Today we released a new unified online installer for commercial and open-source versions. Previously, we have had separate installers for each version. Now Qt Account is used for validating the Qt license and determining if a commercial or open-source version should be installed.
Unification of Qt systems has been ongoing for a while and we have now reached a major milestone with the unified online installer. We no longer have two separate online installers to create, test and release. Also, it is now easier to migrate from open-source to commercial license of Qt.
The Qt repositories and delivery networks for commercial and open-source content are still separate, so that users with a commercial license of Qt will have access to their commercial delivery system and the additional content their license grants them access to. Users without a commercial license will be able to install the open-source version of Qt from the open-source delivery system.
If you already have a Qt Account, enter your credentials when asked:
If you do not yet have a Qt Account, you can create it conveniently from the online installer:
When you enter your Qt Account credentials, the installer will check if there is a valid commercial license associated with your Qt Account, and you will be taken through to commercial installation. If there is no commercial license associated with your Qt Account, installation will provide the open-source version of Qt. If you do not have a Qt Account yet, you can simply create one directly via the installer. Just enter your email (this is address to which your account activation email will be immediately sent upon account creation) and the password you wish to use for Qt Account access and proceed to install. Be sure to activate your Qt Account as instructed in the email. You may also create a new Qt Account at qt.io, if you prefer.
In addition to being the place to manage support tickets and downloads for commercial license holders of Qt, Qt Account credentials are used for signing in to the Qt Wiki and Forum. We are also working hard to extend the use of Qt Account for sign in to other systems, such as bugreports.qt.io. To see a list of benefits of the Qt Account, please visit our Qt Account Benefits page.
The unified online installer is built with the brand new 2.0 version of the installer framework. We have worked hard to iron out all possible glitches of the installer, but in case you have problems with it, please file a bug to bugreports.qt.io. Offline installers are unchanged and still use the older version of installer framework.
If you are already using a Qt online installer, you will be provided the new unified installer when using the maintenance tool. You will need to update the installer (maintenance tool), before you download other items. If you do not yet have an online installer for Qt, you can get it from the qt.io Download page or from the Qt Account portal.
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Good job on making Qt less free! This is the way you make it easy to try, by forcing people to give you their email address, sigh, every day it is harder and harder to justify spending free time in coding and reviewing Qt code.
Corporate pushy greed is determined to ruin Qt and turn decades of efforts into a waste...
I've already moved away from using Qt directly in my new work, and instead use an extra abstraction API for the features I need, and even though currently my API is implemented in Qt, this way I can easily create another implementation should the need to move away from Qt altogether arise, and it looks as if it will, sooner rather than later.
Already given up on the ruined forum, after years of participation and many helpful posts. Already given up on creating bug reports nobody bothers to even look at.
I felt like digia revamped itself into another entity to open a new page from previous mishaps, but it looks like it was just to start a clean tab for more corporate misappropriation of the framework. Those people will eventually ruin Qt.
Sjees, people, get over it. How much do YOU contribute to Qt? Developers have to be paid somehow, and Qt has a business model which strikes the balance between being open and making money to further development very well. This, in no way, diminishes your freedom...
It allows the Qt folks to get their message to potential and existing customers without forcing anything on anybody.
If you really have a problem with a well maintained and developed toolkit (made possible thanks to the investment of many, many Qt customers), please move to GTK. If you prefer to trust Microsoft over a long time open source company (what could go wrong?) then go for Mono.
But don't come here and whine about how your freedom is diminished by the hard working Qties.
Awful. I use the installer a lot, and in lots of different places. And I use a long random password for every website (that obviously I keep in a safe place) so that will force me to memorize the Qt account password.
I don't need the Qt account password to send an email to the mailing lists, or to speak on IRC. Where I do contribute to Qt (my main computer) I have the password at hand because I also have access to Gerrit, etc. But the Windows virtual machine, the laptop or the Mac that I use for work? This makes the installer annoying as hell for usage of the freely available open source version.
