Novell plans to release its new corporate version of Linux for desktop computers this fall, the first product to merge technology from SuSE and Ximian that Novell acquired. The prototype was called Novell Linux Desktop (this may not be the final name) and it derives from SuSE’s codebase. The new desktop software uses the new Ximian Desktop version of GNOME, and it’s customized to work smoothly with Novell’s GroupWise server software for e-mail, calendars, contact lists and instant messaging.
Novell to Release Enhanced Business Desktop Linux in Fall
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
119 Comments
2004-08-07 3:38 pm
2004-08-07 4:18 pm
2004-08-07 4:59 pm
2004-08-07 5:14 pm
Anonymous
if red hat, novell don’t use it in industry…
Dont forget SUN. Now all 3 major commerical linux distros are GNOME-centric now. 
2004-08-07 5:16 pm
2004-08-07 5:16 pm
2004-08-07 5:39 pm
2004-08-07 5:43 pm
Anonymous
> Dont forget SUN. Now all 3 major commerical
> linux distros are GNOME-centric now.
Sun is NOT a major commercial linux distro. Go and ask the right people of a company who sells licenses to Sun for their JDS about numbers and if they give you answers you might understand why Sun only appears on rank 27 at distrowatch.com
On the other hand the Novell Linux Desktop (which defaults to neither Gnome nor KDE) isn’t a major player either. SUSE Linux is. And with KDE being default in the current SUSE 9.2 betas and statements like this KDE will stay the most popular desktop for the foreseeable future ….
http://linuxtoday.com/mailprint.php3?action=pv<sn=2004-03-31-026-…
However, SUSE supports both the KDE and GNOME environments in its professional and enterprise products only, Schlaeger pointed out. “We will never support anything but KDE in Personal Edition,” he predicted.
2004-08-07 6:40 pm
2004-08-07 6:45 pm
2004-08-07 6:56 pm
2004-08-07 7:06 pm
2004-08-07 8:13 pm
2004-08-07 8:46 pm
2004-08-07 8:46 pm
2004-08-07 8:57 pm
2004-08-07 9:06 pm
2004-08-07 9:11 pm
2004-08-07 9:59 pm
2004-08-07 10:05 pm
2004-08-07 10:29 pm
2004-08-07 10:37 pm
2004-08-07 11:11 pm
2004-08-07 11:54 pm
Anonymous
David you are an amazingly rabid troll. You are apparently quite knowledgable about KDE-I will give you that, but you speak as if *you* know whats really going on in Novell/SuSE and Novell in general.
I would remind you that they are the ones making these statements – not me or anyone else. We’ve had this for umteen years now, and it isn’t doing anyone any favours. What they are saying is in direct conflict with everything else that is happening within the organisation, and what everyone else is saying – even their Vice Chairman. Quite frankly, that isn’t trolling.
Two days ago you argued with Miguel de Icaza about whether Nat works for SuSE(!?!?!) -for your information Nat Friedman was cofounder of Ximian alongside Miguel de Icaza, who is the founder of GNOME.
I didn’t argue with him – it wasn’t worth the bother, because we’ve had years of it, as everyone should know. It was announced some time ago that about fifteen Ximian people were moving to Suse, and if you read around PlanetSuse and read through the Novell site it is quite clear who does what no matter what anyone says.
*You* acted as if *you* know better what’s going on in Novell than one of Novell’s executives.
No Novell executive has made any statement that is in this article, nor have they said that any desktop will ship this autumn – quite the opposite. If they had, that would be different. It’s not rocket science and I don’t need to be a Novell Executive to know it. They might have an internal release of some software, but why they feel the need to throw it out is anyone’s guess.
Actually it’s quite funny listening to you-with the exception of how bitterly serious you seem to take yourself…..
Likewise with just about every other post on this thread. Quite frankly, I can’t see me using anything other than Windows desktops for the forseeable future. No one knows what is actually required, and we’ve got individuals using it for soudbites and some sort of politial game.
Get a grip and come down from your high horse-everyone has a right to their opinion and I can appreciate your pro-KDE sentiment…
The pro-KDE sentiment as you call it, comes from knowing what will be required to get alternative desktops into the enterprise. That doesn’t mean that I don’t think Mono or anything else shouldn’t be used (because it will be useful), but quite clearly people have some major difficulty with that.
but when you go about implying that executives of Novell shouldn’t be trusted or believed-because they are not working for SuSE-something which as a seperate company no longer exists!-you make yourself sound like a fool.
Afraid not, as I didn’t say that. These people are not executives, and they are not part of the higher management at Novell. Christine McLellan for example, is just a former employee of Ximian. If they were, that would be different. Quite clearly, the organisation amongst their departments and divisions is a bit of a mess at the moment.
