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I like the paradox in the press release:

Through the proposed acquisition, around 3500 desktop and embedded customer companies from various industries are targeted to be transferred to Digia.

and

Nokia will continue to invest in future development of Qt for the benefit of all users, both Commercial and LGPL.

Why do they sell it in the first place? If Nokia will continue to invest in future development, it will be a direct benefit of Digia not really Nokia...



Why did they sell?

Because the licensing/support business is way outside of their area of expertise, and they were almost guaranteed to screw it up.

Why would they continue to invest?

For the same reason anybody invests in open source. Even with the big Windows shift, QT is still a part of their success moving forward. Without investing in QT, that part of their success would be controlled by a third party (or even worse, nobody).

Do I necessarily buy the above 2 statements? Not necessarily. Actions speak louder than words, but this action might not say much. How many QT developers they lay off is the action that means something. Currently, they're still hiring, so...


Not sure if I understand your second statement. I had thought Nokia had stated at some point that QT wasn't being ported to WP7.


Yes, but they're still selling Symbian phones, and still developing Meego for "research purposes".


I guess that means Nokia is just doing lip service with statements like that, gradually laying off Qt/Meego/Linux workforce meanwhile. Money talks, bullshit walks.




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