11 ms·

Qt is great and I get disappointed that the discussions surrounding it often devolve into nitpicking the pricing and licensing terms. Seems people are less will

Qt is great and I get disappointed that the discussions surrounding it often devolve into nitpicking the pricing and licensing terms. Seems people are less willing to pay for high quality tools these days. On the technical side, the qt quick desktop styling is intriguing. My main use case for Qt is for desktop applications and while qt quick is often recommended I usually go for qwidgets instead. 9/10 times I need a traditional interface with menu bars, forms and tables. While qt quick lets me make nice looking UI, I often need something that just works similarly to how a traditional desktop application works, looks be damned. Im curious if they'll manage to close that gap in qt6 but I'm skeptical which means I'll probably stay on widgets for the foreseeable future.

egwor 6y ago
I just don't understand the free/commercial differentiation. I was trying to get some projects working from uni, and I wasn't sure what I was allowed to do nowadays. I thought it all had to be commercially licensed so gave up.
- sgerenser 6y ago
  Most people (especially small indie devs) will be fine with the free LPGL version, regardless of whether you charge for your software or whether it is open source or not. Just make sure that you dynamically link the Qt libraries (so the end-user can theoretically replace them if they want to) and don't use any of the GPL-only add-ons (unless you are OK licensing your whole product as GPLv3).
  - michaelsbradley 6y ago
    You can statically link as well: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#LGPLStaticVsDynamic https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#LGPLStaticVsDyn...
    - sgerenser 6y ago
      I knew someone would bring that up! Yes you can statically link but its harder to go that route and probably not worth it for most people (although for some platforms like iOS you might have to, not sure about that). I've used Qt for over 15 years and I've never once wanted/needed to statically link it since dynamic linking has always worked just fine for the type of apps I've worked on.
- spease 6y ago
  At least as of Qt 5, the main drivers were static linking, liability, and not having to say you’re using Qt, iirc.
nikanj 6y ago
We migrated away from Qt in large part because of the licensing uncertainty. The discussion always devolves into nitpicking about the license and pricing, because it's such a major handicap for Qt. It feels like every six months they completely revamp the licensing program, and the LGPL version always seems to suffer from a corporate sword of Damocles
- ReactiveJelly 6y ago
  Yeah. I'm giving up on it for these reasons: - For CLI apps, Rust has a better event loop, better language, more libraries, and is easier to deploy - QWidgets seems like it's not "cool" anymore, and I don't feel like learning QML. I liked QWidgets because it was mostly the same from Qt 4.0 through Qt 5.0. - The commercial side has no financial interest in adding cool new features to the LGPL code - So how long will volunteers keep fixing the LGPL side, when their work is funding a business that does not help them? - I'm waiting to see how Copperspice (A Qt fork that cuts off support for older C++ versions and uses STL and UTF-8 aggressively) turns out About 10 years ago, Qt was my _jam_. I did everything in Qt. Games, CLI, GUI, IRC bots. I think I tried to build a Qt web server a couple times. For a kid who hated Windows and web stuff, it was my gateway to event loops and modern programming concepts. I just quit loving it. It's still in use at work, but I'm making plans to back out of it. Oh well.
  - jariel 6y ago
    "So how long will volunteers keep fixing the LGPL side, " As far as I know, it's not 'indy devs' supporting the LPGL, rather the LPGL is merely a term of release of the regular, mainline branch. It's the 'same code'. Am I missing something?
    - spease 6y ago
      For the core and majority of the library, yes, but some specific features (eg Charts) have been released as commercial-only.
      - 6y ago
FpUser 6y ago
>"Qt is great" Absolutely when one looks at pure technical side. Their licensing however progressed to the point that feels like extortion to me.
brnt 6y ago
Qt posts to HN never include a single technical comment. It is unfortunate, but I suppose that's mostly due to the particular subset of programmers that visits HN.
- paulryanrogers 6y ago
  Can you provide an example of a comment sufficiently technical to be worthy?
  - brnt 6y ago
    I'm saying there isn't one (well, a hundred messages in and there are a handful at last :) ). Nobody is discussing what's new for instance. I'd be interested in the status of moc (isn't mentioned on the page).
    - stagger87 6y ago
      The MOC is still present in Qt 6.0, if that is what you are asking.
      - kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
        Even with CMake?
        alvarelle 6y ago
        Yes. That's orthogonal. And people have been using CMake with Qt (and moc) for almost as long as cmake exists
