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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.

They certainly do have similar projects, but the problem is making good use of them throughout the desktop in a way that is not onerous for developers. At about twenty minutes into that main video, Aaron talks about Akonadi and how within a few lines of code they could integrate with Plasma and make your contacts, e-mail and other PIM data available to various applets for display and retrieval. This is not application specific. I don't really know of any other desktop environment that is working towards this, and Microsoft didn't take Windows Mail any further in Vista because they were clearly afraid it would stop you from buying into Outlook and Exchange ;-).

Something called Dashboard was written for Gnome a few years ago, which was able to do an apparently similar thing. Unfortunately, the data that was pulled into this was very much application specific. Evolution for mail and contacts and GAIM (Pidgin) for instant messaging, and there was no real way of making this data flexible beyond those domains. There was no way of adding in other forms of information for display in an easy way either. From that presentation, it becomes pretty clear that that is where KDE is different.

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

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.

Well, okay Maybe the KDE folks just have been better at trumpeting their implementations then?

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.

One area where KDE as a software project and developer community still needs to become better in is making the scope of parts of their work more explicitly visible.

For example if we look at KDE2 or KDE3 technology like DCOP or KIO, there are misconceptions about them being KDE specific things, i.e. somehow depend on KDE in the sense of linker requirements.

Both examples above are centered around the concept of communicating processes, where the actual interoperability constrains are in the respective protocol and where the implementation details of one side are shielded from them implementation details of the other.

It will be intersting to see if the KDE developers will manage to make this base requirements more visible and also if non-associated developers will be able understand this separation sufficiently to not turn away working solutions just because someone associated with KDE created it.

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.

I don't really have much more to add to your post GNOME is mighty fine as-is and there are only very few things I find missing. But the KDE base framework just is aiming for the future, not for the present, and GNOME has to follow sooner or later..The good thing is though that still everything keeps rolling and getting better and better over time as the competition from other DEs keeps pushing devs forward

I agree mostly with what you said, but let's not forget that 'rewriting' was truly risky: each time you rewrite something there's bugs, loss of feature/polish, performance concern at the beginning.

Apparently KDE dev has managed to make this new set of frameworks, but the 'turmoil' phase isn't finished yet: KDE3.x is more usable than KDE4.0 right now, the question is how long will it take for KDE4.x to be truly superior to KDE3.x?

The stabilisation/polish phase always take more time than anticipated: the joke "it's 90% finished, let's make the other 90%" is true, and in the meantime Gnome compete hard with KDE (I'm more a KDE guy myself but let's face it the number of Gnome-mostly distribution is high).

I wonder for example how well KDE4 would run on an OLPC?

Wow Thom, my hats off to you for that post. I might just have to start eating some of my previous words.

Dave

>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

Helmut Schmidt, an old german politician said: you should go to the doctor if you have visions.

You write a lot of text but at the end you say almost nothing.

You say that GNOME has to reach the other side of the wall. But what is at the other side of the wall? Why GNOME would need a new major version number to reach it?

You say that KDE has realise something and therefore they did KDE4. But the main reason for KDE4 was Qt4. If there wouldn't be Qt4 than there wouldn't be KDE4!

I could take your writing much more serious if you would say something more concrete. Why does GNOME need a new major number? What can't be done in the GNOME2 serie and why? What is the other side of the wall and again why can't it reached with GNOME2?