Talk:Qt (toolkit)

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[edit] "Cute"

Trolltech insiders pronounce Qt as "cute"[citation needed]

I don't know how to 'cite' this, but it is called that in their developer videos and anyone who has attended a QuickStart or Developer Day. I've witnessed it used in all three personally myself. 71.179.4.155 02:10, 29 August 2007 (UTC) scorp1us@yahoo

Is there any reason to write QT Toolkit instead of just Qt? The program is called Qt, not QT and if the toolkit-attribute is needed we could call it Qt toolkit, but I don't think it has to be. BTW: The company calls itself Trolltech, not Troll Tech or TrollTech.

Fixed. It is now "Qt", also I fixed the spelling of Trolltech, thanks. -- mkrohn 23:40 Mar 31, 2003 (UTC)

-Generally QT refers to QuickTime (Apple, Inc), so Qt is used to avoid confusion 71.179.4.155 02:10, 29 August 2007 (UTC) scorp1us@yahoo

I think there is. Okay, the GTK toolkit could be called just GTK here. But what about the Harmony toolkit? Wikipedia will become immense, so I think it's important to be as precise as possible, also in naming. (Although I haven't followed naming convention discussions, so I don't know what the consensus is). (Also, the original article wasn't mine.) -- Zork

Harmony is no more. However, why do you call it QT_Toolkit instead of Qt_Toolkit

correct, I have added this to the Harmony project page. -- mkrohn 23:40 Mar 31, 2003 (UTC)

I'm not sure this belongs in Category:X Windows Systems; it's really a portable toolkit. DJ Clayworth 14:57, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I'm thinking from the viewpoint of the category, not of the article. It's a major toolkit used on X - David Gerard 15:08, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)


[edit] IDE ?

Is this an Integrated Development Environment?--Jondel 02:42, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

No, it is not an IDE. --Yamla

[edit] Status of Font Support?

Could someone please add how good Qt supports various font related features (OpenType like in http://www.linotype.com/8-36-8-17886/re-introducingzapfino.html, Bidi, etc.). I guess that what Scribe is about?

[edit] QT GPL version vs proprietary version

Removing this line: Note that the open source edition is restricted to open source non-commercial development only [1].

First, I removed non-commercial, since of course GPL software can be commercial. Then I realized that the remainder was duplicative of what the GPL already says. The complications of describing what Gerv mentions are beyond the scope of this article. It's cool, tho, so I stuck it into links.

Novalis 22:28, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I have updated the history of Qt, to include the big events: inclusion of the Mac Os X version, GPLing of the Mac version and GPLing of all versions.
I am hesitant about how to refer to Windows the platform. Is it Windows, windows or always Microsoft Windows ?
Philippe Fremy

[edit] Requested move

Qt toolkit → Qt – {Qt is known as Qt, not "Qt toolkit". QuickTime is QT, not Qt. So there is no confusion.} — minghong 10:31, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one sentence explanation and sign your vote with ~~~~

[edit] Alternative proposed move

violet/riga (t) 17:53, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

  • Support. I very much agree with this suggestion. -- mkrohn 20:39, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Support -- Philip Baird Shearer 17:34, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Decision

The alternative proposal has been accepted and implemented. violet/riga (t) 17:51, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Qt license history

This section seems to be inaccurate, and contradictory:

"This gave rise to two efforts: the Harmony toolkit which sought to duplicate the Qt Toolkit under a free software license and the GNOME desktop that was meant to supplant KDE entirely. The GNOME Desktop uses the GTK+ toolkit which was written for the GIMP, and mainly uses the C programming language."
"Trolltech licensed the first version of Qt under the Q Public License (QPL), a free software license, but one regarded by the FSF as incompatible with the GPL."

According to documentation the FreeQt license (wasn't free software or open source) was used for Qt 1.45 and earlier), and the QPL only introduced with Qt 2.0. - Motor (talk) 08:48:25, 2005-08-12 (UTC)

BTW: The article would really benefit from a simple "stable versions" table:

Version Date Information
2.0 xxxxx Introduction of the QPL etc etc.

If anyone would like to investigate the details... - Motor (talk) 11:11:44, 2005-08-12 (UTC)

[edit] Gtk+?

Article says: "Other portable graphical toolkits have made a different design decision, such as wxWidgets, MFC (Windows only), GTK+, and the Java based SWT[2] which use the toolkit of the target platform for their implementation."

Gtk+ uses "the toolkit of the target platform"? Huh?

