Last week has seen the most devastating cuts into the funding of Open Source projects in the history of Qt (and KDE). Not that it was completely unexpected – on the contrary, in the light of the recent decline in market share and turnover, it was obviously only a question of time until Nokia had to decide for one platform or the other. Of course we all wished that the advantages of using an open, competitive platform that had a proven ability for community building would be convincing enough. It is probably useless to ponder what the company would have chosen if it’s hands were free.
A strategic re-alignment it was not, young padawan. Consider this scenario: A tech company plans to implement a challenging new software platform under immense competition and time to market pressure. It happens to own the best qualified, most experienced and highest revered C++ development team this side of the galaxy. This team is able to jump into development for the new platform in a blink. What would you do if you were the competent and responsible CEO? You would probably go and talk to your team. You would explain to them that strategies will be shifted, that you need their experience and commitment, and that they can make a difference. Very likely, the majority of your team could be convinced. Techies know that nothing is as inevitable as change, and adjust (Oxford comma!). Just compare how big the paradigm shift from widget and C++ based Qt to Qt Quick and QML is. Did it damage the Qt development community? It actually made it grow.
Your other option would be to fire your existing team and hire a new one. There will probably be consequences. First, the job market is not exactly afloat with qualified and experienced developers ready for hire for that new platform strategy. It takes time for new hires to bond and to learn, much more time than for the existing team to re-adjust and re-learn. Second, all those that get laid off will work for your competitors in the future. Third, the last thing a struggling company fighting for a turnaround needs is bad press. Hiring talent for the new platform strategy will be hindered by the insecurity created by the lay-offs. All things considered, the second option bears considerable risk and realizes little additional potential.
Nokia chose to divest itself from this team. It cannot be said that there was no choice. First, there is always a choice, if there is a vision. But consider the math behind it – the lay-offs affect 10.000 employees, of them about 700 developers, of them about 100 core Qt developers. That is 1 percent of them! The 80/20 rule in this case indicates that the 80% most important contributions come from 20% of the developers. But more importantly, there is the “Internet rule of the 1%“: 1% of your community will be the creators. Spot on! With that in mind, it would have made sense to keep the core team, as it would not change the overall impact of the reductions and contributes a lot to the bottom line. This means it was simply not a priority to keep this team. From Nokia’s point of view, it makes no difference if the individual developers actually get laid off, or move on to another organization. They will not contribute to Nokia’s recovery any more.
The only explanation that assumes Nokia is free to make it’s own decisions and holds merit is that this is purely an act of desperation. It is not a strategy shift. Recent financial updates point to Nokia heading into liquidity problems, which is a dire situation for any company to be in. It pre-empts strategy in a fight for pure survival. Normally, the last thing to do when fighting to get back to the top in a highly competitive tech market is to cut R&D efforts. Essentially, this amounts to the biggest knowledge transfer in the history of the mobile industry, away from Nokia. I feel sorry for the Qt team, and for Qt the technology, and hope both will be doing well in the future.
PS: Did you get the “this side of the Galaxy” pun? 
PPS: Photo by Paul Holloway – http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulholloway/79425727
Why so bitter? Everybody knew Qt wasnt making money. Nokia sure did burn money on other stuff as well but sponsoring a wastefull product as Qt was a dead end.
Time is up.
Ps. RIM and Digia are hiring.
What kind of sense would it make to keep 100 qt developers if company chooses different platform? You think those guys willing to work on windowsphone? lol.
Windows Phone 8 supports native programming, including C++. C++ would be especially helpful for demanding applications like games, or maybe a native Facebook that does not crash
. I am sure there would be a spot for the Qt team. May be some of the guys and girls would have disliked it, but surely not all of them.
They really laid-off the core team?
No, they did not lay off the core team. I am sorry if my wording was misleading (and that started a shitstorm originating from hackernews.com that immediately brought our server down
). I understand Richard Kerris’ statement that Nokia plans to support Qt in the short term, but looks for other options for Qt for the future. In plain words, this means Nokia plans to sell Qt. Which from Nokia’s point of view means this team will not help turn Nokia around.
yes
No, they did not. Nokia said they will only invest into Qt in the short term, and try to find a new home for it.
I have to confess, when I was cruising through PlanetKDE, I had intended to skip this post. Until I read your first P.S., which seduced me into reading your entire article just to look for the damn Galaxy pun.
