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From: Edward Diener on 26 Jan 2010 11:48
Jeff Schwab wrote:
> Edward Diener wrote:
>
>> Unfortunately Qt's pricing/licensing destroys its ability to be taken
>> seriously. What C++ definitely does not need is people telling you how
>> you can use their library.
>
> Qt is available under GPL, LGPL, or commercial licenses (at a few
> thousand USD per seat). It may not be "taken seriously" by you, but it
> certainly is the basis for a lot of new development, and is probably the
> closest thing we have to a long-term, cross-platform GUI solution in C++.

Neither the pricing for the commercial license nor either of the GPL
licenses are acceptable to me. I highly doubt whether GPL licensing will
ever be acceptable to me as an individual developer, and I believe that
I hardly stand alone in that matter. Of course if businesses,
corporations, and eduicational institutions accept (L)GPL licensing that
is their business but it will not influence my perception of how truly
wrong it is. That is why I say that I can not take Qt "seriously" and
not for any particular technical reason.

I am aware that Qt otherwise represents a decent product which many C++
programmers use and approve of on a technical level. But I would be
greatly dismayed if the standard C++ committee ever accepted a library
as part of the C++ standard which had to conform to the GPL ( or LGPL )
licensing model. And since the OP was about the potential for a standard
C++ GUI library, I can not thinik that Qt as it now stands, with its
licensing model, could ever be the one to be chosen, even outside of
technical considerations.


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From: Martin B. on 26 Jan 2010 23:06
Edward Diener wrote:
> Jeff Schwab wrote:
>> Edward Diener wrote:
>>
>>> Unfortunately Qt's pricing/licensing destroys its ability to be taken
>>> seriously. What C++ definitely does not need is people telling you how
>>> you can use their library.
>>
>> Qt is available under GPL, LGPL, or commercial licenses (at a few
>> thousand USD per seat). It may not be "taken seriously" by you, but it
>> certainly is the basis for a lot of new development, and is probably the
>> closest thing we have to a long-term, cross-platform GUI solution in C++.
>
> Neither the pricing for the commercial license nor either of the GPL
> licenses are acceptable to me. I highly doubt whether GPL licensing will
> ever be acceptable to me as an individual developer, and I believe that
> I hardly stand alone in that matter. Of course if businesses,
> corporations, and eduicational institutions accept (L)GPL licensing that
> is their business but it will not influence my perception of how truly
> wrong it is. That is why I say that I can not take Qt "seriously" and
> not for any particular technical reason.
>

While this is getting rather OT, I'm really interested why you as a C++
developer -
(1) Seem to imply GPL and LGPL are the same thing?
(2) Apparently deem it unacceptable to pay for a library?
(3) Seem to imply a library that either charges it's users a decent
price or at no cost obliges them to release improvements to the lib
itself cannot be taken seriously.

> (...)

cheers,
Martin

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