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I believe they have ended up with a freemium model where some big companies are paying them heaps, but the vast majority of users are paying them nothing. It mu

I believe they have ended up with a freemium model where some big companies are paying them heaps, but the vast majority of users are paying them nothing. It must be a tough way to run a business. Especially one with loads of expensive software developers to feed. I used to have a commercial license that was around £1k per year. But when they offered LGPL I moved to that. I haven't paid them since. And now the commercial licenses are much more expensive. You wonder they could come up with something that people like me would pay ~£1k per year for. I really hope Qt company doesn't go bust.

GnarfGnarf 7y ago
Absolutely correct. I am a small commercial developer, I would gladly pay USD $500/yr. to insure Qt carries on. I have come to the startling realization that, having converted to Qt, I am now 99% Win32-free. And I get a free pass to UWP (the OS/2 of the 21st century) should I need it.
- hermitcrab 7y ago
  $500 per year is a small price never to have to read Microsoft Win32 documentation. ;0) Seriously you would wonder that the Qt company can't offer something attractive to solo developers and small companies around the $500 to $1000 per developer per year mark.
rixed 7y ago
What makes it complicated to judge their pricing policy, and may explain why different people have such contrasted views on this, is that many of us need Qt for very basic things only (reasonably portable set of widgets for simple desktop apps) while a few industrial users have rare but imperious needs (such as support for fancy animations, modern or custom look and feel, support for embedded devices, professional hot line, IDE with support for enterprisy workflows etc). What I need Qt for requires very few engineers, just enough to maintain the same set of widgets that were already developed 20 years ago for most of them. Rather than paying a license I would use a Qt fork such as https://www.copperspice.com/ https://www.copperspice.com/ or use gtk or wait until revery is ready. Should they donate qwidgets to a foundation I might consider contribute code and fund, though.
- GnarfGnarf 7y ago
  I would use a Qt fork such as https://www.copperspice.com https://www.copperspice.com I can see your point. However, who knows what crazy curves Microsoft or Apple are going to throw into their O/S'es in the future? I would still feel safer depending on a team of full-time, paid, commercial engineers to stay abreast.
- hermitcrab 7y ago
  Qt has got really big and I probably only use 20% of it. But the 20% I use might be quite different to the x% you use. Also Apple likes to nuke its developer ecosystem from orbit every 5 years. Qt struggles to keep the Mac classes stable and working in the face of this. I'm not sure an unfunded open source team is going to do any better.
slavik81 7y ago
They've been losing money, but it seems both their revenue and their staff has doubled in the past few years. I was surprised, but they actually look reasonably healthy.

GnarfGnarf 7y ago

Absolutely correct. I am a small commercial developer, I would gladly pay USD $500/yr. to insure Qt carries on. I have come to the startling realization that, having converted to Qt, I am now 99% Win32-free. And I get a free pass to UWP (the OS/2 of the 21st century) should I need it.

hermitcrab 7y ago
$500 per year is a small price never to have to read Microsoft Win32 documentation. ;0) Seriously you would wonder that the Qt company can't offer something attractive to solo developers and small companies around the $500 to $1000 per developer per year mark.

rixed 7y ago

What makes it complicated to judge their pricing policy, and may explain why different people have such contrasted views on this, is that many of us need Qt for very basic things only (reasonably portable set of widgets for simple desktop apps) while a few industrial users have rare but imperious needs (such as support for fancy animations, modern or custom look and feel, support for embedded devices, professional hot line, IDE with support for enterprisy workflows etc). What I need Qt for requires very few engineers, just enough to maintain the same set of widgets that were already developed 20 years ago for most of them. Rather than paying a license I would use a Qt fork such as https://www.copperspice.com/ https://www.copperspice.com/ or use gtk or wait until revery is ready. Should they donate qwidgets to a foundation I might consider contribute code and fund, though.

GnarfGnarf 7y ago
I would use a Qt fork such as https://www.copperspice.com https://www.copperspice.com I can see your point. However, who knows what crazy curves Microsoft or Apple are going to throw into their O/S'es in the future? I would still feel safer depending on a team of full-time, paid, commercial engineers to stay abreast.
hermitcrab 7y ago
Qt has got really big and I probably only use 20% of it. But the 20% I use might be quite different to the x% you use. Also Apple likes to nuke its developer ecosystem from orbit every 5 years. Qt struggles to keep the Mac classes stable and working in the face of this. I'm not sure an unfunded open source team is going to do any better.

slavik81 7y ago

They've been losing money, but it seems both their revenue and their staff has doubled in the past few years. I was surprised, but they actually look reasonably healthy.