> > So, removing Qt5 will break computers of many users, including my computer. > In the course of many years of existence of Qt5 a large number of useful > programs have been created; not all of them have been ported to Qt6. Are we > going to throw away all this wealth? >
I have to agree with Andrey here, the list contains quite a few items that are likely used by a lot of users and killing all these apps is going to be painful. Is there a timeline for killing QT5 completely or will just QT5 be stuck at the current version and patch level? I understand that QT5 is considered deprecated, but doesn't KDE project still maintain QT 5.15 for the time being? Can't we just keep that version? Even if we report bugs upstream, it may take time to port all these projects, especially the larger ones or if they are a single person project. Additionally there are some projects where the community's influence is limited, eg. Virtualbox which is controlled by Oracle. Looking through the list: app-office/kmymoney: I've been using this for accounting for more than a decade now, and I'm not sure if there are any worthy alternatives to it to be honest, nor do I want to go through a painful migration to some inferior accounting program. It's important enough for me that I would consider switching distros if I lost this, which would also mean I would end my involvement with Gentoo (i.e. retire from all my proxy maintained packages) as a result. Additional items on top of Andrey's list, that I'm familiar with (a lot of these I use personally too): app-backup/bacula: Fancy backup tool, while I don't use it personally, I know many prefer it. Breaking it would break an important data workflow for people, and while there are alternative backup solutions migrating is likely painful for someone with extensive backups. app-crypt/nitrokey-app: Isn't Nitrokey used officially by Gentoo devs?[1] I'm not sure it's a good idea to loos this. app-crypt/yubikey-manager-qt: I don't think there is an alternative UI for managing Yubikeys. I don't use it any more as I switched to the CLI tool, but again for users getting into hardware based 2-fac this is an invaluable tool. app-editors/okteta: I like this hex editor, it's one of the best available under Linux. Would be a great loss IMHO, and while I could swicth to hexedit or some similar tool, it would not be the same. app-emulation/virtualbox: Popular VM tool, I use this too. I'm aware for QEMU but some things just work better with Virtualbox. app-i18n/fcitx-qt: Anyone using Chinese/Japanese/Korean/etc. will be pissed if this is gone. app-office/scribus: Great software, I've used it to create posters for conferences and what not. Again, not sure if there are any reasonable alternatives for this. dev-db/sqlitebrowser and dev-db/sqlitestudio: I've used it in the past, not essential for my workflow, but I can see why people like these. dev-embedded/ponyprog: Convenient piece of software to use with microcontrollers, EEPROMS, etc. Again no real alternatives with such a wide programming capability. I don't frequently need to program HW, but when I do I prefer this. kde-apps/marble: Awseome desktop globe and mapping program. I prefer this to using OpenStreetMap in the browser. No alternative AFAIK. media-gfx/krita: Great drawing program for artists, manga, etc. Not sure if there is a equal quality alternative for it. I don't use it though. media-gfx/luminance-hdr: HDR photo creation tool. Not sure if there are alternatives for this. sci-electronics/pulseview: Great for interfacing with logic analyzers (and more), works with my Saleae (both OEM and clone) nicely, but there are no alternatives for this really. I'm sure there are other unique pieces of software, which if lost will significantly reduce the usefulness and usability of Gentoo as a desktop OS and will push users away. Cheers, Zoltan [1] https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Infrastructure/Nitrokey_Pro_2_guide_for_Gentoo_developers
