The Ubuntu Below Zero conference is in full momentum this week and Kubuntu has been prominent throughout. In his opening remarks at the start of the conference Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth announced that he was now using Kubuntu on his desktop machine and said he wanted Kubuntu to move to a first class distribution within the Ubuntu community. Free CDs for Kubuntu through shipit should be available for the next release if the planned Live CD Installer removes the need for a separate install CD.
Shuttleworth Affirms Commitment to Kubuntu and KDE
139 Comments
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2005-11-06 9:19 pm
LumberghWell, since you didn’t close your tags properly I’ll try to respond to your points.
You threw a infant like tantrum last night in the Novell thread – just repeating your posts over and over because nobody cares about your kook conspiracy theories.
“Greg Mancusi-Ungaro, Novell Inc.’s director of marketing for Linux and open source, said, “…
So he is in charge of that department at Novell. Yeah, you hate the Ximian guys, but that doesn’t change the fact of what he is now.
I’ll grant you one thing. There were no quotes around the statement that they were going with Gnome, but then lo-and-behold, the last sentence of the article
“I really don’t care which is the default desktop. I’m just happy we picked one. It makes no sense to support two desktops that do the same thing when you’re trying to cut costs.”
So there you have it. “We picked one” Grow up Sege, nobody is going to take away KDE from you.
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2005-11-06 9:24 pm
AnonymousLumpi, do you know what’s funny. You ran out of arguments to stand your man infront of Sege and now you change your tactics by publicly diffamating him. Grow up guy! I find the comments given by Sege far more trustable and far more valued than what you came up with (together with all your fake accounts). It’s a shame that people like you with so many fake accounts are tolerated on this place.
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2005-11-06 10:15 pm
segedunumWell, since you didn’t close your tags properly I’ll try to respond to your points.
I feel free not to put too much effort into my comments at times. It’s hardly worth it.
You threw a infant like tantrum last night in the Novell thread – just repeating your posts over and over because nobody cares about your kook conspiracy theories.
Says you. Unfortunately you want that to be the case because you couldn’t respond to any of it. You still can’t.
So he is in charge of that department at Novell. Yeah, you hate the Ximian guys, but that doesn’t change the fact of what he is now.
They have a well defined history of lying:
http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/11/24/46NNdesktop_1.html
Sources said that once the acquisition is finalized early next year, the company will tightly stitch the Ximian Desktop with an enhanced version of SuSE 9.0, which would enable smooth connections to Novell’s GroupWise collaboration server, ZENworks resource manager, and security and integration products. The company also claimed that it will more than double the number of engineers working on the Ximian Desktop and will focus on improving the Gnome desktop environment, the OpenOffice suite, and Mozilla browser.
Notice this isn’t a quote from Nat Friedman – it was implied and the reporter went with it.
I just wonder where this Ximian Desktop was in Suse 9.0, and where Ximian Desktop is now. I also wonder where this Evolution Groupwise integration is. Evolution is such a pile of technological crap they haven’t managed to complete it yet whereas it was completed in Kontact with little fanfare at all. The doubling of the engineers is funny as well considering that just about most of them have been laid off. Quite how they’re going to push forward a Gnome desktop is anyone’s guess.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1882118,00.asp
Novell is making one large strategic change. The GNOME interface is going to become the default interface on both the SLES (SuSE Linux Enterprise Server) and Novell Linux Desktop line.
Notice this isn’t a quote from Mancusi-Ungaro – it was implied and the reporter went with it.
There’s a not so subtle pattern there, isn’t there. As such, I reserve the right to dismiss these things as bollocks until Suse actually come up with something concrete on their side, because they’re actually responsible for SLES and OES.
The interesting thing is that 9 is the last of the SLES series, and development now contnues on OES. Quite how they’re going to convert it to Gnome one can only guess.
“I really don’t care which is the default desktop. I’m just happy we picked one. It makes no sense to support two desktops that do the same thing when you’re trying to cut costs.”
So there you have it. “We picked one” Grow up Sege, nobody is going to take away KDE from you.
That comment was made by Bruce Perens, if you’d read the article, in relation to his now completely defunct UserLinux project, which was based on Gnome. No doubt Steven Vaughan-Nichols was given a helping hand with his article in that direction ;-).
Grow up will you Lumbergh? I reserve the right to point the finger and call bollocks whenever I feel like it, and there is ample evidence above to do so. Should you feel as if I’m wrong, feel free to explain why – like an adult.
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Anonymous
Are you going to keep puting your self in evidence with the same links?
I simple don’t undertsand, even in KDE related trheats all you do is to bach GNOME and Ximian, your goal is not to promote KDE, your goals is simple to destroy GNOME.
Ain’t you supostly talk about KDE and not about GNOME?
who are you and who is encouranging you to do this? I mean I can undertand you like KDE but you don’t look like a preson who likes KDE, you look like a bitter person who simple hates GNOME, and that’s bad because your credibility is zero and are labeled like a troll, nothing more. me ignore you.
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segedunum
Are you going to keep puting your self in evidence with the same links?
That makes a lot of sense.
I simple don’t undertsand, even in KDE related trheats all you do is to bach GNOME and Ximian, your goal is not to promote KDE, your goals is simple to destroy GNOME.
Well, if you go back far enough you’ll notice I never make the first comment, nor do I give interviews for eWeek where I lie.
Read the evidence and make a judgement. If these pointless and totally untrue articles weren’t consistently put out over a long period of time I wouldn’t be complaining. Unfortunately, these people have brought it on themselves. If you can’t see that yourself then I’m sorry for you.
As such, I reserve the right to be as vociferous as I like about stuff that is unproven, unconfirmed and has a track record of being lies. It does a serious disservice to the good, decent KDE (and some Gnome) developers who have to spend most of their time fending off the consistent crap that they get asked.
who are you and who is encouranging you to do this?
Read the articles above and find out.
I mean I can undertand you like KDE but you don’t look like a preson who likes KDE, you look like a bitter person who simple hates GNOME
I don’t hate Gnome, but there are reasons why in terms of putting a Linux desktop into a serious business environment it is simply not up to scratch. As a development desktop it’s non-existent. They’re well documented and they are completely unemotional, which is why people really do hate them.
If you mention any of those reasons you’re labelled as a Gnome basher while everyone else claims Gnome as a corporate desktop and that companies like Novell and others are making it the default yada, yada, yada – which as I’ve pointed out are less than likely to be true, and where their favourite desktop simply isn’t up to scratch as well. These people then feel as if they’re above all this and that they are beyond reproach. Understandably, that cheeses me off slightly and that’s what I hate.
That’s called double standards.
The KDE people are always open about their shortcomings and that they don’t promote themselves as something they’re not, and I certainly don’t think KDE is a the answer to everything at all.
and that’s bad because your credibility is zero and are labeled like a troll, nothing more.
If you’ve backed up your stuff as much as I have, you’re not a troll. It’s up to others to respond in a meaningful manner. I’m sorry, but you’re attempts to be above all this have failed – as usual.
me ignore you.
Then do so and don’t come up with daft comments like this one.
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Lumbergh
I feel free not to put too much effort into my comments at times. It’s hardly worth it.
But you are full of effort when bashing Gnome, Ximian, etc..
Says you. Unfortunately you want that to be the case because you couldn’t respond to any of it. You still can’t.
Actually, I didn’t even see your post (I guess it was modded into oblivion) until you threw your child-like tantrum and starting repeating posts over and over.
They have a well defined history of lying:
http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/11/24/46NNdesktop_1.html
Sources said that once the acquisition is finalized early next year, the company will tightly stitch the Ximian Desktop with an enhanced version of SuSE 9.0, which would enable smooth connections to Novell’s GroupWise collaboration server, ZENworks resource manager, and security and integration products. The company also claimed that it will more than double the number of engineers working on the Ximian Desktop and will focus on improving the Gnome desktop environment, the OpenOffice suite, and Mozilla browser.
Notice this isn’t a quote from Nat Friedman – it was implied and the reporter went with it.
Who’s lying? Infoworld, Nat Friedman. The article was from eweek and had Nat Friedman was nowhere in sight.
Novell is making one large strategic change. The GNOME interface is going to become the default interface on both the SLES (SuSE Linux Enterprise Server) and Novell Linux Desktop line.
Notice this isn’t a quote from Mancusi-Ungaro – it was implied and the reporter went with it.
I already acknowledged that.
That comment was made by Bruce Perens, if you’d read the article, in relation to his now completely defunct UserLinux project, which was based on Gnome. No doubt Steven Vaughan-Nichols was given a helping hand with his article in that direction ;-).
No it wasn’t. I was wrong about it being Mancusi-Ungaro, but you were wrong about it being Perens.
A source within Novell speculated that these rumors about Novell moving away from the Linux desktop and open-source programs spring from KDE advocates.
“I can understand being upset. For these guys, on both sides, these are their babies. But saying that Novell is killing its Linux desktop because they picked GNOME over KDE is going way too far,” he said.
“I really don’t care which is the default desktop. I’m just happy we picked one. It makes no sense to support two desktops that do the same thing when you’re trying to cut costs.”
Note, it’s a source within Novell, not Perens.
Grow up will you Lumbergh? I reserve the right to point the finger and call bollocks whenever I feel like it, and there is ample evidence above to do so. Should you feel as if I’m wrong, feel free to explain why – like an adult.
Your problem is that you won’t accept that Novell is going with Gnome. Most of the other KDE fanboys have already accepted it. Why can’t you? Nobody is going to take away KDE from you. Nobody is going to force you to run Gnome. Seriously, get over it and just install KDE on anything you want. Install it on freaking RedHat, nobody is going to stop you.
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Anonymous
Lumbergh, would you please stop trolling.
> Your problem is that you won’t accept that Novell is going with Gnome.
You forgot that Novell put the entire Evolution, Hula and MONO division into the sack. With other words they fired them. You also seem to be ignoring the fact that Novell dropped their entire Desktop product line due to complaints from their shareholders. I think GNOME is much more affected from the recent happenings than KDE is.
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Anonymous
“You forgot that Novell put the entire Evolution, Hula and MONO division into the sack. With other words they fired them.”
dear IP: 84.129.237. you talk bollocks. its no wonder you have the views about kde and gnome that you have. you forgot to read this:
As for the other open-source projects, Mancusi-Ungaro said, “I don’t know of any Hula [an open-source e-mail server project] cuts. There have been minimal cuts in Mono [an open-source implementation of Microsoft’s .Net], and none of those cuts were in developers.”
eWEEK.com Special Report: The Business of Linux
As for the Evolution e-mail client, “this is a stable, mature product, so we are redeploying its developers to other more strategic projects.”
However, “It also has a lot of community support, and we plan to leverage it with other e-mail programs like Hula.”
Novell is making one large strategic change. The GNOME interface is going to become the default interface on both the SLES (SuSE Linux Enterprise Server) and Novell Linux Desktop line.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1882118,00.asp
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segedunum
As for the other open-source projects, Mancusi-Ungaro said, “I don’t know of any Hula [an open-source e-mail server project] cuts. There have been minimal cuts in Mono [an open-source implementation of Microsoft’s .Net], and none of those cuts were in developers.”
As has been pointed out, his comments don’t count. We’ll need to wait some weeks or months for the dust to settle and see what actually has gone where.
