The first snapshot release of Komodo, a next-generation Linux/.NET-based operating system, is now available. “A new desktop environment codenamed Dagon is now being developed with [D-Bus, Composite, Linux 2.6] to bring a new face of Linux to users. The environment is being developed around the Emotion graphics/UI toolkit to best make use of these new display and communication technologies as well as to provide a solid and useable interface for casual users.” Get the latest snapshots from their FTP servers. Read more information for developers, users and enterprise users.
Its the applications !!!
Right.
And it’s to manage/lock user’s desktops…
and it’s to centralize user/group management…
and it’s to deliver software/patches easily…
and it’s to have a decent Directory Service…
and it’s to easily get reports on what’s going on…
and it’s to facilitate os deployment/disaster recover/backup…
and it’s to do all above without sky-rocket science…
Please, plese, STOP this distribution race! Yes, you CAN do a distribution, we all know, but start coding something else if you want to see linux BROADLY adopted in the corporate arena.
And it’s to manage/lock user’s desktops…
Kiosk, among other things.
and it’s to centralize user/group management…
LDAP.
and it’s to deliver software/patches easily…
It doesn’t get much easier than having a custom APT proxy to selectively pass on upstream updates to clients.
and it’s to have a decent Directory Service…
LDAP.
and it’s to easily get reports on what’s going on…
Most Linux software has excellent logging. You can also add things like SELinux to take it to the next level.
and it’s to facilitate os deployment/disaster recover/backup…
Kickstart, live backups (via LVM), atomic filesystem (Reiser4), what more do you want?
and it’s to do all above without sky-rocket science…
If you think any of the above is rocket science, you need to find a new line of work.
I think you are missing his point. (That is if he point is what I thought it was.
)
Sure Linux can do all of that. But it’s more complicated and disconnected than it needs to be.
I agree all system admins should know how to setup everything listed but it should be easier. Why does it need to be complicated? To limit who can do it?
I think he is talking more about creating a combined system with tools that allow you to easly manage all of these things. Look at what apple has done so far with their server stuff. A large portion of it’s open source but it’s one contained unit when looking from the outside. They also offer you all the tools you need to complete any basic task with out much work.
Now I do a lot of OS X Server work and it does have it’s problems (many) but I believe that’s a spot the open source community should look at. Basically create OS X but open source. Integrate all of those items into one software package.
Great! But guess what. As a systems/application developer I will need to consult not one set of documentation but… jeez at least EIGHT sets of documentation.
I’m sorry but if you don’t make a centralized OS, you are putting the responsibility of learning rocket science on the APPLICATION DEVELOPERS, where the rocket science should be on you. In fact, if it’s not hard to develop it the OS, you did it wrong.
I could not agree more. The current goals of the distributions seems to be:
1. Keep software from upstream updated downstream
2. Fix bugs
So my question, where are the goals regarding innovation and actually improving the feel of Linux instead of just “working with what we have”. People say don’t reinvent the wheel, but if your wheel has metal spikes coming out in odd places and is very hard to attach to your car, why the hell shouldn’t it be reinvented??
I’d like to try it, but can’t hit their torrent (ftp://komodoware.com/snapshots/komodo-dp1-i686-2005.09.20.iso.torr…)
I understand that Komodo is a distribution(?) but is the Dagon DE going to be competing with KDE/GNOME?
Of course
almost stark.
I love it.
Thanks! The theme is basic right now (i think thats the name of it actually) but it’s just one for proof of concept.
Yeah, where’s the direct download for the ISO?
Torrents suck.
Isn’t Komodo the name of ActiveState’s (commercial) IDE? Why cause confusion and risk legal action?
Not trying to cause confusion, the name has been kept for now until someone gives us a better one that’s NOT already taken. This process will be quickened if ActiveState has problems with us using the name.
This is what I like about open-source! Good ideas can meet the tools and people they need to expand and experiment.
Thanks! We try, at least.
