5 ms·

I celebrate these news with a bit of unease. I've heard a lot of criticism regarding Qt 6 licensing policy. And personally I'd rather prefer more stability.

by IYasha 4y ago

sho_hn 4y ago
The licensing policy in Qt 6 isn't really changed vs. 5 -- the change that upset the community was the commercial-only LTS releases, which started with 5.15. KDE has been maintaining Qt 5.15 by itself with the "KDE Qt Patch Collection" since then, as the 5.15.y bugfix releases are commercial-only for a year before they get released as open source. In Qt 6 the situation is theoretically better as you get a new 6.x feature release faster than that one-year wait period, whereas 5.15 was the end of the line for Qt 5. The commercial-only also only happens after the first two bugfix releases, so there should be no significant waiting periods without releases. If the general quality of Qt releases is sufficiently high, the Patch Collection effort may no longer be needed. That said, The Qt Company remains a topic of concern, publishing (also on LinkedIn by employees, with lame/thin "does not necessarily represent my employer's opinion" disclaimers) lots of "why open source software is scary" content lately, apparently unaware that the only reason anyone cares about their product is its open source pedigree and credibility: https://www.qt.io/blog/is-open-source-really-free https://www.qt.io/blog/is-open-source-really-free This is probably a reaction to competition by the BSD-licensed Flutter which has seen a lot of interest from their traditional commercial audience. Doubling down on "we're less open source" as a differentiator vs. _Google_ of all companies is quite a mind-bender. Also considering licensing/open source is why Flutter is getting that attention in the first place, and that Qt could tell a fantastic story here if it wanted to.
- LorenDB 4y ago
  > That said, The Qt Company remains a topic of concern, publishing (also on LinkedIn by employees, with lame/thin "does not necessarily represent my employer's opinion" disclaimers) lots of "why open source software is scary" content lately, apparently unaware that the only reason anyone cares about their product is its open source pedigree and credibility: https://www.qt.io/blog/is-open-source-really-free https://www.qt.io/blog/is-open-source-really-free I don't think that article is really pushing for Qt to go closed source; rather, they're just trying to sell commercial subscriptions in order to make money (after all, the Qt Company has to stay alive somehow). And Schnieder makes it clear that building your stuff opensource is not a bad idea in many situations; he's just promoting Qt's commercial subscriptions (which IMO really are probably nice for corporations who want priority support and who don't want to deal with licensing issues).
  - sho_hn 4y ago
    The version I linked is an outwardly more measured, balanced take as it's trying to appear academic and researched. Here is what their sales people turn it into: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/severe-risks-open-source-software-embedded-ux-make-car-v-bonin/ https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/severe-risks-open-source-soft... https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/total-cost-ownership-open-source-compared-commercial-much-v-bonin/ https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/total-cost-ownership-open-sou... > Additionally the organization has to look at remarkable costs when it comes to hardware and OS porting of the whole software product to be more hardware independent eg. to react on hardware shortages. Commercial software comes with a long list of supported hardware, sometimes with a list of more than 25 different hardware platforms. Yes, open source software has such a terrible track record at portability indeed. You're right that with a lot of goodwill, you can choose to interpret all of those publications as "it's good to have a commercial license option and that you can buy support if needed". Which I would agree with for many reasons, including supporting technology you rely on. But the way it's presented is in a fear-mongering style that's detrimental to the open source project that is also Qt, and I believe is vital to its overall wellbeing.
    - LorenDB 4y ago
      Those LinkedIn posts indeed show a more negative side of the issue. Still, I have high hopes for the future of Qt, and if they ever go full-on commercial, there is an agreement with KDE regarding that situation (but I'm too lazy to find it right now).
      - sho_hn 4y ago
        Yes, there's a solid contract in place to ensure Qt's open source availability that's worth a lot! I've been working with Qt for going on 20 years, and there's been many episode to its story indeed. There will be more; it remains very capable and useful technology.
      - milliams 4y ago
        > there is an agreement with KDE regarding that situation https://kde.org/community/whatiskde/kdefreeqtfoundation/ https://kde.org/community/whatiskde/kdefreeqtfoundation/
- dkersten 4y ago
  The big thing that put me off Qt 6, even though I’ve been a fan of Qt in the past, is that I cannot download the official release, even if the LGPL version, without registering an account, while before you only needed that if you wanted a commercial license or to use their other services.
  - sho_hn 4y ago
    It depends on what you mean with "official release". This is generally true for binaries, but the official open source source code releases you can find download locations and instructions for on the website sans account requirement, even if it does make it a bit hard and scary from a navigation POV (you have to click through a page on "open source obligations" first and so on).
    - dkersten 4y ago
      I guess I meant from the Qt.io website, as when I looked last it wasn’t clear where else I could get it. The link LorenDB posted seems like it would help me with that, though!
  - LorenDB 4y ago
    https://github.com/miurahr/aqtinstall https://github.com/miurahr/aqtinstall will help you with that.
powersnail 4y ago
> And personally I'd rather prefer more stability. Time flies. Qt 6 has been around for more than two years already! And from what I understand, the change from Qt5 to Qt6 is a much smaller transition than the one from 4 to 5.
- jlarcombe 4y ago
  Hmm maybe "smaller" but there was more stuff that just didn't exist (or work properly) for a year and a half in the 5->6 transition as there was in the 4->5 transition. I went through both transitions and this one was more of a pain.
Nokinside 4y ago
Don't be. There is legally binding contract that prevents Qt Company from unilaterally changing the licensing deal (until KDE stops using Qt). Qt is a great example of how you can force commercial highly profitable company to develop open source against their will even after it's sold multiple times. Trolltech and KDE jointly formed the foundation to make sure that Qt core stays open source. Licensing agreement has not changed. Qt Company just stopped doing anything not required by the agreement between The KDE Free Qt Foundation and The Qt Company. https://kde.org/community/whatiskde/Software_License_Agreement_2015.pdf https://kde.org/community/whatiskde/Software_License_Agreeme...