Suse is a Novell company (their slogan, not mine), and still exists as a separate entity and brand:
“The SuSE brand is strong,” especially in Western Europe and Asia, Stone said. “There’s no reason to change it.”
Note that Suse Linux 9 isn’t called Novell Linux 1.
The difference between our opinions,people like you and me posting on these forums, and people like Nat Friedman and Miguel de Icaza is that these people are actually making the decisions and writing the code, which OSNEWS is reporting about…….
Certain people act like they are making decisions, when no one else in the company, even the executives, is saying anything. Did Chris Stone say anywhere that any desktop is shipping this autumn? No? What he did say was that they weren’t saying anything about it and no one would know when people could see it. Nice one .
Our opinions do matter, as we are the potential customers. It is quite clear that they have two sides in Novell, and one of them feels the need to say something every ten seconds. When individuals in a company act like this, it doesn’t endear them to anyone.
2004-08-07 11:58 pm
2004-08-08 12:14 am
2004-08-08 12:44 am
2004-08-08 1:05 am
2004-08-08 1:47 am
2004-08-08 2:14 am
2004-08-08 2:16 am
2004-08-08 2:24 am
Anonymous
Yah, one of the things I heard at linux world is that suse will discontinue its desktop edition…
Well I heard the exact opposite, but it will just possibly be renamed and rebranded sometime in 2005 . There will also be a Suse 9.2 before then which might tell us a few things. You had to be careful and aware of who you were talking to at those Novell booths…..
The WORST were QT, (because of its MOC and UIC baggage not its pay license for proprietary ware)
Typical subjective stuff, since enterprise developers don’t care about it. What is it like to develop with overall?
2004-08-08 2:25 am
2004-08-08 2:26 am
2004-08-08 4:27 am
2004-08-08 5:02 am
2004-08-08 5:06 am
2004-08-08 6:25 am
2004-08-08 9:05 am
2004-08-08 9:08 am
2004-08-08 9:37 am
2004-08-08 9:51 am
2004-08-08 10:35 am
Anonymous
What I don’t get about the KDE community is the constant sniping from the sidelines and the outright resentment and jealousy I see directed at the GNOME community.
No, what people don’t like is the rubbish and soundbites that do no one any favours whatsoever. After several years of it, you would have thought people would have realised by now.
KDE doesn’t have the connectivity GTK/GNOME application have for enterprises right now, remember that Ximian has had focus on software for enterprises, the kontac connectivity you are talking about doesn’t feet a real enterprises need, Im not saying that they can’t do it in the future, but right now they don’t have it, its a “to litle to late” situation here.
Meaningless. What on Earth does connectivity actually mean in real terms?
Its is an enterprise solution, mono is a framework that developers from companies may use to have data connectivity to applications and more, w/o having to pay $1,500 per developer, KDE/QT, can’t do it,
Meaningless. Enterprises pay for licenses for development.
Since a lot of people in this thread seem to resent the fact that Novell’s next Linux release will showcase Gnome instead of KDE
It won’t just showcase Gnome, as has been pointed out in the hundred or so posts on here. When I see it ship on a Suse distro, then we’ll see.
Ever heard of Novell Evolution, Abiword, Netscape, Real Player, Winfessor, Yahoo Messenger, Tipic? Want me to name more? Have you been living under a rock?
Name me a company that uses it internally, as many obviously do with Qt? Do people in the oil, entertainment and visual modelling industries use it?
It’s also a GNOME feature, however, now that Novell has done the integration work.
You need to distinguish what a community does, and what a commercial entity does.
Stop using buzzwords you don’t understand. This isn’t vapourware. I know people running this right now.
When it ships on a Suse distro I can buy, call me . I don’t think that is quite getting through to people.
I know exactly what Novell’s Linux desktop plan is because they have made it extremely clear and open. It’s you that is that is confused, my friend.
They’ve made it clear – wow. We have the Vice Chairman saying that there is no ship date (nor does the software in it ship on any Novell/Suse distro today), and you can’t see it any time soon, and then we get an article like this one. For the rest of us, I think that’s pretty clear .
2004-08-08 10:45 am
Well, Nat told me this would happen. That Novell would froce Gnome on SuSE. I’m not complaining – I just didn’t think I’d see the day when (arguably) KDE’s biggest supporter would go Gnome. Just an observation.
As a KDE user I think it’s a great shame. Novell/SUSE has a very bright future (or more accurately potential) but KDE is a must for me to use it.
hmm… doesn’t say anywhere the SUSE will drop KDE, just that Novell is releasing a corporate version that uses GNOME.
