
Qt 5.15 LTS - reddotX
https://www.qt.io/blog/qt-5.15-released
======
toyg
_> we have started working on an abstraction layer for
[OpenGL/Vulkan/Metal/Direct3D] a bit more than a year ago. It's called the Qt
Rendering Hardware Interface (RHI)_

Looks cool, but makes me sad that they have to do it. This industry is so
annoying sometimes.

Also, sad to see classic widgets continue to get no love. I know it's a lost
cause, I'm just sentimental about it.

~~~
jhasse
They don't have to. The universal API is called ANGLE and it will work
everywhere soon.

~~~
de_watcher
You're a funny guy.

------
thePunisher
I'm very nervous about using Qt since they announced they more or less want to
get rid of the free edition due to less than expected income.

And their commercial offerings are very pricey indeed ($6000 a year).

I'd recommend users to switch to wxWidgets.

~~~
VadimPR
It's not 6k a year, there's a cheaper plan now: [https://www.qt.io/en-us/qt-
for-small-business](https://www.qt.io/en-us/qt-for-small-business)

~~~
langitbiru
Yeah, $499 per year is reasonable. It's similar to Adobe Creative Cloud all-
apps plan pricing.

~~~
nextweek2
The main criteria to qualify for that is that your turnover is less than
$250,000 per year.

------
wooptoo
LTS releases are very welcome, more open source software should adopt this
release style. So far the Linux kernel, NodeJS, LibreOffice, Django have LTS
candidates. Would love Python to join that list.

~~~
viraptor
What kind of lts term would you expect from python? Django is 3 years,
libreoffice I can't find lts, node is 2 years, Linux is 6 years.

Python is supported for ~5 years (closer to 6 in practice) without any promise
of an lts release.
[https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0537/#lifespan](https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0537/#lifespan)
Would you want more than that?

~~~
wooptoo
Thanks, didn't realise Python releases are supported for so long. For
Libreoffice the LTS release is called 'Still':
[https://www.libreoffice.org/download/release-
notes/](https://www.libreoffice.org/download/release-notes/)

------
s1t5
Any good alternatives to Qt? I remember looking into the cross-platform
desktop development landscape a while ago and being disappointed by the
options (Qt, Gtk, Electron).

~~~
Ingon
Instead, I’m looking for a static, strongly typed language, that gives me
native bindings for each platform’s gui. I think I’m fine with doing the
abstraction bit myself, where and when needed. Any recommendations?

Last time I had to do a gui, I chose JavaFX, and it was fine. But I’m still
looking for native options, even if I have to implement the ui 3 times.

Edit: to clarify, I’m looking for something beyond C/C++

~~~
capitol_
I'm amazed that it has been 15 minutes and noone have said Rust yet ;)

It you want to explore the Rust option, here is an overview of the status of
GUI toolkits in Rust: [https://areweguiyet.com/](https://areweguiyet.com/)

------
ognarb
The release looks great. All the 3d stuff is very interesting. I still hope we
will soon get a tree view in QtQuick.

~~~
Kelteseth
there is now (Commercial/GPL only):
[https://www.reddit.com/r/QtFramework/comments/gfsqzv/qtquick...](https://www.reddit.com/r/QtFramework/comments/gfsqzv/qtquick_now_has_an_official_treeview_that_is/)

------
A4ET8a8uTh0
Hmm. I just started playing with QT and I really like how easy it was to
create simple database interface. It may not be pretty, but it is very
functional. The change to commercial is a little sad, and I understand the
money part. I just wish they did not require an account to do it.

------
de_watcher
The real news is Qt6.

------
gigatexal
QT is so open source unfriendly who cares they released a new version?

~~~
jcelerier
[https://doc.qt.io/qt-5/lgpl.html](https://doc.qt.io/qt-5/lgpl.html)

> Qt is available under the GNU Lesser General Public License version 3.

~~~
vetinari
Qt offering changes 2020 ([https://www.qt.io/blog/qt-offering-
changes-2020](https://www.qt.io/blog/qt-offering-changes-2020))

\- Installation of Qt binaries will require a Qt Account

\- Long-term-supported (LTS) releases and the offline installer will become
available to commercial licensees only

\---

Starting with Qt 5.15, long term support (LTS) will only be available to
commercial customers. This means open-source users will receive patch-level
releases of 5.15 until the next minor release will become available. This
means that we will handle Qt 5.15 in the same way as e.g. 5.13 or 5.14 for
open source users.

~~~
enriquto
> Installation of Qt binaries will require a Qt Account

How is this compatible wit the LGPL? Can't I host a compiled copy of Qt and
let the world install it?

~~~
csdreamer7
The Qt company owns the copyright to the Qt source code so they can sell
(L)GPL exceptions. Bundling LGPL code in a binary, as mobile may require,
instead of loading as dynamic library, requires you to get an LGPL exception
from the copyright holder (or provide an object file for the user to relink).
Other licenses, like Apache and the EPL, do not have this issue.

Companies can do this for open source projects. They require you to sign a
contributor agreement handing over over copyright or require you license the
code to them under the MIT. For the most part, differs based on region and
IANAL.

Edit: corrected in () that you can comply with the LGPL with static binaries
with providing an object file to the user to relink with.

~~~
enriquto
> Bundling LGPL code in a binary, as mobile may require, instead of loading as
> dynamic library, requires you to get an LGPL exception from the copyright
> holder.

How come? The LGPL allows people to distribute statically compiled binaries
that use Qt, you do not need an exception for that.

~~~
csdreamer7
> The LGPL allows people to distribute statically compiled binaries that use
> Qt

Hmmm... you can as long as you provide an object. Learned something new today.
I do remember Mike discussing that on Coder Radio that would be an issue in
the security industry. I assuming there were some aerospace libraries that are
NDAed/restricted by national security laws.

[https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10130143/gpl-lgpl-and-
st...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10130143/gpl-lgpl-and-static-
linking)

[http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-
faq.html#LGPLStaticVsDynamic](http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-
faq.html#LGPLStaticVsDynamic)

Is this possible on iOS? Not familiar with iOS dev, but I assume Apple may
have some TOS problems with that.

~~~
jcelerier
It is, Cisco does it for one of their apps which uses Gstreamer on iOS.

See the note here at the end:
[https://github.com/freedesktop/gstreamer/blob/master/README....](https://github.com/freedesktop/gstreamer/blob/master/README.static-
linking)