I celebrate these news with a bit of unease. I've heard a lot of criticism regarding Qt 6 licensing policy. And personally I'd rather prefer more stability.

by IYasha 4y ago

I celebrate these news with a bit of unease. I've heard a lot of criticism regarding Qt 6 licensing policy. And personally I'd rather prefer more stability.

sho_hn 4y ago

The licensing policy in Qt 6 isn't really changed vs. 5 -- the change that upset the community was the commercial-only LTS releases, which started with 5.15. KDE has been maintaining Qt 5.15 by itself with the "KDE Qt Patch Collection" since then, as the 5.15.y bugfix releases are commercial-only for a year before they get released as open source. In Qt 6 the situation is theoretically better as you get a new 6.x feature release faster than that one-year wait period, whereas 5.15 was the end of the line for Qt 5. The commercial-only also only happens after the first two bugfix releases, so there should be no significant waiting periods without releases. If the general quality of Qt releases is sufficiently high, the Patch Collection effort may no longer be needed. That said, The Qt Company remains a topic of concern, publishing (also on LinkedIn by employees, with lame/thin "does not necessarily represent my employer's opinion" disclaimers) lots of "why open source software is scary" content lately, apparently unaware that the only reason anyone cares about their product is its open source pedigree and credibility: https://www.qt.io/blog/is-open-source-really-free https://www.qt.io/blog/is-open-source-really-free This is probably a reaction to competition by the BSD-licensed Flutter which has seen a lot of interest from their traditional commercial audience. Doubling down on "we're less open source" as a differentiator vs. _Google_ of all companies is quite a mind-bender. Also considering licensing/open source is why Flutter is getting that attention in the first place, and that Qt could tell a fantastic story here if it wanted to.

