[freedomben]

* Licensing: IANA lawyer, but my understanding is that the LGPL doesn't force you to release the entire source, unless you are shipping a single static binary or a custom version of Qt. If you dynamically link, you are good to go.

* Getting started: I agree it is painful. There's a definite learning curve here. I believe it's worth it obviously, but that's obviously subjective.

* Language choices: There are binding for quite a few other languages. There's a lot of pyqt projects out there. But I disagree that C++ is painful - it really depends on who wrote it. Well written C++ is pleasant, poorly written C++ that abuses things is awful. The javascript portion does suck tho, you are right. It will improve, but it doesn't improve quickly.

* Deploy bit: you predicted my argument here. I favor the system package manager.

[elcritch]

Actually, you _can_ release a static binary if and only if you also provide all the components needed to re-link the static binary. Read part 1 of the LGPL FAQ section on static vs dynamic linking [1]. It's trickier on iOS and Android app stores due to the distribution method. IANAL, but at one point Apple had a (obscure) link to the object files needed to re-link one of their programs which linked to an LGPL library -- alas I can't find the link anymore.

Edit: To clarify, if you provide the parts of your application that are proprietary as statically linked libraries wherein the recipient can relink to a modified version of the LGPL'ed library then that satisfies the LGPL.

1: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#LGPLStaticVsDynami...

[shawn]

FWIW gamedevs have a natural aversion to anything with the term "GPL" in it. http://codesuppository.blogspot.com/2009/01/

Not saying it makes sense, just that groupthink is strong.

[pjmlp]

Games devs have aversion to the FOSS culture.

It doesn't play ball with IP business and NDA rules that are common place in the industry.