Gui Advice Needed: wxPython or PyQT ?

[David Bolen]

sismex01 at hebmex.com [mailto:sismex01 at hebmex.com] writes:

> Does the license allow only a single developer to do any
> work using the product?  Does it specifically disallow other
> developers from working with it, at separate times?

Clearly I'm not a primary source, but my understanding is yes.  The Qt
license is actually for a specific individual developer, and transfers
are restricted to once every 6 months within the same organization.
The PyQT license is also to a single developer (although it provides
for both Windows and Linux platforms).  Neither have royalties, but Qt
does have a yearly maintenance fee (also per developer).

> These --probable-- restrictions worry me somewhat, being an
> independant software developer.

To be fair, it's a fairly common setup for commercial licensing.  So
it's not the license itself but it in combination with the pricing
that sets a reasonably high hurdle in my mind.

As I had mentioned earlier in an IDE thread, it's also not
unreasonable for me to compare a VB visual studio setup with a
Python/Qt setup, but in the latter I still don't really have a
comparable IDE and just Qt ended up costing me 2x what MSDN did to get
me visual studio (plus the OS/MSDN subscription).  There are some
indirect effects too, such as my liking the Eric IDE, but that needs
PyQt/Qt so under Windows, it loops right back to needing a commercial
Qt license.

It's a tough line to tread though - on the commercial front its not
necessarily fair for TrollTech (or Riverbank) to be expected to
compete on price with free products, although I do think they have
some burden to produce a better product (features, support, whatever)
since the free products are out there.  And if their pricing is
working for them as a business model I'm not expecting it to change
just because I can't justify it at the moment in my own shop. :-)

But I do think it's fair to point out the (potentially high) hurdle
the licensing/pricing model for Qt when discussing toolkits if a
commercial endeavor is part of the equation.

-- David