Re: up with PyGUI!

From: Alex Martelli (aleaxit_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 09/16/04 

Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 00:23:36 +0200

Jorge Godoy <godoy@ieee.org> wrote:

> aleaxit@yahoo.com (Alex Martelli) writes:
>
> >> I really would like a lot if it was possible to write
> >> non-GPL code with Qt (not that I'm against GPL software, but some
> >
> > It's perfectly possible: Trolltech, the authors of Qt, will be extremely
> > happy to sell you a commercial license of Qt so you can develop and sell
> > your code as closed-source or whatever.
>
> Then I'd have to buy something like PyQT, and then I'd have to buy
> something like ... :-)

If you buy BlackAdder, it comes with PyQT and Qt licenses and is cheaper
than the Qt license for C++ development. A great bargain even if you
never use the IDE itself (unless you also want to do C++ dev't).

> I like the widgets, and the visual, but I can't afford buying a whole
> toolchain for using it. So, I use the tools that are free, that allow

I believe the "whole toolchain" (BlackAdder -- period) cost about $300
(==Euro 250) for a one-user license (commercial, with full right to
redistribute the apps you develop). I'm not sure how much you charge
for all of the apps you develop, but if 250 euros (fiscally deducible
from your fees, of course!) make a significant dent in your income, then
I agree that you can't afford Qt.

No doubt, eventually, wxPython (which has been growing by leaps and
bounds for quite a while now) will overtake Qt, and/or the cygwin guys
will manage to release a native GPL Qt for Windows, and/or PyGUI will
overtake both. For the last couple years, though, it seems to me that
anybody who claims he really wishes he could write (Python) non-GPL
commercial code with Qt and hasn't considered buying BlackAdder must
_definitely_ charge too little for the application he or she sells.

> delivery (after all, he paid for that) or writing free software (free
> software was their choice 75% of the time, this is another reason I
> wouldn't invest on buying a license of Qt for commercial software...).

Unfortunately, GPL Qt doesn't (yet) run on Windows, which (for my
average customer) would be a blocking factor.

> Indeed. Macs are cool, but expensive. Our salaries here in .br are not
> like your in the US or Europe... :-)

Somebody just posted to it.comp.macintosh about their astonishment
regarding Mac prices: they carefully configured Dell and Mac machines
that were roughly equivalent -- pretty big ones (2GB RAM, 20" LCD
screens, 250 GB disk, and in the case of the Mac a 64-bit CPU) and they
came out to very much the same price, 3000 Eur including VAT. Except
that on the Mac a superb professional development system is free for the
downloading (XCode 1.5) while for Windows they'd need to splurge another
thousand or so for Visual Studio Enterprise, not to mention the Mac's
"iLife" suite (mostly not relevant to most professional users). They
were astonished because they'd chosen the cheapest Dell desktop that
could be pushed that high (a 4600, I believe).

I'm at the other end of the spectrum, with an iBook 12" ultraportable
which cost me, 9 months ago, roughly 1000, about 1/2 as much as the
closest comparable machine in the Windows world (an IBM Thinkpad X40).
In this case, adding the $$$ for Visual Studio to the mix, vs the free
XCode I have here, would make the price comparison just ridiculous.
People lusting for upgrades (because of course today's Mac are better
than last year's) are typically trying to sell such machines for 700-800
or thereabouts, if they're perfect except for their age of about a year.
I wouldn't know where to find a good ultraportable 12" in the PC world
for this kind of prices -- and if I did, Linux wouldn't perfectly
support its "sleep" facilities, a key issue in ultraportable laptops.

Of course, the PC world has a MUCH wider range of offerings, including
low-performance, low-quality ultracheap 250-or-so boxes -- that's what I
typically throw in (with OpenBSD on them) when I propose some
configuration to cheapskate customers. But, as I needed a good laptop,
with the amount of travel I do, that option just wasn't around for me.

Alex

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