QT support in Ubuntu by default

What do you guys think? Will it slow things down or up system requirements?

Inclusion of Qt in Ubuntu 11.10 is a win for developers
Inclusion of Qt in Ubuntu 11.10 is a win for developers
( Mark Shuttleworth Blog Archive Qt apps on Ubuntu)


In an announcement published today on his personal blog, Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth revealed that Nokia's Qt toolkit will be included as a standard component in future versions of Ubuntu. The move will pave the way for applications built with Qt to become a part of the popular Linux distribution.

Qt's numerous technical advantages, excellent cross-platform compatibility, and strong positioning in the mobile space are making it an attractive choice for third-party developers and commercial ISVs. Supporting Qt out-of-the-box on Ubuntu could help bring more software to the platform and will help to accelerate third-party application development. The move could be viewed as controversial, however—as a GNOME-based distribution, Ubuntu has historically been aligned with the competing Gtk+ toolkit.

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I don't see how it would do either.

 

Being the most widely used Linux distribution could spark innovation in Qt programs.

The biggest problem is Ubuntu is not big in giving back to the Linux community. So if something is developed in house based on Qt, there might not be much giving back to Linux in general.

 

Don't forget they promote the proliferation of hardware drivers for the rest of us, and many of their developers are also Debian developers.

The source code is available for anything they develop in house, also. So, the not giving back drumbeat is really shallow, imo.

 

Thats very true.

So much of the stuff the create it based on Ubuntu specific code though. Look at Unity, people on the Arch forums are playing around with building it, the problem is it is barely useful at all without parts of Ubuntu.

It is good they open source there products and make it available to all, BUT they mines well make it proprietary if it is based on so much of their own code that you have to pull in Ubuntu as a dependency.

 

I meant how would it slow things down/up requirements. Also, Ubuntu has tried. Upstream doesn't accept their stuff(notifications, indicators, tons more).

 

I like to see someone innovate....this cut and paste mentality get's a little old sometimes Heck, I might even use it if they come up with something cool or useful enough

 

I said in another forum bout a year ago that I was getting tired of the way the desktop looks. I would like see something that truly breaks the mold! Something that make me say wow when I see it.

Don't get me wrong, there is been a lot of good stuff happening to KDE and Gnome and even XFCE the last couple years, but the fact remains it is still based on a kicker to get things done which has been the story since Windows 95.

Something could come along that can take advantage of the hardware and even be lighter for general use. I imagine a desktop that can be so innovative that someone might just want to stare at it.

I have been using Linux so long I remember spending all night (even many nights) getting X to work. I even remember a world without X. But then, there was so much wanting to be like Windows to attract the Windows user that a lot of Linux is just a copy of Windows in some matters. Of course much of what goes into Windows is a copy of something else whether that is Mac or Linux.

Sure one could use something like any of the *box environments to overcome this and step away from the "norm" (as I am using now). As things go forward perhaps we will see a shift in thinking and developers will start realizing that we can break away a bit from the mold.

When I posted this on the other forum there was about a 50/50 split on those whom agreed/disagreed. But I think it is hard to make people truly understand breaking away from something they know to something better until they try, this would be the main reason that people don't flock to Linux, they know Windows to well (at least they may think they do or whatnot).

True innovation is hard when you cater to people who want the "old shoe".

 

It likely will not cause any slowdown or increase system requirements, and it will be a very good thing to developers (Qt is excellent for cross-platform development).

But we'll have to wait to see what comes out...

 

I posted an article regarding this on my blog gues, please check it out here.

I'd rather not retype the whole article

 

I thought we were not supposed to link to our own blogs.

PS: I frankly think that this rule is ridiculous, especially if the blog in question does not have adds. But, I recently had a post deleted for this reason.

PS2: Good post by the way.