Following Novell’s announcement that they will be combining the best of KDE and GNOME, Heise On-Line is now
reporting (Google
Fish) that Chris Stone let it slip during his keynote at BrainShare 2004 that Novell has chosen to standardize on Qt as development environment. If the latest SUSE desktop is anything to go by, we can expect an integrated desktop based on KDE & GNOME out of this.
More on Novell’s KDE/GNOME Desktop
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And let’s not forget XFce4. Distrowatch announces a new distro called ‘Cobind Desktop’ http://cobind.com/desktop.html that is based on Fedora and uses XFce4 enhanced with Nautilus to provide a kind of light-weight version of Gnome desktop. Which goes to show that distros don’t necessarily need to stay devoted to one consistent desktop environment. Of course, XFce4 plays particularly well together with Gnome applications.
If linux becomes a platform for closed source apps, we all earn from it: drivers will finally be made, and we can continue to use the GPL software (which will stay free).
From derstandard.at:
http://derstandard.at/standard.asp?id=1612594
“Novell will sich für einen Desktop entscheiden
Gemeinsame Entwicklungsplattform soll Standards für KundInnen schaffen – GNOME und KDE sollen aber vorerst beide weiter angeboten werden”
Novel will choose a desktop , a common development platform should produce standards for customers- GNOME and KDE, however, shall, for the time being, both be offered.
“Im Rahmen der Novell-Entwicklungskonferenz Brainshare verkündete Novell EMEA-Chef Richard Seibt, dass sich die Firma für eine Entwicklungsplattform entscheiden würde, diese werde entweder GTK oder QT heißen, so Seibt im Gespräch mit dem WebStandard. Eine Entscheidung sei allerdings noch nicht gefallen, diese würde auch schwierig werden, werde aber von den KundInnen des Unternehmens verlangt.”
In the cousre of the Novel-development conference, Brainshare, Novel’s EMEA-president Richard Seibt announced that the company would make a decision for a development platfom and that this decision would either be for GTK or for Gt. This decision however has not yet been made and that this decision will be difficult-but customers of the company demand it.
Brainshare
Dass KDE und Gnome zwar vorerst weiter unterstützt werden sollen, eine ewige Weiterführung von Zweigleisigkeiten aber aus kaufmännischer Sicht nur begrenzt sinnvoll ist, betonte auch SUSE-Entwickler Chris Schläger. Entsprechend werde es im Mai ein “großes Zusammensetzen” der unterschiedlichen EntwicklerInnengruppen innerhalb von Novell geben, bei der die nötigen Entscheidungen getroffen werden sollen.
Chris Schläger, SuSE-developer emphasized that KDE and GNOME certainly shall remain, for the time being, supported-yet form a buisness perspective it is only meaningful in some measure to promote both in the long term. Correspondingly there shall be a “grand gathering” in May of the differing development groups in Novel in which the necessary decisions are met.
Alte Plaungen
Die bisher veröffentlichten Produkte und auch das kommende SUSE Linux 9.1 seien noch aufgrund der alten Roadmaps entworfen worden, zwar sei der GNOME-Desktop in der neuen SUSE-Version bereits mit Unterstützung der Ximian-EntwicklerInnen entstanden, die große Zusammenführung werde aber erst in den nächsten Monaten geschehen.
Old Plans
The hitherto released products and the upcomming SUSE Linux 9.1 are still based on the old plan, and although the GNOME desktop offering in the new SuSE version already was developed with the support of Ximian developers. the grand merger/unification will first take place in the comming months.
Ein Desktop
Wie eweek berichtet hat Firmenchef Jack Messman auch angekündigt, dass die Firma das Beste aus beiden Welten zusammenführen wolle und eine gemeinsame Linux-Desktop-Plattform schaffen wolle. Unklar bleibt vorerst aber noch auf Basis welcher Widget Library dies passieren soll, während heise berichtet, dass es sich dabei gerüchteweise um QT handeln soll, betonten die Novell-EntwicklerInnen gegenüber dem WebStandard vorerst, dass noch keine Entscheidung gefallen sein soll.
A Desktop
As reported in eweek firm president Jack Messman also announced that the company desires to merge the best our of both worlds and create a common Linux desktop platform. However it remains unclear upon the basis of which widget library this should happen-heise reported that QT is it-Novel developers to WebStandard(ie.these reporters) emphasized that this is rumored speculation and that for the time being no choice has yet been made.
Überlegungen
Gegen QT spricht auch, dass praktisch alle Desktop Linux-Vorträge auf der Brainshare von Ximian- (und somit Gnome/GTK-) Entwicklern gehalten werden, während SUSE eher den Server-Bereich zu beliefern scheint. Auch wird Mono sehr stark als zentrale Technologie gepusht – wie berichtet wurde ja auch die File Sharing-Software iFolder vollkommen neu in der .net-Technologie entwickelt – für QT sind vorerst aber noch keine Mono-Bindings erhältlich, konkrete Pläne dafür gebe es laut Chris Schläger momentan auch noch nicht. Zusätlich würde sich damit Novell auch eine Abhängigkeit von einem Drittanbieter einfangen, die Firma Trolltech verlangt für kommerzielle Entwicklungen auf Basis von QT Lizenzzahlungen. (apo aus Salt Lake City)
Considerations
That almost all of the desktop Linux presentations were held by Ximian(and par extension GNOME/GTK) developers speaks against QT being the basis-the presentations from SuSE developers appeared to be targeted at the server environment. Additionly Mono is strongly being pushed as the central technology- as reported the File Sharing-Software iFolder was newly developed in the .Net(mono) technology-yet at this there are still no Qt bindings, and there are currently no conrete plans for such according Chris Schläger. Additionally Novel would trap itself in a dependency on a third party, Trolltech demands QT licences for commerical development based on QT.
