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In fact, that's where Bruce Perens was wrong when said QT being GPL, its not as attractive for business as the LGPL gtk. And yes, QT development is very much tied to KDE development (some of the KDE developers also work for Trolltech). So despite now LGPL being considered more free (what a turn of events!), they have every right to claim that KDE is the most advanced Free desktop for gnu/linux and other unices. It has the same technology that the following companies choose to licence, despite the alleged 'high' cost (if they payed, it must be THAT good):

• EPA (European Space Agency)

• Volvo

• Opera

• Adobe

• Sony
• IBM
• NASA
• Boeing
• And a lot more

The problem most people complain about is that there is no 'open' license on the Windows platform.

Section 8 of the Non-Commercial License:
8. Licensee is as an individual granted a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable license, in a non-commercial setting, to ....

As you can see, one cannot develop a Windows program in a commercial environment with QT, even if you will open up all your source, because you are using it in a commercial setting. You have to buy a license for every single developer working on a Windows app based on QT. This means, for instance, that things like in-house utilities using QT are incredibly hard to justify budget wise.

Anyways, it's their product and I don't begrudge them the right to do what they want with it; but those license costs make it really difficult to sell switching from MFC + a 400$ widget toolkit. Especially if you're a small company where 50,000$ is a big deal.

When I last asked QT about this policy I received the reply that 'we need to eat'. Translation: we make most of our money from Windows licensing.

So what do I see happening? People are switching to java and C# on Windows. Not QT by any stretch.

2) A non GPL version of the library costs an outrageous sum of money.

If you think only 1500-3000 ( depending on package ) per developer for a perpetual license is a large amount of money, then you're either 12 years old or have never paid a dime for software in your life.

A manager of any team of 5 or more people would laugh at that kind of money. It is chump change compared to how much a company would spend on *paper* for pete's sake.

And if you take into account the developer's time ( which any manager must ), Qt is actually cheaper since it is so powerfull it takes on average 25-50% less code to do things in Qt than it does to do in other C++ toolkits I have used in the past.

I would use Qt even if I was only targeting Windows and even if I was the only person on the team. It is *that* good. People who knock it just do not have experience using it.

The "new feature that you're never going to use" marketing potential aside:

QT isn't even free software. It's GPL'ed on X11 and the Mac - but not the most popular development platform: Windows. Expect to pay $1550 per seat for the privilege of developing there. Because no GPL version is available for Windows. Don't expect to port to Windows without paying the Trolls.

The price instantly puts the toolkit out of reach for smaller development houses - and merely makes it insanely bad value for money for larger shops. For that price you can get an entire high-end computer AND a bunch of Microsoft software development tools (although if you were paying attention to Slashdot yesterday, they just released their compiler for free). It's bad value for money on all fronts.

For those who want actual freedom with the SDK they use, I would recommend that you try wxWidgets.

If that's not suitable, try one of: GTK, Fast-Light Toolkit or even the Fox Toolkit.

But please, for the sake of your code - anything but QT.

The "new feature that you're never going to use" marketing potential aside:

QT isn't even free software. It's GPL'ed on X11 and the Mac - but not the most popular development platform: Windows. Expect to pay $1550 per seat for the privilege of developing there. Because no GPL version is available for Windows. Don't expect to port to Windows without paying the Trolls.

The price instantly puts the toolkit out of reach for smaller development houses - and merely makes it insanely bad value for money for larger shops. For that price you can get an entire high-end computer AND a bunch of Microsoft software development tools (although if you were paying attention to Slashdot yesterday, they just released their compiler for free). It's bad value for money on all fronts.

For those who want actual freedom with the SDK they use, I would recommend that you try wxWidgets.

If that's not suitable, try one of: GTK, Fast-Light Toolkit or even the Fox Toolkit.

But please, for the sake of your code - anything but QT.

Only objects derived from QObject and added as a child to another QObject are deleteted automatically on destruction of the parent. (See QObject)

This means that one doesn't have to delete all widgets which are added to a parent widgets by hand, but that it happens through the ownership-tree when deleteing the parent widget.

