
The Qt Company Introduces a Unified Website - emilsedgh
http://blog.qt.digia.com/blog/2014/09/16/the-qt-company-introduces-a-unified-website-and-20e25-monthly-indie-mobile-package/
======
stevelaz
This++ I've used Qt for desktop apps as well as apps on Embedded Linux. I've
even used it with a Lua wrapper API that made development even easier. Is it a
bit bloated? Yes. But unless you are very constrained for memory and flash
space it should fit in your embedded system. They also have a way for you to
select which components you want to compile for your target, allowing you to
control how much of the bloat you actually use. :)

tldr; I like Qt, and I'll use it again.

~~~
ColinCera
Which "Lua wrapper API" did you use?

~~~
stevelaz
I used lqt from
[https://github.com/mkottman/lqt](https://github.com/mkottman/lqt). It worked
out great for the project at the time.

------
dugmartin
Note for those looking for commercial pricing - it is sort of hidden under the
top buttons in the download page:

[http://www.qt.io/download/](http://www.qt.io/download/)

That said, just having a publicly listed price anywhere feels like a big step
forward for Qt. In the past there was just a "Contact Sales" form with
whispered mentions across forums about real pricing. I think this dissuaded a
lot of indie devs from trying out Qt.

I'm not sure why this new site doesn't just have a page called "Pricing" that
explains what the monthly pricing means. Answer questions like "Do the tools
lock out if the subscription is cancelled or do my rights to published
statically linked Qt apps get cancelled?" and "Do I have to pay each month to
keep those rights even if there is no active development on an app?".

My guess is that Qt must make a bulk of their revenue on enterprise sales and
are reticent to open up a self serve sales process (highlighted by the squeeze
page they put up when you click the 30 day trial download button). It is a
shame because I think Qt could enable a lot of great apps.

~~~
hartcw
The way the license information is presented is a little misleading. The
Community edition is described as for 'Open Source & Hobby Projects', giving
the impression that its not possible to release a commercial product using
that. Thats not true of course, its LGPL licensed and so can be used for
commercial software as long as the license obligations are adherred to.

The desktop app I sell uses Qt, against the LGPL license. I would probably pay
for the commercial license from them if it was more reasonably priced, but
$295 per month to distribute on Mac and Windows is just too much to swallow.

~~~
vram22
>Thats not true of course, its LGPL licensed and so can be used for commercial
software as long as the license obligations are adherred to.

What are those obligations? Can you summarize or give a link? Thanks.

~~~
JoshTriplett
Roughly: link dynamically or provide object files for relinking; don't
prohibit reverse engineering of your software (for compatibility with new
library versions); don't modify the LGPLed library to require a proprietary
component to function.

~~~
vram22
Thanks, JoshTriplett and FigBug.

------
jo_
Does Qt still do that thing where they reimplement a lot of the C++ standard
components like Vector? I remember years ago having problems with their
reimplementation and wonder how much that's changed.

~~~
FigBug
Yup, QList, QVector, QString. There are a lot of reimplementations. I tend to
find them a lot easier to use than the C++ counterparts. What type of problems
were you having?

~~~
heeen
QString is a proper unicode-aware string with conversions to many character
codecs. It doesn't really compare to std::string.

~~~
shmerl
C++11 has better Unicode support than previous versions.

~~~
heeen
people don't seem too impressed with it though
[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17103925/how-well-is-
unic...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17103925/how-well-is-unicode-
supported-in-c11)

------
blub
Wow, did I get this right that they have an indie mobile offering now for 20
EUR (without VAT)? This would be fantastic! It used to be 130 EUR.

~~~
milliams
per month, yes.

~~~
orng
How does that work? Do you have to continue to pay the license the entire time
that you app is commercially available or is it only during development?

~~~
blub
Before qt.io was announced I wrote support and asked the same question. In
short - yes, you have to pay each month according to them. It's quite
reasonable perhaps except for apps that are updated very rarely.

~~~
cjensen
You can't sell the app without the license! So update rate doesn't matter.

