• Qt Project Overview: Volker Hilsheimer is the chief maintainer. He started using Qt in the late 90s and joined Trolltech in 2000. Now at The Qt Company, Qt has two UI rendering ways: Qt Widgets (C++ API) and Qt Quick (uses QML and includes V4 JavaScript engine).
• Qt Widgets and Qt Quick Differences: Widgets' software architecture is different from Quick's. Widgets came from MFC days, while Quick is inspired by composability. Existing Widgets code won't disappear, and compatibility is more important. Work is underway to create a hardware-accelerated imperative API for Qt Quick.
• Qt Bridges: Enables using Qt from non-C++ languages. Solves data integration problems. Makes the QML runtime adaptable to any language, giving Qt flexibility as the language landscape evolves.
• Qt 5 to Qt 6 Transition: Difficult for users. Decision not to include all Qt 5 features in Qt 6 led to many customers not migrating due to third-party library issues. Lesson is that the ecosystem needs to move before customers can migrate. Difficult migration led to a decline in open source contributions, but it picked up again when KDE was built on Qt 6.
• Importance of KDE Desktop for Qt: It's important for mind share as a place for people to learn Qt. Also, many customers look at KDE for a sense of safety when trying new Qt versions.