I don't feel qualified to play judge between DDJ and Trolltech on wether that is good or bad C++ practice.

Qt uses a dual license. If you make commercial closed-source software using Qt, you have to pay for non-GPL licenses. Otherwise you can use the GPL license (but you have to open-source your app).

1) What is Ralph J. Yarro of Canopy infamy doing on the Trolltech board of directors? Sorry, sitting on the board means "influence".

Please stop reporting wrong rumours as facts.

Check Trolltech's site for their board of directors, or search for "Yarro" on their site - and then apologies to them for spreading lies.

1) What is Ralph J. Yarro of Canopy infamy doing on the Trolltech board of directors? Sorry, sitting on the board means "influence".

Please stop reporting wrong rumours as facts.

Check Trolltech's site for their board of directors, or search for "Yarro" on their site - and then apologies to them for spreading lies.

I did not write the grandparent post but it is well known on the qt-interest mailing list (run by Trolltech) that the reason there's no GPL'ed version of Qt for Windows is exactly the reason given in the grandparent post.

Maybe it's just me, but if you pose the question in your FAQ, but the real answer can only be found by rummaging through a mailing list archive, you're dodging the question.

But the govt. , like any entity/company, can take open source to use....can modify it, and don't have to release the 'secret' parts at all. Can be used as they want internally.

That is incorrect, although it is a common myth. But in reality, most Open Source licenses have no exception for "internal" use. (BSD does, but GPL does not).

Having managed software acquisition and development for the DoD, I know what I'm talking about. At one point they wanted to use Trolltech's QT in a project. But they didn't want to pay for it, and the GPL wouldn't let them keep the software secret otherwise. So they didn't use QT.

considering that none of that $699 pays for an OS

Sharp does have to pay an undisclosed amount of money to TrollTech to use the Qtopia interface.

From Qtopia Pricing page

For prices, conditions and licensing terms on building a Qtopia device, please contact Trolltech Sales to discuss available packages.

How can you not have heard of trolltech before?

The makers of QT, the toolkit behind KDE, and the QTopia environment.

Sure distcc might be good for a few machines, but it doesn't scale well. Trolltech's Teambuilder is much better suited for large scale distributed development environment. Ask Cisco. They evaluated both distcc and Teambuilder on huge multi processor solaris systems. Guess who they chose, as it scaled better. That's right! Trolltech's Teambuilder! Plus, Teambuilder is much easier to setup, and has very nice monitor to monitor your compile farm. Teambuilder

Thats wrong as of today. See this

By proprietary, is he talking about Trolltech's Qtopia? I'm glad Trolltech are putting out GPL'd versions of QT these days, but this is certainly not the case with their other products. Much as I'm for the advancement of Linux in embedded markets, I can't stand this particular platform. The most annoying thing is that IMO, it looks awful - not very pretty at all compared with the slick interfaces you see on Palm Powered and Windows CE Powered machines. Plus I bet it's pretty expensive to license.

Those "others" that ported the Mac version would be Trolltech themselves.

And a Windows port of the GPL X11 version does exist, but, as you can see from the link, it has fallen on hard times. It seems that removing all the unix dependencies; reimplementing Windows-integration features like COM interop and accessibility from scratch; supporting gcc, mingw, Borland, and Microsoft compilers; and making sure it's all compatible with Trolltech's existing libraries for Windows is more than a couple of hackers can knock out in a weekend. That's an awful lot of wheel-reinvention, just so Trolltech can feel all warm and fuzzy about "supporting Linux".

Though note that the Windows version is based on an old version (2.3, released March 2001), and they seem to have no intention of releasing newer versions (and oddly, I couldn't find it linked at all from their page, I could only find that by searching).

A shame - I got all excited when I thought there might be a reasonable GUI toolkit available for Windows that didn't rely on visual-designing and x/y absolute coordinate layouts, but I'm not sure if it's worthwhile learning what is effectively going to be a discontinued and already outdated version of the product (no, I'm not paying $1550, that might be reasonable for a company, but not for someone who wants it for programming for fun in their spare time! ;)

They offer versions(Mac/X11) under either the GPL, or you can buy any version under a license for commercial apps. TrollTech also recently released a version for Windows for non-commercial apps, this license doesn't seem to require you to distribute your source.

