As Emscripten can compile most C++ code to webassembly (WASM), I was asking myself what is the point of Qt for Webassembly.
The former will keep the C++ code's license (LGPL), the latter would require to license under the GPL.
Is it technically possible to compile Qt with Emscripten, so I have the freedom to avoid the GPL license? Maybe someone with a deeper understanding of Qt might explain what was required under the hood for the WASM platform support.
There is a bunch of work under the hood. Windowing, WebGL, Network, browser integration, threading and much other stuff involved. All platform-specific layers should be ported and that's why you can not simply compile Qt with Emscripten.
Take an editor which supports search-in-files and search for wasm or emscripten keywords in whole Qt source code directory to find out how many changes should be made to make it work. Thanks to the Qt guys and opensource community.
Short answer, is the same issue with iOS, since it is statically linked, in theory you should be fine by providing some sort of intermediate binaries that someone else can then statically link your app with a different version of Qt binaries. GPL modules are a reduced set of the whole Qt framework. So in general "you have to adhere with the LGPL 2.1 licensing terms of Qt among others, especially the terms to provide object files or a link to object files of code statically linked with Qt upon request of other developers."
