Since January 5, 2021, access to the source code of LTS versions of Qt has been provided only to holders of a commercial license. This was announced by , and let’s together foster a DevOps culture. the Director of Qt Company, Tuukka Turunen.
With the release of Qt 6.0.0, and the upcoming first patch release (Qt 6.0.1), it is time to transition to the commercial-only licensing phase for Qt 5.15 LTS. All existing branches of version 5.15 will remain accessible, but new commits will not be accepted. The exception is Qt WebEngine (and the deprecated Qt Script), which have dependencies on 3rd party components under the LGPL license.
For English speakers:
With Qt 6.0.0 released and the first patch release (Qt 6.0.1) coming soon, it is time to enter the commercial-only LTS phase for Qt 5.15 LTS. All the existing 5.15 branches remain publicly visible, but they are closed for new commits (and cherry-picks). Exception being the Qt WebEngine (and the deprecated Qt Script), which have a 3rd party LGPL dependency.
The next solely commercial minor release Qt 5.15.3 is expected in February.
Meanwhile, the distributions are facing a difficult situation: the previous LTS version Qt 5.12 will be supported only until the end of this year, while version 5.15, which is already in the repositories, will have to be maintained independently or potentially switch to Qt 6, which may not guarantee compatibility. For instance, the maintainers of Debian are already was announced sharing concerns about the lack of time for Qt 6.
The community is ready to take on the maintenance of its own LTS versions. Moreover, developers of third-party modules will be given access to the repository upon request, allowing the community to monitor changes (it will be interesting to see if this is considered a violation of the license?)
Source: linux.org.ru