I’ve seen this many times. This is just a guy from a very sore department who’s trying to put the best possible spin on some pretty deep job losses. It’s not unusual, but the degree of spin and lying is.
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segedunum
Who’s lying? Infoworld, Nat Friedman. The article was from eweek and had Nat Friedman was nowhere in sight.
Sigh. Yes he was. Goodness, actually read the article. Friedman was quoted above, the anonymous stuff comes below.
No it wasn’t. I was wrong about it being Mancusi-Ungaro, but you were wrong about it being Perens.
It is Perens’ comments simply rehashed:
For example, in 2003, open-source leader Bruce Perens’ attempt to make GNOME the default desktop for the Debian-based UserLinux was fought by KDE supporters.
A source within Novell speculated that these rumors about Novell moving away from the Linux desktop and open-source programs spring from KDE advocates.
Who’s the zealot here?
“I can understand being upset. For these guys, on both sides, these are their babies. But saying that Novell is killing its Linux desktop because they picked GNOME over KDE is going way too far,” he said.
“I really don’t care which is the default desktop. I’m just happy we picked one. It makes no sense to support two desktops that do the same thing when you’re trying to cut costs.”
That’s exactly what Perens said about his choice of Gnome for UserLinux, but it’s not exactly well written or obvious. It has merely been cobbled together with an additional sentence at the end about cost cutting and inserts of ‘Novell’ and a Novell spin. I can see how confusion would arise, but that’s the point.
I find the part about cost cutting funny considering that Novell now don’t have the reources to develop with Gnome. Gnome is not a cost cutting desktop, because they have to maintain GTK, Mono and all of that low-level stuff that is taken care of in KDE.
Again, I’d rather wait for some months, wait for the dust to settle and actually see what happens with Suse. Comments by Ximian and Gnome fanatics simply don’t count in my book, nor does conclusion jumping by one or two KDE developers.
Note, it’s a source within Novell, not Perens.
It is Perens’ comments. The bit at the bottom is about UserLinux and his name is mentioned. Whoever this ‘Novell source’ is, they’ve just stolen his comments about ‘I’m glad we picked one’ and redone them with inserts of ‘Novell’.
Either way, it gives you a pretty good indication of the quality of the article.
Edited 2005-11-07 13:02
2005-11-06 7:17 pm
Anonymous
I dont want to burst bubbles or anything, but most of u do realize that ubuntu is just the latest fad…. nothing more than that. It gets voted #1 in the geek polls and is talked about all the time.
That really doesnt mean much to me. The same happened with gentoo. Ubuntu will fall into its place. Then again who knows mabey it will get somewhere, but I doubt it. Anyways the point being is that for now atm, it is the new fad distro. I dont see anything revolutionary about it, or anything that sets it above other distros.
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2005-11-06 8:39 pm
CelerateWell in that case Mandriva has had a very long fad stage because for years they were #1 on Distrowatch until that spot was taken, and they are still a very popular Linux distribution.
Ubuntu is getting more news coverage and more people are learning about it, that doesn’t mean its in a fad stage.
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2005-11-06 9:10 pm
Daniel BorgmannThe difference between Gentoo and Ubuntu is worth a shuttle. Ubuntu has money to burn.
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Anonymous
Well, rather its a fad or not. But people move on to Ubuntu or suggest Ubuntu to their friends… Simply cause it just works. I use Ubuntu on a Compaq X1030US laptop, and it detected each piece of my hardware and, after installation I was able to do anything I want. Unlike other distros I have used prior to Ubuntu…
People suggests Ubuntu that often maybe because of that… I dont know if you have checked their website or user forums but nobody tells ‘bleeding edge’.. or ‘we have the best’.. ‘we are great’ or anything like close being arrogent unlike most other distros… Users doesnt misleads you with words like, ohh its so easy or we have that tool superior, or better than winXP or anything. I respect such modesty… Anyways, fad or not.. it simply works
2005-11-06 7:29 pm
Anonymous
Disclaimer: I am a moderator on the Official English Ubuntu Forums
Gnome people, this is not the time to freak out. Just because Mark is using KDE as his desktop and he wants to put more resources into KDE doesn’t mean that the Gnome side of Ubuntu is going to suffer. There could be many reasons for his new found interest in Kubuntu.
1.From the beginning it seems that Mark felt a little guilty that he had to pick one desktop to really do well. I know a lot of people think “just do one thing and do it well” is an admirable philosophy, but in the GNU world that is the path to weakness. The Linux Desktop is chaos and unless you want to spend enough to harness that chaos you HAVE to make some big decisions like that. When he first started with Ubuntu, he had no idea how successful it was going to be. He had not idea if the whole thing would be a waste of money, or that no one would care. But now that Ubuntu is making a huge splash in the Linux world and is making noise across the globe Mark has decided that he is willing to commit more of his resources to the entire Ubuntu project. He set up the Ubuntu foundation and gave it $10 million to begin with. So a new commitment to KDE and Kubuntu DOES NOT MEAN THAT UBUNTU WILL HAVE LESS, just that probably he will be willing to give more overall to help the KDE side as well.
2.Despite its relative popularity, the Kubuntu side of the project has not had nearly the resources the other side has gotten so far. The Kubuntu maintainer- Jonathan Riddell – did a lot of the work in its free time. At first he was only given a smallish contract at the end of releases to help get them in better shape. I bet that if Mark is serious about Kubuntu it will finally have a full time developer (if that is not already the case).
3.A big goal of the entire Ubuntu project for Mark is his Edubuntu [edubuntu.org] side project. Well in all honesty Kubuntu might be a better fit for that project than Ubuntu for a few reasons: the The KDE Edutainment Project [kde.org] is the single best educational software on the GNU desktop and is far more developed than anything on the Gnome side. Plus KDE uses less RAM (this is my own opinion) so it might be a better fit for the older computers that many schools might have today. Gnome hates to have less than 256mb, and you can’t build a user friendly desktop around XFCE (and it would probably take less resources to make Kubuntu better than to fix all of Gnome’s RAM problems single handily). So a better KDE is better for the Kubuntu project.
4.The entire Ubuntu community has been trying better to make the KDE side seem like an equal ever since it was announced. On the Official Forums we have separated KDE and Gnome areas for the Breezy release, and beyond that a forum independent forum was made by a third party for Kubuntu. [kubuntuforums.net] So in some ways Mark is just catching up to the rest of the community.
The last thing any Gnome fan and Ubuntu user needs to think is that “the sky is falling.” This is a GOOD thing for you Gnome fans. Why? A better Kubuntu will bring more people to the distro and that could help build the overall community. A better Kubuntu will help establish the entire project as THE Desktop Linux which would help with gaining support of third party application makers that won’t release for anything not called Red Hat. A better Kubuntu shows that Mark is becoming even more devoted to the project, and considering the man makes more off of investments than the entire Linux service industry more of his support means that the entire project is is better shape. Finally, a better Kubuntu means that there is more choice in the community and that the entire project is maturing. Its a good time to be a Desktop Linux user.
Reference:
http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=167470&cid=13963895
2005-11-06 8:16 pm
moleskine
OMG, yet more stuff on KDe vs Gnome and the prognostications of St Shuttleworth. Am I the only one who’s starting to find this guy’s endless pronouncements a bit tiring? I know he means well, but …
More common standards, some serious improvements to Open Office 2 or a reworking of the GIMP to take it much closer to Photoshop will attract more users to Linux than all the rest of this Desktop Environment stuff added together and multiplied. First and foremost, people use applications. They don’t use distros or desktop environments other than as a means to the applications.
2005-11-06 8:34 pm
Anonymous
KDE developers are so classy:
http://lokker.blogspot.com/2005/11/bye-gnome-and-novell-and-all-oth…
No wonder why Novell dumped them.
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2005-11-06 8:56 pm
ManumaKDE developers are so classy:
http://lokker.blogspot.com/2005/11/bye-gnome-and-novell-and-all-oth…..
No wonder why Novell dumped them.
After reading this I realise that they deserve be abandoned by Novell, please someone tell me, is this KDE developer represantative is the KDE dev. community? plesae tell me that he is not.
He sounded bitter trollish and like a kid.
Don’t like GNOME? fine, I don’t like KDE not for that Im gonna say it sucks.
What a child, what a retard, you give a bad name to Open Source, you not only insulted the work of many GNOME/GTK developers, you also insulted all of us who like GNOME, yes Im talking about you ApacheBlogger KDE developer.
You suck, KDE sucks, Now I hope KDE dies an it will with people like you on its side.
The worse is hat many people will read your lawsy blog and see the quality of developer KDE have, good job e-moron, if you cannot keep your head cool on a crisis then leave then project, this is for all of you KDE developers retards, yes you, the untouchable KDE develoeprs super heros of all this no life loosers that price you. you all suck.
You waned or not GNOME is here to stay, I like it like many and not because your flames I will stop using it.
Manuma.
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Anonymous
Only Manume and Yuske are the same person. Maybe carbon-12 too, but I’m not sure on that one.
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Anonymous
Wtf are you talking about, one developer is NOT representative of either KDE or GNOME, and while people have gotten reactionary about the whole Novell thing it does not mean that one developer’s reaction is indicative of the whole community, from my observations from the outside it appears that in general the KDE community is really friendly and individual based. I am sure that Gnome can be the same way, would you have me judge Gnome on one developer’s rant? I am guessing that you would consider me an immature ass hole if I did, likewise why would you judge KDE in terms of one blog?
KDE offers a lot of strengths as does GNOME. Why do we need to have this desktop dual all of the time, one of the main reasons that people are interested in *NIX is diversity, well KDE and GNOME offer diversity on the same system, the ability of Linux to run multiple DEs allows me to choose my favorite and log use it even when I am at a *NIX computer lab or friend’s house or whatever, and you can walk up to the same system and use your DE of choice, we even can use the same apps, even if I might prefer to use a KDE App while you might prefer to use a GNOME one and some one else might just rather use the CLI.
This choice is what makes Linux strong as one underling system can satisfy the desires of all of its users, in a way that a single desktop system does not.
Of course for a personal computer it is also nice that you don’t have to install both systems if that is your preference.
In short just because you can pick and choose negitive blogs that demonstrate that you use the one and only true desktop, why do you have to judge the other.
The free desktops win by giving you back choice.
-Seth
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Anonymous
I aggree with you that the whole KDE devs. community should be judged in the same what the dumb ass ApacheBlogger.
But till now, I haven’t see any onther KDE deveoper to apologize or say that he doesn’t represent the opinion of all.
The problem is not really GNOME;, the problem to beat for KDE is this comminty they had foremt. full of trolls and paranoic persons, if KDE is falling big, that is no the way to help it, you complaibe about the GNOME comunity being more selective but look what KDE community has become too, a bunch of whinners and trash talker anti-GNOME zealots.
IF KDE want’s to succed needs to clean his good name, tthey guy when to far.
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Anonymous
You utter ass. Read up on the backstabbing, kde-flaming history of your beloved gnome and it’s cherished leadership.
Thank you.
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segedunum
After reading this I realise that they deserve be abandoned by Novell, please someone tell me, is this KDE developer represantative is the KDE dev. community? plesae tell me that he is not.
I don’t know how you got modded up to 5. No wonder OSNews’ database is going down with all the new accounts being created :-).
