I think it is worth emphasizing that it only affects
users who build or
develop Wireshark from source. The final Wireshark
installer will still
bundle the Qt bits.
We need to get those bundles from somewhere, meaning
we either rely on 3rd-party packages or compile
ourselves. This is a change from the current situation
where we use the official LTS versions.
The main problem I see is it basically forces us to use
the latest Qt
version which makes supporting older Linux distributions
somewhat
harder. Based on the Qt version history [1], it looks
like non-LTS
versions are supported for 1 year. Typical Linux
distributions have a
longer lifetime.
This is not different from now. We still would
support a minimum version, although shipping with a
later one.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qt_version_history#Qt_5
The Qt project is still committed to providing security
updates, so that
should not change the situation for Linux distribution
maintainers.
Debian for example typically does not update the Qt
version even though
there may be dozens of usability bug fixes.
It changes considerably, as the LTS versions (and
code-branches) will no longer be available. As said
above, we would have to maintain our own version of Qt
if needed
The LTS branch is not just 'no longer easily
accessible', it will simply
be unavailable for non-commercial users. The Qt company
wants OSS
developers like us to use the latest version and report
back issues and
such. Which I already did in the past, including
patches...
Which results in us having an issue with packaging.