Why don't you just use offline installer then? http://www.qt.io/download-o...
Offline installer is a huge inconvenience. When 5.4.2 is published, I can fire up the maintenance tool and upgrade in a few clicks. Offline installer implies deleting everything and starting from scratch each time. Plus, I have several versions with several combinations of Qt (64 vs 32bits, msvc vs mingw, native vs android, etc.).
> Offline installer is a huge inconvenience
It is better a free CDN. Right?
Obviusly yes. It's the custom in all open source projects I use. Plenty of institutions offer free mirroring service to open source projects. Nobody says TQC has to suffer the burden of offering a CDN on their own. I would gladly offer money or my own time and resources to offer a mirror of the open source Qt binaries.
Well for the non-happy people, nothing stops you from using the offline installer which doesn't require a Qt Account.
As for the online installer, I haven't looked at it but I guess if it doesn't already exist a "I don't want to login" button might be a way to satisfy everyone.
No, such button doesn't exist, and something tells me it's not there on purpose, because sincerely i can't imagine people at Digia did not think this through and realize there would be unhappyness because of this change.
And no, the offline installer is simply not an option because it's on purpose hidden on the website so people can find it.
Hidden in plain sight.
www.qt.io > download > community > offline installer
Can you explain why is it not an option?
i don't even...
Like Richard Rondu said, a "I don't want to login" button is a simple way to let people update their open source installation of Qt.
Please provide a possibility to use online installer without Qt Account! I'm not going to create one just to be able to update my Qt installation! At least for the open source version you should not implement such obstacles!
Please don't do that. I and probably many people use the online installer to do semi-automatic setup of machines. Requiring a Qt-Account to do this is just inconvenient.
Seriously, you guys start to ruin everything that made Qt so great in the past.
At least the installer looks better on Mac 10.10. The text is vertically centered in push buttons.
Finally, I was wondering if I was the only one that noticed this glaring UI issue :-/
This is not good. Over the years, I have taken a lot of heat for using Qt and not GTK because users of my open source software perceive Qt as being "not open source."
It's incredibly tiresome. It's been tiresome for at least 15 years. Having the Qt installer demand creation of an account in order to install the open source version moves the focus back from what Qt can do why it ought to be avoided.
@Erik: It is just that you need to have a Qt Account in order to use the new online installer - users of the Qt based apps you have created can use those just as before. Using the new installer, you have exactly the same rights to distribute your applications according to open-source (or commercial) license terms. There is no need for the users of your apps to have a Qt Account, unless they wish to develop with Qt.
Well, the installer-framework and maintainence-tool are open source [1]. Just patch out the account-thing, change mirrors, enjoy the power of opensource :-)
[1] https://wiki.qt.io/Qt-Insta...
Great another useless account just to download Qt. Offline installer is not good option because you are wasting bandwidth.
@nou: We hope that Qt Account is not useless for you, but that you and others will find value in the Qt Account, which will also be used to sign in to services at qt.io.
it appears you suffers from deafness...
Nice to have the opportunity to "find value" on a Qt Account and so on. But being forced to use it? not ok! There should be nothing on the way to installing the open source Qt. Please keep the login/register screen, but add a well visible skip button please. It is a must.
> Offline installer is not good option because you are wasting bandwidth.
Pendrive?
Sigh... Until now, I've always been recommending the Qt online installer to my peers, especially those on Windows. It really seemed that you were going in the right direction, albeit the Trolltech/Nokia/MS/qt.io debacle. While Microsoft gets exposure for their commitment to developers these days even on HN (see CoreCLR, Roslyn, VS Code, etc.), you guys just clobbered a great installer experience and have the audacity to praise the new "features". Guess I'll stick to apt-get again. Damage control anyone?
@MS: As part of the work to create the new installer we have also aimed to improve the installation experience. Many parts are exactly as before, but there are also modifications we hope are improving the overall experience of installing Qt. So even though it may feel bad to sign in with a Qt Account, I do hope you give the new installer a chance.
