Qt Wayland's Maintainer Is Leaving The Company

[CommunityMember]

Sometimes we forget how fragile some projects are, especially when they have only one dedicated developer. I'm not interested in Qt very much, but I do hope they find someone to fill this position.

No one is irreplaceable (at least in a larger company such as Qt), but losing top talent can certainly add a speed bump to the road map. Qt will likely need to either recruit or up-skill existing talent, as Wayland support is not really optional moving forward.

[ypnos]

People often call 144Hz a "troll" because he favors GNOME a lot and often says inconvenient truths. But seriously, who can disagree that Qt has always been a problem due to it being a company product? Doesn't matter who owns Qt's company, this project will always steer according to that company's needs and wants. And KDE will follow suit because KDE has always been a tech demo to promote Qt.

GTK is a tool to help GNOME Desktop. But GNOME Desktop is the master. On the other hand, KDE desktop is a tool to promote Qt. But Qt is the master. KDE in the past even broke the KDE desktop and released garbage unstable versions because they just had to promote the newest version of Qt.... And since Qt does not really care about Wayland, KDE doesn't really support it either. We are well into 2020 and the latest "Plasma" desktop still can't keep going on for more than 30 minutes without crushing on Wayland session and radeonsi drivers.... Seriously?

I know many people like KDE desktop, i like it too, i have even contributed to it in the past, but the reality is that Qt's needs are deemed more important than the desktop. And 144Hz is often right about it. No matter the hate he gets.

It looks like you have very little insight in the developer communities around Qt and KDE. KDE being a "tech demo" is laughable at best. KDE comes from Germany, not Norway. And there is several important commercial contributors to Qt right now, the Qt company is just one of them. Other big players are KDAB and several German companies, one especially dedicated to KDE. The influence of KDE on Qt grew ever stronger over time. It is telling that some major pieces of KDE technology became part of Qt, e.g. the whole Phonon framework (and, through some indirections, KTHML), and at the same time many K* widgets and components that were derived from their Q* counterparts are nowadays obsolete because the needed functionality is fulfilled upstream. At the same time, the Qt Project governance was introduced and the licensing was improved (previously purely commercial modules are now also available under GPL). I believe the trend is clearly going in the right direction.

If you compare the development of Gtk and Qt, it is quite telling that many decisions by the Gnome project had a negative effect on Gtk+ software. An example is the whole debate about client-side decorations where the stance of Gnome, well.... I wouldn't call it diplomatic or embracing to the free desktop community at all. More historical examples come from Miguel de Icaza's steering of the project, e.g. the whole failure with .NET. At the same time, Gtk+ laid bare for quite a while and Gtk+3 development started with a long, unstable phase of horrors for developers and users alike. Qt in the same time evolved in a relatively straight and very stable manner (esp. API-wise). KDE5/Plasma was rushed in the beginning, yes, but I don't see any indicators of Qt company influence on that. At the same time, the Gnome desktop as I said had many troubles as well, putting off so many users that several legacy Gnome desktops exist today.

So, IMHO, you whole theory about the company backing of these projects falls flat.

[Britoid]

If you compare the development of Gtk and Qt, it is quite telling that many decisions by the Gnome project had a negative effect on Gtk+ software. An example is the whole debate about client-side decorations where the stance of Gnome,

Qt has supported client-side decoration much longer than GTK has (although, any toolkit in theory supports it). If you're referring to headerbars, which yes can look awkward on non-GNOME desktops (among many more important things), then I don't think that had a negative effect on GTK software given that headerbars are optional and developers have to opt to use them.

[ypnos]

Qt has supported client-side decoration much longer than GTK has. If you're referring to headerbars, which yes can look awkward on non-GNOME desktops (among many more important things), then I don't think that had a negative effect on GTK software given that headerbars are optional and developers have to opt to use them.

What I am talking about is not support for them. It is that GNOME tries to make them exclusive. Tell me, why does something like this even have to exist!? https://github.com/ZaWertun/gtk3-nocsd Why do I have to use it so my Gtk applications fit in with my window manager (which is neither a GNOME/KDE one)?

[Britoid]

What I am talking about is not support for them. It is that GNOME tries to make them exclusive. Tell me, why does something like this even have to exist!? https://github.com/ZaWertun/gtk3-nocsd Why do I have to use it so my Gtk applications fit in with my window manager (which is neither a GNOME/KDE one)?

GNOME doesn't tell application developers how to build their app. Headerbars are optional and if an application developer wants to use them that is their choice.

Qt/KDE apps don't follow my font settings
Qt/KDE apps don't follow my HIDPI settings.
Qt/KDE apps don't work with my accessibility settings.

How dare they!

[ypnos]

GNOME doesn't tell application developers how to build their app. Headerbars are optional and if an application developer wants to use them that is their choice.

Qt/KDE apps don't follow my font settings
Qt/KDE apps don't follow my HIDPI settings.
Qt/KDE apps don't work with my accessibility settings.

How dare they!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism (and apart from that, it is pretty easy to fix these settings, it's pretty similar to setting gtk stuff, except fractional scaling is supported by Qt)

[CommunityMember]

And GNOME isn't steered by companies like Red Hat and Canonical?

As is typical in such projects, those that contribute make the decisions (they do the work to help their use cases and scratch their itch). If you want to be part of the deciders you have to be a substantial contributor (pontification is not a contribution), and these days for the larger projects (such as Linux itself, or GNOME) that often means being an engineer at one of the big companies (if you are a substantial independent contributor to a project that is important to a company they will likely try to hire you to support their needs), even if the project is technically independent of the company itself.

[TemplarGR]

And GNOME isn't steered by companies like Red Hat and Canonical?

Obviously. The difference is that with GNOME, the desktop is first, GTK has to do what the Linux desktop requires it to do. With Qt and KDE, the Linux desktop is completely and utterly irrelevant, all they care about is showcasing Qt's capabilities so they can get more clients.

[DanL]

With Qt and KDE, the Linux desktop is completely and utterly irrelevant, all they care about is showcasing Qt's capabilities so they can get more clients.

Where do you get this bullshit? KDE is a Qt client and KDE/Plasma Desktop focuses on the Linux desktop. KDE probably doesn't care too much about other Qt clients, at least not directly. Sure, it's a good thing to have a thriving Qt community and not worrying about financial instability for your upstream toolkit. But the notion that KDE is a "tech demo" to sell more people on Qt is laughable. In fact, KDE can even be odds at Qt if they cater to other clients (see the recent controversy over the licensing changes: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pa...ore-Commercial )

[ypnos]

It looks like we have a Qt apologist here, ladies and gentlemen.... First you attempt to debunk what i said with retarded excuses like "KDE is from Germany, not Norway", like it matters in Opensource development.... Then you proceed by spreading FUD about the GNOME project and you beat the same dead horse regarding client side decorations.... In my not humble at all opinion, reality proves my version, not yours. Wake me up when KDE stops rushing to support bleeding edge Qt features that nobody really needs and instead focuses on providing a stable and working desktop, especially on Wayland.

Please go back and read what you are writing here to insult others instead of taking part in a reasonable discussion. You call me an "apologist" – for an open source project! Really? You call my arguments 'retarted'. Do you believe that's ok? You accuse me of "spreading FUD". Which part of fear, uncertainty, and doubt is it that you found in my posting? Yes, you are not humble. You got that right.

Have fun shouting at others on the internet.