        omegote 6y ago
        Question should be "even with C++17?". Cmake has had moc and uic support for years now. The question is why they don't leverage the c++17 features to get rid of moc, ffs.
        6y ago
tabtab 6y ago
Re: "I often need something that just works similarly to how a traditional desktop application works, looks be damned." It's annoying how many dump efficient UI design to chase the latest fads. We Vulcans cry.
toyg 6y ago
I similarly stick to QtWidgets, but have to say they don’t seem to scale well in Windows. That’s likely a function of the underlining Windows components, but it’s undeniable, sadly. QtQuick / QML deals better with that scenario, but one ends up having to reinvent a bunch of things (ironically, considering the “quick”) that QtWidgets have had for years already.
PragmaticPulp 6y ago
> Seems people are less willing to pay for high quality tools these days. On the contrary, I think companies are more willing than ever to pay for quality 3rd-party tools and software. The reality is that the Qt licensing costs are a bargain relative to time saved for enterprise customers. It's not even a question at this point. The complaints usually come from people thinking of lean startups or selling hobby projects, where the licensing overhead is another non-trivial number on your cost of goods sold. Many of the complaints here would only realistically be a problem for someone selling a very small number (<100) of their product per year with very low margin, which is far more rare than people think. Regardless, Qt still has a separate small business license with a different pricing structure: https://www.qt.io/qt-for-small-business https://www.qt.io/qt-for-small-business
- Buttons840 6y ago
  Another concern for lean startups and hobby projects are that you cannot develop them without first paying for a Qt license. Their licensing clearly states that you cannot transition from the open source license to a commercial license. I've spent some time working on a desktop application I hope to sell, but I wont consider Qt, because I'm not even sure I will follow through and finish the product. When it's just a hobby class side-hustle, my first step isn't giving Qt $200 this month, and $200 next month, while I work on my side project for 2 hours a week after the kids go to sleep.
  - spacedcowboy 6y ago
    This. There is the "small business plan" which reduces it down to $500/year, which isn't outrageous, but it's still $500 for something I probably won't get that value out of because of the likelihood of the project ever finishing. Instead, I'll find other ways to do it. If Qt was free under $X, $500 under $Y, and $$$ over $Y it's a much more persuasive argument. Unreal manage it :)
  - alvarelle 6y ago
    You should be fine with the LGPL license of Qt.
hermitcrab 6y ago
I've never switched from Qt widgets to QML. It is more important to me that the controls look platform standard. Also I am a programmer, not a designer.
IshKebab 6y ago
I would recommend waiting for Qt 6.1 before considering using QtQuick/QML. They are apparently fixing a load of the issues with QML in that release. As it stands QML is kind of a mess.
- omegote 6y ago
  I've always had that impression. I've been using Qt for 10+ years (professionally for half that) and I've always used QtWidgets. QML always seemed flimsy to me, and all those futuristic UIs... Not sure how they work with the c++ qt libs.
  - IshKebab 6y ago
    The core idea is kind of ok. But they screwed it up in a few ways: 1. Using Javascript. It's not a good language, especially without Typescript. And it's type system doesn't match C++'s well at all. For example you can't really pass uint64s to QML very easily. Apparently Javascript will be optional in 6.1. 2. The scene graph. A good idea but I'm pretty sure there's still no way to make custom QML widgets that contain text because there's still no public QSGTextNode (at least last time I looked into it). Here's people trying to do it in 2013: https://forum.qt.io/topic/24179/how-to-draw-text-in-qquickitem https://forum.qt.io/topic/24179/how-to-draw-text-in-qquickit... I think they've pretty much given up on letting users make custom QML widgets - instead you have to use QPainter and it copies the resulting image across, which seems like a step backwards. 3. The encapsulation is really bad. I honestly never figured out the rules around widget ID scope because it seems like they are all in a global scope so all widgets can refer to any other widget (e.g. children can depend on their parents) which encourages spaghetti. Not sure if they're fixing this. 4. It's really hard to do transient widgets like dialogs. This is kind of the same as in React but it still seems like a step backwards from QtWidgets. 5. Lots of the QtQuick widgets are really lacking features compared to QtWidgets. It's like they got to the MVP and then gave up. I haven't tried it for a number of years so some of those thing may have improved but I haven't heard about it. I get the impression that 90% of their income comes from car manufacturers using Qt for their software, which is why there is such a focus on fancy 3D UIs.