Pricing info is here, it's pretty reasonable, they have some decent GUI design tools too.

They offer versions(Mac/X11) under either the GPL, or you can buy any version under a license for commercial apps. TrollTech also recently released a version for Windows for non-commercial apps, this license doesn't seem to require you to distribute your source.

Pricing info is here, it's pretty reasonable, they have some decent GUI design tools too.

I understand what all you guys are saying, but -- TrollTech seems to be saying otherwise. It's not clear to me if they've added an extra restriction to the GPL (which, of course, they can do as it's all their code) or if they're just trying to suggest that they have but I'm just reporting what they're saying. In any case, the guy I was responding to was concerned about *using* KDE in a commercial environment, and that clearly has nothing to do with this issue.

I've used Swing on small projects, but never used GTK, Qt or GNUStep.

I had a job for part of which I spent about four or five months writing WxWindows. It seemed fairly easy to pick up, entirely reasonable as a development platform, and the quibbles I had with the functionality and documentation only came up a couple of times (one of the class docs was misleadingly written at one point, and one of the classes, WxListBox or something, turned out to only work on the Windows platform). Is Qt "better" than it? I wouldn't know. All I know is I had no objections to WxWindows whatsoever.

Most of the stuff I do is not GUI. However what I do all of my personal GUI development in is Cocoa, one of the two Mac OS X GUI libraries, which I consider as elegant, complete and (usually) well-documented as I could possibly imagine a GUI library to be. From my perspective, it is generally a joy to use. And, um, well, it doesn't cost me anything to use. The development tools came free with the OS. Now, given, I had to pay money for OS X itself, and anyone who uses my programs will have to have paid money for the OS as well. But, um, you know what? I don't really mind paying for the OS so much. Personally. I feel like I'm getting what I paid for there. And I CERTAINLY prefer paying money to use the OS and then getting dev tools and a lovely dev library that I can do anything I want with to either YOU WILL USE THE GPL PERIOD or having to pay, um, what appears to be a per-year, per-developer, per-platform fee of at least either $500 or $1500, i can't tell which, to develop software. What I'm currently getting just sounds like a better deal to me, so personally I'm going to stick with it.

(And since Cocoa is what GNUStep aims toward, who knows, if I really wanted to I think I could probably port my software to GNUStep without *too* much trouble. I know GNUStep is woefully incomplete, but this is why I mentioned it.)

But this is of course totally just my opinion. And it isn't entirely germane. But hey, you asked.

developing an application against Qt/Windows, Qt/Mac, or Qt/Embedded. (Even if you're not distributing it.) (These versions are not available under the GPL at all.)

a correction:
Qt/Mac and Qt/Embedded are available under the GPL:
http://www.trolltech.com/download/index.html

It seems it's just the Winblows version which isn't GPL'd

First off, IANAL. With that out of the way...

As many other people have pointed out, you CAN USE GPL'ed Qt to develop commercial software (as long as it remains in-house). The only condition of use with GPL Qt is the same as the regular GPL, which is if you distribute the binary, you must distribute or otherwise make available the source code.

Qt offers a commercial license for businesses that want to SELL a product based on the library, without having to give away the source.

GTK is hardly going to die anyways. Many companies, such as RedHat, have already standardized on it, and there's a wealth of software out there which runs on GTK that would be too hard to port anyways.

As far as library linking is concerned, a commercial entity can distribute a binary which can be (dynamically) linked against the GPL Qt (AFAIK Trolltech licen, or if they're worried, they can just compile it statically, like Opera does for their Linux web browser. According to http://www.trolltech.com/developer/faqs/free.html, you may use Qt Free Edition to run Free programs or programs legally developed by other (that is, using the Commercial license).

I know, that's not what the quoted license text seems to say. Perhaps it has to do with the dual-licensing scheme, perhaps we're just reading it out of context. IANAL!

