4 ms·
Qt is fully open source since 2000 and nowadays most of the components are lgpl3. I'm still sad that some people are spreading so much fud about it 20 years lat
by ognarb 6y ago
Qt is fully open source since 2000 and nowadays most of the components are lgpl3. I'm still sad that some people are spreading so much fud about it 20 years later. Same with the bloated thing, people complained that qt and kdelibs were bloated and now that qt and the kde frameworks are modular they complains about too much librairies.
- Rochus 6y ago> Qt is fully open source since 2000 Not fully; only the X11 and embedded version was open source (GPL). The Windows version was only available under a commercial license until 2005. Because of GPL I had to pay for a commercial license for three platforms until 2008. LGPL became available in 2009. > I'm still sad that some people are spreading so much fud about it 20 years later It is not exactly the case that the Qt Company clearly points out to users that they can use Qt free of charge under LGPL; rather the opposite seems to be the case. I know various people who primarily bought a commercial licence because they did not consult their own legal advisor and instead followed the recommendations of the QTC sales people.
- franga2000 6y ago> I know various people who primarily bought a commercial licence because they did not consult their own legal advisor and instead followed the recommendations of the QTC sales people. To be fair, if they weren't willing to put in the relatively small amount of effort required to find out how it was licensed, they can clearly affort to pay for the commercial license and if that's true, they probably should do so anyways in order to fund its development. And yes, I know a very similar argument can be made for horrible dark patterns like the crap TurboTax in the US pulls, but B2B and B2C are very different situations (power imbalance).
- Rochus 6y ago> if they weren't willing to put in the relatively small amount of effort required to find out how it was licensed That's not the point. They are single developers or start-ups not used to match what they intended to develop with the LGPL license terms. Their primary mistake was to trust the sales guys. I had personal contact with some of them, and in no case was a commercial licence objectively necessary. Sure, it's not the only way inexperienced people get ripped off, but it doesn't help confidence and clarity, which is what this thread is about.
- the_local_host 6y agoJust yesterday I was reviewing Qt, GTK and Electron as possible choices for some GUI exercise, and _at a glance_ Qt sure looks likely to involve committing to GPL, which is a pretty irreversible commitment to have to make at the outset of a project. I guess it's possible to sort through the individual components and find a subset that is LGPL and not GPL, but that's a lot of work, especially if you're not familiar with Qt already and need to make a decision.
- brnt 6y agoIf you link properly, GPL isnt a problem: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23321448 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23321448
- Rochus 6y agoYou seem to mix that up with LGPL. With GPL the linked app also becomes GPL. With LGPL this is not the case; usually apps link to Qt dynamic libraries which is ok.
- h_anna_h 6y agoThis is about LGPL
- detaro 6y agoCorrect, although LPGL is the primarily relevant one for Qt. Only a few relatively niche parts of it are under GPL.
- the_local_host 6y agoI guess that would work, the time and effort involved in getting end-users to link the application makes downloading a large Electron binary seem downright pleasant.
- ubercow13 6y agoYou can just ship your application with a dynamically linked Qt library file(s). There is no extra step for the user.