That option hasn't changed. But for those companies who are happy releasing software under the terms of the LGPL, but not the GPL -- which, for instance, would almost certainly have included Empeg when initially considering writing Emplode -- there's now an alternative option.

This announcement by Nokia/Trolltech basically means that WxWindows is dead, GNOME is dying, and Win32 itself has gone to see its doctor about a persistent cough. Unless you're developing a Windows application that there couldn't, even in theory, be a Mac version of (maybe it's domain-related or something) -- or a Mac application that there couldn't, even in theory, be a Windows version of -- then Qt has got to be at the top of your list of frameworks to consider writing for.

Although they probably do need, once Qt 4.5 comes out, to get rid of the thing that says that people using Qt under the commercial licence, can't use code that was written against any of the open-source licences. The effect of that stipulation, is that if I write some code against Qt and release it into the public domain, then people writing either PD, BSD, or commercial software can use it if they remove the Qt dependencies, and people writing GPL or LGPL software can use it with their licensed Qt -- the only people in the world who can't use it are people with commercial Qt licences. That would seem a bit nutty.

Peter