Just noticed: you can download the torrent from their tracker: http://www.komodoware.com/tracker
Wow SkyOS called, they want their UI back. Is it just me, or do they look similar?
I don’t care, SkyOS is quite nice BUT it’s 1) proprietary 2) there aren’t any apps. Komodo is 1) GPL 2) compatible with Linux apps.
It’s more similiar to OS X’s I think. Far more similiar. Not that SkyOS wasn’t inspired by OSX as well…
Only the actual contents of the windows is ours and the UI stuff there is just a theme to test it. The look and indeed layout of all the UI stuff can be changed with a new theme plugin. Besides, I’ve never even looked at SkyOS screenshots: this is just what came out when I tried to use a PDF like API to build a theme engine.
Imagine there’s no Windows
It’s easy if you try
No “Gates” below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Running Linux…
Maybe we need to imagine for a moment why don’t stop KDE and Gnome Development, and other desktops, and rethink the new desktop for linux. 100% freedesktop compliant.
Why don’t see where we want to see the linux desktop on 2015. Do a ten years roadmap.
Why dont leave our personal touch only inside us.
Imagine all the people, running their desktops on linux.
More open source software infected with Mono.
Only in this, case they’ve taken full advantage of C#’s “portability” and created a new API so that all of your System.Windows.Forms and GTK# apps won’t run.
I really don’t understand why these .NET fanatics just don’t run Windows Vista.
1) Because Vista hasn’t been released yet
2) And when it will be it won’t be free (as in freedom)
3) Vista is bloated already now
4) #2 means you can’t really modify the system (no choice of freedom – which is utterly unacceptable, and very anti-MS if you look at the early MS-days)
You can surely come up with many other reasons not to use Vista
dylansmrjones
kristian AT herkild DOT dk
Wrong. System.Windows.Forms and GTK# are supported just fine. Komodo includes GTK and QT (not the download available now, because I didn’t want to beef it up unnecessarily) as well as bindings for both (weell really QT is an ongoing concern).
I don’t run Windows Vista because I HATE Microsoft. My using .NET does not mean I in any way identify with Microsoft. They just made a good cross-platform environment, made it available via standards (ECMA) and have been very accepting about it. The least we can do is encourage Microsoft to do this stuff more often by allowing the applications written for Komodo to work on Vista (via Emotion’s Windows backend, which, is like 10% coded right now but whatever).
’cause backtrace is like mono’s, but Xsharp is DotGNU’s library.
So?
We use the Mono everywhere. DotGNU _is_ available for Komodo, but Mono is the standard.
It is NOT “Xsharp” it is X11.NET, an X11 binding _based_ on Xsharp. The newest changes to it including moving it to X11.dll, changing the namespaces to X11 instead of Xsharp etc. What else is different between the two? X11.NET supports Composite, DAMAGE, Xfixes, ARGB windows, where Xsharp does not, as well as many other architecture improvements.
Good, now that you’ve been honest. Now you need to contribute your code back to Portable.NET CVS or else legal ramifications.
Pony up.
Good, now that you’ve been honest. Now you need to contribute your code back to Portable.NET CVS or else legal ramifications.
Pony up.
He doesn’t have to commit back to portable.net CVS or pony up idiot. The code is there if portable.net wants it.
They really should at least google a name before using it for a project.
ActiveState has a software product name Komodo. It would’ve taken 10 seconds of effort to discover this.
Anyone else remember the fiasco with Mozilla using already taken software project names like Firebird (rdbms)?
I’m not saying that they shouldn’t have looked first. I am just pointing out that both the Gentoo projects get along fine even though they share the same name.
That’s my point. If ActiveState REALLY has a problem with it, we’ve been working on a name contest in our forums to change it. If, its necessary.
Feel free to visit our forums at komodoware.com/forums and submit your ideas for our new name. We’ve had a sticky thread there for weeks for people to post their ideas.
> Maybe we need to imagine for a moment why don’t stop
> KDE and Gnome Development, and other desktops, and > rethink the new desktop for linux. 100% freedesktop
> compliant.