On blogs people give opinion pieces – that’s why they’re called blogs. People who lie in order to deliberately mislead talk to journalists (and worse, imply things but don’t actually say them) that turn out not to be true later:
http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/11/24/46NNdesktop_1.html
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1882118,00.asp
Spot the correlation there.
You’re just grasping some seriously thin straws and scraps of what you can find now.
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Anonymous
You know that the GNOMErs are at full rage when a comment as insightful as this one…
You suck, KDE sucks, Now I hope KDE dies an it will with people like you on its side.
… is being rated as +5 whereas Ali´s posts (which I, even being a KDE person, tend to disagree with sometimes) are being modded down without nobody caring even to address some points that he brings to the table. Yes, he does post several times the same issues, and indeed could be worded a little better to not sound as flame-bait so much, but seems like that´s the only way that clueless people will spend all their moderation points so that he can try to express his opinion.
GNOME do have flaws. Lots of them. It is too bland and feels crippled when compared to KDE OR Windows. It does lack a decent menu editor (SMEG doesn´t cut… Sorry!). The GNOME Office integration leaves a lot to be desired (And no… OO.org is not a GNOME application). The printing subsystem sucks. True GNOME apps are missing on a lot of categories (GIMP, GAIM and Firefox are not GNOME applications and GAIM goes to the extra length of completely refuse to adopt GNOME HIG, no matter how much the HIG freaks push it against their throat) while true GNOME apps, which are powerful, are being left to dust such as Galeon (which should be the default GNOME browser as of a long time ago). Not to mention the infamous memory footprint and GTK performance issues . And that´s only what I can remember right now. I´m sure that others can come up with other reasons.
Not that KDE is perfect. Nothing is. There´s a lot of room for improvement on KDE as well. However, some people just refuse to acknowledge certain GNOME shortcommings to the point of avoiding constructive criticism completely. I´ll concede that there is a lot of noise coming from the KDE side of the fence, too but that´s not an excuse to not try to answer in a civilized manner some honest questions. Not even Mac people get THAT defensive when their favorite piece of software receive a bad critic.
I´ve seen lots of good comments being modded down without a satisfactory answer or just receiving rehashes of old subjects such as the Qt license, that KDE is not business-friendly enough or this or that. Some facts start to be justified by personal opinions (Actually, this one goes to both camps).
Instead of spending all this energy badmouthing each other, you people should try to present your views as civilized as possible and make a effort to acknowledge when the other person is right.
2005-11-06 10:01 pm
Anonymous
I don’t even know why everyone argues about this anyhow? use what best fits your personality or needs.
I started using Linux back when Enlightenment DR13 was out, and in fact that’s what got me using it in the first place, it was just so damned cool looking!
I still remember when KDE was first announced and people were working on it, then I tried KDE 1.0. It reminded me way too much of the way Windows did things. I used it again on Corel Linux.
I also recall that one of the main reasons Gnome was started in the first place was due to the licensing of Qt, which has changed since then. That was always fun, downloading the 0.9x versions of Gnome for Debian. Talk about broken back then.
Every time there is a new version of KDE (even if it’s from 3.4.2 to 3.4.3) I load it up and play around with it for a few minutes. And still, I end up going back to Gnome. I don’t care about the QT vs GTK licensing issue. I just think that the GTK themes look better, and for me Gnome is more useable (less like Windows, more like my old Atari ST and Amiga).
Wars like this will always go on. Anyone who was heavily into computers in the late 80s and early 90s will remember the Atari vs Amiga vs PC Compats. Though one thing really hasn’t changed. The Mac still is more of a beautiful person’s computer.
So now instead of the old Hardware war, since we pretty much know who won that one, Mac switching to Intel pretty much ended that discussion, we have a Software War. It’s now all about who’s desktop is shinier.
Look at all the Addons for Windows to make it more themeable. You have either the StyleXP that tries to use the ‘built-in’ theming ability that XP supposedly has or there is WindowsBlinds. I’m sure there are more, but those are the most popular. Of course like most things in Windows, they’re commercial.
One of the reasons I went to Linux in the first place, as I already stated, was due to Enlightenment. It just looked and felt so much better than Windows. of course back then, I couldn’t fully switch over because there wasn’t much in the way of applications I could use (Pine was cool, as was Pico, but you couldn’t do a lot of GUI stuff).
I could understand the hardware wars, maybe because I’m more of a hardware guy. But software is just software. You can run OpenOffice on any of them. I can run K3b under Gnome, or I could run Gimp under KDE. But of course back in the early 90s, an Amiga had built in stereo sound, and for decent equivalent sound for the PC you had to fork out $250 bucks. Now that was a good war! If it were something as basic as the argument between Amiga vs Atari ST that said the Amiga can multitask, and the Atari could not. Then I could understand…..
Pretty much anything that is worthwhile you can do with KDE, you can also do with Gnome. I also find Gconf easier to deal with than KDE.
Neither is perfect though, I think if KDE could simplify itself (which from everything I’ve read, is the intent of KDE4) and Gnome could make itself a little more configurable, and they could meet at about the same place of usability, then everyone would be happy. Most of all, the devs need to work together so that components are interchangeable. One of the worse things is that when you’re running one or the other desktop, and have to use a program that uses a different toolkit, so it just looks like it doesn’t belong….
Otherwise, they need GTK and QT to talk to each other better. I think that would lead the ‘Desktop Linux’ forward a lot more than anything else.
Oops, I think I’ve made an offtopic rant….
Kubuntu sounds like it may be nice. I’ll give it a shot, could very well be that I don’t like KDE because of the distros I have used it on. Both SuSE and Mandriva screw up their Gnome menus, so they probably screw up their KDE menus as well.
2005-11-06 10:57 pm
2005-11-06 11:28 pm
Anonymous
“please someone tell me, is this KDE developer represantative is the KDE dev. community?”
—
No, he is a Novell customer, liking to use KDE.
Yes, he is probably very much representative for a lot of existing Novell customers.
2005-11-07 1:22 am
Anonymous
in 3-5 years time, the only people using kde will be the spotty geek who can’t get laid. meanwhile, gnome will be used for the mainstream and the professional who want to get some real work done.
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2005-11-07 9:38 am
RawMustardNot if they keep dumbing it down like they have been, it will only be found in kindergartens
2005-11-07 1:25 am
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2005-11-07 9:31 am
Buffalo SoldierHistory will show Shuttleworth as a true messiah who helped humanity.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m a big fan of Ubuntu, GNOME, and Mark Shuttleworth. But calling him true messiah is plain scarry.
Next thing you’re gonna start calling him Muadib. (reference: DUNE)
2005-11-07 4:31 am
Anonymous
[…] What’s especially funny is your misunderstanding of the situation. I’m a Gnome user, but Novell’s troubles are a pox on both our houses. SLES will now be Gnome-only, big deal. It’s a server platform and it makes no sense to design the administrative GUI twice. The real news happened months ago, when SUSE went Fedora (the continuation of the boxed SUSE product, but barely supported, fooled noone – this was a pure Fedora play, an exit from that market). This decision is not about Gnome vs. KDE, this decision is about the non-existence of the Linux desktop market. Nobody is spending money on Linux desktop solutions. They’re just not. If Novell continues to decline, expect NLD to be the next casualty. Nobody’s buying it and it’s not their core business. How anyone in this community can spin these events as “good news” is beyond me. […]
2005-11-07 8:36 am
Blackhouse
Very nice to see that Shuttleworth is taking Kubuntu seriously now, it surely deserved that recognition.
It’s sad to see people here flame about their preferred DE. Gnome, KDE, what does it matter as long as it helps you to get the job done? What does it matter what the big guys (Redhat, Novell, IBM, etc) think of KDE and vise versa? As long as it works for you, it’s all that matters.
2005-11-07 9:46 am
Anonymous
The problem facing desktop Linux desktop is not the choice of desktop environment but the fact that there is no hardware company that is ready to invest serious money to sell and advertise pre-installed pre-configured Linux desktop and Game console products.
Windows has Dell, HP, Sony, Gateway and until recently IBM. OS-X has Apple. Linux has the Schizophrenic, Janus-faced Sun Microsystems one week every year. Do the math.
The conventional wisdom is that companies don’t invest in Linux desktop because there is no demand for it. This is hogwash. Sony created demand for the Playstation game console out of thin air with a billion dollars in investment even though PC gamers were not clamoring for a new way to play their favorite games.
There are areas and niches in which a desktop linux product can excel but we will never know until somebody the size of IBM put their money where their mouth is. Until then this Gnome vs KDE argument will remain just that …. an argument and Linux will remain a server product.
2005-11-07 10:09 am
Anonymous
Hey, I liked Ubuntu because it did NOT give me the choice of a Desktop Environment – as a user you dont have to worry about that. If you wanted KDE, you could still install the Kubuntu-Packages and that was it.
But I have to say I am still a windows user, waiting for the time when Windows gets too annoying (Vista-DRM?) and Linx gets finally ready for me (Webcams in GAIM, Office truly on par with MS-O [OO.o 3?], better performance etc). SO…I have always felt that it is the choice of DEs that slows down the Linux adoption enormously. I dont think two or more are needed. Having one DE with two different customizations that look like KDE or Gnome would be perfect, but I know that won’t happen.
But I think Linux is growing too slowly, (for me) it is still pretty much the same behind Windows as it was back in 2000 – because Win is a moving target, it evolved too. So I think the community and the enterprises really have to concentrate on the core funtionality and polish that to the excess – and I think supporting only one DE speeds up that process considerably – like Novell and others are doing it.
So I dont care which DE – altough I like Gnome a little bit better because it reminds me a little bit of Mac OS X – but it should not matter to the user. There shouldnt be a problem with ANY application. For example, why not bundle Amarok (best music player ever?) with Ubuntu. Well then there is the problem with the codecs of course…that I DONT want to have to install manually. In XP SP2, at least MP3s play out of the box.
So I hope everything goes well, because Ubuntu will be my choice of Linux – it has “harmony” [it hums :]
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Anonymous
> Hey, I liked Ubuntu because it did NOT give me the
> choice of a Desktop Environment – as a user you dont
> have to worry about that.
The same applies for Microsoft Windows. The users don’t have to worry about the desktop. So care to explain, why you moved to Linux ? Now that you and some other robots said that the “user don’t have to worry” it’s a legetime question to ask. With Windows you get good primary hardware support, first class applications, good games and things simply work (printing, sound, hardware detection). Even if not, it’s still many times better than under Linux.
One answer possibility would be, you have chosen Linux because you are technical skilled, you want to play around with things, you want choice. Where is your choice gone ? Why didn’t you went with OSX ?
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Anonymous
> I like Gnome a little bit better because it reminds me a little bit of Mac OS X.
With the main difference that OSX works and GNOME not.
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2005-11-07 1:38 pm
ple_monoNo, you are wrong. Do not lie.
I’ve been trying out KDE for years now (I give it a try every now and then because i’m not a troll without real knowledgde, and i’m not taking sides).
In my oppinion, KDE is not at all more functional than Gnome, and i also don’t think KDE looks better than gnome.
Both DE:s do their job, but i like the Gnome UI and design better though. But that’s just a preference. It’s in the eye of the beholder.
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Anonymous
Linux and all other open-source projects are about having choices; the freedom to choose and to change. It is the essence that brought people over to Linux. If you don’t like having these options available to you, then Linux is probably not for you and you should stick with Windows.
