Trolltech to Release Qt/Mac Free Software Edition at WWDC 2003; Trolltech
Brings Its Successful Dual Licensing Business Model to the Mac
OSLO, Norway–(BUSINESS WIRE)–June 17, 2003–Trolltech today announced
that Qt(R)/Mac will be released under the GPL (GNU General Public License)
at Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) 2003 in San Francisco on
June 23rd.
With the release of the Qt/Mac Free Software Edition, the advantages of
Qt’s dual licensing model are now taken to Mac OS X. Since it’s founding in
1994, Trolltech has successfully used a dual licensing business model,
offering both commercial and Free Software licensing options to developers.
“Trolltech’s dual licensing strategy has been key to our success,” says
Trolltech CEO and co-founder, Haavard Nord. “We are now expanding this
strategy to include the Mac. We estimate that there are over one hundred
thousand Qt developers in the Free Software community today. These free
software developers receive a high quality tool, and in return, they
provide Trolltech with valuable feedback on Qt.”
Qt/Mac is the Mac port of Qt — a single-source, multiplatform C++ GUI
toolkit that allows applications to run natively on Windows, Linux/Unix,
and Mac OS X, all from the same codebase.
The GPL release of Qt/Mac allows Mac free software developers to use Qt
free of charge. Any software produced with the GPL version of Qt/Mac (and
any derivatives of this software) must also be released with full source
code available under the GPL. Developers who wish to create commercial
(proprietary or closed source) software can continue to do so using the
existing Qt/Mac commercial licenses.
With the upcoming Qt/Mac GPL release, thousands of existing Free Software
applications developed with Qt/X11 (Linux and various flavors of Unix) and
Qt/Embedded (embedded Linux), can now be ported to the Mac OS X platform.
Most of these applications only require a simple recompile for Mac OS X.
The release of Qt/Mac under the GPL also means that Qt Script for
Applications (QSA), Trolltech’s new scripting toolkit for Qt-based
applications, will be available under a dual license on Mac OS X. More
information on QSA is available at www.trolltech.com/qsa.
Availability:
The GPL version of Qt/Mac will be made available for download from the
Trolltech website in connection with the WWDC 2003 (June 23rd-June 27th).
About Trolltech
Trolltech is a software company with two flagship products: Qt and Qtopia.
Qt is a multi-platform C++ application framework developers can use to
write single-source applications that run — natively — on Windows, Linux,
Unix, Mac OS X and embedded Linux. Qt has been used to build thousands of
successful commercial applications worldwide, and is the basis of the open
source KDE desktop environment. Qtopia is the first comprehensive
application environment built for embedded Linux, and is used in Sharp’s
new Zaurus SL5500 and SL-A300 PDAs. Trolltech is headquartered in Oslo,
Norway, with offices in Brisbane, Australia, and Palo Alto, California.
More about Trolltech can be found at www.trolltech.com.