Correct me if I 'm wrong, but I think it's still the same situation since January 2020: the long-term-supported (LTS) Qt releases are available to commercial licensees only and KDE supports collections of patches for them. Which is a hassle for sure. But nothing has changed because a fork of Qt (worst case scenario) would demand massive manpower from KDE.

And the KDE Free Qt Foundation exists, so the Qt Company can't close down the framework.

The Foundation has license agreements with The Qt Company, Digia and Nokia. The agreements ensure that the Qt will continue to be available as Free Software. Should The Qt Company discontinue the development of the Qt Free Edition under the required licenses, then the Foundation has the right to release Qt under a BSD-style license or under other open source licenses. The agreements stay valid in case of a buy-out, a merger or bankruptcy.

[–] jim_stark@programming.dev 2 points 1 year ago

This is very informative. Thank you!

Very smart on KDE's part to form the KDE Free Qt Foundation.