Just over a year ago, Tim Butler wrote an article which outlined why he thought the GNOME Project was clearly the free software desktop project with the best vision of the future. KDE's Appeal Project, which has been brewing for some time now, looks to a different set of issues that need solving and has some very smart minds at work on solving those problems. In a few words, KDE's got some of "that vision thing" too, according to Tim.
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Member since:2005-06-29
What are your criteria for determining an arguably inferior technology? And what makes you think a homogeneous desktop, like the one we have with Windows is better for the evolution of Linux?
Take a look at the pathetic state Windows is in today, is that what you want for Linux? Arguing there should be only one desktop for Linux is synonymous to arguig for one human race. Oh, because too many races lead to conflict and factionalization.
Member since:2005-07-06
I would ask this question to the KDE developer or fanboy.
*ROTFL*.
and KDE was now the 90% dominant platform on Unix with a couple anklebiters keeping the KDE devs on their toes, would things be better off? I believe it would.
Not really, because without the competition and ankle biting between the two I think any unified desktop would have stagnated and got bogged down in politics. KDE has been better off without all that.
But as is the case now, we have two dominant desktop platforms with roughly the same market share
There is a lot of evidence to cast serious doubt on that.
with one of the platforms dependent on a toolkit that big vendors don't want to touch
Novell certainly is using Qt in a huge way, and compared to this lot:
http://www.trolltech.com/company/customers.html
(notice the big software vendors in there), Red Hat and Sun are totally meaningless in the grand scheme of software developers worldwide.
but the days of using it on the desktop are dwindling fast with OSX-x86 coming around.
Yer, I've alway wanted to build my own x86 box and put OS X on it, or to see OEMs doing that. Oh wait.....
Member since:2005-06-29
Not really, because without the competition and ankle biting between the two I think any unified desktop would have stagnated and got bogged down in politics. KDE has been better off without all that.
Possibly, but its hurt the overall market penetration of linux on the desktop. There's no doubt about that. Linux is a kernel, not an operating system. The reason that OSX is so far ahead, and always will be is because they control the whole stack from microkernel on up.
There is a lot of evidence to cast serious doubt on that.
Evidence to cast serious doubt on what?
Novell certainly is using Qt in a huge way, and compared to this lot:
Why did they buy Ximian then?
(notice the big software vendors in there), Red Hat and Sun are totally meaningless in the grand scheme of software developers worldwide.
Which has nothing to do with KDE at all. And there's the problem. What's in Qt interests isn't necessarily in KDE's interests, but I know you KDE fanboys think that Trolltech are gods and always have the interests of KDE at heart. The same thing can go for RedHat's defacto ownership of Gnome, but at least Novell has resources. Wake up to the real world fanboy.
Yer, I've alway wanted to build my own x86 box and put OS X on it, or to see OEMs doing that. Oh wait...
The developers OSX-x86 versions have already been hacked onto white boxes, but that's not even the most important point. The important point is dual-triple booting with windows and linux, lower costs, and possible 3rd licensing eventually. You sound scared. I would be to if I had some irrational, emotional attachment to linux on the desktop.
Member since:
2005-06-29
I would ask this question to the KDE developer or fanboy.
If Qt had been a community effort from the beginning, licensed under something like LGPL or GPL + exceptions, Gnome had never been started (I believe de Icaza has stated that he even sent a couple patches into KDE), and KDE was now the 90% dominant platform on Unix with a couple anklebiters keeping the KDE devs on their toes, would things be better off?
I believe it would. But as is the case now, we have two dominant desktop platforms with roughly the same market share, with one of the platforms dependent on a toolkit that big vendors don't want to touch, and the other with arguably inferior technology.
And once again, the only reason this issue isn't brought up more often is because the linux desktop is pretty insignificant at the moment.
I'll probably always use Linux on my servers, but the days of using it on the desktop are dwindling fast with OSX-x86 coming around. There's too much factionalization to ever hope to catch up on Windows, much less OSX on the desktop.