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"KDE has more of a sense of community for developers and users"

>I am pretty sure that Gnome and Gtk have far more developers than KDE. The support of FSF is helping them a lot. Many geeks still think Qt is not free (please remember, Qt is GPL). Look for example at the number of patches available for Sylpheed. If KMail had that many patches waiting, it would be for sure the greatest mailer ever.

Kde does have a unique sense of community. Although kde is run by a relatively small inner group, most people involved don't seem to mind that. There is a lot more activity on the Kde mailing lists - people helping each other, etc.

Whether or not Free Qt is GPL is not very relevant because its development is tightly controlled by a software vendor in the business of selling proprietary licenses. Redhat is not in the business of selling proprietary licenses.

"KDE is also installed by default by more distributions."

>Have you ever wonder why ? My guess is simply that KDE is better for the basic user. This is also why KDE has a wider user base than Gnome.

I think the real reason is that Kde is more like Microsoft Windows than Gnome is.


"But it's fate is sealed by a dependency on Qt"
I agree. It is condemned to succeed because of that.

"Qt, which is tightly controled by a proprietary vendor, Trolltech."

>I fail to see how a vendor can be labeled "proprietary" when it gives away a GPL toolkit. Once product is GPL, you don't have that much control on it. Anybody can fork Qt.

>And trolltech has long proven to be composed of very talented developers, which, yes, have a tight control on their version of Qt. They satisfy a huge customer base and the KDE project (see, Waldo has almost nothing to suggest to improve Qt). Because trolltech developers are paid to work on Qt, the toolkit move forwards very fast and is very good quality. Trolltech is one of the key to KDE success, not to KDE's doom.

It's not feasible to fork Qt and there is no reason for anyone to want to do so unless they feel that Gtk and other free toolkits aren't good enough. Qt most certainly is a proprietary toolkit although a free, GPL version is also released. It's not a good thing to treat Qt libriaries as system libraries, like kde does.


>By the way, are you aware than Gtk is tightly controlled by Redhat ? Do you think it will doom Gnome too ?

Already answered above.

"Kde does look more "commercial", though."

>You mean professional! In KDE, the look is standard. Every toolbar can be configured the same, the KDE UI guide is respected, every applications works mostly the same to configure stuff, and all look consistent.

To the degree that the applications work. If the applications don't work or if the system is bloated and chashy who cares about a standard, uniform look?

>Every time I run Gnome, I see that this is not the case. I understand it will improve. I hope so.

Standard configuration of toolbars is not a good reason for anyone to use Kde or not to use Gnome. That's such a minor issue.

"Evidently that attracts the type of person who wants a desktop to look more like Mac OSX or Microsoft Windows, but these people are always switching back and forth between Kde and Gnome"

>Obviously, you don't know the user base very well. The people you descrive usually settly on one desktop that seems to them the closest to what they want (on usually not very argumented reasons) and don't switch. This is the kind of people that want their computer just to work, not to work with the latest software, or with the FSF desktop. Just a desktop that work.

I totally disagree. Most people who are very concerned with the Linux desktop as users are interested in fashion, and switch on that basis. However, this is a very small percentage of the total desktop users who do want something that just works, or settle for what is widely available (Windows). Most linux users today are technically oriented and can get either Gnome or Kde to work ok, but they don't really need either. A simple Window manager and xterm is enough for them. So they make fashion statments in the desktop they use or identify with. The average desktop users (who currently uses MS Windows) is not concerned with such things.

"So, I don't think Gnome has much to worry about in the long term."

>Gnome is initially 9 month late on KDE. Now, the distance is something like 2 years. KDE is moving forward, Gnome is still strugling to get more application to be ported to Gnome 2.

Gnome 1.4 works just fine and there is no great hurry to port everything to Gtk 2.0. Kde did have a head start, but Gnome is not 2 years behind Kde. I wouldn't say that Gnome is behind Kde at all in most respects.


>Many people have predicted KDE's doom many times, when they have started with a non GPL toolkit, when they have dropped Corba, when Ximian and Eazel were funded, when Sun has chosen Gnome.

The only people who predicted KDE's doom when those things happened were Kde people themselves. Kde is on a tangent and Gnome is center field, more broadly based. That has helped Gnome attract venture capital but the investment is not the important factor. It's that Gnome is more broadly based while Kde is in its own world with Trolltech and is beholden to Trolltech, more or less isolated from the rest of the linux community.

>KDE is till there, on schedule, though, and far better than Gnome despite all the support KDE does not get.

>Gnome has to worry in the long term. Not for KDE which is already a success, but for Gnome. The poor technical choices that were made in the beginning now have their consequences.

>I agree with you on statistics, it would be good to have accurate ones. But these thing are hard to get.

"In the short term it doesn't help much for kde boosters to be making a big deal about statistics."

>You are probably suggesting that we should ignore them ? If people choose KDE, we can be proud, just like Gnome can be proud to have Sun support

I don't think we should ignore statistics. But in making a big deal about Kde having more users, Kde is setting itself up for a big fall. Dependency on Qt will be Kde's undoing. Wait and see.