More Open-Source Participants Are Backing A Possible Fork Of Qt

This week's bombshell that future Qt releases might be restricted to paying customers for a period of twelve months has many open-source users and developers rightfully upset. Qt so far only provided a brief, generic statement but several individuals and projects are already expressing interest in a Qt fork should it come to it.

The hope is first and foremost that The Qt Company and KDE / KDE Free Qt Foundation can reach a mutual agreement without this embargo on future releases, which would effectively close up its development. But should an agreement go unresolved and The Qt Company go ahead with their plans in the name of boosting short-term revenues stemming from the coronavirus, developers are expressing a willingness to fork should it come it.

Among those backing the concept of forking Qt as a last resort if necessary has been developers from consulting firm KDAB, the Qute browser developer, and the QGIS project as one of the leading geographic information system software packages, among many KDE developers themselves.

This mailing list thread is quite active in talking about the possible fork if necessary, including aspects like web-hosting down to what such a fork should be called ("Kt" seems to be a popular choice so far with several different members in the community).

We'll see what happens but unfortunate it's all coming while Qt 6 is heating up for release later this year.