If I get you right, we should stop developing what we have (Gnome & KDE) and start from scratch.
> Why don’t see where we want to see the linux
> desktop on 2015. Do a ten years roadmap.
Great, let’s throw away the work of nearly ten years and start over. Maybe in another ten years, we have a product that can copete then? If you don’t have a desktop that can be improved by evolution instead of revolution (i.e. start from scratch), you are lost. Imagine, in ten years the desktop you imagine today is totally outdated again. So do you want to start over then again?
Also, what do you mean by “fully freedesktop-compliant”. fd.o is meant to be a cooperation-platform between _existing_ environments.
fd.o does not define standards. There is a lot of crap on fd.o that nobody ever implemented and used in production code. These are no standards, and if one of the two DEs which uses it proposes it at fd.o, that doesn’t make its solution superior or something the other DE must adopt by all means to adhere to standards.
Something becomes a de-facto standard on fd.o if the main DE’s use it. Right now this means KDE+gnome (and to some extend XFCE and maybe enlightenment in the future, who knows). For the successful projects on fd.o, it worked usually like this: DE1 developed solution X and used it successfully in their project. DE2 sees the benefits of X (the technical aspects and the ones that come from collaboration and joined effort) and adopts it.
Development in FOSS will never work via design by comittee but “bottom-up” me thinks.
>f I get you right, we should stop developing what we have (Gnome & KDE) and start from scratch.
I don’t talking about kill the actual desktop projects, only rethink. maybe join the efforts to One Desktop. i like the diversity but linux there is very very very very, diversity. ( on Desktop Side ) there are so much personal developer touchs on his developments.
> Also, what do you mean by “fully freedesktop-compliant”. fd.o is meant to be a cooperation-platform between _existing_ environments.
You Are Right, it was my error ( i was bad inspired
) but the freedesktop inteoperability is a begin to unify some parts of software betwen the two mayors desktops developments on linux.
“If I get you right, we should stop developing what we have (Gnome & KDE) and start from scratch. ”
Rule number one in programming. Turn in your first draft.
“Development in FOSS will never work via design by comittee but “bottom-up” me thinks.”
And it shows in the GUI.
If I get you right, we should stop developing what we have (Gnome & KDE) and start from scratch.
Worked for Gnome.
Worked for Apple.
Worked for apple? How so?
NETX!
If you mean NeXT, then you mean it worked for Steve Jobs. This was his second (or third?) incarnation of his vision of computing made usable for everyone. Apple just bought a company owning a mature product, and improved it (evolution). (Ok, from a user’s point of view, it was like starting over, except it wasn’t because Classic let you run old apps.)
I don’t want to throw away anything! We are not just ignoring KDE and GNOME and Apple and Microsoft and BeOS etc. Years ago we had _different_ ideas about what those pieces of software were to become than we do now. As such actually doing the things we want inside the older frameworks takes much more time than doing a clean from-scratch implementation.
Komodo will comply with Freedesktop standards and integrate Freedesktop software everywhere that is appropriate, such that Komodo can support software which expects this stuff. Do you want us to WAIT until we are an “existing platform” BEFORE we start doing this stuff, or do you want us to integrate it all in from the start so that it feels tight! Duh!
I’m not concerned with what GNOME or KDE does with the FD software/standards. They can do what they want. I just know that _I_ will be implementing that infrastructure into my platform right away so it’s all a natural fit.
Development in FOSS can work design by committee, especially when you replace “committee” with “community” and put more emphasis on design. Then you get
“Development in FOSS can work design by community”, where the community is not just jumping up and throwing some random code down but actually considering their actions and doing what is sound design/usability-wise.
It looks great, nice, cool, and so on, but why don’t they join the KDE or Gnome development instead of creating even more confusion?
It looks great, nice, cool, and so on, but why don’t they join the KDE or Gnome development instead of creating even more confusion?
