[Twisted-Python] qt4 reactor status

[Steve Castellotti]

     First off, many thanks for the responses everyone, they are 
certainly appreciated!

     Comments below.


On 06/27/2010 08:37 PM, Robert Kern wrote:
>> One issue with "official" support is PyQt licensing.  If PySide is (or
>> becomes) an alternative, the licensing issue would disappear and Twisted
>> "could" include it in the distribution.
>>      
> Phil Thompson provides an exception to the GPL license that explicitly states
> that you can write modules using PyQt4 and release them under the MIT license
> (or some other license from an enumerated set of OSI-approved licenses).
>    

     That's interesting (and good) to know.

     However I think ultimately whether PyQt4 or PySide was used as a 
base library for the qt4reactor, the next step would still have to be 
chasing down the remaining contributors to the reactor code and 
confirming they are willing to re-license their work.

     I might attach a request to the last ticket in the tracker as a 
start, and see if that gets any response. I'm only a user of Twisted and 
don't feel comfortable directly hassling folks who were kind enough to 
donate their time to its development.

>> The more fundamental question, IMHO, is the status and critical mass of
>> PySide.  Nokia was unable to reach agreement with Riverbank which caused
>> uncertainty after Qt's move to open source.  I don't know where this stands.
>>      
> PySide appears to be making steady, healthy progress. If one is on Linux, it
> would probably be worth an interested person's time installing it and changing
> your imports from "PyQt4" to "PySide" and see if it works. OS X and Windows
> builds are still some time away, but apparently the technical blockers have been
> fixed. It's just a matter of applied effort, probably.
>    

     Not to drift too far off topic, but from some initial exploratory 
development I can confirm PySide does seem a pretty complete and 
reliable alternative to PyQt4 (at least under Linux). I've manage to 
produce a basic interface using Qt4Designer and integrate a simple JSON 
client which runs equally well under both library wrapper modules.

     In the short term QtNetwork will probably be sufficient for my 
needs, but I would still advocate and support where/as possible a stable 
qt4reactor running under Twisted.


Cheers

Steve Castellotti