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Qt Released For OS X

Posted by timothy on from the merging-venn-diagrams dept.

AxsDeny writes: "It looks like Macslash is also reporting this, but Trolltech is now offering Qt for OS X. Long live cross platform development." Doesn't look like there's a Free version, but there is a non-commerical license called the "Qt Academic License," which "Allows schools and universities to acquire and use Qt for free in relevant courses."

12 of 244 comments (clear)

  1. Qt non-free versions by No-op · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I've been using the Win32 Qt 3.0 for a while, and I have to say that I've vastly enjoyed it. Trolltech earns my vote for one of the best companies I've worked with so far.

    Don't flame them too much for charging money for stuff- everyone has to earn a living somehow :P

    --
    EOM
    1. Re:Qt non-free versions by infiniti99 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Actually, they say it's because a GPL application cannot be linked to a closed source library. They say if you want to link your GPL app to Qt/Noncommercial, then you need to include an exception-clause in your license (this is similar to what Linus does to allow commercial dev on Linux. read the Linux license sometime, it's not pure GPL).

      And no, you can't get around this by using the commercial Qt. You aren't allowed to redistribute the source with that either.

      However, IMO this is a strange necessity. I've seen some MFC windows apps claiming to be GPL. After reading this thing about Qt though, I wonder if that is even possible. MFC is closed source. Hell, so is Windows. Does that mean that pure GPL applications on Windows are impossible? That any GPL Windows app is actually GPL-with-exception by default?

      Technicalities aside, if someone releases a GPL MFC app, you are _not_ allowed to make modifications unless you have a valid MSVC++ license. Granted, you can get MSVC loads cheaper than Qt, but it's the same principle.

      Anyway, all I'm saying is Qt on Windows is no less evil than MFC when it comes to GPL. It's just more expensive (but then, it's also way better).

  2. Qt by Dr.+Sp0ng · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I just have to point out that Qt really is the most excellent toolkit I've ever used, for any platform (and the fact that it runs on all major platforms is a huge bonus). It's sanely designed and it really is a pleasure to use. I'm not a big fan of C++, generally preferring C for most stuff, but Qt makes using C++ more than worth it.

    I just can't comprehend why anybody uses GTK these days :)

    1. Re:Qt by Dr.+Sp0ng · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Could it be that some people actually prefer C?

      Dude, did you read my comment? *I* prefer C. But Qt's API is so far above and beyond GTK's that, in my opinion, using GTK is just silly. The API makes my head hurt.

      Anyway, I wasn't trying to start a flamewar, just pointing out my opinion.

  3. COOL! by Zo0ok · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Fully carbonized! That means (?) you can develop a program in a mixed Linux/OS X environment, and get Aqua look and feel in OS X. I think it is time to learn Qt ;)

  4. Aqua l'n'f or native Aqua implementation? by pi_rules · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The article kind of glazed over the technical details here... but is this a port of Qt that just wraps around the native MacOSX widgets or does it re-implement everything with an aqua-ish look and feel? Didn't Apple object to the Mozilla port which had an aqua-like but not true Aqua interface?

    1. Re:Aqua l'n'f or native Aqua implementation? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Given how touchy Apple is about people writing Aqua themes, I would imagine it uses native widgets.

  5. I don't mind them charging ... by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ... I just wish they didn't charge so _much_. Never having been a free software zealot, I don't mind paying for software that's truly useful, as this certainly is. But as a starving student, I just can't pay the kind of prices they're charging. I didn't see anything in their academic license section about prices available to individual students. The excellent student prices available on Metrowerks products are one of the main reasons I've stuck with CodeWarrior as my primary dev environment for so long, even though I haven't been wild about their more recent releases in a number of other ways.

    It would be great if TrollTech learned this lesson. Remember, today's poor CS students are tomorrow's pro developers ...

    --
    The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
  6. Just be careful by mughi · · Score: 2, Interesting

    When I looked into their licensing in general (for possible work use) I noticed that if any project was ever touched by any free version of Qt, it could never be later realeased commercially by purchasing a Qt license at a later date.

    This one limitation might be a severe one for those who care about complying with licenses. Read the whole thing carefully before proceding. And get your lawyer to check things for you.

  7. Qt rocks by infiniti99 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This is a complete shameless plug for my application, but it is also a great example of how good of a crossplatform library Qt is.

    Check out JabberCentral and you will see my client, "Psi", has both a Windows and Linux version. The programs are identical (all features are the same). By use of QSettings, application settings are stored in the registry on Windows and in a "dot" file on *nix. And the look&feel matches the OS.

    The best part? All it took was a simple recompile. One source tree sure makes life easy.

    -Justin

  8. Re:Pricing - ouch by furiousgeorge · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Have you checked out the prices of cars lately? Some of them can go up to even $30,000!!!! Ouch!!

    Not everything is for everybody. The thing is - Qt has developers that actually eat and pay the rent and need a paycheck. And guess what - they deserve it. Qt is KILLER. I work for a small company and we pay for 5 Qt licenses (thats pushing $10,000 a year) - and you know what........ worth every freaking penny. Working with MFC was painful at best, and gtk made me want to go out and kick cars in the parking lot. The increased quality that Qt brings, plus the development time savings is worth the price ten times over. It's a beautiful toolkit.

    It's always so sad whenever something is brought up on slashdot, all people do is bitch and whine because it's not free. Well, welcome to the real world. If you want everything to be free, then you lose the right to complain about the quality of what you get.

    JWZ got it right - and it proves itself every day:
    "linux is free if your time is worthless".

    For those of us who's time isn't worthless, finding the tradeoff point is important. And anybody who can improve that deserves their money.

    Now excuse me, i need to go start a linux system build of our project - it takes SIX @#$(*#&$ hours using GCC - gee, it's the 21st century, you think they'd discover precompiled headers. Once that build is running i'll go back to my MSDEV machine and get some real work done.

    (and debugging with DDD ---------- eeeeshhhhhhh..... god help us all........ yet another way MSDEV kicks serious ass).

    j

  9. What about Java? by /^Neil/ · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I heard from an apple rep that OS X has one of the fastest JVMs available and offers OS X Look and Feel. New machines also come with Java Web Start. Is Java on a new OS X machine fast enough to replace C or C++? If not, it must be getting pretty close.