[PyKDE] PyQwt win32 binary?

[Scott Prive]

Phil Thompson wrote:

> Scott Prive wrote:
> >
> > Phil Thompson wrote:

> [snip..]

>
> Be fair - if somebody said (not that they have) "people won't license
> our Qt development tools if you provide one for free" then I would
> sympathise with them completely. It is in nobody's interest to put
> Trolltech out of business (least of all mine). What Trolltech have done
> is to help us considerably lower the entry cost of Qt development. They
> are taking a risk and I applaud them for doing so. They will lose some
> revenue because some businesses are going to choose to develop in Python
> rather than C++ purely because the software purchase costs are less (a
> really stupid reason if you ask me). But (hopefully) they will gain much
> more than they lose because Qt development is now within the reach of
> millions of home and business users.

Mmm.. I see and partially agree with your points. I am sympathetic to Troll Tech's
balancing act, but at the same time "almost free" solutions usually siphon off the
demand for "truly free" offerings. I don't think even a Tk partisan would defend that
toolkit on the grounds of simple elegance, usability, or asthetics (more like
crossplatform, abundance of code, and more free).

I still maintain Troll Tech is only hurting themselves, and Qt, by insisting you can
write free software for UNIX but not for Windows. This runs counter to Qt's strong
crossplatform abilities. I feel these restrictions limit the number of people who go
from "dabbling" in Qt to really learning it in and out. Qt programmers are few and far
between, and that alone was the reason I saw an UNIX & NT application go the way of
MFC + portability libraries, when the developers wanted to use Qt. Qt is considered
too "niche" and talent is scarce compared to MFC. Allowing GPL'd Qt development on
Windows wouldn't necessarily change all this, but it might belp (especially since more
people would adopt it). Windows has lots of "freeware" users, even if they haven't
been properly introduced to the GPL & BSD licenses. Troll Tech is tying its fortunes
to widespread adoption of Linux development (and full commercial licenses), when the
likely reality is most initial applications will be ported using WINE or one of the
commercial porting kits like Bristol.


>
> > This last paragraph is not so much a question, but a rant.   I think a lot of
> > people want to write Linux software, but at the same time offer it for Windows
> > (even though Windows users don't deserve it. heh :)
>
> Give your application away on Linux and charge Windows user's for it
> (not much) as they expect to pay for software anyway.

True but that won't change if they aren't exposed to free software. I was telling my
stepfather about Linux (he uses Windows), and the comment I got was "how do you
MAKE people write software for free? Someone has to pay for it". It's a popular
misconception in the Windows space. What keeps a lot of people tied to Windows is not
IE or Office, but all these dinky Visual Basic applications they enounter (yes most
are shareware... forget free or commercial for the sake of arguement).

Does the Personal license for Black Adder allow one to distribute "free
software" (even for Windows)? I just want to make little apps to catalog cheese,
insults, or a Hungarian Phrasebook. Most people I know still run Windows, but would
appreciate these type of apps.

-Scott
My hovercraft is full of eels...