Nokia Reportedly Selling Off Qt

[curaga]

This basically ends Jolla dreams of MeeGo revival. While Nokia explicitly hurting them would cause a PR disaster in Finland, a 3rd party will not have such reservations. Of course if a desktop oriented company buys it, they may still cooperate.
Let's hope Digia pick that after all.

Digia's been doing pretty badly, continous layoffs for near two years, stock plummeting, the whole package. I doubt they are in much position to make acquisitions.

[BO$$]

I'd love to see nokia bankrupt and stephen flop burnt at the stake by its investors.

[crazycheese]

I'd love to see nokia bankrupt and stephen flop burnt at the stake by its investors.

I think what happens - is something different:

Nokia will be bought out by microsoft, probably inclusive Qt.

This would be the most dirtiest day in Qt history!

[funkSTAR]

The worst outcome for Qt just happened.

The open core busine$$ provider of Qt Commercial just aquired Qt. First messages to the public: Lets fire some more people and focus on nonlinux platforms like iOS, win8 and Android. We all know what this means; Angry Qt devel will see theire relevancy to free software and linux will deminish thus attacking the Gnomers because they wont be affected by this royal screw up.

[curaga]

^ That's true unfortunately. The original press release (in Finnish: http://www.kauppalehti.fi/5/i/porssi...d=201208090007 ) implies people will be let go, and that the focus will shift to those platforms.

[RealNC]

What do you mean? They said they want to hire 125 Qt devs:

http://www.digia.com/en/Home/Company...Qt-from-Nokia/

Also, the focus will be on Desktop, not mobiles.

[funkSTAR]

What do you mean? They said they want to hire 125 Qt devs:

http://www.digia.com/en/Home/Company...Qt-from-Nokia/

Also, the focus will be on Desktop, not mobiles.

No. They say the can keep up to 125 Qt people(not devs). This implies Digia will have no obligation to the rest. When they get booted Nokia will pay the extra costs to mass fire people or Nokia can find new jobs for them(lol). This can be quite substantial cost.

So this pretty much translates to "less people doing less linux. More focus on other platforms and spearheading other embedded systems like VxWorks to replace traditional linux deployments." This stinks.

[RealNC]

No. They say the can keep up to 125 Qt people(not devs).

Keep? They don't have them. How can you keep something you don't have in the first place? They need to *hire* 125 Qt people.

Also. 125 is very close to the number of Qt devs at Nokia. If they really hire 125, then they'll be hiring almost everyone.

So this pretty much translates to "less people doing less linux. More focus on other platforms and spearheading other embedded systems like VxWorks to replace traditional linux deployments."

How so? I don't see anything that translates to that.

[curaga]

Keep? They don't have them. How can you keep something you don't have in the first place? They need to *hire* 125 Qt people.

"Up to 125" are transferred from Nokia, as old employees. It's not a new hire technically.

How so? I don't see anything that translates to that.

The marketing speak heavily implies that the focus will move to Android, iOS, and W8. VxWorks was not mentioned. Clearly with less people and new things to do = less people to work on the old platforms.

[RealNC]

It reads:

"Digia’s targeted R&D investments will bring back focus on Qt’s desktop and embedded platform support, while widening the support for mobile operating systems."

With Nokia, the chances of the Android and iOS ports making it into Qt proper were slim (why support your direct competitors?) Digia doesn't seem to have such qualms, since they don't manufacture mobiles.

Also, don't forget that the focus was already on mobile while under Nokia control.

They've also sent a notice to KDE today, saying that they'll be providing hosting of the Qt Project infrastructure.

Right now, there doesn't seem to be anything problematic with Digia owning Qt.

Anyway, the way I read that announcement is that Digia is interested more on desktop and embedded (I guess that's where they make their most money from) but has no intention to keep blocking the Android and iOS ports from being pulled-in. That's where "bring back focus on desktop and embedded" comes from. But this is just a promise. Words only. We'll need to see their actions in the coming months.