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KDE GUI

Can Qt and KDE Applications be Ported to Win32 15

Posted by Cliff from the going-in-the-opposite-direction dept.
gatzke asks: "Can Qt and KDE applications be ported to Win32? I have had success using Cygwin32 to make and use some applications for NT (LyX). If I remember correctly, Qt originally prohibitted use on Win32 without paying big bucks. Now that Qt is GPL and KDE is "legal", can the Kapplications be ported over for those stuck in legacy environments? I tried out Koffice and was pretty impressed. If they add a couple more features, and I can switch from Powerpoint."
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Can Qt and KDE Applications be Ported to Win32 More

Can Qt and KDE Applications be Ported to Win32

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  • Porting GPL + Qt to Windows (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It would be a big effort, but there is nothing to stop anyone from taking the Linux GPL Qt and porting it to Win32. Having a GPL Win32 port of Qt might be a good thing, even if it were a half-assed port, since it might stimulate TrollTech to release the whole Qt under GPL.

    They could still make money licensing non-GPL Qt to people who wanted to write non-GPL applications. Some perspective here would be that however much one hates Bill G., the idea of spending over $1500 to license Qt is a bit absurd when you realize that this is several times what Windows + Visual C++ cost combined. If you're a student you can get Windows 2000 and Visual C++ for about $100 each, so $1500 for Qt seems a bit out of line.

  • When I asked the question, I knew about the Qt free for Unix and the Qt Commercial for windows.

    In my qeustion, I allude to use of Cygwin32 for compiling Unix apps. I was really just wondering if the Qt free version for Unix could be compiled using the Cygwin tools. If so, you could run Qt based apps in Windows as long as you use an X server on the windows box. This is a very different approach than using the Qt commercial version that interacts directly with the Windows window widget manager.

    I am pretty well read on this topic. I was just wondering if the Unix free version specifically prohibitted use on windows platforms (which it shouldn't if it were true GPL). I have not had time to try to compile Qt/KDE using Cygwin, but maybe I should do that rather than ask questions to /. and get flamed for being clueless.
  • Setting the license issue aside... has anyone actually built a QT application on Linux and then ported it to Win32 using the non-free QT library?

    "Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life."
  • or you can use the one [redhat.com] that already works...

  • How many posts/day? Less than one, for sure. I post maybe once a week, and seem to reliably get moderator status every few weeks. I do, however, read at least the front page of slashdot every day. So, I think reading has more to do with getting moderator status than posting.


    -Matthead

  • Okay.. So according to trolltechs website there are basically two versions: x11 and win32. win32 version is commercial only but x11 is available as both free and commercial depending on the use.

    From the website:
    Q. I want to use Qt to develop free software on Windows.

    A. Qt/Windows is only available as Professional/Enterprise Edition, not as Free Edition. Using an X client library for Windows and a Windows X server, it is possible to use the X11 version of Qt on Windows.

    Q. Is software based on the Qt Free Edition really free? Does it carry Trolltech license restrictions?

    A. Yes, it is really free. No, there are no special Trolltech license restrictions on free software produced using the Free Edition. In fact, the opposite is true: The Qt Free Edition licensing demands that the software must be free. The receivers must have the rights to obtain the source code, change it, and redistribute it.

    Slightly obscure and vague statements, but seems to imply that you could compile the free x11 version on windows and run it in an x-server..

    But your question was: Can Qt and KDE Applications be Ported to Win32? Nowhere did you mention that you meant to use an X11 version instead of native win32..

  • KDE is GPLed, QT is GPLed, assumng the applications in question are all GPLed as well, (and as you can see here [kde.org], KOffice in particular is GPLed for some parts and Artistic Licensed for others.) you should have no licensing problems. The GPL is very deliberately Free/Proprietary OS neutral, As Stallman considers OS restrictions to be no better than any other kind.



    --

  • Oops, my mistake. Their main page mentions the "QT Free Edition" as being GPLed, but I didn't browse deep enough to realize that the Free Edition is the Unix/X11 version.

    I guess the relevant question then is, "Is anyone working on porting QT Free Edition to Windows?".



    --

  • Yes. (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Excuse me for one second.

    /me takes a deep breath and counts to ten saying "the FSF are not evil people, they are not spreading lies about KDE and QT on purpose".

    Okay, I feel better know. To answer your question yes you are legally entitled to use Cygwin to port KDE Applications and QT to Windows.

