[Interest] Fwd: Re: Qt Creator licensing for companies with Qt, Commercial developers

[Roland Hughes]

I sent this the other day but it hasn't made it into the list yet. At 
least I haven't seen it. Forwarding because it is pertinent

-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: 	Re: [Interest] Qt Creator licensing for companies with Qt, 
Commercial developers
Date: 	Mon, 30 Mar 2020 14:09:42 -0500
From: 	Roland Hughes <roland at logikalsolutions.com>
To: 	interest at qt-project.org, asmaloney at gmail.com




On 3/30/20 1:03 PM, Andy wrote:
> That makes no sense. Your license prevents a company from using an
> open-source tool? It says "if you license our stuff you cannot use the
> open-source tool X"?
>
> This whole thread is yet another great example of where the Qt Company is
> totally tone-deaf.
>
> Nobody understands your licensing. You have fewer people using Qt and
> Qt-based things because of this.

I've honestly been expecting KDE to kick Qt to the curb any day now if 
they are reading this.

Medical device companies have been running screaming away from Qt over 
the past year. Many moving to Rust. Some are even moving to Zinc which 
really kind of surprised me.

Some companies in other markets are abandoning embedded Linux for 
embedded DOS so they can use other GUI tools. Before you Guffaw at that, 
AGCO uses a lot of embedded DOS and they make an awful lot of Ag heavy 
equipment. Last I heard they were moving away from Qt as well.

What is impressive is how "company" and "project" get thrown around 
interchangeably. So, if one tiny little project in GE in some remote 
location is using a commercial license, from what was stated, every 
person in every GE location around the world __must__ have a commercial 
Qt license to use QtCreator even if they are just using C++. I guess 
everyone has to move to Emacs, CodeLite, KDevelop, and VSCodium.

https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/

https://codelite.org/

https://www.kdevelop.org/

https://vscodium.com/

I suppose if they didn't want free they could pay $299 for SlickEdit.

https://www.slickedit.com/

or a $100/yr annual subscription to UltraEdit.

Just be aware that UltraEdit like many other PC originating editors gets 
tabs wrong. When you set tabs to spaces and set their width to 4, 
hitting <TAB> when cursor is in first column of the line has to put the 
cursor in column 4, not 5 like far too many PC editors.

https://www.logikalsolutions.com/wordpress/information-technology/most-text-editors-get-tabs-wrong/

Having followed this "discussion" for a bit now I have a relevant question.

Assuming Intel, given all of the locations it has around the globe, owns 
a single commercial Qt license at any one of them, by what has been said 
here, Thiago not only has to have a commercial license to work on Qt, he 
technically can't work on the OpenSource version. He has to commit his 
code to the commercial version where it may or may not ever find its way 
into the OpenSource version, if there ever is to be an OpenSource 
version again.

Cause that's what I've been hearing in this conversation. The new new 
new new licensing "strategy" is once anyone in an organization has 
touched a commercial version they must perpetually pay forever and ever 
for everyone. It almost sounds like a person couldn't even leave a 
company and go work on OpenSource.

I went back tot he archive.

Vyacheslav Lanovets actually asked:

=====

A company has a few developers with Qt Commercial subscription who
write applications in Qt for iOS.
There are many other developers, who work on other projects and don't
use Qt libraries.
They talk to each other and sometimes even work on the same code.

Is it still possible for the developers who don't use Qt libraries in
any way, use Qt Creator IDE for editing and debugging?
To be on the safe side, company plans to prohibit usage of Qt Creator
IDE for all employees.
I reckon this is a popular solution.
If I understand correctly, Qt even sells a special option to ban all
company IP addresses for open-source installer.

=====

The question clearly states the second group just like the IDE for C++. 
They aren't using Qt at all. That was the question asked.

What this conversation is really starting to sound like is "The 
OpenSource version has ceased to exist."

Please clarify explicitly while I dust off my Zinc books.

https://books.google.com/books?id=cdx_nLaqMn0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=Zinc+It!&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwidibzz8sLoAhVrUN8KHXzSBtkQ6AEwAXoECAIQAg#v=onepage&q=Zinc%20It!&f=false

https://books.google.com/books?id=4vu5LwUGT28C&pg=PP1&dq=Zinc+It!&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwidibzz8sLoAhVrUN8KHXzSBtkQ6AEwAHoECAEQAg#v=onepage&q=Zinc%20It!&f=false

-- 
Roland Hughes, President
Logikal Solutions
(630)-205-1593

http://www.theminimumyouneedtoknow.com
http://www.infiniteexposure.net
http://www.johnsmith-book.com
http://www.logikalblog.com
http://www.interestingauthors.com/blog