QT S60 roadmap and ovi store

[ofauchon]

Hi....

I spent much time porting an application to QT S60, and I'm happy with the result.

I'd like to know:

- What is the roadmap for QTS60 1st stable release ? Already planned ?

- When will qt libs be bundled with firmwares ?

- Can I already propose my QT apps on OVI store.


Thanks

--
Olivier Fauchon
http://www.oflabs.com

[Sorcery-ltd]

Hi,

What is the roadmap for QTS60 1st stable release ? Already planned ?

From what I've read in public, I'm currently expecting the first official/stable release of Qt for S60 to be part of the main Qt 4.6 release, which I beleive is scheduled for November.

When will qt libs be bundled with firmwares ?

Nokia may choose to answer for their own plans but this is still a subject of debate in the Symbian Foundation for when Qt libs will be a mandatory part of firmware. The current proposal is for Symbian^4, although this creates a big break, so some of us would like them in Sybmian^3 to ease the transition (and get them as early as possible). This still means summer next year or early 2011 in devices though.

Of course, with the Qt libs being LGPL, any OEM can choose to include them in device firmware any time after they're up to sufficient quality.

Can I already propose my QT apps on OVI store

I don't believe there's anything in the licensing to stop you, but needing to include the Qt libs makes a big download and from what I've seen of bug reports on the libraries across different devices, you may well get the application rejected on quality/stability grounds. Better to wait for an offcial release IMO.

Hope that helps,
Mark

[axeljaeger]

See qt roadmap here: http://www.qtsoftware.com/developer/qt-roadmap

[stegemann]

Hi all!

I tried to look at the roadmap but was not able to figure out when the libs will be an part of the device?

Regards!

/Mats

[Jack Torrance]

Hi,
for political reasons I can't open any exact dates or even months when the Qt libraries will be integrated to devices but let's just say that they will be in the "following releases of new Symbian edition".

About the Ovi store and generally distributing the Qt libraries:

We are working on a distribution solution for S60 that would be offered for Qt developers. It would be nice to hear your comments on this. The way it would essentially work is that instead of bundling the whole Qt libraries (and possibly open c etc.) developers would bundle a small Qt installer that would take care of fetching the needed libraries to the device. This installer would naturally take care of other dependencies like updating the open c if needed.

This would have multiple benefits
* smaller sis files to distribute
* developers don't need to worry about any dependencies to other components
* for end users the installation experience would be optimal (Qt could be installed "under the hood")

There's many things to consider though, f.ex what if the end user doesn't want to download the Qt libraries now but later. How would that be handled, should we still install the application itself and install the libraries later?

What it comes to Ovi Store at this stage I wouldn't put any Qt for S60 apps there as they will be broken once new versions of Qt will be installed to the device (no BC promise given yet). One could perhaps rename all the Qt DLLs to something else to prevent them from being updated (not sure about the politics though) but it's better to wait for the final Qt for S60 release coming in couple of months.

Cheers,
Jack