Qt Announces Changes To Simplify Its Commercial Licensing

[Markopolo]

One thing I wonder with Qt, is with OSX bundle and bundle signing.
If the whole bundle is signed, and the bundle ships Qt libraries then the Qt libraries are also signed then it becomes impossible to replace the Qt library with another. Is it a case for LGPL violation?

IIRC the keys and staples are just a few extra files inside the bundle. So nothing stopping the user from re-bundling and signing with their own keys. Also, the whole point of commercial license is that it’s not lgpl or gpl.

[markg85]

I don't usually rant. But....

I've been developing with Qt for about 10 years now. I like - or liked - the toolkit quite a bit. It brings a lot of features and fairly easy ways to use them.
The addition of QML was awesome as it made it possible to develop GUI driven applications a lot faster with much more flexibility.

Those were the Qt5 days.

In Qt6... things took a stupidly massive blow downhill. note that i'm only talking about one very specific part of Qt here. The desktop native application choices in QML in Qt6! The C++ side is still as great as it's always been or better.

Where Qt5 had nice components that integrated well with your OS (win/mac/linux), Qt6 dropped that completely. They went for a truly fucked up half broken barely working set of components that aren't even suitable for desktop usage! I'd go as far as saying that if you develop a desktop application in Qt6, you cannot use QML anymore. You can if you go the custom component set route. But you can count on many days of debugging if you go the "what Qt provides" route. Yes it sucks. It sucks really really realllllly hard. It's a hard and sad realization but it's just the way Qt works right now.

Before one asks... "did you report your bugs to Qt?". Yes. Lots. It's known for them and they even admitted that the current set isn't "ideal" yet. Those "new" components are there for 4-6 years or so now so if they still don't have their act together it's not going to happen anymore either.

So qt.. licensing.. fees.... don't make me laugh. Oh you did.
I would not pay for it if you plan to use QML for a desktop application.

[carewolf]

Where Qt5 had nice components that integrated well with your OS (win/mac/linux), Qt6 dropped that completely.

I think they are called Qt.labs.platform in Qt6. Though I could be wrong. There is also native-looking styles for the new controls see https://doc.qt.io/qt-6/qtquickcontrols2-styles.html though probably not as native as the old method of hacking QtWidgets into QML, but probably less buggy.

[bug77]

Damn greedy bastards, letting people distribute software after their license expires... CLA is cancer.

Did I get that right?

[Nth_man]

Just curious but apart from KDE and some K apps what is/are big pieces of software that use QT for business?

Vermilion wrote: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Software_that_uses_Qt

Just in case, we can also see:

• https://resources.qt.io/customer-cas...20Mobile%2CIoT
• https://resources.qt.io/customer-cas...%20Electronics
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qt_(so...tions_using_Qt
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catego...e_that_uses_Qt

[Ironmask]

I guess they're trying to be more competitive since everyone wants to use Electron which is easier to develop for, easier to make cross-platform (including web) apps, and best of all, completely free. And no, I don't care what your opinion is about that or what your personal experience is with Electron, I'm not shilling it, that's just what the industry is doing.
They're not going to compete with it at this rate. Qt is starting to become a relic. No web, no financial incentive, developers are rarer.

[babali]

And what about flutter?

[markg85]

I think they are called Qt.labs.platform in Qt6. Though I could be wrong. There is also native-looking styles for the new controls see https://doc.qt.io/qt-6/qtquickcontrols2-styles.html though probably not as native as the old method of hacking QtWidgets into QML, but probably less buggy.

Nope.

The old components (that were called Controls V1 in Qt5) were not in labs and were far far far far faaaaaaaaarrrrrr superior to the downright despicable abomination that Controls V2 is (was V2 in Qt5 but rebranded to just Controls in Qt6).

Yes, controls based on QWidgets was buggy and had it's limitations.
But controls in Qt6 is FAR more buggy then then the old widgets based controls from Qt5.
If you don't know what i mean then you haven't used them.

As for the styles. There are.... "a kind of" platform styles. They don't really match the styles - like at all - they are supposed to be imitating. I know they "look" ok'ish on that page. Again, use it and you'll very soon figure out that a lot is missing there too. To say that it's "incomplete" would in fact be a compliment. Yes, it's that bad.

[kiffmet]

Seems like KDE won't be making a switch to Qt6 anytime soon, considering what I've read about its state here and given the current release model for Qt's open source version. I think a community maintained fork of Qt5 has become more likely now.

[lowflyer]

I think a community maintained fork of Qt5 has become more likely now.

That fork already exists: CopperSpice