In an attempt to convince The Open Group that they finally want to fully Open Source Motif and CDE Peter Howkins has started a petition to help gauge how much interest there is. CDE, the Common Desktop Enviroment, was the default desktop on several commercial UNIX distributions. Motif is a X Windows widget
API used in many programs, including CDE
and other projects such as nedit and DDD. Howkins is not going to try to convince anyone to use either of them, but if you use them and would like to see them Open Sourced please sign the petition. For more background information about CDE and this petition visit the petition site or go straight to signing the petition.
Why the ugly CDE and motif widgets when we have GNOME/KDE with GTK/Qt?
Because lots of people still use both, and GTK is a huge bloated monster and QT is controlled by Trolltech.
If CDE and Motif were released under MIT terms, there would be a fair bit of interest from the people still using them in maintaining them and a fair bit of interest from people from the BSD projects, since there are always a few people grumbling about the fact that the two major desktop environments are GPLed.
Qt is GPL. Once Trolltech dies or tries to close Qt, the community will simply continue the development of the latest GPL version.
Wasn’t Motif called “the self-abuse toolkit” somewhere (Unix-Haters’ Handbook, I believe)? I’ve never used it in any applications, but Qt is almost too good to be true (“almost” because of those ugly non-standard extensions to the C++ language).
Besides, the only ones who grumble about KDE/GNOME being GPL are those interested in developing proprietary software; those are well-served by Trolltech’s commercial Qt license as well.
No, not everyone who supports the BSD licence is trying to make a proprietary derivative – last I checked the exact opposite was OpenBSD’s OpenSSH, a BSD licensed SSH to compete with the SSH.com version.
Many BSD supporters morally object to the GPL, you really should read about the arguments on both sides before declaring something like that.
Also, if Trolltech ever dies as you say, QT becomes BSD licensed, you should read up on that too.
Edited 2006-10-13 00:00
Besides, the only ones who grumble about KDE/GNOME being GPL are those interested in developing proprietary software;
Ever read anything about the *BSDs and their stance on the GPL?
True, for me, I’d love to see CDE and Motif opensourced; if they fix up the font rendering so that it is nice and anti-aliased, why the hell would we need GNOME or KDE?
CDE is *more* than just a desktop, it has a complete HIG, documentation etc. Its written from the ground up for the end user as a first priority.
You´re joking right?
Yes, why would we need GNOME or KDE when we have CDE, a UI that is on par with (but still looks worse than) windows 3.11.
Windows 3.11
http://www.rdg.ac.uk/CSC/Pics/Windows/prog_man.gif
CDE:
http://www.nada.kth.se/handledning/handledare4/img/desktop-cde.png
CDE is the BEST desktop environment when it comes to consistency, both graphically and behaviourally.
ANY other DE can learn a great deal from CDE, because next to CDE, every other modern DE, be it Finder, Explorer, GNOME, or whatever, is an unpredictable incoherent mess.
UI design is about more than flashy graphics. It saddens me to see that current-day computer users are too shortsighted to look beyond the external appearance.
True, true; at least with Motif applications; sure, they weren’t flashy, they didn’t set the world alight in terms of eye candy, but they did, however, integrate well with the desktop environment, and were consistent – a Motif application, regardless of vendor, worked as a Motif application expected.
The Application Manager, file manager, the whole kit ‘n caboodle is easy to understand and navigate, my old man was able to sit down and start using Sun’s Solaris CDE without any need of learning a thing, the icons were self explanatory, the system configuration features were straight to the point.
I had to work on a CDE desktop for 3 years.
As far as I am concerned CDE is:
– not providing the functionality I need
– wasting TWO (!) iconhights of my precious desktop space
– cannot be configured to provide the functionality I need and wasting less space.
– When I maximize a window, the CDE Panel hides part of the maximized window.
I never found out if this behaviour can be changed or not, although searching for several hours on the web.
To me, CDE is the tightjacket version of a Desktop. Sorry, but that was exactly how it felt.
Maybe they have good and consistent HIGs and stuff, but what they offer the user is too inflexible. I had loads of buttons in my panel which I never needed, and loads of stuff I would have liked there was not available.
And what is so difficult to navigate about that CDE design? the CDE way is alot more intuitive than what Microsoft, or the opensource community could achieve.
CDE is not difficult to navigate.
It is difficult or impossible to customize, and the default settings are stupid for me, politely said.