From their website

(Either Qt/Windows or Qt/X11 or Qt/Mac)
Prices per developer. Includes one year of support and maintenance. See also the Professional/Enterprise Comparison Chart
Developers Professional Edition Enterprise Edition
1 $ 1550,- $ 2490,-
2 - 5 $ 1500,- $ 2250,-
6 - 10 $ 1410,- $ 2120,-
11 - 20 $ 1330,- $ 2000,-

Which sort of sucks, because it sounds like I buy a license to develop under X and then need another to debug the problems that crop up under win32.

It's not a lot of cash, but it's sort of tough to compete with a robust, free product.(i.e. GTK)

No. Qt hasn't had annoying license restrictions in years, as it was released under the GPL four years ago, allowing for such projects as a GPL'd Qt3/Win32.

Somehow, this is still news to people...

I'm pretty sure you can use QT with all your GPL stuff all you want.

Given that Qt is available under the GPL itself, it's an absolute certainty you can use Qt in a GPLed project.

Then you enjoy contributing to Trolltech's Qt protection racket?

I didn't think so.

You can prob'ly use the Linux port of Qtopia Desktop. It works swimmingly with the Zaurus.

I'd say you're probably ready. I've just started dabbling in Qt now, and that's after taking a year of AP C++ in high school, and a semester of C++ in college, plus some self-study.

You might want to check out Trolltech's documentation site. Particularly, the How to Learn Qt, The Qt Whitepaper, Tutorial 1, and Examples

Tutorial 1 is easy to follow, and should give you an idea of how things are done in Qt. The Whitepaper is a more general overview of Qt. Those should help you get started, and will let you determine if you're ready to delve into GUI.

I'd say you're probably ready. I've just started dabbling in Qt now, and that's after taking a year of AP C++ in high school, and a semester of C++ in college, plus some self-study.

You might want to check out Trolltech's documentation site. Particularly, the How to Learn Qt, The Qt Whitepaper, Tutorial 1, and Examples

Tutorial 1 is easy to follow, and should give you an idea of how things are done in Qt. The Whitepaper is a more general overview of Qt. Those should help you get started, and will let you determine if you're ready to delve into GUI.

I'd say you're probably ready. I've just started dabbling in Qt now, and that's after taking a year of AP C++ in high school, and a semester of C++ in college, plus some self-study.

You might want to check out Trolltech's documentation site. Particularly, the How to Learn Qt, The Qt Whitepaper, Tutorial 1, and Examples

Tutorial 1 is easy to follow, and should give you an idea of how things are done in Qt. The Whitepaper is a more general overview of Qt. Those should help you get started, and will let you determine if you're ready to delve into GUI.

I'd say you're probably ready. I've just started dabbling in Qt now, and that's after taking a year of AP C++ in high school, and a semester of C++ in college, plus some self-study.

You might want to check out Trolltech's documentation site. Particularly, the How to Learn Qt, The Qt Whitepaper, Tutorial 1, and Examples

Tutorial 1 is easy to follow, and should give you an idea of how things are done in Qt. The Whitepaper is a more general overview of Qt. Those should help you get started, and will let you determine if you're ready to delve into GUI.

I'd say you're probably ready. I've just started dabbling in Qt now, and that's after taking a year of AP C++ in high school, and a semester of C++ in college, plus some self-study.

You might want to check out Trolltech's documentation site. Particularly, the How to Learn Qt, The Qt Whitepaper, Tutorial 1, and Examples

Tutorial 1 is easy to follow, and should give you an idea of how things are done in Qt. The Whitepaper is a more general overview of Qt. Those should help you get started, and will let you determine if you're ready to delve into GUI.

No, it's a fair question. There is still no free GPL Windows version. Possibly closest thing to an open source option is wxWidgets.

Qt's licencing is absolutely abysmal. You can't make commercial products with it for free - even if you don't change or add to their code and are merely linking with it. Oh, and there is no GPL version for Windows .

