Russia to legalize software piracy

Re:Russia to legalize software piracy by Kelteseth on Monday March 07, 2022 @06:31AM (#30586531)

Related: Qt disabled downloads for anyone that has a Belarus or Russian IP-Address. There are talks about why they blocked it currently going on at their public mailing list[1]. One argument that came up, is that the downloads are blocked, because Qt is also used in the military. My guess is that this will definitely strengthen other UI toolkits like Flutter in the future.

[1] https://lists.qt-project.org/pipermail/development/2022-Marc...

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Re:Russia to legalize software piracy by xvilka on Monday March 07, 2022 @06:37AM (#30586574)

Flutter is not an alternative to Qt, not even close. Not to speak about C++ compatibility. If anything, things like GTK+, WxWidgets, EFL are on the same page, albeit less polished and advanced.

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Re:Russia to legalize software piracy by Kelteseth on Monday March 07, 2022 @07:02AM (#30586745)

Depends on what your requirements are. If it "modern" design (let's not start the millionth discussion on what native/modern design is here), that is also supported on mobile/web, then I would say go with flutter as UI and something like rust as your main language to write your business logic in [1]. You can even use regular c++ with their FFI [2].

[1] https://github.com/fzyzcjy/flutter_rust_bridge

[2] https://docs.flutter.dev/development/platform-integration/c-...

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Re:Russia to legalize software piracy by simonh on Monday March 07, 2022 @07:08AM (#30586787)

It won't make any real practical difference, there are plenty of indirect ways to get those downloads and I'm sure Russians will start mirroring the repos within the country. This sort of thing is more about making a point.

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Re:Russia to legalize software piracy by ttybird2 on Monday March 07, 2022 @07:02AM (#30586746)

The thread in their forum: https://forum.qt.io/topic/134724/unlock-qt-in-russia

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Re:Russia to legalize software piracy by poulpy123 on Monday March 07, 2022 @07:24AM (#30586923)

what other countries are blocked ?

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Re:Russia to legalize software piracy by Kelteseth on Monday March 07, 2022 @07:25AM (#30586940)

Looks like only Russia and Belarus.

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Re:Russia to legalize software piracy by 8358373583 on Monday March 07, 2022 @07:26AM (#30586945)

The justification that "Qt might be used in military applications (it is today)" is ridiculous. This isn't going to stop the military from using Qt. It's only going to stop poor ordinary people who can't afford a VPN and don't know how to use Tor.

I think this is motivated by bigotry against Russian and Belarusian people caused by a collectivist view of the world where people who had nothing to do with a crime should still be punished for it. It's really scary and disappointing to see.

As a black person living in a European country with very little racism, I thought my non-experince of racism was evidence that it's possible for a society to move past racism all together and treat everyone as the individuals they are, but in the last week I have heard more bigoted statements about people based on their origin than in all my life beforehand, including from people I would never have expected anything like that from.

We are seeing Russians who have strongly condemned Putin's war being ostracised and denied opportunities for something that's completely outside of their control. This is both morally wrong and contraproductive.

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Re:Russia to legalize software piracy by CoastalCoder on Monday March 07, 2022 @07:45AM (#30587093)

Why do you attribute Qt's actions to racism rather than their stated reason?

Even if you're right about them being disingenuous, I don't see why this would be racism. Maybe nationalism?

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Re:Russia to legalize software piracy by dchftcs on Monday March 07, 2022 @09:39AM (#30588324)

The person didn't attribute it to racism, instead just used racism as an analogy.

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Re:Russia to legalize software piracy by CoastalCoder on Monday March 07, 2022 @02:38PM (#30592366)

Thanks for the correction. I may have not read carefully enough.

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Re:Russia to legalize software piracy by dchftcs on Monday March 07, 2022 @09:37AM (#30588304)

Yes, it's insane that people who don't necessarily support Putin are deprived of resources and opportunity, all in the name of justice. I think a lot people just want to show they did something, just any random thing, not knowing that by alienating potential allies in Russia they're forcing people in Russia to beg to be on Putin's side.

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