Which ROM supports Qtopia 1.7

[Mickeyl]

Has Sharp made custom modifications to 1.5.4

Yes. And all of them closed source. So much for an open source based linux system...  

[amrein]

The big Trolltech mistake: to sell Qtopia source code.

Every other competitor doesn\'t sell their OS but sell one licence by device (Palm, Pocket PC, Symbian, ...). I\'m not a master in this area but I still definitively think that Trolltech should too. Sharp cash was too tempting, wasn\'t it? You should burn the one that sign this contract without thinking about the future (even if it was for TT survival).

Sorry lpotter for having flamed you. I can understand (now with little thinking) that there\'s not commercial interest in supporting a device with no return on investment. You are not a saint but someone wanting to live and pay everyday invoices (building software and selling them).
Sharp certainly doesn\'t want to spend anything on improving Qtopia even if they bought it (again investment income versus expense). As long as Japan users will buy it like this, they won\'t change anything. Why should they (as DrWowe said)?
Add to this that Trolltech had financial difficulties... and the list of present problems is near to be complete (I don\'t want to talk about Opie, X11, commercial versus GPL licence...).

Today is 9 may. Tomorrow, Trolltech boss should speak about incoming Qtopia/QT/QTE version. If we have chance, we will hear Trolltech strategy: how they will get out of this deadlock and start a new story about linux on PDA.

[lpotter]

TT is a business first and formost, and is by far NOT having financial difficulties. TT has been expanding, in fact. TT sells Qtopia because, well, we are a business, and are in business to make money. There is no deadlock. If TT did not sell Qtopia, there would be no Qtopia, there definately would be no Qtopia Phone.
Sharp has improved their Qtopia. The Qtopia on the sl-6000 is a far cry from the Qtopia that came on my 5000d (didnt even have a release numebr - pre 1.02).

[amrein]

TT is a business first and formost, and is by far NOT having financial difficulties.

Search for break-even in this interview:

http://dot.kde.org/1081772638/

I have noticed that you used the \'present\' in \'is NOT having\'.

TT has been expanding, in fact.

I prefer this one.

TT sells Qtopia because, well, we are a business, and are in business to make money. There is no deadlock. If TT did not sell Qtopia, there would be no Qtopia, there definately would be no Qtopia Phone.

The deadlock is between all companies involved arround Qtopia and the way you deal with Qtopia source.
Sorry but I definitively think that Qtopia shouldn\'t be sold but its licence should be sold. If you still don\'t understand the difference than ask. Selling Qtopia is a deadlock. Not having a standard shared between all Linux PDA platform is a deadlock. Thinking that your Phone business will grow with this kind of strategy is a deadlock. You are closing your own business.

Sharp has improved their Qtopia. The Qtopia on the sl-6000 is a far cry from the Qtopia that came on my 5000d (didnt even have a release numebr - pre 1.02).

So what? You still think that to sell XXX licence of Qtopia and to be the root of future Qtopia/Qtopia phone developpement is less interesting than selling Qtopia? Does Trolltech frightens to become popular? Perhaps there\'s less money to grab but all draw I make doesn\'t say that. As I said, I\'m not a guru in financial area.

Good luck. I will be happy to see your success with this strategy.

And here is what TT had said about incoming QT4:

http://dot.kde.org/1061880936/

Still wainting for \'may 10\' speech.

Something to add to my previous message: I forgot to speak about Sharp main desire. I don\'t know if they want to to sell a lot of Zaurus in EU and US or if they want instead to be the root of PDA/Cell phone/Laptop/Embedded device. The Zaurus is perhaps just a demo, just enough to show what they can do and to pay their expense (for building the demo).

http://sharp-world.com/products/device/sol...tion/index.html

I stop the paranoia here. Make your mind.

[DrWowe]

TT is a business first and formost, and is by far NOT having financial difficulties.

Search for break-even in this interview:

http://dot.kde.org/1081772638/

The interview says NOTHING about having financial difficulties.  He said they were cash flow negative for a while because they were making a lot of investments.  So what, that\'s true of every startup.  You have to spend money to make money.

[amrein]

Please, just remember that TT has no financial difficulties. This is the only interesting point in what I wrote, doesn\'t it?
You should play chess more.

