THIS is a difficult subject to tackle, but having read several hundreds of old E-mails (Debian-Private) about Qt licensing in the mid-90s I feel compelled to say something.
"Seeing the many rants and flames about Qt (and by extension KDE) over this past week whilst examining Debian-Private archives, I can't help but feel that with Qt6 the Qt folks (formerly Trolltech and Nokia) harm themselves greatly."I first used KDE some time around 2000. My wife started using it in 2013. I use KDE on my main laptop and on a secondary laptop I use an older version of KDE (Qt4-based). I love the appearance of Qt widgets; I much prefer that to GTK/GNOME (I use GNOME3 on another secondary laptop and, having developed a bit with GTK since 2001, I have respect for GTK as well). Seeing the many rants and flames about Qt (and by extension KDE) over this past week whilst examining Debian-Private archives, I can't help but feel that with Qt6 the Qt folks (formerly Trolltech and Nokia) harm themselves greatly. Months ago it became apparent that they're eager to go proprietary again; KDE folks said they'd consider forking Qt if that happened, whereupon Qt issued some vaguely-worded statement that may raise more questions than it answers. Months down the line there's still uncertainty about what might happen. It's all in our Daily Links; nobody has talked about it or even brought up the subject for months (not because anything was tackled/resolved).
"...nobody has talked about it or even brought up the subject for months (not because anything was tackled/resolved)."The founder of KDE had already experienced Qt when working on LyX (a program that I love and have used for two decades) and he's no longer involved. See what Bruce Perens said here about Miguel de Icaza's perceived solution; there are many flamewars about Qt/KDE in the Debian-Private mailing list and a perception of bribery (to tolerate Qt).
The way things stand, it seems like Qt will maintain some special exemption for Free/libre software projects, including KDE. But a longstanding concern might be, will KDE basically help promote/market proprietary software which for many projects isn't free to use, modify and so on? How is this going to work?
"But a longstanding concern might be, will KDE basically help promote/market proprietary software which for many projects isn't free to use, modify and so on? How is this going to work?"It's understandable that in 2020 many businesses struggle and try to somehow remain/become profitable. The pandemic makes it a lot harder. But if Qt goes ahead with its current plans (for a still-unreleased version) it may doom the entire thing, alienating developers and making legitimate once again all those 1990s complaints about Qt being present in GNU/Linux base systems. As if Qt is a tainted package that ought to be rejected by so-called 'purists' and pragmatists alike. Yes, they are totally pragmatic arguments against non-free software.
Qt has many bright engineers involved (favouring technical excellence over pure greed); over the years they moved from one company (or steward) to another and it wasn't always clear how they'd 'monetise' their work (consulting, customisation, development services etc.) though the issue of money ought to be secondary when we talk about software freedom. ⬆