(ok not the very best translation-but it should be readable and clear)
Heise gave know sources as to where they got their information. derStandard-does,i.e the names of the people that talked to them. Choose for yourself which is rumour based speculation……
Anything that brings Linux one step closer to having a single set of consistent UI guidelines is a very good thing IMO. Geeks could still run the alternative DE of their choice, but the apps would have consistent UI design rather than the current mess.
we all earn from it: drivers will finally be made, and we can continue to use the GPL software (which will stay free).
Absolutely. But the reason you’re seeing Linus at Novell’s expo and speaking on patents etc is he realizes that it’s inevitable for Linux to become commercialized, in fact it’s necessary for it’s survival. As an example there’s no guarantee this new desktop or Sun’s new desktop will be GPL, in fact I would imagine they won’t be if it can be avoided.
I don’t have a mess, I only use GNOME with GTK applications, no need for any K on my PC.
oh, and about the article, I think we need more information, or a more clear article.
Axiom,
KDE developers have a lot of respect for GNOME. I have more doubts the other way around. Remember that “KDE is dead” movement just a couple of months ago, saying that Novell would be a Gnome only shop and UserLinux would rule the Debian camp with a Gnome only desktop.
More than that, UserLinux with a ridiculous argument of “support costs” excludes the qt framework applications entirely, even if there is no comparing app with other toolkits, even if they accept almost all other toolkits and languages, (OOo, mozilla and wxindows are diferent frameworks, even if they use GTK to draw the widgets, mono too, java, perl, pyton, you name it.). They are even talking about using two different DE, one lightweigth for the server and Gnome for the Desktop.
The support cost argument is a failure. Having Gnome as default DE is OK. Excluding Qt/KDE applications is political, doesn’t matter what Perens says.
Suse is not excluding GTK or Gnome apps. Long life to Gnome.
Amadeu
You wrote:
Bottom line is Novell/IBM/HP/Sun are driving the Linux development train now and commercial implementations are what you should expect. Pay as you go, for development tools, cross-patent licensing, and eventually software that is more sophisticated and better integrates into capitalist society. “Free” versions of Linux will remain, just don’t expect them to equal up to the latest commecially available products. You may not like it, but money is what makes the world go round.
—
Yeah, right. That’s why the Free Linux kernel is so far behind the commercial Windows kernel, isn’t it ?
Comercial companies are helping Free Software get better, but we should never forget that Free Software will always be great, with or without them. But that’s right that it is better with them, as long as it remains Free (speech).
The problem with QT-apps is that they only integrate/look good in KDE. So only the KDE users are all happy with it when it becomes Novell’s ‘standard’ . Everyone else will hate Novell for such a decision. KDE apps aren’t that themeable IMO, while the GTK toolkit has been proven to theme/intergrate very well with other desktops: http://www.kde-look.org/content/show.php?content=9714
Ah well I’m also a Gnome user so i opt for the GTK as a standard or even better a new set that integrates well in both QT and GTK environments.
cendrizzi: KDE isn’t limited to C++. They have Java, C, Python, Perl, and now C# bindings.
RoyBatty: The KDECVS bindings are for both KDE and Qt. Yes, they are probably still immature (they are new), but they are really a thin layer over the SMOKE library, which itself is pretty mature. SMOKE originated from the PerlQt bindings, and was factored out so other bindings could use it too. SMOKE is auto-generated from the Qt and KDE headers, so it supports every function of every class in Qt and KDE. As for the C#-specific part of the bindings, I’m sure if Novell is interested in using KDE + Mono, they will find it easy to polish those up.
Wrawrat: I had the impression that while there were more core KDE developers, GNOME as a platform had more developers overall. Certainly, AbiWord and Gnumeric, for example, have more developers than KOffice. Mozilla has more developers than Konqueror. Evolution has more than Kontact, etc, etc.
… have been greatly exaggerated.
– Bill
are online here:
http://www.novell.com/brainshare/keynotes2004.html
has anybody actually listened to Chris Stone’s Wednesday
keynote (in which he allegedly made these remarks about
moving to Qt).
Not theregister, inquirer, slashdot, etc.
I maintain something is really missing here. They have a lot of property in the gnome area so a clean ditch would be very strange.
I thought the QT# project was pretty much dead. This isn’t FUD. I’ve talked to a guy several times on the mono IRC that said the rest of the projects programs have gone their seperate ways.
Novell is not ditching GNOME is standardizing on QT/KDE. They have had and still have Ximian developers hacking on the file selector, Evolution 2.0, F-Stop, etc. – all GTK-based. SUSE has Dave Camp hacking on iFolder integration into Nautilus – which is basically done. This functionality was hyped like mad at Brainshare during a presentation featuring Nat Friedman, co-founder of Ximian. Now tell me, why would you spend oodles of cash on new technology (in some ways directly related to GTK development), demo it for about a half an hour at your annual conference, and then throw it away?
I’m a sys admin for a small company. I have been using Linux in some capacity for the past several years. I started using KDE at version 2.2. To be honest I have seriously tried to use Gnome 1.something and 2.whatever. I can’t do it. Its ugly, apps don’t integrate well. I usually got frustrated and went back to kde. I guess beauty is in the eye of beholder but guys how can you say the default themes for KDE are ugly. It could be you don’t like that certain shade of green, blue or whatever color is the shade of the release (you know you can change the color in a few clicks). I always find regardless what I did in Gnome it still struck me as depressing. Anyway, if I were to deploy a Linux desktop here (I really would like to) in my office it would use KDE and almost completely KDE apps. There being a few exceptions to that rule (Mozilla, openoffice). I don’t consider Evolution a solution. Emulating Outlook is not a plus. Don’t exactly consider it extremely usable. Well thats my 2 cents I’m sure it’s not worth that much.