Yes this is definitely not true for GTK+, but you could add AWT to the list.... also it's pretty obvious that an one-platform toolkit like MFC uses native widgets...

[edit] Peer review of a related article

I submitted X Window core protocol for peer review, as I intend to candidate it for featured status. I would appreciate comments (Peer review page). - Liberatore(T) 18:07, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] open source and free software

Since there seems to be some confusion from the Nord on how the English language works, I'll lay it down for you all here. Open source means the source is available, this is not a point of view, this is the broadest definition of the term, the Open Source Initiative's definition of Open Source Software differs from this, it is however only their opinion and thus their point of view. In the same manner, free software is software which is made available for free, and while the Free Software Foundation defines free software differently, this is only their opinion and not the meaning of the words. Since Egil seems so confused and unwilling to perform the simple task of reading already available information in the open source article, perhaps he will take the time and exert the effort to read it here. 65.95.229.9 08:06, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

The early QT license is not open source according to the Open Source Definition, so using the term open source would be disputed, and certainly claiming a point of view. An outright claim that this license is open source is against WP:NPOV policy. By your name-calling in the edit summaries, you are also breaking the Wikipedia:No personal attacks policy. -- Egil 13:07, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
I could care less about the OSI's point of view. The term means open and so is valid, you're removing it is a POV. 65.94.60.61 20:36, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
An anon, User:65.95.124.5, probably the same person as the above, keeps on changing the paragraph on Qt versions up to 1.45 into:
Until version 1.45, source code for Qt was released under the FreeQt license — which, while both free and open source, was viewed as neither open source nor free software by the Open Source Initiative and Free Software Foundation because while the source was available it did not allow the redistribution of modified versions
this time with the comment: (Around here, we do not apply people nor organizations' points of view - therefore the point of view of the Open Source Initiative does not belong here
This anon user has either not read the WP:NPOV principle, is not capable of understanding it, or is trolling. I am leaning towards the latter, but I'm tired of this, and would greatly appreciate the help and opinions of others. Egil 23:06, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

In my view, the anon's version is definately a bit POV but OTOH the version with the OSI stance is a bit excessive - i.e. it could use a bit more support of the TT view - i.e. perhaps instead of just "which, while both free and open " you could say that it claimed to be that (if it did claim to be that, that is). In other words, a bit of attribution towards the TT side should balance it out. Just another star in the night T | @ | C 00:19, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Where is it my English is failing? The stuff was free, you could download it for free. The stuff was open source, the source code was open for viewing. The point of view of the Open Source Initiative adds in special restrictions to their version of Open Source Software, in the same manner as the Free Software Foundation does with Free Software. One cannot simply declare a new meaning for a word, the English language is not directed by a few small committees looking to push their own agenda. 65.95.124.5 01:27, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
I'll try to explain. A NPOV statement, suitable for Wikipedia, would be:
1) X claims A, while Y claims B
The added requirement is that both X and Y, plus the claims A and B, fullfil the requirement for notability.
A POV statement of the above scenario, not acceptable for Wikipedia, would be:
2) While A is true, Y claims B.
Returning to the issue at hand, we cannot say "Until version 1.45, Qt was free and open" because that would make us claim a certain point of view in a matter we know is controversial, as in case 2. We could apply case 1, but then we need to find someone notable X that supports this view. Saying "An anonymous contributor to Wikipedia claims that Qt version before 1.45 were free and open" does not fullfill the requirement for notability. -- Egil 15:33, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
So, you're saying that we have to have a neutral point of view by saying, "Until version 1.45, the English language claims that Qt was free and open source, while the Open Source Initiative claims otherwise regarding hope open it's source was and the Free Software Foundation claims otherwise regarding how free it was." That's seems stupid. 65.95.124.5 17:17, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
Welcome to the world of encyclopedia writing! Egil 18:49, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

The OSI and FSF's definitions of Open Source and Free Software are the commonly accepted definitions. Any deviation from their definitions would be misleading. Perhaps it would be an amicable conclusion to state "... (according to the FSF's definition)", although I think if the words "free software" are linked, there's no need because readers can click through for details on what the terms mean. The English language is a set of components. When put together, the components can mean something other than the combination of the strict interpretation of the individual components. —midg3t 01:44, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bindings for C

The article mentioned that there are bindings for C, but where can these be found? I searched the web and did not come up with anything that seemed solid and well supported. Any ideas would be helpful. Perhaps it would even be possible to link directly from the article to bindings for the different languages? Filur 12:52, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

