New Qt Releases Might Now Be Restricted To Paying Customers For 12 Months

guest · Apr 13, 2020

New Qt Releases Might Now Be Restricted To Paying Customers For 12 Months
April 8, 2020
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Qt-Might-Restrict-New-Releases

With an apparent blame on the novel coronavirus, The Qt Company is said to be considering restricting new Qt releases to paying customers for a period of twelve months in an effort to boost their near-term finances.

KDE and the open-source Qt folks have been in discussions with The Qt Company especially with the restrictions announced back in January by The Qt Company that LTS point releases might only be available to commercial customers, Qt Accounts being needed for binary package downloads, etc.
But the most surprising new information made public today by KDE's Olaf Schmidt-Wischhöfer is that The Qt Company is considering making new releases paid-customer-only for the first twelve months.

But the most surprising new information made public today by KDE's Olaf Schmidt-Wischhöfer is that The Qt Company is considering making new releases paid-customer-only for the first twelve months.

"[...] As a result, they are thinking about restricting ALL Qt releases to paid license holders for the first 12 months. They are aware that this would mean the end of contributions via Open Governance in practice."
Click to expand...

Thus moving ahead there is the possibility of a ~12 month delay for new releases being available as open-source but The Qt Company doesn't appear to have firmly decided on this direction yet.
More details via this KDE mailing list post.
Click to expand...

guest · Apr 13, 2020

More Open-Source Participants Are Backing A Possible Fork Of Qt
April 11, 2020
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=More-Interest-Possible-Qt-Fork

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.
Click to expand...

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.
Click to expand...

guest · Jan 5, 2021

The Qt Company Is Tomorrow Moving Qt 5.15 To Its Commercial-Only LTS Phase
January 4, 2021
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Qt-5.15-LTS-Commercial-Phase

As part of their fundamental shift to restrict Qt LTS point releases to commercial customers, The Qt Company is closing the Qt 5.15 branch to the public tomorrow with future Qt 5.15 LTS point releases to be restricted to paying licensees.

The notice was sent out today that beginning tomorrow (5 January) will start the commercial-only LTS phase of Qt 5.15. The existing Qt 5.15 branches will be publicly visible but will not see any new patches. The public branches are closed to new commits with the exception of Qt WebEngine and the deprecated Qt Script due to third-party LGPL dependencies.
Only active, commercial license holders will be able to access the private repository that will have the code that comprises the future Qt 5.15 LTS point releases.

The first commercial-only Qt 5.15 LTS tagged release is expected to happen in February.
Click to expand...

There is a Qt.io bug report calling for "-free" branches of Qt 5.15 to be maintained by those interested in the community. But no developers from The Qt Company have yet responded to that proposal, which they may very well dismiss considering it could detract from potential paying customers. Otherwise the current state of the Qt 5.15 branch could be forked elsewhere and maintained by those interested in a community Qt LTS version.
Click to expand...

guest · Jan 5, 2021

Open-source contributors say they'll pull out of Qt as LTS release goes commercial-only
'There'll be no more work from external/unpaid contributors' – dev
January 5, 2021
https://www.theregister.com/2021/01/05/qt_lts_goes_commercial_only/

Yesterday senior VP Tuukka Turunen posted: "With Qt 6.0.0 released and the first patch release (Qt 6.0.1) coming soon, it is time to enter the commercial-only LTS phase for Qt 5.15 LTS. All the existing 5.15 branches remain publicly visible, but they are closed for new commits (and cherry-picks)... closing happens tomorrow, 5th January 2021.

"After this the cherry-picks go to another repository that will be available only for the commercial license holders... first commercial-only Qt 5.15.3 LTS patch release is planned to be released in February."
Open-source contributor Thiago Macieira, an Intel software architect, said of the decision: "That means I will not be participating in the development of those fixes, commenting on what's appropriate or not, reviewing backports, or bug reports."

"Tend to agree," said Konstantin Ritt, another developer. "If there is a decision to close 5.15 sources, there'll be no more work from external/unpaid contributors."
Click to expand...

A possible solution is a community-driven fork of Qt 5.15 to which bug fixes could be backported. This is under discussion here.

David Edmundson, a maintainer for the Qt-based KDE Linux desktop, noted that: "Whilst that is a valid option, it is not an ideal outcome."
Click to expand...

Log in or Sign up

New Qt Releases Might Now Be Restricted To Paying Customers For 12 Months

guest Guest

guest Guest

guest Guest

guest Guest

Log in or Sign up

New Qt Releases Might Now Be Restricted To Paying Customers For 12 Months

guest Guest

guest Guest

guest Guest

guest Guest

Useful Searches