Just a thought, why is it every Debian based distro uses KDE instead of Gnome when Gnome is the default desktop of Debian.
Matt
One thing…KCONTROL
When I started to use linux(Slackware) a couple of months ago, I couldnt figure out how to setup up my h/w,configure s/w, or basically do anything. So Kcontrol was a god send, I guess I just became accustomed and now cant stand anything other than KDE!
has anybody actually listened to Chris Stone’s Wednesday keynote (in which he allegedly made these remarks about moving to Qt).
Its slightly confusing, but the article does not say that the remarks were made in the keynote, but rather later on Wednesday at brainshare. I’ve watched the keynote and it doesnt mention the issue.
Heres the cutting, emphasis mine.
In the last key note of the fair Chris Stone, the actual steering wheel drove another caliber of Novell, on Wednesday morning already. Stone explained that the Desktops on the basis of a Desktop model is to be combined.
Finally the message oozed in the process of the daily [sic] that Novell decided with the development environment and library for Qt, with which practically KDE made a running
Actually, there are now two C# bindings:
– Qt# 0.7.1 was recently released, but the website hasn’t been updated. I think Qt# development has been picked up again.
– A new set of Qt and KDE C# bindings were commited to KDE CVS recently. Unlike the old Qt# bindings, which are based on the KDE C bindings, these are based on the SMOKE library which is explicitly designed to work as a subtrate for KDE bindings. These, as far as I know, are being actively maintained (to the extent that something auto-generated can be maintained
I had a chat with Luis villa, famous gnome bugs cleaner & engineer at ximian), he told me that gnome will be shipped along KDE and that the fact that SuSE will be based on qt does not mean -as the journalist reasoned- that KDE will be THE de of choice. The article itself mentions only that the DE will be qt based, IF THIS IS TRUE, it still dow not mean that gnome is dead under SuSE as ximian are part of the Desktop strategy, a good quote from Luis was:”what are we doing then, if gnome is out?”
I’m a dirty-dirty liar who obviously doesn’t read dot.kde.org closely enough. In reference to the second set of bindings, a post from the original developer:
Hi Navindra – thanks!
I’ve done what it says in the commit, but perhaps that isn’t obvious. All the current generated code does is to funnel all the Qt/KDE method calls to a single C# method, SmokeInvocation.Invoke(). At present it looks like this:
— snip —
Notice that it doesn’t do anything other than print debug messages! So the next step is too look up the corresponding method in the Smoke library and call it. That should be about another week or two. But it should then move quite quickly from just running ‘hello world’ to being pretty complete in a month or two.
So not yet, but “Real Soon Now” (TM)
For those of you who did not listen. That Novell has chosen Qt is not rumoured speculation. It was revealed by Chris Stone himself in his keynote. Heise might not have said it, however other people who were at the conference have seen it.
Well, I don’t know what DE you use on Linux, but I can tell you that I’m VERY happy with GNOME. I don’t see what the problem is with it. For me, Windows has been history for a long time now, thanks to GNOME.
Well, I guess you’re right *once again*.
However, I don’t think a project need 192 developers to have a good-looking UI. That’s what I really miss with KDE. The whole desktop just doesn’t look as polished as GNOME (although it’s exactly the opposite for the framework). Furthermore, I suppose there’s more QT hackers than GTK ones (as it’s a commercial toolkit, after all).
It’s probably far easier to modify the look & feel than developing a new framework… but why aren’t they doing it?!
Anyway, I’m compiling KDE 3.2.1 right now (Gentoo is great but C++ programs takes a while to compile, even on a AXP 2500+) and I’ll try to use it a bit more than last time (5 minutes, it looked exactly like KDE 3.1 to me, and I used that version for quite a while).
Where I see Linux eventually going is one desktop. This will have to occur to successfully attract more Windows users to Linux. I believe Novell instends with their purchases of SuSE and Ximian to eventually have Ximian as the sole desktop GUI. While at the same time integrating the best tools typically found in Gnome and KDE. When I compare Gnome and KDE to Ximian2 it appears Ximian2 has a very clean GUI which most users want but also offers the tools users need. PC users like having extras just as long as it doesn’t cluter their desktop.
A standard has to be set so developers can focus on improving Linux on the desktop faster and better than Windows is able to keep up. Working on to many GUI and tools causes confusion to not only newbies but also outsiders looking in on the Linux community. Microsoft’s main hold on the desktop market is because of setting a standard for tools and ease of use. This standard should also apply to Linux. Starting with standard management tools followed by a standard GUI desktop. Novell releasing YAST to Open Source is a great start but more effort must be made by developers and those choosing to use Linux.
> … have been greatly exaggerated.
lol
Keep up the good work!
Why are these purported “KDE lovers” always so harsh and irrational toward GNOME but the GNOMErs are always calm and explaining their situation?
Why so much HATRED toward GNOME in this forum?
Why does the ex-service man (Ali something) hate GNOME so much?
It smells of jealousy to me. It seems they were hoping that GNOME will go away but it grew and matured and is threatening the very thing they claim to love.
Most interesting is that, some usually aparently rational people suddenly become trollish as soon as GNOME is mentioned.
