[Interest] Qt and Open Source

[Matthew Woehlke]

On 09/04/2020 08.28, Florian Bruhin wrote:
> Today, The Qt Company released a quick statement:
> https://www.qt.io/blog/qt-and-open-source
> 
>    The Qt Company is proud to be committed to [...] open source, and
>    the Qt governance model.

Recent actions:

> [A]fter more and more moves against the open-source side of Qt
> recently, I place a lot more trust in statements coming from KDE
> rather than those coming from TQtC...

...say otherwise.

> 2) Qt tried to bluff in order to force KDE to change some other provision of
> their contract, possibly even using the current pandemic as an excuse to do so.
> I find this repulsive, but unfortunately, it seems the most likely explanation,
> especially given this part of KDEs announcement: "The Qt Company says that they
> are willing to reconsider the approach only if we offer them concessions in
> other areas. I am reminded, however, of the situation half a year ago. We had
> discussed an approach for contract updates, which they suddenly threw away by
> restricting LTS releases of Qt instead."

Even assuming this *is* the case, it still doesn't bode well for their 
*actual* attitude towards the FLOSS community.

The evidence strongly suggests that TQtC is FLOSS-hostile and that they 
are doing the bare minimum necessary to avoid triggering the 'kill 
provisions'.

> 3) Qt is just trying to do damage control and still intends to follow through
> with those changes. Like I said, I always try to assume good faith, but the
> lack of transparency on TQtC's side about this topic really doesn't help.

This may be the best case scenario, and I suppose it's possible, but 
even this would be a case of TQtC (upper management, anyway) being 
completely out of tune with the FLOSS community.

> I know some readers will have very strong opinions against the Qt 
> Company after the announcement
Probably. My opinion is unchanged; just solidified.

Remember OOo...

-- 
Matthew