Nokia has announced in a press release that it has spun off its commercial Qt license management to firm Digia. The new arrangement will see Digia handle the commercial licensing of the Qt application framework as well as the license management for the 2500 commercial developers currently licensing the Qt framework for commercial software development, with the transaction expected to close by the end of the month.
Nokia purchased the rights to Qt when it bought lead developer Trolltech in 2008, with the goal to integrate it into Symbian and its other platforms as a way to provide cross-platform development tools to developers. The fate of Qt has since changed as Nokia committed to Windows Phone 7 for its future high-end smartphone strategy earlier this year. With no desire to use Qt in the new initiative, Nokia has begun to move from the framework while it continues the transition from Symbian to Windows Phone.