I have one message for you all:
“There are only two choices in life. You either conform the truth to your desire or you conform your desire to the truth. Which choice are you making when commenting about GNOME or KDE?”
You can not change the truth by wishing it away
Perhaps you’re just a bit too emotional about a piece of software, Yuan?
There is no hatred against Gnome. There is one developer that has personal problems with some Gnome hackers. Also, even if Gnome is not Suse choice of desktop, Gnome technologies and applications will be integrated.
They are not excluding Gnome, like UserLinux is excluding KDE.
Also, many of the KDE folks are jusk happy that the mantra “KDE has no corporate support”, like some Gnome hackers were spreading, is not true. Indeed, KDE/Qt is the most logical desktop/framework for corporate use:
– Has locking technologies (Kiosk framework), to secure corporate desktops.
– Has more mature development tools: Qt tools and docs, KDevelop, Quanta+.
– Has a more stable and rich framework.
– Offers more corporate applications without a Gnome counterpart: Kivio, Kooka, Aethera GPL mail client for Windows and Linux, Kolab server and Kontact: the total Free groupware client / server, Kbarcode, K3B, Scribus, Quanta+, just to name a few. BTW, Mozilla and OOo are not gnome apps.
So while KDE is a logical choice on the corporate sector, is the most used desktop in the free world, and has the biggest distribution support, some people were spreading FUD about the ability of KDE to compete in the corporate market. You can not blame KDE fans to be happy.
And btw, this is not the end of Gnome: RH is hiring people to work on it, and they still have a strong desktop strategy, don’t believe what other people say. Sun is not abandoning Gnome, and Novell is not abandoning Gnome technologies and applications. The choice of the default app development environment and desktop framework (KDE/Qt) will not hurt Gnome. Ximian was not focused in the Gtk or Gnome core anyway, it was more directed to apps / Mono. And this is going to continue.
What would really hurt the community is if Novell decided to ship no Gtk apps, like UserLinux is planning to do with KDE/Qt apps.
Seriously, you guys. So KDE becomes the “DE of choice”? So what!?!? What are the apps that are going to be intergrated into this desktop? Mozilla, OO.o, Evolution. These are cross-Linux DE apps, so as long as people keep using them, it won’t matter what desktop enviornment you’re running. You’ll still be able to communicate with other computers running whatever this bastardized KSuSvell desktop turns out to be and still run GNOME!
It seems like this will just lead to a sort of Mac/PC war within the PC environment itself. The sensible, user-friendly loving people will swear by their GNOME (Mac) while the rest of the world gets to be frustrated with the confusion of a bloated interface and all-in-all horrendous computing experience (Windows/PC).
This makese sense though, you know why? Because the easier software is to use, the less people need to spend on tech support, the less money support services make. GNOME is _too_ user friendly, which is bad for business. Sad but true.
Who knows though… as the aforementioned standards remain in place, GNOME could still spread via word of mouth.
</rant>
The german newspaper Der Standard is throwing some caution into Heise’s scoop:
http://derstandard.at/standard.asp?id=1612594
From the GoogleFish of the text under the ‘Ein Desktop’ section:
“A Desktop as eweek reported also announced head of the company Jack Messman that the company wants the best from both worlds to unite and a common Linux Desktop platform create wants. *Remains unclear however for the time being still on basis of which Widget LIBRARY this passing is, while heise reports that it is to concern thereby geruechteweise QT*, stressed the Novell EntwicklerInnen opposite that to weaving and pool of broadcasting corporations for the time being that still no decision is to be fallen.”
Actually I think QT Free Edition should ALREADY be under the BSD license. Troll Tech is at least partially owned by the
CANOPY GROUP now which also owns SCO and probably (Like Microsoft) bankrolls the SCO lawsuits against Linux from behind the scenes. As I remember under the original QPL ownership of Troll Tech by ANY company hostile to Linux causes the BSD license to kick in.
“KDE Lovers” do not spread more FUD about GNOME than “GNOME Lovers” do about KDE. Everytime KDE is mentioned on OSNews some “GNOME Fans” claim that KDE is totally unusable because KDE is bloated, has to much options, has no HIG etc. or start a license flamewar because Qt is only GPL and not LGPL and that Qt and KDE will never be adopted by companies. The same “GNOME” lovers also claim that all the KDE applications are crap anyway and that all the really good applications like Mozilla and OpenOffice (which are no GNOME applications) are GNOME applications. And even GNOME developers like Miguel or Nat spread FUD about KDE on slashdot and other newssites (after Novell bougt SUSE Miguel and Nat claimed that on the long run Suse’s default desktop will be GNOME). I don’t want to object that there are some KDE users that don’t like GNOME and spread FUD about it, but in my opinion, there are many more GNOME users constantly spreading FUD and lies about KDE. That is the number one reason why I prefer KDE over GNOME. For me, the KDE community seems to be much more pragmatic and less religious than the GNOME community and most KDE people just code and don’t have to state their opinion on everything all the time. And concerning oGALAXYo, I don’t really care what he says about GNOME, but I doubt everything he says is just plain wrong, like some people want us to believe. And I really can’t stand how some people treat him here. You can disagree with some persons opinion, but you have no right to attack persons because of there opinion, like some people do here with oGALAXYo. And I have never read such attacks on dot.kde.org, even if some people harshly critisized KDE there.
Just looked at Qt Designer’s About box. It’s licensed under the GNU-GPL and is therefore already open source.
Do you know that coral snakes look harmless, but hold one of the most powerful poisons among snakes?
Canopy has only 5%, and Trolltech is controlled by the developers, most of them are KDE developers. there is no risk here. The investment was done when Canopy was still a good guy. I doubt the Trolls would deal with them after the SCO case.
