Gui Advice Needed: wxPython or PyQT ?

[Alex Martelli]

David Bolen wrote:

> Alex Martelli <aleax at aleax.it> writes:
> 
>> I think the #1 issue (and maybe the only significant one) with Qt for
>> most people is its complicated, and potentially costly or bothersome,
>> licensing.
> 
> That's what it is for me at least.
> 
>> If you're in sharp situations -- a commercial software house choosing
>> what to use for your programming (in which case a few thousand dollars
>> may be no big deal given all the other expenses each of your programmer
>> employees must incur for you, salary foremost:-), or at the other extreme
>> a developed committed to doing GPL development for free OS's only -- it's
>> not too bad -- you purchase professional or enterprise licenses as
>> needed, or on the other hand choose the GPL or QPL licenses, and off you
>> go.
> 
> The pricing can definitely also be a hurdle for commercial shops,
> certainly for smaller ones with existing tools in place.  For example,
> we're primarily a Windows shop, and have existing MSDN licenses.
> Purely on a technical level Qt is a serious alternative (perhaps even
> a leader) to wxPython if we wanted to move to Python for our primary
> product GUIs, and even the more attractive because of their embedded
> system support as we also do some custom embedded hardware
> development.
> 
> If it was just a few thousand dollars it would be an easier sell, but
> for a 6-developer team it's about $12,000 USD fixed, plus almost
> $4,000 USD per year for support.  And if I want to take advantage of

True: if everybody in your development shop is involved in developing
GUI's, this is indeed steeper.  I forgot what big savings we have by
having all GUI development done by a small specialized team while most
developers work exclusively on the middleware, backend, web stuff, &c.
That's how most firms I've worked in or with are organized, so I forgot
that such specialization is probably the exception, not the rule.

Besides, I'm clearly not current -- I _thought_ the licenses where
$1500 per developer, not $2000.


> the portability moving to such a solution permits (for other
> platforms), I still have to incur the fixed costs all over again.  And
> no site licenses so I've got to keep other costs associated with new
> developers.
> 
> Is that a fraction of other overhead costs?  Sure, but not an
> insignificant one.  I can do a lot with that kind of money on a per
> developer basis.  Heck our MSDN licenses are less than half that of Qt
> (even less since we're in renewals) and that's without taking into
> account any of the volume licensing programs.  But the problem is
> really when contrasting it with something like wxPython, when it's not
> just if Qt is better, but is it better to be worth that much
> difference in cost.  Clearly, I don't expect it to be free, but as
> libraries go, Qt is a pretty costly one.
> 
> So this has probably rambled somewhat off-topic for this group, but it
> seems to me that by its pricing, Trolltech has really aimed their
> commercial licenses at bigger shops - maybe that's a natural

It seems to me that the contrary applies -- a bigger shop, if there
is no site licensing (and always assuming no specialization), would
end up paying way more, in proportion.

> consequence of being such good supporters of the GPL/open source
> development community.  It's a shame because I really do like their
> product, but not enough to take the bite out of the budget line.

A perfectly understandable choice.


>>           (...)             I've also been moved to upgrade my Blackadder
>> install to the recently released beta4 and am discovering quite a few
>> (...)
> 
> Do you find BlackAdder still being actively developed and looking like
> nearing a 1.0 release any time soon?  I found that as a very
> attractive way to get redistributable Qt licenses (just for Python
> apps) but have been concerned as to what appeared to be dwindling
> activity on it.

1.0beta4 was put out very recently, and the support mailing list was
quite prompt in addressing my issue (although nothing happened to
SOLVE them, mind you:-).  But I don't understand your concerns.  By
signing up while it's still beta you get a DIRT-cheap license -- WAY
cheaper than trolltech's -- to redistribute Python-only PyQt apps;
why do you care if they take one month or 12 to get out of beta?  As
your license is valid for one year until AFTER they get out of beta
it would seem any delay in their doing so is to your advantage...;-).


Alex