Don’t act so surprised. They even say that KDE is still an option, it’s just not going to be “integrated”. This is a given considering the upcoming version of Evolution will support Exchange along with Novell’s Groupwise. KDE’s Kontact doesn’t. Gaim (not a Gnome app, but still Gtk+) is integrating with Evolution as well as with Groupwise. Not to mention they inherited Ximian Desktop.
They probably bought SuSE mainly for their server offerings, anyway. I think the KDE support from SuSE was just part of SuSE’s “baggage”.
It was pretty much a no-brainer for them to choose Gnome as the default corporate option.
let`s see the beta NOW and this I have been waithing for,such an integration ou don`t find in MS even.. mmmm and Gnome, that`s just cause it looks so much better, tho kde has more to it yet
I was hoping KDE would remain a viable option on SUSE.
Since the codebase for “Novell Desktop” derives from SuSE’s I think that SuSE will still be a more KDE oriented distribution for the time beeing.
But personally I think it’s only a matter of time. If Novell succeeds with their Desktop there’s not much reason for them to keep SuSE the way it is now and let them release their own Systems that could be used on a Desktop.
Bah, it’s always the same and might happen to more distributions in the future (are there that many left anyway?);
BigCorp(c) form the US looks around, buys European distribution, takes their codebase, makes a GNOME Desktop out of it and leaves the rest in the dust.. well great.
Hey Sun, you missed SuSE, but wait! Can you say “Mandrake”? Come, get it… it’s still supporting KDE… 😮
Even though this will ignate one of the osnews-classic flamewars I think – no matter what some users or developers might think – I’d say KDE’s main disadvatages can be summarized in two simple statements:
– the big money is in the US and that’s where the investemnt in Linux is taking place
– KDE seems to have this “not invented here” feeling to it when seen from a US-perspective*
*I know both GNOME and KDE are international projects
Spend more time reading and understanding the article before u blast of foolish post.
Lets clarify what going on here;
Basiclly Novell will have 2 Linux distros;
Suse Linux powered by KDE w/ Gnome as an option(i.e. K-centric)
Novell Linix powered by Gnome w/ KDE as an a option(i.e. Gnome-centric)
Both will be built upon the same solid core software foundation developed by SUSE. Novell maybe the only company that will be able to successfully pull off development and sale of 2 distros each of which will be optimized for a paticular Desktop Environment.
I don’t think that to choose Evolution and GAIM means to choose GNOME as well. There is no reason not use those inside KDE. Integration of GTK apps in KDE has made great progress. Unfortunately KDE apps seem to be a little harder to integrate into GNOME – but that’s just my experience.
Anyway thats the way things are. Novell got Ximian for Mono and Evolution and GNOME is a logicol (though not necessary) consequence. No surprises here.. there has just been hope.
Hmmm, makes me wonder how the guys at SuSe feel right now.
It’s clear now that the US-based Ximian is the company and work power Novel *really* wanted – the silly germans that come with the SuSE codebase seem “just to be there”.
If I’d work at SuSE I might be questioning if Novell was the best thing that could have happened to me now
I saw this on gnome-look.org and was wondering if it isn’t actually some beta or alpha
http://www.gnome-look.org/content/preview.php?preview=1&id=14291&fi…
> Gaim (not a Gnome app, but still Gtk+) is integrating with Evolution as well
Really? I just today read that Gaim maintainers rejected bounty round one patches for tighter Gnome integration.
> I just today read that Gaim maintainers rejected bounty round one patches
I didn’t read it this way. I just read that the gaim devs don’t bother looking at patches in general, not about the specific patches.
Strange how people sees Ximian as bigger than Suse. My best guess are if you take the number of customers running ximian desktop against user running KDE as desktop on Suse you willget atleast a 10 to 1 ratio favoring KDE(probably much bigger). And everyone knows Novell had to pay a lot more for Suse.
Suse have lost out to alot of linux people since not having beta, more testing etc. Hope this would change or it`ll find it`s way to my filesharing places, cuase I wanna test before bying, wich I always do with linix stuff I like
hope they wait for 2.8 of gnome, http://davyd.angrygoats.net/gnome-2-8/
cause that look good
You trolls are acting like childs, this is about solution for enterprises not about a desktop, The focuse is to get the work done no matter what desktop, desktop is a second instance.
Three of the biggest reasons that Novell acquired Ximian were a) Mono and b) a strong Corporate desktop and c) strong leadership from the open source community in Miguel and Nat. Nat has been in charge of the corporate desktop strategy and Miguel is obviously leading the Mono project. Since the acquisition they’ve openly (as in the code is available) been working on integrating gaim with Novell Messenger, and Evolution with Groupwise Server. They’ve standardized on Gtk#/Mono internally as a platform for new projects. They’ve been working on integrating GNOME with Novell iFolder/Simias. And the list goes on. My point is that I don’t understand why people are upset or surprised. If you love KDE you’ll still be able to run KDE on SUSE. In fact chances are, at least for the present, KDE will be the primary desktop on the SUSE brand Linux product. What Novell has created here is their Novell branded corporate desktop that is integrated with GNOME and the Novell product line, from gaim up to Open Office.