------
bshimmin
800,000+ developers seems like an awful lot. I work mostly on the web - do I
just not move in the right circles to meet these Qt developers?

~~~
jeroen94704
It is the blind spot of the Web/Silicon Valley/Startup world that not all
programming is web programming. While the Googles and Facebooks of this world
get all the press, there is a stupendous number of developers working on good
old-fashioned desktop applications and embedded software. That is the world
where Qt is very popular.

In fact, it is my opinion that Qt is the one thing that keeps C++ relevant
these days ([http://weblog.jeroen.ws/blog/2012/11/19/how-relevant-is-c-
pl...](http://weblog.jeroen.ws/blog/2012/11/19/how-relevant-is-c-plus-plus-
today/)).

~~~
pjmlp
There are lots of things that keep C++ relevant, not only Qt.

~~~
anonbanker
Such as?

~~~
_wmd
If you count C in the same breath, then between them, they make up the
implementation language for probably 99% of other languages, and the operating
systems those languages run on.

For anything safety critical, C in particular still has a vice-like
stranglehold in many industries (e.g. automobile)

~~~
rurounijones
> For anything safety critical, C in particular still has a vice-like
> stranglehold in many industries (e.g. automobile)

Which is kind of ironic, given its well known foot-shooting abilities.

~~~
slavik81
That's partly why the use it: the problems with C are well understood by many
people. They choose the devil they know.

------
codebeaker
Is there a modern book which targets a current QT? Last time I was looking
(and on Google just now) I wasn't able to find a book that took someone from
never having used QT to shipping something.

~~~
km3k
I've been looking for this too, but most books like this are older and focus
on Qt 3 or 4, not Qt 5.

~~~
shmerl
I guess it was changing too rapidly. I'm waiting for such book as well.

------
switchbak
I was under the impression that I could use the (L)GPL version and deploy to
various app stores - I wouldn't get support though.

But this article describes "deployment rights", which one would apparently not
have access to if using the open source version. A quick google revealed no
additional information on this.

Does anyone have any concrete info on deploying mobile Qt apps to app stores
with the open source version?

~~~
FigBug
LGPL requires that the user be able to replace the LGPL portion with an
updated / modified version. This is usually accomplished with dynamic linking.
Since the iOS store requires apps to be signed and disallows dynamic linking,
there is no way for the user to modify the LGPL portion. I assume other app
stores are similar.

GPL is disallowed for similar reasons, no way for the end user to recompile
and app from the app store and run it on their device.

~~~
pushedx
I can make available the source for an iPhone app that could be compiled with
XCode.

How is this in violation of the GPL?

~~~
comex
It's not a violation of the _L_ GPL.

The plain GPL is usually said to be unusable on the App Store because it has a
clause that "no further restrictions" may be made on the use of the software;
that may be fine with you, but when Apple redistributes your app through the
App Store, they do it with a EULA that prohibits a wide range of things, so,
as the argument goes, such redistribution violates the license. The LGPL does
not have such a clause, so it's OK. (It does have a clause that prohibits
further restrictions on reverse engineering, but the iTunes terms of use have
an explicit exemption to the general reverse engineering ban based on
"licensing terms governing use of any open-sourced components".)

------
dharma1
On a related note, we are hiring a front end engineer to work on Ubuntu phone
and desktop. Stack is Qt,QML, JS and possibly some html5. Could work for a QML
dev or a web dev who wants to learn Qt. London based position - email me at
jouni.helminen@canonical.com

------
CognitiveLens
The site/message is good, but I'm not sure I would ever promote any in-flight
entertainment system as a great example of a development framework in action.
Almost every one I've used has been among the slowest, clunkiest, crashiest,
most unresponsive, poorly designed "modern" UIs I've ever used.

In order to avoid being entirely critical, however, Qt does serve a role that
few other dev platforms do, and although I suspect there are better
alternatives, I'm glad that there is still strong support for it!

~~~
flaie
I had the chance to fly with Delta this summer, the electronics had been
updated in my flight, and the UI was great and felt "responsive" in a certain
way, let's say 5 times better than before.

------
fuzzythinker
$149/mo to develop on desktop OSes, that is too steep. It pretty much rules
out all but big publishers.

EDIT: Downvoters, please read and answer my replies below before doing so.

~~~
Erwin
It's actually $215 for 1 platform, $295 for all 3. Per developer.

That's low compared to the old one which was something like $3k for one
platform, $5k for multiple.

If you cannot make $215/month with your software, how can you pay anyone a
salary?

If you are non-professional, why not use the open source edition and add value
with support?

