Trolltech's success with dual licensing 12 Years Of Symbiosis

Transcription

1 Trolltech's success with dual licensing 12 Years Of Symbiosis Eirik Aavitsland Nokia, formerly Trolltech

2 Agenda About Trolltech About KDE Symbiosis with Open Source Dual licensing Open Source after acquisition by Nokia

3 About Trolltech

4 Trolltech A unique 14 years of success Founded in Oslo, Norway in 1994 Publicly listed on OSE (ticker: TROLL) 250 employees worldwide customers 217 mill. NOK in 2007, up 25% from 2006 Hundreds of thousand open source developers Acquired by Nokia

5 Trolltech Building better software Focus: developer tools and mobile platforms Provide building blocks for advanced software Users: Deploy advanced applications everywhere

6 Idea about Qt A park bench in Trondheim 1991 We need an object oriented GUI library The cross-platform GUI libraries out there suck

7 Trolltech Products Qt: Same API across desktop and embedded/mobile operating systems Rapid Delivery & Broad Reach Desktops Devices Qtopia Platform Tools Qt Framework Qt OS Abstraction Layer Broad OS Support Trolltech Released Linux Windows Macintosh Trolltech On roadmap X11 HP-UX Solaris AIX Free BSD Trolltech Under consideration BREW VxWorks WindRiver Linux Linux Embedded WindowsCE Symbian 3rd Party Commercial Trolltech or 3rd Party 3rd Party Open Source 3rd Party Commercial or Open Source

8 Qt Used in mainstream products Adobe Photoshop Elements Skype Google Earth

9 Cross mobile with Qt Greenphone Motorola MING Qt WinCE Programming with Qt on Linux and WinCE... and Symbian 9

10 How did we get here? About KDE Back in the days...

11 Typical Linux desktop in 1996

12 State-of-the-art UI Widget

13 To make a desktop alternative to these guys system...

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15 ... Matthias Ettrich proposed to use a development tool from these guys

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17 Kool Desktop Environment Matthias Ettrich s Vision A window system for end users (not X11 or Motif) Browse the web Write Play games A desktop for my girlfriend...

18 KDE 4 newly released Building better software with Qt

19 Trolltech Symbiosis with Open Source

20 Why closed source? Closed source = Binary only distribution Sound business reasons 1: Usage without payment = lost sales Unlicensed use (cheating) Piracy 2: Helping competition = bad for business Copying (stealing) Learning Both code (algorithms) and data formats

21 Benefits of Open Source Qt Spreading the word Invaluable marketing effect Programmers depend mostly on word-of-mouth... and what they have tried themselves To know it is to love it The most scarce resource: Good developers Open source dev's = students Selfqualifying for... Trolltech... Trolltech's customers

22 Trolltech s Business Model Virtuous Cycle

23 Dual Licensing How to mix oil and water

24 Dual Licensing : The idea Basic idea: Quid pro quo If our stuff helps you make money: You give us a fair share of it! If not: you don't! making money? Not easily formalized in a license Doesn't play well with Open Source definition Approximation: If you use our stuff in closed source sw: You pay If not: you don't! Almost all money-making SW is closed or internal

25 Dual licensing: Implementation Same SW two products Qt Commercial Edition Standard commercial license Per developer seat Per shipped device (run-time fee) Qt Open Source Edition Open Source license (GPL) Copyleft (contagious)

26 TT's Open Source licensing history Qt Free License Disallowed modifications to Qt itself Q Public License (QPL) Accepted as true Open Source license by OSI But still some restrictions to Qt modifications GPL True copyleft Why? Pressure: From community (KDE) Resistance: Internal To avoid of community fork

27 Community objections Not free as in beer Response: What do you care? Insignificant cost for commercial development What if Trolltech goes broke / goes evil? Response: The KDE Free Qt Foundation Legally binding contract KDE-Trolltech If Trolltech changes licensing policy then Qt Open Source Edition goes public domain Nonetheless: A main reason for GTK and GNOME success

28 Open Source licensing history II First: Qt for Unix/Linux only Then: Qt for Mac also Finally: Qt for Windows also Why? To lessen cheating

29 Cheating Yup rampant! But: less impact on sales Unserious companies Low-cost geographies Partly made up for by marketing effect The first dose is free Programmers switch jobs

30 Cheating II : No choice anyway Can't have your cake and eat it too Scenarios: Closed source low spread little business Open source high spread fair business and much cheating Closed source AND good business? Requires huge upfront investment!

31 O.S. Licenses for dual licensing? Lessons learned Must be copy-left i.e. Contagious: applies to derivative works Application = derivative work of its libraries Principle established by GNU Linking means derivation... even if done at run-time (DLL), w/o distribution So: Copyleft suitable for dual licensing For a library product Wouldn't work for an end-user product!

32 Dual licensing: It works % Revenues (NOK million) % % : 218 Mill NOK

33 Open Source after acquisition by Nokia

34 Going Full Open Source! LGPL licensing Free for closed source/commercial use Different business model Public repository Open version control system Contributions welcome Public Roadmap Public Bug Tracking System

35 Q&A