egwor 6y ago

I just don't understand the free/commercial differentiation. I was trying to get some projects working from uni, and I wasn't sure what I was allowed to do nowadays. I thought it all had to be commercially licensed so gave up.

sgerenser 6y ago
Most people (especially small indie devs) will be fine with the free LPGL version, regardless of whether you charge for your software or whether it is open source or not. Just make sure that you dynamically link the Qt libraries (so the end-user can theoretically replace them if they want to) and don't use any of the GPL-only add-ons (unless you are OK licensing your whole product as GPLv3).
- michaelsbradley 6y ago
  You can statically link as well: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#LGPLStaticVsDynamic https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#LGPLStaticVsDyn...
  - sgerenser 6y ago
    I knew someone would bring that up! Yes you can statically link but its harder to go that route and probably not worth it for most people (although for some platforms like iOS you might have to, not sure about that). I've used Qt for over 15 years and I've never once wanted/needed to statically link it since dynamic linking has always worked just fine for the type of apps I've worked on.
spease 6y ago
At least as of Qt 5, the main drivers were static linking, liability, and not having to say you’re using Qt, iirc.

nikanj 6y ago

We migrated away from Qt in large part because of the licensing uncertainty. The discussion always devolves into nitpicking about the license and pricing, because it's such a major handicap for Qt. It feels like every six months they completely revamp the licensing program, and the LGPL version always seems to suffer from a corporate sword of Damocles

ReactiveJelly 6y ago
Yeah. I'm giving up on it for these reasons: - For CLI apps, Rust has a better event loop, better language, more libraries, and is easier to deploy - QWidgets seems like it's not "cool" anymore, and I don't feel like learning QML. I liked QWidgets because it was mostly the same from Qt 4.0 through Qt 5.0. - The commercial side has no financial interest in adding cool new features to the LGPL code - So how long will volunteers keep fixing the LGPL side, when their work is funding a business that does not help them? - I'm waiting to see how Copperspice (A Qt fork that cuts off support for older C++ versions and uses STL and UTF-8 aggressively) turns out About 10 years ago, Qt was my _jam_. I did everything in Qt. Games, CLI, GUI, IRC bots. I think I tried to build a Qt web server a couple times. For a kid who hated Windows and web stuff, it was my gateway to event loops and modern programming concepts. I just quit loving it. It's still in use at work, but I'm making plans to back out of it. Oh well.
- jariel 6y ago
  "So how long will volunteers keep fixing the LGPL side, " As far as I know, it's not 'indy devs' supporting the LPGL, rather the LPGL is merely a term of release of the regular, mainline branch. It's the 'same code'. Am I missing something?
  - spease 6y ago
    For the core and majority of the library, yes, but some specific features (eg Charts) have been released as commercial-only.
    - 6y ago

FpUser 6y ago

>"Qt is great" Absolutely when one looks at pure technical side. Their licensing however progressed to the point that feels like extortion to me.

brnt 6y ago

Qt posts to HN never include a single technical comment. It is unfortunate, but I suppose that's mostly due to the particular subset of programmers that visits HN.

paulryanrogers 6y ago
Can you provide an example of a comment sufficiently technical to be worthy?
- brnt 6y ago
  I'm saying there isn't one (well, a hundred messages in and there are a handful at last :) ). Nobody is discussing what's new for instance. I'd be interested in the status of moc (isn't mentioned on the page).
  - stagger87 6y ago
    The MOC is still present in Qt 6.0, if that is what you are asking.
    - kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
      Even with CMake?
      - alvarelle 6y ago
        Yes. That's orthogonal. And people have been using CMake with Qt (and moc) for almost as long as cmake exists
      - omegote 6y ago
        Question should be "even with C++17?". Cmake has had moc and uic support for years now. The question is why they don't leverage the c++17 features to get rid of moc, ffs.
        6y ago

tabtab 6y ago

Re: "I often need something that just works similarly to how a traditional desktop application works, looks be damned." It's annoying how many dump efficient UI design to chase the latest fads. We Vulcans cry.

toyg 6y ago

I similarly stick to QtWidgets, but have to say they don’t seem to scale well in Windows. That’s likely a function of the underlining Windows components, but it’s undeniable, sadly. QtQuick / QML deals better with that scenario, but one ends up having to reinvent a bunch of things (ironically, considering the “quick”) that QtWidgets have had for years already.

