Indie Mobile is dead

mcosta

Hi all,

the Qt Company decided to drop Indie Mobile because there are too few interested (paying) people/companies.
This means that the 99% (or more) of Commercial customers are not interested to that product; as any sane company the Qt Company evaluated if was convenient continue to provide this product and the answer was NO

If you want to move to another product feel free to do it but remember that sometimes (very often) cheaper doesn't mean better.

Also consider that if you have a company with many experienced Qt developers, moving to Xamarin (or other products) mean to wait that your developers became expert also with the new tool (and language) and that has a cost

lemta2000

@mcosta
I have checked that https://www.qt.io/buy-product/ with Qt indie 25$, what is that?
I'm independed developer (not company) so 350$ is to much.
Also, I'm not sure about Qt' commercial license, that mean can I develop app with version 30 days free and publish to such as Google play, Apple store in this time without problem? In other word, after 30 days expired of free, is my app (downloaded from store) will or not show alert such as "your app can't run because your trial Qt has expired"? :)

mcosta

HI,

Indie Mobile was a special licensing model for mobile development.
Qt Company dropped this license so now there's only the full license.

I'm not a super expert about licensing but, at least for Desktop Application, you can develop closed source applications also using the LGPL version of Qt ; something to check is if the LGPL version is ok also for Mobile (but I think is).

I don't think you're authorized to release an application with the 30 days Trial license of Qt

SGaist

You can but there are several rules that you must follow and more specifically when using static builds. The iOS Qt build is a static build.

More details here, specifically point 10.8

benlau

Highly disappointed for dropping the indie license. It give people no reason to consider to use Qt for mobile application development. Even for those company who can pay the license, they may not consider it since it may not be able to hire staff with experience. That will just kill Qt's future on mobile world.

mcosta

@benlau said:

It give people no reason to consider to use Qt for mobile application development.

As I said before, mobile development is still possible using the full license.
What is changed is that now there no licence for mobile development only.

Qt Company evaluated that the revenue related to Indie Mobile was to low to continue to ship.

benlau

@mcosta The full license is TOO expensive.

benlau

@mcosta Just like the freemium model popular nowadays, a cheaper version is necessary to lets people to get started. Check about the pricing of Xamarian. The cost is same as Indie license and now is a much cheaper solution. But it don't mean it is not promising. The no. of application developed by Xamarian for mobile is much more than Qt.

Just imaginary you are a newbie and would like to consider a cross-platform development environment:

Qt - USD $350 /month
Xamarian - USD $25/month with more no. of user and app available in store.

What will you choose?

Phataas

This is BAD news... I can not buy full version... Will those who have apps that has to be maintained still be able to do so if they use the in-app purchasing? If not....

mcosta

Indie Mobile is available for the existing customer. If you bought that license, you can continue with it

Flaming Moe

Hm...
this is also really bad news for me. Was thinking about to start something based on indie mobile. 350€/month for "just have it" is a serious number for a one man freelancer or startup...

And how about "the private use"? Xamarin.Forms without licensing has only a 30 day trail. Does Qt work for private activitys without license?

Phataas

@mcosta Thank you for the info. I am currently using the Qt Indie Evaluation and was about to buy it now so I hope The Qt Company has a solution for me as my app is in beta. Or my money for Google and Apple developer accounts and the hours I have used is a big waste of time and money...

SGaist