system"

            I have written more about this operating system loophole in the GNU GPL [everything2.com]. Some software publishers might claim, and some courts would believe, that Qt qualifies as an "operating system" under which other applications can run. It certainly is a "platform."

            • Publishers might claim anything, and you can always find a court that will agree with pretty much any piece of junk you want to put out. But QT is not an operating system, any more than it's a CPU (an OS always includes a kernel, in every definition and example I've ever seen.) And GNU/Linux plus foo does not make foo a part of the operating system, any more than GNU/Linux plus a i386 makes the i386 part of the operating system.

              It's possible you could argue that QT was part of SuSE and some other Linux operating systems, but that still doesn't give you the right to distribute binaries linked against QT for Solaris, as that's clearly not part of the OS.
    • Only purist 'license zealots' will worry about the terms of the license.
      Wrong. If you violate the license you are potentially in trouble. If you are a company in Europe or in the United States and you use Qt in violation of the license, your chances to be sued by Trolltech are very high (I would say above 50%).

      Of course, if you are in Russia (seems to be the case for you) or in North Korea or in Iraq, you may want to risk. However, please don't generalize. I'm not a license zealot, but I'm not going to violate their license (e.g. pretend to be a university professor).

  • QUICKTIME FOR OSX ? (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    QT == Quicktime !

    seems a bit stupid to call your project the same name esecially as its on a Mac too

    confusion reigns

    _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
    Apple still putting the TOSH in Macs
    • QT == Quicktime !

      seems a bit stupid to call your project the same name esecially as its on a Mac too

      It's not the same name. QT == QuickTime. Qt == TrollTech's widget set.

      Caps matter!

    • Moderators, I'd have given this post higher than 0, even if it is an AC post. Until I read the WHOLE article, I didn't know that it wasn't quicktime they were selling. Hey, I'm not a mac user, but I've heard of quicktime. Why didn't they use something a little more unique (or else why wasn't there mention in the macslash or slashdot reports that it wasn't quicktime)?

      I dunno. I'd have been more excited if it had been quicktime, myself.
    • But will it support the Sorenson Codec?
  • I've always been impressed with cross-platform initiatives [eggforge.net]. Especially the ECAs [eggforge.net] big project to get Eggplant code on every system available. Including embedded devices!

    Eggplants! [eggforge.net]
    • I'm quite impressed by this cross-platform development. Even more impressed that the moderators didn't bother to look at the link, or even think about what the link said.

      Bravo.
      -Ted
      • I went to eggforge.net and wasted about 5 minutes clicking around and reading things in a vain attempt to figure out what on earth Eggplant is, other than a vegetable that tastes good parmesian style. I still haven't a clue. All I did find was a comment posted by the same Ace905. Apparently she or he is somewhat involved in this eggplant thing, and trying to use slashdot to let us know how impressed he is with himself.

        Well, here's some advice: if you're going to go posting your url all over the place, try to put some information up that actually explains what the damn project is about.
        • It's a joke, and a pretty good one at that.

          Although I'm surprised anyone would have difficulty understanding that - the descriptive material and code exampes made it quite clear what an eggplant is and that the site is satire.

          I'd eat an eggplant to celebrate their achievement if I could stand to do so.

          D
          • Oh oh! I found the FAQ [eggforge.net]. Ok. I get it now.

            I must have thought that that FAQ link was to an external site when I first looked because it appears in the "Other Options" section after "AvantGo". Not where I would expect to find the only information on what the site is about. How about making an "About Us" link like 2nd in the main menu? Geez, they spend all that time making a slick looking site, you'd think they could organize the actual information a little better.
  • Qt Academic License," which "Allows schools and universities to acquire and use Qt for free in relevant courses.

    It's refreshing to see that a company is offering proprietary software for free to schools and universities.

    Microsoft, take note!

