ArtWork Source Code Troubles KDE’s 3.2 Release

The way I read her article is this: “SuSE still remains a supporter of KDE”, so I don’t see the big deal. As for the scaling down, you might want to compare CVS checkins from last year and today coming from SuSE employees. This is the easiest way to see if SuSE is still full speed on KDE or not.

I would wait till the middle of the year and compare the first 6 months of last year to the first 6 months of this year…there are far too many variables in cvs development to do just pick a random time to check commits.

Still, I believe that CVS commits would be a good indication. Just pick the last two months and also the months of July and June. These are months between releases and so the timeframe would be similar in terms of release-mode in the company.

I would wait till the middle of the year and compare the first 6 months of last year to the first 6 months of this year…there are far too many variables in cvs development to do just pick a random time to check commits.

One would also need to keep track who is employed or otherwise payed for by SuSE.

Does not sound like a very viable solution

>she made the claim and I just want to know how that claim was derived

Maybe she can’t spit out her sources, it is many times that journalists use anonymous sources. Maybe it is indeed mambo-jambo generated by gnome trolls. She might have overheard them, I wouldn’t put too much thought on rumors. (The article has being modified a bit in the meantime, or so it seems)

I was wondering the same. One would have thought that with vector image manipulation programs like Sodipodi and Inkscape, although GNOME oriented applications, there will be little need for using proprietary SVG plug ins for open source projects.

That’s completely silly. Sodipodi and Inkscape are extremely young applications, none of them has even reached a version 1.0 yet and they certainly can’t be compared to the matureness of the Gimp, which can rival Adobe products (which are second to none). I have a feeling that Inkscape is on the right track and making huge progress (I’m biased though), but it’s just not there yet. While Gimp is a very mature alternative to Adobe Photoshop, Inkscape is definitely no real alternative to Adobe Illustrator yet (but on the other hand, it’s free and has an easier interface IMHO).

I’m not a vector artist and haven’t even used Illustator yet, but this fact is pretty obvious.

All I want is to know where Eugenia is getting the idea that they are scaling back. I don’t need to prove anything…she made the claim and I just want to know how that claim was derived.

Or maybe you like to much KDE and you wouln’t like to see that happen in the future.

Like other people posting here.

I actually use Enlightenment…I don’t like KDE or Gnome too much.

Try again?

And im the queen of England.

The Gimp is not really able to compete with Photoshop in its main market, i.e. print media. Nor will it be until is has native CMYK support. For work aimed at the screen, Gimp can’t be beat (IMHO)

@aesiamun

You wouldn’t happen to read and post on slashdot would you? 🙂

What features in Sodipodi and Inkscape are lacking as compared to Illustrator, with regards to basic SVG icon rendering? I ask this because I want to dispel the myth that because Illustrator is designed by Adobe, it has to be naturally better than its younger counterparts based on little to no facts or the “appeal to popularity” effect.

I must say I like Sodipodi, but it still can’t so many things illustrator can.

Heh, the comparison between /. and here is almost uncanny.. at times. Oh well. I wanted to through my $.02 about gimp and photoshop. I do alot of photoshop work, and I’ve been trying to learn gimp, since it’s Linux native, and that’s a big plus in my book. I end up doing alot of text editing, and I must confess that gimp’s text tool is very clumsy to me. Gimp does have the better plugins, but I can’t say as that I like how it handles layers at times. Also a few of the other tools really feel backwards to me. And, before the Gimp lovers start demanding certified letters containiang every little gripe I have with Gimp, it’s more general feelings. My personal preference is Photoshop. Is that so wrong? (I run it under wine, however)

Everyone says how osnews is better than slashdot, i just don’t see it.

‘Til lately OSnews comments suffered very little from /.s tendancy to have more noise, trolling, meta-discussion, ad infinitum than real, genuine, rational, on-topic discussion.

OSnews is still better (IMHO), but it is getting worse. It also seems to me that OSnews seems to be diversifying its subject matter lately as well. (Not a complaint at all, and shouldn’t be taken as one.)

