Linked by Thom Holwerda on Sun 1st Jun 2008 09:40 UTC, submitted by tbutler
Back in 2001, there was a company who thought they could launch a sustainable business model around a file manager. They wrote the file manager itself, and figured they could profit from offering online services delivered through the file manager. However, the company ran out of money quickly, and wen they released version 1.0 of their file manager, they had to fire everyone, only to go down a few months later. That company was Eazel, and the file manager was Nautilus. Apparently, some saw this as the demise of the Linux desktop - others didn't.
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Member since:2005-07-24
Member since:2005-07-13
Well, yes. There is at least some positive relation between the number of users and the number of developers in an open source software project. Granted, few veteran developers of either project would be likely to jump ship and join the other project, but for the budding FOSS developers, they are going to be more inclined to join a software project that they actually use.
Which is where I'll chime in to remind people that KDE has progressed from being simply yet another free desktop, to being a cross-platform application environment, with a desktop component for *nix users.
KDE will be bringing "native" applications to Win and OSX, and by making their rich application framework available to those platforms, hopefully encourage developers from those platforms to bring their expertise to the KDE community. Even now, KDE has developers working on core projects using non-linux platforms. This benefits the entire KDE userbase, and will help encourage wider KDE adoption across a variety of platforms.
Will things change overnight? No, of course not. Will things change at all? Who knows?
But they have a vision that dwarfs what Gnome or the other "DE"'s are doing at this point. I find it amusing that people pontificate about how KDE is second-rate on the basis of a screenshot. The true potential and real sexiness of KDE lies beneath the surface, and cannot be seen in screen grabs. It hasn't even had enough time for developers to truly start leveraging the new frameworks.
Of course, it may lead nowhere, and KDE may remain as nothing more than yet another linux desktop. But the ambition is tangible, and shouldn't be dismissed.
Member since:2005-07-06
It is a bold vision, certainly, but I don't see it take OS X or Windows by storm.
OS X is primarily used because it is OS X and a Frankenstein combination of Darwin with KDE on top won't do.
If KDE ever gains marginal success on Win32, we all know what will happen to "the air supply".
So it will most probably stay a Freenix desktop.
Member since:
2007-04-06
Would KDE benefit from an influx of current Gnome users? Would Gnome benefit from an influx of current KDE users?
Well, yes. There is at least some positive relation between the number of users and the number of developers in an open source software project. Granted, few veteran developers of either project would be likely to jump ship and join the other project, but for the budding FOSS developers, they are going to be more inclined to join a software project that they actually use.
(Very)Generally speaking, more developers means more features, more rapid development and more eyeballs making those annoying bugs that much shallower.
Is this a good reason to evangelize your desktop environment? Probably not, but it certainly makes sense from a users POV.
A better reason to 'spread the message' is that I enjoy my DE of choice (in my case, KDE). I naturally think it is superior to other DEs, otherwise I would be using those. If I think it is superior software, I of course think that everyone would benefit by using it over others. From my POV, encouraging people to use KDE (or GNOME, if that is your preference) is doing them a favour. I have their best interests at heart.
Unfortunately, we are all too willing to be blinded by our preference, to the point where we sometimes refuse to acknowledge that is just that - a matter of preference.