  • Lets not forget the other big news... (Score:3, Funny)

    by toupsie ( 88295 ) on Monday October 22, 2001 @10:52AM (#2460148) Homepage
    ...No not about the mystery press conference tomorrow where Steve Jobs will turn on the Reality Distortion Field and shock us with his "pssst, It's not a Mac" new product. No, I am talking about the native port of Tcl/Tk applications on Mac OS X [darwin.org]!!!

    You know I am going to end up with whatever Steve Jobs shows off tomorrow. I already have a closet full of Netwons, QuickTake Digital Cameras, Power CDs and exploding PowerBook 5300 batteries for home defense.

  • Qt (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Dr. Sp0ng ( 24354 ) <<mspong> <at> <gmail.com>> on Monday October 22, 2001 @10:55AM (#2460166) Homepage
    I just have to point out that Qt really is the most excellent toolkit I've ever used, for any platform (and the fact that it runs on all major platforms is a huge bonus). It's sanely designed and it really is a pleasure to use. I'm not a big fan of C++, generally preferring C for most stuff, but Qt makes using C++ more than worth it.

    I just can't comprehend why anybody uses GTK these days :)
    • Is this the escape route from Microsoft domination that we've been waiting for?

      I've got a biggish Win32 program and wonder about moving it to Qt. How big an effort? Any performance hits / gotchas? Any features that we'll lose?

      Want to stop being dependent on MS before they collapse!

      • Re:Time to move? (Score:4, Informative)

        by Dr. Sp0ng ( 24354 ) <<mspong> <at> <gmail.com>> on Monday October 22, 2001 @12:01PM (#2460504) Homepage
        I've got a biggish Win32 program and wonder about moving it to Qt. How big an effort?

        Qt is quite a bit different from MFC, and I think porting would be more effort than simply rewriting it in Qt.

        Any performance hits / gotchas?

        Not really... don't pay any attention to the AC trolls who bitch and moan about moc (Qt's preprocessor)... it lets you do some really neat stuff that you simply can't do with normal callbacks. As for performance, I haven't noticed any speed hits using Qt as opposed to MFC.

        Any features that we'll lose?

        Nope. Anything that Qt doesn't support is EXTREMELY easy to add yourself... Qt is designed in such a way that subclassing a widget to add new features is a breeze, so you can make any widget do anything you want.

        Qt also provides tons of utility classes, which make it simple to do stuff like asynchronous socket/file i/o and so on. It rocks.

        Want to stop being dependent on MS before they collapse!

        Heheh. Good plan :)

    • Re:Qt (Score:2, Informative)

      by captaineo ( 87164 )
      I agree that Qt is quite well put-together, but after working with it for a little while (I'm mostly a GTK/PyGTK fan) I've found it has an annoying flaw that really prevents me from using it effectively: its memory-management system is restrictive, and it only works in C++.

      The "restrictive" part is due to the fact that Qt takes a simplistic hierarchical view of resource ownership - parent objects own their children, and delete them when they are deleted. This forces you to implement most of your own code as subclasses of Qt toolkit classes. Aside from being aesthetically icky, this can get you into trouble when the rest of your own code has different ideas about object ownership and lifetimes. At the very least you need to write extra adaptor code or invent weak references for Qt objects.

      The other problem of course is that Qt "only works from" C++. I've long since left static languages behind for GUI development; Python and friends are the way of the future. Sure there are bindings like PyQt, but PyQt has some serious memory management problems (since Python objects are reference counted, and can't easily mesh with Qt's object hierarchy). The result is segfaults and/or memory leaks even for simple PyQt programs.

      Using Qt was an interesting and worthwhile experiment, but I much prefer Gtk's more reasonable resource management scheme (which has been designed from the ground up to cooperate with scripting language bindings).
      • I agree that Qt is quite well put-together, but after working with it for a little while (I'm mostly a GTK/PyGTK fan) I've found it has an annoying flaw that really prevents me from using it effectively: its memory-management system is restrictive, and it only works in C++.