Well, there’s the irony. People want choice and open source, but people (some) want widespread adoption of LoTD.
Why would these guy join Gnome or KDE. So they can have RedHat or Suse as a boss?
Sorry if this seems slightly off topic, but it took several quick Google searches to find via Google that “LoTD” in this context meant “Linux on the desktop.” So I thought I’d share that in case anyone else was confused. I was thinking… “Lord of the dance? Link of the Day? Hmm.. how does that apply?” 🙂
Glad you posted that. I thought they were saying “Linux of the Day”
It looks great, nice, cool, and so on, but why don’t they join the KDE or Gnome development instead of creating even more confusion?
Because contrary to popular belief, you can’t just barge in into GNOME or KDE and start coding with the big KDE/GNOME guys. That’s not how it works (sadly one one side, thankfully on the other).
Other than that, it might simply be that they don’t agree with KDE’s “More is more” or GNOME’s “Less is more” design philosphies.
Because contrary to popular belief, you can’t just barge in into GNOME or KDE and start coding with the big KDE/GNOME guys. That’s not how it works (sadly one one side, thankfully on the other).
Yeah, and I said previously now they’re defacto working for RedHat and Suse….but without the pay. But at least these guys are doing something pretty different.
I have a feeling the performance isn’t going to be great -especially on low-end machines because of Cairo.
Mono limits performance more than Cairo, but both of those are getting better every day. Performance has not yet been one of our *major* pursuits (since other distros usually make it one of their *only* pursuites)
>> Other than that, it might simply be that they don’t
>> agree with KDE’s “More is more” or GNOME’s “Less is
>> more” design philosphies.
So therefore they’re proponents of the “Less is less” design philosophy? Nihilism and Realism combined as a software design philosophy? Sounds cool, but I think for all of my “futuristic, Über-advanced DE” needs, I’ll stick to E17. At least the enlightenment website doesn’t time out. 🙂
Indeed! Why hasn’t anyone thought of a “Less is more until the user hints at more” philosophy, or, indeed templateable UI can produce both philosophies with one code base. I’m not saying those two ideas are concrete for Komodo, but where are the people who TRY that stuff instead of just trying to be A. More like OSX and B. More like Windows. That’s the fundamental two ways that Gnome and KDE (respectively) are developing their software. I can’t agree with either, because even though OSX is a wonderful OS, it is not without it’s flaws.
Instead, our philosophy is more “study your predecessors” and “investigate new ways to improve upon your predecessors”. Our system directory layout is partially based on OSX’s, but our APIs look closer to BeOS, and we use C# and .NET from Microsoft. On top of that we think of our own ideas above this “sweet blend” of ideas working together.
well, what about windowmaker, xfce, enlightenment, fluxbox, etc? the reason that gnome and kde have so much support is through user support, not a lack of options.
well, what about windowmaker, xfce, enlightenment, fluxbox, etc? the reason that gnome and kde have so much support is through user support, not a lack of options.
What about it? Would you care to ask a real question?
There is no confusion, because we don’t consider ourselves a Linux distribution. When you install a Linux distribution, you expect KDE, GNOME, XFCE, E17 whatever. Our operating system is completely seperate from those entities except in the context of interoperability.
Now, why? Because I don’t feel KDE and GNOME provide the best level of usability, good design, good visuals, etc and their code is just way too complex. When it takes me three hours to download the KDE source code, three more hours for building, and another twenty minutes to install, something is WRONG. This isn’t just KDE, GNOME does it too. The need for something like Garnome is evidence that the system needs to be trimmed down.
um, why does it look so like Aqua OS X? So, they added some more buttons to the window title-bars. That doesn’t deny the fact that the rest of the title bar scheme is identical!
And I could similar things about their dock, hell they even call it a dock (which has always seemed a slightly stupid name to me!)
Well at least they have a sense of humour, one of the screen-shots shows a desktop picture which fairly clearly features a stylised iMac G4.
