Linux Nokia Qt LGPL switch huge win for cross-platform development

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Nokia has announced plans to make the open source Qt toolkit available under GNU's Lesser General Public License (LGPL), alongside the existing GPL and commercial licensing options. This change could significantly boost Qt adoption, redefine the economics of cross-platform programming, and dramatically reshape the landscape of commercial application development on the Linux desktop.

Nokia's decision to adopt the LGPL for Qt will eliminate the cost barrier, making it possible for developers to freely use Qt for proprietary application development. This in turn will significantly expand the number of developers who are using the toolkit and will also attract involvement from companies that find the permissiveness of the LGPL appealing. The impact of these changes could be enormous.

Qt is a powerful toolkit with a lot of rich functionality. Applications written in Qt are fully cross-platform and need only be recompiled to run on any supported platform. Qt has a sophisticated theming system that allows it to use native widgets and adhere to native platform conventions without requiring significant platform-specific modifications to code. This means that it can deliver a level of visual and functional platform integration that is superior to most other cross-platform toolkits.

Cross-platform development is becoming increasingly important as desktop alternatives to the Windows juggernaut have become more attractive and popular. The cost of building native cross-platform applications has, however, has traditionally been prohibitively expensive because it has generally meant maintaining multiple, parallel code bases.

The ability to use Qt at no cost for proprietary commercial development completely changes the economics of cross-platform development and will finally make it an easy and affordable option. This could boost the amount of software that is available for Linux and Mac OS X. Qt is already used by several prominent cross-platform proprietary applications, including Google Earth, Skype, Opera, and Adobe Photoshop Album. It's easy to imagine the companies behind that software adopting Qt more pervasively in the future and it will also likely be used by other companies that are looking to get a lucrative chunk of the alternative platform pie.
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Source : Nokia to Add LGPL to Qt Licensing Model — Qt Software - Code Less. Create More. Deploy Everywhere. |Nokia Qt LGPL switch huge win for cross-platform development
 
Now ,Gnome can make a fork of Qt-4.5 removing current GTK+ it uses for Gnome-3.0(if any).I will prefer that :D
 
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