Qt 4.0 Beta 1 Released

Trolltech has released the first Beta version of the upcoming Qt 4.0. You can download it from ftp.trolltech.com or from one of its mirrors. An updated online Qt Reference Documentation is also available. The final Qt 4.0 is expected to be released in late first quarter of 2005.

There are five new technologies that are new to Qt, written specifically for Qt 4:

  • Tulip, a new set of template container classes.
  • Interview, a model/view architecture for item views.
  • Arthur, the Qt 4 painting framework.
  • Scribe, the Unicode text renderer with a public API for performing low-level text layout.
  • Mainwindow, a modern action-based mainwindow, toolbar, menu, and docking architecture.

This beta release also previews the new Qt Designer user interface design tool which is still heavily under development.

In addition, the following modules have been significantly improved since Qt 3:

  • A fully cross-platform accessibility module, with support for the emerging SP-API Unix standard in addition to Microsoft and Mac Accessibility.
  • The SQL module, which is now based on the Interview model/view framework.
  • The network module, with better support for UDP and synchronous sockets.
  • The style API, which is now decoupled from the widgets, meaning that you can draw any user interface element on any device (widget, pixmap, etc.).
  • Enhanced thread support, with signal-slot connections across threads and per-thread event loops.

Trolltech has set up a special mailing list, qt4-preview-feedback, for discussion of issues relating to the Qt 4 beta releases.

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Comments

by Anonymous (not verified)

You're a fucking idiot. Same David as the idiot from OSnews? That would explain something.

Here have a look at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html
Especially "GPL-Compatible, Free Software Licenses"

QUOTE
GNU Lesser General Public License, or GNU LGPL for short.
This is a free software license, but not a strong copyleft license, because it permits linking with non-free modules. It is compatible with the GNU GPL. We recommend it for special circumstances only.
UNQUOTE

Stop spreading bullshit. The LGPL is free software.

by David (not verified)

Hi there anonymous. I suggest you read what you've quoted. The LGPL is not considered 'free software' in the same sense for exactly that reason - 'we recommend it for special circumstances only'.

That means that it is not recommended for LGPLing everything and telling everyone that you can develop everything for free, which is what you want. I'm afraid that just isn't realistic, and isn't recommended by the FSF either.

The LGPL is a license for special cases where you need to link with other kinds of software. It is not a license for free everything, because nothing is completely free in a monetary sense. That's the point I've tried to get across many times, but it just doesn't seem to get through many thick skulls.

I know I've frustrated a lot of people because they know I'm right, but quite frankly, I'm not responsible for the arseholes who post crap to these places. If you want to comment, I suggest you think first. If not - go away.

by Anonymous (not verified)

"Hi there anonymous. I suggest you read what you've quoted. The LGPL is not considered 'free software' in the same sense for exactly that reason - 'we recommend it for special circumstances only'.

That means that it is not recommended for LGPLing everything and telling everyone that you can develop everything for free, which is what you want. I'm afraid that just isn't realistic, and isn't recommended by the FSF either."

Bullshit. Who cares what the FSF says in regards of what 'they recommend'? What if the only reason i see the FSF as authority is because they define what free software is and that i only wonder wether they qualify a certain a certain license as free software or not? I don't see OSI whining about 'recommendations' and they include the LGPL as open source. You may argue your moral values, but don't whine when i don't agree with them.

The following 2 statements are the ones i care for:
* LGPL is free software according to the FSF.
* LGPL is open source according to the OSI.
Both are true. I prefer the LGPL above the GPL in cases such as libraries, for non-GPL compatibility (theres more than the GPL) and for proprietary compatibility.

"The LGPL is a license for special cases where you need to link with other kinds of software. It is not a license for free everything, because nothing is completely free in a monetary sense. That's the point I've tried to get across many times, but it just doesn't seem to get through many thick skulls."

Actually its not for libraries alone. Thats why the FSF uses 'Lesser' instead of 'Library' for the 'L' these days. Besides that, this is merely what the FSF argues, and they're not some higher power, although to some its a church. Hence it can be used to license whatever you like.

"I know I've frustrated a lot of people because they know I'm right, but quite frankly, I'm not responsible for the arseholes who post crap to these places. If you want to comment, I suggest you think first. If not - go away."

Straw man. FWIW, don't force your moral values and arguments of authority upon me. Have a nice day!

by David (not verified)

"Bullshit. Who cares what the FSF says in regards of what 'they recommend'?"

