[FAQ] "Best" GUI toolkit for python

[Michael Torrie]

On 10/19/2016 12:18 PM, Demosthenes Koptsis wrote:
> I thought PyQt was supported by Qt company...

I don't think so.  PyQt is a commercial product of Riverbank Computing.
It's dual-licensed under the GPL and a proprietary license you can buy.
Riverbank may have had a relationship with Trolltech back in the day,
but I'm not aware of any current business relationship between Riverbank
and the Qt project or the Qt company.  Riverbank is obviously happy to
be a part of the Qt open source community.

PySide was created by Nokia when they owned Qt. Basically they wanted a
python toolkit that they could use without being beholden to Riverbank.
It's clear that Nokia never wanted to monetize Qt like TrollTech did,
but rather use it to develop their own phone operating system.  That
didn't pan out and Nokia spun off Qt to it's own organization/company,
and PySide is part of that Qt Project.

PySide development is ongoing but the pace is not as rapid as PyQt.
Riverbank still develops and sells PyQt and support to companies and has
stable Qt5 support now.  I wondered if PySide would ultimately kill off
PyQt, but so far that has not been the case.

> There is also an official book by Prentice Hall:
> 
> Rapid GUI Programming with Python and Qt (Prentice Hall Open Source 
> Software Development)
> 
> https://www.amazon.com/Programming-Python-Prentice-Software-Development/dp/0132354187/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1476901015&sr=8-1&keywords=rapid+qt+python
> 
> Inside the book the apps are been developed in PyQt

Not sure what makes this an "official book." It has nothing to do with
the Qt Project or the Qt Company.