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No. A new kind of widget (different than superkaramba by quite a bit) will be introduced which instead of living on your desktop or in a second layer (like Dashboard), can live anywhere. Instead of panel applets, these widgets will go in your panel. Instead of karamba, the widgets. The widgets will apparently descend from both the [super]karamba and the KPanelApplet codebases. Check out the following links:

http://aseigo.bddf.ca/cms/1267
http://kde-artists.org/main/component/option,com_smf/Itemid,48/expv...
http://plasma.bddf.ca/dms/1/21_209_kicker4transparentfloatingexpa.g...
http://plasma.bddf.ca/cms/1069

(Full Disclosure: I am not a Plasma developer. I don't even really like KDE. I just like posting helpful links.)

You're right on the mark re KDE. How anyone can work in Gnome after having been exposed to KDE is beyond me.

Funny thing is, I dislike KDE for precisely the same reasons as he dislikes GNOME. IMO, for the most part, GNOME has it right. To me, KDE feels like one of those swiss army knives that are cool but you end up poking yourself with no matter how you hold it. It just doesn't work the way I work or feel comfortable. If I didn't have GNOME, I'd use XFCE (or even FVWM).

To me, this is the key reason why KDE and GNOME would still exist as distinct projects, even if KDE switched to Gtk+ or GNOME switched to an LGPLed Qt (assuming TrollTech changed its business model). People's tastes are different and remain so.

Yep.

In fact it was more longer that i think it would be. Salade de troll et eau chaude à tous les étages...

If you bothered to read the article, he's saying nice things about KDE. Furthermore, even in his first article he kept his arguments against KDE logical, sound, and well-reasoned. He never "defamed" KDE in either of the articles. Yay for trolls!

"kept his arguments against KDE logical, sound, and well-reasoned."

Sound and well reasoned: like that KDE should drop QT... No, he spread a whole lot of bullshit about gpl and qt, and was quite throughly debunked, iirc. And if he now says nice things about KDE, well so much for his credibility, you know you can't have things both ways.. Either it's nice or it's crap, you can't change your mind every other two weeks.

Yay for idiots with the attention span of a goldfish.

Ah, yes. Thoroughly debunked -- as in, I gave my opinion, others gave their opinions and that was that. Almost everyone who tried to debunk me missed my points and debunked old complaints that were not the ones I presented (one of the few that seemed on a better track, Eric Laffoon of KDE e.V., I provided an op-ed space for).

Note that I never said I didn't like KDE, I said I didn't like the situation with Qt. This article deals with something else from either my current feelings about KDE3 or Qt, it deals with Plasma, which has to do with KDE 4.

> I never said I didn't like KDE, I said I didn't like
> the situation with Qt.

I seriously doubt that Trolltech gives a damn what you think about the situation with Qt or not. It's them who spent hours on the code, it's them who pay their employees, it's them who decide what they do with the code. No offense but you are the last person in the line of people and ventures who have the right to say anything about what Trolltech has or has not to do with Qt.

Well, that would be true if I was telling Trolltech what to do. If you had read my articles, you'd see that's not the case. My job is to write for system administrators and explain the ups and downs of adopting technologies. In July, I looked at problems with Qt that I believed existed (let's not debate Qt licensing again on this very different post, ok?); if I believe Qt has problems that will impact the future of KDE, that is very much of interest to my readers. Now, this week, I took a look at a different angle -- that of innovation, and how KDE's new ideas could very much help KDE in the future.

Once you understand the role of the media in reporting on any subject (to inform outsiders, not insiders like the Trolltech developers themselves), then my commentaries "purpose" will become clear.

> If I believe Qt has problems that will impact the
> future of KDE, that is very much of interest to my
> readers.

Yeah but there are no problems with Qt, so why did you write your last few articles? If you are telling me to read your articles more carefully then allow me to throw the gloves back to you. I could easily say that if you had spent time reading KDE's pages more carefully then you would have stepped over the Trolltech vs. KDE agreement that in case something happens that Qt is being licensed under BSD, so in any ways it will continue to exist. KDE is is one of the major showpieces for Trolltech and Qt, so why killing this best free marketing argument?

OK, I'll humor you. Lots of people reminded me of the KDE Free Qt Foundation, but that has nothing to do with my point. My point was about commercial development, the need KDE has to keep the ability for people to develop commercial software on KDE, and hence the necessary ties to Trolltech. The foundation guarantees the future of the Free Software version of Qt, should it ever be discontinued by Trolltech, but does not guarantee the commercial version will always be reasonably priced, etc., etc. If the GPL'ed version sticks around, but the commercial licenses went up to $20k per developer plus royalties, the Foundation would still fail to kick in.

Hence, KDE is beholden to work with Trolltech, rather than fork the GPL version, etc., etc. Obviously given the length of my argument in the articles, I've omitted a lot of points by summing it up here, but the gist is that the Foundation is great but irrelevant to my point. I could have said that in my column, but I really didn't think so many people would fail to see how the Foundation does not apply to what I said.

Remember: I was a serious KDE user for years, I still follow it closely and I was even involved with some KDE projects for awhile -- until time constrants did not permit that any longer -- so I'm not ignorant on such things.

But, returning to the present article, that doesn't mean I don't think KDE is really great on many fronts. My job is not to be one sided, but to report from all useful angles, hence I am taking the opportunity to give KDE some positive words as well.

That's a naive view. KDE did a great deal to help show what QT could do and how robust it was back in the early days; and it's continued to show what a great toolkit QT is.
Besides, I doubt he cares what Trolltech thinks either, he was trying to get to KDE people...

Ah, yes. Thoroughly debunked -- as in, I gave my opinion, others gave their opinions and that was that.

Not quite, your rantings and assertions where so way off that anyone who knows even a little about KDE and the stuff around it quickly gave up on them. In short you lost any credibility back then. Dropping QT and creating a replacement, are you serious? That would probably be the *only* way Gnome could catch up. Of course you are free to have your opinion, but remember other people are free to have an opinion as well, and spread it. If you behave like a tool and a troll, don't act surprised when someone calls you that.

Note that I never said I didn't like KDE, I said I didn't like the situation with Qt.

That's like me stating that I don't mind you, I just don't like your wriggling.

This article deals with something else from either my current feelings about KDE3 or Qt, it deals with Plasma, which has to do with KDE 4....

Sure, and guess what? It'll still be based on the horrible QT and it's GPL license. Oh the horror.

meh, enough time wasted.

So instead of admitting he was wrong by reassessing his views and posting an admonishment he should instead try and lay low while holding to his old view?
Besides, I don't believe he once mentioned in the current article that he agreed with KDE staying on QT.

Yay for anonymae who insult respected people!

If you'll notice, the article was posted by a mister 'tbutler.' Unless there's another guy with the last name of Butler and a first name that starts with a t, I think that would be him.

> KDE uses too much memory and cpu to perform basic
> functions. Gnome is cleaner, faster and has better
> functionality.

Can you back any of these two sentences up?

> If they could clean it up, but like every release it
> becomes more bloated up than the last.

How can you say this? Care to back up even this statement?

> Just fix the bugs, quit making new ones, who cares
> about transulant menus, just make it stable!

The stability is more or less a compiler issue rather than a code issue. GCC is known to generate badly C++ code in the past. GCC is the one who needs to perform better for C++ related things, just as better code generation, better architecture support, stability, speed, scalability. You can't blame KDE if the snapshot GCC version everyone installs these days generates wrong machine code and tends to crash the application.

