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> What is the last time you checked the company
> address of Opera and Trolltech?
Uhm... Does it matter? And if so, why? First of all, both companies' headquarters are in Europe. And I said most commercial Linux _applications_ come from outside the US, which is quite easy to see.
> You attempts to argue about the widespreadness, but
> how widespread worldwide is e.g. Hancom Office
> (which is a CJK office suit, not just Chinese, by
> the way).
I wrote about widespread use of Linux as an desktop OS, not about the widepread use of the applications. It doesn't really matter how widespread Hancom Office is. If I want to develop a desktop application for Linux (even if portability doesn't matter), I would try to use a toolkit that feels native on _my_ desktop, especially if there are only two choices anyway - with similar market share. And I need to correct myself, Hancom is a Korean company...
> Acrobat Reader (last version 3.x) was actually a
> Motif application. Adobe Reader has not been so
> long out, and I am wondering who declared it to a
> "GTK reference application" (which would be GIMP as
> in "GIMP Toolkit").
The last Acroread using Motif was 5.0, not 3.x. And it's the only real closed source desktop GTK2 application, that makes it sort of a reference application. Since we're talking about commercial closed source applications, GIMP doesn't matter.
> And you clearly attempts to discredit products like
> VMware. It does not matter whether they could use
> something else - this is true for a lot of products.
> But they chose it, whether it is VMware or Skype.
You didn't get the point. The user interface doesn't matter at all for VMWare. Because you don't _work_ with VMWare's interface, you set it up, start the VM, and that's it. It doesn't matter if the interface/ toolkit is buggy as hell, slow, un-intuitive or butt-ugly. For a desktop app like Skype the toolkit matters (integration, look, speed, memory footprint).
Member since:
The list goes on, and you see, there are many more Qt/ KDE closed source apps than GTK apps. Also notice, most closed source Linux apps are from outside the USA, from countries where desktop Linux is more widespread and KDE is the default desktop.
The problem with your argument is, as like most carelessly made and naive comparisons, you cannot compare. Like:
- What is the last time you checked the company address of Opera and Trolltech?
- You attempts to argue about the widespreadness, but how widespread worldwide is e.g. Hancom Office (which is a CJK office suit, not just Chinese, by the way).
Acrobat Reader (last version 3.x) was actually a Motif application. Adobe Reader has not been so long out, and I am wondering who declared it to a "GTK reference application" (which would be GIMP as in "GIMP Toolkit").
And you clearly attempts to discredit products like VMware. It does not matter whether they could use something else - this is true for a lot of products. But they chose it, whether it is VMware or Skype.
You also ignore other factors that contribute to the decision. Opera is designed to share source code between different platforms. GTK is not designed with cross-plattform in mide as like Qt.
More issue arises with commercial applications because not even your assertion GTK = GNOME and Qt = KDE is true. Many of the applications you listed made the decision on toolkit, not desktop.