[maemo-developers] How to to manually package Qt Mobility?

[From: Graham Cobb]

On Wednesday 21 July 2010 19:24:03 Felipe Crochik wrote:
> I have compiled the “contacts” module and it is quite simple using
> scratchbox. I distribute with my application a “custom” contacts backend (I
> don’t distribute the contacts module just the backend)

I don't know the licence on the code you are re-using but I presume you are 
distributing source anyway.  I am sure the QtMobility licence won't allow the 
code to be incorporated into a non-free application.  I presume Nokia owns 
the copyright, so it could add an alternative licence just for this use, of 
course, but it is a real pain not using the real library.

If I was faced with this I would (after shouting, screaming and stamping my 
foot a lot about how Nokia has STILL not created a working app store for paid 
Maemo apps!), create a free package which depends on all your dependencies 
and tell people they have to install that before they can use the app.  If 
you are really helpful, you could create your app such that it will run even 
if the libraries are not there and produce a useful error message telling 
people what they have to install to make it work.

You would have to give a useful name (something like "Support files for AppX") 
and description and it would have to either be in the free Ovi repository or 
in Extras so it could drag in the dependencies.  I suppose you could even 
make it a free/demo/trial version of your non-free app.

Alternatively, if this problem is likely to be faced by other apps, you could 
see if the QtMobility people would create a wrapper library which did that 
work.  The free package would then be called "QtMobility support files" and 
your documentation would tell people they have to install that before your 
app works.  You would not link with the real QtMobility library but with the 
wrapper, which would try to load the real library and, if that fails, display 
a message to tell people they need to install the "QtMobility support files" 
package.  There would be a small performance impact, of course, which would 
go away once Ovi fix the problem properly (e.g. next millennium).

Graham