I believe the only reason “american” companies are choosing GNOME over KDE is because they see KDE as an outsider. And it hurts to know that a non-american product is much advanced over a home-grown system!
In fact that’s exactly the reason why Asia-Pacific linux distributions are choosing KDE as their desktop — even for enterprise solutions (see Asianux). So there is nothing missing from KDE — all the integration, corporate, groupware jargon, all exists on KDE as well. The only thing missing is the Made in USA brand.
In fact, I belive this is the reason why OSnews pushes GNOME so dearly over KDE although KDE is much more complete in features and can be customized better for all needs, home, corporate or kiosk!!
Ta.
>In fact, I belive this is the reason why
> OSnews pushes GNOME so dearly over KDE
In case you didn’t notice, I am Greek. And last time I checked, Greece was still part of Europe. So no, your hypothesis is just too lame.
nice screens in that link you gave gamehack. sorta mac os x’ish with the min, max, and close buttons. oh well, colored circles aren’t patented… yet i think =P
kwr2k: your conspiracy theory is amusing, but no, that has nothing to do with why companies are choosing GNOME. The primary reasons are GNOME’s focus on usability, accessibility, and applications that are becoming standards simply on their own merit are either already GNOME applications or have strong ties to GNOME. GNOME is open source meets the Real World and people are really excited about it.
This line of action makes sense.
They would simply be stupid not to use evolution as much as possible as one example and there is no doubt evolution is Gnome centric, especially with the upcoming 2.0 changes. All the Ximian centric, gnome stuff is enterprise stuff so it’s not hard to assume this preference of gnome may be pushed only on their enterprise stuff.
I use gnome more but I hope they still continue to support KDE on some level (although things aren’t upfront it sounds like this is kind of the plan). It’s a nice product that countless Suse fans are sold on.
Unfortunatley I don’t think 2.8 will make it in and that’s a huge shame since I think 2.8 fills in some very vital features like good meta support, better device support, etc.
It will be interesting to see if there will be the inclusion of beagle and other c# apps since mono is shipping with it. I have now idea where beagle is however.
P.S. If they really are copying Mac OS X to that degree then that’s pretty stupid. I wonder if those pictures are doctored?
Those pictures are using some kind of virtual machine, so it’s possible that the host is mac, or a mac gui clone. the client os pictures are not mac clones.
Btw, this desktop product _probably_ isn’t the successor of suse linux or even SLE desktop 1, so everyone using suse linux will _probably_ be able to use the same as always kde-integrated distro.
None is going to overtake the other. Both have enough base. Each offers choice, it’s in the benefit of the community to have choice.
Hey Sun, you missed SuSE, but wait! Can you say “Mandrake”? Come, get it… it’s still supporting KDE… 😮
Sun has always been a big Gnome supporter, so I doubt it.
Strange…..I saw tha theme another day in another distro.
http://desktop.vidalinux.com/index.php?set_albumName=album01&option…
http://desktop.vidalinux.com/index.php?set_albumName=album01&id=scr…
“By zycow
hope they wait for 2.8 of gnome, http://davyd.angrygoats.net/gnome-2-8/
cause that look good”
that seem to be kde
in a news recently, it seems to have read that novell had made a survey and its customers wanted kde…
i use suse since many years
if I would start a company i use linux and that novell dont use more by default kde… I would pass to other distributions
Novell believes the open source community will use mono?
i’m not sure…
mized over ms for the future… does not seem to be a good idea
I think the reason why many large companies choose gnome over kde, is that it uses LGPL instead of GPL for it’s toolkit (ie: gtk or qt). As well as gnome is programmed in c which more people know.
“In a news recently, it seems to have read that novell had made a survey and its customers wanted kde…”
Link???
….
Well as a Gnome, Netware, and Mono fan, Im happy to see the direction that Novell is taking.
, Hey KDE users, why not stop bitching and use the other 90%+ of distros that are KDE-centric.
While Gnome may have been made in the Americas (originally at least) it wasn’t initially made in the USA, Miguel was in Mexico City right?
Also, I seem to recall this big thing called Guadec that happens every so often.
If anything, I’d say the corporate embrace of Gnome, has less to do with Gnome itself, than it does with the people involved with it, and the companies not involved with it (trolltech).
I think people refer to GNOME as a largely American oriented project, because its first sponsor was the Free Software people. The Free Software people have their offices and origins in Massachusets, USA.
