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**ShOcKwAvE** · May 24, 2006, 10:03 PM

Re: "Trolltech goes public"... What's the fuss?

Originally posted by Jucato

What does "going public" mean?

It means that Trolltech will be a publicly traded company - ie you can buy shares in the company on the stock market. As for why this would be bad for KDE and Qt, someone else will have to help answer that one.

**askrieger** · May 24, 2006, 10:18 PM

Re: "Trolltech goes public"... What's the fuss?

"Going Public", at least in the U.S. means offering the stock in your corporation for sale to the general public. Unlike a closely held corporation, in the U.S. a public corporation is subject to regulation by the Securities and Exchange Commision, which (in theory) is tasked with protecting the public from fraudulent stock manipulation.

In practice, in the US, at least, "going public" means that the people who hold the stock can now sell it to the public, usually at a large profit. Most of the really, truly, very RICH people in the U.S. have gotten that way by taking a company public. Of course, most of the people who have taken a company public have gotten only slightly rich (by U.S. standards).

What it probably means, in practice, is that the people who developed Qt will now be, deservedly, wealthier than they were. The idiots on the Ubuntu forum who are breaking their arms patting themselves on the back for using Gnome (which is PURE because the guys who developed it sold Ximian to Novell instead of taking it public) have obviously never been involved in the management of either or a public or a closely held corporation. In my experience, as a former officer of a publicly traded corporation, the former president of a closely held corporation, and the husband of a former junior vice president of a Fortune 50 corporation, most of the time, the differences are negligible. What really matters is the workplace environment and the attitude of the people who work there. I think it probably won't make much difference for KDE either way.

**Fenyx** · May 25, 2006, 01:17 AM

Re: "Trolltech goes public"... What's the fuss?

Unfortunately, Trolltech isn't in the US, right? Might be a different law/practice over there. But hopefully, askreiger is correct and KDE won't be affected.

But I guess KDE will still be affected, but only indirectly, because it might affect Qt's development. One of the issues that was raised was that Trolltech will/might be, in the future, more oriented towards pleasing its stockholders than developing Qt or releasing Qt under GPL. Although, given the benefits that Trolltech reaped when it released Qt under QPL/GPL (as what Aaron Seigo commented on the /. article), it's unlikely to happen. But the things is, it still might. So there's gonna be some sort of uncertainty to some extent. I hope that KDE e.V. would release some sort of statement to assure KDE users. I feel an onslaught of anti-KDE (not necessarily pro-GNOME) sentiments on its way.

Off-topic: I'm really starting to get depressed over at the other forums. While I accept the fact that Kubuntu is a spin-off from the original plan of Ubuntu and that in that forums Kubuntu users are a minority, I'm disappointed (almost on the verge of getting irked) by how some would express their preference for GNOME over KDE, disregarding other users preferences and sentiments. Of course, that's not the general attitude (in fact, I can really think of only a handful of people), yet some people seem to lack respect for other people's opinions/preferences.

*sigh* just wanted to get that off my chest

**kubicle** · May 25, 2006, 02:21 AM

Re: "Trolltech goes public"... What's the fuss?

Originally posted by Jucato

Unfortunately, Trolltech isn't in the US, right? Might be a different law/practice over there. But hopefully, askreiger is correct and KDE won't be affected.

The company laws don't differ much between (western) countries, at least not the basics.

One of the issues that was raised was that Trolltech will/might be, in the future, more oriented towards pleasing its stockholders than developing Qt or releasing Qt under GPL

Generally all companies exist to benefit their shareholders whether the company is a public company or not, and generally the best way to benefit shareholders is to do what you do best.

I feel an onslaught of anti-KDE (not necessarily pro-GNOME) sentiments on its way.

There will always be people that use any news they hear as a basis for complaints against someone else, although sometimes the news are just misinterpreted or blown out of proportion...In case of this announcement, many people have seemed to forget that there already are a number of public companies working in the 'open source' field...and it hasn't spelled 'doom' for anyone yet

**luke1011** · May 25, 2006, 06:48 AM

Re: "Trolltech goes public"... What's the fuss?