[lpotter]

The deadlock is between all companies involved arround Qtopia and the way you deal with Qtopia source.
Sorry but I definitively think that Qtopia shouldn\'t be sold but its licence should be sold. If you still don\'t understand the difference than ask. Selling Qtopia is a deadlock. Not having a standard shared between all Linux PDA platform is a deadlock. Thinking that your Phone business will grow with this kind of strategy is a deadlock. You are closing your own business.

Trolltech gives away source code. What more do you want?

So what? You still think that to sell XXX licence of Qtopia and to be the root of future Qtopia/Qtopia phone developpement is less interesting than selling Qtopia? Does Trolltech frightens to become popular? Perhaps there\'s less money to grab but all draw I make doesn\'t say that. As I said, I\'m not a guru in financial area.

Good luck. I will be happy to see your success with this strategy.

If you can dream up some way that a software development company can make money and grow without selling software, please let us know.

Something to add to my previous message: I forgot to speak about Sharp main desire. I don\'t know if they want to to sell a lot of Zaurus in EU and US or if they want instead to be the root of PDA/Cell phone/Laptop/Embedded device. The Zaurus is perhaps just a demo, just enough to show what they can do and to pay their expense (for building the demo).

Sharp Zaurus is the most popular PDA in Japan.


I really don\'t understand what your grievance is about.

[amrein]

:[

Trolltech gives away source code. What more do you want?

Trolltech have the more complete and more powerfull grapchical toolkit for Linux. I like Qt and there\'s no problem about this. I will try to explain where I see problems for Qtopia.

Qtopia is sold to manufacturer so:
-] Several manufacturer build there own Qtopia version. Main applications data are not compatible or closed source (see Sharp and its closed source PIM database).
-] No package compatibility between Linux Qtopia device even if they use Linux/Qtopia on the same processor.
-] Even the package format is not compatible (iPaq uses rar, Zaurus uses gzip.. and there\'re several version out there). No one knows who should manage ipkg (in fact we know who and we have seen what they have done with it).
-] No easy way to build software package. OE the \"revolutionary build system\" is easy for a few people, mainly the OE authors.
-] No standard SDK with complete RAD tools. If a manufacturer try to build one, other competitors will be able to use it. Manufacturers are not working for competitor well-being.
-] No source release for Qtopia improvement. If a manufacturer release one using GPL, other competitor will be able to use it too. Again manufacturers are not working for competitor well-being.
-] Developpers don\'t know if they should ask Trolltech or ask Sharp or ask... for software construction support. Where is Qtopia 1.5.4, where is SDL library source and where... ?
-] Developpers have to deal with those different environnements and have to build as many packages. They are using Qt but need to know what to do for X or Y (although it is Linux/Qtopia).
_ It\'s not the wall Qtopia PDA/Phone that will enjoy from a new Qtopia improvement. It\'s not Qtopia 2.0 for PDA/Phone but \"hey guys, want something new? Buy something else!\". As soon as you build a Qtopia Trolltech product, it\'s obsolete and will never upgrade (why a manufactuer would like to buy a full upgrade to something completely incompatible as it has no income).
... etc... etc...

Today, 60% of QT curstomers come from Windows and it is only recently that Linux takes this 3x%. When you think that 90% of the developers base are working on Windows, I can\'t understand why they are neglect. (I\'m not sure about the 90% but as it is the percentage of Windows user... I used a short cut).

Code: [Select]

If you can dream up some way that a software development company can make money and grow without selling software, please let us know.

My god, where do you read this in my post? Please tell me.
The open source community has no problem about making money. So am I. We all have to live.

Sharp Zaurus is the most popular PDA in Japan.
I really don\'t understand what your grievance is about.

So here is the other way I\'m trying to explain.
How do other like MS Symbian or Palm make their business:

_ They are always the root of their Graphical environnement
_ They sell license to manufacturer and the source code is available.
_ Their teams are pay to build anything that a manufacturer would like to see specifically build for their device (because it\'s more expensive to train developpers and to...)
_ They build their own complete OS distribution and support it.
_ They have their own and well managed package format standard.
_ They sell upgrade to manufacturer
_ Tools and knowledge base for developper are centralised on their web site.
_ More than Tools, they have easy RAD tools (impossible to compare them to qtDesigner nor to Kdevelop but perhaps to Gambas) with high valuable and easy to use debugger, package automatic creation and easy management...

And everyone know that they are the ROOT of their business. When someone asks, he asks for Pocket PC for PalmOS or for SymbianOS (or.. for Linux). If Qtopia is succeful, we will soon hear people talking about \"Qtopia device\" in EU/US too. If not, it will be the begin of a war between Qtopia and X11 environnement like it is between Opie and GPE.

