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OS X Businesses Operating Systems Programming Apple IT Technology

Qt/Mac Application Developer Contest 34

Posted by pudge from the mmmmm-g5 dept.
whitefael writes "Trolltech is sponsoring a contest in order to increase the number of Qt/Mac applications available and to award the best commercially developed and free Qt-based applications on the Mac. The prize? A screaming Power Mac G5! The top ten will be announced at Apple's World Wide Developer (WWDC) Conference 2004, June 28-July 2. The top two from each category will also receive iPods. Anyone out there interested? You have until May 7, 2004 to enter."
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Qt/Mac Application Developer Contest More

Qt/Mac Application Developer Contest

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  • I so wish... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Currawong ( 563634 ) <sd@accounts.a[ ].io ['mos' in gap]> on Thursday February 12, 2004 @06:15AM (#8256728) Homepage Journal
    ...that Open Office, The Gimp, Bluefish, Abiword, axyftp and some of the G and K apps were fully OSX native (GUI native as well, not just only usable in X11.app) - there's so much that open source apps and Qt/Mac could bring to the Mac world in this way.

    • Re:I so wish... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Llywelyn ( 531070 ) on Thursday February 12, 2004 @06:38AM (#8256785) Homepage
      Part of the problem with this is that the ports brought over, while they are integrated with Aqua and much nicer than working with them through X11, still aren't pretty and still need work. I'm concerned that "Aquafication" will stop after it starts running, but that's only where the "fun" begins.

      Take LyX/Mac as an example of this. I installed LyX/Mac earlier today to check it out, though I admit I was skeptical and have a strong preference for TeXShop and iTeXMac going into this. It's *significantly* nicer than using LyX through X11--its nice and clean, I can copy-and-paste out of it (but not into it), and its antialiased and gives good results.

      It isn't, however, fully integrated.

      The remaining issues range from major mechanical things such as paste to Cocoa-specific features such as services or the native built-in spell check that are nice to have around, to minor things like the icons reminding me of windows or that the command keys don't appear in the menus.

      I think that this is a good program and I applaud it and it may see some use (though paste not working may be a deal killer for me on this particular app), and I really like that Qt/Mac is there and makes this an easier process but it is not going to be a panacea in getting software ported to Aqua.

      • Re:I so wish... (Score:2, Interesting)

        by WillAdams ( 45638 )
        ::applause::

        I first heard of LyX when someone asked if it could be made to run in NeXTstep, and was immediately quite impressed and taken by the concept (What You See Is What You Mean document processor, see www.lyx.org for details).

        I'd _really_ like to see such things as Services handled within QT though, so that decently coded apps would automagically, ``just work'', as they do with the Cocoa toolkit. I suspect this would really require effort by Apple along the lines of their work on khtml for Safari -

        • It needs a native Cocoa Interface with zero Carbon hooks and have zero dependency upon Qt. I love the Qt LyX for X11 but compared to what OS X can offer, true-native via Cocoa is no comparison.

          None of the folks have any experience with ObjC.

          The first Cocoa version should target the 1.4 CVS release which still has maturing to overcome.

          I agree it would be wonderful of Apple to do the Port and then add specific extras, but I think the licensing options would be the biggest hurdle to overcome.

          • >I agree it would be wonderful of Apple to do the Port and then
            >add specific extras, but I think the licensing options would be
            >the biggest hurdle to overcome.

            Honestly, as nice as it would sometimes be, I am not expecting Apple to ever develop with the full GPL for something like that.

            They want a library they can use as a backend for all of their apps and add functionality to the OS. Things that will link to other parts of the OS. They *don't* want to have to worry about linking.

            My impression

  • let's see (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ajagci ( 737734 ) on Thursday February 12, 2004 @06:31AM (#8256766)
    "Screaming G5" at, say, $3000, contract programming at, say, $100/h. So, that means you'd have to code something in at most 30h in order to make it worth your while even if you were certain to win. However, given that you will be competing against lots of people who invest irrationally much time, your chances of winning are negligible. Sorry, it's just not worth it.

    • Re:let's see (Score:4, Troll)

      by Shisha ( 145964 ) on Thursday February 12, 2004 @07:40AM (#8256967) Homepage
      Sorry, but with this logic, there would never be any Linux or GNU software. Since Linux and GNU is here, you argument must be wrong. Why?

      When someone writes something to release under GPL then he does it other things than profit (exercise, to show of..) so if he wins he basically gets something for nothing (the G5) and a bit of fame on top of it.

      When you submit a commercial Qt application then I guess you'll be able to sell it anyway, for profit _maybe_. Now getting something as frivolous as Apple G5 is nice, since most rational people realise that they don't really need a G5 and so won't buy it.

      The toughest competion might be the "best ported X11/Qt app" since this group that ported konqueror and effectively KDE will be silly not to submit it...

      Besides with outsourcing to India the $100/h programming days are over anyway, so once you start counting $10/h or maybe $1/h ... you'll get radically different numbers.

      • Re:let's see (Score:3, Insightful)

        by ajagci ( 737734 )
        Sorry, but with this logic, there would never be any Linux or GNU software.