Because it's their license and they created it, perhaps?

"Actually its not for libraries alone. Thats why the FSF uses 'Lesser' instead of 'Library' for the 'L' these days."

You use the GPL wherever you possibly can. The LGPL is for instances where you need to link against and use other software, but it isn't for everything. You have to have the partition that the GPL gives you otherwise you just don't get the payback in terms of development that software like the Linux kernel enjoys.

"Straw man. FWIW, don't force your moral values and arguments of authority upon me."

I'd hardly call them moral values or arguments of authority. I'm just plain right.

by Anonymous (not verified)

"You use the GPL wherever you possibly can."

Ehm, no? Its my software. I decide what license i use where, and i decide wether thats GPL, LGPL or something else. What the FSF recommends is fine (if they have arguments) but its no rule. It doesn't matter they created the license. That doesn't mean they have full authority and know what i want to allow or disallow with my software.

I noticed you're stubborn and want to have the last reply. You can have it.

by David (not verified)

"Ehm, no? Its my software."

Then don't post to sites like this and basically demand that Qt is LGPLd. It's not your software - OK?

"I noticed you're stubborn and want to have the last reply. You can have it."

Please don't try and pretend you have the moral high-ground here - you're not good at it. You're wrong and know it, OK?

by Anonymous (not verified)

"""Free software is GPL'd software. LGPL'd stuff isn't."""

Er, I've never heard someone argue that, could you elaborate?

by ac (not verified)

Directly from the people who defined the term "Free Software": http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-not-lgpl.html

by Anonymous (not verified)

Here have a look at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html
Especially "GPL-Compatible, Free Software Licenses"

QUOTE
GNU Lesser General Public License, or GNU LGPL for short.
This is a free software license, but not a strong copyleft license, because it permits linking with non-free modules. It is compatible with the GNU GPL. We recommend it for special circumstances only.
UNQUOTE

Stop spreading bullshit. The LGPL is free software.

by pinky (not verified)

>Directly from the people who defined the term "Free Software": http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-not-lgpl.html

The link tells you, that you should think about it if you really want to use the LGPL. But same could be even said about weaker Free Software licenses like the BSD license.

The real link would be this:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

If you comply the 4 points of the Free Software definition the program is Free Software and LGPL porgrams comply this 4 points.

At the end you can look at the (incomplete) list of Free Software licenses, and you will see that the LGPL (beside many other licenses) is listen as a "Free Software License": http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html

So stop talking about things you don't know.

by ac (not verified)

Well, it is even worse, those users should pay money to Microsoft in order to run your Windows-version of the software.
Shame on Microsoft, Shame on TrollTech, for charging people for using their software.

Hek, even bread is available for free at the local bakery.
So why should somebody spent money on software??

by David (not verified)

You have GTK2 running on Windows, but you won't have it working :). Thanks for the troll.

Around here we talk about free software desktops and operating systems, and that's what we want to run our free software on.

by Anonymous (not verified)

Actually GTK2 works perfectly fine on Windows. Stop spreading misinformation.

Around here we talk about free software desktops and operating systems, and that's what we want to run our free software on.

Thats why your philosophy sucks. Bill Gates only cares for Windows; you only care for Linsux. The end result is more or less the same, although QT runs on more than Linsux alone -- and FREE!

by ac (not verified)

"Actually GTK2 works perfectly fine on Windows. Stop spreading misinformation."

Then, what is your problem?

"Thats why your philosophy sucks. Bill Gates only cares for Windows; you only care for Linsux."
Again, there is more in the world then windows and linux.
and Qt GPL supports quite a lot of them.

" The end result is more or less the same, although QT runs on more than Linsux alone -- and FREE!"
Yeps, gratis :o)
So, what is your problem?

by Anonymous (not verified)

"Again, there is more in the world then windows and linux.
and Qt GPL supports quite a lot of them."

..but almost nobody runs these other OSes so it makes little sense to port MY application to these OSes. Although i would accept a patch. It means there's almost no new users; with a Windows port the chances are higher.

"So, what is your problem?"

This dorkish licensing scheme.

Think about it. What if i were a software developer on Windows and i were to develop using a cross-platform toolkit? QT falls from the list right away.

by ac (not verified)

"Think about it. What if i were a software developer on Windows and i were to develop using a cross-platform toolkit? QT falls from the list right away."

