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> Installation of Qt binaries will require a Qt Account I've used Qt in professional environments with commercial licensing at previous gigs. I'd considered us

> Installation of Qt binaries will require a Qt Account I've used Qt in professional environments with commercial licensing at previous gigs. I'd considered using Qt for personal projects using their open source licensing. But this is a killer requirement. Goodbye, Qt.

dkersten 7y ago
I’ve also been a longtime fan of Qt, who has both argued for it and defended it in discussions, as well as used it in a startup I founded and in a separate commercial contract project. But this news means that I likely won’t use it again and certainly won’t recommend it anymore.
- jjoonathan 7y ago
  Yep. Qt used to be THE answer. Now it's not.
- distances 7y ago
  It's an inconvenience, but it's a requirement for the developer and not the end user. Hardly the main criteria when selecting your framework is it?
  - nottorp 7y ago
    Problem is, if you check out qt.io you'll get an almost Oracle like impression. That is, "don't go near us unless you have a full time legal department". "Download the open source version if you're sure you can comply with the LGPL" is just a threat, pure and simple. Thus, I wouldn't touch Qt in a commercial venture that is too small to have full time legal counsel on hand. 5500/year/developer is significant just about everywhere outside Silicon Valley. [Editing comment because we're over HN's threading limits] @avamander: But who decides that I've complied with the LGPL? Do you think it's as simple as dynamically linking with their provided binaries and making public any patches to Qt? I don't think so. It smells to me that if they decide you owe them money, there'll be a lawsuit coming.
    - Avamander 7y ago
      I don't find it a loss if you can't comply with libre software's licenses and don't then use them illegally. I am also glad Qt makes it clear that licenses should be respected.
black_puppydog 7y ago
That sounds bad, but what does it even mean? They won't be able to prevent e.g. debian from distributing a `qt5-xyz-dev` package for example, no?
Ididntdothis 7y ago
Can you explain why this is such a problem? The way I read it it's for development, not distribution.
- structural 7y ago
  Not everyone's development environment is connected to the Internet. Additionally, trying to compile the project from source is extremely painful compared to most projects: it's not really possible in any obvious way to duplicate the output of the binary distribution without looking at the guts of Qt's continuous integration environment for weeks on end.
ungzd 7y ago
For Linux distributions and even Homebrew on Mac OS nothing will change as they're not using "official binaries".
- johannes1234321 7y ago
  If you are willing to use older releases (which can be absolutely fine)

dkersten 7y ago

I’ve also been a longtime fan of Qt, who has both argued for it and defended it in discussions, as well as used it in a startup I founded and in a separate commercial contract project. But this news means that I likely won’t use it again and certainly won’t recommend it anymore.

jjoonathan 7y ago
Yep. Qt used to be THE answer. Now it's not.
distances 7y ago
It's an inconvenience, but it's a requirement for the developer and not the end user. Hardly the main criteria when selecting your framework is it?
- nottorp 7y ago
  Problem is, if you check out qt.io you'll get an almost Oracle like impression. That is, "don't go near us unless you have a full time legal department". "Download the open source version if you're sure you can comply with the LGPL" is just a threat, pure and simple. Thus, I wouldn't touch Qt in a commercial venture that is too small to have full time legal counsel on hand. 5500/year/developer is significant just about everywhere outside Silicon Valley. [Editing comment because we're over HN's threading limits] @avamander: But who decides that I've complied with the LGPL? Do you think it's as simple as dynamically linking with their provided binaries and making public any patches to Qt? I don't think so. It smells to me that if they decide you owe them money, there'll be a lawsuit coming.
  - Avamander 7y ago
    I don't find it a loss if you can't comply with libre software's licenses and don't then use them illegally. I am also glad Qt makes it clear that licenses should be respected.

black_puppydog 7y ago

That sounds bad, but what does it even mean? They won't be able to prevent e.g. debian from distributing a `qt5-xyz-dev` package for example, no?

Ididntdothis 7y ago

Can you explain why this is such a problem? The way I read it it's for development, not distribution.

structural 7y ago
Not everyone's development environment is connected to the Internet. Additionally, trying to compile the project from source is extremely painful compared to most projects: it's not really possible in any obvious way to duplicate the output of the binary distribution without looking at the guts of Qt's continuous integration environment for weeks on end.

ungzd 7y ago

For Linux distributions and even Homebrew on Mac OS nothing will change as they're not using "official binaries".

johannes1234321 7y ago
If you are willing to use older releases (which can be absolutely fine)