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Qt and Open Source

qt.io

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Re: Qt and Open Source

#41

Post by Rochus »

cycloptic wrote: post #36
Rochus wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Using the product while making a closed source application and contributing nothing (money or patches) back can hardly be construed as promoting open source. The "big money" that won't play ball is why they instead have the commercial licensing options.

Nobody claims that. The problem today is that The Company only contributes a fraction to the maintenance and sells licences which includes work done by others. That's a pain point, isn't it?

Re: Qt and Open Source

#42

Post by j1elo »

I'd love to know more about opinions of fellow commenters, just a "what-if" question:

If tomorrow you had some big project such as Qt in your hands, and had 100% freedom to choose how to proceed with it (in matters such as what license to apply, what sustainability model to seek, etc.) what would you do?

I always feel that pure GPL is the best but only idealistic way to go, because working for free is not compatible with paying your bills. Then LGPL, and maybe other licenses such as Apache, are nice but at the end of the day allow that private companies with private pockets benefit from the project without helping it at all (either with work or with cash), which I know is one side of the "freedom" that those open-source licenses bring, but it's one side that I personally don't really like (I'm more of a pragmatist than an idealist). For that reason I feel like dual GPL+Commercial might be the best of both worlds. It would allow basing a company around it, and paying other devs to feed their families, and at the same time users of the GPL variant would themselves be benefiting from and contributing to open-source.

Re: Qt and Open Source

#43

Post by oaiey »

Rochus wrote: post #8
lentil_soup wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Big customers of QT are Car Companies. And they are affected a lot. However, it is very early to see this impact in a second or third layer company like QT. On the other side, it could be good management (thinking forward).

But I agree with you. They are most likely executing now an old plan under Corona cover.

Re: Qt and Open Source

#44

Post by slavik81 »

Rochus wrote: post #10
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…

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 agre…

Commits by employer, for reference: https://macieira.org/~thiago/qt-stats/current/qt5.employer.r...

Re: Qt and Open Source

#45

Post by dman »

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…

I have written a fair amount of software in Qt. It has been clear to me from the actions of the Qt company (via the amount they charge for it, getting rid of indie plans which allowed you to use it Qt for ~350 bucks a year vs the $5508 a year that they have chosen the strategy of milking the captive users that Qt has rather than expanding Qt out and courting new users. For better or for worse at this point I see closed source Qt going the way of Delphi. Qts long term survival depends on a viable and vibrant OSS fork.

Re: Qt and Open Source

#46

Post by Nokinside »

Rochus wrote: post #32
Nokinside wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Oh, a side blow ;-) Don't worry, I also studied law. What The Company can or can't from this contract is not granted unless you have supreme court judgments for the points in question. Otherwise the current patent system, which is primarily based on bluff and blackmail, would not work. As long as there are companies that would rather settle than defend themselves in court, The Company will find a way to stay in the g…

Firstly, you are confusing patent system and copyright in your answer.

Secondly, nt's not about legality of open source license at all.

LGPL or GPL does not burden Qt Company with license obligations since it owns the source code. There is another contract between KDE foundation and QT company that we are talking here.

Re: Qt and Open Source

#47

Post by cycloptic »

Rochus wrote: post #41
cycloptic wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using the product while making a closed source application and contributing nothing (money or patches) back can hardly be construed as promoting open source. The "big money" that won't play ball is why they instead have the commercial licensing options.

Nobody claims that. The problem today is that The Company only contributes a fraction to the maintenance and sells licences which includes work done by others. That's a pain point, isn't it?

I don't believe that is the real pain point. The Company could resolve it easily by paying contributors in exchange for signing the CLA. What is more likely is that they can't afford to do this.

Re: Qt and Open Source

#48

Post by jfkebwjsbx »

j1elo wrote: post #42

I'd love to know more about opinions of fellow commenters, just a "what-if" question: If tomorrow you had some big project such as Qt in your hands, and had 100% freedom to choose how to proceed with it (in matters such as what license to apply, what sustainability model to seek, etc.) what would you do? I always feel that pure GPL is the best but only idealistic way to go, because working for free is not compatible…

If your only goal is to pay devs fairly and do the best for the project, the best way for a library is MIT (for an app, GPL) and having a Foundation that companies support with money and development efforts. Examples: Linux, Blender.

If you want to make actual profits, then it is the same license choice but with a company that sells valuable long-term support, development and perhaps proprietary extra features. Examples: RedHat, Canonical, GitLab.

Re: Qt and Open Source

#49

Post by slavik81 »

Rochus wrote: post #9
Arnt wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What makes you say that? They're still not making much of a profit, but their revenue has doubled since 2015. https://mb.cision.com/Public/14183/3035372/be360a13ae94ae9d....

Re: Qt and Open Source

#50

Post by throw_m239339 »

Rochus wrote: post #30
anoncake wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Qt has a commercial license. So what is the issue with big money again? They don't want to pay up?
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