Stability has nothing to do with GCC, but rather with KDE's code. If GCC was generating bad C++ code, we'd be hearing a ton of bitching, and the GCC devs would be scrambling to fix such a gross error.

Stability has nothing to do with GCC, but rather with KDE's code
Nope. Of course there are some bugs in KDE's code but most stability issues are caused by the distributions and/or gcc. I've heard SuSE's generally quite stable, personally I found debian's KDE stable most of the time (stable means less than one Konqueror crash per week)

If GCC was generating bad C++ code, we'd be hearing a ton of bitching, and the GCC devs would be scrambling to fix such a gross error.

They're scrambling so hard that the C++ ABI changes every second minor version and it's been that way for years... oO

Yea that's just not true. It's based in truth: Gcc has been known to keep changing the c++ interfaces so that c++ binaries become incompatible between certain versions of gcc. But it does not generate bad c++.
If you don't optimize it will generate very slow c++. Try it, you'll notice it taking as long as it logically should to form all those classes and launch all those extra functions. Then try it with a -O2 and you'll notice it get 5-20 times faster...

GNUstep. XFCE.

GNOME was a reaction to KDE.

I don't understand how everyone thinks good UI design involves dumbing something down. What exactly are these "neutered" features you speak of?

-bytecoder

"I don't understand how everyone thinks good UI design involves dumbing something down."

Neither do I, but I am fond of a reasonably clean interface with sane defaults. I'm very fond of KDE, and it only needs a wee bit of 'shine' on most apps...

"What exactly are these "neutered" features you speak of?"
-Look at the robust (or bewildering if you prefer) set of apps and options that GNOME 1.4 had vs. 2.0. The GNOME 2 HIG was heavy handed in many peoples opinions... and these people were 'actual users' as opposed to 'theoretical users'.
-Google for "enable in the gconf registry"

It did stink until gconf-editor came out and got a search, which was recent. But now I don't mind doing a bit of gconf editing..

Ok. One by one.
1.) Yep, much of that was reactionary. And then they realized that they needed thousands upon thousands of hours to work for nothing (except for the ones RedHat paid of course)... Definitely reactionary.
But then again. Windows was a reaction to Mac. Mac was a reaction to Xerox research.
Everything is to some extent a reaction.
Reactionary involves going to the opposite extreme usually. I wouldn't really call what Gnome did reactionary, simply because they are not and have never been an extreme with respect to KDE. You'll say they are on feature policies, but read on and you'll see why you're wrong.
2.) No. It was cloaked in anti-use of closed libraries. KDE wasn't trying to commercialize. It just needed a commercial library. No one was, TMK, selling KDE. Besides, THE commercialization of Linux was on the Gnome side: RedHat.
3.) Well, that's definitely reactionary; along with everyone else who was ever inspired to succeed by something that bothered them. Why all liberals are reactionaries too! (If you're American, you'll see the ironic humor there).
4.) Yes, and bug fixes are reactionary.
5.) This is a problem. Applications for Gnome do not have to be cut down on features or options. They're required to by default be simple to use without changing options; and they're required to only present the user with the most important options. But, most of them have many more options buried their gconf entries!
6.) Gconf was hardly reactionary. Who here isn't sick of dot entries in their home? Well, at least a little bothered by the hundreds you probably have. KDE has centralized preferences, hey why not Gnome too. So they used a centralized library that uses centrally located, decentralized, xml files (one for each app: decentralized) to store settings. XML is popular for a reason: It's with Unix principles and it enables heirarchial data storage which applications can view with centralized libraries and users can edit with emacs, or vi, or joe, or gedit, or ed! Mono? Oh please. Gnome has been centered on C... What older language could they pick? What more Unix-y language could they center on! Now, I'd rather see them center on python than Mono, but seeing as how they haven't declared anything yet we don't know.

KDE is great. Gnome is great. I like both! I think both have great things. I'd say that Gnome is a bit easier to use these days but KDE offers better configurability for power users.

And this talk of KDE being a memory hog is much exaggerated. I use KDE comfortably on my laptop, very comfortably (rarely swaps):
Celeron 700
192MB PC-100 -- 8MB Shared to Video
10GB 4200RPM disk (sooo slow)
I usually use emacs (5-30 buffers), konsole (several shells), gcc (c and c++), firefox, gaim, etc.

Yea, it uses more than Gnome, but hey it generally runs faster than Gnome too. KDE 3.4.1 I think.

Sorry- my six point post was a smidgen high in drama... The only thing I'd like to say in reply to your rebuttal, is that I agree 100% with: "KDE is great. Gnome is great. I like both! I think both have great things. I'd say that Gnome is a bit easier to use these days but KDE offers better configurability for power users." Now let's not start dredging up 8 years of newsgroup posts

> This is a problem. Applications for Gnome do not have
> to be cut down on features or options. They're required
> to by default be simple to use without changing
> options; and they're required to only present the user
> with the most important options. But, most of them have
> many more options buried their gconf entries!

But this is hardly reflecting the reality. What are important options for one (to alter through the preferences dialog) are unnecessary options for the other. Same applies for settings where you need to use gconf-editor for (there are important settings for the one, that you need to modify in this ugly way and there are options none of interest for others).

> Gconf was hardly reactionary. Who here isn't sick of
> dot entries in their home? Well, at least a little
> bothered by the hundreds you probably have. KDE has
> centralized preferences, hey why not Gnome too. So
> they used a centralized library that uses centrally
> located

... This only shows how much you don't understand and don't know about GNOME ...

GNOME never had issues with .dot entries in the home directory. And GNOME never lacked a centralized preferences system. Whoever told you this is was a moron. GNOME had gnome-config for many years it was part of the desktop solution and was (and still is) part of the libgnome library. People had to use gnome-config and later on GConf. gnome-config stored the settings in ~/.gnome directory way back (could also have been ~/.gnome2) so the settings were quite organized in a subdir.

Isn't that thread about GCC 4?

"Hey, if you don't like fd.org standars its ok, dont use them, but don't bash it, because you and your project will look like idiots"

Criticism is incredibly important for improvement, and you and your family look like idiots because of your post.

"Don't give that "GPL rules, Qt rules" arguments, from the point of view of someone who is in the bussines and had see the progress of GTK and how many enterprices are adopting it and the point where project MONO is getting, (No patents are no a risk anymore). "

Until the lawyer says yeah. Then Mono is no.*

*And les we all forget Mono !== C#

> Other plus for GNOME developers is that they take
> standar serious, they take freedesktop.org serious
> enougth and don't try to bash it like some KDE
> developers has

You are very funny.

You're bashing KDE for not implementing as many ideas written down on fd.o but you really don't know what you're talking about. There's no such thing as a fd.o standard. Just because something is listed on fd.o does not make it a standard (*).

The Gnomes just write something up that they implemented anyway or what they are working on, and put it there. Now that is really a great achievement! Well, better than not writing it up because it also serves as documentation but that does not make it a standard. Sometimes the KDE devs do the same, often they do it even together.

The latter case has the biggest chance of the document becoming a *de facto* standard because it needs (IMHO) at least both GNOME and KDE to implement a spec for it to be rightfully called one.

Or the devs just document what already *is* a de facto standard, i.e. what is already implemented by both major desktops.



