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Qt and Open Source

qt.io

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21–30 of 138 posts

Re: Qt and Open Source

#21

Post by Nokinside »

lentil_soup wrote: post #3

I 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?

Qt Company can't wiggle out from the contract it has with KDE. It must release Qt as open source withing 12 months. Qt stays open source.

The negotiations and uncertainty are related to all extra cooperation above that.

Re: Qt and Open Source

#22

Post by Nokinside »

Rochus wrote: post #5
leoedin wrote: post #2

Does 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…

> the management seems to have had a good opportunity to get rid of its annoying obligations to the open source community.

Apparently you don't even read the links you provide.

Qt company can't get rid of the leagal obligations it has to release the software. What it can do is to stop extra cooperation.

Re: Qt and Open Source

#23

Post by alxlaz »

Rochus wrote: post #5
leoedin wrote: post #2

Does 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…

Just to add a little: there's some concern, including among commercial users (including yours truly), that this is a Very Bad Idea (TM).

Thing is, non-commercial and free software projects (KDE is one of the biggest ones, but not just KDE) have a significant contribution, quality-wise, to Qt. Most commercial users are on LTS releases. They rarely report bugs in current versions. With some exceptions (e.g. Wayland), they rarely test new features as they become available. They rarely put too much effort into bug reports for LTS releases, too. That's just how commercial development works. Unless it's a critical bug and you have no choice, your employer won't pay you (or you can't charge your customer) to help another company fix their code.

Qt has a large foothold in FOSS and non-commercial software, and that provides a great deal of real-world exposure to a codebase that's old enough, and complex enough, that real-world exposure is crucial. IMHO, if they lose this, Qt will stop being a useful choice for any kind of development, cross-platform or not, within a few years.

(Edit: to be clear, it's not just that the FOSS community basically provides free beta testing -- even if technically it sort of does. This is an artifact of the way FOSS, and many Linux distributions, too, work today -- e.g. most distros don't ship the LTS version, they ship the latest version, simply because it's easier to fit that into their release schedule. Whether good or bad, it means that a big chunk of Qt app users are on the latest stable version, not on LTS.)

That's all in addition to all the third-party contributions, which are a small, but not insignificant portion of the Qt code.

Re: Qt and Open Source

#24

Post by dmytroi »

kovac wrote: post #12
dmytroi wrote: post #6

While 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…

Considering the quality and capabilities of Qt, I really think they should just sell commercial licences. Considering the fact that the engineers at Qt need to pay to eat and pay their bills just like me, I find it absurd to expect something like this for free. In that sense, I think the current situation is very gracious.

I fully agree it would be great for Qt as a company to have a great business model. That being said, it's not that obvious if making Qt as a product commercial-only would be effective, as there are other options on a market that don't cost anything (or much). Maybe Qt should pivot into services instead?

Re: Qt and Open Source

#25

Post by anoncake »

davidhyde wrote: post #11

A lot of developers are experimenting with languages and libraries outside their normal work requirements given the current uncertainties of the future. If you are considering learning QT and come across this bad PR you will most likely avoid the technology altogether. I was looking for a popular GUI framework to build front ends for my rust apps all the controversy around QT made me double my efforts to find a nativ…

What are you experimenting with? If there is any cross-platform GUI framework that comes close to Qt, I'd love to know.

Re: Qt and Open Source

#28

Post by Rochus »

alxlaz wrote: post #23
Rochus wrote: post #5

Earlier 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…

Just to add a little: there's some concern, including among commercial users (including yours truly), that this is a Very Bad Idea (TM). Thing is, non-commercial and free software projects (KDE is one of the biggest ones, but not just KDE) have a significant contribution, quality-wise, to Qt. Most commercial users are on LTS releases. They rarely report bugs in current versions. With some exceptions (e.g. Wayland), t…

> IMHO, if they lose this ...

If The Qt Company discontinued the FOSS version of Qt, the Qt framework would become available under the BSD license, and there would no longer be a contributor licence agreement allowing a company to sell the work of another company.

> in addition to all the third-party contributions, which are a small, but not insignificant portion of the Qt code.

In the last years more than 50% were open source contributions. At Nokia times they were only 10 to 20%.

Re: Qt and Open Source

#29

Post by Nokinside »

kovac wrote: post #12
dmytroi wrote: post #6

While 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…

Considering the quality and capabilities of Qt, I really think they should just sell commercial licences. Considering the fact that the engineers at Qt need to pay to eat and pay their bills just like me, I find it absurd to expect something like this for free. In that sense, I think the current situation is very gracious.

It's not gracious. They have binding contract with KDE to release the code as open source within 12 months.

They can't change that without negotiating new contract. That would require giving something to get something in return. Only thing they can do is to do just the minimum. This is the current issue. They are moving towards the bare minimum.

Re: Qt and Open Source

#30

Post by Rochus »

anoncake wrote: post #16
dmytroi wrote: post #6

While 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…

How so? Promoting Open Source is the very point of the GPL.

You won't get any support of the "big money" unless the library is at least LGPL so it can be used in closed source applications. GPL is primarily for the idealists, not for business.
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