Qt 5.7 Beta is now released and available for your feedback. There is a lot to review – new modules, leveraging C++11 features, and the new unified product structure, which is now the same for both commercial and open source versions.

Leveraging C++11

The core of Qt comes from its C++ foundation and the powerful native performance it offers you. We of course always want to ensure Qt is on top of the latest C++ developments, so that the framework continues to grow with your needs. Qt has supported the use of C++11 in application code for a long time. We also wanted to keep supporting C++98 compilers up to Qt 5.6, which meant that we needed to wait before fully leveraging C++11 features in the Qt framework libraries themselves.

Starting with Qt 5.7 all compilers are C++11 compatible, which allows us to start using new C++ functionality such as auto, lambda and many more in Qt itself. These features will also start to appear in the Qt API, where it makes sense to do so. For those who can’t move yet the long term supported Qt 5.6 provides full C++98 compatibility.

New Functionality

Our focus with Qt 5.6 is on Long-Term Support quality, so lots of new features and functionality will now be coming with Qt 5.7. The Qt Company and our valued contributors managed to do this by developing Qt 5.7 in parallel with completion Qt 5.6 LTS. Qt 5.7 provides a fully supported version of Qt Quick Controls 2 and Qt 3D. It also provides a technology preview of Qt Wayland Compositor, Qt SCXML, Qt SerialBus and Qt Gamepad modules. The Qt 5.7 Beta installers also pack in Qt Creator 4.0 RC.

For full list of all the goodies in Qt 5.7, please check the New Features of Qt 5.7 on the wiki.

Open-Source Licensing Change

As announced in January, Qt is adjusting the open-source licensing starting with the Qt 5.7 and Creator 4.0 releases. Most of the Qt framework will be licensed under your choice of LGPLv3, GPLv2 or our commercial license. In addition, many of the previously commercial only add-on libraries will be made available either under GPLv3 or LGPLv3. Qt Creator, as well as other tools and applications, will be licensed under GPLv3 (with exceptions to enable development of non-GPL applications) and our commercial license.

For more information about the license change, please check the License change FAQ and the blog post announcing the change.

Unified Product Structure

The open-source license change with Qt 5.7 allows us to unify the structure of Qt for Application Development product for both commercial and open-source users in that you will get the same features regardless of the license. One exception though is Qt Quick Compiler, which will only be available under commercial licensing in Qt 5.7. However, we aim to introduce a new built-in Qt Quick Compiler with Qt 5.8, which will be available for both commercial and open-source users. Our product offering for embedded users – Qt for Device Creation – continues to have exclusive functionality available only for commercial licensees.

Get Qt 5.7 Beta

The Qt Company has prepared convenient binary installers for the Qt 5.7 Beta, in the hopes that you will download, test and provide feedback so that we can deliver an awesome final product. To try out the new features you can download it from your Qt Account or from download.qt.io. For any issues you may find with the Beta, please submit a detailed bug report to bugreports.qt.io (after checking for duplicates). You are also welcome to join the discussions in the Qt Project mailing lists, development forums and to contribute to Qt.