The most recurrent and difficult question I get, and probably the most recurrent in the industry is how’s the world gonna look like in 5 years? What’s the next big thing?. My usual answer is “if I knew, I’ll be doing that” (and that’s probably what’s happening :)) but the point is that the horizon of predictions in this fast paced internet era is too close to us.

Two years and 6 months ago the first, rudimental and slow Android device was born. If feels like prehistory now, and it’s just 2 years ago.. then the DROIDs came, then the Galaxys, and you can see their impact on the world in this beautiful video:

Do you see how quickly this is happening? What’s in your face IS a revolution, because when you buy one of them, you don’t just get a brilliant colorful expensive eye-catching plastic toy.

What you buy is the sense of protection, for not feeling lost when travelling though neighborhoods or new cities, for always having friends within reach and multiple ways of communicating with them, for always knowing which is the closest+cheapest+healthiest+toprated Korean place, and when you are looking at your calendar and you arrive perfectly on time at that very important meeting you’ll even feel like a better person (well, this applies just to me, and few other Italians :).

Talking about the revolution, do you see it now?

Tutti sanno come il battido d’ali di una farfalla ad Hong Kong possa causare un uragano a Conegliano Veneto, ma questa e’ piu’ interessante:

Le Qt 4.5 saranno rilasciate sotto LGPL. Per la gioia di tutti i set-top-box maker (tra i quali spiccano alcune realta’ hi-tech italiane!), dei produttori di dispositivi embedded/mobili, o semplicemente di chi fa programmi per computer: non si dovranno piu’ pagare costi fissi (di licenza) e/o variabili (runtime royalties) per le Qt!

Effetti collaterali:
• esiste ora uno stack software completo (kernel linux, toolchains, librerie Qt) per creare nuovi dispositivi ‘consumer’ senza sborsare un cent in licenze
• ci sara’ una migrazione da parte di chi usa altri toolkit (magari tecnologicamente inferiori, o piu’ complessi da usare, o non gratuiti.. es: gtk+, vxwidgets, .net) verso le Qt
• tramite meccanismi a catena, e’ attesa una vasta diffusione della tecnologia, infatti come Nokia stessa prevede:
  

  in the long term, the benefits of adopting a participatory development model and accelerating development far outweighed the value of the revenue stream that it could generate by selling commercial licenses.

E qual’e’ la relazione con la farfalla? Che una societa’ decide una nuova strategia commerciale e subito il tuo curriculum diventa 10 volte piu’ appetibile !!!
(…usciro’ dal Dei, prima o poi… ;-))

In three days, on wed 14/1/09, I won’t be an M31 employee anymore.
After 2 years of dedication, addiction, dreams and a lot of fun (thanks to all the lovely people in there, some of the best friends I’ve ever had!), I feel it’s the right time to move on.

Many thanks to all the cool people in there (the ones that make you smile, save your ass, drive you home, drive you mad, drive you crazy, teach you, kiss you, never betray you, and love you) and I wish all the best for M31 (that has been so kind to me during those years).

So.. thank you guys and remember that from 6pm to 9am I’m still a cool friend of you 😉

Enrico

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