Originally posted by Jucato

Off-topic: I'm really starting to get depressed over at the other forums. While I accept the fact that Kubuntu is a spin-off from the original plan of Ubuntu and that in that forums Kubuntu users are a minority, I'm disappointed (almost on the verge of getting irked) by how some would express their preference for GNOME over KDE, disregarding other users preferences and sentiments. Of course, that's not the general attitude (in fact, I can really think of only a handful of people), yet some people seem to lack respect for other people's opinions/preferences.

*sigh* just wanted to get that off my chest

you can always take solace in the fact that they're wrong.

seriously though, i don't really care how someone expresses their opinion on KDE. it has no impact on whether or not KDE actually works for me (and it does work very, very well for me). that being said, the thread linked to above seemed to have minimal anti-KDE sentiments.
also, i think these forums will pick up in time and you won't have to visit "over there" as much if you don't want to.

**Fenyx** · May 25, 2006, 07:37 AM

Re: "Trolltech goes public"... What's the fuss?

Thanks for your assurances. I personally felt a bit panicky when I read the reactions form /. and ubuntuforums.org. While I read the article before someone posted it, I really didn't understand/think about the consequences of such a move (since I didn't even understand what "going public" meant

). And without any sort of reaction from any KDE dev (except A. Seigo), I felt a bit in the dark because of my ignorance. I might have overreacted a bit.

@luke1011: I wasn't basing my observations on that single thread. In fact, compared to other threads, the anti-KDE attitude was mildly tame. But there were some threads around, or some people actually, who has taken almost (just almost) every oppurtunity to not only air their choice for GNOME but also to bash KDE. And I'm not talking about just saying "I don't like KDE" but "this KDE app is crap", "KDE is PITA", or something to that tune.

Of course, these are the exceptions. I still highly value the community of ubuntuforums. Except that lately, it has been down quite a lot. And answers to problems regarding Kubuntu seem to be decreasing.

**askrieger** · May 25, 2006, 09:11 AM

Re: "Trolltech goes public"... What's the fuss?

A little more comment about corporate governance. One reason that it doesn't matter whether a corporation is closely held or publicly owned is that not only do corporate managers not have to satisfy the interests of their stockholders, in practical terms, the stockholders don't matter. In a public company the stockholders are represented by the Board of Directors. But who selects the directors? The managers (and, in a closely held corporation, the majority owners) select directors who will rubber stamp the decisions of management. Ostensibly the stockholders elect the directors, but in practice most stockholders don't bother to vote, or uncritically vote for the management nominees. Therefore, I presume that the present board of Trolltech consists of people that the managers and the venture capitalists who funded them consider congenial and that any new board members required by Norwegian law for public corporations will also consist of the same sort of people. Since Trolltech seems to be good company, I expect that it will remain so.

**heinkel_111** · Jul 22, 2006, 05:21 AM

Re: "Trolltech goes public"... What's the fuss?

Originally posted by Jucato

Unfortunately, Trolltech isn't in the US, right? Might be a different law/practice over there. But hopefully, askreiger is correct and KDE won't be affected.

I was wondering what is unfortunate about not being in the US

It is not like Norway is such a bad place after all, and I have heard rumours that they allow both free speech, free software and support free trade to some extent :P

I guess it is still an open question if these uncivilised barbarian decendants of vikings can be trusted to deliver software to star spangled american computers...trust me, we're all commies :P and muslim fundamentalists

coming to get you!

**Fenyx** · Jul 22, 2006, 05:37 AM

Re: "Trolltech goes public"... What's the fuss?

Well, I was reacting to the fact that what askreiger was how publicly traded company works in the U.S. I said "unfortunately" because the info that he gave might not apply to Trolltech, because it's not in the U.S. So unfortunately, his answer, though very good, may or may not be 100% accurate in Trolltech's case.

The full paragraph would read something like: Unfortunately, Trolltech is not in the U.S., so a different law might apply to it. Get my drift?

**askrieger** · Jul 22, 2006, 10:42 AM

Re: "Trolltech goes public"... What's the fuss?

As Kubicle pointed out, no matter where they are, corporations do best by doing what they do best. The only cloud that I see on the Trolltech/Qt horizon is the fact that right now what they seem to be doing best is adapting Qt for embedded applications like cell phones and GPS locators.

But the great thing about Open Source is that if Trolltech neglects the GPL'd version of Qt that's used in KDE, the odds are that some other group of developers will pick it up as a fork (probably with a different name to avoid trademark problems).

@heinkel_111: The only thing I consider unfortunate about Norway is lutefisk

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