Qt licensed under the GPL will allow developers of free software to use Trolltech's GUI application framework for free. Any software produced with Qt under the GPL license, and any derivatives of this software, must also be released under the GPL. As before, any user who wishes to create proprietary or closed source software must first purchase a development license from Trolltech.

"I am very pleased to see that Qt is now available under the GPL, said Richard Stallman, President of the Free Software Foundation. "This is a big win for free software and a great gift from Trolltech to the community."

"The release of Qt 2.2 under the GPL license will reinforce our commitment to the open source and free software movement," said Eirik Eng, President of Trolltech. "The GPL and QPL are similar, both having the intent of encouraging development of free software. We have many users who enjoy using Qt under the QPL license because they can choose the open source licensing they use, such as the BSD and Artistic licenses, but there has also been a demand for a GPL license. We have now provided our users a choice"

Open-source industry leaders also applaud the decision by Trolltech. "We have always been impressed by Trolltech's commitment to open source," said Ransom Love, President and CEO of Caldera Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: CALD). "This move will make it even more desirable to choose Qt for open source projects."

"We are delighted to see Qt licensed under the GPL," said Bob Young, Chairman of Red Hat, Inc. (Nasdaq: RHAT). "After this bold move from Trolltech, free software projects can now use Qt without any licensing concerns."

"Debian is excited to see Trolltech take this step," said Wichert Akkerman, leader of the Debian project. "This will encourage the acceptance of Qt as a building block for free software."

The K Desktop Environment (KDE), one of the largest open source projects based on voluntary work from all over the world, will benefit greatly from the new licensing. In the past, KDE has received some criticism for choosing Qt as its basis. "While Qt was without a doubt the best technical choice, some members of the free software community didn't agree with Qt's licensing," explains Matthias Ettrich, founder of the KDE project and Trolltech employee. "Thanks to Trolltech's new licensing scheme, the upcoming KDE-2.0 will receive full acceptance throughout the community."

For full details on GPL licensing, see GNU. For more information on QPL licensing, see www.trolltech.com/qpl/.

Trolltech provides high quality software components that enable customers to develop efficient, maintainable commercial-grade software. The flagship product, Qt offers a cross-platform graphical user interface toolkit that is a fully object-oriented and easily extensible C++ application framework that enables rapid building of state-of-the-art GUI applications. Qt has formed the basis of many successful commercial applications worldwide, as well as being the basis of the KDE desktop environment. Trolltech is headquartered in Oslo, Norway, with offices in Brisbane, Australia, and Santa Clara, California.