– The desktop switching panel is 2 rows high, and cannot be made to be only one row high.
– When maximizing a Window it either hides the desktop switching panel, or the desktop switching panel hides a rather large part of the maximized Window. This behaviour made the maximize button on the window corner unnecessary for me, I could not use it.
– The desktop switching panel is not as broad as the whole screen, so that when I enlarge an application window to be its maximum size without colliding with the desktop switchin panel, there is always unused space in the bottom corners.
– The desktop switching panel has no task bar. I need a task bar.
– That all resulted in having to use many more mouseclicks and drags than in any desktop I ever used before, with the notable exception of Windows 3.x
All of above mentioned annoying behaviour cannot be changed, at least not for the version I was using (2001).
Both KDE and GNOME can be customized to look and feel like CDE, or Windows, or OSX or, or, or. That is why CDE sucks for all users who do not think like CDE programmers and CDE HIG writers. So mybe for a small amount of people CDE is the best Desktop ever, but the vast majority will bring up exactly the points I mentioned.
Because lots of people still use both, and GTK is a huge bloated monster and QT is controlled by Trolltech.
The size of all libgtk* and libgdk* on my system is under 15MB. I’d say it’s quite minimal on modern PCs which are supposed to have 1GB+ RAM.
Because lots of people still use both, and GTK is a huge bloated monster and QT is controlled by Trolltech.
This makes Linux sound more and more like Windows. You make it bloated by keeping up all the possible stuff in name of backward compatible. Its a deadhole where Windows has already fallen and now you would want Linux to follow. No thanks, get rid all old technic if possible. CDE and Motif are just plain ugly and there are programs that are using GTK to take over blank space left if we give up using those. We just dont need them anymore. GTK isnt bloated, its build to match modern computers limits, not some 10 year old junk.
GTK isnt bloated, its build to match modern computers limits, not some 10 year old junk.
Hey! My network resembles that remark! 🙂
The entire *core* gnome stack is LGPL… That is the reason companies like VMWare or Adobe use GTK to write their applications. If they used QT, they would have to pay Trolltech a ton of money for a commercial license.
Get your facts straight. Adobe uses Qt for PhotoShop Album. Other companies paying “tons of money” to Trolltech are Opera, Skype and Google. Qt is also used in the medical, petroleum engineering, and film industry. It’s used to calculate commercial satellite orbit insertions, for flight simulators, and protein folding.
Commercial companies do not have a problem paying for the tools they use.
http://www.trolltech.com/products/qt/licenses/pricing A license for one developer to use QT on two platforms (like windows and OS X) would cost $4950. Keep in mind that is for one developer.
Yes, I seem to consider this “tons of money” when that company can use gtk for free. Also note that there would be no gnome or gtk if Trolltech didn’t have QT as nonfree in the beginning. That is the reason Miguel, Nat, and Federico founded gnome in the first place.
Of course, Adobe also uses Qt to write applications.
/signed
I’m a big fan of CDE, it has that lovely retro look that makes me want to use it on every Slackware install. Hopefully this petition (and the work of some DE group) will eventually allow that.
The less people who use motif and CDE, the better.
Horrid DE and Toolkit (if simply to look at). Should be destined to the binary grave.
Everyone has their reasons. I use CDE…I do some customizing with Xdefaults to make it eye pleasing and functional. I usually start by getting rid of the panel which just sits there like a slug and use only the root menu.
But why bother ? We’ve alredy got OpenMotif ( http://www.opengroup.org/openmotif/ ) and Lesstif ( http://www.lesstif.org/ ) both reimplementing Motif.
Meanwhile Xfce ( http://www.xfce.org/index.php ) does well as a sort of CDE equivalent for the modern day and FVWM can be made to emulate the CDE look with reasonable success ( http://fvwm.math.uh.edu/screenshots/j_g_a_van_riswick-desk-1152×864… )
Part of the attraction to CDE is it hasn’t changed in forever. Having the source won’t really matter.
But what of bugfixes? What of security holes plugged? What of better support for non-roman languages? What of being able to completely tweak the system? That matters to a lot of people, all those are reasons why open sourcing it would matter.
I think from an interface design point of view it’s absurd that some Unixes still use this outdated DE and widget set… I mean, why have SGI or HP never thought about developing an improved interface for their high-end workstation OS? I mean it looks old and it feels old.
