Or maybe I just want a prototype to prove out a concept and software stack. Rather than just blindly throwing money at a problem.
I have no problem paying Qt. I'm just unwilling to do it until I know its the direction I want to go. The current Qt licensing structure adds friction to my making that decision.
Of course it adds friction. It's supposed to add friction. They wrote the code, they're a going concern, if you're going to pay they want you to commit and pay, not "prove out the concept" for free. Qt will give you a license for prototyping, you're just not willing to pay it.
Most commercial vendors won't give you their entire product for free until your own product is half-built. Qt is different; they offer an entire free product. You want to have your cake and eat it too.
The license for prototyping seems to be the same one for release. And Qt isn't offering me a free product, their terms are pay then develop your software. At least in my context.
In any event the only issue is the weird quirk of the Qt commercial license preventing you from switching to commercial from LGPL. Which I and apparently a few other people in the thread really didn't get at first.
> The license for prototyping seems to be the same one for release. And Qt isn't offering me a free product, their terms are pay then develop your software. At least in my context.
Their standard Qt for Application Development license gives you a free 30 day evaluation period. Also, I don't think any of this encompasses simply examining the free product without use in product development, e.g., reading the APIs, documentation, and source code. That's a lot of freebies, that you don't necessarily get with other commercial products.
> In any event the only issue is the weird quirk of the Qt commercial license preventing you from switching to commercial from LGPL. Which I and apparently a few other people in the thread really didn't get at first.
There's no weird quirk. As they state, "If you have already started the development with an open-source version of Qt, please contact The Qt Company to resolve the issue." If you have money, they will take your money. But if you want to develop a commercial product and use Qt up front then you have to budget for it. If you can't afford it then use something else. No one is holding a gun to your head forcing you to develop a proprietary product with Qt.
> Why do many enterprise software companies offer free (or low cost) trials then?
So does Qt. So much so in fact, they even offer an entire free product; evaluate it all you want. Just don't use it to build a commercial product while paying zero dollars and then come back when it's half-built and expect to dictate pricing terms after the fact.
> Does the company that you work for (or yours if you're a founder) take the same "take it or leave it" attitude towards potential customers?
I'm not going to talk about my work here. I'm writing on my anonymous behalf only. I've worked at places that were more or less liberal with evaluations and more or less tolerant of tiny accounts. I have never worked somewhere that salespeople loved customers who wasted their time asking for freebies and handouts with illusory promises of future money that never seems to materialize.
No, they don't. Not in any meaningful sense. They're offering to let you evaluate a bed, so long as your evaluation doesn't include sleeping on it.
> expect to dictate pricing terms after the fact
Excuse me, but who here has said a single thing about the customer dictating terms? Not a single person.
> I'm not going to talk about my work here.
The question was rhetorical, thanks.
> who wasted their time asking for freebies and handouts
No one is asking for either a hand-out or freebie. Potential Customers are asking to evaluate a product before paying for licenses THAT THEY MIGHT NOT USE. That is not un-reasonable.
How dare Qt demand that others pay them before developing a commercial product using their code?