Nokia has announced that its Qt cross-platform user interface and application framework for desktop and embedded platforms will be available under the Lesser General Public License (LGPL) version 2.1 from the release of Qt 4.5, scheduled for March 2009. Previously, Qt has heen made available to the open source community under the General Public License (GPL).

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The move to LGPL will provide open source and commercial developers with more permissive licensing than GPL and so increase flexibility for developers. In addition, Qt source code repositories will be made publicly available and will encourage contributions from desktop and embedded developer communities. With these changes, developers will be able to actively drive the evolution of the Qt framework.
Qt 4.5 will also be available under commercial licensing terms, while licensing for previous versions of Qt remains unchanged. In addition, service offerings for Qt will be expanded to ensure that all Qt development projects can have access to the same levels of support, independent of the selected licence.

"Qt being available under the terms of the LGPL streamlines the licensing
of applications built using KDE components on top of Qt-based applications:' said Sebastian Kugler, KDE e.V board member. "This more permissive licensing will further lower the barrier for adoption of Qt and KDE technologies. The KDE team welcomes opening up the development process and is looking forward to improved collaboration between KDE and Qt Software:' For more information visit qtsoftware.com/licensing.