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02 August 2012, 10:30

Nokia closes Australian Qt office

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Qt A message on the Qt development mailing list from one of the Nokia developers revealed that Nokia is closing down its Brisbane, Australia office where teams worked on Qt3D, QtDeclarative, QtMultimedia, QtSensors and QtSystems modules. The office is due to close at the end of August but the developers there will retain their positions within the Qt project. "Whether they choose to remain working on Qt is up to them" said the developer, Lorn Potter, noting that he is planning to continue to work on the project.

In the wake of this news, another former Nokia developer posted a message saying he had been informed by a "source I consider reliable" that the Nokia Senior VP in charge of Qt has "been given explicit direction to sell-off the Qt asset".

Qt 5.0 is due to be delivered this month and, in a major overhaul of the framework, will make QML and JavaScript the primary route for creating user interfaces in Qt; that release was delayed from June, reportedly to allow the framework to be more polished. During that time Nokia is believed to have ended work on a Linux-based platform for low cost handsets and also laid off many employees, some connected to Qt.

Nokia sold off its Qt commercial services in March 2011 to Digia, and made the project more independent in September 2011. Qt's open governance model may protect it from any immediate threat of collapse if Nokia withdraws completely, though many of the positions in the organisation are held by Nokia employees. The KDE community, a heavy user of Qt, has previously stated that it believes it has an agreement that will protect its interests.

(djwm)

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