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That license is, in my opinion, why wxWidgets is still around, despite wxWidgets looking like 90's desktops.

Pesthuf 2y ago
For me the main issue with wxWidgets isn't that software made in it looks dated - that's fine, at least it's not mobile first on desktop, with huge margins and whatever those new Windows 10 date pickers are - but that the development experience feels like it's straight from the 90s.
- wiz21c 2y ago
  and it's definitely inferior to Qt. Sure, for 80% of things thy are mostly on par (provided you can bear the 90's look). But after that, there's a world between the two.
- dubcanada 2y ago
  wxWidgets is an abstraction of different presentation layers, QT is a presentation layer. They focus on completely different layers.
ryandrake 2y ago
I remember Slashdot arguments from all the way back in 1998 about the Qt license--over 25 years ago! Kind of astonishing to realize that controversy around licensing has been with this company for most of my adult life. To the point where when I see "Qt" the first thing that comes to my mind is "License Tomfoolery."
- treyd 2y ago
  I don't see why people lose their minds about the "tomfoolery". It's very clear what the Qt company wants, and how that's good for everyone. If you want to use Qt, you have to support the free software movement either directly (by making your code foss) or indirectly (by paying for the non-LGPL use and supporting Qt).
  - nottorp 2y ago
    > If you want to use Qt, you have to support the free software movement either directly (by making your code foss) That's the problem. No matter how many times Digia threatens you, the LGPL does not require you to make your code open source. You're either confusing the L and non L GPL licenses, or you remember the situation from before Nokia bought Qt. Trolltech Qt was indeed GPL (without the L) plus commercial and what you said would have applied. However, it does not apply now.
- anthk 2y ago
  Imagine a world were GNUstep was pushed instead of GTK. Today GIMP would be rebased into Cocoa and made multiplatform with ease. It would be the GNUstep Image Manipulation Program. Even legacy systems could be running a GNUStep desktop thanks to having multiple settings: a modern one a la OSX/Etoile; and another one with classical NeXT widgets without fancy effects.
anthk 2y ago
Heh, a lot of wx/c++ software has been ported to QT for obvious reasons.

For me the main issue with wxWidgets isn't that software made in it looks dated - that's fine, at least it's not mobile first on desktop, with huge margins and whatever those new Windows 10 date pickers are - but that the development experience feels like it's straight from the 90s.

wiz21c 2y ago
and it's definitely inferior to Qt. Sure, for 80% of things thy are mostly on par (provided you can bear the 90's look). But after that, there's a world between the two.
dubcanada 2y ago
wxWidgets is an abstraction of different presentation layers, QT is a presentation layer. They focus on completely different layers.

ryandrake 2y ago

I remember Slashdot arguments from all the way back in 1998 about the Qt license--over 25 years ago! Kind of astonishing to realize that controversy around licensing has been with this company for most of my adult life. To the point where when I see "Qt" the first thing that comes to my mind is "License Tomfoolery."

treyd 2y ago
I don't see why people lose their minds about the "tomfoolery". It's very clear what the Qt company wants, and how that's good for everyone. If you want to use Qt, you have to support the free software movement either directly (by making your code foss) or indirectly (by paying for the non-LGPL use and supporting Qt).
- nottorp 2y ago
  > If you want to use Qt, you have to support the free software movement either directly (by making your code foss) That's the problem. No matter how many times Digia threatens you, the LGPL does not require you to make your code open source. You're either confusing the L and non L GPL licenses, or you remember the situation from before Nokia bought Qt. Trolltech Qt was indeed GPL (without the L) plus commercial and what you said would have applied. However, it does not apply now.
anthk 2y ago
Imagine a world were GNUstep was pushed instead of GTK. Today GIMP would be rebased into Cocoa and made multiplatform with ease. It would be the GNUstep Image Manipulation Program. Even legacy systems could be running a GNUStep desktop thanks to having multiple settings: a modern one a la OSX/Etoile; and another one with classical NeXT widgets without fancy effects.

anthk 2y ago

Heh, a lot of wx/c++ software has been ported to QT for obvious reasons.