~~~
fuzzythinker
Why do you assume I'm paying someone a salary? I don't even make enough to
cover my expenses (just started going indie). For someone like me, $149/mo is
way too steep no matter what other options are. It just tells me qt is not an
option for me.

As stated in other reply, open source option not an option as it states I
can't publish it in app stores.

~~~
panzi
You could use the LGPL version during development and only switch to the
commercial license once you go live.

~~~
slavik81
Has the commercial agreement been changed? The terms of the commercial license
specifically prohibited that.

~~~
panzi
It does? But I thought it is possible to use the LGPL version to develop apps.
It is just not possible to distribute them through the app stores because of
the app stores, not because of Qt. You don't use the app store to deploy the
development version of your app onto you development device.

~~~
slavik81
That's all true. However, the commercial license included this:

"You must purchase a Qt Commercial Developer License from us or from one of
our authorized resellers before you start developing commercial software. The
Qt Commercial Developer License does not allow the incorporation of code
developed with the Qt GNU LGPL v. 2.1 or GNU GPL v. 3.0 license versions into
a commercial product."

Basically, you have to choose LGPL or commercial before you start your
project. You can only transition from commercial to LGPL, not LGPL to
commercial.

They do that to prevent specifically the thing you're suggesting, though
they're probably aiming it more at large companies with many developers, so
those guys don't just buy 1 license.

~~~
panzi
Ah, I see.

------
sz4kerto
Does anyone have experience with Xamarin AND Qt as well? I am curious how do
they compare for cross-platform mobile app development.

~~~
blub
I only have experience with Qt, and can tell you that a problem with the
current version is the difficulty in getting a native look on mobile. If you
want a custom UI, QML is great, but Digia really need to offer native-looking
UI components. They will do this for widget-based UIs on Android in the next
version I believe, but no word on iOS.

Other than that it's quite nice.

~~~
mwcampbell
Native UI goes far beyond the look. Another concern is accessibility,
especially for blind users. Non-native UIs can be accessible, but only if the
toolkit implements each platform's accessibility API, and gets the
implementation right, which seems to be very difficult. (For example, last
time I checked, Qt's implementation of the relevant accessibility APIs on
Windows was deficient enough that the TeamTalk voice chat client offers a
"classic" MFC-based client specifically for blind users.)

------
ryanmelt
For all the ruby devs on HN: check out the ruby bindings to qt at
[http://github.com/ryanmelt/qtbindings](http://github.com/ryanmelt/qtbindings).
Makes developing GUI apps in ruby really easy. Be sure to checkout the large
set of example apps to get started.

~~~
rurounijones
I have always looked upon these kinds of projects with interest until it comes
to the packaging.

Let us say I create a really super-duper ruby qtbindings application. Is there
any way for me to easily package it as a .msi / .dmg / .deb for distribution?

I have messed around with ocra, monkeybars etc and they have never worked or
require arcane and undocumented hacks.

Packaging for distribution is the biggest challenge for desktop ruby apps I
think.

------
Sir_Cmpwn
Is there a good way to get into Qt? Some getting started blog posts for devs
would be very useful, but I've always thought that the Qt learning curve
starts with good intentions and then goes vertical. Does anyone have some
resources to share?

~~~
milliams
It depends on what you want to use it for (Qt covers a lot of use-cases) but
[http://qt-project.org/doc/qt-5/qtexamplesandtutorials.html](http://qt-
project.org/doc/qt-5/qtexamplesandtutorials.html) is probably a good start.

------
aceperry
I love Qt, good to see them promoting it more.

------
general_failure
$25 per month is a steal!

------
3327
Guys please ditch the carousel terrible way to convey information when the
initial and first piece of information I am trying to absorb is moving around.

~~~
revx
+1. The carousel switched faster than I could read all the text.

------
iamtew
Could someone explain this for me please? It's not really clear from the
website, but is this any different from the Qt project? [http://qt-
project.org/](http://qt-project.org/)

~~~
milliams
[http://blog.qt.digia.com/blog/2014/09/16/the-qt-company-
intr...](http://blog.qt.digia.com/blog/2014/09/16/the-qt-company-introduces-a-
unified-website-and-20e25-monthly-indie-mobile-package/) should explain it.