Trolltech charges $2400 for two platforms. Presumably cross-platform coding is the sole reason you'd be using such a GUI library - so that's going to be your base price.

But Microsoft solutions are far cheaper (it's less than $100 for Windows XP from NewEgg) - and they even give away a free version of their compiler.

If you're looking for a cross-platform GUI - for a commercial or free project - look at the competitors to Qt. I would not hesitate to recommend wxWidgets as a thoroughly competent, cross-platform, commerce-friendly GUI system.

Qt's licencing is absolutely abysmal. You can't make commercial products with it for free - even if you don't change or add to their code and are merely linking with it. Oh, and there is no GPL version for Windows .

Trolltech charges $2400 for two platforms. Presumably cross-platform coding is the sole reason you'd be using such a GUI library - so that's going to be your base price.

But Microsoft solutions are far cheaper (it's less than $100 for Windows XP from NewEgg) - and they even give away a free version of their compiler.

If you're looking for a cross-platform GUI - for a commercial or free project - look at the competitors to Qt. I would not hesitate to recommend wxWidgets as a thoroughly competent, cross-platform, commerce-friendly GUI system.

Tutorial #2

Tutorial #2

GTK Tutorial
QT Tutorial

So this is a lot like the Qt Linguist, right? Only Qt Linguist is here already, open source, and good for any Qt/KDE application.

Once again, Microsoft at the forefront...

because it's GPL'd, they are specifically opting out of the ability to profit from selling licenses.

The closest thing to that besides C is C++.

For general purpose programmming, C++ is often overlooked because it suffers from the same problem as C in this scenario, which is that there isn't really much in the standard library to draw from. C#, Java, Perl, Python, etc, all have lots of "foundation" underneath which allow you to build applications quickly.

However, this is not so much an issue of language as it is of API, and C++ has the language features necessary to build a good API. All that is needed is a good library then, such as the Qt C++ library. With Qt, you get nearly the same foundational API as Java, but with natively compiled code. C++ may not be the end-all be-all of languages (no language can claim this), but it is much more capable than many people think. If you wouldn't touch C/C++ with a 10 foot pole, you haven't tried Qt. You can have your cake (large, well constructed API) and eat it too (native code).

QT is licensed under the GPL. So it not "sort of free", but totally free (speech and beer).

(Toolkit designers: please please PLEASE give us a way to render a widget into a pixmap. That alone would solve a lot of problems.
Ask and ye shall receive.

• Apple - Darwin and Safari
• IBM - Linux kernel
• Novell - Netware, NDS, eDirectory
• Trolltech - creators of Qt
• MySQL - major SQL database
• IndexData - networked information retreival
• RedHat
• Sleepycat - dbms
• Google

So if you want to know how to make money, look at the experts.

Anyone know how to make GUI programming more interesting?

sure do!

Things are tight fisted because Sun wants a solid, CONSISTANT platform. This was a MAJOR REASON for the lawsuit that they fought and WON against Microsoft and their VM implementation

And, open-source software would be inconsistent because.......?

Inconsistent, like Apache?

or, perhaps, MySQL?

I get it. You mean inconsistent like this, this, or this?

Oh, the above aren't languages, like php or perl?

Eh, wait a minute. These are all *successful* projects, that are consistent?

If Sun were to open Java sources, it would be trivial to introduce a license (EG: GPL) that would largely offset forking of the codebase. Their best bet would be to pull a "QT" - open the source as GPL, then sell commercial licenses.

RE: KDE-Cygwin: One requires X11, the other doesn't. Both, however, require Cygwin for non-UI functions! Only Trolltech has a fully native Win32 implementation of Qt.

RE: Trolltech's reasons: All they publicly state is in their Free Edition FAQ:

Q: Now that you have Free editions of both Qt/X11 and Qt/Mac, why don't you also have a free edition of Qt/Windows?
A: Trolltech supports free software development on platforms where contributing to Free Software/Open Source development is part of the platform strategy. At the time being it does not seem natural for us to release a free edition for Qt/Windows.

In plainer terms: "We're pushing the blame onto Microsoft. Fsck off."