Trolltech guys are nice guys. They have one of the best business models in open source. I wish more software companies were like Trolltech: a viable business model, constant improvements, solid quality code, and free software!
The only way for Novel to do what they want to do is to Buy out Troll Tech. Otherwise it is vendor lock in or GPL for their desktop.
Gnome desktop is also GPL. Stop the fud.
Gnome libraries are LGPL. KDE libraries are LGPL.
GTK+ is LGPL. QT is QTL, GPL or if you want to make money from Qt, you buy a developer licence (free of distribution per unit costs: pay once and sell how many copies you like).
Proprietary software written with any kind of toolkit can fit well to a KDE desktop. Just follow KDE HIG. There are successful efforts to make Mozilla, OOo and GTK sofware fit well to a KDE desktop. Windows uses many toolkits, and you don’t even notice it.
So stop the FUD. There is no lock in. How many times to we have to say that?
If someone wants to make money out of free software, why not making them pay, to fund further advancements of free software. This is the best business model out there. We should support it and be proud of it. The Trolls are the nice guys, but I guess you will never be satisfied.
Canopy has a 4.1% stake in the company. SCO has a 1.6% stake. Both are *investors* not owners. The investments were made by Caldera back when they had different management and were a good Linux company. They invested because they based Caldera Linux on Qt/KDE, and worked with TrollTech to do the graphical installer.
“Seriously, you guys. So KDE becomes the “DE of choice”? So what!?!? What are the apps that are going to be intergrated into this desktop? Mozilla, OO.o, Evolution. These are cross-Linux DE apps, so as long as people keep using them, it won’t matter what desktop enviornment you’re running.”
Amen to that. Linux is not just another product for the corporates to sell. They can do whatever they want with THEIR distros and push whatever DE on THEIR customers that they want. The rest of us will still be doing our thing, our way. Linus gave us a choice, and corporates couldn’t take it away even if they wanted to.
Even five percent ownership of what seems to be the defacto Linux desktop platform by an organization HOSTILE TO LINUX is too much!!!!
Even if they keep the current GPL for free use/Pay for proprietary use licensing arrangement I would prefer a company like IBM, Borland, SciTech or Novell owning Qt at the “suit” level rather than Canopy/SCO!!!
*sigh*
I am personally tired of reading people fight with each other supporting their favourite DE or toolkit. Come on people, we have lots of lacking things in general that need to be fixed before all this flamewars. What are they?
1. I was flamed by my brother, to whom I showed Kopete and Gaim and after 10 minnutes of using that he argued that the file transfer sucks! I really had nothing to say
2. Yesterday I thought to convert my doc files to pdf using OO. And guess what? My alphabet specific characters don’t appear in any native linux pdf/gs viewer but Adobe acrobat viewer
No problems viewing them on Windows with the same fonts though.
3. I am sorry to say that I cannot copy and paste anything but plain text right now neither on Gnome nor on KDE, and there is definitely a lack in global standarts. For ex. I could not do a CTRL+A on this Osnews page and paste it in OO, Kwriter or Abiword and see it retain formattings.
So people, leave the empty words and flamewars and get to know the real problems we are having right now.
And please don’t flame the person who complains about existing shortcomings (in this case oGALAXYo). Just learn to listen to everybody, be him false or true. Look for a sollution for the problems.
Thanks!
I have no problem with the Troll Tech over their licening program even though it could stand some improvements in recognizing the smaller “cottage industry” commercial developer in its pricing schedule. (So the authors of good shareware apps in music notation, cd packet writing and other places where Free Software is currently lacking can port their stuff over to linux.)
It is just that I’m worried generally that even the Free Software developers seem so willing to hand over the future of Linux to companies THAT DO NOT HAVE ITS BEST INTERESTS AT HEART!!!
Another example of this is the constant insistance on managed software under the Mono project as the future of Linux. It has been said TIME AND TIME again on Slashdot, LinuxToday, NewsForge and everywhere else that Micro$oft
has laid “patent bombs” in .NET that could destroy Linux even MORE effectively than SCO ever thought of doing if Mono were ever to reach the point of full usability. However Developers still insist that this patent trap is the future of linux.
Troll Tech already has a small developers plan.
If you expolain them your business plan, and they like it, they difer payment over several months, so you can bootstrap the cost.
“I participate for around 5 years to GNOME now (including own programs, fixes, patches etc.).”
You make it sound like you have contributed code to GNOME itself. Other statements from you make it seem even more like this is the case.
All I can find is a couple of build script fixes. Writing an app using GNOME technologies doesn’t necessarily mean you have contributed to GNOME itself!
It’s simple – Novell made the right choice.
Dude, the Heise article is unsubstantiated. Read. Novell did not make “the” choice. This whole thread evolves around false information.
Actually that side of Troll Tech’s business doesn’t concern me right now becuse the project I’m currently working on with the Qt Library Is a GNU-GPL licensed Linux install program. (Designed to make the application installation from cd or download process a little more like the Windows install process and therefore agreeable with newbies and migrators.) I just don’t like the idea of Libux falling into too many vendor lock ins (Pay Qt) and patent traps (Mono) after what we’ve been through with this still ongoing SCO mess.
If we really need a managed software platform for Linux we should be basing it on a FOSS product in my opinion and really being innovative rather than depending on or duplicating Micro$oft .NET or depending on Java. My choice for this would be a speeded up and more complete language
Interpreter language based on Python but with types, a do while loop structure and a switch statement for the sake of completeness.