        True, it only works in C++, but then again that's what the language was designed for, and using it in another language isn't how it was intended to be used. That said, its memory management is very nice... you don't have to delete stuff yourself! How is that bad? If you create a dialog box with lots of widgets, do you really want to have to delete each and every widget, or would you rather just be able to delete the dialog itself and have it automatically take care of deleting its children?

        Granted, in some limited situations it would be nice to be able to turn this off, but for the most part it's very nice.
        • gtkmm, the C++ wrapper for GTK+, allows you to choose how your widgets are managed. you can opt for "deleted by parent", "parent does nothing" and others. sometimes i want a dialog to leave one or more of its children alone. you can't do that in Qt. furthermore, gtkmm offers full STL compatibility, which Qt does not, and it also draws the line between a GUI toolkit (like GTK+) and a desktop/programming environment kit (like GNOME or KDE).

  • COOL! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Zo0ok ( 209803 )
    Fully carbonized! That means (?) you can develop a program in a mixed Linux/OS X environment, and get Aqua look and feel in OS X. I think it is time to learn Qt ;)

  • Aqua l'n'f or native Aqua implementation? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by pi_rules ( 123171 ) on Monday October 22, 2001 @11:00AM (#2460193)
    The article kind of glazed over the technical details here... but is this a port of Qt that just wraps around the native MacOSX widgets or does it re-implement everything with an aqua-ish look and feel? Didn't Apple object to the Mozilla port which had an aqua-like but not true Aqua interface?
  • I think this is great - it's always good to have the toolkits that we all know and love on MacOS X.


    While this is good for porting, unless it's ported as a true "localized toolkit" then it's not of much use. Take for example, GTK+ which works under MacOS X. Without an X server running to display everything on, it won't do much good.


    What would really be icing on the cake is a translator of sorts, or porting the toolkit directly to MacOS X so that the same functions, etc. would transparently call MacOS X/Quartz functions.


    Remember, Quartz/Aqua isn't X.

    • I dunno if how they did it for MacOS but on the other platforms the used as much of the unerlaying system as possible, only reinventing things that aren't provided natively (At least they say so in the docs)
  • If QT is C++ in origin, then why isn't it COCOAized?


    Remember, Carbon is for porting old OS 9 apps easily to OS X. It is based on C. Cocoa is the "real deal" for OS X, and is based on C++. It just seems more logical that they would port QT to Cocoa, not Carbon.

    • Re:Carbonized? (Score:3, Informative)

      by mcfiddish ( 35360 )
      Cocoa is the "real deal" for OS X, and is based on C++.

      Actually Cocoa is based on Objective C, which is an object oriented language based on C, but is significantly different than C++. There's also Objective C++, but I don't know anything about it.

      • objective c++ is objective c and c++ code mixed in the same source.

        /Erik
        • Unfortunately there IS no Objective C++ available anymore. Something about a patent violation, seriously. This severely limits my usage of Cocoa. This is why libQT for MacOSX is so good. Without it, everybody wanting to use C++ on MacOSX would have to thunk to C to call Objective C Cocoa libs, or use C++ with the crappy Carbon libs.

          --jeff
          • Actually there is Objective-C++. It was reintroduced in the 10.1 update. Unfortunately, it seems to be pretty buggy.
          • there is objective c++ now. one problem is that gcc doesn't support it. But I suppose that would mostly be a problem for porting macosx objective c++ apps to GNUStep.

            /Erik

          • Re:Carbonized? (Score:3, Informative)

            by alannon ( 54117 )
            This is completely untrue. Objective C++ was included in MacOS 10.1. I'm using it as we speak. It allows you to mix Objective-C and C++ code freely in a single source code file. It works just as it should. It takes much longer to compile, though. Something about pre-processed headers, I think.
            • heh! Well I guess I should upgrade to 10.1 then! I know it wasn't available for the entire last year. I think HP or someone like that had a patent on the 'thunking' technology used in Objective C++.

              I'm glad it is at least available now! Thanks!

              --jeff

    • Cocoa is the "real deal" for OS X, and is based on C++.