(*): From the freedesktop.org web page:

- "Unlike a standards organization, freedesktop.org is a 'collaboration zone' where ideas and code are tossed around, and de facto specifications are encouraged."

- About the software hosted there: "Some software has made its way here to live. None of this is "endorsed" by anyone or implied to be standard software, remember that freedesktop.org is a collaboration forum, so anyone is encouraged to host stuff here if it's on-topic."

I wouldn't call it vapour- (Yes, I'm feeding a Troll)

Remember there will be a 3.5 release of KDE. Beta 1 is slated for September 13th, 2005- so a 3.5 before Christmas. And it will bring a bunch of new features ( http://developer.kde.org/development-versions/kde-3.5-features.html ). So the gap between 3.5 and 4.0 won't be that bad.

And there are a bunch of things that are know about KDE 4.0:
-QT 4 is out. What it brings to the table is known. From the sound of things the 'big thing' it brings to the table is that it will be exploiting xorg's fancy rendering stuff. Along with a bunch of other improvements. ( http://www.trolltech.com/newsroom/announcements/00000209.html )
-The rough shape of 'Plasma' is known ( http://plasma.kde.org/cms/1029 ).
-ARTs will be superseded the the KDEMM framework
-There has been a strong desire expressed in various mailing lists to 'shine up' the toolbars, menus, and panel menu where it is deemed appropriate.
-There is still a lot of debate about what to do about the 'Control Centre'.

The shape of KDE 4 will become a lot more clear after developer conference starting in about a week ( http://conference2005.kde.org/ ).

As one of KDE's long time developers I'd consider Aaron's comment on that page about the timeframe a rather pessimistic one. Actually many KDE developers are aiming for a delivery date no later than Oct. 2006. That also goes well with Aaron's estimations in his latest interview:

http://www.linux-mag.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=...

That of course would make KDE 4.0 a nice birthday present for KDE's 10 year anniversary (which is due on Oct. 14 2006) ;-)

It's more vaporware than Longhorn.

Is it, because there's code being written and porting actually happening? With open source software you can actually see it happening, you know?

Aaron is certainly conscious of trying to create lots of interest, but at the same time having to have something to show for it. The ideas for Plasma are quite a bit different to what's been talked about before, and there's certainly some vision there.

And Longhorn/Vista? I've used a recent build, and honestly, there is no reason in the world Microsoft couldn't have taken Windows XP and hacked up the stuff in a few months. You wonder what they've been doing for the last two or three years - not eighteen months.

Do a search for "18 months" where Aaron Segio talks about timeframes.

Yer and? That's how long it will probably take, and how long major new releases of KDE have taken in the past. This is more major than most.

Gnome 3? *Shrugs shoulders*. That's why Qt is such a huge and pivotal part of KDE's success, because it will take Gnome much, much, much, much, much longer in terms of their development tools through to the desktop and their application to turn around a new major release.

I doubt whether real users are going to care much about fanboys whinging consistently about the KDE license (whatever that means), and that's certainly why KDE is the most popular open source desktop today. Sorry, but it's a different world out there.

Lumbergh is right. Gnome, much like KDE,changes major version numbers with its toolkit. The last time GTK changed version numbers was, IIRC, a total rewrite.
Gnome is a bit more about being evolutionary anyway. Which is cool in its own rite.

> Lumbergh is right. Gnome, much like KDE,changes major version numbers with its toolkit.

And so is segedunum when he says that GNOME 3 will take a long time. See http://live.gnome.org/ThreePointZero , there they sketch the changes, and they call it a "two-year project". That's 24 months, and there is not even a timeline yet.

See http://live.gnome.org/ThreePointZero , there they sketch the changes, and they call it a "two-year project". That's 24 months, and there is not even a timeline yet.

I think even that's optimistic to be honest. Gnome 2 itself was a two year project, and encompassed a lot of new stuff like GConf.

Gnome 3 has to be pretty much a rewrite from the GTK tookit to the user facing apps, and that is a hell of a lot of work. When you look at the other stuff they want ot put into it as well, like 3D effects and eye candy as well as higher level languages....hell, that's a lot.

Anjuta is a nice IDE for GNOME. Personally, I despise IDEs.

> The problem with KDE is that the developers have tried
> to implent ever single feature they could possibly
> think of. It's just to much of everything!

I don't think it's just too much of everything. Every user has different needs and what might be too much for you could be exactly the thing someone was searching for. So at the end, there is no problem with KDE.

> And besides that it still lack very standard
> usability features like smooth scrolling and the file
> manager remembering it's size and position, features
> that's been available in gnome, osx and windows for
> years.

See, you want the file manager to remember the size and position and for me this is exactly annoying. But then if they add an option for it to KDE so you can disable it then it's just fine for me.

> I don't think it's just too much of everything. Every
> user has different needs and what might be too much for
> you could be exactly the thing someone was searching
> for. So at the end, there is no problem with KDE.

Yes, but actually most user don't prefer to have 15 buttons on the filemanager toolbar or chaotic option-dialogs cluttered with hundreds of options. That's the reason why all new enterprise linux distibutiors chooses gnome over KDE even though it's slower and uses more memory while having less features.

> See, you want the file manager to remember the size and
> position and for me this is exactly annoying. But then
> if they add an option for it to KDE so you can disable
> it then it's just fine for me.

Surely there must be a reson why this is the default behaviour on all other desktop environments.

Yes, but actually most user don't prefer to have 15 buttons on the filemanager toolbar

Well, fix it then, it takes a stunning 5-10 minutes, is pretty easily done and will not have to be repeated.

or chaotic option-dialogs cluttered with hundreds of options.

Now that's borderlining trolling. They aren't very chaotic, and options are better than no options. If you don't understand them, leave the defaults alone. Nobody is forcing you to mess with the settings, right?

Surely there must be a reason why this is the default behavior on all other desktop environments.

Oh, we've gotta keep up with the Jones! Seriously, why imitate everyone else? Just that "everyone" else does something is a *very* bad reason for imitation. You have a brain, why not think of a better motivation than just "Every one else does it mum!"

Lame arguments trying to defend the indefensible will not gain you any points.

"Well, fix it then, it takes a stunning 5-10 minutes, is pretty easily done and will not have to be repeated."

Now multiply that across multiple desktops. People complain about lost time when it comes to dealing with MS products and spam. So why should they tolerate a deliberate loss?


"Now that's borderlining trolling. They aren't very chaotic, and options are better than no options. If you don't understand them, leave the defaults alone. Nobody is forcing you to mess with the settings, right?"

You're assuming that the "default" is a good choice to begin with, and therefore doesn't need changing?

"Oh, we've gotta keep up with the Jones! Seriously, why imitate everyone else? Just that "everyone" else does something is a *very* bad reason for imitation. You have a brain, why not think of a better motivation than just "Every one else does it mum!" "

Only if you assume that that's the only reason to do something. You can of course ignore all the HCI literature and research that's been done for the past 20 years, and you will end up paying the price. For the simple reason that technology changes, people fundamentally don't.

"Lame arguments trying to defend the indefensible will not gain you any points."

Nor will ignorance about the fundamental issues at hand.

> Now multiply that across multiple desktops. People
> complain about lost time when it comes to dealing
> with MS products and spam. So why should they
> tolerate a deliberate loss?

If the distributors (the ones having to make money from their version of the software!) were convinced that there really was a problem with KDE as grave as the ususal usability whiners in internet forums keep saying then they would all change those defaults *before* the "multiplication" of the needed effort through distribution. It would be in their own best interest.

