[haiku-development] Re: Haiku, Qt and apps, oh my!

  • From: PulkoMandy <pulkomandy@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: haiku-development@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Sun, 29 Mar 2009 11:00:15 +0200

There is a difference between having a Qt port available at
Bebits/Haikuware and having it integrated inside the default image.
Having it on bebits means you can install it if needed for some
specific app, having it inside the image means some people will start
to use it for new apps. If you have to get it from bebits for running
a psecific app, and also to develop using it, most people will
probably stick with the BeAPI, which is enough for most things and
will be installed in the alpha images out of the box (I guess it will
not be there in the final images, however).
That is where the great package managers from linux can become
dangerous, they allow you to install any library just because you feel
you need it for some little thing in your program, and you end up with
each program using its own sets of libs, without uniformity. If you
have to get the dependancies of each app by hand, this gets really
boring really soon, and most people will prefer installing BeAPIs
things when available.

The other problem is similar to the wine effect on linux. There,
having wine means most window apps will run, so big software companies
don't bother porting them to linux properly. Having Qt in Haiku could
lead to a similar situation. It's meant to be temporary, because we
don't have enough native apps, but it will last more than you think
because people will just start to use it.

On a personal note, i think Haiku devs have more important things to
do before porting Qt. If someone external to the project does it,
that's his problem. But if Haiku devs go on working on that instead of
fixing more important bugs, i think that would be a real focus shift
:)

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