There is also the aKademy conference, which will happen later this August that is KDE oriented.
I don’t know if anyone remembers this, but on KDOT (the kde news source), intentionally or not there was a link on registering KDE users where a country of origin was required and the United States was missing, probably an error, but a large one nevertheless.
I am a KDE user for life, as long as they continue with their quality.
“I believe the only reason “american” companies are choosing GNOME over KDE is because they see KDE as an outsider. And it hurts to know that a non-american product is much advanced over a home-grown system!”
I don;lt think it is that at all myself, being an American. I use SuSE at home because of KDE. For a corporate desktop I can easily see gnome..why?? Because it has fewer features..easy to lock down. It is much harder to customize gnome then kde, so it makes sense for a corporate desktop.
People should stop the close minded rhetoric with regard to labeling open source software as being bound by location. It is completely unfounded and seems exceedingly prejudice. I have never seen any open source project as being an “outsider” and I find it offensive that someone would say that companies within a specific country have this kind of attitude merely because of their local. I personally use gnome because I like the way it works and gtk+ is not developed by a company. This has nothing to do with where I live or who develops the software, only my own preference.
my take: gnome has a few advantages:
1. the license. no matter how much anyone bitches and moans, but trolltechs qt stills “feels” a little, let’s say, “less safe” than the gnome/gtk’s license. also, lgpl seems more inviting to corporations than gpl, because you can link proprietary applications against it.
2. gnome has a vision. really, all this usability/accessiblity/simplification stuff DOES pay off. kde may be more advanced at the moment (i don’t even doubt that personally), but gnome is making big steps with every version. it may be an example that everyone has seen too often, but just look at the kde control center. i wouldn’t wanna sell the to any of my costumers… keep it simple and stupid means faster and easier training and less manhours of support.
3. the apps, evolution in particular.
i really don’t think that the geographic origin of a project is important. i am from austria, i am bashing bush-america each and every day, but i just don’t think that american corporations would chose gnome over kde just because over something stupid like this.
regards,
christian
@christian paratschek and others
GPL! LGPL! Hurray!
?
I really laugh at this claim that GTK/Gnome/Others is good because is GPL, and that this license attracts enterprises, yes it sure attracts companies and enterprises, but my laugh is directed to people who see this as a phenomenal thing, not to enterprises.
I really can’t believe that someone genuinely thing that enterprises really care about Open Source(TM) and open this and that and freedom and people involved on it… to me it’s pretty obvious that those companies simply choose GPL because normally it’s free or cheap and they even get the source, couldn’t be more delightful than this.
But for some reason, people think this is great, that these ‘big guys’ like them, and that makes them proud… I’m pretty sure they don’t give a damn about openness and if they got a better deal than this or Open Source folks asked them big bucks to use this Open software they would turn away from Open Source in the minute.
So the only a great thing in GPL for companies is that it is a great cheap deal, no more no less, they could get the Windows source code from Microsoft but they would pay the real big bucks, so Open source is just a cheap alternative, they really don’t care about GPL, Open Source or it’s ideals.
Yet it’s remarkable how people can believe in such things…
Go on, report abuse.
if you want a mac-theme for gnome:
http://www.users.monornet.hu/linux/index2.html
If forgot to tell this:
Don’t think I’m a Open Source fanatic and think that all should communitary and such, I really don’t care if it is Open or not, but in my idea Linux/Gnome/KDE/Other folks would be better off creating their own company than relying on others, but that’s just my idea.
me, personally, couldn’t care less about big companies. i also don’t see it as a good thing that someone choses gnome over kde because of the license.
the only positive thing that linux gets from big deployments and big corps backing it is (hopefully) more drivers and recognition. i’d rather have linux stay at 10% marketshare forever (if we ever get there…), get all the drivers and support like macos than become a big thing that everybody uses.
while i do prefer gnome myself, my posting was just my 2 cents why i think that gnome gets more corporate love than kde, not something like “my desktop is better than yours”
regards,
christian
” 1. the license. no matter how much anyone bitches and moans, but trolltechs qt stills “feels” a little, let’s say, “less safe” than the gnome/gtk’s license. also, lgpl seems more inviting to corporations than gpl, because you can link proprietary applications against it. ”
Well, not to Skype.com and to the hundreds of other QT users who are producing great multi-platforms apps with the most advanced toollkit and libraries in existence.
How many commercial apps have been developed with GTK+? Links?
Obviously KDE has better tech under the hood, but what people that are clueless to how business works don’t understand is that Novell doesn’t want to say to their corporate customers, “here guys, we’ve got this great desktop for you, but you’ll have to pay this small norweigian company $1500/developer/OS if you don’t want to give your code out to the world”.
