January 29, 2008

Nokia buys Trolltech: something to worry about?

You probably know by now: Nokia is buying Trolltech [1]. I didn't talk about this yesterday, besides releasing a "crap" shout as I read the news for the first time. I read a lot, specially from folks from Nokia, Trolltech and KDE. I'm somewhat confident that this might not be as bad as it first seemed. Still, I have two major issues with this aquisition:

  • Nokia actively lobbies in favour of Software Patents. This might not be an issue for now, but a culture clash might happen soon. Gladfully, QT is licensed with GPLv3, but yet, this can be a showstopper for both FreeQT and KDE.
  • Nokia have a no Ogg, pro DRM position regarding HTML5. If they somewhat forces this to Trolltech (instead of doing the right thing, supporting Ogg, rejecting DRM), once again this can be a showstopper.

What this really means, in fact, is that this two issues concern me and a lot of others - and that they should be answered before this aquisition ends... or else there's some uneasyness Trolltech and Nokia will have to deal with.

[1] - http://www.nokia.com/A4136001?newsid=1185531

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