While I am NOT ideological and can go with proprietary software at the Application and Gaming level I think such software is JUST TO DANGEROUS at the platform, management interpreter and kernel and other deep system levels when you are fighting a monopoly determined to win at all costs
even bankrolling a presumed competitor like SCO.
I obviously don’t know where heise.de got there informations from, but I know that the heise publishing company is probably the most respected one in Germany (in the computer sector) with a couple of the most respected computer magazines like the “c’t” and the “iX” which are aimed at professionals. Maybe “heise.de” is wrong this time, but I very much doubt that they spread rumors without having some facts. And I take heise much more serious than OSNews, Slashdot or the like and I am pretty sure heise had some reporters at Brainshare. So let’s wait and see.
I think that GTK is great for developing complicated apps. That’s the case of Evolution, GIMP, XMMS, etc etc…
I’m not saying that QT isn’t good for creating excellent apps. The point is that maybe Novell bought Ximian to develop good apps that not require a complete integration with the KDE desktop. Imagine all the experience that the guys at Ximian have to develop applications from ground zero…. That’s certainly and advantage in time and in cost savings.. and now imagine what will happen if GNOME apps can be integrated into the KDE Desktop functionality.. wow.. the result: A complete and fast developing Linux and UNIX’es DESKTOP!..
got the point now?
gatuus
Hey- ok my translation is not perfect but a thousand times better than googlefish-der Standard is an Austrian mainstream new publication, written of course in *german*.
The article makes it abudantly clear that several Novell peoples-from top management down to developers were clearly distancing themselves from the rumoured speculation cited in the Heise article.
However, one should not overlook so-called “rumours”- once these rumours get out people line up and take sides thus giving clear definition to the point of contention between the sides and making clear which voices are dominant in the discussion-ie. which voices have the most weight. Such rumours generally start circulating when topic areas become utterly taboo due to their highly contentious nature. In their role as employees of Novell those who spoke to reporters officialy distanced themselves from such speculation- they do not want to be accused of having alienated the developers in favor of GTK+(stirring up a fight etc.)
Novell as a relativ noobie in the Linux world is making all of the classic, forgivable mistakes. A gulf has opened up between the rhetoric comming from Novell officials and what actually will transpire-which will ultimately be decided in a way that integrates the different developers interests-Novell officials at this point cannot afford to really piss of one or the other group-and no one will believve them if they promise everything to both groups. How this will all play out is not clear yet- neither for those working for Novell, as developers, as company executives nor for us “outsiders” looking inside through public statements hoping to unveil some hidden “truth”.
Novell will undoubtedly have some customers who prefer GTK+-after all Sun has made a tremendous splash in the IT speculation world with their JDS. Other companies will undoubtedly desire QT/KDE based solutions-beyond the issues of the linux desktop- QT implementations on Windows and Macintosh are far more polished that GTK+. There is no question for me that Novell will push both desktops for the time being, and probably the first ports of their software and new developments will be made with GTK+-but QT developments are not only visibile issues- KIOslaves/fish etc. are wonderful technologies which are extremely useful for server technology without being dependent upon visual KDE/QT applications.
Freedesktop.org is hosting a variety of project which allow for far more subtle, and perhaps more profound dual-usage of the GTK+ and QT libraries than what has been discussed here(evoking QT libraries from within GTK apps-for example). The hyperbole of today will in all likelihood be forgiven as initial stumblings and the reality of tommorow will probably be much more sober than the current inubriation…..
“I don’t understand this either. There are far more developers for KDE: why can’t they make their applications look good?”
What are you talking about?
KDE applications look GREAT! Plastic is the greatest
theme, EVER.
On the “user interface” aspect the look more the OK,
also. Better than Windows, anyway.
GNOME doesn’t have less options ONLY because it
follows User Interfaces guidelines. It has less
options simply because it has less functions!
Now, if you want to improve KDE menus and toolbars
etc, it is dead easy. You can edit some UI XML files,
do some subtle code tweaks and you’re done. Even better,
all the apps will use the new consistent intefaces,
because most of the infrastructure is shared. When
you change how one thing looks, it changes everything.
But adding the functionality to GNOME is “dead hard”.
Hell, a simple file open/save dialog took them 3 years
to get right (and still they don’t).
Is not as easy as editing some files, the space betwen the tool bar icons, even the space in the menu is to narrow, you can’t change that because its a desing flaw of qt.
That makes looks the menu clutered and look bad.
All this BS about Qt being “technically superior” to GTK+ is a joke, though. Both APIs have strengths and weaknesses, and indeed, lend themselves to different coding styles.
GTK is a graphical toolkit. Qt is a whole programming environment KDE uses as its lynchpin. Therein, lies the difference.
Distros suck. We need a platform. And KDE doesn’t help here. KDE is a kosmetic.
KDE is a platform. Gnome is a collection of apps that desperately need a HIG to make all of them look like a desktop. The usability thing is just a sad excuse for all of this.
Polish is a word I hear a lot of
. The HIG Gnome uses and the themes they have are certainly important, but the essential truth is that they are just window dressing for the lack of any kind of identifiable unifying architecture underneath. Scratch away that polish and you have something a Windows developer, or indeed any sys admin, won’t touch with a ten-foot bargepole. I know that I, or anyone else I work with, wouldn’t. KDE isn’t perfect, but there are good foundations there you can see, and they can really be worked on.
Now, if you want to improve KDE menus and toolbars
etc, it is dead easy. You can edit some UI XML files,
do some subtle code tweaks and you’re done.
Editing XML and subtle code tweaks? It may be hard to believe for you, but a lot of people only (or barely) understand the most fundamental operations in computing, or even how to program a VCR for that matter. “Dead easy” is very relative, man.