If you were a Windows-developer, then you would already be used to the fact that you have to pay for your development tools and work with restricted software licenses.
So you would not have any problem using Qt because of its license.

by David (not verified)

"Think about it. What if i were a software developer on Windows and i were to develop using a cross-platform toolkit? QT falls from the list right away."

You don't, and have never, written software for a living. All Windows developers who develop commercially, without exception in many cases, pay large sums of money for development tools. This is the way things work out in the real world. I'm getting rather sick of of this "Oh, developers want totally free and crap development tools" or "small development shops can't afford it". Small development shops all over the world pay vast sums for development tools, as well as all the other software they need. This is total rubbish.

Please don't comment on things you obviously know nothing about. Comments like this only confirm it, and show just how disconnected from reality you and everyone who talks like this are.

by pinky (not verified)

Hello David,
i agree to 100% to your writting.
But one point, who nobody can explain, is the future. With future i mean the children wo learn programming and will in the feature maybe make the decision which tool they use in bussiness.
For this group and for Trolltech, it would be create if there were also a GPL windows version. Trolltech would lose non of there costumers who develop proprietary software but maybe will gain costumers in the future who have learned and loved the Qt Toolkit in there childhood.

by ac (not verified)

TrollTech can of course give free or cheaper versions to schools in stead.
No need to release it under GPL.
Also Schools don't have much choise when it comes toe free software on Windows, they usually need to pay through their nose for Windows-software (they would be better of using a true open source os, like linux..)

by Anonymous (not verified)

"All Windows developers who develop commercially, without exception in many cases, pay large sums of money for development tools."

Unrelated to what i'm saying. In my case, i'm developing free software / open source for Windows. Have a nice day David. Nice try though.

by David (not verified)

For the unenlightened:

"What if i were a software developer on Windows and i were to develop using a cross-platform toolkit?"

Makes no mention of developing free software on Windows - which is pointless anway. If you're a software developer on Windows (of any description) you are paying for development software. If you're developing free software you'll probably have a copy of Visual Studio anyway for any other work you'll be doing. You'll also have had to pay for a copy of Windows and Office and all the usual software you need on that platform.

So tell me - how much does free software on Windows cost again? Given that, I have to question your commitment to free software, and your sanity. Windows isn't free - OK?

by Anonymous (not verified)

"If you're a software developer on Windows (of any description) you are paying for development software. If you're developing free software you'll probably have a copy of Visual Studio anyway"

Ever heard of Cygwin? Ever heard of cross-platform applications?

"So tell me - how much does free software on Windows cost again?"

If you really insist, i'm able to get Windows licenses up to Windows 2000 for free. As in, it doesn't cost me anything. But that's not my point. My point is that i'm merely porting free software for non-*NIX users; Windows users.

Stop acting like a dork. I said that for like 3 times already throughout this thread. Thank you.

by ac (not verified)

Every heard of Qt-cygwin GPL? Dork.

by Anonymous (not verified)

Doesn't work very well though. IIRC it requires target = x11 (hence an X server!) its compiled with GCC, which means its slow.

by Morty (not verified)

>If you really insist, i'm able to get Windows licenses up to Windows 2000 for free.
Ok, so you can get somebody else to pay for your developmentpalform, so what.

>Ever heard of Cygwin? Ever heard of cross-platform applications?
Since the GPL Qt for X11 has run on Cygwin for years, your whole argument against Qt based on price/non GPL on windows now dissapears.

But what I really want to know are, which open source Cygwin based projects have you done? And where can I download them?

by Morty (not verified)

>If you really insist, i'm able to get Windows licenses up to Windows 2000 for free.
Ok, so you can get sombody else to pay for your developmnetpalform, so what.

>Ever heard of Cygwin? Ever heard of cross-platform applications?
Since the GPL Qt for X11 has run on Cygwin for years, your whole argument against Qt based on price/non GPL on windows now dissapears.

But what I realy want to know are, which open source Cygwin based projects have you done? And where can I download them?

by Anonymous (not verified)

> Ok, so you can get sombody else to pay for your developmnetpalform, so what.

s/pay/paid

> Since the GPL Qt for X11 has run on Cygwin for years, your whole argument against Qt based on price/non GPL on windows now dissapears.

It actually doesn't. As you say, the Cygwin one is "GPL Qt for X11" not "GPL Qt for Windows". I don't want to deal with this politics crap, i only want to use QT to develop a true cross-platform application.

"But what I realy want to know are, which open source Cygwin based projects have you done? And where can I download them?"

