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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.

Historical background

Applications for the Linux desktop have historically been developed with either Gtk+ or Qt, the two dominant open source widget toolkits. Qt was originally created by Trolltech, a commercial software vendor that offered the toolkit under a dual-licensing model. Linux distributors and major commercial vendors in the Linux ecosystem largely standardized around Gtk+ during the early days of the Linux desktop because its permissive licensing made it a less expensive choice for proprietary software vendors.

Although Gtk+ has many fine characteristics and has been used to develop a compelling body of sophisticated applications, it hasn’t advanced as quickly as Qt and lags far behind on features and portability. After struggling for several years with the limitations of Gtk+, Nokia acquired Trolltech in 2008 with the aim of adopting Qt as the standard unifying development toolkit across its Symbian and Linux-based mobile platforms.

Nokia relicensed Qt under the LGPL in 2009, eliminating the commercial licensing barrier that had previously impeded broader adoption of the toolkit. In our coverage of the Qt licensing change, we predicted that the move could deflate ISV support for the GNOME ecosystem and lead to a shift towards Qt on the Linux desktop.

Indeed, Canonical’s decision to include Qt in the default Ubuntu installation is an acknowledgement of the growing enthusiasm for the toolkit among third-party developers. Companies that already use Qt for cross-platform development include Google, Amazon, Skype, Adobe, and Angry Birds developer Rovio.

More info at:

http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2011/01/inclusion-of-qt-in-ubuntu-1110-is-a-win-for-developers.ars