Win32 native port

[Bill Baxter]

I just wanted to send you guys my words of encouragement on your GPL 
port of Qt to native win32.  I am a graduate student and I make mostly 
research prototype apps -- nothing for sale.  Typically I prefer to work 
on Windows, but I like to maintain portability because many of the 
people I work with use only Linux.   I used the Qt 2.3 non-commercial 
version for a while on research projects until I discovered that 
TrollTech actually considers academic research a commercial activity!  
How bizarre is that?  I don't have any problem with making my source 
code available under the GPL, I just want to be able to use Qt because 
it is a great toolkit, and be able to use it on both Linux and Windows.

I know a lot of people have voiced the opinion that making a port to 
native win32 is going to kill TrollTech, but I can say at least from my 
perspective, not having a GPL version of Qt for Windows has basically 
kept me from using it, and kept me from recommending it to my 
collegues.  These days I suggest wxWindows instead, athough I find it 
much more difficult to work with than Qt.  Anyway, the point is I think 
TrollTech is missing out on the opportunity to win over easily 
influenced young minds because of their guarded, somewhat 
user-antagonistic stance on licensing the Windows version of their 
product.  There is a way to get Qt free for the classroom, but for some 
reason they don't extend this to all academic activities.

Anyway, I just wanted to encourage your efforts!  Maybe I'll even see if 
I can contribute a bit of my time to the effort, in between trying to 
graduate.

--Bill