Actually, it looks a heck of a lot like one of the Aqua-esque themes that comes with XFCE4. Well, the whole thing looks vaguely like XFCE4, except for the Gaim icon in the panel. That looks more like the Enlightenment ‘Engage’ launcher.
um, why does it look so like Aqua OS X? So, they added some more buttons to the window title-bars. That doesn’t deny the fact that the rest of the title bar scheme is identical!
That’s just the window borders. This theme is available for various X11 window managers. In PekWM it’s called Agualemon. I’m not sure where it was originally ported from (XFCE4?) and if the same name was used there. Also it’s not identical to the borders in Aqua – it’s simpler (and IMO alot slicker).
And I could similar things about their dock, hell they even call it a dock (which has always seemed a slightly stupid name to me!)
Yes, the dock is obviously somewhat inspired by the one in OS X (the name has historical reasons – in NeXTSTEP the implementation felt more like things actually docked into the “Dock”), but probably also by Slicker for KDE (http://www.komodoware.com/?path=/about/kusers.xml).
Haha, jokes on you! That isnt at all what the screenshots are showing. In fact, that theme is the “agualemon” theme for XFCE (which is what I’m using on my main Komodo system)!
You weren’t even looking at what was important, and in fact Dagon will completely replace XFCE anyway. That theme and background show MY preferences for UI, not what will be conveyed in the final edition of Dagon. The dock is a test, not part of Komodo. We’ve never actually claimed that the Dock was going to be part of the UI, and if it is, there will be fundamental changes which make it more attractive and useful for the customers. We have no intention of “copying” Apple — like Jobs says is so common.
Where’d these guy coming from? This looks real interesting. I haven’t read everything on the site yet, but what is the emotion engne based off (Xlib), so it’s more of a native toolkit?
Where indeed! (eh, we’ve been here for 3 years on and off)
Emotion is more than just a graphics toolkit: it’s intended to unify all the disparate APIs in Linux. Also, it’s not a native toolkit anymore as of recently. It now has full graphics backend support to allow us to use the same build of Komodo with many different platforms through use of backend plugins. Right now the only working one is Xlib, and Cairo must be available for the system being used to allow drawing. Backends mostly just cover things like window properties, input events etc.
So I just read the emotion summary. Some form of PDF based on Cairo? I need to get my hands on this.
Someone give a report if they get this thing up and running. I’d be interested in performance on a fast machine.
The Emotion Komodo.Graphics module uses Cairo for drawing and has a backend plugin system for input, widget properties, etc.
I can give you a rough idea of performance: “Okay”. I have been concentrating more on flexibility and power as well as wait until Mono and Cairo performance reaches the right level.
If you are a programmer you may be interested in working on performance related Emotion work, we are an open source project.
It certainly looks good but what about performance? Does anyone know how fast it runs in comparison to other distros?
how they think they could be taken seriously with screenshots with words like “fucked” “ownage” “bitchin” etc..?
ps im not a moron, i use this words everyday but it doesnt seem to me a great idea to have this approach promoting your own product…
Whoa, yeah you’re right. Those words were never intended to be in the screenshots. Sorry if it offends anyone, I’l l change them later today when I get home.
Those screenshots were originally to show the other Komodoware people (Brian Reynolds our business guy and James Champlin the system designer of GenSTEP, a Komodo-based NextSTEP-like OS which we are pursuing)
> Isn’t Komodo the name of ActiveState’s (commercial) IDE? Why cause confusion and risk legal action?
Considering the look is blatently stolen from OS X, I don’t think they’ve really considered the legal ramifications of anything they’re doing.
Well, there’s nothing illegal about copying the look and feel, perhaps with the exception of in the USA. But who cares about that. The world isn’t centered about obscure american laws.
dylansmrjones
kristian AT herkild DOT dk
Some of these comments are pretty funny…”why don’t they just join Gnome or KDE”…”we already have enough desktops”.
The funny part of this is when you advocate a “standard” desktop some of these people will be the first to throw a hissy fit.
