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> Now that Qt is becoming more and more hostile Can you please elaborate on that? I thought the free edition of Qt was open enough to be the right choice for w

> Now that Qt is becoming more and more hostile Can you please elaborate on that? I thought the free edition of Qt was open enough to be the right choice for writing fast multiplatform code. Did they change anything wrt licensing, or there are technical issues? > although it seems there's still no Linux support in the free edition. And the insane price tag of the other editions wouldn't help either. Anyway, Lazarus may be far from being the same thing feature-wise, still it's worth of consideration for Linux development. https://www.lazarus-ide.org/ https://www.lazarus-ide.org/

nottorp 5y ago
> Can you please elaborate on that? I thought the free edition of Qt was open enough to be the right choice for writing fast multiplatform code. Did they change anything wrt licensing, or there are technical issues? I believe it still is, as long as you can afford to have a law firm on retainer :) Same for Delphi TBH. Two great products, dead.
Kliment 5y ago
Qt's corporate owners have been openly hostile to the community for a while, and have been trying to get away with shady stuff. The license terms for commercial use are terrible, you need an active license to distribute existing software, not only develop new software, the prices are excessive and keep increasing, and once you get a commercial use license you have to keep it forever or you won't be able to distribute your existing work. Commercial license users are prohibited from contributing to the community version. They also made registration mandatory for all downloads, even of the GPL/LGPL licensed stuff, which information they use for Oracle-style license shakedowns. They keep delaying GPL/LGPL releases and have stated an intention to delay them by the maximum permitted amount (one year) meaning all community contributions are effectively blocked because contributors don't have access to the current codebase. While the contract with the Qt community does prevent the Qt Company from going completely closed, they're certainly not someone I'm comfortable with.
- nly 5y ago
  I can't add much to this really. The Qt Company obviously don't think app developers using slightly old versions of their software provide any value to their shareholders, even though you're helping to grow the broader Qt ecosystem (libraries available, product awareness, knowledge sharing, growing the job market, etc). As far as the Qt company are concerned if you're a FOSS app developer, and not on bleeding edge Qt 6 and actively contributing bug reports (i.e. acting as their outsourced QA), then you're just a worthless leech. The feeling is the Qt library is only FOSS at this point because their hands are tied contractually by the KDE foundation. This has lead the KDE foundation to create a surprisingly active fork of Qt 5.15: https://invent.kde.org/qt/qt/qtbase/-/commits/kde/5.15 https://invent.kde.org/qt/qt/qtbase/-/commits/kde/5.15 which is now the default Qt 5 base package on Arch Linux: https://github.com/archlinux/svntogit-packages/blob/packages/qt5-base/trunk/PKGBUILD#L31 https://github.com/archlinux/svntogit-packages/blob/packages...
  - asddubs 5y ago
    Isn't it the case that the KDE foundation can basically just yank away Qt for any reason they see fit? Seems like the Qt company would be playing a dangerous game there
    - Kliment 5y ago
      No. Only if the Qt Company violates the terms of the agreement.
      - asddubs 5y ago
        Right, seems like I misremembered this part: >The foundation will control the rights to the Qt Free Edition and ensure that current and future releases of Qt will be available for free software development at all times. All changes to the Qt Free Edition license will have to be approved by the KDE Free Qt Foundation which will consist of two members of Troll Tech AS as well as two members of the KDE project. One of the representatives of the KDE project will have a double vote to be used in case of a tie. so they have full control (majority of the votes) over approving license changes but I guess that doesn't mean they can enact them on their own https://kde.org/community/whatiskde/kdefreeqt_announcement/ https://kde.org/community/whatiskde/kdefreeqt_announcement/
vetinari 5y ago
> Can you please elaborate on that? I thought the free edition of Qt was open enough to be the right choice for writing fast multiplatform code. Did they change anything wrt licensing, or there are technical issues? The minor releases are free only until next major one is out. After that, further minor releases are proprietary-only. I.e. that means right now, no free updates to 5.x anymore, if you want maintained release, only 6.0 is an option.

nottorp 5y ago

> Can you please elaborate on that? I thought the free edition of Qt was open enough to be the right choice for writing fast multiplatform code. Did they change anything wrt licensing, or there are technical issues? I believe it still is, as long as you can afford to have a law firm on retainer :) Same for Delphi TBH. Two great products, dead.

Kliment 5y ago

Qt's corporate owners have been openly hostile to the community for a while, and have been trying to get away with shady stuff. The license terms for commercial use are terrible, you need an active license to distribute existing software, not only develop new software, the prices are excessive and keep increasing, and once you get a commercial use license you have to keep it forever or you won't be able to distribute your existing work. Commercial license users are prohibited from contributing to the community version. They also made registration mandatory for all downloads, even of the GPL/LGPL licensed stuff, which information they use for Oracle-style license shakedowns. They keep delaying GPL/LGPL releases and have stated an intention to delay them by the maximum permitted amount (one year) meaning all community contributions are effectively blocked because contributors don't have access to the current codebase. While the contract with the Qt community does prevent the Qt Company from going completely closed, they're certainly not someone I'm comfortable with.

nly 5y ago
I can't add much to this really. The Qt Company obviously don't think app developers using slightly old versions of their software provide any value to their shareholders, even though you're helping to grow the broader Qt ecosystem (libraries available, product awareness, knowledge sharing, growing the job market, etc). As far as the Qt company are concerned if you're a FOSS app developer, and not on bleeding edge Qt 6 and actively contributing bug reports (i.e. acting as their outsourced QA), then you're just a worthless leech. The feeling is the Qt library is only FOSS at this point because their hands are tied contractually by the KDE foundation. This has lead the KDE foundation to create a surprisingly active fork of Qt 5.15: https://invent.kde.org/qt/qt/qtbase/-/commits/kde/5.15 https://invent.kde.org/qt/qt/qtbase/-/commits/kde/5.15 which is now the default Qt 5 base package on Arch Linux: https://github.com/archlinux/svntogit-packages/blob/packages/qt5-base/trunk/PKGBUILD#L31 https://github.com/archlinux/svntogit-packages/blob/packages...
- asddubs 5y ago
  Isn't it the case that the KDE foundation can basically just yank away Qt for any reason they see fit? Seems like the Qt company would be playing a dangerous game there
  - Kliment 5y ago
    No. Only if the Qt Company violates the terms of the agreement.
    - asddubs 5y ago
      Right, seems like I misremembered this part: >The foundation will control the rights to the Qt Free Edition and ensure that current and future releases of Qt will be available for free software development at all times. All changes to the Qt Free Edition license will have to be approved by the KDE Free Qt Foundation which will consist of two members of Troll Tech AS as well as two members of the KDE project. One of the representatives of the KDE project will have a double vote to be used in case of a tie. so they have full control (majority of the votes) over approving license changes but I guess that doesn't mean they can enact them on their own https://kde.org/community/whatiskde/kdefreeqt_announcement/ https://kde.org/community/whatiskde/kdefreeqt_announcement/

vetinari 5y ago

> Can you please elaborate on that? I thought the free edition of Qt was open enough to be the right choice for writing fast multiplatform code. Did they change anything wrt licensing, or there are technical issues? The minor releases are free only until next major one is out. After that, further minor releases are proprietary-only. I.e. that means right now, no free updates to 5.x anymore, if you want maintained release, only 6.0 is an option.