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I have a very low opinion of developers who decry having to pay for a commercial licence for otherwise LGPL licensed software libraries. They expect to be paid

I have a very low opinion of developers who decry having to pay for a commercial licence for otherwise LGPL licensed software libraries. They expect to be paid for their work, and ensure that by creating closed source software. That's fair enough. Yet, the devs that solved the actually difficult parts of creating a UI library have to be utter saints who freely bestow a gift of code upon the world.

kelnos 2y ago
Agreed. Also didn't get why he felt complying with the terms of the LGPL for a statically-linked .exe would be so much of a problem. Just put the object files and build script in a zip file, and upload it to the same webserver where you plan to put the program. Add a line in the "About" dialog (or whatever) pointing to it. Done.
- eptcyka 2y ago
  Whilst I don't understand the users who are hell bent on having a single-executable work, if you have users who are hell bent on using but a single executable, you have to meet them where they're at.
  - jnhzubh 2y ago
    In my experience Windows users don't care about the statically linked part What they care about is having an executable and not needing a zip with dlls And that is trivially achievable by bundling the dlls into the exe file
    - mavamaarten 2y ago
      Also trivially achievable by making an installer instead of shipping separate files. People are really used to that pattern.
madduci 2y ago
Exactly this. Qt is amazing, so if your requirements are so strict in terms of space and you know/like Qt, investing in the license, or make the product open source, shouldn't be an issue here.
hsn915 2y ago
I think his complaint is not that he has to pay money per se, but having to pay several thousand dollars. That's a bit much for an independent developer.
- Lariscus 2y ago
  I have little sympathy for that kind of argument, imagine a carpenter complaining that they have to buy wood and nails. Besides, a Qt license for small businesses is nowhere near thousands of dollars. Only in software development do we expect quality tools to be given to us free of charge with no strings attached.
  - daemin 2y ago
    Qt for Application Development Professional (ADP) is 3460 €/Year. If you're making something which you sell for $50 or so you'd need 100 sales per year to just pay for the development environment. That also assumes that it took you less than a year to make said product.
    - Lariscus 2y ago
      'Qt for Application Development Enterprise - Small Business (ADE-SB)' is $499.
      - daemin 2y ago
        You're right. I didn't see the Small Business tab when I was quickly looking through it. Still ends up being a blocker when you're not sure how many copies of the product you'll sell.
        Lariscus 2y ago
        I guess that is just one of the many risks you have to take if your trying to build a business. A couple of hundred dollars in licensing fees are not going to sink your product. For a side project that you don't expect to make any money it might be too much, but in that case you could just as well open source the project.
zer0zzz 2y ago
No, it makes perfect sense to complain about paid software libraries because it inevitably makes getting to them a huge pain in the ass and that causes folks who just want to easily give the library a try every reason to go try something else. Then as a result the ecosystem of apps using sad framework begins to stagnate.
- Lariscus 2y ago
  Yes, closed source libraries are a pain to work with. This is why I like the GPL/Commercial dual licensing model. You can try it out for as long as you like, have full access to the source code and can even create commercial software for free. You are only required to pay for a license if you want to create closed source software. I consider this an absolutely fair deal, yet the blog author seems to take issue with that which is what I am criticizing.
  - zer0zzz 2y ago
    That’s fair in theory, but it really feels that they’ve made it more difficult to find the open source version of Qt last I checked. I haven’t tried to use it in a while, but I recall last time I tried I just gave up.
    - Lariscus 2y ago
      Unfortunately they do and they really try to scare you away with the GPL boogeyman. It is a fair criticism. I would recommend to ignore the installer entirely and rely on a package manger like vcpkg, conan, apt, or brew instead. You can find the manual installer here: https://www.qt.io/download-qt-installer-oss https://www.qt.io/download-qt-installer-oss
      - zer0zzz 2y ago
        Yeah I should have just used brew. I was trying to find the package for Mac a while ago to see if I could write some swift bindings. I moved on to messing around with some other library for my experimentation.

kelnos 2y ago

Agreed. Also didn't get why he felt complying with the terms of the LGPL for a statically-linked .exe would be so much of a problem. Just put the object files and build script in a zip file, and upload it to the same webserver where you plan to put the program. Add a line in the "About" dialog (or whatever) pointing to it. Done.

eptcyka 2y ago
Whilst I don't understand the users who are hell bent on having a single-executable work, if you have users who are hell bent on using but a single executable, you have to meet them where they're at.
- jnhzubh 2y ago
  In my experience Windows users don't care about the statically linked part What they care about is having an executable and not needing a zip with dlls And that is trivially achievable by bundling the dlls into the exe file
  - mavamaarten 2y ago
    Also trivially achievable by making an installer instead of shipping separate files. People are really used to that pattern.

madduci 2y ago

Exactly this. Qt is amazing, so if your requirements are so strict in terms of space and you know/like Qt, investing in the license, or make the product open source, shouldn't be an issue here.

hsn915 2y ago

I think his complaint is not that he has to pay money per se, but having to pay several thousand dollars. That's a bit much for an independent developer.

Lariscus 2y ago
I have little sympathy for that kind of argument, imagine a carpenter complaining that they have to buy wood and nails. Besides, a Qt license for small businesses is nowhere near thousands of dollars. Only in software development do we expect quality tools to be given to us free of charge with no strings attached.
- daemin 2y ago
  Qt for Application Development Professional (ADP) is 3460 €/Year. If you're making something which you sell for $50 or so you'd need 100 sales per year to just pay for the development environment. That also assumes that it took you less than a year to make said product.
  - Lariscus 2y ago
    'Qt for Application Development Enterprise - Small Business (ADE-SB)' is $499.
    - daemin 2y ago
      You're right. I didn't see the Small Business tab when I was quickly looking through it. Still ends up being a blocker when you're not sure how many copies of the product you'll sell.
      - Lariscus 2y ago
        I guess that is just one of the many risks you have to take if your trying to build a business. A couple of hundred dollars in licensing fees are not going to sink your product. For a side project that you don't expect to make any money it might be too much, but in that case you could just as well open source the project.

zer0zzz 2y ago

No, it makes perfect sense to complain about paid software libraries because it inevitably makes getting to them a huge pain in the ass and that causes folks who just want to easily give the library a try every reason to go try something else. Then as a result the ecosystem of apps using sad framework begins to stagnate.

Lariscus 2y ago
Yes, closed source libraries are a pain to work with. This is why I like the GPL/Commercial dual licensing model. You can try it out for as long as you like, have full access to the source code and can even create commercial software for free. You are only required to pay for a license if you want to create closed source software. I consider this an absolutely fair deal, yet the blog author seems to take issue with that which is what I am criticizing.
- zer0zzz 2y ago
  That’s fair in theory, but it really feels that they’ve made it more difficult to find the open source version of Qt last I checked. I haven’t tried to use it in a while, but I recall last time I tried I just gave up.
  - Lariscus 2y ago
    Unfortunately they do and they really try to scare you away with the GPL boogeyman. It is a fair criticism. I would recommend to ignore the installer entirely and rely on a package manger like vcpkg, conan, apt, or brew instead. You can find the manual installer here: https://www.qt.io/download-qt-installer-oss https://www.qt.io/download-qt-installer-oss
    - zer0zzz 2y ago
      Yeah I should have just used brew. I was trying to find the package for Mac a while ago to see if I could write some swift bindings. I moved on to messing around with some other library for my experimentation.