GNOME doesn’t have less options ONLY because it
follows User Interfaces guidelines. It has less
options simply because it has less functions!
That’s silly. GNOME can be tweaked plenty. And the fact that it’s open source means…Guess what? Dun dun da! — You can add your own functions too!
Less options are in fact ONLY because of the HIG.
Though HIG’s place barriers up for geeks, they remove barriers for average users (and people who are simply bored of more steps than necessary). The least steps possible with the least options available is the basis of “user friendly” — dictating what a user should do, instead of the user dictating what the machine should do, let alone “tweaking” or “customizing” it.
The least steps possible with the *most* options available is *not* a possibility. “User friendly” can only be stupid and simple or not exist at all.
Dun dun da! — You can add your own functions too!
Note to self: Start using “*drumroll*”
=D
If Novell wants quick ROI from buying Ximian, it looks to me like continuing these three programs as they are (Gnome-based) is the best way to go.
LOL! ROI on Ximian. An organisation that has burned through tens of millions of dollars of venture capital and Novell’s resources. It is a bit late to be talking about return on investment now. How much do you think it cost to develop Evolution versus Kontact? And people complain about Qt licensing. I love these forums.
I didn’t read an explicit “we won’t work on Gnome” from Novell, and I don’t see why they would buy Ximian and throw away most of their work.
Novell didn’t have clue what they bought. Ximian needed to be sold and their investors did a good job. Novell were probably attracted to an open source .NET.
Heise gave know sources as to where they got their information. derStandard-does,i.e the names of the people that talked to them. Choose for yourself which is rumour based speculation……
This article doesn’t mean anything either. They probably talked to people from Ximian. Who did they talk to?
This functionality was hyped like mad at Brainshare during a presentation featuring Nat Friedman,
I guess that’s why. Nat Friedman == hype, and very little else.
Now tell me, why would you spend oodles of cash on new technology (in some ways directly related to GTK development), demo it for about a half an hour at your annual conference, and then throw it away?
Plenty of companies have done that in the past.
Now, if you want to improve KDE menus and toolbars
etc, it is dead easy. You can edit some UI XML files,
do some subtle code tweaks and you’re done.
Editing XML and subtle code tweaks? It may be hard to believe for you, but a lot of people only (or barely) understand the most fundamental operations in computing, or even how to program a VCR for that matter. “Dead easy” is very relative, man.
I mean this for PROGRAMMERS! What where you thinking?
What I mean, is, when KDE people or Novell or anyone, wants to improve KDE GUI in respect to some HIG or whatever, they can do it easily. There are some people working in this direction already, a new Control Center layout in CVS, etc..
In Gnome it took them 3 years to just change the File Opel/Save dialog (including it’s, oh so difficult, API).
GNOME doesn’t have less options ONLY because it
follows User Interfaces guidelines. It has less
options simply because it has less functions!
That’s silly. GNOME can be tweaked plenty. And the fact that it’s open source means…Guess what? Dun dun da! — You can add your own functions too!
If the developers aren’t doing it, noone else is going to be bothered to write GNOME’s infrastructure for them.
Do a point by point comparison on facilities in KDE and Gnome. KDE not only has more configurations options (which make some people compain) it also has MORE FUNCTIONALTY. More infrastructure.
Apple choose KHTML. It wouldn’t touch the Gnome HTML classes with a ten foot pole.
“Apple choose KHTML. It wouldn’t touch the Gnome HTML classes with a ten foot pole.”
They didn’t touch Gecko either, so yours really isn’t a point.
Oh and, Yay! for the preview button. Better than you know who’s.
KDE applications look GREAT! Plastic is the greatest theme, EVER.
We shouldn’t bother to argue as it’s your opinion against mine. I installed KDE 3.2.1 yesterday, tried Plastik and I still have the same opinion of that theme. It’s clearly the best ever made for KDE but it doesn’t impress me that much.
Now, if you want to improve KDE menus and toolbars etc, it is dead easy. You can edit some UI XML files, do some subtle code tweaks and you’re done. Even better, all the apps will use the new consistent intefaces, because most of the infrastructure is shared. When you change how one thing looks, it changes everything.
Users don’t care of possibilities. They want results. Yeah, the KDE framework is really great. So what? It’s pretty much pointless if the developers can’t do something decent with it. Like I said earlier, I tried KDE yesterday and the bundled applications clearly lack some polish. I’ll try it for the whole week but I doubt I’ll change my opinion on it.
But adding the functionality to GNOME is “dead hard”.
Hell, a simple file open/save dialog took them 3 years
to get right (and still they don’t).
True… but it was easy for KDE: they just ripped the look of MS Windows’ file selector. At least the GNOME team tried to do something different that could possibly lead to better user friendliness.
Users don’t care of possibilities. They want results. Yeah, the KDE framework is really great. So what? It’s pretty much pointless if the developers can’t do something decent with it. Like I said earlier, I tried KDE yesterday and the bundled applications clearly lack some polish. I’ll try it for the whole week but I doubt I’ll change my opinion on it.
Oh God there’s that word polish again. What do you use on Gnome? Pledge? Or is that your nationality or something? The framework has to be really great because a Linux desktop needs to attract developers and get them away from Windows programming technology. You do that and anything that may be wrong is totally fixable. Many people seem to forget that KDE has not had tens of millions of dollars pumped into it in the form of paid developers (yet!), so the diversity of applications has not been great. Over the years, and in the future, that has changed markedly. Kontact was developed with virtually no financial investment from Suse, or any direct contact, and large parts of the components were developed under contract. Compare that with the years of development and investment in Evolution. KDE just makes total cost-effective sense, and afterall, that’s what open source development is about, right?