Some other reasons:
Mono is more of a Gnome project and Novell is very interested in crossplatform development (even if that means it’s not 100% binary compatible).
de Icaza and Nat Friedman are highprofile characters and Ximian was bought because of the desktop, not because of the plumbing like Suse.
Gnome is geared toward the corporate desktop and KDE isn’t as much.
So you germans can whine all you want, but it has nothing to do with it being an “American” invention. Last I heard the Suse developers weren’t being kicked to the curb.
When Novell bought SUSE I really hoped that they will base their future desktop products on KDE because I thought that a large-scale enterprise could definitely forward the development of KDE. It turns out that Novell seems to favor GNOME for various reason and that Novell will likely base their corporate desktop on GNOME.
On the one hand it could be bad for KDE to lose some corporate backup, especially if this decision means that SUSE will do less KDE development in the future. On the other hand, looking on what SUN and Red Hat have done to GNOME it is maybe not that bad. I first used Linux about 1998 (if I remember correctly) and I really liked both, KDE1 and GNOME1 back then. But for me GNOME2 was a big disappointment and I totally lost interest in GNOME now. KDE, on the other hand, is getting better and better at each release. KDE3.2 is much faster then KDE3.1 which was faster then KDE3.0 and so on. KDE’s applications are really stable and powerful and often (at least in my opinion) they are better then their GNOME counterparts. GNOME had the corporate backing of SUN and RedHat, but still they did not manage to outdistance KDE. And I think all the corporate backup made GNOME just less useable and less attractive for me.
KDE always have been a community project and I like KDE to stay a community project without to much influence from companies. I actually like the dual-license of Qt because I think it is a very fair licence model. Why should some multi-billion companies take the work from others for free, make a product, earn a lot of money and give nothing back? For me, that is just not fair at all. And Qt’s license also encourages people to actually write GPL softwarte and that is a good thing and in my personal opinion, the ultimate goal of Linux and other FOSS projects should still be to create free software and not to encourage companies to write closed-source software with free toolkits and give nothing back to the FOSS community.
I also can’t see why so many GNOME users are so happy if corporate desktops are based on GNONE. Most of the GNOME users probably do not own a company are a major number of shares of a company that deploys a desktop based on GNONE. So basically they are happy about the fact that some multi-billion dollar company takes a free product to save some money, write some closed source apps which they then sell to their customers to make money and, most of the time, give nothing back to the coommunity.
All these things make me think that I was actually wrong hoping that Novell would use KDE as their corporate desktop. The KDE project managed to create one of the best desktops without much corporate backing and they will continue to develop a great desktop that fullfills my needs. All the corporate backup did not make GNOME more attractive or usable to me (in fact it made GNONE less attractive and useable to me) and this will not change even if ten other multi-billion dollar companies use GNOME as their desktop. And I think it is quite funny to see how some hobby hackers outdistance a project that has as much corporate backup as GNOME;-)
Americans can also live in Germany. I do.
sssshhhhh….
don’t want anyone to know I’m an american too…..;)
> why?? Because it has fewer features..easy to lock down.
Despite of the fewer features in Gnome, Gnome is expensive to lock down and you are still limited to the features that got the Gnome developer’s blessing.
KDE does not only have a tool (“kiosk”)
http://extragear.kde.org/apps/kiosktool.php
but also a whole framework which makes it EASILY possible to lock down your whole desktop from a bunch of general desktop properties down to every particular menu entry and widget in every single application. The best thing is that you don’t really need to use a GUI tool (the kiosktool) but you can do that easily (in true old UNIX style) by editing readable rc-files using your favourite texteditor by hand!
http://enterprise.kde.org/articles/korporatedesktop3.php
http://www.linux-mag.com/2002-11/kde_01.html
http://webcvs.kde.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/kdelibs/kdecore/README.kio…..
In addition there are already lots of other third-party Kiosk tools not related to the KDE project which offer support for controlling KDE’s Kiosk framework as well as the Windows policies in a network simultaneously, e.g.:
http://openkiosk.sourceforge.net/
Together with the FreeNX Client and Server architecture which will be released during aKademy
http://dot.kde.org/1088363665/
KDE proves to be the ideal choice for Terminal and Application Server deployment. It’s definately something you don’t want to miss when it comes to Linux on the enterprise desktop.
In addition to the fact that KDE is the most commonly used Linux desktop used in distributions in Europe (Novell SUSE Linux, Mandrake), Asia (Asianux, Turbolinux, Redflag, Thizlinux) as well as south america (Connectiva, Kurumin) and almost exclusively used on LiveCDs this is probably why current Novell Linux Desktop Betas give a very equal choice between both desktops (without suggesting a default).