So I guess when it’s Gnome and KDE, it’s all cool, but when these guys do something different (and this is very different down to the toolkit) it’s not ok.
But when another random distro comes out that does nothing different, but has a new name and a new repository, then “choice” is good.
A bunch of hypocrites. Let’s face some facts. Not having a “standard” which really means dominant desktop has hurt LotD, and since there isn’t going to be one at least there are people being a little bit innovative – rather than YAD
A bunch of hypocrites? Please man, they don’t speak for all of us. Perhaps these people don’t like having any choices? Then that is their choice!
Thank you for pointing that out. Something definitely has to change in the minds of those in the mainstream Linux community. There is a LOT of room for improvement in our OS.
Comodows? The Emperor?
,)
> you can’t just barge in into GNOME or KDE and start
> coding with the big KDE/GNOME guys
you can certainly “barge in” and start coding. what you can’t do is “barge in” and redesign everything the way you want just because you showed up one day. but the general barrier to entry in KDE is pretty amazingly low: show up and start coding.
we’ve had people that have come in and a few months later are working on core areas in KDE. true, these people tend to be talented and hard working.
> and I said previously now they’re defacto working
> for RedHat and Suse
heh. at least in the case of KDE, you have it backwards. SUSE does not own nor control KDE, but they do contribute to it.
just because SUSE bases the desktop side of their distro around KDE doesn’t make “KDE coders defacto SUSE employees”. with open source, you can use something and even contribute to it without owning it.
or are we all defacto Linspire employees? mandriva employees? xandros employees? kanotix employees? knoppix employees? ark employees? kubuntu employees?
we certainly help all of them, but that’s highly different than “working for” them.
Because contrary to popular belief, you can’t just barge in into GNOME or KDE and start coding with the big KDE/GNOME guys. That’s not how it works (sadly one one side, thankfully on the other).
My own experience is, that the KDE people are very helpful to new programmers (or contributors in general) and it is really easy to become involved with KDE.
These guys have a new toolkit they’re using. And since there is no standard desktop, all the power to them. Gnome and KDE both have problems of their own.
Well said.
I don’t think another XFCE would be such a bad thing though, especially if we were talking Qt (like Mockup before the project was canceled).
What I don’t quite understand, however, is why some new DEs tend to also be new Linux distibutions (like this one, and again like Mockup). I’m not saying that projects that try to think new shouldn’t be allowed to go the DE/distro combo route, I just feel they would stand a better chance focusing on the DE and have it run on existing Linux/BSD systems. There could be situations where what the project tries to achieve requires major changes in the base system, but I think this is rather extreme, and I couldn’t see why Mockup had to even if I tried.
I’m very impressed by the potential of this project, although it’s questionable how legacy (read: normal open source) applications will integrate with this environment. If you read the tutorials on Emotion, it’s a really nifty system. There’s rich multimedia support, compositing, vector graphics, and canvasing like Enlightenment, but the incredibly OO structure adds a lot more. I was particularly intruiged by the demonstration of how a Komodo application can easily incorporate hierarchical preferences using XML. It’s got a “SharedCache” package management system that seems very much like OSX’s system or that new Klik thingy. The packaging system is clearly the part that still needs the most work before the beta releases.
I still think that the FOSS commitment to application development in C is a testiment to the perseverence and insanity of the community. Of course, everything different is crap. Mono is crap, alternative DEs are crap, small distributions are crap. Free software is about choice as long as we limit our options to the traditional ones… I stand by the responsible and applicable use of Mono. This was a good call. Mono flamers, just shut the hell up.
Also, will you guys shut up about the friggin screenshots and how closely or vaguely they resemble something else? This is a pre-beta code snapshot, and they posted some images that are obviously test cases for their UI code. They just wanted to put the widgets up on the screen and have them render correctly. It doesn’t have any polish, and looks nothing like any remotely production desktop. At all. End of story.
