[movedx]

> Licensing is expensive (look it up, you can't just use it for free for large-scale commercial projects, contrary to what many people believe)

I should look this up because Qt is something I've got my eyes on for small projects that could get big. On that note, are you able to define "large-scale" for me? Would a desktop app' interfacing with a remote API be "large-scale"?

> You have to write in languages that are not particularly enjoyable to ship a production application (C++, JavaScript but without The Nice Parts of modern JS web dev)

I'm looking at the Golang bindings for Qt (to implement my point above.) Have you considered it? Is Go something you'd consider?

[opencl]

It has nothing to do with scale, it's either LGPL or pay for a commercial license. The commercial licenses are not cheap- $459 per seat per month.

[kevin_thibedeau]

Qt devs need to eat too and they don't have a bunch of sugar daddies like Linus.

[fsloth]

QT is a developed by a corporation. I would presume most QT core devs are employees of that organization.

[slavik81]

That's more or less the story these days. Thiago Macieira (the maintainer for Qt Core) keeps stats on contributors.

https://www.macieira.org/blog/qt-stats/

[movedx]

Even so, that's EXPENSIVE! It rules out a startup I'd say.

[pjmlp]

No, it is actually quite cheap.

Usually software licenses for commercial development tools have a few more zeros, or not even that, forcing one to schedule a meeting with their sales people.

Before the FOSS movement, startups somehow managed to pay for their software.

[freedomben]

I would have agreed prior to the re-licensing to include LGPL, but startups can still jump in and ship a dynamically linked executable. If you truly need/want static linking tho, then you are right the cost is prohibitive.

[baq]

It should be peanuts if you have any revenue at all.

[rubyn00bie]

You'll need a license if it's not open source as far as I can tell...

I would love to use Qt but their licensing and terms just immediately kill it for me: https://www1.qt.io/faq/#_Toc_2_5

[mkl]

I think you misread that. For any use, you need a licence, and the possible licences to choose from are 1. Commercial, or 2. Open source (GPL or LGPL).

You can make commercial software using one if the open source licenses. (Of course; otherwise it wouldn't be an open source licence.)

[CamperBob2]

It's LGPL-compatible, though, isn't it? Can't you just wall off the Qt layer in a separate library, and release the source to that?

[freedomben]

IANA lawyer, but my understanding is that you are correct. The LGPL doesn't force you to release the entire source, unless you are shipping a single static binary. If you dynamically link, you are good to go.

[movedx]

Perfect for me: develop the front end using Qt (on an OSS licence) and Go, which is just a dumb data rendering layer with caching, and keep all the actual business logic server-side. I'll happily open-source a "shell" :)