It’s always amazing to see how people manage to produce flame wars, doom scenarios (KDE’s gonna die!), nationalist prejudice, assupmtions that companies choose software by patriotism, and so on, just because of a simple news item informing that a certain company will ship a certain product. You guys are really really talented and have a lot of phantasy (much more than the /. guys).
But, when we’re at it, i proclaim that in the next few weeks Linux deployment will rapidly grow in big US businesses, reason is here: http://fun.drno.de/pics/english/raid6.png
And the time is going to come, when the zealots will still be discussing whether GNOME or KDE sucks, and they will do this with passion and fully concentrated, thus not noticing the re-awakening of the big BeOS conspiracy, backed by the evil OSNews world leadership, and just when they’re about to settle that KDE sucks a little bit more, the BeOS conspiracy will roll along and crush their bones, break their necks and wipe out all OS’s besides itself, leaving a big desert of desaster (and multi-threaded single-user kernel) behind.
Doesn’t sound too realistic to you? Well, neither does all this “This is KDE’s end!” or “It’s because GNOME is US homegrown!” weirdo stuff to me.
“In a news recently, it seems to have read that novell had made a survey and its customers wanted kde…”
This goes well with the experience at HP:
http://www.ncasia.com/ViewArt.cfm?Artid=24516&Catid=5&subcat=79
writes:
“While HP does deploy Linux-based desktop software for their chip
designers and software developers, these are in small pockets spread
across the organisation. “We use the standard distros based on Red
Hat 8 or 9-it comes packaged with both Gnome/KDE, and most people use
KDE on dual boot desktops,” says Sewell.”
What always keeps amazing me is the huge percentage of Redhat users who seem to choose KDE over Gnome. With SUSE and other distributions which default to KDE it’s always a rare incidence if you see a Gnome screenshot instead of the KDE-default.
If I were a distributor and had such a huge percentage of users switching away from the default as Redhat does (compared to other distributions) I’d start to question the quality of my defaults …
Well, this was indeed fun reading. I, for one, am happy Novell finally made an official statement and I fully agree with their choices. I hope the next consumer versions will be based on this.
novell guys are doing much work for integration 3 sub platform gnome mono and evolution.
i think that this move is a good choice because from a perspective of developer the platform can have a chanche
to compete with the next windows longhorn.
Article number 1,371 on such issues that have never materialised… Just like the boy who cried wolf, you would have thought people would have realised by now.
I see certain elements within Novell are squirming again. I’m wondering if my comments stoked some marketing activity… Unfortunately, I very much doubt that it is happening like this and I think many people are going to be a bit embarrassed. Where are the Suse people in this article, and has Ximian Desktop actually shipped on a distro anywhere like people said it would? Apparently, it was supposed to start shipping on Suse 9.0 and 9.1, so I must have missed it.
Until I see a Suse Desktop actually ship like this, it means sweet FA. I never saw any of this from Suse (and I even tried to ask) when I was at Linuxworld, and that is where the desktop division is these days, despite what Miguel may tell us, because that is where the distro is.
Well, Nat told me this would happen. That Novell would froce Gnome on SuSE. I’m not complaining – I just didn’t think I’d see the day when (arguably) KDE’s biggest supporter would go Gnome. Just an observation.
Forcing something on the Enterprise Linux Division of Novell? Good luck to him, because Suse haven’t adopted any of this.
They even say that KDE is still an option, it’s just not going to be “integrated”.
Take a look at what we have in Suse 9.1. What is integrated and what isn’t in there?
Consider what is said in the article:
It’s due to ship this fall, said Christine McLellan, a Novell senior product manager.
On what?
Novell’s desktop software employs the GNOME user interface and software, but it will also include that of rival KDE, McLellan said. However, Novell’s integration work is happening only with the GNOME applications, she said.
I think you want to be marketing this internally at Novell and Suse first love, not shouting outside. Since this was also supposed to have started with Suse 9.0 way back in November with a series of articles just like this one, it never materialised.
For example, a calendar item entered in Evolution will appear in the GNOME calendar, and an instant-messenger nickname entered in Evolution will appear in the GAIM instant-messenger client. GNOME components Evolution and GAIM will dovetail with GroupWise server software, while the KDE equivalents–KMail and Kopete–will not.
Yet more internal marketing, and it sounds like they’re talking to someone else, not potential customers. As a potential user, and buyer, I couldn’t care a less about what does and doesn’t do what over something else until I see a whole distro and product ship. It smells bad as well, because it smells of politics.
As someone who works in a sizeable enterprise, this is what I want to see:
1. DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVLELOPERS, DEVELOPERS. Good development technology across the board. This isn’t going to mean writing everything in .Net, although integration of something like Mono would be interesting – but it is part of a wider solution, not the solution itself. Natively compiled C++ is still going to be a must. Why? It has the object-oriented features required, and there are still many C++ developers and applications out there.
