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I'm not sure it's going to affect it at all. What makes you think it will? All they're doing is spinning off a subsidiary to do what the Qt division is already

I'm not sure it's going to affect it at all. What makes you think it will? All they're doing is spinning off a subsidiary to do what the Qt division is already doing.

joezydeco 12y ago
And does that have a completely zero cost to accomplish? As I see it, leaving Qt entirely at the mercy of it's licensing revenue stream and not supplemented by Digia's consulting revenue stream means 1) Qt needs to sell more licenses going ahead or 2) Qt needs to charge more per license. The cost of doing business or paying developers will not be going down any time soon. It can only be flat or, more likely, up. And I don't see Qt license numbers making a radical change upward in the near future.
- walterbell 12y ago
  Are there other options to improve the financial health of the Qt ecosystem?
  - joezydeco 12y ago
    Sadly, no. And it's distressing. Especially as I finish work on a UI system that's using it.
    - walterbell 12y ago
      Microsoft is supposedly consolidating their Windows versions, including desktop and mobile. Too bad they didn't support Qt on mobile from the beginning, as it could have seeded their ecosystem. It's a shame that Digia pricing has no elasticity for the large pool of indie mobile developers. It's either LGPL for zero revenue or $$$ for a paid license. Within that large price gap are products which perform "cloud compilation" that require handing over your IP to a 3rd-party. MoSync had a good open-source run with their LLVM toolchain, but didn't reach stability. If a Qt-native mobile OS had been successful (e.g. Meego pre-Elop), the picture would be different today. Engineering feats have brought Qt to Android and iOS, but it's not the same as being a first-class business citizen of the platform.
      - joezydeco 12y ago
        Engineering feats have brought Qt to Android and iOS, but it's not the same as being a first-class business citizen of the platform. Very true. At one point I was considering a Qt application on top of Android to let some legacy products continue to run on a modern platform. Until I saw that Digia was pretty much asking for a full Qt license royalty on that platform. At that point it became "screw this, I can just contract a Java developer to port it and it will come out WAY cheaper".

I'm not sure it's going to affect it at all. What makes you think it will? All they're doing is spinning off a subsidiary to do what the Qt division is already doing.

joezydeco 12y ago

And does that have a completely zero cost to accomplish? As I see it, leaving Qt entirely at the mercy of it's licensing revenue stream and not supplemented by Digia's consulting revenue stream means 1) Qt needs to sell more licenses going ahead or 2) Qt needs to charge more per license. The cost of doing business or paying developers will not be going down any time soon. It can only be flat or, more likely, up. And I don't see Qt license numbers making a radical change upward in the near future.

walterbell 12y ago
Are there other options to improve the financial health of the Qt ecosystem?
- joezydeco 12y ago
  Sadly, no. And it's distressing. Especially as I finish work on a UI system that's using it.
  - walterbell 12y ago
    Microsoft is supposedly consolidating their Windows versions, including desktop and mobile. Too bad they didn't support Qt on mobile from the beginning, as it could have seeded their ecosystem. It's a shame that Digia pricing has no elasticity for the large pool of indie mobile developers. It's either LGPL for zero revenue or $$$ for a paid license. Within that large price gap are products which perform "cloud compilation" that require handing over your IP to a 3rd-party. MoSync had a good open-source run with their LLVM toolchain, but didn't reach stability. If a Qt-native mobile OS had been successful (e.g. Meego pre-Elop), the picture would be different today. Engineering feats have brought Qt to Android and iOS, but it's not the same as being a first-class business citizen of the platform.
    - joezydeco 12y ago
      Engineering feats have brought Qt to Android and iOS, but it's not the same as being a first-class business citizen of the platform. Very true. At one point I was considering a Qt application on top of Android to let some legacy products continue to run on a modern platform. Until I saw that Digia was pretty much asking for a full Qt license royalty on that platform. At that point it became "screw this, I can just contract a Java developer to port it and it will come out WAY cheaper".