Submitted by Even though some users of the two desktops take every opportunity to make fun or flat-out attack one another, it is no secret to more reasonable people that the KDE and GNOME projects strive to make their respective desktops interoperate, and that the developers working on either of the two projects have a great deal of respect for one another. This has lead to an attempt to jointly organise the desktops’ flagship conferences, in one place, in 2009.GNOME’s GUADEC and KDE’s Akadamy have never been co-hosted by the GNOME Foundation and KDE e.V. before, so this would be a historic move, promoting the collaboration between the projects, and reaffirming their shared goals. Director of KDE e.V Cornelius Schumacher says in the press release:
This represents collaboration between the two communities which some believed could never happen. Members of our communities have long worked together through projects on freedesktop.org, or the Linux Architects initiative, but this could be the first time to bring large parts of our respective communities to the same place.
Behdad Esfahbod of the GNOME Foundation stated:
We have much more in common than we have differences. We share a love for the freedom which we give to our users through our software, and for the sense of community which binds us.
Of note, however, is that the decision has not yet been taken as proposals to host the events independently are invited as well. “The decision about the events will be made in collaboration of the KDE e.V. and the GNOME Foundation based on the suitability of the available proposals.”
This is great news, finally someone, somewhere is making progress with Linux and the general public. The fact that a person can use Linux at school, work, whatever and then go somewhere else and use a Linux that looks, feels and acts completely different is a major turn off to the oh-so-sought after “average consumer.”
This is what Linux needs, interoperability and sharing of ideas! After all, isn’t that what Linux was founded on in the first place?
Umm, no, Linux was founded on the fact that Unix was too expensive for a college student in Helsinki…
GNU however, sure…
That isn’t going to change because a bunch of people have decided to hold a conference together.
As a long-time Linux user, I simply don’t care about average consumers’ attitude toward Linux. If I was someone who is into making money off of these average consumers with Linux, maybe I would care. Linux does not need the average consumers to validate its existence and I truly believe Linux will continue to exist with or without the support of average consumers. It’s the open source philosophy that dictates the development of Linux, everything else just come along for the ride when the oportunity presents itself: the users, the corporations, the proprietary developers, etc… Linux has reached the state it’s in without average consumers’ acceptance and it will continue to move forward without it. If someone wants to use Linux, he/she will find a way, regardless. If a person does not even know the existence of Linux, he/she is probably too average to use Linux in the first place.
Edited 2008-04-23 14:24 UTC
I am a new linux user and while i have screamed at the computer at times, I’m with you. Linux should not pretend to be a consumer OS. It is not and if it tries to, it will turn off the existing user base and it still won’t be the consumer OS of some people’s dreams. A total lose lose situation.
Linux should be the “completely whatever you want it to be OS” That’s what makes it so interesting even if it drives people crazy. Other OS’s can be for consumer use.
Gah! ‘Choice is Free Software / Open Source’s greatest strength. ‘World Domination’ is a call to rally developers, not good policy at the high level. The level of ‘sameness’ between the big projects has been pretty much where it needs to be. That is to say:
-GCC ABI compatibility is there so binaries are somewhat portable between distros and versions.
-The LSB is there to define a ‘base environment’.
-Freedesktop.org is hosting a lot of ‘glue specs’ and ‘glue technologies’ that help the big desktops play nice with each other to varying degrees.
Beyond that, you don’t want to encourage a monoculture. Competition tends to make the competitors better in the Free Software and Open Source world. It motivates developers, and it lets them steal each other’s ideas.