2005-11-07 4:10 pm
Anonymous
Perhaps a lot of the perceived functionality gap either way comes from knowing what you are used to. When someone asks me to work on there Windows box, Windows seems totally impotent and broken, but I know that at one time I knew how to use it, likewise, Gnome feels totally week and broken to me becuase I am not famillier with its feature set. I would expect a Gnome to feel similar on KDE. As to appearences, mabey KDE can look like windows, but I know that my desktop does not, likewise Gnome is (to a lesser extent not ridged) so please don’t judge a desktop by its defaluts.
I find that KDE just works, mabey for you Gnome does, either way isn’t it cool that Kumbuntu is now a first class distrobution so that all of us can be happy.
OSS is not a company, having one true desktop would not mean that twice teh developers would work on it, or that it would move twice as fast. Personally I would expect that it is the friendly rivelry between KDE and Gnome that drives both of them, also as KDE and Gnome each branch into their own respective niches this becomes even more true. Corprate users want a static slow moving target that they can control, thus Gnome is better for them. Home users more often want tweakability, accesibility, technilogical supiriority and the ability to do cool things, thus KDE is better for this use and will probably progress in this direction.
Let Gnome have the corprate space and let me have KDE and let both flurish and drive eachother to new heights so that we can all be happy.
Go Kumbuntu
-Seth
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Anonymous
“Corprate users want a static slow moving target that they can control, thus Gnome is better for them. Home users more often want tweakability, accesibility, technilogical supiriority and the ability to do cool things, thus KDE is better for this use and will probably progress in this direction.”
you’re living in cloud cuckoo land. i used KDE from 1.x and its hardly changed since then. since that time, gnome has changed beyond recognition. corperate users want a DE thats usable, intuitive, and enables them to get their work done at a faster rate. thats why gnome has consistantly been the obvious choice.
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Anonymous
> corperate users want a DE thats usable, intuitive, and
> enables them to get their work done at a faster rate.
Exactly, and that’s why they don’t want GNOME. But due the major distributions sell GNOME we regulary hear how not ready linux is for the desktop in a weekly shedule. What is this work that people should be get done in a faster rate ?
I only find myself in stressed situations when trying to get anything done by using GNOME. Basic stuff doesn’t really work under GNOME, printing sucks, printer dialogs not really supported inside GNOME, options of the printer dialogs not supported (e.g. printing 4 sheets on 1 physical paper as shown in evince doesn’t work), crashes of evolution, evolution showing double entries in the list or evolution simply trashes the index files, nautilus not realy able to copy files from FTP without losing content of the file or simply copying 0 byte files, regular crashes of the poor application, applications itself are really poorly designed (look and compare GNOME’s planner and KDE’s task juggler and GNOME’s rhythmbox compared to KDE’s amaroK) and many more.
Sorry bud, but GNOME isn’t able to get any basic things done correctly. It’s a f–king mess and nothing else.
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Anonymous
“Exactly, and that’s why they don’t want GNOME.”
sorry bud, but remind everyone again what DE they’ve switched to? hint: gnome. and remind everyone what DE that just ditched? hint: kde. considering that everyone is going with gnome, if gnome is a “f–king mess” as you politely put it, then just consider how much of a “f–king mess” kde is considered to be by all the corporations and distributions that are dropping it like hot coals.
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Anonymous
Stop talking outta your ass.
a) KDE was not dropped, it’s supported normally as before.
b) NOVELL dropped their entire DESKTOP area
c) NOVELL threw out the entire Evolution, Hula and MONO division
d) only ONE kde developer got fired
So, who is f–ked now ?
Some open source companies support GNOME more due to political reasons than technological reasons. They want to make money without having to waste a lot into the production. It’s called “getting the max by less investigation”. They don’t do this because of charity.
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Anonymous
“So, who is f–ked now ? ”
answer: you all along. it IS TRUE that they have dropped kde as being the default DE. it is NOT TRUE that they dropped their entire DE. it is NOT TRUE that they threw out their entire evolution, hulu, mono division.
if you had bothered to read 3 threads before this one, you would have read the passage below. instead you decided to believe an typical overemotional kde developer with a hormone problem.
‘Kurt Pfeifle, a KDE developer, stated in his Linux Today story that, “Contrary to what was expected from recent Novell announcements, Novell executives are apparently slicing deeply into the Linux heart of the company.”
“Nonsense,” replied one senior Novell open-source engineer to this comment.
Kevan Barney, Novell’s senior public relations manager, said, “The Linux teams are largely intact, and the desktops aren’t going away.
Pfeifle went on to write, “staffers working on Mono, Hula, Evolution and Desktop Strategy are getting the sack.”
While cuts are being made across the company, Mancusi-Ungaro emphasized that “Novell is not pulling the plug on the desktop. We feel we lead it today, and we look forward to the next generation of the desktop. The desktop is in the core set of Novell open enterprise stack of data center, workgroup and desktop, identify and resource management.”
As for the other open-source projects, Mancusi-Ungaro said, “I don’t know of any Hula [an open-source e-mail server project] cuts. There have been minimal cuts in Mono [an open-source implementation of Microsoft’s .Net], and none of those cuts were in developers.”
eWEEK.com Special Report: The Business of Linux
As for the Evolution e-mail client, “this is a stable, mature product, so we are redeploying its developers to other more strategic projects.”
However, “It also has a lot of community support, and we plan to leverage it with other e-mail programs like Hula.”
Novell is making one large strategic change. The GNOME interface is going to become the default interface on both the SLES (SuSE Linux Enterprise Server) and Novell Linux Desktop line.
KDE libraries will be supplied on both, but the bulk of Novell’s interface moving forward will be on GNOME.’
given your knowledge of the facts, i’m not surprised that you favour kde over gnome.
2005-11-07 5:44 pm
joelito_pr
I like KDE, but I don’t like how in many KDE centric distros I tried lately they kind of cripple KDE by putting just too much clutter in the desktop and panel by default (MEPIS comes to mind) In that sense, I think Kubuntu has a better approach by keeping the desktop clean, aditionally, they develop native kde applications to provide functionality that’s more equivalent to gtk apps(package management and synaptic comes to mind)
In my mind, Kubuntu is already a top class distro since Hoary (even tough I mostly use regular Ubuntu)
2005-11-08 1:08 am
Anonymous
Corporations favour Gnome because it lets them get something for nothing. Never mind whether KDE is easier to use, Corporations don’t want to touch GPL. They go with Gnome to allow other corporations to ship proprietary apps with the same toolkit.
I don’t choose my DE based on one or two commercial apps I might someday want to use. I’m motivated by what’s enjoyable to use, and by freedom, the latter of which puts me at odds with coporations.
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Anonymous
“Corporations favour Gnome because it lets them get something for nothing. Never mind whether KDE is easier to use, Corporations don’t want to touch GPL. They go with Gnome to allow other corporations to ship proprietary apps with the same toolkit.
I don’t choose my DE based on one or two commercial apps I might someday want to use. I’m motivated by what’s enjoyable to use, and by freedom, the latter of which puts me at odds with coporations”
you are just so wrong. why can’t kde people ever admit it. its because gnome is significantly more usable, is intuitive, and doesn’t have the confusing clutter that is called kde, and the mess that is kcontrol. aaron krill, one of the kde guys, pretty much sums up kde’s deep and inherent failings here under the topic “concerning novells choice of gnome”:
‘Novell is “standardizing” on Gnome as their desktop environment. Anyone want to know why? Because the gnome guys know how to make a good simple end-user application.
Lets face it. Almost all KDE apps have interfaces that provide easy access to even the most advanced functions. That my friends, is the problem. The immense choice of features and actions things like toolbars, as well as non-descript icons, are turning newbies away from KDE.
Lets take Konqueror for example, probably the one thing a linux newbie would use most. Right now, with SuSE 10.0 defaults, I have 12 buttons on my toolbar… These are what they do:
* Back
* Forward
* Up
* Home
* Refresh
* Stop
* Print
* Find
* Zoom In
* Zoom Out
* Security
* Download Manager
This is in Web Browsing mode. I don’t need or want the Up button, or the Zoom buttons. The find button is non-descript and requires me to hover over the icon and wait for the tooltip. The security button is pointless since we can just put a lock icon on the status bar like most sane people (perhaps with a fancy KDE tooltip describing the security in use). The Download Manager button is also completely useless, especially since I don’t even have KGet integrated with konqueror.
Secondly, we don’t need the address bar to say “location.” Most people already know its for addresses, so that just makes it look clunky. The Go button could use some work too.
This kind of stuff shows up in tons of KDE apps. Things have been getting better… especially in the KDE-PIM apps, But KOffice, Konqueror, Kopete, all have too much UI clutter and icons that just don’t make sense where they are. Do we really need copy/paste icons everywhere? Do we need an icons for every functionality on the planet? It overwhelms the newbie user. Hell, it overwhelms me at times. I just get confused and probably end up not seeing all the great capabilities of these apps.
Novell, Redhat, and other “commercial” distributions are targetting their desktop distributions at businesses whose users have probably never seen or used Linux. They’re also targetting their server distributions as replacements for Windows servers, and want to make it as easy as possible for Windows admins to move over to Linux. Gnome, I hate to say, excels at this due to the simplicity of their applications. They may not have the features or customizability of KDE apps, but they do have the UI right… simple and to the point.’
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Anonymous
yeah, looks like the kde dev’s see the problems facing KDE. and they are fixin’ it. the gnome dev’s, on the other hand, just ignore users asking for more functionallity, quallity and speed (eg gnome-term now uses 50% mem of what it needed before to open a tab; still 5 times what Konsole needs! and that’s just ONE example…).
Gnome is clean and simple. and that’s it. its only advantage is the fact it has less icons. wow. i’m impressed. KDE is, usabillity-wise, better imho – you can do more with less mouseclicks and less time. isn’t that much more important? you’re confused by all the icons? ok, KDE 3.5 and 4.0 will remove lots of them. now KDE is as usable as gnome… easy, not? now, you gnomes get Gnome as fast and stable and feature-rich as KDE!
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Anonymous
“yeah, looks like the kde dev’s see the problems facing KDE. and they are fixin’ it. the gnome dev’s, on the other hand, just ignore users asking for more functionallity, quallity and speed (eg gnome-term now uses 50% mem of what it needed before to open a tab; still 5 times what Konsole needs! and that’s just ONE example…).
Gnome is clean and simple. and that’s it. its only advantage is the fact it has less icons. wow. i’m impressed. KDE is, usabillity-wise, better imho – you can do more with less mouseclicks and less time. isn’t that much more important? you’re confused by all the icons? ok, KDE 3.5 and 4.0 will remove lots of them. now KDE is as usable as gnome… easy, not? now, you gnomes get Gnome as fast and stable and feature-rich as KDE!”
here we go again. the same old crap. when will you people ever learn. you see, now its going to have to be drilled into your skull the fact that some of those (imaginary) problems that you see with gnome, are not problems with gnome, but are part of the problem with kde. the clutter and the bloat is whats causing kde to have that slowness and crash-prone-ness thats so notorious to people. thats something else thats driving off newbies.
lets face it, kde is AT LEAST 7 years behind gnome. in 1998, i used kde because it was way ahead of gnome. however, since then, gnome has been going progressively forward while kde has been progressively backward. gnome have improved their interface and developed the HIG and all that (THIS IS WHAT ORDINARY USERS WANT). meanwhile, kde have made the clutter(which wasn’t so bad in 1998. they got the balance right between usability and functionality IN AND BEFORE 1998) even worse and the bloat has got worse (which has partly been responsible for kde’s notorious slowness and unreliability). the bottom line is: KDE WERE MORE ATTRACTIVE TO BACKERS AND CORPORATIONS IN 1998 THAN THEY ARE NOW.
