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To me, yes, philosophically, it does matter (about choice). For years, we put up with Gnome users bitching about Suse being KDE centric. Even though these same people did not once complain about Redhat being Gnome centric. Pot calling the kettle black? I say include the 3 main desktop environments (Gnome, KDE, XFCE) and maybe fluxbox, blackbox, since they are both small in terms of footprint anyways. Give the end user choice to choose. Having to download later on is NOT choice. Evidence shows that people will very very RARELY change from whatever default comes with the system. Ubuntu's default Gnome is actually damaging the open source development system, by unfairly removing the opportuntity for the KDE [insert alternative desktop environment here] userbase to grow. This in turn effects development, and the number of developers that join that community. It kills competition, and is in fact, anti competitive imho. The proof in that is since Ubuntu has come around, KDE user numbers have severely dropped (last 3 desktop surveys if memory serves me correct). This isn't survival of the fittest, it's rigging the event to ensure Gnome finishes ahead at the distribution level. It goes against the very principles of open source. Open. Look the word up.

As to Kubuntu, I've tried it, albeit a few years ago, and a P.O.S it was. From what I read, it seems that it hasn't improved much, and I'm not gain to try it again. Maybe that's a bit unfair on my end, but...Ubuntu main has made it quite clear that its focus is on Ubuntu, and not Kubuntu, especially with the recent comments about dropping KDE from the LTS releases, because KDE is no longer supposedly actively developing the 3.x series and KDE 4 is not supposedly stable. That would mean no KDE basically for the next 5 years (by which time KDE 4 would be well and truly stable!).

Ubuntu is doing several things - shoving Gnome down your throat. And shoving sudo down your throat, which has a very sordid history of security related issues in the past. sudo is NO safer than su, in fact, I'd venture that it's less safe, since it has a file with usernames that have elevated priviledges. True, su defaults to the root user, which means that most crackers will target root, whereas with sudo, it could be any name, but I do not believe that that is a real enough issue to make the usage of sudo necessary.

Dave

Hey, I'm beginning to see why people take you apart. What you're feeling? That's called entitlement (well, that and a persecution complex), and it's bad.

Oh, you're absolutely right. And it should also include mplayer, since not everybody wants to use totem. And songbird, since not everybody wants to use rhythmbox (or whatever), and gnome office in addition to openoffice. In fact, they should include every single open source project ever.

Oh, wait. A CD is limited to 700 MB, and the KDE packages are 200 MB. Which dozen large programs would you like to remove to make way for it, and what entitles KDE to preferential treatment over the twenty gigabytes of other packages that are not included on the CD?



And all the distributions that include KDE and not CDE are killing the competition by denying CDE developers. So every distribution which includes a program but not all the alternatives is anti-competitive and evil. Right.

Wait, wrong. Here, I'll make it real simple: KDE is not entitled to special treatment. The devs can package Ubuntu however they like. Open source means that the source is available for people to use however they want, which they are. It does not say anything about making sure all projects have an equal number of users.

(Pop quiz: How many projects did KDE kill?)

You are right, Ubuntu is removing the opportunity for the KDE user base to grow. But this is the effect. Let's try to find out the cause. On a certain time of it's history, the Gnome project decided to direct the development towards simplicity and ease of use. They were severely criticized by the KDE community for being a desktop for dummies. I think this is not fair. Gnome is so configurable that I can transform it on a Mac OSX look. The Mac4Lin project is for Gnome not for KDE. I can choose between different widget engines like Aurora and Murrine. With the arrival of Compiz and Beryl the options grow exponentially. Compiz was supposed to be a Linux stuff like D-Bus but now it is pretty much a Gnome stuff. This is because the KDE project decided, as usual, to reinvent the wheel and create create Kwin composition for KDE4. They could simply integrate Compiz with a nice Qt interface.

So Gnome found a interesting balance between simplicity, beauty and ease of use. The Ubuntu project was created to be Linux for human beings. They choose Gnome because for Gnome the end user is a first class citizen. It was a huge success. The simplicity of Gnome with the user friendliness of Ubuntu create one of the best desktop experience on the market. Today people confuse the concepts of Linux and Ubuntu as it was the same thing.

The KDE project and KDE 4 in special took another approach. It aims a powerful environment with dozens of plasmoids on the desktop, three or four menu levels filled with programs and things like two editors by default (Kate and Kedit). The Dolphin file manager have a BIG red folder icon that is a shortcut for the root directory. What am I supposed to do in the root folder with a graphical file manager? They privileged the power user, the developer, the geek.

Now there is a great opportunity for Linux and open source in general. Microsoft is giving us this opportunity with their incompetence and their exhausted business model. There are many people considering Linux as an alternative to the bloated Vista. Are they geek or programmers? Probably they are power user by now but they will be common people as soon as the ultra cheep nettops with Linux pre installed flood the market.

So why the complain? For human beings preferring Linux for human beings? For the common user prefer not to clutter their desktop with plasmoids? The KDE choose programmers. The Gnome choose common people. There are much more common people then programmers so more people use Gnome. If more people use Gnome more programmers are interested on writing software for Gnome. Simple logic, not an evil or malicious plan. Not shoving Gnome down your throat. They do not have this power.

The KDE people must sit down and admit that huge mistakes were made on the 4.0 series and figure out how to change the course of the project instead of blaming Gnome for its success, for the sake of competition.