    If you want to get picky about it then: GPL compatible KDE applications can be ported since QT and all the KDE libraries are under GPL compatible licenses (GPL, LGPL, MIT, or new BSD)

    GPL incompatible KDE applications (eg artistic licensed ones) can be ported since QT is QPLed (sorry I'm not going to explain that point fully, it's just to painful to go there)

    Actually as far as QT goes this is covered in the QT Free Edition faq on the TT website:

    http://www.trolltech.com/developer/faq/free.html

    > > I want to use Qt to develop free software on
    > > Windows.
    >
    > Qt/Windows is only available as
    > Professional/Enterprise Edition, not as Free
    > Edition. Using an X client library for Windows
    > and a Windows X server, it is possible to use
    > the X11 version of Qt on Windows.

    Remember that there are limitations on distribution of such applications. You are allowed to distribute such applications if they are free software.

    -AC
  • Qt is available for Windows, so ports should theoretically be little harder than a recompile (unless there's Unix-specific code in there; that will have to be rewritten, but the Qt code should not).

    However, Qt is a very different beast on Windows. In particular, the "Qt Free Edition" does not exist there; you have to pay licensing fees as if your app were commercial on Unix. That could complicate things considerably.
    ----------
  • Damn! I've misunderstood licensing again. This takes more patience than learning to program :(

    I thought if Qt was finally GPL-compatible and/or GPL'd directly, one could take the code and do nearly anything, including building Windows version.

    If this isn't true, I'm disappointed, because any good Free UI toolkit has got to be easily portable to Windows if we're ever going to Borg the Windows shareware people. A good free Delphi/VB like environment that's 1-CLick To Compile (patent pending) for both Linux and Windows/Mac would do LOTS to loosen Microsoft's stranglehold on development.

    Sure, GTK *compiles* on Windows... if you own Visual C++ and are adept and workarounds and hacking makefiles. GTK is not a viable development environment on Windows.

    wxWindows looks GREAT... but it hasn't caught on and no environment uses it by default (if Python endorsed it as a replacement for dead-ugly Tkinter that would be great).

    I might as well stick to MFC on Windows, and Tk on Linux. Not an ideal compromise...

  • I was really just wondering if the Qt free version for Unix could be compiled using the Cygwin tools. If so, you could run Qt based apps in Windows as long as you use an X server on the windows box.

    Here's your shareware X11 server [xtreme.it]. However, there is no free X server [xfree86.org] on Win32...

    ...yet. Care to port XFree86 to Win32+Cygwin using DirectX as the frame buffer?

  • or you can use the one that already works...

    According to the Cygwin/XFree86 FAQ [redhat.com], XFree86 4 "may not work at all on Windows 9x/Me due to 16-bit code in the win 9x GDI. ... If you are using Windows 95 or 98, break out your debugger and start working around the 16-bit code in GDI32.dll and kernel32.dll." Upgrading all users to NT is not an option; they might as well install Debian anyway.

  • Re:Sure, why not? (Score:3)

    by inburito ( 89603 ) on Friday October 27, 2000 @04:58PM (#669554)
    Not quite accurate.. QT is double licensed. Linux/Unix version(the free one, for free programs) is available as both QPL and GPL but windows version is COMMERCIAL! So if you want to run any of your programs in windows you have to get the commercial license.

    Basically QT is an interface to the windowing system and as such highly platform dependent so "porting" the free linux version would basically involve writing the whole thing from scratch.. not an option..

    All of the questions presented in this are available on trolltechs website in faq [trolltech.com]. Sometimes I wonder if people submitting questions even try to do their own research.. I mean how hard is it to point your web browser from slashdot [slashdot.org] to say Google [google.org] or www.trolltech.com [trolltech.com].

  • aside from the license issue... (Score:4)

    by josepha48 ( 13953 ) on Saturday October 28, 2000 @09:23AM (#669555) Journal
    If you ignore the license issues for a minute, I think maybe the real quesion is weather the code will port over to windows. Other have already pointed out the licens issues.

    So the answer is yes and no. KDE is not just applications. There is kde base, kde libs, kde support, which all have to be ported over to windows. This would include the kde window manager code which may or may not work under cygwin. From my understanding and use of cygwin I had problems just getting X to work withough crashing my machine.

    Further more the problem is that the way windows accesses devices and the way linux access devices is different. This means that you would have to modify significant portions of some of these libraries to port them over. In particular anything that deals with opening /dev/midi, or /dev/audio. I guess what I am saying is that porting over kde multimedia would probably be a chore. Once you have kdelibs, kde base and kde support ported over, assuimng that the application that you are porting over does not make any system calls you may be okay. I.E. kqps and kinfo would not work as they make use of Linux specific things.

    I don't want a lot, I just want it all!
    Flame away, I have a hose!

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