[Development] Proposal: Qt 4.9 release

[Konstantin Tokarev]

Hi all,

Qt 5 has a number of new features, that could be relatively easy backported into Qt 4
without breaking backward compatibility [1], notably new classes (unrelated to QPA),
new methods, and new macros.

I think it's high time for Qt 4.9 to be released.

Rationale:

1. Large code bases.

Though source incompatibilities between Qt 4 and Qt 5 were carefully minimized,
porting of very large code bases still requires significant emount of work, however
it would be useful to have new classes available for writing new code.

2. No QWS in Qt 5.

Porting of QWS-based embedded application requires more effort for porting.
For example, in Smartlabs we are using custom graphics plugins for hardware
we are targeting, and our code depends heavily on QWS API.

Also, AFAIU from [2] there's no point in using QPA on OpenGL-incapable hardware.
Our target hardware is doesn't support OpenGL at all, or supports OpenGL 1.x only.

3. Deprecated in Qt 5 / community supported / XCB-less platforms.

On these platforms Qt 5 may be unavailable for certain period of time, or have lesser
port quality, so it would be benefitial to have updated Qt 4 there.

For example, it would allow to run latest and greatest Qt Creator for some time on
Solaris, while not preventing Qt Creator from using Qt 5 features like QRegularExpression.

4. QtWebKit 2.3

New release of QtWebKit (2.3), compatible with Qt 4 is planned, and it would be more
logical to include it into Qt 4.9 then into new patch release of Qt 4.8.


Personally I'd like to port next features into Qt 4:
* QJson* stuff
* QMessageLogger and friends
* QRegularExpression and friends
* QStandardPaths
* New methods QtNetwork module and QSslCertificateExtension
* QLocalServer::listen(qintptr)
* New QtTest macros
* Maybe something else


[1] http://qt-project.org/doc/qt-5.0/qt5-intro.html
[2] http://qt-project.org/wiki/Category:Hardware-FAQ


-- 
Regards,
Konstantin