If you are so enamoured of journalistic integrity, I respectfully submit that perhaps you might like to write some small article for OSnews demonstrating, prehaps, the careful attention to detail, referencing of sources and super-human levels of objectivity that readers of a site such as this deserve?

1) KDE 3.2 release is unaffected by this so called icon source fiasco, if fact 3.2 branch is already created and release will be on 2nd Feb as scheduled.

2) There are no clear statements from Novell or SUSE indicating a switch to Ximian Gnome as defauls.

3) Miguel and Nat are exec for Ximian branch in Novell. Richard Seibt, former SUSE CEO remains as SUSE president. I think the recent interviews linked on OSNEWS by Nat, Miguel which mentions Miguel as CTO of novell is causing this wrong information as “Miguel and Nat are now top Novell Execs”.

4) There is already communication back and forthe between lindows (Michael Robertson) and KDE developers and the conclusion is the SVG source issue will be resolved as soon as possible

So basically this HOT new Spicy news is not as spicy as it sounds.

SuSE currently has a lot invested in KDE. All of their existing development is KDE; Yast integrates with KControl, they employ coders, including people like Everaldo to produce icons, and fund the development of a variety of applications, also offering machines for KDE promotion at events such as Linuxworld.

SuSE’s market uses KDE. SuSE’s market benefits from tools like Kiosk, Kontact, KIOSlaves, network transparency and DCOP. SuSE’s market uses QT for development.

Novell buys SuSE. Novell buys Ximian for far less than it buys SuSE.

Question: Will it:

a) Junk KDE under SuSE, alienating SuSE’s customers and ruining many years of their work, and all the features which makes SuSE unique as a distro? In this case, they may as well have saved money and just forked RH or made a Debian distro, really. Moreover, they’ll have wrecked the distro so that they can fight Red Hat in the enterprise market with a product that is almost identical to RH’s Gnome-only distro, except without KDE’s enterprise tools!

b) Take Ximian’s work, merge Red Carpet and other tools with SuSE’s product, making them Gnome+KDE instead of just Gnome, and use XD2’s improvements to make SuSE’s Gnome implementation better, expanding SuSE’s market share to those who prefer Gnome? This would gain more customers, and merge the pool of enterprise tools to create a greater whole, instead of junking half of them.

Honestly, SuSE are not going to drop KDE. Not by a long way. Their customers prefer it, and the majority of companies prefer QT for major development. Comparative lists of projects have been posted here in recent weeks, so I won’t reiterate.

Novell have a ripe chance to add Ximian’s tools to SuSE’s KDE and boost SuSE’s Gnome, too, to make it the perfect all-round distro to take the battle to Red Hat, and they’d be mad to remove KDE and defeat the purpose of buying a KDE-focused distro in the first place.

Just because Eugenia dislikes KDE, doesn’t mean that the majority of users dislike it (it holds the larger market share than Gnome). Just because Eugenia thinks KDE is dead, doesn’t mean it is so. Just because Eugenia thinks Novell should dump KDE, doesn’t mean they will commit multi-million dollar market suicide and do it.

Fin.

I myself am a full time Lindows user! I love Lindows and think you guys are doing a great job with the little money and resources you have!

But I still have a problem myself with the running as root issue. I am still confused as to why in the OS it’s self you do not do more to make sure the users do not run as root. You know as well I do that noivce users will not read the security page on your website if they do not know to read it. (Or can’t understand it if they do read it)

It’s not my place to tell a company what they should or should not do but maybe you guys can change the OS in the manner the Apple has and make it so that root is almost not user besides for advanced administration or like in most versions of Linux have the user create user accounts when they first start (Like in XP)

It would make things more secure and also give FUD spitters one less thing to talk about when it comes to Lindows.

Besides this you guys are doing great work! Can’t wait to see the business version of the OS!

http://tryoutlinux.com/best.html

This link recently came to my attention. It is a page owned by Lindows entirely. (check the DNS registry) If you read the page, it’s a very dishonest comparison of the various popular distros (and Java Desktop ) to Lindows and Windows XP.