      No, Cocoa is based on Objective-C, the NeXTstep language. Objective-C is not C++, and C++ is not Objective-C. (Yes, the fact that the names of things in ObjC start with NS (NeXTstep) makes it confusing to read Mozilla C++ code, where things also start with NS (Netscape).)

    • Yeah, my bad... It is Objective C, not C++

  • I don't mind them charging ... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Daniel Dvorkin ( 106857 ) on Monday October 22, 2001 @11:08AM (#2460243) Homepage Journal
    ... I just wish they didn't charge so _much_. Never having been a free software zealot, I don't mind paying for software that's truly useful, as this certainly is. But as a starving student, I just can't pay the kind of prices they're charging. I didn't see anything in their academic license section about prices available to individual students. The excellent student prices available on Metrowerks products are one of the main reasons I've stuck with CodeWarrior as my primary dev environment for so long, even though I haven't been wild about their more recent releases in a number of other ways.

    It would be great if TrollTech learned this lesson. Remember, today's poor CS students are tomorrow's pro developers ...
    • Further, TrollTech is activly hostile to the idea of shareware. A method that students and graduates often use to earn a little extra money. Having had a shareware program of my own keep me in computer parts for 8 years and wanting to port to mac/linux I looked into Troll and was agast at the prices they charge for "commercial" software and even more agast at the fact that they specifically call out "Shareware" as a totally unworkable software model, which they will never support.

      wxWindows is not quite as professional as QT and last time I tried the mac port it was severely trailing the windows/linux port (About a year ago). But at least there's hope for people that both don't want to be starving for the rest of their life or have to be MS itself to afford their commercial lisence fees.
      • I agree with your comment on charging. I am trying to build some shareware products (49 dollars) and 1500 USD is not something I can swallow. And like yourself I use wxWindows. wxWindows is cool and works well.

        But I disagree with wxWindows not as professional. I have used many GUI toolkits and wxWindows seems really good. What I really love about wxWindows is their attention to printing and multiple languages. Something that is essential in any shareware.
  • Trolltech should be called on to make QT liscense open on a crossplatform basis. While KDE is not my bag, there are alot of great apps in it. So far the straddling the fence on liscensing on their part has done more for gnome then trolltech. I'd have to say it would be alot more compelling if they made these free. They could make money by selling services like everyone else in this field. The era of software product royalties is nearly over. Trolltech needs to innovate.
    • Um, no. Selling commercial licenses to commercial developers for commercial products is a pretty good way to keep a revenue stream flowing. How much money do you think the GTK team would make if they incorporated?

      I think it's fine for Trolltech to straddle the fence:
      • Free edition for Free software
      • Commercial edition for commercial software

      Simple, right? Wrong. Add operating systems to the equation. Now it's:
      • Commercial edition for commercial software on any OS
      • Free edition for Free software on Open Source OSs (and a few architecturally similar closed OSs)
      • Non-Commercial edition for "non-commercial" software, or Free software, if you get permission from the people who manage it, or Open Source software, if that particular flavor of license allows it, for two particular closed OSs that cover all but a sliver of the desktop OS market.


      Trolltech could make everyone's lives easier if they'd just forget about the operating system. Would I like to see Windows go Open Source? Sure. Would I like to see Apple open more of OS X than Darwin? Certainly. Is it going to happen? Not bloody likely. Are Trolltech's licensing terms going to change anything? Not bloody likely.

      I just feel like Trolltech is robbing Peter to pay Paul. They're trying very hard to encourage adoption of Open Source operating systems. Unfortunately, their choice of licensing terms actively discourages cross-platform Open Source applications.
  • Borland has already hinted that other OS/platforms would be supported in the future.
    • That's a interesting idea-- they could add the remaining features missing from Kylix, Do a relativly trivial porting of Kylix from Qt2 to Qt3, and then market Kylix for not only Linux, but also Windows and MacOSX as well. *
  • The wxWindows [wxwindows.org] folks also have a Macintosh port [wxwindows.org] that I believe also uses CARBON. From what I understand they are doing a great job. For python people, wxPython [wxpython.org] is just fantastic.