They're not doing it so I conclude the problem is not perceived as being so grave. And I'm sure the distributors carefully evaluate the feedback from their customers.

"They're not doing it so I conclude the problem is not perceived as being so grave. And I'm sure the distributors carefully evaluate the feedback from their customers."

Grepping changelogs I see, if you're that certain that none of them are making usability changes.*

*BTW Nice "appeal to the experts", you have there.

> > "They're not doing it so I conclude the problem
> > is not perceived as being so grave. And I'm sure
> > the distributors carefully evaluate the feedback
> > from their customers."

> Grepping changelogs I see, if you're that certain
> that none of them are making usability changes

If they made those changes then the point I replied to would by completely moot ("Now multiply that across multiple desktops. [...]So why should they [the users] tolerate a deliberate loss? "). If there actually was that clutter problem and the distributors *did* fix it then there would be no such loss anyway.

But I repeat: In my experience the distros don't change KDE's defaults that much (although it's dead easy to do so) so they cannot see KDE's defaults as a major problem.



> *BTW Nice "appeal to the experts", you have there.

Because they are. They have the data (in the form of feedback) and they can do something about it when they get negative feedback. The rest is simple observation.

BTW: Nice attempt at a killer phrase you have there.

"Yes, but actually most user don't prefer to have 15 buttons on the filemanager toolbar or chaotic option-dialogs cluttered with hundreds of options. That's the reason why all new enterprise linux distibutiors chooses gnome over KDE even though it's slower and uses more memory while having less features. "

It's ultimately a control issue. And geeks as a general rule are control-freaks. From the GPL all the way down to the "small tools doing specific things". Maybe it's an insecurity, maybe not.

You'll find however that the world at large doesn't have this great desire to control everything. Some things, hence the products with extra controls, but not everything. And in fact most are overwelmed with too much choice.

So basically it comes down to, who do you cater to, since the two are direct opposites? The one's who need control to feel secure? Or the ones who come from a world were control of everything didn't really exist, and therefore wouldn't be missed?

> Yes, but actually most user don't prefer to have 15
> buttons on the filemanager toolbar or chaotic
> option-dialogs cluttered with hundreds of options.

I have no problems with the 15 buttons on the filemanager toolbar.

> That's the reason why all new enterprise linux
> distibutiors chooses gnome over KDE even though it's
> slower and uses more memory while having less
> features.

Please name all enterprise linux distributors.

> Surely there must be a reson why this is the default
> behaviour on all other desktop environments.

This is simply bullshit.

Novell bought suse which is a KDE centric distro. Yet they choosed gnome for NLD.

God, not again. Novell DID NOT choose Gnome for the NLD. You get a radio button in the installer to choose KDE or Gnome, and whatever you choose that's what you get.

In terms of OpenSuse, SLES and Open Enterprise Server, KDE is very much the default desktop. No one talks about that though :-).

Seems like they chose Gnome for it to me. You can install KDE on RedHat, but I don't see any kde publicity shots from RedHat.
No one cares about the default desktop on a server. There's a large range (most) of server admins who think you'd be silly to even run X on the server other than to make changes!
X is nothing more than a liability on a network server. Seriously, I've had machines go down over x driver issues before and guess what; they don't run X anymore!

But gnome is still the default, just like KDE is the default for suse.

IT IS NOT the default. Which part of that did you fail to understand?

"Quit flaming! Gnome is indeed the default DE for NLD. Please read some reviews. Or if that's too dificult for you then at least look at the screenshots."

LMAO did you even read the first paragraph of the link you posted?

"Installation is almost identical to SuSE's and so there is nothing new to report here apart from the screen that lets you choose between Gnome and KDE as your main interface"

Quit flaming! Gnome is indeed the default DE for NLD. Please read some reviews. Or if that's too dificult for you then at least look at the screenshots.

Screenshots do not prove that a desktop has been made the default. Some would like you to think so though ;-).

Why can't you KDE zealots take some criticism? I've had enough of this. I'm not going to follow this thread anymore.

Why can't you Gnome zealots be realistic and not claim that you're the default on distributions where you're not. No KDE person has claimed that KDE is the default on the NLD anywhere.

> Is unfortunate that you and the other KDE fanboys live
> in a fantasy world where the Qt license isn't an issue,
> but the rest of us in the real world understand it is.

Real world people don't use either GNOME nor KDE, they use Windows which still shared 90% of the Desktop market. But if it comes to Open Source solutions then you can be sure that the vast majority is using KDE rather than GNOME since the applications for KDE simply work.

I say this because as we speak I have hard times getting used to the permanent crashing evince under GNOME 2.12-RC there are some other issues with GNOME as well which I dislike diving into but it's a pain to use, much more of a pain than KDE. KDE works out in most cases perfectly, the stuff are always in usable shape.

> Are you capable of reading? I was talking about glibc.

Yes! Even better than you, how many times did people point you to the Qt license agreement with the KDE folks and yet you still keep stomping on it.

> Well, we know you claiming that the "vast majority is using KDE" is a lie.

Saying that GNOME is used everywhere like you are doing is a lie too.

> You just lied again. I never said that.

What are you? Some sort of OSN clown, you would make a fine OSN pet by the way.

"You just lied again. I never said that."

Why don't you two just hit each other with a pie, and get it over with?

Well, we know you claiming that the "vast majority is using KDE" is a lie.

Based on what?

Every survey I've ever seen says KDE is number one by a country mile (queue lots of comments about meaningless surveys), and when it starts to happen consistently in a lot of them you have to wonder why.

It is difficult to ascertain Gnome usage, because people just lie about it so much. Where are these desktops in China, where are these desktops in the NHS (which I know hasn't happened) and all these corporate deployments? Because, like the terrorist caves in the Tora Bora mountains, they're a fantasy. Any kind of real-world attempt (like surveys or distrowatch) to find out just reflects people's fantasies falling well short of reality.

Either Gnome users aren't getting out and voting or there are just plain less of them. You wonder then how many KDE users did not bother and how many simply don't know they're using it.

You then also realise, very amusingly, that most Gnome supporters are on these forums, talking abut default desktops, talking about licensing problems and all that stuff that people who are actually using KDE (and non-Linux/Unix users using Windows and Macs in the real world) simply don't care about. If you picked up the cluestick you'd realise that's why.

You would have to be a complete idiot to think that the "vast majority" are using KDE based on an online poll,

That's funny. I still don't see any online polls declaring Gnome to be the most popular Linux/Unix desktop. I suppose all those evil KDE users have found a way to vote three or four times each. Damn those people!

but hey you're just being a loser fanboy as usual, so no surprise there.

Oh dear. Poor you.

"I say this because as we speak I have hard times getting used to the permanent crashing evince under GNOME 2.12-RC there are some other issues with GNOME as well which I dislike diving into but it's a pain to use, much more of a pain than KDE. KDE works out in most cases perfectly, the stuff are always in usable shape."

Uh, huh. So how many here have been using Linux before there was even a Trolltech, KDE, Gnome to fight about?

How about those who watched the two grow up before our eyes?

Dontcha just wish for the good old days?

> Dontcha just wish for the good old days?

The so called good old times are gone. Face the reality.

> Dontcha just wish for the good old days?

"The so called good old times are gone. Face the reality."

*deleting QT, KDE, and Gnome*

You were saying?

"KDE works out in most cases perfectly, the stuff are always in usable shape."

