Nokia to buy Trolltech and keep it on the Qt

Speaking to silicon.com's sister site ZDNet.co.uk, Trolltech's "chief troll" and co-founder, Eirik Chambe-Eng, said the companies had been in talks about the acquisition since September 2007.

He also confirmed Nokia was not currently intending to make Linux-based mobile phones. However, he suggested the manufacturer would now "evaluate" the Linux Mobile (LiMo) Foundation - of which Trolltech is a member - and other such initiatives to see if there might be a role for the company there in the future.

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Chambe-Eng said Nokia's decision to stick with Gnome for its Linux devices "makes a lot of sense".

He said: "They have an internal group that has been doing that for a long time. But they are using the Qt/X11 windowing system. It is possible to use Qt together with Gnome - KDE applications fit well into that scenario."

Chambe-Eng added that Nokia's decision to maintain Trolltech's existing dual-licensing model and continue feeding into the open-source community had been "very key" to Trolltech's agreement to the acquisition. According to Chambe-Eng, Trolltech has a "very special status in both the Linux and Unix community at large [and now benefits from being] part of an organisation with much more muscle than [Trolltech] had so far".

Trolltech and Nokia hope that regulatory approval will be granted by the Norwegian authorities in the next few weeks. Meanwhile, there are no firm details yet as to when Qt-based applications might appear on Nokia's Series 40 and Series 60 handsets.

Original article: Nokia to buy major Linux company from ZDNet UK