Many of the points it has are blatently false, such as journalling filesystem support, multi-network IM support, wireless support, and so on. The page makes it sound as if Lindow, a company which is bundling Free software, has made a large handful of programs which these other OSes do not have access to. SuSE and RedHat lack a “built in browser with Popup and ad-blocking support?” Since when has RedHat not come with Mozilla by default, the same browser Lindows does? “Browser with tabs?!?” I know for a fact that RedHat had Mozilla with tabs. “Auto Update ALL Software on Your System (OS and programs)?” Since when did “Up2Date” not update all the software on the system? Sure, it won’t get any 3rd party stuff you add, but niether will Lindows. Lindows will only update that which is installed via Click’N’Run.

I find that to be dishonest, and as far as I’ve seen is keeping in line with many of the things Lindows has done in the past IRT various Free software projects. Their branding of Mozilla and GAIM in adverting materials on their very web pages in the past is another example of this, with their wording leading one to believe that they are Lindows-exclusive, in-house apps.

So, basically, I don’t trust them because I while they may have given some money to some projects, they have been dishonest time and time again. And that is not a trait I want when I’m trusting someone to put something on my harddrive.

I checked out http://tryoutlinux.com/best.html and….

1. I’d have to say I agree with the way they have billed these distro’s. (Red Hat for servers, Mandrake for geeks, Lindows for the average Joe, etc.)

2. Why bother checking the domain registry? It says right in the footer of every page on that site it’s sponsored by Lindows.com.

Andrea

> Smarter technology so users can USE their computer, not be used by it.

Good point.

I’ve never used Lindows (the last time I used Linux was Debian, but I’m a OSX user now), but I appreciate the vision that you and your company has. Unfortunatly, many current Linux users has views that are probably not shared by you and your company. In the end, the views of these people won’t matter, and whether Walmart customers enjoy using Lindows will.

Either way, I appreciate your companies’ efforts towards sponsoring OSS software.

As someone who has used Sodipodi to make svg icons (no complete themes yet, just some fun little ones to have) I find Sodipodi by itself to be practically worthless. The thing that makes it workable is the ability of the gimp in its most recent incarnations to output paths to a svg file which can then be colored and tweaked with sodipodi. Sodipodi really needs a good path tool, an easier way to resize the canvas, and to fix the graphics glitch on the rulers.

I have to say that not having svg icons is annoying, especially if its supposed to be an all svg theme. But I don’t see how you can force someone to give you the original svg, xcf, or whatever format the file was originally if you distribute pngs.

> RIGHT ON THAT PAGE, during this install process, we tell users to visit http://lindows.com/security to learn about security, firewalls, how to best use passwords, setting up users, etc. We make it ULTRA easy for them to set up users right there.

So users who cannot even be expected to type in the root password to gain privileges temporarily for executing system administration tasks are expected to actually visit a webpage and RTFW?

Do you at least set up an IPTables firewall with sane defaults at the time of the installation?

> The other thing we could do is scare the user with lots of warnings. “Warning! Warning! If you run as root you will develop warts and could die from cancer.” That’s not very friendly either.

You’re exaggerating. Think of it this way – you have to take the safety catch off before you can fire a gun. Running as root has *bad* implications for security, which I’m sure you must be aware of – I can only point towards the abysmal record of M$ OSes out there.

Instead of running as root all the time, isn’t it possible to configure the desktop in such a way that for most of the tasks, the user need not be root? So a mortal user should be able to mount the CDROM, run the usual apps like browsers, email clients etc., change the theme, empty their trash can and so on. For installing new apps, however, the root password should be required. If the distro has chosen its default apps carefully, this will happen infrequently or not at all.

And your argument concerning coercion of users is just bogus. Just like saying that pedestrians at a traffic light should not be FORCED (caps intentional) to wait when the light is red.

I’m really really uneasy about the direction your distro is taking.

I’ve had that thought too. YOU updates are lately much less frequent. It can’t be that the SuSE software is now perfect and doesn’t need updates – allthough I have no complaints.

I don’t think KDE is going away. There is a lot of traffic on kde-apps.org. But looking from the perspective of a commercial developer a choice has to be made. Do I develop for GNOME or KDE or both? That KDE has the better technology may not count (you wouldn’t want Windows if you knew what it looks like under the hood). Gtk is free. Qt is not – allthough cheap. But most important – training is expensive – it’s an investment. You do not learn either toolkit overnight.