My KDE Clock randomly changes timezones. Can I cast asperations on KDE now?

> My KDE Clock randomly changes timezones

I doubt that, watch your mouse wheel.

> That tells everybody that you are a not a rational
> person because you believe that some trolltech license
> scheme for glibc could have been feasible, rendering
> linux completely useless.

Speaking about 'rational person'. You keep using the word 'linux' everywhere. Please be rational here and understand that Qt and KDE are not limited to linux. I recall people use it on BSD and other architectures as well.

Speaking about 'rational person'. You keep using the word 'linux' everywhere.

Are you capable of reading? I was talking about glibc.

So sorry, Segedunum. Novell has chosen Gnome for the vast majority of their desktop development and no matter how many times you scream "IT IS NOT the default" does not change the fact that Ximian is heading up the desktop efforts at Novell.

Sorry, but you live in a fantasy world - Suse has always picked KDE and now Novell quite clearly has in their choices for OES and SLES - their money-making products. Their core products ship with it, by default - end of story.

The Gnome and Mono stuff is the shite they can't quite get rid of. It will kill Novell, but hey, that's Novell.

That tells everybody that you are a not a rational person because you believe that some trolltech license scheme for glibc could have been feasible, rendering linux completely useless.

You're going in circles again. As I've said consistently, it depends on whether it was practical for the software at hand.

You're getting religious about licensing again. Again, not every piece of software can be available at no cost whatsoever, and you losers are just going to have to realise it.

>The Gnome and Mono stuff is the shite they can't quite get rid of. It will kill Novell, but hey, that's Novell.

quite good arguments! If there is something which isn't compatible with your world than it's a failure and even will kill a whole company... wake up neo.

quite good arguments! If there is something which isn't compatible with your world than it's a failure and even will kill a whole company... wake up neo.

On what basis do I make that statement? Mono has had millions pumped into it for five years with zero (zilch, zip, nada) returns, and it still isn't usable to attract anybody from the Windows world. There is simply no market for it.

Look at Red Hat. They've focused around Gnome in Fedora, and now they're focusing on Java gcj development with Eclipse (where the market is on Linux and Unix), GTK and Gnome. Fantastic. It remains to be seen whether they've made quite the right choices, but that's something that is going to get them results. Novell and Suse should just focus desktop development around where their expertise is - namely YaST, Qt, KDE and possibly Java. Start a project to enable good Java integration in KDE, support the new KDE Eclipse project (http://kde-eclipse.pwsp.net/) and grow the market. Do something useful for the community and your customers and get rid of this crap.

If Novell continue to be undecided about what they're using and what they're presenting to people then Open Suse, and their products, are just going to end up as one big mass of flaming (just look at some of the bug reports) and uncoordinated duplicate efforts that just don't hand together. No wonder good people are leaving. Over to you Novell.

>Novell and Suse should just focus desktop development around where their expertise is - namely YaST, Qt, KDE and possibly Java.

And what is if their expertise is Gtk+, GNOME and Mono?

Doing something useful for the community and their customers and get rid of this crap.

It's ok if you like KDE and Qt, i like it too.
But only because you and i like it doesn't mean that everyone else like it. And if Novell prefere the Gtk+, GNOME and Mono way, so be it.
Not everything is grep just because you don't like it.

And what is if their expertise is Gtk+, GNOME and Mono?

Suse has a long heritage of YaST, Qt, KDE and Java. Their expertise is not GTK, Gnome and Mono. That side of the business (if you can call it that) simply doesn't make any money whatsoever for Novell and Suse.

And if Novell prefere the Gtk+, GNOME and Mono way, so be it.

I don't know why you're saying that because they don't, but they appear to be very, very confused and have some internal divisions.

Not everything is grep just because you don't like it.

You're misunderstanding this totally. This is based on what Suse/Novell needs to do as a business to provide them sith some direction.

Haha, how many more millions have been pumped into KDE...

None whatsoever. I find that comment hilariously funny in view of the millions Eazel burned through on Nautilus (yes a file manager!) before they went out of business and Ximian on Evolution and Mono. How much did KDE spend on Konqueror, Kontact and their development tools?

Nuff said.

Get this through your cobweb-infested brain, all of windows is going .NET, so just that fact makes Mono more important than KDE or Qt will ever be.

You might want to get this through your cobweb infested brain - .-N-E-T i-s a W-i-n-d-o-w-s t-e-c-h-n-o-l-o-g-y. Windows technology is not portable between operating systems and is not portable to Mono. Indigo and Windows Forms are simply the tip of the iceberg. T-h-e m-a-r-k-e-t o-n L-i-n-u-x a-n-d U-n-i-x i-s C-+-+ a-n-d J-a-v-a. That's where the money is.

M-o-n-o m-a-k-e-s n-o m-o-n-e-y w-h-a-t-s-o-e-v-e-r.

There are also no development tools whatsoever for Mono. That finishes it right there.

Got that? Now wasn't that fun?

Have you tried eclipse with GCJ? Bahah, its slow as molasses, and buggy as hell.

As far as I'm concerned, Mono is slow as hell, but there you go. Anyway, at the moment, that's irrelevant as development is continuing. There is a market (you know, money?) for Java that Red Hat wants to get into, plus, there is an IDE and community and development tools around Eclipse. That's the clincher. Once they get that up and running it's bye, bye Mono.

Suse is a brand name

Suse is still a large division of Novell, and I wonder why they don't just get rid of the name and replace it with Novell like they did with Ximian. Funny that.

Ximian is in charge of desktop efforts.

Wonderful and easy statement to make, but unfortunately there is no such thing as Ximian now and as such there is simply no evidence that they are heading anything. Sorry, but you're fantasising again.

Please, tell us what this mythical Ximian division is up to, what their development efforts are and how we know this is the case. I'd love to know what happened to the Ximian Desktop (are their releases silent and covert now?).

If Ximian were in charge we would see a full-on, supported and focused XD and Gnome desktop with full support for Novell's admin tools, web applications written with Mono, Gnome tools expanded instead of YaST and Gnome as the default desktop on all their server products. Surprise, surprise, we don't see that any of that, do we? (ROTFL)

I have a feeling we've been down this avenue before, but it's fun to see you do it again.

know that its completely insane to push any meaningful development on a desktop whose toolkit is controlled by the Trolls.

Well, Sun have actually not come out and ever said Qt licensing or KDE was a problem. If you have a link to a Sun employee that has said that then please share it with us. Gnome was simply the best fit for Sun given their development (they like writing stuff in C and using CORBA).

It doesn't seem to stop Novell from developing YaST and its modules with Qt and it doesn't seem to stop them from developing KDE software like TaskJuggler (developed by Suse and Novell employees). Funny that.

I agree with you in a way, Novell should probably ditch KDE

Given that they're not and they're using it in core, money-making products like OES and SLES I highly doubt it. But there you go.

I notice you refuse to talk about Novell's core products though. Funny that.

instead of pretending they still care about KDE.

Well, considering they actually use it and develop meaningful software for their products with it it's obvious they do. I don't know why they pretend to care about Gnome by hyping meaningless software like F-Spot, which Novell itself in no way endorses, but there you go.

I love the ringer you put yourself through and I love your partiality to lost causes.

>> does not change the fact that Ximian is heading up >> the desktop efforts at Novell.

