[Qt-interest] Major issues with QT4 on Windows

[Malyushytsky, Alex]

Hi Thiago,

Many thanks for your response.

>> it takes far too long to build and we have too many packages already.

On my computer I did not notice so much difference in the build speed between 64 and 32 bit versions. Do you use 64 bit computers or run cross-compiler on 32 bit?
Of cause I am trying to do it overnight anyway, so I might notice it.

But it is much faster then the same time a few millions of customers building it themselves. Think how much energy you can save :)

>> PS: the next package we're probably going to add is Windows CE built with
VS 2008 and Mac 64-bit (Cocoa).

So Mac 64-bit is convenient and worth to build, when Windows 64 is not?
I can bet there is much more users of Windows64 bit then Mac 64-bit in the world. Where you have 64 packages, you can add 3 more and will not even see the difference.

Just a few examples:
http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/desktop-studioxps-435mt?c=us&cs=19&l=en&ref=dthp&s=dhs

And above link is for home users.


I am expecting that we will not have any 32 bit Windows computer in our office by the end of the year or as soon when warranty term expires.
In addition I will mention that my son got notebook with 64 bit Windows on it and it comes from the memory limitation on 32 bit Windows system.

>> I have had many requests for 64-bit Windows packages. I have rejected them all for the reasons above.

Thanks for perconal mail. It is your decision which might have reasons under it, but personally I hope this can be changed. Because the requests you get are made for reasons.

I want to add. I know it is a pain to support many packages. We don't build 64 packages, but I think we currently build at least 12 (4 for Windows).

But each time I come and asks my boss to tell our customers, hey guys, here is a source code, we don't want to build it, cause it takes too much time, we did test it, but please build it yourself, for some reason he just laugh.


Best regards,
     Alex


-----Original Message-----
From: qt-interest-bounces at trolltech.com [mailto:qt-interest-bounces at trolltech.com] On Behalf Of Thiago Macieira
Sent: Saturday, April 04, 2009 12:16 AM
To: qt-interest at trolltech.com
Subject: Re: [Qt-interest] Major issues with QT4 on Windows

Malyushytsky, Alex wrote:
>As a Qt commercial license holder I want to bring some issues which make
> my life hard enough on Windows. I hope Nokia can change their policy on
> it, if this is brought to community.

Hi Alex

Bringing the arguments up to the community may help you find solutions you
for your problems, like this static issue. We appreciate the input,
obviously.

>2. Qt binaries for Windows 64 bit.
>
>It was always a question for me why trolltech (starting with Qt3) and
> later nokia was not providing binaries for 64 bit Windows. It supposed
> to be supported and tested on it.
>Why not to build it and provide it to the customers?

It is supported and tested. However, like I explained to you in the
private email, the reason we don't provide a binary installable package
for Windows 64-bit is that it takes far too long to build and we have too
many packages already.

Besides all the source packages (X11, Windows, Mac, Embedded Linux,
Windows CE), for which there are commercial and open source editions, plus
two source evaluation packages (X11 and Embedded Linux), we provide
binaries for Mac (32-bit PPC and x86) in commercial, opensource and
evaluation editions, and binaries for Windows, VS2003, VS2005, VS2008 and
MinGW, and Windows CE (VS2005). Of the Windows packages, the MinGW build
is opensource, the rest is commercial and eval.

That's 26 packages in all produced at every package build. Even
considering they're all built in parallel, the process takes 6 hours to
finish. We know from experience that Windows 64-bit takes far longer to
build, so the process would be longer.

But that's not the problem. The problem is that each and every package has
to be tested. The platform is supported and we have automatic tests
running to guarantee that. However, each package to be released requires
manual testing, to ensure that it installs and works.

So the problem is actually manpower: we decided we will not release a
package (or support a platform) unless we can do proper QA on it. I would
actually be surprised if anyone asked us the opposite.

PS: the next package we're probably going to add is Windows CE built with
VS 2008 and Mac 64-bit (Cocoa).

--
Thiago Macieira - thiago.macieira (AT) nokia.com
  Senior Product Manager - Nokia, Qt Software
      Sandakerveien 116, NO-0402 Oslo, Norway


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