But nonetheless the more things get opensourced, the better.
All signed up here. Can’t wait to trade in the crop of crap DEs we have today and have the real deal again.
The first time I ever used UNIX was with CDE my freshman year of college in ’00. So there is a bit of nostalgia for me.
CDE is simple, fast, and fairly easy to use. Sure there are other desktop environments/window managers that have all the bangs and whistles but not everyone wants all that.
Besides, who knows what kind of interesting things will be done with CDE if it gets open sourced =)
*Signed the petition*
A desktop which CAN have a decent panel, a decent taskbar, a decent maximize window policy. All of that, including the option to have it still operating as it always did.
In other words it could overcome its biggest weaknesses without loosing its stron points.
a decent taskbar
CDE simply uses an alternative to the taskbar (namely, ‘iconifiy’), and as far as I’m concerned, it is superior to a taskbar, since a taskbar is limited in size, meaning when you have too many windows open, you cannot read which window is what. Also, taskbar entries move around (esp. in GNOME) and that just plain sucks. Other than that, taskbars give little to no cues about whether or not a window is minimised or on-screen.
The cool thing is, OSX does not have a taskbar either. OSX is a LOT like CDE, with the only downside that in OSX’ Dock, there are only visual cues (icons) and no textual cues.
a decent maximize window policy
I never maximise windows. Why would I? There are little to no applications that require 17″ of screen real estate. Othet than that, you don’t want to maximise on CDE since that hides the iconified windows.
Again OSX is VERY similar to CDE, in that OSX also lacks a maximise option, and ALSO leaves
All of that, including the option to have it still operating as it always did.
Your wishes are already fulfilled, and it’s called Xfce.
Darn, I need to run ‘apt-get install cde’. My Solaris9 SPARC machine is disconnected at the moment.
Edited 2006-10-13 10:11
a decent maximize window policy
I never maximise windows. Why would I? There are little to no applications that require 17″ of screen real estate. Othet than that, you don’t want to maximise on CDE since that hides the iconified windows.
I´m sorry but this is just not true. I don´t maximize applications too much just like you but when I need to use my 3D modelling package or do some photo editing, I need as much screen real estate as I can get, even on a 17″ screen. Heck, if I had a 21″ screen, I´m sure that I would come up with a way to use that too (even if just to keep several xterms open at the same time as I´ve seen a friend of mine doing on his… :-))
That´s why I don´t use desktop craplets like Karamba, gDesklets and such. I rarely see the root window, even if I don´t maximize my applications (and no, Dashboard with its shortcuts doesn´t cut it either).
I´ve used CDE for a short while so I don´t know if I am qualified to comment on it, but while I felt that it is OK I can´t see it doing ANYTHING better than KDE
Maybe, free CDE developers coult have a look at the Gtk+ based XFCE3, which offers good customization. Not-overlapping the panel, a taskbar and so on. The XFCE4 port works fine as well. I think a free CDE would soon be cleaned of the “old fashioned” behaviour in order to compete with oder desktop environments. After all, it could be less CPU and MEM intensive as KDE oder Gnome which, by the way, can be configured to look and behave like CDE, if you wanted to.
I find it quite disturbing that some trolls are modding down comments that speak the truth about CDE/Motif. It sucks. Plain simple. Use something better: Qt/GTK+/WxWindows/tcl.tk/fltk/<etc>.
That would be your opinion, and you’re welcome to it. However, considering the fact that in the 1 hour since I signed the petition the number has gone from 91 to 160+ sigs, looks like there are plenty of us who define “something better” quite differently.
Edited 2006-10-13 04:15
Silicon, you don’t walk into a Catholic Church meeting and begin to profess the greatness of Shintoism. You don’t walk into a FSF meeting and start telling them why you hate the GPL. You don’t log in and comment on a CDE discussion how you think it sucks.
If you have constructive criticism, that’s one thing, it’s acceptable. Just gibbering about how much it sucks slimy green zombified donkey balls is not, it’s out of place.
Perhaps saying, “I find no real justification in attempting to open source CDE, nor Motif, as in my opinion it has become an outmoded desktop environment and widget set, to which their are technologically superiour alternatives, and thus it would be better overall if resources were not spent on this,” is much better than what you’ve said, it doesn’t read as a troll. Your comment does. Plain and simple.
So adding obfuscating frills to the basic message “this old piece of junk sucks” makes it good enough to not be a troll? Interesting.
