[Updated Jan. 19, 2005] — Just in time for the holidays, Trolltech has contributed the most recent version of its development framework and application stack for PDAs to the open source community. Qtopia 2.1 PDA Edition is available for download now under the open source GNU GPL (general public license).

Trolltech will also continue to offer Qtopia 2.1 PDA Edition under a commercial license, with support and maintenance.

Qtopia originally gained popularity as a mobile application environment for PDAs and palmtops such as Sharp's Zaurus (including the recently discontinued US model, the SL-6000L) and other Linux PDAs. With PDA sales falling and mobile phone sales growing, Trolltech wisely adapted Qtopia for mobile phones, launching a phone-specific version in May of 2004. Trolltech will continue to offer Qtopia Phone Edition under a commercial license only, and the company's most recent update to Qtopia — the version 2.1 release in November — mainly added features for mobile phones, such as reduced footprint and MMS support.

According to Trolltech, Qtopia PDA offers a full complement of applications for business productivity, personal information management, Internet content, entertainment, and synchronization with desktop PCs. It says there are over 1,000 third-party applications available for Qtopia PDA. It lists new features in the version 2.1 as follows:

• Qtopia Data Linking to allow applications to share data
• SQL support
• QWS Sound Server to mix multiple sound sources
• Expanded Qtopia services
• Image format plug-in support
• Qobex — to enable IrDA data transfer between devices
• New 'Pictures' application for simple edits on images
• Mediaplayer split into Music and Video applications
• Camera application, which uses video-for-Linux technology
• More advanced document handling
• Bug fixes and other enhancements

The download is available here. Additional details about Qtopia are available here.

Open source PDA applications stacks for Linux include Opie, OpenZaurus, Lycoris, myStep, and others.

 
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