But, I am glad that I did. Thank you for a very well thought out article. I have to confess, it always infuriates me to see companies laying off employees from the bottom of the pyramid. Every time I see that, I can only think of the statement made by the villan in “A Bug’s Life”:
First Rule of Leadership: EVERYTHING, is your fault.
In my humble opinion, the leader’s head should be the first one on the chopping block, not the last. After all, aren’t they paid huge salaries because they are expected to make very difficult decisions and pay the consequences when they screw up?
Thanks for the thoughtful post, these are sad times and I hope that Qt finds a good place to call home. I think many of us feared this after Elop’s “leadership” gave hints of things to come. As someone who grew up with Nokia as one of the dominant mobile phone brands since they went mainstream, and a long time user of Qt since 3.something these are sad days on both fronts.
I wouldn’t say it’s all bad. Nokia has been sitting on their fat profits and market position for years, while new companies have innovate, like Apple with the IPhone. Thus they deserve it. It’s not like a poor folk got the short end of the stick. This is a multi-buillion dollar company having it too good for too long.
Now it’s time to clean the house. RIM will finally be next.
Mh, i have the impression that one point of the (hostile takeover^h^h) investment of MS into Nokia was a strategic one. With two main aspects: one to get a manufacturer and a foot into the market their mobile phone. The other was to kill of Qt. Somehow i am irritated that not many see the second point. I feel sorry for all the trolls and KDE. I really hope that the community wins against the mony blow.
Well, what can I say: http://blogs.kde.org/node/4394
Thank you for the article and I agree with it 110%.
Here is what I think as well. Qt is the best C++ library, especially for designing UI. Plus it’s cross-platform. In the desktop space you can say that Qt makes java & c# obsolete. The library is so good that it allows you to be as productive (or more) in C++ as you are in java or java-like languages. Compared to MFC for instance, Qt is a breeze (btw, MFC is a piece of garbage). Now, Qt was bought by Nokia, a shitty company. I know people that work for Nokia as employees and they had to find work themselves within their company in order to stay employed. A company that treats employees like this makes you wonder. Yes, you can argue about economics etc., but for me, they are cheap bastards that have no vision. The writing was on the wall. I recall reading the qt-interest list messages at the time of the acquisition, including messages about the Nokia practices in other countries such as Germany, and it wasn’t hard to see what was going to happen. They also partnered with Microsoft. Does Microsoft have any interest in Qt? I don’t know, but I would be very surprised if they do, despite all the crappy software they produce.
Our industry seems to be going in circles. Every 5 years or so new buzzwords seem to catch up. Now it’s html 5, before that web 2.0, ajax and web services and so on. Technologies like Qt represent solid foundations that you can use to build good, robust and mature software. They don’t have the forefront, event though they are the real workhorses. It’s sad what happens.
QT is the best c++ framework and solution for both desktop and mobile. It’s the last highlight in Nokia now. Comparing to cocoa touch, Qt is much easier to use and learn. But why people would like to develop with iphone, not Qt ? Because developers will not waste their time for a platform without clear future. Now, it is clear, QT will be sold, and it will have a new home. That is a piece of fantastic news! It’s resurrection of QT.
It’s a really bad news.I worried about KDE project who use QT to develop.The LGPL license’s QT is a problem.
I am not worry about the Qt team at all since their skills are so good, they would not have any
problems to find another good job, many software companies would like to have those first-class
programmers.But I do worry about the future of Qt, what about the license problem?Which company
will nokia sell to?Would MS bought Qt and kill it?
I agree that the Qt team is extraordinarily good. There may be transitional problems, but they should be fine. Regarding Qt, we need to worry about two things, either a company buying Qt to end it, or a company buying Qt that the other involved parties do not have enough confidence in, leading to a fork of Qt. This will only affect the commercial licenses of Qt, since the GPL/LGPL version can always be continued.
I work on embedded projects, and I use Qt for developing client interfaces. Actually, I hack a bit in Qt, and I know other people who do the Qt for my projects. Anyway, I think Qt could end up being MUCH better outside of Nokia. There are Qt ports for iOS and Android. These should become official. The smartphone/tablet is the new desktop, and if Qt were stuck in Nokia, it would never be able to do for smartphone/tablet what it has done for the desktop. I hope Nokia completely divests itself from Qt.