OSNews

I view the energy spent on the GNOME vs. KDE as a lack of focus more than it is healthy competition, healthy coopetition or healthy cooperation.

From a topline view, having disparate user interface systems makes creating applications more of a hassle. Now why is that?

Let's say I'm an ISV. Which one should I use? Why? Either way, I get to learn a completely different system. Informal numbers would lead me towards choosing KDE as that is what more of my potential users would have running. My application would be speedier if they are already running KDE. Additionally, I could use Borland's tools which are based on Qt. So there are really nice dev tools if I go the KDE/Qt route.

If I go the GNOME route, I am exposed to a team that wants to base GNOME on .NET (Mono), including a Linux implementation of all the client .NET stuff, including WinForms. Do I want to have this exposure in my applications? Certainly not. On the other side, do I want to base my application on a system that is being driven by Sun? How many LINUX machines does Sun sell? The big fat goose egg zero, that's how many. Sun will drive GNOME in a direction that's good for Sun, not in a direction that's good for Linux.

Beyond the macro picture, GNOME is a mess with all the dependencies. Will this get cleaned up? Do I want to deal with this added headache as an ISV?

So there is little clarity. For my ISV dollar, I'd go with KDE today. It is the people's choice and is already implicitly endorsed by a neutral ISV tools vendor (Borland).

If the GNOME users hadn't whined so much, Borland wouldn't have even supported GNOME. They found it technically inferior to KDE/Qt.

I'd be interested to hear what other ISVs have to say.

#m