PragmaticPulp 6y ago

> Seems people are less willing to pay for high quality tools these days. On the contrary, I think companies are more willing than ever to pay for quality 3rd-party tools and software. The reality is that the Qt licensing costs are a bargain relative to time saved for enterprise customers. It's not even a question at this point. The complaints usually come from people thinking of lean startups or selling hobby projects, where the licensing overhead is another non-trivial number on your cost of goods sold. Many of the complaints here would only realistically be a problem for someone selling a very small number (<100) of their product per year with very low margin, which is far more rare than people think. Regardless, Qt still has a separate small business license with a different pricing structure: https://www.qt.io/qt-for-small-business https://www.qt.io/qt-for-small-business

Buttons840 6y ago
Another concern for lean startups and hobby projects are that you cannot develop them without first paying for a Qt license. Their licensing clearly states that you cannot transition from the open source license to a commercial license. I've spent some time working on a desktop application I hope to sell, but I wont consider Qt, because I'm not even sure I will follow through and finish the product. When it's just a hobby class side-hustle, my first step isn't giving Qt $200 this month, and $200 next month, while I work on my side project for 2 hours a week after the kids go to sleep.
- spacedcowboy 6y ago
  This. There is the "small business plan" which reduces it down to $500/year, which isn't outrageous, but it's still $500 for something I probably won't get that value out of because of the likelihood of the project ever finishing. Instead, I'll find other ways to do it. If Qt was free under $X, $500 under $Y, and $$$ over $Y it's a much more persuasive argument. Unreal manage it :)
- alvarelle 6y ago
  You should be fine with the LGPL license of Qt.

hermitcrab 6y ago

I've never switched from Qt widgets to QML. It is more important to me that the controls look platform standard. Also I am a programmer, not a designer.

IshKebab 6y ago

I would recommend waiting for Qt 6.1 before considering using QtQuick/QML. They are apparently fixing a load of the issues with QML in that release. As it stands QML is kind of a mess.

omegote 6y ago
I've always had that impression. I've been using Qt for 10+ years (professionally for half that) and I've always used QtWidgets. QML always seemed flimsy to me, and all those futuristic UIs... Not sure how they work with the c++ qt libs.
- IshKebab 6y ago
  The core idea is kind of ok. But they screwed it up in a few ways: 1. Using Javascript. It's not a good language, especially without Typescript. And it's type system doesn't match C++'s well at all. For example you can't really pass uint64s to QML very easily. Apparently Javascript will be optional in 6.1. 2. The scene graph. A good idea but I'm pretty sure there's still no way to make custom QML widgets that contain text because there's still no public QSGTextNode (at least last time I looked into it). Here's people trying to do it in 2013: https://forum.qt.io/topic/24179/how-to-draw-text-in-qquickitem https://forum.qt.io/topic/24179/how-to-draw-text-in-qquickit... I think they've pretty much given up on letting users make custom QML widgets - instead you have to use QPainter and it copies the resulting image across, which seems like a step backwards. 3. The encapsulation is really bad. I honestly never figured out the rules around widget ID scope because it seems like they are all in a global scope so all widgets can refer to any other widget (e.g. children can depend on their parents) which encourages spaghetti. Not sure if they're fixing this. 4. It's really hard to do transient widgets like dialogs. This is kind of the same as in React but it still seems like a step backwards from QtWidgets. 5. Lots of the QtQuick widgets are really lacking features compared to QtWidgets. It's like they got to the MVP and then gave up. I haven't tried it for a number of years so some of those thing may have improved but I haven't heard about it. I get the impression that 90% of their income comes from car manufacturers using Qt for their software, which is why there is such a focus on fancy 3D UIs.