[Discuss] March Meeting Presentation

[John Blomfield]

Steven Kurylo wrote:
>> The remaining time will be spent on demonstrating the use of the IDE
>> KDevelop and Qt Designer, first on some simple programs and then
>> progressing to multi-file projects. Discussion will include C++, Qt and
>> STL libraries.
>>     
>
> Is QT Designer open source?  I can't tell from the trolltech page and
> I don't see it under downloads.  I've only done trival non-web GUI's
> in the past and I want start learning before my openmoko arrives.
>
> Thanks.
>   
The answer to this is Yes and No!  Qt Designer is available for use free 
use but I am not sure if the source code is available.  This is touching 
on the controversy around how open source is KDE (which is built on Qt) 
but its not something that bothers me greatly.  I don't have an in depth 
understanding of the issues (there is plenty of Internet discussion on 
it eg http://www.kde.org/whatiskde/qt.php) but basically you can obtain 
all the source for KDE and Qt libraries, modify it to your heart's 
content but you cannot sell it or any programs based on it without 
obtaining a commercial license from Tolltech, unless you also make your 
source code available free.  But since selling is not something I plan 
to do as I said it does not bother me.  Remember one of the strengths of 
Qt is that is a cross platform library and works with MS Visual C++ and 
Mac's.  This means you can write a program in Qt on any platform and 
compile it on any other platform.

If you download Qt from Trolltech then Qt-Designer is included in the 
package along with various other tools as executables and its all free.  
I have never tried to obtain Qt source code but I think is all included 
in compressed files because when you run KDevelop debug it will step you 
through the Qt source code as well as your own code.

John Blomfield