        No: Linux and GNU software is open source software for an open source platform. Even when GNU software was originally developed, the fact that it ran on SunOS was viewed as a temporary compromise, with the long term goal of replacing SunOS with something open source.

        The Qt/Mac competition promotes the creation of software for a proprietary toolkit on a proprietary platform and has no intention of replacing either of those proprie
        • Oh come on, dig a bit deeper (I know that on slashdot it's still popular to shout QT IS PROPRIETARY, but that's just not true. Repeating it over and over agin won't make it true either!):

          Qt/Mac competition promotes the creation of software for a proprietary toolkit

          Qt/Mac is _dually licensed_ under _GPL_ and a _proprietary_ license. Mac Qt/GPL is for developing _free_ apps for Mac. Similarly as with Qt/X11. Yes Darwin and most of MacOS X sitting above is proprietary, but that doesn't matter, because if

    • Re:let's see (Score:3, Insightful)

      by piggy ( 5857 )
      Except there is more utility at stake than merely the G5 (although, of course, for each entrant, the exact value of the utility will vary wildly). Some may gain pleasure from entering a contest, some may enjoy the possible prestige or resume boost from winning, for others, they might enjoy programming in general and see this as an opportunity to program but also have a chance at some material gain.

      Clearly your utility is equivalent to your economic gain.
      • Clearly your utility is equivalent to your economic gain.

        When developing software whose purpose is to promote other companies' commercial platforms, you bet it is. That kind of thing, I expect to get paid for.

        For many other kinds of software development, I develop and share it freely. That has many non-monetary benefits. But those don't apply in this case.
        • Except that GPL Qt is available for the Mac. So, it is functionally no different than programming something in pure Qt for Linux, at least with regards to promoting their 'commercial' and 'proprietary' product. Unless you are also against all Qt programming in Linux? Or are you fully against free software on the Mac? Which one is it? I mean, you did notice the part of the summary that said 'and free Qt-based applications on the Mac.', right?

          • Re:let's see (Score:1, Flamebait)

            by ajagci ( 737734 )
            Except that GPL Qt is available for the Mac. So, it is functionally no different than programming something in pure Qt for Linux, at least with regards to promoting their 'commercial' and 'proprietary' product.

            Yes, you are quite right: it is very similar.

            Unless you are also against all Qt programming in Linux? Or are you fully against free software on the Mac?

            I don't know what you mean by "being against it". I think Troll Tech had a mediocre toolkit that only succeeded because of their licensing gimm
    • you wouldn't probably throw away the publicity nor the program itself.

    • Many people, I imagine, will be either working on stuff they wanted to do anyway, or taking the opportunity to learn something they've wanted to learn. It's not about getting paid for your time, it's about doing something you enjoy, and possibly getting a reward for it.

  • Kinda unfair this contest... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by BibelBiber ( 557179 ) on Thursday February 12, 2004 @07:57AM (#8257036)
    Unfair because the winner seems to be obvious. Take a close look at what this Ranger Rick has done so far: Ricks Blog on Qt/Mac [befunk.com]
    That guy has almost completed porting KDE to Mac OS X. That is really cool stuff.

    He and his companios really deserve the G5 and iPods and whatever else is to win :-)

    • Re:Kinda unfair this contest... (Score:5, Informative)

      by RatPh!nk ( 216977 ) <ratpH1nk@gM a i l . c om> on Thursday February 12, 2004 @09:43AM (#8257726)
      Though RangerRick has done a lion share of the work (vastly more than probably the rest of us combined) there are a lot of other people involved in the project as well who have contributed a lot of time (Martin, IceFox,,ChArles etc..) albeit with less to show for it (with the exception of IceFox) I personally blame X11's virtual keyboard.....*damn you X11 virtual keyboard implementation*

      But yes, things are coming along quite nicely in the KDE-Darwin land =)

      Drop by and say hi! irc.kde.org channel=#kde-darwin or visit at KDE on Darwin HomePage [befunk.com]

      We are always looking for help!
      • Of course there is more than just one Ranger Rick doing all that cool stuff. But he's the one who keeps people getting more and more crazy about KDE on Darwin.
        Anyway, thank you to all the other developers who make life even more interesting on the Mac side. Hope you guys win everything there is :-)
  • Where can the documentation and tutorials for the Free [trolltech.com] Edition be downloaded? I see the online versions but am looking for the monolithic documentation and tutorials.

    The monolithic versions (all chapters in one single document) are easier to download and/or work with offline. The tempting alternative is getting wacky with wget which may frustrate Trolltech's server.

    • Re:RTFM (Score:3, Informative)

      by morcheeba ( 260908 ) *
      download it and look in /Developer/qt/doc/html/index.html

      It's not monolithic, but it's all in one download.
  • Your submission has to work on a Mac and I don't have one, kind of a chicken and egg problem. I understand they made the contest to create Qt interest in the Mac community, but I feel cheated.
    • You could make a program in QT in Linux, and send it to a friendly Mac owner to compile it... or alternatively next time you see a stylishly dressed yuppie using a PowerBook in starbucks, tell him that you saw a guy in blue jeans, black polar neck, and glasses signing autographs outside, and grab the Mac when he runs off looking for him.

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