This is inaccurate, too. The product manager of the NLD e.g. is Guy Lundardi, who is neither involved with KDE nor Gnome.
For SUSE Linux the KDE/Qt people are responsible for the KDE desktop as well as the administration tools and the Gnome guys are just responsible for the Gnome desktop.

> Suse doesn't exist anymore.

Sure it does. Both the company and the product.

> It's Novell and they have put Ximian in chare of the desktop efforts.

Ximian and the Ximian brand doesn't exist anymore. And former Ximian employees are only in charge of the GNOME desktop.

Suse doesn't exist anymore.

Hmm. So that's why there is Open Suse and we still have Suse Pro and SLES.

It's Novell and they have put Ximian in chare of the desktop efforts.

Where? And I'll point out that there definitely is no such thing as Ximian now.

Can't get rid of and shit? The shit is the Qt license and that's why no big vendor will touch KDE

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz......... Please reply to the above comments and arguments as to why it isn't a problem. Saying it several thousand times does not make it so.

You're still trying to justify a possible dual-licensed glibc. You have no concept of how business works.

You have no concept of what software development is, the effort required or the investment needed to do it. That's why dual licensing exists.

That is business.

It's you losers that chose a toolkit with a bad license.

Yawn. Please reply to the many comments on the subject on this article as to why it isn't so. Simply saying it several thousand times makes no difference whatsoever.

You are a laugh, I'll grant you.

Hmm. So that's why there is Open Suse and we still have Suse Pro and SLES.

They are brand names. Does the windows company exist?

Where? And I'll point out that there definitely is no such thing as Ximian now.

Yep, same as Suse.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz......... Please reply to the above comments and arguments as to why it isn't a problem. Saying it several thousand times does not make it so.

Yes, and obviously I'm not the only one that thinks its a problem or it wouldn't be a big issue and it wouldn't be a problem for inclusion in LSB. Saying it's not an issue a thousand times doesn't make the Qt license liability go away.

You have no concept of what software development is, the effort required or the investment needed to do it. That's why dual licensing exists.

And you have no concept of how to develop markets. Once again, if glibc was dual-licensed like Qt or even if the kernel's GPL license extended the viralness into userspace then linux would be worthless.

Yawn. Please reply to the many comments on the subject on this article as to why it isn't so. Simply saying it several thousand times makes no difference whatsoever.

Yes, I know you wish the issue would just go away, but it'll just be a bigger issue if the linux desktop is ever meaningful. Please reply to my point regarding glibc and if the linux kernel was viral into userspace.

Yes, and obviously I'm not the only one that thinks its a problem or it wouldn't be a big issue

Issue for who? The only one coming up with this stuff are idiots like you and Tomothy Butler (who doesn't understand the issues anyway).

Saying it's not an issue a thousand times doesn't make the Qt license liability go away.

And I've itemised why it isn't an issue about a hundred comments ago. Go and reply to that please, because you're only making yourself look more of a twit than you already are.

Once again, if glibc was dual-licensed like Qt or even if the kernel's GPL license extended the viralness into userspace then linux would be worthless.

Viral, viral...yawn. You sound like Microsoft. Obviously the GPL hasn't been a problem for the Linux kernel.

And where does the investment come from to develop this software, or indeed any software? What happens when giving up spare time isn't enough to make the software of a good enough quality? What happens when open source developers have to be paid to work full-time? Where does that money come from? Where does the investment come from for Microsoft to develop what they do in Windows?

If it isn't practical to develop and give away completely for free for every purpose it isn't practical - simple as that. That doesn't mean you can't do it though, as I've pointed out. In the case of glibc it is, in the case of desktop development tools it isn't because it is too complex. Simple.

I know you don't understand this because you have an extremely short memory and I can see you've never managed a software business, seen one in action or understood what needs to be funded by what.

Yes, I know you wish the issue would just go away, but it'll just be a bigger issue if the linux desktop is ever meaningful.

Yes, you think it's an issue....yada, yada, yada. Go back and reply to me comments as to why it isn't.

Please reply to my point regarding glibc and if the linux kernel was viral into userspace.

Please don't try and deflect the issue at hand. Go back and reply to my comments to Timothy Butler on the issue as to why it isn't one - one by one. If

And your point is irrelevant. Viral into userspace?!! Well it isn't is it, and it has nothing to do with glibc? Do you have any real clue at all as to how a Linux distribution is actually structured, and how GPL compatible licenses make your points completely redundant?

Since you're spouting exactly the same crap as Mr. Butler, might I point you to my reply to him:

http://www.osnews.com/read_thread.php?news_id=11614&comment_id=2051...

There. I've even given you a link to read.

> They are brand names. Does the windows company exist?

No, but the "SUSE Linux Products GmbH" (GmbH is a German company type) exists.

See Segedunum, I know its hard for your limited mental capacity to understand, but Qt is a *library* (not an app)

Yer, and? I mean I appreciate you going roung the houses and all, but - and?

and the base of the entire desktop.

Really? As you've said - Qt is simply a library! You are a fish.

That's why the LSB will not consider Qt

Oh dear. Shame.

"You're still trying to justify a possible dual-licensed glibc. You have no concept of how business works. "

Should an open source projects not started by a company do what the companies want? No. Does someone have to use qt to write an app that runs in kde? I think not. Than you see: if a company wants to use the 'better'-licensed, whatever you mean by it., it can. So what effect does it have on kde? besides than that they've got a way better toolkit? Trolltech will keep on existing, and if not, everything is under the bsd-licence, so KDE will always be able to use qt. And everyone who doesn't want to use it doesn't have to. I've seen you repeat often that it's a bad dual licence, and that everyone who doesn't see it don't know anything how business work, well, fund your statement please? Telling something is bad, doesn't make it bad you know. Well, it can make people believe it's bad, but those are microsoft tricks, it's not something to be expected from an open-source guy, he should know that choice is what makes linux, and taking that away will kill it.

> Novell has chosen Gnome for the vast majority
> of their desktop development

This is inaccurate. There are basically two kinds of desktop software at Novell: software that is critical for Novell's success and pet projects. pet projects is software that Novell employees are working on in their spare time, whenever they are not not busy with something more important or simply software that is created by people who have been employed by SUSE / Novell because SUSE / Novell wants to give back to the community.

Among such "pet projects" are certainly "F-Spot", "Beagle", "TaskJuggler", "Kooka", "amaroK", "vym", "KSysguard", "Kontact" and lots of other KDE/Qt and Gtk Software. Due to the fact that SUSE existed quite a bit longer than Ximian and had more ressources to let people work on such stuff in doubt I'd argue that Qt has a higher percentage here.

Then there is software that was specifically created to build the foundation of a specific product that actually creates significant revenue. YaST and lots of other Qt software comes to my mind with regard to this. And I'm sure that Gnome proponents can name a lot of other software, too.

Due to history Novell/SUSE has certainly a strong preference for Qt/KDE technology while Novell/Ximian has a strong preference for Gtk (the latter call themselves and their portfolio that was bought by Novell just "Novell" these days because the Ximian brand got deprecated). Novell as a whole has no preference however.
During the last quarter Novell hired lots of KDE/Qt "hackers" and they are still hiring

http://www.novell.com/offices/emea/jobs/germany/

How do I know about this stuff? Well I worked for SUSE for a few years, I still have a very good relationship with many developers there and I follow SUSE's progress actively (which isn't too hard as I live basically next door in Nuremberg ;-)

Just that gnome is novell's default choice.