> So even though it may feel bad to sign in with a Qt Account, I do hope you give the new installer a chance.
Do you realize that this bot marketing talk is insulting?
"...we have also aimed to improve the installation experience..."
Well, you definitely nailed it. There is hardly anything more experience-improving than having to waste time to create an account on a clumsy and awkward web site.
Why not include a small mandatory survey in the installer, where we - the grateful users can praise such invaluable contributions and the people, responsible for it.
Seriously, the only person in the comments who thinks this is an improvement seems to be you. When you do something and the response to that is overwhelmingly negative, is it in your capacity to conceive of the possibility it wasn't a good thing? Or is anything you decide to do intrinsically good and untouchable to criticism?
@7: If you do not have a Qt Account, you can create it directly from the online installer. It is not necessary to go to a website to create your Qt Account.
OK, almost there yet, now make it automatically create dummy accounts each time people want to install Qt and you will have solved this inconvenience. This way you can claim even more "registered users", too bad you won't get to send spam to anyone...
Seriously, are you just going to completely ignore the fact nobody is excited about that new "feature" of yours? It would be expected from someone who doesn't give a damm about what the Qt user base wants...
The thing is (it was already sad many times here!): many of us DON NOT WANT to create this Qt account to be able to use the online installer to update our Qt installation! Is it a big deal to add a button to skip the log in step and to proceed without Qt account? I will for sure not create one for me.
Maybe a nice feature to add to the first page is a link for "forgot your account info" which launches the browser to the request new password. It would not take much to add.
Good point. Installer should have a link to the password recovery page (https://login.qt.io/forgot)).
come on ! Yeah again a new account to create I will sure forget asap. Did you ever think about asking credits cards you wouldn't charge, just to lower the number of people interested in QT ? Could be nice too...
Need to sign in with the Qt account is quite inconvenient, but if this could help Digia earn money, why not just give them a hand?
Qt is a huge code bases, need a lot of talented programmers to maintain and enhance, if Digia cannot earn the money, how could they pay good salaries, build good working environment to attract those talented programmers?
Digia just posted profitable numbers for the quarter, driven by very strong sales in the Qt business.
not working behind proxy, unable to login, "connection to server failed".
need some help
Which platform you are using?
Just tested on Windows7 and Linux with proxy.
It should pop up a dialog where you can enter credentials for the proxy.
Could you run the installer from command line and pass "--verbose" option. Does it show any additional information?
Please back down on this. Mandatory login simply does not belong in an inställer for free software. I think the comments so far says it all, but feel free to run a poll.
Does the installer allow fully scripted installs (new in IFW2)?
Is a session token saved so credentials are not required on each app open?
Yes, the installs can be fully scripted. It can be done also in systems without any windowing system.
Session token is saved, no need to re-enter passwd each time installer/maintenancetool is used.
+1 for the unified installer
-1 for the mandatory qt account
A "SKIP" button would be welcome!
If this is annoying enough, eventually somebody will provide a replacement online installer for the LGPL version.
If this is annoying enough to people willing pay, this might just be a commercial entity.
And all of a sudden, instead of unifying Qt, this ill-thought-out move has split it more, thus damaging it. By the company who should have the least interest in damaging it.
(Besides, I have yet to see even the tiniest bit of value in creating a Qt account for users of the LGPL version.)
@Kalle: You can use your Qt Account credentials to sign-in to Qt services, including Qt Forums and Qt Wiki. More services will be added later, including Qt Bugreports. As a commercial user Qt Account provides you with Qt Support and commercial downloads. Intention is to build more value to it over time for both commercial and open-source users. You can learn more about Qt Account benefits at http://www.qt.io/qt-account
Well, then why don't you create the value first and then force people to sign up? (And even then, a forced sign-up is a terribly bad idea.)