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Anonymous
Uhm, willing to share some of the stuff you smokin’ ?
> lets face it, kde is AT LEAST 7 years behind gnome.
I doubt you seriously going to believe this do you ? Ever looked at the applications provided for the KDE architecture ? They are miles ahead to what GNOME has slammed together. I haven’t found one application under GNOME that worked seriously enough to satisfy my needs.
> gnome has been going progressively forward while kde
> has been progressively backward. gnome have improved
> their interface and developed the HIG and all that
> (THIS IS WHAT ORDINARY USERS WANT).
Announcing a lot of bullshit in the public doesn’t make it more true than it really is. GNOME has announced the HIG yes, but hardly 1/3 of the components coming with GNOME support it, others reject using it and again other developers find silly excuses to avoid using the HIG and close bugreports (such as my one for GNUMERIC) as not a bug. Just because an elephant shits in the corner doesn’t mean that everyone will smell the shit.
I used to be a contributor and developer towards the GNOME architecture for over 6 years now and I can seriously in no way confirm what you say. To say the truth it’s exactly the other way around of what you said. After using GNOME from 1.0 to 2.13.x and using KDE throughly since the pre 3.0.x times I can tell ya that KDE has left GNOME behind in all areas.
Ok I don’t have any issues with peoples opinion or different understanding of the things, but I have something against clueless people spreading crap in the public only to make their desktop look better than the other by getting back towards lies and bullshit.
Care to explain how your explaination will help getting more people interested into Linux or open source in general if all you need is to lie at them and telling them bullshit ? How many years did GNOME tell us that their desktop is ready for the corporate but it got them nowhere. Things don’t really work, applications crashing and not being able to serve users with even the simpliest and easiest tasks. While otoh KDE is maturing in all directions, offering powerful applications, stuff that corporate really wants.
How do you explain that Mark Shuttleworth now sets on KDE and that Brazil now uses KDE as their primary desktop. The boneheaded decision for Novell to drop all core GNOME developers for Hula, Evolution and Mono has shown that. The reason why they still offer GNOME is because their bonehead vice presidents are former Ximian CEO and CTO. It has a bad taste but on the long go you will see the entire open source movement will pay back Novell for having done this decision.
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Anonymous
“Uhm, willing to share some of the stuff you smokin’ ?”
you should know more than anyone. you sound like a person who has great difficulty in coming to terms with reality. the sad(for you) fact is, you’re going to have to wake up someday and smell the coffee. or in your case, whatever you’re permanently high on.
2005-11-08 2:11 pm
Anonymous
read below on why they felt it futile to provide a qt port [note that wxWindows have no ties to gtk or gnome. they are independent and see things from the same point of view as novell and all other companies who want to associate with a future-proof toolkit and DE]:
“Are there any efforts to produce a wxQt 2.X?
There are several reasons why this is probably not going to happen. To begin with: most people consider one port for Linux as enough and as long as a wxQt does not match the quality of wxGTK, nobody would use it anyway. We also expect almost all people to use GNOME a few years from now and we have no interest in promoting the use of KDE against that positive trend. Positive, because we don’t see any advantage in having to write programs for two versions of Linux.”
http://www.freiburg.linux.de/~wxxt/issues.html
These are pretty great news and (speaking for myself) I welcome Mark Shuttleworth on board of KDE. I am glad to see how KDE is able to impress people with astonishing great technology, clean implementation, easy of use and great integration. The powerful applications around KDE makes it a pleasure to use.
KDE is crap, if you want a Windows desktop then use Windows.
KDE is crap, if you want a Windows desktop then use Windows.
Where are the kio-slaves in Windows?
Whoops….sorry, I accidentally modded you down (and somehow confirmed it without realising it….a sign I need more sleep). OSNews needs a way to retract votes. I know before I have accidentally modded people up. Modding down with the confirmation and all is a first though 😉
Although I don’t like KDE myself and use Ubuntu, I find it pretty nice to be able to use the distribution with both DEs. Some other ditributions tend to disregard either Gnome or KDE and focus their work on the other one.
Ubuntu with Xfce, called Xubuntu, is also on its way.
Kubuntu and Ubuntu both make the best of their respective desktop environments. They should both flourish.
While I’m very happy to see kubuntu getting more attention I don’t like the K everywhere naming scheme, why don’t call them simply Ubuntu, and specify the desktop envrionment? something like
Ubuntu – Gnome and Ubuntu – KDE
or
Ubuntu/G and Ubuntu/K
Because they in the end are the same distro (I got Ubuntu with KDE packages actually installed)
Because the target audience for “Ubuntu” don’t know and don’t wan’t to know about desktop environemnts. As far as they are concerned they don’t look the same and don’t bundle the same software, so they are diffrent distributions.
well people aren’t stupid enougth to be unable to see that ubuntu and kubuntu share an incredible numbers of letters and that they are very similar…
It was not my intention to call people stupid. Just that the concept of “desktop environment” isn’t the best description of what they see.
Edited 2005-11-06 13:22
I understand, but ubuntu and kubuntu aren’t really two different products, but they differentiate only for the desktop envrionment, so calling both of them ubuntu and putting a label that indicates the DE seems a choice that has sense
Your argument implies that Linux has established itself on the desktop to a level that users without this degree of understanding are attracted to it. I would argue that, for the most part, only sophisticated computer users are currently exploring Linux on the Desktop and these folks want to know the difference between DE’s. The reason KDE has such a strong following among those migrating is because it is the most similar to XP DE. Pure and simple.
Whether or not Gnome is technically superior is irrelevant to the user making this exploratory migration. So, In the wake of Vista and all its eye candy, the KDE Plasma is the only viable contender if Linux is to make a go. And OpenOffice 2.0 bugs must be squashed. That is the only hope.
Despite it popularity in LUG’s, Ubuntu is still a niche in the computer world. For Linux to succeed, it must reduce the number of distros, and establish a set of standards that a distro must meet in order to be considered accepted. We have a mess and we need to get it right. Supporting KDE, Xfce, Gnome or Bubba’s Newest DE is not the answer if all these things are going to do is fragment an otherwise solid market attack with the great talent we collectively have.
And now I am stepping down off my rambling milk crate. Thank you for allowing me to vent!
There’s more in the K when it comes to Ubuntu.
“Ubuntu” – humanity to others
“Kubuntu” – to humanity
Both words means something.
Looks to me like a marketing move that is trying to catch all the KDE users that will now escape from Suse.
The questions is whether the users of Kubuntu are in long-term planned to be assimilated into the Gnome desktop or not.
Looks to me like a marketing move that is trying to catch all the KDE users that will now escape from Suse.
Actually Mark announced this on irc days ago, long before the Novell announcement.
“The questions is whether the users of Kubuntu are in long-term planned to be assimilated into the Gnome desktop or not.”
Why does everybody assume that KDE users will at some point be migrated or absorbed into the Gnome desktop environment. People choose KDE because they like it, if they didn’t they would use Gnome or another desktop environment. People who don’t like Gnome aren’t going to be heareded into it, I for one would return to Windows before that happens.
Why does everybody assume that KDE users will at some point be migrated or absorbed into the Gnome desktop environment.
Because it’s simply about control. These people want their desktop to be the one true desktop, and if they can’t create something that most people out there actually want to use, based on quality, they’ll make and pass standards and do some political manoevring to make sure that it is. Nothing has changed, and it was pretty much the same in the 80s and 90s when people were arguing over Unix standards. None of these people seem to realise that you actually need software that is good enough, no matter how free some people think it is, to actually get anywhere in the world. It was true back then and it’s true now.
The really funny thing is they then accuse others of doing the same, with far less evidence and backup as to the quality of the relative desktops, the quality of applications and development infrastructure and just what is required to actually make this mythical corporate desktop they claim to cherish so much.
I don’t even know why the subject here is ‘Suse users going Kunbuntu’. There’s simply no evidence that what that what was not actually said in that article will come true. These people have most definitely cried wolf before, and they’ve done so again:
http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/11/24/46NNdesktop_1.html
Carefully read through the bottom half of this (Suse and Ximian comments from Mr Nat Friedman, November 24th 2003) and tell me if any of it has come true in any way shape or form. The answer is clearly a definite no.
People who don’t like Gnome aren’t going to be heareded into it, I for one would return to Windows before that happens.
Quite frankly I would to be honest, and so would everybody else. I trust some of these people even less than Microsoft – at least Microsoft has actually produced something reasonably usable and they’ve put in the man hours on all the little things. I just wonder whether some Gnome people would rather write software for Windows or for KDE. I’d wager they’d want to write for Windows, regardless of the fact that KDE is open source and all of the arguments for freedom and equality (which is why open source software was started in the first place) simply because it isn’t their baby. Not everyone is like this mind you, but unfortunately it’s a fairly significant proportion.
People, and even developers, always say it’s only the fanboys who fight, but in the quality of the articles you get from some of these people and some developers who tend to surround Gnome you can quite clearly see that that’s not the case. Whinge and stamp your feet all you like, the evidence is there.
It wouldn’t fit on one CD? Simple as that.
I think the fact that kubuntu, and for that matter the server version, all is available is enough for most folks. If you want KDE, you know how to install it.
Amazing.
The only reason Ubuntu gets more attention than Debian at the moment is because its easier to install. You don’t have to fiddle with things, you just get what you wanted when you downloaded the CD’s.
Saying “well, you can just install whatever else you want” is not policy. If a potential Ubuntu user prefers KDE, then they probably don’t want to install all of GNOME, go into IRC, and ask “how do I get kde on here”.
This is the whole point of the different distributions. You probably get exactly what you wanted when you install. Many people don’t know about “kdebase” or “khotnewstuff” or “nautilus” or “gnomemeeting” are… they just want a system that works as they expected when they made their decision.
As for the marketing factor due to SUSE happenings, no, not true at all. Mark mentioned this at least a week ago that I know of, and its on Riddels blog for anyone that wants to see.
Jonathon has been doing some great work… Kubuntu is truely the best KDE distribution at the moment (have you seen its kde-system-settings tool?). Its getting the attention it deserves in my opinion.
I just hope Jonathon is finally getting paid, along with the other major contributors to Kubuntu, they truly deserve it. In my opinion, they are doing more work than the GNOME folks at Ubuntu. Ubuntu’s GNOME is very much the same as mainstream, Kubuntu’s KDE is FAR different in many ways!
Keep up the good work everyone
Ubuntu’s GNOME is very much the same as mainstream
Probably because Ubuntu employs some key Gnome devs, and all of Ubuntu’s work gets merged into Gnome quickly.
Do they? (honest question)
I know a lot of key GNOME developers work for Red Hat and Ximian (well, Novell). I don’t remember one that works for Canonical.
<snip>
I know a lot of key GNOME developers work for Red Hat and Ximian (well, Novell). I don’t remember one that works for Canonical.
</snip>
One is Jeff Waugh, who was the fomer Gnome Release manager, and argueably the most visible person for Gnome during that time.