Finally, this new DE is also a new Linux distribution because, if you read the documentation, it is a new Linux distribution. Not a new DE. It happens to have a new DE. It also happens to have a whole new graphics, media, plugin, preferences, widget, event, packaging, and programming framework. The only things it has in common with a other Linux distributions is the stuff that common to pretty much all Linux distributions: the kernel, the system utilities, and the usual applications. All the stuff that differs from distribution to distribution is completely different. In fact, radically different.
Since I’m slumming on dialup until tomorrow I was curious if someone tries it out post your experience. I can’t find any install docs anywhere on the site. Is it a LiveCD?
Wow, this guy sure has a lot of good things to say about Komodo.
This is great. It’s great to see some new ideas for the desktop (Finally!)
Open Source is even catching up to Microsoft’s own Windows roadmap. This should be interesting.
To be honest, I don’t really give a shit about this distro, or its DE. BUT, and this is a big one, the Emotion toolkit is interesting and I can see it being used once it’s a bit further along. I wonder if you could do something like Microsoft’s Sparkle with it?
I think they should have used Etoile as their DE. Etoile is a lightwight DE based on GNUstep. The advantage for Komodo would be that people already work on GNUstep and Etoile and that GNUstep (and Cocoa) have already proven that they are excellent frameworks.
Also Objective-C is a good language. Maybe it is not as good as C#/Mono, but the advantage is that it does not need a VM and I think even MS has given up on writing everything in .NET because it is just too slow and memory consuming for certain things.
Furthermore, I think there would be much more people from the FOSS community that would be willing to help GNUstep/Etoile once it picked up some momentum and would be the default desktop. On the other hand a lot of people from the FOSS community are sceptical of Mono because of the unresolved patent issues.
I can of course understand that the developers of Komodo want to do what they enjoy, but I still think that corporation between Etoile and Komodo could be a really good thing.
I am not seeing the type of movement in GNUStep or any of the light or heavy DEs based on it the way I would like to. What exactly are you/they doing? GNUStep isn’t becoming any more compatible with Cocoa and none of the DEs is moving faster then molasses. The WMs in Objective-C are dead (InterfaceWM and what was the name of the other). Cameleon is still not ready. I’m really rooting for you guys but your not making it easy.
I am not involved in GNUstep/Etoile. Actually I am using KDE and I also coded some stuff for it. But I like GNUstep, I at least know some Objective-C and I think it is a pity GNUstep has so few developers.
The main problem of GNUstep is that all Linux-distributions treat it stepmotherly. Another problem, of course, is the total lack of programs like a browser. Without the basic set of applications people will not use it. And a more modern looking theme would of course be needed, too.
But the GNstep framework is good and with some more people working on it, it could become a good alternative to KDE/GNOME. If Komodo would use GNUstep as the default DE, it would help GNUstep/Etoile because some people would start using it and because the Komodo developers could help GNUstep/Etoile. But it would also help Komodo because GNUstep/Etoile is much further then their home-brewn DE based on Mono and Cairo.
I rather see two small projects that have sort of the same goal combine their efforts, then two small projects that have no users because they are too small to compete.
This guy is not doing anything new.
I laugh at all this excitement. This toolkit is already supported under all Linux distro’s, OSX, Windows and many other unix flavors. It even runs on an Ipaq ARM system!
You wonder where this came from? DotGNU folks. The Portable.NET project. It’s System.Windows.Forms namespace written entirely using X11, so any X11 system should in essence run this code.
Basically all he did was marry Mono + Xsharp/System.Windows.Forms from Portable.NET and put it together and wrote his own little apps.
That’s all, thats it, very simple.
I hope the source is available and he investigated the legal ramifications because Mono / Portable.NET both use different licenses.
So here is the truth behind it.
Congratulations.
I know that some people feel the need to flame, but I think that this is the essence of open source: you have a vision, a project and the talent to make things happen and you have created something new.
I wish you good luck with this project. It seems that you have some good ideas, and look forward to toy with them.