[Qt-interest] VS 2010?

[Ross Bencina]

Eric Clark wrote:
> what exactly is the point of paying for the
> commercial version anymore if I have to spend the
> 1 to 2 hours compiling it by myself. And, it rarely
> works out of the box. Usually takes a couple of tries
> and minor project/ code fixes to get it to compile.
> The minor changes are not a big deal, but when it
> takes an hour to compile, if I have to do that 3 times,
> it becomes half of my day. As of right now, this is
> about the only reason that we pay for Qt anymore
> because it actually saves us time and money.

I used to think like this. After a while I ended up having to build Qt from 
source anyway, because its the only way to incorporate patches from Qt 
support. Since I have never used a version of Qt that hasn't needed patching 
to be shippable with my product I think it's safe to say you need to get 
used to building from source.

This is a shame, because I like the idea of using binaries that have been 
properly QAed by the trolls rather than built on my machine using some 
random configuration. But I don't think there's any way around this given 
the current policies about what goes into the minor updates.

As for the point of the commercial version, for me the main benefit is fast 
turnaround on support questions and bug fixes/workarounds. Also I would like 
to think being a commercial customer makes me somehow important to Qt but I 
really doubt that these days...


> My time, since I am responsible for updating Qt,
> spent staring at my computer while I let Visual Studio
> use as much of my 4 processors as possible, is at
> least a full day if I have to do a Qt upgrade.

I know, same here. I try to do it overnight.


> Why? You say? Well, I mentioned the whole having
> to make minor fixes thingy, but I also have to compile
> a version of Qt for 2 different platforms and 4 different
>  compilers. I have to compile in both debug and release
> and we support VC 8, VC9, and VC10. It is actually
> cheaper for us to pay for a Qt license than to pay my
> nice salary to have me compile Qt locally 4 to 5 times a
> year for each new release of Qt.

Can't you automate all this and farm it out to EC2 or something? If someone 
offered a service to build custom Qt builds remotely I would consider using 
it too.


> So... in a business sense, maybe the Nokia guys should
> think about keeping their loyal Qt commercial customers
> around and support as many platforms/compilers as
> possible... I don't know, but it makes sense to me...
> We have held multiple commercial licenses of Qt through
> my company for at least 10 years now.

Based on what Thiago has said in the past about their patching policies I 
concluded long ago that official binaries were provided as a convenience 
only and that the binaries are not considered part of the value proposition 
of owning commercial Qt licences. I agree with you that it would be nice if 
it was otherwise but I think Qt would also need to commit to better bug-fix 
policies on the commercial releases for this to be usable.

Ross.