diff --git a/pkgs/development/libraries/vtk/default.nix b/pkgs/development/libraries/vtk/default.nix
index e8f42e9f7f5..0e0625a2cbb 100644
--- a/pkgs/development/libraries/vtk/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/development/libraries/vtk/default.nix
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 { stdenv, fetchurl, cmake, mesa, libX11, xproto, libXt
-, useQt4 ? false, qt4 }:
+, qtLib ? null }:
 
 with stdenv.lib;
 
@@ -11,22 +11,22 @@ let
 in
 
 stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
-  name = "vtk-${os useQt4 "qvtk-"}${version}";
+  name = "vtk-${os (qtLib != null) "qvtk-"}${version}";
   src = fetchurl {
     url = "${meta.homepage}files/release/${majorVersion}/vtk-${version}.tar.gz";
     md5 = "a0363f78910f466ba8f1bd5ab5437cb9";
   };
 
   buildInputs = [ cmake mesa libX11 xproto libXt ]
-    ++ optional useQt4 qt4;
+    ++ optional (qtLib != null) qtLib;
 
   # Shared libraries don't work, because of rpath troubles with the current
   # nixpkgs camke approach. It wants to call a binary at build time, just
   # built and requiring one of the shared objects.
   # At least, we use -fPIC for other packages to be able to use this in shared
   # objects.
-  cmakeFlags = [ "-DCMAKE_C_FLAGS=-fPIC" "-DCMAKE_CXX_FLAGS=-fPIC" ] ++ optional useQt4
-    [ "-DVTK_USE_QT:BOOL=ON" ];
+  cmakeFlags = [ "-DCMAKE_C_FLAGS=-fPIC" "-DCMAKE_CXX_FLAGS=-fPIC" ]
+    ++ optional (qtLib != null) [ "-DVTK_USE_QT:BOOL=ON" ];
 
   enableParallelBuilding = true;
 
diff --git a/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix b/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix
index f98604fdc87..13b6dff2432 100644
--- a/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix
+++ b/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix
@@ -5731,7 +5731,7 @@ let
 
   vtk = callPackage ../development/libraries/vtk { };
 
-  vtkWithQt4 = vtk.override { useQt4 = true; };
+  vtkWithQt4 = vtk.override { qtLib = qt4; };
 
   vxl = callPackage ../development/libraries/vxl {
     libpng = libpng12;