[Interest] 5.8 Features?

[Sze Howe Koh]

On 22 June 2016 at 21:39, Jason H <jhihn at gmx.com> wrote:
>
> > Subject: Re: [Interest] 5.8 Features?
> >
> > On 22 June 2016 at 09:34, Thiago Macieira <thiago.macieira at intel.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > On terça-feira, 21 de junho de 2016 22:55:07 PDT Jason H wrote:
> > > > I feel like the last few releases have been run by the trolls, and not the
> > > > users of Qt. I was hoping open governance would enable the community to
> > > > direct Qt development, but I seem to have misinterpreted what it means.
> >
> > See https://wiki.qt.io/The_Qt_Governance_Model
> >
> > "Open governance" means that all members of the community can raise
> > proposals and vote on them. It is also a meritocratic system (as
> > opposed to democratic), which means more weight is given to members of
> > higher rank. Put simply, rank is gained through contributions and
> > commitment to the Qt Project.
>
> Where and when does this voting occur?

Where: Often at the Development mailing list:
http://lists.qt-project.org/mailman/listinfo/development
When: Whenever someone posts a proposal.

Examples:
* Proposal for choosing the list of platforms to support for Qt 5.8:
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lib.qt.devel/24938/focus=24965
* Proposal for polishing and releasing QtSingleApplication:
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lib.qt.devel/26279/focus=26358

My apologies, "voting" was the wrong word to use, as Thiago explained
in his email. Rather than counting votes, the process is a
discussion/debate where the proposals with the highest merit get
accepted.


> I've been vocal about improving Qt on mobile since mobile was an option. I've been hardcore on the shortcomings for about 20 months. During that time, I saw 5.6 get released, 5.7 get released at the same time as 5.6.1, and a lot of meaningless (to me) modules added. And now 5.8 is only 1.5 months from 5.7? What_the_hell? I'd like to see Qt complete it's mobile initiative.
>
> As for contributing, the past 20 months I've been under _multiple_ commercial licenses, one that was paying for a Desktop just to use Qt Charts. I think that's pretty material.

First of all, thank you for supporting Qt's development by purchasing
commercial licenses.

I'd imagine that funds from commercial licenses are normally allocated
to the development and maintenance of the entire Qt framework. Start a
conversation with your sales rep, and see if you can request greater
focus on specific areas. (Disclaimer: I'm not affiliated with the Qt
Company and I don't speak on their behalf, so please correct me if
this advice is inappropriate.)

Please remember: The Qt Company's commercial decision making process
and the Qt Project's Open Governance are _not_ the same thing. In the
context of Open Governance, "contribution" refers mainly to code
contributions. I don't have insight into the commercial decision
making process.

Anyway, as Tuukka pointed out in his email, Qt is making steady
progress in the mobile world (although "mobile" is still very broad,
and it sounds like the progress to date isn't in the areas that you're
interested in). There are multiple ways to get the mobile features
that you want, sooner:

* The open source community way: Get involved personally. Test,
review, and provide feedback for relevant patches, e.g.
https://codereview.qt-project.org/#/c/149602/ . If a patch gets
neglected, ping the list for more attention. Even better, write and
submit your own patches.
* The commercial customer way: Talk to your Qt Company sales rep
directly to try to influence their decisions.
* Use a ready-made 3rd party toolkit to complement official Qt
features, e.g. V-Play: http://v-play.net/
* Get 3rd party professionals on board to implement the specific
features that you want, e.g.
https://woboq.com/blog/qdockwidget-changes-in-56.html -- "You can hire
Woboq to fix your own Qt bugs or implement new features inside Qt"


Regards,
Sze-Howe