[Macports] QT5 For Mac port

[Michael Dickens]

On Thu, Jul 11, 2013, at 05:14 AM, Conrad Taylor wrote:
> Hi, I was wondering, is there a qt5-mac port in the works?  Well, I must go and thanks in advance for any information that you can provide.

Hi Conrad - I'm cc'ing the overall dev and user's groups, since it seem
that there are a number of folks interested in this topic with the
recent 5.1 release.

Yes, I've been working on a qt5 port off and on for a while now; I know
of nobody else doing this, but maybe others are.  That said, don't hold
your breath on it being done anytime soon (at least by me).  Qt 5.0.X
was next to impossible for me to compile on OSX using MacPorts (or,
others I've talked with; clearly the Qt folks did it, somehow); it had
all sorts of issues in the build code that eventually became
overwhelming to keep up with (100's of patches, which makes me believe
there was some other issue going on).  I haven't tried the 5.1 series
yet, but it's on my queue once I get some other ports done.  Quite
honestly, it's not a high priority for me because (1) Qt 4.8 does what I
need; and (2) Qt is a real pain to maintain -- so, me keeping qt4-mac
going has been quite enough on top of my other ports.  I have a number
of tickets related to qt3 and qt4, which maybe some day will come up on
my queue, but they are low priority as well.

All of that said, and if I may be so bold: I'm open to the arrangement
that some person or company financially support my effort to bring qt5
to fruition (and/or support work for qt3 and qt4).  This arrangement is
already in place for some other ports that I maintain, and I'm in
discussion for some others.  MacPorts is a great piece of software, and
many of its developers are already remunerated for (at least part of)
the work they do (e.g., by the company they work for; by some outside
contract -- either of which has an interest in some specific ports). 
For us independent contractors, it takes time to do upkeep and
maintenance of ports that we use, so bringing in "ongoing support and
maintenance" contracts is our version of what those employed developers
are doing -- they generally do not pay a lot, but the pay is
incrementally sufficient for each contract.  To be fair, there are also
a number of folks who do this because they want to, with no financials
in mind (at least directly; I think if someone offered them a contract
to do what they do already, they would seriously consider it).

Enough said on that topic. The bottom line is that I don't know when
I'll get to working on qt5; I welcome someone else doing it, if anyone
is up to the task.  Sorry for the "downer" news. - MLD