LorenDB 4y ago
> That said, The Qt Company remains a topic of concern, publishing (also on LinkedIn by employees, with lame/thin "does not necessarily represent my employer's opinion" disclaimers) lots of "why open source software is scary" content lately, apparently unaware that the only reason anyone cares about their product is its open source pedigree and credibility: https://www.qt.io/blog/is-open-source-really-free https://www.qt.io/blog/is-open-source-really-free I don't think that article is really pushing for Qt to go closed source; rather, they're just trying to sell commercial subscriptions in order to make money (after all, the Qt Company has to stay alive somehow). And Schnieder makes it clear that building your stuff opensource is not a bad idea in many situations; he's just promoting Qt's commercial subscriptions (which IMO really are probably nice for corporations who want priority support and who don't want to deal with licensing issues).
- sho_hn 4y ago
  The version I linked is an outwardly more measured, balanced take as it's trying to appear academic and researched. Here is what their sales people turn it into: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/severe-risks-open-source-software-embedded-ux-make-car-v-bonin/ https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/severe-risks-open-source-soft... https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/total-cost-ownership-open-source-compared-commercial-much-v-bonin/ https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/total-cost-ownership-open-sou... > Additionally the organization has to look at remarkable costs when it comes to hardware and OS porting of the whole software product to be more hardware independent eg. to react on hardware shortages. Commercial software comes with a long list of supported hardware, sometimes with a list of more than 25 different hardware platforms. Yes, open source software has such a terrible track record at portability indeed. You're right that with a lot of goodwill, you can choose to interpret all of those publications as "it's good to have a commercial license option and that you can buy support if needed". Which I would agree with for many reasons, including supporting technology you rely on. But the way it's presented is in a fear-mongering style that's detrimental to the open source project that is also Qt, and I believe is vital to its overall wellbeing.
  - LorenDB 4y ago
    Those LinkedIn posts indeed show a more negative side of the issue. Still, I have high hopes for the future of Qt, and if they ever go full-on commercial, there is an agreement with KDE regarding that situation (but I'm too lazy to find it right now).
    - sho_hn 4y ago
      Yes, there's a solid contract in place to ensure Qt's open source availability that's worth a lot! I've been working with Qt for going on 20 years, and there's been many episode to its story indeed. There will be more; it remains very capable and useful technology.
    - milliams 4y ago
      > there is an agreement with KDE regarding that situation https://kde.org/community/whatiskde/kdefreeqtfoundation/ https://kde.org/community/whatiskde/kdefreeqtfoundation/
dkersten 4y ago
The big thing that put me off Qt 6, even though I’ve been a fan of Qt in the past, is that I cannot download the official release, even if the LGPL version, without registering an account, while before you only needed that if you wanted a commercial license or to use their other services.
- sho_hn 4y ago
  It depends on what you mean with "official release". This is generally true for binaries, but the official open source source code releases you can find download locations and instructions for on the website sans account requirement, even if it does make it a bit hard and scary from a navigation POV (you have to click through a page on "open source obligations" first and so on).
  - dkersten 4y ago
    I guess I meant from the Qt.io website, as when I looked last it wasn’t clear where else I could get it. The link LorenDB posted seems like it would help me with that, though!
- LorenDB 4y ago
  https://github.com/miurahr/aqtinstall https://github.com/miurahr/aqtinstall will help you with that.

powersnail 4y ago

> And personally I'd rather prefer more stability. Time flies. Qt 6 has been around for more than two years already! And from what I understand, the change from Qt5 to Qt6 is a much smaller transition than the one from 4 to 5.

jlarcombe 4y ago
Hmm maybe "smaller" but there was more stuff that just didn't exist (or work properly) for a year and a half in the 5->6 transition as there was in the 4->5 transition. I went through both transitions and this one was more of a pain.

Nokinside 4y ago

Don't be. There is legally binding contract that prevents Qt Company from unilaterally changing the licensing deal (until KDE stops using Qt). Qt is a great example of how you can force commercial highly profitable company to develop open source against their will even after it's sold multiple times. Trolltech and KDE jointly formed the foundation to make sure that Qt core stays open source. Licensing agreement has not changed. Qt Company just stopped doing anything not required by the agreement between The KDE Free Qt Foundation and The Qt Company. https://kde.org/community/whatiskde/Software_License_Agreement_2015.pdf https://kde.org/community/whatiskde/Software_License_Agreeme...