If we one day should get the option to download common commercial apps also for Linux – like TurboTax for Linux? – then what will the toolkit be? Right now I put my money on Gnome. Because of the backing from the big companies. KDE will still be around but with a role as Fedora.

ATI’s installer is in Qt. Did they get that for free?

I wish they would make it an SDI app. It is really annoying to have all those “dialogs” up when using GIMP.

My problem isn’t them selling anything, but rather their deceptive branding of programs clearly available to most modern distro, among other things.

They claim that the list is based on default installs, and while I haven’t done a SuSE install in years I had to do a RedHat 9.1 install for a class recently. Mozilla was in it by default. 1.4 I believe.

My problem is that they list programs and features most of the distros have as being exclusive to Lindows. Which is in my eyes dishonest, does a grand diservice to the community, and is ultimately very disrespectful to the talented coders involved in the projects.

Kevin said: I had never even heard of Linux up until a few years ago when Michael asked me to join him in starting Lindows.com. I must admit I have always been perplexed at the way some in the Linux community have treated Lindows.com

You probably hadn’t heard of linux because it wasn’t part of your world or mindset.

Linux has and will continue to have developers and users who hold widely differing views and opinions etc. and superficially it does appears to be chaotic and unproductive.

Oddly enough the same passion that fuels these clashes also produces a wealth of diversity and dedicated commitment to niche projects that would never exist in the commercial sector.

IMHO Modifying linux to suit your technical and personal needs is very different to the “market droid speak” culture that tries to sell the old and worn “our product fits all” spin. BTW Lindows hype and spin is generally better know than its product.

Ultimately Lindows is just another linux project/distro and will be supported to those who find it useful and ignored/written off by everyone else. Deal with it and good luck!

rob

“You probably hadn’t heard of linux because it wasn’t part of your world or mindset.”

Nor is it part of the mindset of 95% of this planet. Most people don’t even know what version of MS Windows they’re running, let alone know anything about “Linux.”

Most people buy computers to perform functions (email, web surfing, games, etc.), not as a statement of their philosophical or religious beliefs. If people like what we do, they’ll use our products. If not, we’ll go away.

AOL wasn’t for everyone, but to 28 million people AOL IS the Internet. Most people don’t have the time nor inclination to learn anything more about their computer than where the On switch is located. I don’t fault them for that. I don’t look down on them for that. I don’t patronize them for that. I don’t think they’re dumb. I just assume they have other things in their life which are more important to them than learning how to program a computer. Hundreds of thousands of people use Linux every day in their Tivo. I don’t expect them to learn Linux to use their DVR. Should Tivo make their users learn new words like Linux, kernel, root, kde, gnome, wine, k3b, kate, mozilla, etc. if all they want to do is record their favorite TV show?

The beauty of Linux is that is can be used in so many ways. Many people just want to use it, and not learn it. I’m one of them. =)

Kevin

Many people just want to use it, and not learn it. I’m one of them. =)

Can’t get through life without learning Kevin. Can’t walk or drive without learning to, same with computers. People learn’t to use them at school or at work. I’ve never seen anyone who can use a qwerty keyboard without learning etc.

I understand you’d like Lindows to simplify the process but I suspect the Simputer is really closer the “use it, not learn it” approach.

Perhaps I can look forward to trying out a Lindows Simputer oneday or even better, Lindows can sponsor them for producing an invaluable contribution to the commom man/woman? (That is the real 95% of the planet not the 95% MS Windows planet.) 😉

Again I wish you luck with your endeavours

rob

Kevin Carmony (President & COO) wrote:

>>At times I wonder, “why bother?”

Because you are getting *free* labor. A lot of taleneted labor I might add. Since only a small fraction of the ~630 kde people are paid to work on kde, don’t whine because they ask for the icon’s source code. After all, it’s adding value to *your* product. If Lindows had to pay to have the kde desktop developed, it would cost a lot more than the $1,000,000.00 you mentioned.

in order to do truly professional graphics work, one must use tools like Adobe’s. I love gimp and these two new gtk vector tools, but guess what? They are the reason I need to dual boot into another OS.

