Why is Qtopia much faster?

[Lorn Potter]

Carsten Haitzler (The Rasterman) wrote:
> On Wed, 23 Jul 2008 07:36:06 +1000 Lorn Potter <lpotter at trolltech.com> babbled:
> 
>>> i guess i just don't lik the idea of a thin vertical stack where at each
>>> layer 1 choice has been made for me and i'm stuck with it, like it or not,
>>> or i move to a whole different stack. eg - must use qt, or must use gtk, or
>>> must use efl. allow the choice to be made at the latest stage - not the
>>> earliest. i prefer the idea of an ecosystem where all these toolkits and
>>> mechanisms get along and co-habitate. jungle vs ivory tower guess... i'm a
>>> jungle kinda guy! :) anyone want a banana? :)
>> I guess you have to define your target audience. The small niche linux hacker
>> group or the larger general phone community that requires a consistent look
>> and feel. Perhaps a good read of the Human Interface Design Principles at
>> apple might do some good.
> 
> in that case, maybe we should all have given up - trolltech included, and
> simply have used windows and visual studio - so we have a consistent os,
> programming environment, ui toolkit etc. why should there be any variety or
> choice - i mean... qt is a waste of time competing because it's different to
> everything else.
> 
> variety is a fact of life. UNLIKE other platforms we get the chance to support
> all of the variety - at once easily. other platforms force you into their idea
> of toolkit, like it or no. at least i dont have to reboot just to run another
> app using another toolkit...
> 
>>> sure, but any non-qt app.. will be a behemoth to port. you either:
>> just as any non-<toolkit-of-the-day>
>> Like porting a qtopia app to gpe. or a windows app to linux. are you going to
>> include win32 or S60 port because they have _way_ more applications written
>> for them.
> 
> and so from that point of view - qtopia would be a loser as it has many fewer
> apps written for it than general X11. :)

No, because it is easy to make a Qt app into a Qtopia app.
two or three line change in the best case (QApplication -> QtopiaApplication and for the menu)

> 
>>> 1. do a whole port of the app to qt/qtopia (work work work!)
>>>   (not to mention now that this basically means you pay nokia a license fee,
>>> or your app must be GPL, can't be mit-x11, bsd, APL, MPL etc.).
>> You want to charge people money for your commercial app? so why is it bad for
>> Trolltech ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Nokia to do the same?
>> GPL ensures that the code and software remains free. Besides, the Neo is
>> touted as a "Free your phone" phone. Why would you want to install non free
>> apps on it? I could just as easily use any Nokia phone in existence.
> 
> i never mentioned commercial apps nor money. 

Yes you did. "pay for a license' implies both money and you needing a commercial license, which 
implies you intend on producing closed source applications.

> your idea of open is not mine - or
> the next person along's. i prefer the open of mit-x11/bsd, not GPL. all are
> free, open and cost $0, but GPL places more restrictions.
> 
>> Actually you are free to license the code you write in any way you want. It
>> just has to be compatible with the license you link it to. No one is stopping
>> you from writing your code in multiple licenses anyway.
> 
> if i want to write a library and license it with a less restrictive, yet still
> open license, it BECOMES GPL - for all purposes GPL will virally impose itself.
> this is not the case if i use gtk, sdl, efl etc., but is the case with qt. it
> then would be my choice, as a developer of open, and free software, to choose a
> toolkit that doesn't limit my own freedom to license as i please. remember i
> never talked about charging for software or it being closed. :)

So, instead you choose to limit the freedom of your users, which include other developers.

btw, kde libs are licensed LGPL.



-- 
Lorn 'ljp' Potter
Software Engineer, Systems Group, Trolltech, a Nokia company