Nothing illustrates this better than GNOME vs KDE. GNOME wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for the initial Qt licence. GNOME freed Qt. Thanks GNOME. Gnome then competed with KDE to try to close the feature gap. Even with big distro support they were kind of relegated to ‘a clunkier less mature KDE’ sort of status. So then people envisioned GNOME 2… Which was a radical departure, but existed in roughly the same space as KDE. As GNOME 2 found it’s ‘sexy’ it encouraged KDE, in the KDE 3 days, to begin cleaning up its config screens and interfaces. GNOME 2 continues it’s march. It forces KDE to take a good look at itself and ask hard questions about what KDE is, should be, and most importantly isn’t. The KDE camp comes up with a solid plan for KDE 4. Abstracted away from the OS, sexy, with clean(er) interfaces, sane defaults, and better organized config screens. They didn’t ‘neuter’ the features– but they raised the bar away from ‘it might be cool if’ features and ‘some dude requested’ features’ as they tended to be the big bitrotting bug generators. And sure enough, now there’s all of this talk from the GNOME camp about breaking BC, and a new cycle of GNOME innovation.
Now, if you were to ask either the GNOME or KDE camp if the ‘other’ was the primary motivator, they’d probably say “no  But the push me / pull me is there. And every user is better for it. It forces evolution and prevents stagnation. Real change in the Free Software world comes from a projects ‘peers’ (Both withing a project and from other projects) not it ‘less free rivals’.
Shouting down the GNOME / KDE /XFCE people for not merging with the other camp is actually harmful and stifling. Besides, most Free Software and Open Source developers are still volunteers, and you only diminish the pool of developers that way. The same goes for shouting down a new project that exists in the same space as an established project. The world might not need another text editor, but I’m happy that Compiz encouraged KDE 4’s kwin to ‘bring the bling’ in a well integrated KDE sort of way…
I think this joint conference exists in the finest tradition of the Free Software ‘competitive peer’ system. Good for them!
The behavior and attitude of the developers is, indeed, far more honorable than what is typically seen between fans of the respective DE’s in these forums. I’ve noticed that generally what happens is that one person posts something, but happens to include some comment or choice of wording which the other “side” takes offense to. Often, it is not even central to the meaning of the original post. A member from the other “side” responds, and perhaps implies some other tangential and unrelated thing which becomes the new topic, and the “conversation” careens on from their. Frequently, I suspect, people end up being pushed into arguing for a position which, in retrospect, does not seem important enough to argue over, simply because someone attacked a remark they happened to make while trying to make a point about something that might actually have been worth discussing. The discussions tend to be all over the board, which is, I believe, a sign of oversensitivity by advocates on both “sides”.
In honor of this not-just-symbolic development, let’s try, in this story’s threads, to remain aware of those factors which cause discussions to escalate into arguments which serve no useful purpose.
In particular, and despite our human tendency to choose teams, I think that it is important to reflect upon the idea that one size does not fit all. It is far better if people whose ideas on DE’s you disagree with have someplace else to go and be happy, rather than be stuck on your favored DE’s mailing lists moaning about how bad it is. Or worse, getting their way and ruining *your* desktop.
Also, I think that it is good to consider that, should “the other desktop” pull ahead in some compelling way, it’s easy enough to switch. So there is no point in getting all emotionally involved with the choice that you have made. I used to be a KDE user. Now I’m a Gnome user. I very well could see myself a KDE user again, at some point in the future.
Another factor that is actually of little importance, but which tends to lead to senseless arguments is the topic of desktop share. What difference does it make as long as the users and developers of each respective desktop are happy, and there is healthy development going on in both camps. The topic is a real tinderbox. So it’s probably best avoided. Expect it to dominate the thread once any claims have been made )are are perceived to have been made), no matter what the original topic was.
And finally, remember that the competition between two major desktops has benefits for both. And being able to share code and interfaces where philosophies and other requirements coincide, thereby avoiding needless fragmentation due to arbitrary choices, is also quite beneficial. And this announcement has a lot to do with just that.
Edited 2008-04-23 01:09 UTC
Hey, just a caution: this is not set in stone yet. This is mostly an agreement to put forward a joint proposal. It would still have to be voted on by the KDE e.V. internally and potentially have to beat out KDE specific event locations. I’m sure the same would have to happen on the Gnome side…
It’s definitely exciting to try to pull this off, but it is in no way a done deal yet.
Cheers folks
I thought I made that pretty clear in the item and its “read more”…
As far as I know GNOME/KDE are already working together for quiet some time to make a interop. desktop more easy with freedesktop.org right?