To be fair, you can run Photoshop in Linux with Crossover Office – but not Illustrator (I guess they’re working on it). Now, Adobe could set an example and release versions of Photoshop and Illustrator (as well as other soft) for Linux and solve the whole issue. It shouldn’t be that hard, considering they’re porting them to OS X in the first place…

> And your argument is horribly flawed.

I agree

The caps intentional was trying to imitate the original poster’s capsification of the word ‘force’

Yes, it was a bad analogy (two in fact), I didn’t label it as such, sorry about that.

But you did get the point didn’t you?

++ The decision to use Adobe Illustrator for developing vector icons was made almost 2 years ago by Everaldo and me. Just from the start we decided to go for SVG because it is _the_ opensource solution for vector graphics. If you try to find an application that is suited to create vector icons there are basically three things that you have to keep in mind:

– It’s absolutely necessary to make sure that the application allows for creating high quality drawings. Just choosing a very much inferior tool because it is free and opensource would have harmed the reputation of the artists and the SVG standard itself.

– The application needs to be able to export and import SVGs exactly according to the SVG standard (This wasn’t easy to fulfill either).

– Although I’d like it to be different most artists who want to contribute graphics for KDE are still using Windows in their day job. Unfortunately it’s especially hard to convince artists to use application x under Linux instead of their favourite Windows tool. So at least we wanted a solution which allowed those people to contribute as well.

That’s why we chose Adobe Illustrator for the short term. The mid term goal has always been that the icons would be developed under linux as soon as applications like karbon and sodipodi become mature enough to make them a viable option. The fact that some kde artists are already starting to use opensource solutions to create their vector icons indicates that we are already very close to reaching our initial goal.

++ Although some supporters of other desktop environments would like it to be different SuSE’s involvement in KDE hasn’t decreased a single bit. I worked for SuSE for years and live very closely to their building (Now that they moved house it’s just a street away). In fact SuSE very much improved their commitment to KDE quite a lot during the last year (the most recent proof is probably the fact that they employed Jan Holesovsky to work on OpenOffice KDEfication fulltime).

Developers at SuSE usually work at SuSE because they deeply keep faith in what they are doing and are very very dedicated to their work. One of the corner stones of their work and their excitement over Linux is KDE. And I don’t expect this to change before Coca Cola starts to advertise Pepsi, before Beagle 2 will recover, before the pope becomes a muslim and before hell will freeze over 😉

Right now I wouldn’t even see a reason why this should change. After all KDE currently is the desktop which is preferred by most users, by most distributions (Novell/SuSE, Xandros, Lindows, Connectiva, Mandrake, Turbo / Red Flag Linux, Knoppix, …) and it’s built on the toolkit which is preferred by most spare time and corporate developers (Adobe, Ati, Boeing, Bosch, Canon, Daimler- Chrysler, Disney, HP, IBM, Intel, Lockheed Martin, Motorola, NASA, NEC, Samsung, Sharp, Siemens and Sony just to name a few companies which use Qt).

So I don’t really see how and why this situation should change anytime soon.

There are some people who want to make the world believe that they have gained influence by being acquired and therefore can rule the world now 😉 I consider this to be misleading, desperate wishful thinking and a little bit of high-class robbery – even if this strategy might appear somewhat successful I don’t expect it the world to change.

Have a nice day,

Tackat

There are some people who want to make the world believe that they have gained influence by being acquired and therefore can rule the world now 😉

That’s truly ambiguous. Do you mean Ximian or Suse?

You took the words from my mouth.

Go KDE go!

I like gnome too and think that is much better for the whole community if both projects keep improving. It gives option, it gives competition and it gives press news, which boost linux visibility.

Wish they can round the corners.

That’s easy to answer. Do you have seen SUSE execs posting their plans to Slashdot?

I’ve seen articles on Slashdot on Novell’s acquisition of Suse, including speeches and stuff talking about some kind of plans and benefits from it.