I can use the Wiki without a Qt account, can I not? If I want to post to a forum, I will create an account, but that has nothing to do with downloading and experimenting with a bit of software. A software that, which can't be stressed enough, was to about 1/3 developed by somebody else than The Qt Company; developers who have not given their consent to this forced sign-up.
Finally, I am perfectly aware that as a commercial customer I can use my Qt Account to access support and downloads. To be honest, the commercial download area is so horribly inefficient that I prefer to download the open source packages from elsewhere, or use whatever comes with my distribution.
How will this non-anonymous installer policy affect the Qt package mainainers of Linux Distributions like Debian, Ubuntu or Fedora?
@Edgar: Distributions are not affected by this. It is just the Qt online installer that asks for Qt Account. You can use distributions Qt packages and other installers (the Qt offline installers) just as before. You can also go to download.qt.io or code.qt.io and get the source just like before.
I have a Qt Account that I tried to delete today but I couldn't find a way to do it. I filed a support ticket and the answer I've got was that since I don't have a commercial license I don't need to do anything. They don't delete it for me neither since accounts are personal.
So, if you are considering signing up for an account, it is, currently, a one-way trip.
@Kayra: This must be a misunderstanding at our end, a Qt Account can be removed, if you so desire. I'll check this with our Qt Account support.
@Tuukka: The account will be deleted by the support team today. Thanks.
The dev team will look into adding the feature to delete an account.
I agree that forcing the Qt login is a really bad idea.
I was looking forward to headless installs to deploy Qt to build/ci machines with the installer. Instead, I need a Qt login.. Really?
Seriousl guys, just get an account and install it already. What's the big deal. OK, so the Qt Company guys might use this collect some metrics and generate some money. What's wrong with that? It's good for the Qt Ecosystem that Qt COmpany makes money. If they go down, Qt goes down.
I agree with you, if apply an account could help the Digia advertise Qt with a better way, I do not think it is a big deal.Qt still not so popular within mobiles, it need to expose and attract more consumers
How will it help to advertise Qt if you have to create an account to use the online installer? It is an additional step interested people have to do if they want to try out Qt. In my opinion it will harm Qt reputation instead of make it more popular!
There are only one thing I do not agree with you, even Digia goes down, Qt would not go down, it will be supported by other companies/open source communities.But it may not evolve so fast like now.
Can you add to this installer "Execute/Install as root" for us lazy people on the appropriate systems?
I think unified installer is a good thing, but I still have to add a big "No No" because of the necessity to create an account. Just adding a "SKIP" button would greatly improve the whole experience, but this just creates a feeling that Qt will slowly start closing down their code.
Good job. Now official builds are officially unusable for us. I will have to force my colleagues to switch to some other installer.
@why: Could you elaborate a bit more why you can not use the online installer, or the offline installers?
Uatomatic update the maintenance tool from old 1.6 version to new 2.0 but the interaface I have is different from this one. In mi "version" there isn't the Qt icon, there is an additional flag "Uninstall only" and, above all, there isn't the "Settings" button for allow me to set proxy params. The result is the tool doesn't work since can not access to internet thorugh proxy. My system is Windows 8.1 64 bit. How to fix that?
Thank you
I'll add another voice against forcing an account creation. This is really freedom hurting, and as many have said, the online installers are very useful for automated maintenance.
Just drop this aggressive marketing and add a button to not login at all for the install.
@Cyber Killer: Please check: http://www.qt.io/blog/2015/...
Making qt account as optional is simply, perfect solution for everybody.
thanks.
I hope that you will reconsider the forced account sign up for open source users, it is clear from the comments that no one wants it. There are good reasons to sign up for an account, but forcing people to in order to use an installer is not one. Creating a skip/use open source button would work if you are genuinely doing this to help your commercial customers.
@Marcus: Installer making the Qt Account sign-in optional is now released: http://www.qt.io/blog/2015/...
Tukka, that is great news, it is very encouraging to see community feedback was heard. There are many of us who advocate for Qt, and this move will make it easier (and encourage us to continue to do so). Thanks once again!