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There a lot of info from the presentation. Its good to see they are making a stable base.

I like the work they've put into all those frameworks. For example the VOIP framework: you can develop a dozen different frontends to it and every time it gets a bugfix or something all those apps utilizing it will benefit. I like GNOME but I am starting to get the feeling that GNOME is getting left a bit behind.

There are similar projects underway in the gnome camp (a look at gnomefiles.org shows them). I think the underlying frameworks/libraries will actually be the same. This isn't new stuff - both "camps" have been working on this underlying technology stuff for quite some time.

Decibel is basically KDE's implementation of the freedesktop.org Telepathy specification and GNOME has their own implementation as well, so components of either implementation can be combined.

Work on the GNOME implementation is mainly done by the people at Collabra.

See also http://live.gnome.org/Empathy

I don't think its just Gnome that is getting behind, I think this is the case for most other desktop environments as well. Watch out Microsoft and Apple.

Gnome still holds the advantage when it comes to usability, but KDE 4 rules on the framework side. The fact that applications easily can be ported to various platforms including windows is a winning feature.
As pointed out in the presentation, this could be a way to break the Microsoft Outlook/Exchange lock in situation.

I hope that Gnome manages to do something similar, or even better reuse the excellent work done in KDE 4.

GNOME's problem is not the today - GNOME as it is works fine, and I enjoy using it. It works, looks very pleasing (on my eyes at least, after a bit of work), and is updated regularly with interesting new tidbits and bugfixes.

It's the future where GNOME's big problem lies. They have NO plan for the future - that I could live with, if it were not for the fact that GNOME lacks something else: a vision. Where does it want to go, where does it want to be, what does it want to do, what does it want to offer that other environments cannot offer.

KDE 3.5 worked fine the way it was. It may not float everyone's boat (just like GNOME doesn't float everyone's boat) but for those it did float their boat for (still with me?) it worked just mighty fine. Mature, stable, configurable, great development tools. Still, the KDE guys were smart enough to realise that this would not be the case forever. Expectations change, competition changes, and you need to adapt - or die. Or, as the KDE guys put it, you keep hitting the big friggin' wall. Incremental updates wil get you near the wall - but not over it.

So, the KDE guys took the bold step, and decided to put into words (and later code) their vision of what a desktop environment should be like. Early on in the process, they had some communication issues that made KDE 4 kind of look like vapourware, but later on, they improved this and starting talking a whole lot more about it, making their vision clear. And now, despite many bugs and oddities, we have the first signs of their vision in our hands and on our computers, and as I said in my first-look article about KDE 4.0, the potential is just oozing out of every pixel.

And where is GNOME? Well, to speak in KDE terms - still getting near the big friggin' wall, just like two years ago - assuming that their users and developers will remain pleased with remaining on the current side of the wall, with no plans whatsoever to try and get over the big friggin' wall - something that requires more than just incremental updates.

At this point in time, the future looks a whole lot brighter for KDE than it does for GNOME. People will cal this flamebait, and I'm fine with that. Unless someone or some people from the GNOME community step up and lead GNOME to a vision that can get them over the big friggin' wall, I'm fairly sure history will side with me.

Which is sad, since I really like GNOME.