[lpotter]

Trolltech have the more complete and more powerfull grapchical toolkit for Linux. I like Qt and there\'s no problem about this. I will try to explain where I see problems for Qtopia.

Qtopia is sold to manufacturer so:
-] Several manufacturer build there own Qtopia version. Main applications data are not compatible or closed source (see Sharp and its closed source PIM database).

the \'Several\' you mention is one, Sharp. They released their DTM API.

-] No package compatibility between Linux Qtopia device even if they use Linux/Qtopia on the same processor.
-] Even the package format is not compatible (iPaq uses rar, Zaurus uses gzip.. and there\'re several version out there). No one knows who should manage ipkg (in fact we know who and we have seen what they have done with it).

huh?  the new version of ipkg uses ar and can create backwards compatible packages, and still knows how to deal with old packages. Anyone is free to update the ipkg on their Sharp Zaurus.

-] No easy way to build software package. OE the \"revolutionary build system\" is easy for a few people, mainly the OE authors.

Not many people are going to be creating distributions. it\'s not that difficult to type ipkg-build on a single package

-] No standard SDK with complete RAD tools. If a manufacturer try to build one, other competitors will be able to use it. Manufacturers are not working for competitor well-being.

http://www.metrowerks.com/MW/Develop/Embed.../ARM/Zaurus.htm

-] No source release for Qtopia improvement. If a manufacturer release one using GPL, other competitor will be able to use it too. Again manufacturers are not working for competitor well-being.

huh? TT releases code under the GPL.
ftp://ftp.trolltech.com/
patches welcome, provided you follow TT\'s guidelines.
Look at Opie. Do you see that from the other side? (Symbian, etc)

-] Developpers don\'t know if they should ask Trolltech or ask Sharp or ask... for software construction support. Where is Qtopia 1.5.4, where is SDL library source and where... ?

Qtopia 1.5 was released two years ago. Sharp is under no obligation to released their Qtopia source tree. As for any other libraries, and source code they may use, talk to Sharp about that, Trolltech can not control what it\'s customers do with someone else\'s source code.

-] Developpers have to deal with those different environnements and have to build as many packages. They are using Qt but need to know what to do for X or Y (although it is Linux/Qtopia).

What different environments? I can easily create applications that run on all versions of Sharp Zaurus, as well as Opie.

_ It\'s not the wall Qtopia PDA/Phone that will enjoy from a new Qtopia improvement. It\'s not Qtopia 2.0 for PDA/Phone but \"hey guys, want something new? Buy something else!\". As soon as you build a Qtopia Trolltech product, it\'s obsolete and will never upgrade (why a manufactuer would like to buy a full upgrade to something completely incompatible as it has no income).
... etc... etc...

Stop spreading FUD that this is completely incompatible. It\'s not. and so what if it is, thats why we up\'d the major version number.

Today, 60% of QT curstomers come from Windows and it is only recently that Linux takes this 3x%. When you think that 90% of the developers base are working on Windows, I can\'t understand why they are neglect. (I\'m not sure about the 90% but as it is the percentage of Windows user... I used a short cut).

See above RAD IDE for Zaurus on Windows. It\'s great!

So here is the other way I\'m trying to explain.
How do other like MS Symbian or Palm make their business:

_ They are always the root of their Graphical environnement
_ They sell license to manufacturer and the source code is available.
_ Their teams are pay to build anything that a manufacturer would like to see specifically build for their device (because it\'s more expensive to train developpers and to...)
_ They build their own complete OS distribution and support it.
_ They have their own and well managed package format standard.
_ They sell upgrade to manufacturer
_ Tools and knowledge base for developper are centralised on their web site.
_ More than Tools, they have easy RAD tools (impossible to compare them to qtDesigner nor to Kdevelop but perhaps to Gambas) with high valuable and easy to use debugger, package automatic creation and easy management...

And your point is....? I dont see how TT is any different, except TT\'s customers get source code.

And everyone know that they are the ROOT of their business. When someone asks, he asks for Pocket PC for PalmOS or for SymbianOS (or.. for Linux). If Qtopia is succeful, we will soon hear people talking about \"Qtopia device\" in EU/US too. If not, it will be the begin of a war between Qtopia and X11 environnement like it is between Opie and GPE.

War? What war?
http://www.embeddedstar.com/press/content/...edded14274.html
Qtopia IS successful.