[Development] Removing Qt 3D from release configuration in dev branch

[Tuukka Turunen]

Hi,

We have been discussing with KDAB about the future maintenance of Qt 3D module. It is a quite large and complex module, which has for most use cases by now been superseded by Qt Quick 3D. Since Qt 3D has been available for a long time, it should continue to be available for those who still need it. It is also part of all currently supported releases, which would continue to have it in upcoming patch level releases.

After discussing with KDAB (maintainer of Qt 3D) on how to proceed, we came up with the following and also agreed that I’ll summarize it for the Qt project development list:

  *   Qt 3D module is removed from official release configuration in the dev branch, i.e. no longer part of the releases from Qt 6.8 onwards
  *   Qt 3D continues to be part of Qt project, it continues to be covered by CI, and available in the repository for those who want to use it
  *   Even though not part of the release configuration, intention is to keep Qt 3D working also with Qt 6.8
  *   Qt 6.7 and older releases continue to have Qt 3D module in the upcoming patch releases
Qt 3D module was initially developed for Qt 4 and then received a major overhaul for Qt 5. It was also brought forward to Qt 6. Initially the idea was to offer Qt 3D as a separate item in Qt 6.0 via package manage (https://wiki.qt.io/Qt_6.0.0_Modules), but since we were not able to make this modularity successful, it was included to the release configuration along with the other add-on modules. Qt Quick 3D is a later addition to Qt, originating from the contribution from NVIDIA (https://www.qt.io/blog/2017/02/20/introducing-qt-3d-studio), initially as a separate runtime, then refactored into Qt Quick 3D for Qt 5 to achieve better alignment with Qt Quick 2D and after that completely reworked to be fully aligned with Qt Quick in Qt 6.

Yours,

                Tuukka




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