Put simply, within that context, the toolkit I want to see is Qt. Having used .Net extensively for the past few months, Qt still does a lot of necessary things very well – layout management among them. This is something you sometimes need to spend days on with .Net and Visual Studio. Anything else I’m not just interested in because it isn’t good enough, unless the situation seriously improves.
2. Desktop, particularly development, infrastructure. There is only one that qualifies there. If you don’t know then you don’t work in an environment where Novell/Suse are going to sell their wares.
3. Most importantly, I want the Linux company we have a relationship with to partner with others who respect free software and have a working business model on it. In other words, I want to pay for and invest in development and pay for licenses for development. The LGPL stuff that people come out with is utterly meaningless when you take your products out there into the real world.
4. Personally, I’d drop stuff like JBoss (not a trustworthy and stable company anyway) which is in Suse 9 Server (no ASP.Net there, although Mono does ship) and do something different. Perhaps adopt Mono using ASP.Net and create a unique selling point, or look at a more reliable long-term Java partner.
5. Put simply, no matter how good the desktop looks, or how integrated it is, if Novell/Suse do not partner with companies who base themselves on GPL’d software, especially for development, and provide commercially strong options (dual licensing), I’m not interested.
6. Talk to people. Make people simply understand the licensing on the products, and get people developing freely and commercially, with commercial backing, quickly and easily. Again, partnerships.
Unfortunately Nat and Miguel seem to have brought the ludicrous business attitude into Novell that you can bring free software in-house and simply hack on it. I sincerely hope Suse can bring some reality to that, otherwise people like me will just not be interested and any moves on the desktop will simply go down the toilet. Everything I’ve seen and heard of here is top show – the stuff I’ve seen from Suse currenty isn’t.
Together with the FreeNX Client and Server architecture which will be released during aKademy
http://dot.kde.org/1088363665/
KDE proves to be the ideal choice for Terminal and Application Server deployment. It’s definately something you don’t want to miss when it comes to Linux on the enterprise desktop.
Another excellent type of company partnership from Suse/Novell I’d like to see. You just can’t bring all of this in-house, and support it as well as some people in Novell seem to be imagining. It doesn’t make sense for Novell/Suse. Can you imagine running GTK applications, under Mono, within a thin-client infrastructure on a network given that people complain about GTK on standard stand-alone desktops?!
Whatever anyone says about KDE or Gnome, that’s the way it is and that’s what people like me want to see.
I’m from Norway. QT is developed by a Norwegian firm.
Why should I care where qt was made?
Looking forward to Gnome 2.8
Can’t we all just get along?!
One of the great things about free software is choice. I personally use both KDE and Gnome. Both have some cool & unique features. As one who HAS seen an alpha of this flavor, the version I saw allows you to pick whether KDE or GNOME is going to be the primary desktop, and then lets you install both if you want to.
GNOME under SuSE has always been a bad joke- a mere afterthought and something which has undoubtedly contributed to bad impressions of GNOME. Finally Novell is going to realize a ximian-ized version of SuSE-trully a smart move. What I really hope for however is that with three major distros-Ximian/GNOME based for the corporate desktop and KDE based for the home user and SLE editions- that the integration work which SuSE has always done with KDE will finally be available for GNOME and the new integration work for GNOME will also be avaialble for KDE. Why must it always be either or- SuSE has been one of the worst distributions for GNOME it’s about time this changes…
In all likelihood the NLD will not only be ximian-ized but also have all of the new stuff comming from Robert Loves work on HAL in addition to the mono/GTK# stuff(ifolders, etc.). I for one would love see a fully integrated GNOME offering from SuSE with ximian-ized OpenOffice and a totally integrated evolution and gaim…
However we must remember Ximian’s work has yet to catch up with GNOME 2.6 and they will almost certainly not be ready to use 2.8 when the fall release comes-but hopefully they can use a lot of patches from 2.8 to get the main desktop benefits of 2.8….
A lot of the popularity of KDE in Germany can be traced back to half-aborted GNOME setups from SuSE-SuSE did such an excellent job with KDE that KDE and SuSE became virtually synonomous. A shame for desktop diversity and choice. And if I am not mistaken TurboLinux may have played a similiar role in Asia-after all the code base of Turbolinux is much the same as SuSE….
Gnome is not just DE, it’s very good platform to develop softwares… C and all it’s library and big softwares that can be integrated into Gnome… Gimp, Firefox, Evolation, OpenOffice, Mono… elc
also Gnome works wiht freedesktop.org… that’s all KDE miss
RE: zycow (IP: —.05-14-6f736c3.cust.bredband.no) – Posted on 2004-08-07 00:16:40
hope they wait for 2.8 of gnome,