I find it quite disturbing that some trolls are modding down comments that speak the truth about CDE/Motif. It sucks. Plain simple. Use something better: Qt/GTK+/WxWindows/tcl.tk/fltk/<etc>.
Some people just like old GUIs
. Nevertheless, motif is outdated and you can hardly find any motif-based apps on linux desktop now (anyone still use netscape 4?).
PS: tk isn’t any better…
For me, there are several mission critical Motif apps that I need to use daily across a wide range of computers: not just the Linux desktop — and NEdit is available on all of them, and still a better programming editor for me than the alternatives. Until you can meet my needs, I think you should stop your childishness.
You’re free to stay with your ancient apps, but the linux world needs to move forward, and stop wasting resource on old trash which more than 99% of people don’t even have the interest to take a look.
> For me, there are several mission critical Motif apps
> that I need to use daily across a wide range of
> computers: not just the Linux desktop
That brings up the deeper question of who the **** ever had the incredibly stupid idea of coupling the programming interface and the look-and-feel so tightly…
If that wasn’t the case, you could use those applications with Qt or GTK or whatever. But it was of course much more funny to make the different toolkits look-and-feel different AND incompatible at the programming level…
Edited 2006-10-13 17:53
Well some application are using lessTiff such as nedit which is a good text editor.
Well some application are using lessTiff such as nedit which is a good text editor.
My version of nedit is built with openmotif. They are interchangeable for most motif applications.
I wholeheartedly agree! CDE does suck. There never was a single moment ever in its entire history that it didn’t completely suck. Its level of suck is unparalleled in the Unix world (Windows is the apex of suckiness once you step out of the Unix world, of course).
Having said that. I think it is a good thing to open source Motif. Some people like it, some have to support it, and you never know what you might learn looking at some old code.
Not something I see myself using overmuch, but I can’t see anything wrong with it being available either. There is a lot of existing code that uses Motif, and CDE is relevent for historical reasons if nothing else. If you don’t want to use it, don’t but don’t rain on the parade. The toolkit is not a good reason to abandon old code, I know I use XFig and XCircuit frequently and both are great programs despite their age and I would be happy to add old Motif programs to my work list for the same reasons.
I await the next killer Motif app.
Edited 2006-10-13 04:17
along with OpenWindows, altough SUN says that it cannot devote the legal resources.
…many reasons to ask people “why?” or, “why, when we have X, Y, and Z,” but if people want it open source then I’m all for it.
Even if you don’t like CDE or Motif, to have the source freely available is always good.
I rather like CDE. But I’ve always liked bare minimum GUIs. CDE, Workspace Manager on NeXT, Windowmaker/blackbox on Linux… All are unobtrusive and out of the way, yet easy to get to stuff when you need it. Thats how a GUI SHOULD be. Not some CPU cycle hogging, glittery, screen realistate wasting tribute to modernism.
**edited some typos**
Edited 2006-10-13 17:21
I’d like to see CDE released under a license that allows commercial use (BSD license?). Developers that cannot afford to spend tons of money for licenses could do their work with a professional desktop environment.
The DE and the Motif toolkit are “good enough” for users of commercial applications, and the customers do not need to buy all-new boxes. A port of CDE that runs on top of a BSD or Linux would be great. It’s usefull as an environment where the user does not do “too much” (e. g. clicks around everywhere he can), but uses his main application, maybe a mail client and a browser. The Motif toolkit provides useful means to implement GUI driven applications. You have everything look consistent and well-formed.
BTW: The XFCE3 port is quite cool, it can be tweaked to look like the “real” CDE.
why adopt an old system when you could design a better one and learn from mistakes?
dont tell me because of compatibility… bla
Love to see the code but use it after having seen e17? Surely you jest. Park it over there next to Mosaic.
I don’t care about motif being open source, but I would sign any partition that bans motif from the world’s surface and makes it illegal to use it in software for endusers. I mean, we have human rights and such. UI torture might be harmless compared to other forms of torture, but it’s torture nevertheless.
Solaris moved from openwindows with it’s nice rounded edges and open spacious feel over to the blocky CDE. I had real problems getting used to CDE and for the most part avoided it when I could. Of course then about that time came desktops like afterstep followed by windowmaker…
It’d be cool to resurrect the widget set of openwindows and bring it a little more “up to date”. The old API you can have, btw.