[sho_hn]

I think Slint is quite interesting, but it's licensing model is very similar to Qt, albeit somewhat more restrictive: The open source option is GPL v3 (not LGPL), and then there's commercial licenses, which yes, are cheaper - for now, for a start-up toolkit.

Pricing can change. Yes, there's a perpetual "Buyout" license for $5k, but they can probably just rename the product and claim it's a new one (or add a second product and add commercially relevant eggs to that basket; Qt has tried with things like "Qt for Device Creation" and "Qt for Automotive").

The open source option is not backed by a poison-pill protection like the Free Qt Foundation agreement either.

I know the people behind Slint, and I have a lot of trust toward them. But ownership can change, too.

[madnirua]

Based on the discussion with our community, we added a clause in our CLA - https://cla-assistant.io/slint-ui/slint - to ensure that Slint will always be made available under an open source license as well as a royalty-free license.

"We believe that open-source software development and communities are the foundation for a healthy ecosystem of high-quality software, where everyone can learn, improve and give back. We commit to upholding this foundation and pledge by promising to continue to develop Slint in the open under an open-source license compliant with the Open Source Definition.

Further, we commit to provide a royalty-free license for those who develop desktop or web applications and do not want to use open-source components under copyleft licenses."

[ogoffart]

Slint is under three licenses: There The GPL for open source users, the royalty-free license for proprietary desktop application (which is free of charge), and the commercial license.

The royalty free is even better than the LGPL for Rust because rust doesn't support dynamic linking or even re-linking with object files.