Convergence with Qt The cross platform future by Knut Yrvin Qt by Nokia

Knut Yrvin Open Source Community Manager ● Telenor in 1986 – technical assistant ● Engineer in electronics – 1992 ● Telenor – project planning – 1993 ● Master in system development – 2000 ● Consultant for three years – Norwegian Central Securities Depository, different banks and other industries ● Co-founded Skolelinux in 2001 – Now a part of Debian Edu ● Trolltech ASA – 2006, ● Qt Software, a Nokia Company – 2008

Agenda ● Ideals ● Good practice in wrong context ● Client alternatives and cost ● Next steps

Ideals

God practices, wrong context ● Vern Ceder, CTO at Cantebury School, Fort Wayne ● He had worked for over a year convincing teachers to use a Linux desktop at their school ● He invited at LUG enthusiast to show how Linux may work in practice

The LUG enthusiast: ● Apache as the biggest success in FOSS, showing it ● Command line as a great tool, showing it ● Thick clients are great, installing and tailor each pc bottom up ● Free Flash player (Gnash) and no proprietary movies ● doc and docx are really bad

A LUG enthusiast may recommend a 1996 Linux desktop

It's 15 years with development since 1996 The 2009 version > 7000 end user applications

Teachers presented the 1996 desktop? Worst system ever! Vern had to restart the session showing GCompris and KDE Edu The project was delayed with half a year...

Teachers expects: ● A Learning Management System – They could not care less about Apache ● A graphical desktop with GUI apps – Command line, newer! ● As little installing and configuration as possible. USB support is mandatory ● Flash, Java and video must work out of the box ● No problems with doc and docx

Just give teachers what they want

Desktop alternatives

Linux Educacional

mEDUXa

LinEx

Sugar Desktop

KDE Netbook

Distro alternatives

Skolelinux, LinEx, Debian Edu

Linux Educacional

K12LTSP

Edubuntu

Practical use

Shared content

Perception and realities ● To few apps, nobody supports Linux? – No, to many applications. It's difficult to choose ● To many desktop alternatives? – Wrong, it's two alternatives in practice. – Applications blends in nicely. E.g KDE 4 apps got GNOME look and vice versa ● Must learn what's used in businesses – Yes, and free software will be included in 80% of the software products in 2012 according to Gartner – Who know that a web browser would be the most important tool 15 years ago?

Client types ● Thick clients – known as stationary PC's. SW runs locally ● Thin clients – SW runs on servers. X11 clients ● Graphical clients – SW runs on servers. Citrix or FreeNX clients. Local OS. Network saturation stops graphics... ● Low Fat (Diskless) clients – SW comes from servers. SW runs locally ● Laptops/Netbooks/MiD – SW runs locally. Wireless network challenges

Client alternatives and cost

Maintenance cost annually

Next steps?

© Nokia Qt is used everywhere From embedded devices to desktop applications By companies from many industries

Kool Desktop Environment Matthias Ettrich’s Vision  A GUI for end users (not X11 or Motif)  Browse the web  Write  Play games  A desktop for my girlfriend...

Running “Desktop” software on Mobile Internet Devices

KOffice...

© Nokia 2009 Qt / C++

Stopmotion, best student project 2006

© Nokia 2009 Next steps

Thank you! Q & A