Saying that apps lack polish could mean anything. Having used a recent development version of Gnome (and installing a ton of dependencies in the process) it has become very clear to me that it is a collection of apps that pretend to be like each other. No change there. The polish is definitely good, but if you scratch it away (start changing things), nothing holds the thing together.
True… but it was easy for KDE: they just ripped the look of MS Windows’ file selector. At least the GNOME team tried to do something different that could possibly lead to better user friendliness.
So why didn’t Gnome just do the same thing, copy Windows or the Mac, get a good file dialogue and work hard at making it better? It really can’t have been that hard, can it? It took them years just to innovate a new file selector. The new file selector in Gnome is definitely good, and the vertical listing of files is much better, but things like that just cannot take that long.
Oh God there’s that word polish again. What do you use on Gnome? Pledge?
Pledge, orange scent. Not only it looks good but it also smells great!
The framework has to be really great because a Linux desktop needs to attract developers and get them away from Windows programming technology. You do that and anything that may be wrong is totally fixable.
Yes, I know that and I totally agree with you. To be honest, I’ve also installed KDE to work with QT (as a Delphi programmer trying to learn C++… QTDesigner looks more useable than Glade). However, like I said many times before, the problem is not the framework. The user just don’t care of it.
Many people seem to forget that KDE has not had tens of millions of dollars pumped into it in the form of paid developers (yet!), so the diversity of applications has not been great. Over the years, and in the future, that has changed markedly. Kontact was developed with virtually no financial investment from Suse, or any direct contact, and large parts of the components were developed under contract. Compare that with the years of development and investment in Evolution. KDE just makes total cost-effective sense, and afterall, that’s what open source development is about, right?
Well, I don’t really know how Evolution costed to Ximian but I personally think it’s better than Kontact so I think it was a good investment. I understand your point, though. GNOME developers have to focus on developing a better framework as they may lose the advantages they hold against KDE right now (as it’ll undeniably evolve to something better, KDE 3.3 sounds already quite promising).
So why didn’t Gnome just do the same thing, copy Windows or the Mac, get a good file dialogue and work hard at making it better? It really can’t have been that hard, can it? It took them years just to innovate a new file selector. The new file selector in Gnome is definitely good, and the vertical listing of files is much better, but things like that just cannot take that long.
Well, I can’t disagree with you. I hope something like this won’t happen again as it hurted their credibility quite seriously.
>Many people seem to forget that KDE has not had tens of millions of dollars pumped into it in the form of paid developers (yet!)
Same outrageous lie from KDE fans.
Many KDE developers are Trolltech or SuSE (and other companies) employees (even founder of KDE project). So KDE has had pumped big amount of money into it.
Just look at:
http://www.kde.org/support/thanks.php
And you will say that KDE fans are honest?
P.S. sorry for bad English
Same outrageous lie from KDE fans.
Many KDE developers are Trolltech or SuSE (and other companies) employees (even founder of KDE project). So KDE has had pumped big amount of money into it.
No, I’m afraid big money has not been pumped into it. These people are not working on it full-time, it is a complementary spare time project, and it is certainly not the only thing that they ever do – it is an extension of the job they are doing. What KDE has got from Qt, and Qt from KDE and everyone else involved has been entirely complementary. That is the way it should be.
Besides, I am still right about Kontact versus Evolution. Big money has certainly not been pumped into Kontact or the file manager(:)) or anything else in KDE. This is why certain people think that the applications are behind. Ximian (and Eazel before them) used tens of millions of other peoples’ money to employ people full-time just to hack on Gnome and Evolution. Nat Friedman was talking about pouring an absolute ton of Novell resources into quality testing and hacking on Gnome. Return on investment anyone?
Anyway, I hardly think all of that matters now.
And you will say that KDE fans are honest?
I wouldn’t say I was a KDE fan; I’ve just described things the way that they are. Besides, any Linux desktop, KDE or Gnome, has a very, very, very long way to go to overhaul Windows in the world, so I wouldn’t read too much into what Novell may or may not be doing.
P.S. sorry for bad English
You’re English isn’t bad at all. You want to see me write in another language – I can’t do it.
>is a complementary spare time project
About spare time:
“SuSE also employs around 10 KDE developers which are free to work on KDE during their work time.”
WORK time not SPARE time.
After all, QT is base of KDE, same way GTK is base of Gnome. QT developed by full-time developers of TT. Same way paid developers take part in development of GTK. I confident QT has more paid full-time developers than GTK.
>Besides, I am still right about Kontact versus Evolution.
But Evolution is not part of Gnome. I even don’t have installed Evolution on my gnome desktop (I use Mozilla mail).
Same way I can find some sponsored KDE projects, and say about “pumping money” in KDE.
“SuSE also employs around 10 KDE developers which are free to work on KDE during their work time.”
WORK time not SPARE time.
Nope. There are three to five developers who are paid or sponsored to work on KDE – that’s their job. Other Suse employees, about ten, are free to work on it when they have time – presumably sandbox time. Hacking on KDE is not the primary job description of these guys.
But Evolution is not part of Gnome. I even don’t have installed Evolution on my gnome desktop (I use Mozilla mail).
And? What is a part of Gnome anyway? Does it exist?
Same way I can find some sponsored KDE projects, and say about “pumping money” in KDE.
Like what? What in KDE has needlessly consumed tens of millions of dollars of other peoples’ money?
this thread refuse to die
Monty Python joke:
It’s getting better. No. It’s died!