Which isn't true. There is no default choice in the NLD, and Suse, SLES and OES all default to KDE. Therefore, KDE is Novell's default choice.

Back to basics though. Do you know what default means?

>Therefore, KDE is Novell's default choice.

Yes, that's why they maintain gtk bindings for there new development framework (mono) and why they write programs like beagle and f-spot for GNOME... oops, is there a error in the matrix?

I think it doesn't care which desktop is the "default", you can install KDE, GNOME or every other Desktop on every Distribution.
But i think it's obvious that Novell preferes Gtk+ if it comes to the toolkit.
Is it bad? No!
Does it make Qt a worse toolkit? No!
Does it have any influence on people who like to use KDE and Qt? No!

So why panic? Everytime someone say something positive about Gtk+ or GNOME a lot of KDE people come along and whine about it? Why? Doesn't they have enough faith in their desktop and toolkit?

I'm using KDE and develop with Qt, but i had no problem if Ubuntu decided to make a GNOME Distribution. And i have no problem if Novell and RedHat prefere Gtk+.
Why so many KDE people get scathingly if someone don't want to use their desktop/toolkit in the first place? I think i will never understand it...

/me silently points out that this thread is about KDE, and contains mostly ridiculous claims from Gnome lusers that Gnome is the standard and default, plus the various and equally ridiculous attacks and false assertions on and about KDE, QT and Trolltech by various morons posing as friends of Gnome.

"...and contains mostly ridiculous claims from Gnome lusers..."

That took some courage to admit. Most would have said "all".

OK, it's in the middle of the night here, so I guess I wasn't 100% clear about what I meant.

I suppose I should have written "and most of them are ridiculous claims.." or something like that. I'm too tired right now.

The only complaint from the Gnome "usability" troll-brigade I've ever recognized as somewhat valid is that the default are, shall we say a bit exaggerated? However, it's a lot easier to fix, than if you're unhappy with the defaults in Gnome, and really nothing to make such a huge stink about.

"The only complaint from the Gnome "usability" troll-brigade I've ever recognized as somewhat valid is that the default are, shall we say a bit exaggerated? However, it's a lot easier to fix, than if you're unhappy with the defaults in Gnome, and really nothing to make such a huge stink about."

Well I'm going to address a point that get's short thrift from the FOSS community. First while there are "'usability' troll-brigade"s (comparable to "IANA...") The field of HCI (a subset of a larger field) is legitimate and recognized worldwide. And with the new brain research coming from the medical field. One can get some ideas of the physical mechanisms behind the principles. Apple (and many others down the years) have demonstrated that indeed HCI isn't simply the experts blowing smoke.

So rather than listen to the "'usability' troll-brigade". What do the HCI experts have to say about the KDE desktop? And more importantly, is anyone listening?

/me silently points out that this thread is about KDE and the whole GNOME vs KDE vs Gtk vs Qt discussion started because some KDE users had started whine about a previous articel were someone have write something about Qt what they don't like.

Funny guy huh? The point was that someone asked asked who Timothy R. Butler is, and was told this guy "is a tool and a troll and here is the proof". This guy decided to jump in and "defend" himself by repeating the bullshit (KDE should drop Qt) and moronic FUD (shareholders might force Trolltech to commit suicide) that had already got debunked once, Gnome lusers and known trolls like Lumberg tuning in, and voilá, here we are.

Looking for trolls? Have a look in the mirror.

This guy has a opinion about the Qt license. You can have the same or a different, who cares. The topic was not about this guys opinion of Qt, some "KDE-fans" has made it to such a topic.

I know GNOME/Gtk+ people who think that it woudl be better if Gtk+ would be GPL too. You can like this opinion or not, but neither you like it nor you doesn't like it doesn't make a person with this opinion a troll.
There are good arguments why such a toolkit should be GPL or LGPL, depending on your weighting of some arguments.

Now, look.

This guy has repeatedly been told, repeatedly, *why* his arguments are stupid, crap, FUD, invalid, flawed and useless. Yet he has to my knowledge never addressed those replies, beyond pretending he was talking about something else, and then repeat the same crap again. IMO that makes a troll, not someone you should listen to. Of course, if you are part of his fanclub, I suppose there is little hope for you.

Have a nice Sunday.

if the idiot KDE fanboys would have kept their trap shut and hadn't started to attack the author of the article the licensing issue wouldn't have come up.

Temper, temper. The fact is that that article by Tim Butler is quoted above and it is still total and utter crap.

He doesn't understand licensing issues whatsoever (he thinks everything becomes defacto GPL'd!!) and he doesn't understand how different toolkits could, and will, be used with KDE. His ludicrous thinking was blown clean out of the water by me and I haven't seen any comeback on it whatsoever.

And before you come up with the usual comments, I suggest you actually reply to my original comment reply to T. Butler, itemise them and tell us what the problems actually are. You only have to look through previous comments.

If you can't do it then you can stop the broken record act. You're only wasting your time and your bandwidth.

Temper, temper. The fact is that that article by Tim Butler is quoted above and it is still total and utter crap.

Translation: You don't like that people bring up the Qt license situation, therefore it's crap.

He doesn't understand licensing issues whatsoever (he thinks everything becomes defacto GPL'd!!)

I know that the GPL doesn't mandate the GPL license, but the fact that linking to Qt mandates open source or pay is the point. LSB calls this "strings attached"

and he doesn't understand how different toolkits could, and will, be used with KDE. His ludicrous thinking was blown clean out of the water by me and I haven't seen any comeback on it whatsoever.

What do you mean used with KDE? I would love if KDE used a different toolkit. I guess you're talking about the eventual of inclusion of Dbus into KDE so that gnome apps can talk(IPC) to KDE apps and vice versa. I wonder if Stallman would like to address that issue in GPL v3

And before you come up with the usual comments, I suggest you actually reply to my original comment reply to T. Butler, itemise them and tell us what the problems actually are. You only have to look through previous comments.

I've already read the comments and the reason that the Qt license came up is because you kde fanboys brought it up. I've already explained the problems.

If you can't do it then you can stop the broken record act. You're only wasting your time and your bandwidth.

But you keep on coming back to the thread for more:)

"If KDE had chosen a toolkit with a proper license, then there would be no Gnome, there would be one desktop (like there is one kernel, one glibc, one low-level windowing environment...) and linux would have had a chance at having a significant piece of the desktop pie."

How...Windowish.

"If there was two completely incompatible low-level windowing systems...Xorg or Xfree86 and something else completely incompatible you would have even more of a headache then you have today - or two kernels that were completely incompatible."

Well, if the world was like many gtk+ gnome fanboys would like it to have (judging from this site), there would be no problem. It's not KDE's fault, nor GNOME's fault that one package from one distribution doesn't work on another distro. In a complete open-source world (which is from what I get, the only way gnome people tend to want to see how the world is/should be, rather than working together with companies and achieving in getting the best technical solution), every distro can make up for that with it's own libraries. A desktop environment is just that: it's there to work with.

That ubuntu is making itself incompatible with other distros is a bigger nightmare (at least from the perspective you're using), than kde using qt and gnome using gtk. They're just tools you know, and the only things that matter are that they do what they're created for. The licensing of qt has nothing to do with it. I fail to see why a community driven by achieving the best technical product around, would prefer a lesser product, just because of some crazy licensing, which has in fact no effect on open source products, just on closed source? what does a company have to do to make it right?

