Why are packages built with Qt6?

Cknight70 · 2022-03-14 08:38:24

I have noticed both qBittorrent and Strawberry are built with Qt6. This breaks theming on my KDE desktop and Qt5 is bound to be the more desired Qt version for most users for this reason.

Another reason why I find this confusing is because when I built both of these apps myself Qt6 was not the default build option, and I was under the impression it was Arch's job to provide vanilla packages that with minimal changes.

To quote one of the principles on the Arch wiki

Simplicity
Arch Linux defines simplicity as without unnecessary additions or modifications. It ships software as released by the original developers (upstream) with minimal distribution-specific (downstream) changes

What do you think?

Last edited by Cknight70 (2022-03-14 08:43:37)

Lone_Wolf · 2022-03-14 11:54:37

Qbittorrent package switched to qt6 in january, seems it took you a while to notice.

Another principle arch follows is Modernity .

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Arch_Linux#Modernity wrote:

Modernity
Arch Linux strives to maintain the latest stable release versions of its software as long as systemic package breakage can be reasonably avoided. It is based on a rolling-release system, which allows a one-time installation with continuous upgrades.
Arch incorporates many of the newer features available to GNU/Linux users, including the systemd init system, modern file systems, LVM2, software RAID, udev support and initcpio (with mkinitcpio), as well as the latest available kernels.

qt6 is now at version 6.2.3 and upstream considers it as having feature parity with qt 5.15.
I expect more packages will switch to qt6 in the next months.

As for theming : have you tried community/qt6ct ?

Trilby · 2022-03-14 13:20:12

Support for the last open source version of qt5 ended 10 months ago. Frankly it's surprising that a bit of software that has been deprecated by upstream and replaced by a newer version has remained in the repos as long as it has.

Last edited by Trilby (2022-03-14 13:20:46)

Cknight70 · 2022-03-15 08:56:21

Thank you both for giving a bit of insight, though I still think it is stupid to build against Qt6. Yes Qt5 is on its way out but Qt5 is still dominant, and KDE still uses it, which means a significant number of users are negatively effected by this.

Lone_Wolf wrote:

As for theming : have you tried community/qt6ct ?

Thanks for making me aware of this, unfortunately no one has made a theme that matches Breeze.

So I will join everyone else in using qbittorrent-qt5 aur package, which is currently sitting at 10 popularity rating and hope I am not building half my apps before Plasma 6 comes out.

Trilby · 2022-03-15 12:47:41

Cknight70 wrote:

Thank you both for giving a bit of insight, though I still think it is stupid to build against Qt6. Yes Qt5 is on its way out but Qt5 is still dominant.

It's not on it's way out, it's long since out. If it is still dominant, it's only because the update to qt6 has lagged. And the fact that a process has been slower than it should is not good reason to continue being slower.

Awebb · 2022-03-15 13:40:15

Qt and KDE are somewhat intertwined. KDE on Archlinux has a wild and bumpy history. In the distant past, people were displeased enough with the KDE packaging, that the KDEmod repository came to life, which supposedly "did things better". As far as I remember, this repository turned into a now defunct Arch-oid distro named Chakra. I think Chakra's worst enemy was the fact, that KDE4 and KDE5 were much more modular and installing Plasma didn't mean "the whole deal" anymore, because real Arch still rocks.

Until today, every time Qt bumps the major, KDE takes some time to adjust and we, the rolling release/bleeding edge idiots will have a period of adjustment. This will only get worse, considering the "recent" licensing controversy around Qt.

Trilby · 2022-03-15 14:05:55

Awebb, which licensing controversy are you referring to? In the early days there were issues due to qt dual licensing as proprietary or GPL while gtk used the LGPL. But qt has now long been offered under the LGPL making that controversy moot.

seth · 2022-03-15 14:48:50

Possibly https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page= … w-Releases

Awebb · 2022-03-15 16:10:33

Trilby wrote:

Awebb, which licensing controversy are you referring to? In the early days there were issues due to qt dual licensing as proprietary or GPL while gtk used the LGPL. But qt has now long been offered under the LGPL making that controversy moot.

This one is fresh, not entirely resolved and all but moot. I'm talking about the events that happened in late 2019/early 2020, which almost lead to a Qt fork under the BSD license by the KDE folks. Here is one link that doesn't dive too deep into polemics and serves as a starting point: https://ev.kde.org/2020/04/06/changes-i … oundation/

Lone_Wolf · 2022-03-16 11:43:05

qt6-base

source=(https://download.qt.io/official_releases/qt/${pkgver%.*}/$_qtver/submodules/$_pkgfn.tar.xz
        qmake-cflags.patch
        qmake-config.patch)

qt5-base

source=(git+https://invent.kde.org/qt/qt/$_pkgfqn#commit=$_commit
        qmake-cflags.patch
        qmake-config.patch)

early in 2021 the QT foundation released QT 5.15.3 , but availability was limited and it was NOT published as open source.
KDE forked it and archlinux has used that fork for qt5 since then.

Recently the 1 year period of closed source for qt 5.15.3 ended and it was published as open source.

It's (atleast to me) unknown if/ when / at which version qt6 will also become closed source for a year.

arojas · 2022-03-17 11:50:06

Lone_Wolf wrote:

It's (atleast to me) unknown if/ when / at which version qt6 will also become closed source for a year.

Every LTS qt6 release (starting with 6.2) will become closed source for a year after the next minor release. Since Arch always uses the latest release, this will not affect us at all until the last qt6 minor release (at which point, if this policy is still valid, KDE will likely fork it again).

Awebb · 2022-03-17 14:50:26

Thank you for clarifying!

Arch Linux

#1 2022-03-14 08:38:24

Why are packages built with Qt6?

#2 2022-03-14 11:54:37

Re: Why are packages built with Qt6?

#3 2022-03-14 13:20:12

Re: Why are packages built with Qt6?

#4 2022-03-15 08:56:21

Re: Why are packages built with Qt6?

#5 2022-03-15 12:47:41

Re: Why are packages built with Qt6?

#6 2022-03-15 13:40:15

Re: Why are packages built with Qt6?

#7 2022-03-15 14:05:55

Re: Why are packages built with Qt6?

#8 2022-03-15 14:48:50

Re: Why are packages built with Qt6?

#9 2022-03-15 16:10:33

Re: Why are packages built with Qt6?

#10 2022-03-16 11:43:05

Re: Why are packages built with Qt6?

#11 2022-03-17 11:50:06

Re: Why are packages built with Qt6?

#12 2022-03-17 14:50:26

Re: Why are packages built with Qt6?

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