As someone who is relatively new to coding but has a small Qt project, can someone explain what LTS is? I’m thinking it means you get security updates but don’t have to change api versions that might break your app?
For example, my app compiles with Qt 6 and I wrote it as such. But I’m guessing when 6.1 comes around, there may be a chance that something will break.
I guess I’m wondering if bigger projects avoid trying to update because it makes for complicated debugging if something does need to be changed, or if maybe something else contributes to it.
It means that a specific qt version will get support for a "long" time. Support can mean direct customer support but it also can mean that e.g. security & bug fixes get back-ported (if someone with LTS support runs into them). It also can mean that proprietary extensions e.g. payments systems support the version of the software longer.
The reason why to use LTS is because you don't want frequently port your software a newer major version of the library/framework does not only cost you but in case you highly customized the library/framework or depend on a lot of very specific behaviour might go from costly to monetary unfeasible. (I mean consider you havily depend on a feature dropped in the new major version.)
As such if you sell software/hardware with software and you need to support it long enough because your customer expects it it always is a good idea to see if there is a LTS version which has as long or longer support then you need to provide.
Oh and due to longer usage LTS versions tends become less and less buggy over time as bugs are fixed but (view) new bugs are introduced as no new features are added and not parts are rewritten (beside bug fixes).
For example, my app compiles with Qt 6 and I wrote it as such. But I’m guessing when 6.1 comes around, there may be a chance that something will break.
I guess I’m wondering if bigger projects avoid trying to update because it makes for complicated debugging if something does need to be changed, or if maybe something else contributes to it.