*Sarcasm mode*: "Should it use lgpl-software and close all the rest of it's software? rather than gpl-ing its code?"

>just because of some crazy licensing, which has in fact no effect on open source products, just on closed source?

i dosn't understand it too.

> Why is it that every article related to KDE. There
> are +150 posts and 130+ posts are from GNOME
> fanboys about Qt:s license.

I think you're not doing them justice. They have more than one subject in their repertoire:

There's
- the license troll
- the clutter troll
- the bloat troll
- the "all KDE does is copy from Windows/OsX/BeOS" troll

Yawn.

> That's why it won't be included in the LSB.

You will be surprised about the latest development when you hear about it...

> or used a dual-licensing scheme so that open source developers could use it for free and proprietary vendors would have to pay then it wouldn't be a problem

Breaking news, the use a dual-license scheme allowing/enforcing exactly what you suggest.

See the problem with the Qt license is not really the license(s), but the fact that its a library and its at the core of the desktop. That's why it won't be included in the LSB.

Don't recall the LSB ever coming up here. And as the LSB are totally irrelevant (Red Hat will never get involved) your little rant is meaningless. We've also been through that before. I suggest you find some comments on another artcile about that and reply to those in turn. That's been waded through before.

It's an end product, not a library. You don't need to pay anything for Microsoft's SDKs or Apples

My God, are you really that thick? Has nothing sank through at all? With Apple and Microsoft you still pay for Windows and you still pay for Office and you still need to pay for decent development tools like VS and you still need to pay for CALS....... Apple and Microsoft haven't gone bankrupt like Ximian and Eazel did so they're not giving everything away, are they?

I don't see Microsoft or Apple magically giving their software away and allowing free software development. Am I missing something here, or is this just your bizarre little world cropping up again?

And Segedunum, if you and the other KDE fandweebs hadn't attacked the guy from the beginning, the license issue wouldn't have come up

Yawn.

In your attempt in shouting people down,

It was still quoted and his argument was still crap and it was still shot down in flames. Doesn't alter anything.

you just bring more attention to the issue.

You're the one trying to hype it as an issue without actually replying to the original arguments and comments.

Please try replying to the actual issues at hand rather than repeating the same stuff if you want to look even anywhere near credible (that'll bee the day!).

Don't recall the LSB ever coming up here. And as the LSB are totally irrelevant (Red Hat will never get involved) your little rant is meaningless. We've also been through that before. I suggest you find some comments on another artcile about that and reply to those in turn. That's been waded through before.

So now that LSB won't include Qt it's meaningless. Standards are meaningless to you because you don't like the decision. So typical of you seg.

My God, are you really that thick? Has nothing sank through at all? With Apple and Microsoft you still pay for Windows and you still pay for Office and you still need to pay for decent development tools like VS and you still need to pay for CALS....... Apple and Microsoft haven't gone bankrupt like Ximian and Eazel did so they're not giving everything away, are they?

How stupid can you possibly be Seg? You get windows with your computer or pay $100 and after that you don't have to pay Microsoft a dime. You don't have to pay for Office if you don't want it (put down the crackpipe), and you don't have to pay for VS. What are you so weak that you need Visual Studio to do development. I guess you're more of a Kdevelop guy than a Vim or Emacs guy.

Let's look at Qt. You pay the trolls $1500/per developer/per platform. Let's say you have 3 developers for two platforms. That's freaking $9k. All other SDKs are free. If the trolls sold an IDE and gave away the toolkit, there wouldn't be a problem.

It was still quoted and his argument was still crap and it was still shot down in flames. Doesn't alter anything.

You didn't shoot anything down. You just hope that the issue will go away, which it won't as long as Qt has a crap license.

You're the one trying to hype it as an issue without actually replying to the original arguments and comments.

You still haven't responded to most of my arguments.

You get windows with your computer or pay $100 and after that you don't have to pay Microsoft a dime.

It isn't as simple as that, is it? There's other software to put on to Windows because Windows by itself doesn't do very much - unlike a Linux distro.

You don't have to pay for Office if you don't want it (put down the crackpipe)

Oh yer. Everybody gets very, very far in the business world without being able to make Office documents and send them ;-).

and you don't have to pay for VS.

You don't have to pay for Qt either.

What are you so weak that you need Visual Studio to do development.

Because you get zilch of the supposed benefits of .Net without Visual Studio and everything is infinitely harder?!

You didn't shoot anything down. You just hope that the issue will go away, which it won't as long as Qt has a crap license.

You still haven't gone back and addressed them. Why didn't I shoot them down specifically?

You still haven't responded to most of my arguments.

You haven't got any arguments. I've asked you to reply to mine and now you think you can wave it away by asking me to reply to yours. You need to check yourself into a clinic son.

You go back and reply to the issues at hand, and work from there - OK? Until that happens I'll leave you to stew in your own juice, because you've been comprehensively kicked to pieces, as per usual.

> The LSB won't include Qt because there are strings attached. Plain and simple.

You're misinformed like with most of your FUD. The LSB is starting to reconsider their license criteria. And guess why: because the LGPL is incompatible with standard EULAs.

"That's hilarious. Do you even realize that Qt is not the only toolkit for linux. There's this other toolkit called gtk+. Maybe you've heard of it. The LSB won't include Qt because there are strings attached. Plain and simple."

Calling the GPL, the licence at the very heart of linux and gnu software, "a string" and attempting to cast a negative light on that is borderline trolling. And IMHO it actually serves to make the LSB less relevant, and is an asthma to the free software movement. Here is 'the page' with the info on the 'LSB / QT issue': http://www.linuxbase.org/futures/ideas/issues/libqt/ . And yes, 'the issue' is that it is a library that is GPLed.

It makes the LSB less relevant when you don't include the toolkit that forms the basis of the software that runs on 1/2 of free desktops as their primary desktop environment. (The same goes for Fd.o...) I'm not a paranoid nut- I don't think that these orgs are actively hostile to KDE for the most part. It's just that there is a very real, occasionally justified, BUT INCREASINGLY justified notion that these are GNOME playgrounds... Posts like yours don't help.

This GPL as "a string" argument actually harms the free software movement. By saying, 'We don't do GPLed libraries', the LSB is basically saying to individuals / companies that you shouldn't make GPLed libs because other people can't use them in an attempt to make a buck. OK, that's fine- BUT:
1) Why the hell should a company give away a product for free so another company can make a profit selling closed software with it?
2) Why the hell should an independent developer make a library in their free time so other people can make money from it?

In both cases it's fine if people want to do that, but you can't blame them if they don't... and there are many people that see no incentive in encouraging the development of non-GPLed software. Go ahead, scream, "ZEALOT". Feel Better? Good.

Here's why only the zealots matter: All closed non-free software development is caged by a need to maximize profit and to find the sweet spot when it comes faster, better, cheaper. They don't care about free software, they only care about a free lunch. These firms will be the first to move along when they find something that fits their needs better, or when they receive incentives that they can't refuse. The only value in closed developers is in the code the community can extract from them when they are developing on 'free' platforms.

At the end of the day the 'zealots' will still be here. If the 'zealots' are the ones that actually care about free software, then sign me up. I'm a 'zealot', and I don't give a rat's arse about any firm's 'need' to extract profit from the community for free...

You might want to ban Tim Butler too, since this whole thing started with him. Oh right. Kind of hard to get contributors unless they pass the "Yes!" test.

Why don't you all simply let people vote free of coercion.