Qt and Open Source
qt.io
Qt and Open Source
1–10 of 138 posts
Re: Qt and Open Source
#2Does anyone have context for what these discussions are? That's a pretty terse message for those of us not in the loop...
Edit: This article gives a bit more context. https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Qt-Open-...
Re: Qt and Open Source
#3I really like Qt for desktop development, use it everyday, but this post makes me feel uneasy.
What "discussions on various internet forums" do they mean? there's been plenty. And, which ones "do not reflect the views or plans of The Qt Company"?
Why such a rushed defensive blog post?
Re: Qt and Open Source
#4Does anyone have context for what these discussions are? That's a pretty terse message for those of us not in the loop... Edit: This article gives a bit more context. https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Qt-Open-...
There's a crisis at the moment, more general, and the crisis has caused catastrophic loss of income at many companies.
Some people say that qt.io is one of the companies in trouble, and that it's reacting by releasing new versions of qt to customers first, and to opensource users a year later.
I've no idea how much income qt.io actually has lost.
Re: Qt and Open Source
#5Does anyone have context for what these discussions are? That's a pretty terse message for those of us not in the loop... Edit: This article gives a bit more context. https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Qt-Open-...
Here is a good background article: https://www.embeddeduse.com/2019/12/21/safe-guarding-the-lgp...
And here the email to which Qt Comany reacts: https://mail.kde.org/pipermail/kde-community/2020q2/006098.h...
LGPL has long been a thorn in the side of Qt Company management. Nokia had bought Qt for $150 million, developed and popularized the platform, and then released everything under LGPL. Digia/The Company then bought the intellectual property from Nokia for just 4 million Euros and have been trying to make money from it ever since. Now, with Corona, the management seems to have had a good opportunity to get rid of its annoying obligations to the open source community.
Re: Qt and Open Source
#6While the core product is LGPLv3+Commercial, most of their extensions are GPLv3+Commercial which makes them not suitable for a lot of apps.
Hence I find it's a bit confusing to say "to be committed to open source" where in practice the only way to use their extension is either to release your apps code (given you distribute the app) or pay for commercial license. IMHO "to be committed to free software" would represent extensions situation a bit better.
Re: Qt and Open Source
#7Does anyone have context for what these discussions are? That's a pretty terse message for those of us not in the loop... Edit: This article gives a bit more context. https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Qt-Open-...
Here is a good background article: https://www.embeddeduse.com/2019/12/21/safe-guarding-the-lgp... And here the email to which Qt Comany reacts: https://mail.kde.org/pipermail/kde-community/2020q2/006098.h... LGPL has long been a thorn in the side of Qt Company management. Nokia had bought Qt for $150 million, developed and popularized the platform, and then released everything under LGPL. Digia/The Company then boug…
I also thought it had to do with that, but given the parent's edit it seems to do with ideas floating around because of money issues given covid-19
Re: Qt and Open Source
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here is a good background article: https://www.embeddeduse.com/2019/12/21/safe-guarding-the-lgp... And here the email to which Qt Comany reacts: https://mail.kde.org/pipermail/kde-community/2020q2/006098.h... LGPL has long been a thorn in the side of Qt Company management. Nokia had bought Qt for $150 million, developed and popularized the platform, and then released everything under LGPL. Digia/The Company then boug…
I also thought it had to do with that, but given the parent's edit it seems to do with ideas floating around because of money issues given covid-19
Software development business is among the least affected by Corona. But Corona is a good opportunity for many managers to use it to justify previous misconduct.
Re: Qt and Open Source
#9Does anyone have context for what these discussions are? That's a pretty terse message for those of us not in the loop... Edit: This article gives a bit more context. https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Qt-Open-...
There's a crisis at the moment, more general, and the crisis has caused catastrophic loss of income at many companies. Some people say that qt.io is one of the companies in trouble, and that it's reacting by releasing new versions of qt to customers first, and to opensource users a year later. I've no idea how much income qt.io actually has lost.
They lost long before Corona because the business model doesn't work.
Re: Qt and Open Source
#10While the core product is LGPLv3+Commercial, most of their extensions are GPLv3+Commercial which makes them not suitable for a lot of apps. Hence I find it's a bit confusing to say "to be committed to open source" where in practice the only way to use their extension is either to release your apps code (given you distribute the app) or pay for commercial license. IMHO "to be committed to free software" would represen…
I think most developers get along pretty well with only the parts available under LGPL; that's not the issue. It's more of an issue that the The Company only represents a fraction of the commit log but even though sells commercial licences of work done by other companies. I'm sure more companies would contribute to Qt if there wasn't this dual licence nuisance and they weren't forec to sign a contributor licence agreement which puts The Company in charge of their work.