Today we have not one, but two big stories:
1. First of all, Slackware 10.1 was released today. You can read the announcement and the ChangeLog (complete with a personal note from Patrick Volkerding, Slackware developer). You can download the whole thing; just go to AlphaGeek’s mirrors list to grab the ISOs.
2. Another piece of news which I think is going to be very significant is the announcement by TrollTech that they extended the Qt dual licensing model to Qt/Windows. So, what does that mean?
Qt is a programmer’s toolkit for the building of graphical applications. It has programming code for widgets such as the OK button, checkboxes, radio buttons, etc., and is the backbone of the K Desktop Environment. Qt is a very high quality toolkit that was previously available only under a proprietary license in Windows. However, if you used an Unix operating system, you had a choice: if you wanted to release your applications as Free Software, you could have a Qt license under the terms of the GNU GPL. On the other hand if you wwanted to release your application as proprietary software, Qt could sell you a proprietary Qt license, at a price.
Previously, you didn’t have that choice under Windows. You had to buy the proprietary license. Now, you can also get the choice of either GPL or proprietary in Windows.
I think this is a very good development who could potentially spur the creation of scores of high quality Free Software apps for Windows. Even we might expect, in due time, a release of KDE for Windows :D.
I’m downloading Slackware 10.1 right now, don’t tell Fred though, he’ll be disappointed that I still like Slackware better than SUSE 😉 .
The Qt news is also great, and its amazing how fast it spread across the Internet which to me shows just how popular it really is. Its a very nice toolkit and I don’t regret learning how to use it, especially now that I can distribute my programs compiled in Windows again 🙂 .
Nathan: great! Hope you can enjoy Slackware. Also, I’m glad you can compile your programs in Windows again 🙂