Jeff is a great guy, but I’m talking about developer in the sense of “writing code”.
For example, SuSE and Red Hat employ people to work on X.org, glibc, GCC, Linux, desktop environments… Ubuntu, as far as I can see, only has people hacking on Launchpad.
> Jeff is a great guy
He’s not. Unfortunately he’s most hated amongs many GNOMER’s known for his slandering, namecalling and ignorant asshole mentality that he carries around. He caused a lot of damage to the GNOME community with his egoistic behavior. Sadly a bunch of other developers stuff a lot of hot air and sugar in his ass. I have dozen captured IRC chatlogs where he demonstrates his ill behavior towards others and I also have logs of other people keep complaining and talking about him. I also know that the majority of involved GNOME developers don’t like that guy were much.
I bet you can dig up some bad irc logs about the pope or the dalai lama if you dig deep enough.
Unfortunately both don’t use irc or use some disguising nicknames like Anonymous so they don’t get caught on tape.
“have you seen its kde-system-settings tool?”
Yes. It sucks ass.
“Its getting the attention it deserves in my opinion.
I just hope Jonathon is finally getting paid, along with the other major contributors to Kubuntu, they truly deserve it. In my opinion, they are doing more work than the GNOME folks at Ubuntu. Ubuntu’s GNOME is very much the same as mainstream, Kubuntu’s KDE is FAR different in many ways! ”
Well, I completely agree J deserves a salary — Kubuntu has a lot going for it. However, it does have some strikes against it in my book, as I mentioned in my other post. I also dislike the new default Knoqueror, and haven’t figured out how to get “Go” or “Window” back yet – I haven’t really looked either, so it may be more simple than it seems.
I like and use Kubuntu, and really hope they work on ironing out existing bugs rather than making a headlong rush towards the newest bleeding edge crap for the next release (actually, this goes for ubuntu as well). Shipping a product with hal broken OOTB is badbadbad IMO.
“Ubuntu’s GNOME is very much the same as mainstream, Kubuntu’s KDE is FAR different in many ways!”
Most of the paid Ubuntu guys aren’t working on GNOME, just packaging it. They get paid to work on the low level stuff like the kernel and apt and the installer. Oh, and to fix bugs. It’s pretty easy to build an awesome distro on top of that, it’s just that the folks working on Kubuntu seem to be able to do their own thing more of the time so can move faster to make changes. If someone wants to make a UI or platform change in GNOME they have to spend time discussing it because a lot more people (and businesses) are going to see it.
I of course mean in Ubuntu’s GNOME, not upstream.
Hmm … Mark wants Kubuntu a first class distro … a kde core devel lost his job at Novell … maybe they should talk to each other … 🙂
Hmm … Mark wants Kubuntu a first class distro … a kde core devel lost his job at Novell … maybe they should talk to each other … 🙂
That hardly matters. Suse employs a lot more than one person to work on their KDE stuff.
SUSE made some brilliant subtle changes to KDE though, after getting over the initial shock of the icon sizes in the KDE menu I loved what SUSE had done with it. Then there’s the suse Window decoration and the way the desktop icon fonts look with that border around them instead of the traditional shadow.
I’m dumbfounded that SUSE of all distributions is dumping KDE, they had a great KDE desktop and their asthetic enhancements in the more recent versions were very nice. I’d suspect foul play within the company if I didn’t think this were because they wanted more corporate customers and didn’t care that much about home users any more.
Perhaps by fetching the right person from those former SUSE employees, Kubuntu could get someone who could then apply such asthetic improvements to it. That’s not to say the current Kubuntu developers couldn’t do the same themselves though.
Either way I’m glad Mr. Shuttleworth is putting more TLC into Kubuntu.
“announced that he was now using Kubuntu on his desktop machine”
Probably because it’s not ugly brown.
I don’t think it’s just a marketing ploy. Shuttleworth has the financial resources to give Kubuntu/KDE similar support as Ubuntu/GNOME gets and his public commitment to do so is certainly great news for KDE users — now they will have another first-class distro to choose from.
But I agree with the poster who wrote that now there isn’t really any reason to maintain Kubuntu as a different distro from Ubuntu. (The name “Kubuntu” was most annoying, anyway.) Kubuntu has been an Ubuntu-based project and now that Ubuntu fully supports KDE, there’s no need for Kubuntu any more. I don’t recall any other distro that would maintain a separate marketing name for each desktop they support.
And if they’ll launch “Xubuntu” (with XFCE desktop), then this would mean that it’s not officially supported by Ubuntu developers and it doesn’t receive similar support as Ubuntu (with GNOME and KDE desktops). But if they *really* decide to support XFCE, then there’s no need for “Xubuntu”.
The target audience for *ubuntu is people who don’t want to know of “distributions” or “desktop environments”. It is simply “operating systems”.
A desktop environment is such a large component of a debian based operating system that it’s just silly to bundle them together.
Imagin buying a Ford if you would have to answer questions such as “What chassis and engine would you like with your Ford? We have the original Ford and Licoln, Mercury, Mazda, Volvo, Jaguar, Land Rover or Aston Martin or…”
How about marketing Ubuntu with GNOME as “Brown Ubuntu” and Ubuntu with KDE “Blue Ubuntu”? (And Ubuntu with XFCE as some different colour of Ubuntu.) Or do you think that would be too difficult and confusing for Ubuntu’s target audience? 😀
Probably too difficult for the average Ubuntu user
I propose “Ubunty Ugly” for Gnome and “Ubuntu Beauty” for KDE
Really, I am getting tired of all the inflammatory comments. Why do people say things like “ugly for gnome” or “gnome is the cause that linux on desktop fails” and “kde with plasma is the hope for the future” and saying there is nothing else viable?
Not everyone likes KDE or even finds it acceptable. I am perfectly willing to bet that more people like me dislike kde because of the way it looks, the way you develop software for it and the way the community around it keeps praising it.
Comparative study of various vendors’ business decisions:
Redhat:
1. Adopt Gnome as the only Linux desktop
2. Loose lots of money
3. Become disillusioned in desktop on Linux
4. ???
5. Abondon Linux desktop strategy
Sun:
1. Adopt Gnome as the only Linux desktop
2. Loose lots of money
3. Become disillusioned in desktop on Linux
4. ???
5. Abondon Linux desktop strategy
HP:
1. Adopt Gnome as the only Unix desktop
2. Loose lots of money
3. Become disillusioned in desktop on Unix
4. ???
5. Abondon Linux desktop strategy
Eazel:
1. Adopt Gnome as the only Linux desktop
2. Loose lots of money
3. Become disillusioned in desktop on Linux
4. ???
5. Abondon Linux desktop strategy
UserLinux:
1. Adopt Gnome as the only Linux desktop
2. Loose lots of money
3. Become disillusioned in desktop on Linux
4. ???
5. Abondon Linux desktop strategy
Anyone else seeing a common pattern here?
Probably Mark Shuttleworth does. He’s a smart guy. He embraced KDE and encouraged Kubuntu to take off. He now uses KDE/Kubuntu on his personal desktop
http://www.kubuntu.org/announcements/kde-commitment.php
I’m sure this man already thinks how he can take advantage of the stupidity displayed by Novell management.
The Ubuntu suite of offerings is starting to become really sweet — rock-solid servers based on Debian, Gnome/Ubuntu as well as KDE/Kubuntu offerings for desktops, workstations and thin clients — and it is going to be ready to enter the enterprise market very soon too. (And in my definintion of “enterprise”, it is not only the top 500, but most important the Small and Medium Businesses (SMB), where Linux stands the best chances to be adopted by the owners, as well as supported by small IT professional service providers.)
Thats funny.
Sun:
Adopts GNOME and calls it JDS.
Still calls it JDS.
Releases JDS to the public for Linux users.
JDS becomes standard on Solaris 9.
JDS becomes standard on Solaris 10.
JDS becomes standard on OpenSolaris
JDS will be standard on Solaris 11.
Oh look, you lied.
# JDS becomes standard on Solaris 9.
# JDS becomes standard on Solaris 10.
# JDS becomes standard on OpenSolaris
# JDS will be standard on Solaris 11.
#
# Oh look, you lied.
Why, dude? this is what I wrote in relation to Sun:
# 5. Abondon Linux desktop strategy
*linux*. LINUX. Got it?
Oh, look, you needed to read again.
So what? we’re talking about GNOME here, not neccesarily the platform it runs on. Sun hasn’t abandoned GNOME – they’ve dropped Linux.
Totally different.
Stop having a go at GNOME – it’s actually been a great bonus to Sun, moving them away from icky CDE and has won them a lot of support.
Quite frankly anything is a step up from CDE, no matter what DE Sun had chosen it would have been a good move compared to what they were using before.
But as I keep reiterating Gnome was the better choice for them since their primary target is companies. Companies don’t want to have to worry about the Qt license should they write thier own software, especially when the GTK license is less restrictive and costs about $2000 – 3000 less should the software be released without the source code. In the case of businesses the legal department takes precedence over the asthetics and/or convenience department.
You mean the same Sun that calls Gnome a “throw away” desktop? (http://osnews.com/story.php?news_id=12501)
Or the one who is shifting to Xfce? (http://osnews.com/story.php?news_id=12462)
Is SUN shifting, or was that just Belenix needing something small for their uncompressed LiveCD?
JDS becomes standard on Solaris 9.
JDS becomes standard on Solaris 10.
JDS becomes standard on OpenSolaris
JDS will be standard on Solaris 11.
Oh look, you lied.
#########################
Oh look, you are stupid. ;-P
Here is why (because your type of stupidity can be fixed easily ;-P — let me give it a friendly try):
1. The guy was talking about “Linux desktop strategy”. Linux, not Solaris.
2. You are talking about Solaris 11. Do you really believe into what your crystal ball tells you?
Solaris 11 is far, far away. Possibly will never materialize. It’s not yet even in the Sun pipeline.
For all you JDS fans, here are two interesting reads, both from people who used to be or are still working for Sun and JDS:
http://www.gnome.org/~gman/blog/02112005
http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/46502/Content/0,289142,sid39_g…
Of course JDS became the standard for Solaris, Solaris is a Sun product and so is JDS.
Just because it’s the standard on Solaris doesn’t mean the users like it, in fact Solaris and JDS are primarily targetted at businesses and aren’t common home desktop systems at all.
The author of the comment you’re replying to didn’t lie, in fact I agree fully with him and see the exact same parallels he does. Your argument on the other hand is quite silly.
Anyone else seeing a common pattern here?
I certainly am. I am also seeing a pattern of Gnome being far too difficult and far too expensive to maintain and develop for all but the largest companies with serious money to burn i.e. Microsoft. And they hardly give their stuff away for free, do they?
Probably Mark Shuttleworth does. He’s a smart guy. He embraced KDE and encouraged Kubuntu to take off. He now uses KDE/Kubuntu on his personal desktop
Well, I think Mark’s taken the view that he would like to use all of the free software out there he can reasonably support in order to get Ubuntu/Kubuntu to succeed. Seems like a sensible thing to do to me.
Haha, the only problems with your argument is that (a) Ubuntu gives away the distro for free so they’re not making any money, (b) RedHat is making money, (c) desktop linux doesn’t make money for anybody, and (d) Ubuntu is still the showcase distro and its Gnome.
Nice try, but no dice. Is that you Sege?
