QML was heavily inspired by EFL's Edje and the QEdje project, which was started in the middle of 2008. Qt Kinetic was initially presented at the end of 2008, however, it was still pretty much widget-oriented (the closest you could get to QML's was to use QGraphicsWidget by yourself, like Plasma 1 did). Qt Declarative (later called Qt Quick), including QML, has been shown in May 2009, a year after the acquisition by Nokia (June 2008, announced in January).