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Qt and Open Source

qt.io

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51–60 of 138 posts

Re: Qt and Open Source

#51

Post by yoz-y »

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…

Assuming the project is a library or a tool that people will need to somehow embed in their program I wouldn't go with GPL. It has some restrictions that are for various reasons hard to accept for a large amount of clients. People try arguing that "you could do this or that to accommodate" but the fact is that many for-profit corporations, even those working with open projects, will have a no-GPL policy. Also with the current trend for web services and what not GPL can be worked around, hence the AGPL.

I'd probably go with LGPL and commercial plugins that enhance the functionality. But this depends on the product having some features that could be mainly useful for companies but not really for individuals.

Re: Qt and Open Source

#52

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

Re: Qt and Open Source

#53

Post by brnt »

mmargerum wrote: post #31

I really want to use Qt for a project but between the absurd commercial cost and them playing games with licensing i'm going with either wxWidgets or Lazarus.

Does anyone here use Copperspice? Saw it mentioned elsewhere as a possible alternative. Theyre a kind of fork of Qt5, ditched the moc, and seem to be ran as a regular Floss project. I have no experience with it, but I do with Qt, which I like very much, so if there are users of Copperspice here I'd be very interested in your experience.

Re: Qt and Open Source

#54

Post by Rochus »

Nokinside wrote: post #46
Rochus wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm sure you'll get it.

Re: Qt and Open Source

#55

Post by Rochus »

toyg wrote: post #38
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…

Nokia’s acquisition was a boost but nowhere near “developed and popularized the platform” - I would bet good money that the amount of licensed customers didn’t change that significantly, under Nokia, outside of the mobile world they tried (and failed) to push it into. In fact, the most significant advancements happened before and after the Nokia period, if i remember correctly. Nokia concentrated on porting it to its…

Nokia was not interested in license revenues but in popularizing the platform, especially their open source OS based on Qt. That's why they spent that much money to buy Qt ($150 mio) and then released it under LGPL. And there will always be people who find a hair in the gold pile. That's just the way the world is. Fortunately, most people appreciate what they're given.

Re: Qt and Open Source

#56

Post by Rochus »

slavik81 wrote: post #44
Rochus wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Ok, a bit more than last year. One should also analyze what parts were commited. There is a significant difference in the commits by company to the core framework and the new 3D tools and other parts that The Company wants to make money with.

Re: Qt and Open Source

#57

Post by m4rtink »

toyg wrote: post #38
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…

Nokia’s acquisition was a boost but nowhere near “developed and popularized the platform” - I would bet good money that the amount of licensed customers didn’t change that significantly, under Nokia, outside of the mobile world they tried (and failed) to push it into. In fact, the most significant advancements happened before and after the Nokia period, if i remember correctly. Nokia concentrated on porting it to its…

I think they likely invested a lot to the modern UI stuff, like QtQuick. They also financed the initial PySide project to get LGPL licensed Python bindings for Qt (PyQt is GPL/commercial license only).

But indeed, in other areas such as non-Nokia mobile platforms they even blocked progress. It was only after Nokia let go that the Android port really took off and was mainlined for example.

Re: Qt and Open Source

#58

Post by Rochus »

cycloptic wrote: post #47
Rochus wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That would be much too complicated. Just imagine such a model with OpenCV or some of the other big C++ frameworks. Selling framework licenses is just an outdated business model. It would make more sense to release the Qt framework under BSD and make money with add-on services (as other companies actually do successfully).

Re: Qt and Open Source

#59

Post by Rochus »

slavik81 wrote: post #49
Rochus wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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....

Revenue of what?

Re: Qt and Open Source

#60

Post by justinclift »

oefrha wrote: post #13
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…

I read the linked email and now I'm even more confused about TFA. Linked email from KDE: > But last week, the company suddenly informed both the KDE e.V. board and the KDE Free QT Foundation that the economic outlook caused by the Corona virus puts more pressure on them to increase short-term revenue. As a result, they are thinking about restricting ALL Qt releases to paid license holders for the first 12 months. The…

>> The Qt Company is proud to be committed to its customers, open source, and the Qt governance model.

Bull.

From January (eg ~2.5 months ago) they've stopped people being able to download the Open Source Windows, macOS, and Linux versions of Qt without first signing up for a "Qt Account".

eg you're now required to be tracked / able to be spammed / (etc) for even the OSS version of Qt.

That's not how companies "committed to Open Source" do things. :(

The crap they're reported as wanting to do now, is right in line with their demonstrated anti-OSS direction.

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