[Development] Changes to Qt offering

[Bogdan Vatra]

În ziua de marți, 28 ianuarie 2020, la 08:37:47 EET, Benjamin TERRIER a scris:
> Le mar. 28 janv. 2020 à 03:22, Thiago Macieira <thiago.macieira at intel.com>
> 
> a écrit :
> > On segunda-feira, 27 de janeiro de 2020 14:47:46 PST NIkolai Marchenko
> > 
> > wrote:
> > > Assuming we have a VM that is restricted to connecting to the internet,
> > 
> > we
> > 
> > > previously could dump the installer there and install Qt.
> > > Now, we need to have an intermediary PC with the same OS to first
> > > install
> > > the binaries via online installer and then copy those binary files to
> > 
> > that
> > 
> > > first VM.
> > > 
> > > This is an extraneous and completely artificial step for absolutely no
> > > reason other than TQtC paywalling them, which is ridiculous.
> > 
> > Previously, you anonymously downloaded the offline installer from another
> > machine, then copied it over to the VM, and installed there.
> > 
> > Now you're going to download the offline installer from another machine
> > after
> > typing your password, then copy over to the VM and install there.
> > 
> > What's the hurdle?
> 
> You might have missed the info because it is in the blog post, but not in
> Lars email:
> 
> There will be no more open source offline installer.
> 
> For binaries, open source users will only have access to the online
> installer that will require a Qt Account.

  Folks, you have to understand that The Qt Company must pay its developers!
  I really don't bother if there will be offline installers only for commercial 
customers. Or if they will require an username&pass to download from the 
online installer. Right now I'm not typing my user & pass just because the 
pass it's randomly generated and I'm too lazy to open my passwords app to get 
it.

  What I'm worried about is that there will be a 5.15 fork after TQC will 
close that branch. That fork will be necessary because you can't just switch 
projects like KDE from Qt 5 to Qt 6 overnight, it will take years to do it!
In all these years, all linux distributions that will ship Qt 5, will need 
regular updates with bug fixes, and because Qt 5.15 branch it's closed they 
will have to use either a "community" fork where all these distros will share 
their bugfixes or they will have their own patches. This means, it will be bad 
for TQC, because if these patches are not contributed via gerrit (CLA), TQC 
can't use them for commercial customers.

Cheers,
BogDan.