It hasn't got much to do with X11 or Cygwin. Where did i wrote that? I'm writing a cross-platform, opensource Usenet client like BNR2 but then open source (LGPL) and more modular. Its still in development.

by ac (not verified)

"It actually doesn't. As you say, the Cygwin one is "GPL Qt for X11" not "GPL Qt for Windows". I don't want to deal with this politics crap, i only want to use QT to develop a true cross-platform application"

Well, then stop with the politics, pay for your Qt-license and start porting stuff to Windows..

by Morty (not verified)

>"GPL Qt for X11" not "GPL Qt for Windows".
And this matter how? There is no politics no noting only the GPL, and the GPl gievs you the rigt to build it with Cygwin or any other place you please.

by Anonymous (not verified)

Who cares? I'm really wondering who's clueless here.
Do i have to spell it out? X11 != Windows. I'm not gonna run some X server.

by David (not verified)

Then don't and wander off back to Windows, tail between your legs.

If you have a look at this site and those around it, KDE is a desktop for Unix/Linux and free/open source software systems where you can see the infrastructure that an OS is built on. Qt fits in with that purpose.

If you want to run Qt natively on Windows then pay for it, as you do for Windows and as you do for a great deal of other software on that platform. If you don't want to run quality development software then there's plenty of shite you can use.

If you still don't like it then you can just get lost basically - no one can help you. I suggest you put some time and effort into developing the LGPL development tools you need.

"I'm really wondering who's clueless here."

Here's a hint. It's you.......

by Keith Russell (not verified)

"So tell me - how much does free software on Windows cost again?"

Less than you think. The C++ compiler and Platform SDK are available for free download from MSDN. And Office is a non sequitur. If you need to exchange documents on a cross-platform Open Source project, you'd be foolish to choose MS Office over OpenOffice.org, anyway.

So what you're left with is the cost of a Windows license. We all want to get rid of the Dane, but we can't stop paying Dane-gold just yet.

"I have to question your commitment to free software, and your sanity."

So you think anyone working on Mozilla, or OpenOffice.org, or Apache is insane? You think they lack commitment to the Open Source movement because they're displacing Microsoft's browser, office suite, and web server? Or would you gladly sacrifice everything those projects, and others like them, have gained, just for one operating system kernel?

Hating Microsoft just wastes energy better spent supporting Open Source software.

by David (not verified)

"Less than you think. The C++ compiler and Platform SDK are available for free download from MSDN."

Which keeps you programming on Windows. Why do you think Microsoft gives this stuff away?!

"Hating Microsoft just wastes energy better spent supporting Open Source software."

It's not a question hating Microsoft. To truly have an open source platform you need open source software on a totally visible and open source operating system. You also need application that will attract people to it, not get them to stay where they are.

Firefox and Mozilla, strategically speaking (making developers aware of other browsers), have been reasonably good for open source software. However, you have to ask yourself what it will take to get people off Windows because that is ultimately what is required to ensure the survival of open source software.

by ac (not verified)

"Unrelated to what i'm saying. In my case, i'm developing free software / open source for Windows. Have a nice day David. Nice try though."

That is in correct, you are porting free software to Windows, not developing free software for Windows.
If you were developing something for Windows in the first place (and want to port it to linux for example), you would already have paid for you development tools, as that is what you do when you work with Windows, you pay for your licenses..

by Danni Coy (not verified)

My understanding was that at some stage there was an opensource version of QT
for windows but Trolltech pulled because companies were abusing it by using it to create commercial apps.

Qt have granted Opensource licenses to some known Opensource projects so their product can run on windows. I guess that Trolltech want to be very careful controlling who gets this access (can't blame them since this is their revenue stream)

by Marc Driftmeyer (not verified)

I remember us at NeXT with out MVC view of computing was considered outdated.

Now if only Konqueror 3.3.2 could stop hanging on forms during editing and I just might enjoy it. Debian Sid, KDE 3.3.2. The damn thing has slowed down with each .x.x revision.

Any idea folks? Or does one have to wait until Qt4 for this crap to go away?

Turn off spell-checking?