Interesting, I seem to recall Lycoris building a business around Linux for the average home user and they did a good job of it while they were still around, imo the reason they finally crashed was because they didn’t bother to keep up to date with the other competing home desktop Linux distributions. How about Linspire which looks mainly oriented towards people’s home desktops. Then there’s Mandriva which sells the Discovery edition which wouldn’t be any good to companies now would it? How about Xandros which targets home and corporate users?
There are more and they are making money, don’t fool yourself into believing otherwise.
Lycoris is dead as you pointed out.
Is this the same Mandrake that was in bankruptcy?
Xandros – looks like they couldn’t pay back $750,000 they owed Lindows http://opensource.sys-con.com/read/44586.htm?CFID=453581&CFTOKEN=8E…
Is Linspire making money? Wasn’t it founded by the guy that made a bundle on mp3.com? Has Linspire recouped the $20 million they invested http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=10195&offset=45&rows=60&t…
I do like some of the ideas of Linspire though. One-click install, decent fonts…but it’s a tough market for them when most of the stuff is free, but that’s another story
There are more and they are making money, don’t fool yourself into believing otherwise.
Yeah, on the server.
I should know better than to feed a troll, but:
First off Lycoris crashed because they weren’t keeping up with the other distributions; back when everyone was long into KDE 3 Lycoris was still using KDE 2. Then later on they decided to reduce themselves down to a 30 day demo for people wanting to try the OS and it was crippled for that matter so that didn’t attract many new users.
Mandrake went into bankruptcy because of their business model, they gave away the OS for free and expected people to buy club memberships. They also lost a lot of money on their “Mandrake schools”. Mandrake has long since recovered from that and is now a strong distribution again with lots of money in the bank. Mandrake bought Conectiva and Lycoris not to long ago, the costs from that were several million which goes to show how much the company can afford now.
As for Xandros, $750’000 isn’t pocket change. That article was short and dates back well over year, and the author couldn’t even spell Corel properly. Funny how I never saw this on any popular tech news sites, nor were there any follow ups. I doubt very much the reliability of your source.
Linspire is making more than enough money to support itself, to continue improving it’s products, and to support open source sites and projects. I’d say they’re doing well.
If server software were the only lucrative markets for Linux then no one would bother to make a desktop version of Linux, some distributions are of a very good quality for desktop use and to fund that kind of work they have to be making money from somewhere, they don’t all have server products.
First off Lycoris crashed because they weren’t keeping up with the other distributions; back when everyone was long into KDE 3 Lycoris was still using KDE 2. Then later on they decided to reduce themselves down to a 30 day demo for people wanting to try the OS and it was crippled for that matter so that didn’t attract many new users.
Lycoris died. You can pontificate on how their business plans sucked, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are dead.
Mandrake went into bankruptcy because of their business model, they gave away the OS for free and expected people to buy club memberships. They also lost a lot of money on their “Mandrake schools”. Mandrake has long since recovered from that and is now a strong distribution again with lots of money in the bank. Mandrake bought Conectiva and Lycoris not to long ago, the costs from that were several million which goes to show how much the company can afford now.
Spending money on other distros and having money in the bank is not an indication of profitability. I’d like to know what exactly your definition of “recovered” is? If it’s “well now we’re out of bankruptcy, so we’ve recoverred” then fine, but the real question is the profitability of Mandrake.
Linspire is making more than enough money to support itself, to continue improving it’s products, and to support open source sites and projects. I’d say they’re doing well.
I won’t comment on the profitability of Linspire, but in the osnews link i previously posted the president of linspire stated that they had sunk $20 million into their stuff. So are they recouping that investment? The founder of Linspire appears to be another Shuttleworth guy who has deep pockets. Just because they have money to spend doesn’t mean they are actually profitable.
if server software were the only lucrative markets for Linux then no one would bother to make a desktop version of Linux, some distributions are of a very good quality for desktop use and to fund that kind of work they have to be making money from somewhere, they don’t all have server products.
The reality is that desktop work started before corporate sponsorship and a significant chunk of it is still volunteer. The question is if Novell, RedHat, and Sun are making money off of their investment in developers working on the desktop or do they feel the need to spend some money on it just to stay in the game and maintain some control over them? I would say the latter. Server vendors have always had their hands in some sort of GUI, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t realize that the vast majority of their sales are for server work. Redhat has been the somewhat defacto leader of Gnome for a while. They’ve got some money and can afford to invest in it. Novell and Sun decided to leverage that investment by RedHat and at the same time keeping their hands in their so RedHat doesn’t get to dictate everything. Plus, they have their own needs that are separate from what RedHat wants so it makes sense to put some minimal resources into it.
I noticed that you didn’t respond to my other points in the original thread so I guess you agree with those.
“Lycoris died. You can pontificate on how their business plans sucked, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are dead. “
Correct me if I’m wrong, but your argument is that Desktop Linux is little more than a loss of money, you seemed to propagate the idea that the server market was the only one Linux would make money from, then you used what I said about Lycoris to further that point. I’m pointing out that Lycoris didn’t fail because there was no money to be made with Desktop Linux, but rather because they made serious mistakes.
“Spending money on other distros and having money in the bank is not an indication of profitability. I’d like to know what exactly your definition of “recovered” is? If it’s “well now we’re out of bankruptcy, so we’ve recoverred” then fine, but the real question is the profitability of Mandrake.”
If Mandrake wasn’t making money then how would they have recovered from bankruptcy, how would they have had the money to get rid of their debts, where would the money for buying Lycoris and Conectiva have come from. Last I heard Mandrake had 60 employees, how could they afford to pay those employees if they weren’t making money. This doesn’t only indicate that Mandriva is at least getting back enough to stay where they are, but that they are making enough money to expand.
Mandrake couldn’t be surviving on what they have in a bank account if they had nothing and had to declare bankruptcy.
“I won’t comment on the profitability of Linspire, but in the osnews link i previously posted the president of linspire stated that they had sunk $20 million into their stuff. So are they recouping that investment? The founder of Linspire appears to be another Shuttleworth guy who has deep pockets. Just because they have money to spend doesn’t mean they are actually profitable. “
Would you invest in starting your own business if you knew you would have a negative or zero return on that? Then why would Micheal Robertson or Mark Shuttleworth.
Ubuntu and Kubuntu aim to give the distro away for free and make money by selling support. Linspire is slightly different in that they charge for their distro and make the bulk of their earnings from Click ‘n Run memberships and by selling support. Linspire and Ubuntu couldn’t just keep sucking money from their founders, they have to make money to continue to exist and they are doing so.
“I noticed that you didn’t respond to my other points in the original thread so I guess you agree with those.”
Usually that is correct, I tend to reply to comments only to back them up when I agree or to debate them when I disagree.
FWIW I did give you grounds to fairly mod me down there, I’m glad you didn’t and I’ll keep that in mind.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but your argument is that Desktop Linux is little more than a loss of money, you seemed to propagate the idea that the server market was the only one Linux would make money from, then you used what I said about Lycoris to further that point.
Not exactly. Obviously there needs to be some kind of gui in nearly 2006 to do some admining – whether that’s via an Xserver on another box or a plugged in monitor. But the vast majority of sales are going towards servers, not workstations or consumer desktops.
I’m pointing out that Lycoris didn’t fail because there was no money to be made with Desktop Linux, but rather because they made serious mistakes.
I’m pointing out that there isn’t much money to be made on the desktop, whether its Lycoric or not, but more on that later.
If Mandrake wasn’t making money then how would they have recovered from bankruptcy, how would they have had the money to get rid of their debts, where would the money for buying Lycoris and Conectiva have come from. Last I heard Mandrake had 60 employees, how could they afford to pay those employees if they weren’t making money. This doesn’t only indicate that Mandriva is at least getting back enough to stay where they are, but that they are making enough money to expand.
Mandrake couldn’t be surviving on what they have in a bank account if they had nothing and had to declare bankruptcy.
I’m assuming that french bankruptcy laws are similiar to US bankruptcy laws. In that case, their creditors would have to wait to be paid. That doesn’t mean they don’t have money in the bank or aren’t able to pay their employees. It just means that they’re not generating enough revenue to pay their creditors. Just because a company exists and is not in bankruptcy doesn’t mean they’re profitable. Dead companies can linger on for years and years before they finally close up shop. It all comes down to profitability. For all I know, Mandriva might have got another round of funding.
Would you invest in starting your own business if you knew you would have a negative or zero return on that? Then why would Micheal Robertson or Mark Shuttleworth.
I can’t comment on Robertson, but Shuttleworth seems to think of this as more of a rich man’s hobby.
Ubuntu and Kubuntu aim to give the distro away for free and make money by selling support. Linspire is slightly different in that they charge for their distro and make the bulk of their earnings from Click ‘n Run memberships and by selling support. Linspire and Ubuntu couldn’t just keep sucking money from their founders, they have to make money to continue to exist and they are doing so.
When your founders have deep pockets, you can suck away money for a long, long time. We’ll have to wait and see for many years to come if Ubuntu is ever profitable based on a service model. I highly doubt it, but right now Ubuntu is years and years (if ever) away from making money.
The whole problem for selling desktop linux is that except for Linspire, there’s not much differentation between a Suse desktop, a RedHat desktop, an Ubuntu desktop…if you’re running the same DE. Linspire attempts to change this by selling some extra bits, but has Linspire actually made a profit on all the money that has been invested by their sugar daddy, mp3.com guy? If they have, then I stand corrected, but I’d like to see some evidence on that. Maybe (and that’s a big maybe) once some of these companies get over the idea that everything in their distro has to be open source and that it’s ok to add some proprietary bits as a value added that nobody else has, and there really is a groundswell open source desktop demand then they can make money, but until then it’s pretty much a non-starter if you want to make some money.
I’m all argued out now :-p
I’ll admit you don’t hear too often of companies based around desktop Linux systems making large profits, in fact many seem to stagnate exactly where they started and a fair number of them end up dying before being around for so much as a decade. But there are distributions which last and make some profits, even if not many, and there are others which I think make a fair deal of money from the desktop market although without their financial records which I don’t have I can’t prove that.
I’ve always felt that the right approach could make Linux into a great product, the main problem right now in my opinion is that software like Xorg is taking a long time to get cool features like transparency, companies like Trolltech are charging crazy amounts of money for their products, and no one who could make a difference is funding the right kind of development or lobbying for change in the case of Trolltech.
If I were a multi-millionair like Robertson or Shuttleworth I would probably be giving benevolently to Linux, but the difference is that I would be working on what makes it marketable to everyday users and not what makes it a viable alternative to Windows for people who are either fed up or technically inclined enough to make the switch. Sometimes I feel like a real hypocrite when I defend Linux while at the same time I wish to myself that it would have better multimedia support built in and that it would actually be on store shelves with software like KDevelop included without hiking the price to something more along the lines of Windows.
It’s true that Linux distributions still seem designed for corporate customers, that may be why KDE is slipping away as the main desktop environment in favor of Gnome, but it wouldn’t take much to change that if only someone who could afford to make those changes cared enough.
You lost me here:
Not exactly. Obviously there needs to be some kind of gui in nearly 2006 to do some admining – whether that’s via an Xserver on another box or a plugged in monitor. But the vast majority of sales are going towards servers, not workstations or consumer desktops.
GUI required for manage a UNIX-like SERVER??!? Noob…
Is this the same Mandrake that was in bankruptcy?