    • I'm looking forward to testing and comparing Qt/PyQT vs. WxWindows/WxPython.

      However, Qt/PyQT includes a visual form designer and complete GUI. WxPython has Boa, but it is incomplete and buggy (though impressive none the less).

      We'll see if either of them is really complete, though.

  • Just be careful (Score:2, Interesting)

    by mughi ( 32874 )

    When I looked into their licensing in general (for possible work use) I noticed that if any project was ever touched by any free version of Qt, it could never be later realeased commercially by purchasing a Qt license at a later date.

    This one limitation might be a severe one for those who care about complying with licenses. Read the whole thing carefully before proceding. And get your lawyer to check things for you.

    • I couldn't find their details off-hand (eating up my bandwidth getting Enigma), however their one page [trolltech.com] does mention:

      The limitations are that the product may only be used for educational purposes on school hardware, and on the schools premises.

      EEEEK! If that meshes with their previous licenses and FAQ's, extreme caution might be warranted. Their whole "once touched, forever tainted" doctrine makes things very dicey

      Just read their FAQs and such. It be an issue for some, but no problem for others. Just be informed so you can make informed decisions.

  • Pricing - ouch (Score:3, Informative)

    by TomatoMan ( 93630 ) on Monday October 22, 2001 @11:53AM (#2460469) Homepage Journal
    You know when you have to dig this deep into the site to find the pricing information, it's going to hurt when you get there.

    http://www.trolltech.com/purchase/qtpricing.html [trolltech.com]

    US$1550 for one professional license, US$1950 for one enterprise license?

    I believe all the people that say QT3 is the bees' knees, but yikes. Guess I won't be experiencing that coolness for myself.

    (Wistfully remembering the days when Think C was $99, and the early CodeWarriors were around $199)

    • Re:Pricing - ouch (Score:3, Interesting)

      by furiousgeorge ( 30912 )
      Have you checked out the prices of cars lately? Some of them can go up to even $30,000!!!! Ouch!!

      Not everything is for everybody. The thing is - Qt has developers that actually eat and pay the rent and need a paycheck. And guess what - they deserve it. Qt is KILLER. I work for a small company and we pay for 5 Qt licenses (thats pushing $10,000 a year) - and you know what........ worth every freaking penny. Working with MFC was painful at best, and gtk made me want to go out and kick cars in the parking lot. The increased quality that Qt brings, plus the development time savings is worth the price ten times over. It's a beautiful toolkit.

      It's always so sad whenever something is brought up on slashdot, all people do is bitch and whine because it's not free. Well, welcome to the real world. If you want everything to be free, then you lose the right to complain about the quality of what you get.

      JWZ got it right - and it proves itself every day:
      "linux is free if your time is worthless".

      For those of us who's time isn't worthless, finding the tradeoff point is important. And anybody who can improve that deserves their money.

      Now excuse me, i need to go start a linux system build of our project - it takes SIX @#$(*#&$ hours using GCC - gee, it's the 21st century, you think they'd discover precompiled headers. Once that build is running i'll go back to my MSDEV machine and get some real work done.

      (and debugging with DDD ---------- eeeeshhhhhhh..... god help us all........ yet another way MSDEV kicks serious ass).

      j
      • There is free and then there is way too much in cost. And this product is definitely in the ballpark of being way tooo expensive. Seriously it is ONLY a GUI toolkit. I looked at their library of supported widgets and thought, too much for too little....
        • Seriously it is ONLY a GUI toolkit.

          No it's certainly not - it is a complete application toolkit. The GUI portion is just a part of it (granted, it's a rather large part). It also provides beautiful asynchronous socket support, database connectivity, better-than-STL STL-like functionality (linked lists, hashes, and so on), settings management (uses the registry on windows, dotfiles on Unix), internationalization, threading functionality, process control, an XML parser, really good file I/O routines, printer support, and more. And all of it works perfectly, on any platform that Qt supports. Name me ONE other toolkit that even comes close to this.