  • The C bindings are commonly used as a base to bind other languages. I'd not consider that a point worth including in the entry -- I'm just tossing it out as a point of information to help you track them down. 13:59, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
    • I spent quite some time trying to track them down, but came up with nothing useful. Where can the C bindings be found? Do they come from Trolltech or a third party? Thanks. Filur 15:09, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
      • The bindings are called QtC. You might be able to find them, but it's are essentially a dead project. This is to the best of my knowlegde, an oldish wiki entry on the subject is here [2] Esben 20:11, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Citation needed to say moc is critised by "C++ community"

I think the paragraph starting

The use of an additional tool has been criticised by part of the C++ community...

Needs some sort of citation or justification. The phrase " 'moc'-ery of c++ " is clearly a value judgement (besides being essentially meaningless) and should surely be attributed to someone if indeed someone has ever said that.

Furthermore, the "C++ community" is a very vague term, since it is not clear who is included in this. Exactly who has made these critisms of Qt should be referenced.

83.245.83.98 20:41, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Alternative toolkits such as GTK+ are available...

Alternative toolkits such as GTK+ are available under a more permissive free software/open source license, at the expense of less complete support for Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows.

I started to reword this sentence and add it to the preceding paragraph since 1) is skirts around the fact that Qt is not LGPL and has no GPL exception, 2) mentioning GTK+ doesn't make it any clearer, and 3) the rest is not relevant. By the time I was done I had removed it and rewritten the preceding paragraph.

I'm not sure if the rewritten paragraph even belongs, though. I think it could be just as easily removed, yet I expect that some will want mention of the "...commercial development requires the commercial license" bit. I understand that it first appears shockingly in violation of the GPL, but think of the same statement with commercial replaced with proprietary.

Trolltech maintains that proprietary development requires the commercial license.

Anyway, let me know if the changes bother anyone.--Hamitr 21:44, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proprietary software with GPL version of Qt

What if a proprietary application uses Qt, not by linking to it but using some other way of interprocess communication? It’s completely legal for Firefox to connect to an IIS-powered server, as well as for Outlook to send mail via an Exim server, so it seems to be possible to split an application into a proprietary back-end and a open source Qt-based front-end without violating the GPL. One might declare the front-end is compatible with any back-end that conforms to a certain protocol; and it isn’t the developer’s trouble that the only application implementing the protocol is their own proprietary program. This also has the advantage of having the community improve the front-end module.

Any comments? Roman V. Odaisky 18:28, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

  • The GPL is usually interpreted so that even if a developer jumps through hoops to avoid actually linking the code together (eg. using IPC), if the end result is the same — that the application is effectively useless without the GPL portion — it is considered an aggregate work and is covered by the GPL. To cover your examples of Firefox/IIS and Outlook/Exim, all four applications work perfectly well without any of the others — they are not dependent. —midg3t 01:28, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] In Russia, logo designs YOU

Is the resemblance of the Qt logo to a hammer and sickle on purpose, or has someone from Trolltech confirmed it as an accident? --Damian Yerrick (talk | stalk) 03:24, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

That resemblance seems very weak to me, even after getting the two logoes side-by-side. In any case, the QT logo is a rather obvious way write together a Q and a T, like the æ, which is a contraction of a and e. So I think we can rule out any connection to any (defunct) regime. I also doubt that any trolltech employee would stoop to actually comment on this. Esben 10:24, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New licence exceptions for Qt 4.3.1

Starting from Qt 4.3.1, Qt lists a long list of linking exceptions for the GPL. It seems you are now able to link most Open Source licenced software with Qt. I think that warrants an update of that section in the article. See http://trolltech.com/products/qt/gplexception

[edit] Windows and Open Source

The open source editions of Qt 4.3.2 and above now support visual studio in as much as they officially work with the compiler, and qmake can generate visual studio projects (http://labs.trolltech.com/blogs/2007/09/18/qtwindows-open-source-edition-to-support-vs-express/) - there is however no IDE integration in the open source edition. There's no official binaries for this option though - Qt needs to be built from source. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.16.66.10 (talk) 00:44, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Trolltech not acquired yet by Nokia

> which was acquired by Nokia on January 28, 2008

On this date both companies announced the plans for the acquisition, but the process has just started. The Trolltech stakeholers are today as owners of the company as they were last week. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.100.124.219 (talk) 07:29, 29 January 2008 (UTC)