[Qt-interest] The argument for Qt

[Rui Maciel]

Nikos Chantziaras wrote:

> Well, OK.  Though I gave you good enough reasons of why Qt will not go
> away.  KDE has been around for 15 years now and, in contrast to Qt, it
> was never owned by a commercial entity.  Qt was, and is now in trouble.
> If Nokia abandons it, KDE will pick it up.  If you think KDE will die
> away, then please show some proof of at least indication of that.

I don't believe that it is reasonable to tie Qt's future so closely to KDE's 
future.  KDE has been subjected to a hand full of major rewrites which 
included switching the underlying application framework.  Qt may be nice to 
use but I suspect it takes a whole lot of work to maintain and develop, 
particularly due to MOC.  Given the choice between maintaining a private 
branch of Qt and simply adopting some other application framework developed 
by someone else, I believe the latter option would be more attractive to a 
considerable number of people.  After all, some people would actually need 
to do the legwork to maintain it.  If KDE's people were forced to also do 
that job then KDE's resources could be stretched a bit too thin to the point 
where the work invested in KDE would suffer from that.

Also, I suspect that some would also find it preferable to simply develop a 
simpler, leaner application framework, one which doesn't rely on MOC and 
doesn't require a customized build system, instead of sticking with Qt.  

So, I wouldn't bet Qt's future on the idea that KDE will be around for some 
time.  KDE may actually be developed for ages, but nothing forces KDE to 
stick with Qt.  


Rui Maciel