[Qt-interest] VS 2010?

[Eric Clark]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ross Bencina [mailto:rossb-lists at audiomulch.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2011 4:54 PM
> To: Eric Clark; qt-interest at trolltech.com
> Subject: Re: [Qt-interest] VS 2010?
> 
> 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.

>From the responses that I got, I would have to agree. I am actually pretty used to building from source now because I have been doing it for almost two years with every release that came out in between. It is quite the pain and very time consuming, but I do what I have to do to get the updates and get our product out the door with as little bugs as possible.

> 
> 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.

I totally agree with you. The pre-built binaries are very useful, not just in time, but in the fact that they have been tested and ran on each of the Windows platforms supported by Qt.

> 
> 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...

You are probably right, being a commercial customer these days does not seem to be very important at all. We pay for 2 licenses at my division alone and I have no idea how many licenses we pay for throughout the whole company, but I agree that it probably doesn't really matter how much money we give them.

Unfortunately, I am an open-source and free help guru. I frequent this message board answering as many questions as I can (having been a Qt developer for 8 years now) and typically ask any questions I have here, on the message board,  not through the support that we pay for. As a matter of fact, after 8 years of being the lead Qt developer here at my company, I have never put in a support ticket or communicated with Qt through our commercial support system. Most of the people who frequent this board are very knowledgable, helpful, and friendly (I say that last one loosely). And many times, it helps to have many heads  looking at the same problem as opposed to the few that look at a support ticket. Plus, my question may just help someone else that is not a commercial customer.

> 
> 
> > 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.

Yes, I can automate this if I know it is going to build. I am not familiar with the term EC2, maybe you could enlighten me?

The other issue is that if Qt does not make a build for the particular version of VS I am on, it typically means that the build for that version requires many changes to get it to build from what I have seen in the past anyway...

> 
> 
> > 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.

Thank you for your comments Ross! It is nice to know that there are other people out there that have very similar problems.

Eric

> 
> Ross.
> 
> 
> 
> 
>