          I'm a professional developer and I use Qt, and like the previous poster said, it's worth every penny.

        • Do you actually know how much it costs to buy hardware, software and licenses in commercial organizations these days? It's outrageous! $1500 as a one off cost per development seat is nothing!

          you obviously don't work in commercial software development or you wouldn't have this opinion. and if you do, then go talk to your boss about costs and how much his budget is .. you'll get a shock.

  • Qt rocks (Score:3, Interesting)

    by infiniti99 ( 219973 ) <justin@affinix.com> on Monday October 22, 2001 @12:07PM (#2460529) Homepage
    This is a complete shameless plug for my application, but it is also a great example of how good of a crossplatform library Qt is.

    Check out JabberCentral [jabbercentral.com] and you will see my client, "Psi", has both a Windows [jabbercentral.com] and Linux [jabbercentral.com] version. The programs are identical (all features are the same). By use of QSettings, application settings are stored in the registry on Windows and in a "dot" file on *nix. And the look&feel matches the OS.

    The best part? All it took was a simple recompile. One source tree sure makes life easy.

    -Justin

  • academic licenses (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mj6798 ( 514047 ) on Monday October 22, 2001 @01:02PM (#2460851)
    but there is a non-commerical license called the "Qt Academic License,"

    Reminds me of "Hey, the first one is on me, buddy." Seriously, working in the commercial world, these academic licenses are really tiring: companies get students hooked on some piece of software in the hope that they will then enter the workforce and demand that their employers buy their overpriced commercial software, even when good open source alternatives are available. I hope more and more employers will refuse to fall into this trap: someone who has experience with a costly commercial package where a free alternative is available simply lacks the relevant experience for the job and needs to be retrained.

    Matlab is a huge offender in the engineering world (almost free for students, thousands of dollars in the real world). Qt doesn't seem much different.

    My message to universities (as well as open source developers): if you want a cross-platform C++ toolkit, use wxWindows or FLTK; they are good enough. And if you think it needs improvements, make those improvements student projects and contribute them.

    • Reminds me of "Hey, the first one is on me, buddy." Seriously, working in the commercial world, these academic licenses are really tiring: companies get students hooked on some piece of software in the hope that they will then enter the workforce and demand that their employers buy their overpriced commercial software, even when good open source alternatives are available.

      Then this is strangely appropriate for MacOSX. For comparison, examine Apple's attempts to get students hooked on Macs in school by offering them loans and discounts.


    • I'm really starting to get hacked off by this argument. $1500 is NOT overpriced in a commercial software development setting. It's peanuts, pocket change, it's nothing!!

      I just finished doing a job where the development group were paying more than that for a consultant from Oracle to do development work on site, per DAY !!

  • What about Java? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by /^Neil/ ( 165852 )
    I heard from an apple rep that OS X has one of the fastest JVMs available and offers OS X Look and Feel. New machines also come with Java Web Start. Is Java on a new OS X machine fast enough to replace C or C++? If not, it must be getting pretty close.
    • I ran the volano benchmark on my G4 466 and it ran 20% faster than the IBM JDK running on my Dual CPU PIII 800.

      I have found java on OSX to be outstanding. I am a java programmer and use it for dev all day, though we deploy to linux boxes.
  • For some reason, they're using QuickDraw to do the rendering, not Quartz 2D. As mentioned here [macslash.com], QuickDraw is fine if you want to be compatible with OS 9, but if you're targeting OS X, duh.

    Perhaps it makes the port of their Qt/Mac easier to maintain. But if you are really targeting OS X, use the OS X APIs...

  • ... where the toolkit can be "free" ... but on the "real" platforms (OS/X and NT) developping apps costs money. Blah lbah blah it's well designed etc. etc. So was NeXT and it's developper workstation and license was $uper expen$ive too ...

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