[转载]KDE: Rely on Qt, protect Qt's freedom, contribute to it [复制链接]

转载自: http://dot.kde.org/2012/07/09/kde-rely-qt-protect-qts-freedom-contribute-it


The KDE community is one of the largest and most influential FreeSoftware communities world-wide with thousands of volunteer contributorsand countless users. Most of the software written by KDE is based onthe Qt toolkit. With the recent strategy changes within Nokia—thelargest contributor to Qt, there is uncertainty about the future of Qtthat concerns KDE. This is the position of the KDE community regardingthe future of Qt:

• KDE will continue to rely on Qt and cooperate with the Qt copyright owners and contributors.
• Using the strong ties between both communities and existing formal agreements, KDE will protect the freedom of Qt and KDE where necessary.
• Continuing the KDE Frameworks 5 development process that has already begun, KDE will help improve Qt and contribute to it.

Building on top of Qt


KDE software is built using Qt, and will continue to be so. Qt is thebest UI development toolkit available, and its quality and continuousinnovation have helped tremendously in making KDE successful. The KDEcommunity has an interest in Qt continuing to innovate and striving toget better. KDE's interest is mainly with the Free Software version ofQt, which we see centered around the Qt Project under Open Governance.We encourage commercial contributions to Qt, although KDE will remainneutral with the commercial Qt partner ecosystem.

Protecting Qt and KDE


With the interdependence between the Qt and KDE communities comerisks to the future of the both products. Since Qt is licensed under theGPL and the LGPL, and the Qt Project is under Open Governance, weconsider the Free Software version of Qt to be safe for the future. Thebiggest threat to the future of Qt is fragmentation due to forking.Another risk, a growing difference between the Free Software andcommercial versions, has already been anticipated and addressed inexisting formal agreements between KDE and Nokia. KDE will work activelyto make sure that the Free Software and commercial versions of Qtremain identical and continue innovating, by this reducing the incentiveto fork.
Under the terms of the KDE Free Qt Foundation,an agreement between Nokia and KDE, Nokia is obliged to continue thedevelopment of Qt and to release it as Free Software. This obligationwill pass on to another entity should Nokia decide to discontinue its Qtactivities and sell its assets. If the agreement of the KDE Free QtFoundation is not fullfilled, KDE will receive the last released versionof Qt under the BSD license. KDE has a firm position that the terms ofthe KDE Free Qt Foundation are binding.

Contributing to and extending Qt


As part of the ongoing development of a future KDE Frameworks 5, manymodules of kdelibs are being re-written to be complementary extensionsof modules existing in Qt. The technical gap between the two projectswill be closing, and users of Qt will often be users of KDE Frameworksas well, and vice versa. Many KDE contributors also work on Qtdevelopment. Many of the Qt contributors, maintainers and approvers arealso active within KDE. KDE plans to continue and increase itscontributions to Qt, and to keep a close relationship between theprojects. For this effort to be continuous and stable in the long term,KDE favors further opening up development of Qt and enabling even morecollaboration and cooperation between commercial and volunteer Qtcontributors.

Summary


Qt and KDE share many common interests, and to a large part depend oneach other. The KDE community will work to ensure a bright future forQt and KDE, and extends an open hand to Nokia to collaborate on that.

Qt的未来有保证，因为有KDE！