Klipper is also reported to cause problems with form editing, I believe. Try killing klipper and seeing if konqueror responds better.

by gerry (not verified)

Sorry for posting here, but a) I know some suse people hang out here and I so want to tell suse b) its more active than suse.com and c) some of you might be grateful

I klicked on suse watcher this morning to discover a kernel upgrade - and broke my kernel - it stiffs reiserfs and rendered my computer unusable. The upside is that I am back up and running having used repair to downgrade the kernel - the downside is that I am now running 3.3.0 rather than 3.3.2 and have got a lot of updating to do.

by ac (not verified)

Thanks for your warning :o)
Earlier, suse YOU broke mplayer with a XFRee-update (which I have reverted..), so now I should also stay away from kernelupgrades from suse :(

But why are you back at KDE 3.3.0?
Did you re-install SuSE?
You could have started SuSE from install disk, use chroot to go back to your hard-disc installation (still using the kernel from the cd/dvd), start YOU and downgrade the kernel..

by gerry (not verified)

I used "upgrade" and by accident upgraded everything in the wrong direction. I don't really understand enough about under the bonnet Linux but now have a copy the Linux Cookbook :) Now understand chroot

There's an even cleverer solution over at suse-linux-e which I still don't understand :(

by David (not verified)

Qt 4 is a quality development tool, and quite frankly, when you are talking about getting people outside of the usual 'open source community' to develop for something other than Windows (Windows developers etc.) it's the only viable option in town. GTK, Mono, Java and other alternative methods of development are fine as plain open source tools, but realistically speaking, in this context they just don't cut it.

The most intersting part of Qt 4 for me is probably Interview. As someone who develops a lot of applications that have all sorts of data using different views this looks really, really good, and having native support to attach models and views (rather than all that stupid automatically generated Visual Studio .Net code) is very, very nice. Scribe looks nice, but support for things like the Open Office XML file format would be much nicer. The rest of it is just all-round better - no comments there.

Qt Designer looks a lot better these days, but I haven't tried it used it enough yet. C++ has never looked so good, but I think Trolltech need to have a serious look at higher level languages like C#, Java and above that Python and VB. If you could use Qt fully with a higher level language (yes, I know there are bindings) you could get so much done it wouldn't be believable.

by cies (not verified)

at the akademy i heard trolltech was considering to support either C# (Mono-compatible) or Java. At that point no decision was made since both options had much outstanding pro and cons (i.e. copyright/Microshaft issues with Mono's free-C# and Java's well know issues).

I there anyone here who has some news?

For me trolltech maintaining bindings to some managed-code programming language will make me learn that language; since i think managed-code programming languages need Qt to become (1) truly crossplatform, and to have a (2) real x-platform widget lib that has a (3) nice API.

_cies.

by Larry Garfield (not verified)

This is the first I've heard of it, but it would be WAY COOL if they did.

C++ is nice and all, but really, in this day and age there is no excuse to do application development in a non-memory-managed language. MM Languages (Java, C#, Python, hell even Perl) are just so much more robust from a reliability standpoint. A good language with runtime garbage collection and bounds checking automatically eliminates dozens of the most common kinds of bugs and security holes. Yes, fundamentally C# and Java are MORE SECURE than C++, no matter how good a programmer you are. The time and energy required to write bulletproof code in Python or Java or C# is far lower than it is in C, C++, or the rest of that family. Period. (Yes, that means C#/.NET on Windows is a HUGE threat to the "we're actually secure" argument for GNU/Linux / Free Software, one that needs to be addressed.)

Qt, from everthing I've seen, is an amazing and mouth-watering API. But having to remember to manually free your memory makes a HUGE dent in productivity. If they could make it easy/trivial to use C# or, hell, even mutate Qt into a memory managed language (it's already not pure C++), that would rock serious ass on all platforms. Particularly if it meant that you could then do KDE4 development using C# or some similarly managed language. That would be The Killer App, IMHO.

by Paul (not verified)

> But having to remember to manually free your memory makes a HUGE dent in productivity.

Hm, and there was me thinking that QObject subclasses automagically delete objects they are parent to.

by JohnFlux (not verified)

"But having to remember to manually free your memory makes a HUGE dent in productivity."

I agree with a lot of arguments for memory management, and can't wait for it myself, by saying it puts a huge dent in productivity is .. overdoing it a lot.
Especially with what I've seen of qt 4 (elimination of explicitly shared classes, getting rid of qptrlist, etc).

by mikeyd (not verified)

PyQt is really very, very good. You may say they're just bindings, but the generation tool (sip) was written specifically for use with qt and python. Signals and slots are actually easier to do in python (no messing with moc), and there's a working uic for python. PyQt is actually my preferred way of doing a gui.

by ac (not verified)

It's too bad that PyKDE is always a version or two behind.

by anonymous (not verified)

can I use PyQt with Qt4beta now?

Thank you for your answer and merry xmas!