Yup. The same Mandriva that is now out of bankruptcy and turning out a profit by selling Linux boxes.
For the record, the bankruptcy was not brought in by their Linux business, but by their misguided foray into educative software.
Now you know.
Hmm … Mark wants Kubuntu a first class distro … a kde core devel lost his job at Novell … maybe they should talk to each other … 🙂
That hardly matters. Suse employs a lot more than one person to work on their KDE stuff.
Well not so much for KDE, but for that particular developer it may matter. A person with that kind of skills will most likely not have problems getting a new job, but getting job offers when you are in that situation are rather nice regardless.
Comparative study of various vendors’ business decisions:
Redhat:
1. Adopt Gnome as the only Linux desktop
2. Loose lots of money
3. Become disillusioned in desktop on Linux
4. ???
5. Abondon Linux desktop strategy
Sun:
1. Adopt Gnome as the only Linux desktop
2. Loose lots of money
3. Become disillusioned in desktop on Linux
4. ???
5. Abondon Linux desktop strategy
HP:
1. Adopt Gnome as the only Unix desktop
2. Loose lots of money
3. Become disillusioned in desktop on Unix
4. ???
5. Abondon Linux desktop strategy
Eazel:
1. Adopt Gnome as the only Linux desktop
2. Loose lots of money
3. Become disillusioned in desktop on Linux
4. ???
5. Abondon Linux desktop strategy
UserLinux:
1. Adopt Gnome as the only Linux desktop
2. Loose lots of money
3. Become disillusioned in desktop on Linux
4. ???
5. Abondon Linux desktop strategy
Anyone else seeing a common pattern here?
Probably Mark Shuttleworth does. He’s a smart guy. He embraced KDE and encouraged Kubuntu to take off. He now uses KDE/Kubuntu on his personal desktop [ http://www.kubuntu.org/announcements/kde-commitment.php ].
I’m sure this man already thinks how he can take advantage of the stupidity displayed by Novell management in chopping KDE and betting their careers on Gnome.
The Ubuntu suite of offerings is starting to become really sweet — rock-solid servers based on Debian, Gnome/Ubuntu as well as KDE/Kubuntu offerings for desktops, workstations and thin clients — and it is going to be ready to enter the enterprise market very soon too. (And in my definintion of “enterprise”, it is not only the top 500, but most important the Small and Medium Businesses (SMB), where Linux stands the best chances to be adopted by the owners, as well as supported by small IT professional service providers.)
I’am using Ubuntu only for GNOME!! It will be so bad if Ubuntu will be KDE based distro
((((((((((((
If they do that, they’ll have two copies of the Ubuntu base system in the little sleeves, and thus duplication of effort. I’m not sure I really like the sound of that (though it sounds better than the current situation where the Live CD and Install CD are almost exactly the same).
I have to admit the alternatives don’t sound quite as good- One disc with the base system and maybe some extras, one disc with the DEs, or one disc with the base system and minimal DEs, another with more programs and the rest of the DEs.
Either way would produce a CD that wasn’t useful on its own…
Download Windows Vista: http://windows.czweb.org/show_article.php?id_article=173
I think kde is is better for migrating windows users Especially if kde4 is ported to windows then windows users can use openoffice kde and gaim on their windows box at first and say this inst too bad and try linux and have the same apps waiting for them. My wife prefers gnome i dont know why but she does and thats what she uses. Its all about choice in linux and thats great but we need somthing to bring more users to our side and kde is the platform to do so in my eyes.
I disagree. I personally believe that Gnome is far better for new users than KDE. Why? Because its REALLY different. It gives the Linux desktop a distinct look that is different from Windows or OSX. The chameleon KDE can be made to look like them both or neither but this is bad for a new user because it does not give Linux Desktop a distinct look.
You might say “but that’s better because then you can make KDE look like the Windows in which they are most familiar with.” This is a BAD thing because if you make Linux look like Windows than people will expect other parts to be like Windows.
When you put a new users on a default KDE and they have the menu in the lower right corner and they have a control panel and whatever else that is like Windows XP they user thinks “hey this is just like what I’m used to.” But then they get confused when this new OS- which seems to be almost exactly line Windows to them- can’t install their old Window programs or is missing a option in the Control Panel that they were used to seeing.
But when you put a user on a default Gnome desktop it is so different that it forces the user to think differently (to steal a little from Apple). Just the fact that the menu is in a different place forces them to say to themselves “whoa, this is different” which then sets the attitude that applies to the rest of their experience. The differences in the entire Linux operating system seems annoying to a new KDE convert (“it looks just like XP, why can’t it act like XP”) but is more readily accepted by a Gnome convert (“it looks way different, so I can understand how it acts differently”).
It might be nice theoretically that KDE can be made to look like Windows to help users get over the initial shock but until Linux can be a full Windows replacement (aka install Window programs WITH EASE) that just makes Desktop Linux seem like a crappier version of Windows that can’t do as much. Gnome on the other hand is so different by default that it forces users to think differently and be able to accept the differences- like with OSX. With Gnome instead of Desktop Linux being a Windows XP copy that can’t do as much as Windows XP, its a whole new OS with new challenges and a very distinct look.
That is the reason why Gnome is better for new users.
I think KDE is the better choice for new users because the learning curve is quite easy. You don’t need to teach new users howto use gconftool-2 to change basic settings. They easily go to the well known startbar and launch the apps they need to get their work done.
I also don’t see what’s so wrong about Windows. It still dominates 90% of the market share which is a proof that people are quite happy with it.
Not to mention the lack of understanding that people seem to have about Windows. The only thing most people know are the blue screens and their crappy driver problems they have for their cheap ass taiwan hardware.
No single word I’ve ever read from users who dealt with Active Directory, the MMC (microsoft management console), administrations, daemons that you can run in the background (services), DFS and and and.
KDE is not just the easier desktop for new users to get their things going, it’s also the most customizable one, the most powerful one and the one that is better integrated, offers the better architecture, which offers really really powerful tools.
I say this as a developer as well as a user – and I say this because I know GNOME for over 6 years – a long time that I wasted trying to help out GNOME, where I regulary was rejected, where I was criticised where I got slandered for no reasons. GNOME doesn’t deserve to be the default desktop. Not just because of the broken framework that GNOME has, but also for their evil crap community.
Well, although I thoroughly dislike using Gnome myself, I have to agree with you, poofy. However, my reasoning is a bit different. Gnome is very rigid, so new users won’t be confused by a myriad of options — this is a plus for a new user. There are also very few true *preferences* in the gnome preference menu, so again, new users won’t be stymied by an overabundance of options. I think, however, that the top and bottom panel will confuse quite a few people — it will confuse windows users since they’re not used to that layout, and it will confuse mac users since there are not only two panels, there are program specific menus on the windows themselves. However, yes, I do think that perhaps Gnome is more well suited for newbies even though KDE, at first blush, might appear more similar to windows.
You might say “but that’s better because then you can make KDE look like the Windows in which they are most familiar with.”
No sane KDE user would say that. Windows is nothing like KDE in features and functioning, and most of the time [i.e. many distros, many desktops] doesn’t even look like it.
Geez, talk about bad examples. Gaim and OpenOffice already run on windows without KDE4 being ported over. And Gaim isn’t even a KDE App (for that matter, it’s not officially a Gnome app either, but it does use GTK2)
I’ll say that I use Gnome over KDE for the same reasons that the other reply to you states. It’s DIFFERENT than windows. I never liked the way Windows behaved. But then again, I come from a background of using the Atari ST and Amiga, both of which Gnome is more similar to than Windows.
Now maybe Segedunum can stop crying.
> Now maybe Segedunum can stop crying.
Username: Lumbergh (user 27)
Number of Comments: 362 (33 voted up, 99 voted down)
Lol, cool ratio!
The truth hurts fanboys and zealots.
Now maybe Segedunum can stop crying.
Ever heard of reverse psychology? You unknowingly practice it all the time.
I’m flattered by this thing you seem to have for me, but the reason why you have the comments ratio you have is because you never actually comment with anything useful. You could of course answer some of the actual legitimate concerns raised in some other threads, but like a lot of others, you can’t.
but the reason why you have the comments ratio you have is because you never actually comment with anything useful.
If your psyche is so fragile that you’re basing selfworth on an OSNews moderation system then you’re in deeper trouble than just being a deranged KDE/Qt fanboy who can’t accept reality.
You could of course answer some of the actual legitimate concerns raised in some other threads, but like a lot of others, you can’t.
I already did, two years ago as noted by sonic101. http://osnews.com/permalink.php?news_id=12551&comment_id=56422
Segedunum, once you wake up to reality and stop acting like a 3 year old who thinks someone is going to take away your toy (the KDE DE) you’ll be better off. And no, you, your multiple accounts, and your fellow KDE fanboys and their moderation points won’t stop me from pointing out your idiocy.
Even the crazy people in the streets who claim the world will one day come to and end will eventually be correct, even if it takes millions or billions of years.
The point is that you intentionally come down hard on anyone who likes KDE and Qt, calling us zealots because we like it. That to me seems like a zealous anti-KDE/QT attitude when you can’t give us a fair chance to get a word in just because you don’t agree or in this case because of your prejudice. You’re average comment rating on OSNews is exactly what that kind of attitude earns you.
That to me seems like a zealous anti-KDE/QT attitude when you can’t give us a fair chance to get a word in just because you don’t agree or in this case because of your prejudice.
I’ve switched to KDE when I’m on the Linux desktop – a little distro called kanotix where everything “just works” right out of the box – which is more than I can say for Ubuntu.
You’re average comment rating on OSNews is exactly what that kind of attitude earns you.
Considering the number of zealots around here I would think it odd if my moderation was positive. So many people around here are incapable of stepping back from their fanboy world and looking at things as how they are.
Segedunum is in about the same league as Moulienuef when it comes to living in fantasy world. Maybe one day they’ll grow up and realize its just software.
More people around here need to step back and look at things on their technical and/or business aspects instead of being a cheerleader for their favorite DE. Sege is right that KDE/Qt is technically superior to Gnome/gtk+. It doesn’t take a rocket science to understand that. But he refuses to accept that Trolltech owning Qt was always going to be problematic for some. I think it was you that agreed with me on this issue on the Novell thread.
It’s really a shame that Slashdot seems to be growing up and OSNews has just got worse over the years – as far as comments go, the stories are still pretty good.
> I would think it odd if my moderation was positive.
That’s because of the fact that you use one of your dozen fake accounts with fake nicknames to mod your previously written comments up.
“Considering the number of zealots around here I would think it odd if my moderation was positive. So many people around here are incapable of stepping back from their fanboy world and looking at things as how they are. “
Comments like that certainly have a part to play in why you don’t have an average positive score.
You need to be more careful about your wording.
“It doesn’t take a rocket science to understand that. But he refuses to accept that Trolltech owning Qt was always going to be problematic for some. I think it was you that agreed with me on this issue on the Novell thread. “
Yes I did agree with you because you were right in that case. I regret calling you a troll now, but your comments and the attitude people here percieve from you is still far too agressive. You need to improve your diplomacy a little and consider the other side of the argument before going off like a rocket when met with resistance.
I may not be that much better when it comes to running out of patience, but my fuse is at least longer and it’s kept my average score over .2 for a long time now.
I already did, two years ago as noted by sonic101.