Bruce Perens’ UserLinux startup, having turned down an earlier offer by a few dozen active KDE and Debian developers to integrate KDE into UL now seems to suffer from too many requests to support KDE desktops regardless of its previous policy decision to primarily go for a gratis LPGL development platform. In a mail to the UserLinux list Bruce now announced that Perens LLC will start to support KDE commercially, and declares it an option open to all other UserLinux support providers.
Perens LLC to support KDE Commercially on UserLinux
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..before KDE 3.2, I would have agreed with his previous position. However, having seen 3.2, I think KDE is indeed headed in the right direction and support the new decision. GNOME is still nice, but KDE looks and feels a lot more polished these days.
I am glad to see that Bruce was open minded enough to correct this. Please let’s not turn this into yet another KDE vs. GNOME debate.
Taking out KDE from Userlinux because he knows he can make extra money with it.
Yes, that’s what it looks like, isn’t it?
My first reaction to his first decision was that the Debian team would hardly have included KDE if it had not been free.
There so much noise around both Bruce Perens and United Linux that I strongly doubt we would ever see anything tangible out of the whole thing.
There is RH, SUSE, Mandrake, Debian, Gentoo, Knopix …
Bruce Perens? United Linux? Do I really care?
that Mr. Perrins and UserLinux are taking this position. If they do it right, I will most likely use their distro if it becomes widely accepted, as I use only widely distributed distros. We all know the need for a ‘standard’ distro so developement for Linux becomes easy enough for developers to port their software willingly.
And I also feel that it should include the two best major DE’s (and at least 1 or 2 of the best light DE’s, like XFCE4 or Fluxbox or IceWM). If they didn’t include KDE, it would have like breaking up Mutt & Jeff, or Tom and Jerry, or Yin and Yang, or salt and pepper, or good and evil (<- not that I’m implying one is evil and the other is good).
Let’s not disparage the guy’s character. His dedication and contributions to Open Source should show that he’s not interested in compromising his project to make extra profit.
I think his arguments against including KDE were incredibly weak — especially the ones he made originally, before he changed it and made it a simple licensing issue. But one should attack the argument, not the person!
About disparaging the guy´s character… those of us that have been unfortunate enough to know his actions for the last 7 years know that disparaging his character is very hard: it´s like soiling a dirt floor.
Article Correction:
It’s LGPL, not LPGL.
Secondly, this is not really a change at all. GNOME remains the GUI for UserLinux, KDE is only supported commercially, just like many other things that he stated. Money talks.
From the sound of it, KDE will still not be in the default UserLinux distribution.
Let’s not jump the gun like our friends over at Slashdot and conclude that “UserLinux Will Support KDE.” UserLinux is just a commodity collection of software, not a company, so it can’t support anything. Support is to come from multiple, competing service providers, who can provide straight UserLinux or a version of it with add-ons, different defaults, etc. So, UL on its own still only has one GUI SDK, and that’s GNOME. However, one particular service provider, namely Perens LLC, has exercised its option to provide an add-on, in this case, KDE.
Let’s not make the mistake of confusing Perens LLC and UserLinux, ok?
At first I was thinking of not even keeping UL as an option due to their position on KDE. I think Bruce made the best choice and I am glad to see that the superior desktop will now be included.
Are there any *other* UserLinux providers except Perens LLC? Perens, LLC == UserLinux, at least right now. The fact that UserLinux hasn’t even been released yet and already the only UserLinux service provider has been forced to provide support for KDE indicates that UserLinux’s original no-KDE position isn’t going to fly in the market.
Even if KDE is not in the default UserLinux distribution, it is already a supported option for 100% of UserLinux service providers. My guess is that this trend will continue, and even if KDE isn’t officially a part of UserLinux, it will be a de-facto part of UserLinux.
before this story was posted i never even herd of userlinux.. but in a short lookup on there site, you have to have deb system running already to use there linux flavor.. sounds kinda shoddy.. oh well put another one on the distro list, yay
…working in Nokia makes you VERY aware of issues of conflict of interest… but I think there’s something of a conflict of interest in Peres LLC making money off giving KDE-related services to UserLinux customers, services that relate to the fact that KDE is missing from Userlinux
… and Perens is the one who decided KDE should NOT be in UserLinux.
What tingles my antenna even more, is the fact that NOW Perens has no argument left to defend his decision not to include KDE. His only argument is “I’d lose face, so I won’t do it.”
Or mmaaaaaaaaybbeeeeee….. “I make more money this way, so I won’t do it.” At least, if he’s charged (with fraud or whatchagonacallit), he’ll have no problems finding a lawyer to defend him ;o)
I originally liked the UserLinux concept, that of limiting what was included to a few selected programs and a single Desktop Environment, however it now appears it will have both. What other compromises is this going to lead to? 5 Web Browsers, 24 email clients, Ok you get the point.
Another point is that Qt the library KDE is base upon is not free for propriatry development, another one of the goals of UserLinux was to make it easier for commerical companies to make programs for it. GTK/Gnome do not suffer this problem.
Unfortunately, this just leads me to think that Bruce did not really did his homework fully before announcing the new project, regardless of how it turns out I will probably stay away. I guess if I was more of a Linux Guru I would start-up my own to resolve these issues, I think I will just stick with Slackware.
why kde isnt included in user linux. the only thing that happend is that a customer wanted kde and perens said ok
i will fix kde for you if you pay me for suporting it.
it’ s still not included ass default in user linux. and wath is wrong with giving customers more choice if they want to pay for it.
this is like if i would buy a windows computer and said hey i want to buy office aswell i can do that but that dosent mean that evryone that buys windows will get office as well
In wake of this “news,” I’ve been seeing a lot of fanfare about Perens pulling his head out of his ass, or that he’s balked. This is the same position that he’s always had: UserLinux will default to GNOME, and if you or your client wants KDE, its always an option. KDE is little more than an apt-get away. Duh. The UserLinux proposal claims it will operate on a Debian infrastructure, which is incredibly malleable.
The big things here to understand is that using KDE or GNOME is simple. Configuring it is slightly harder. Maintaining integrity and updating it is even harder. Debugging it when it goes wrong is yet harder. Ideally it never goes wrong, but it happens. Maybe the business owner decided they wanted to try some new software and installed it themselves from a tarball.
Bottom line is that its based on Debian, and KDE has had a lot of problems making its way into testing. Either KDE or one of its dependencies had a major bugs that prevented it from moving to testing. GNOME has been pretty reliable and solid. For a while it was looking like KDE3 wasn’t gonna make it into Sarge (that may still be the case). This would put a large burden on UserLinux to provide a KDE backport, rather than essentially leech off of Debian’s rigorous if unreliable QA system.
It is important to keep in mind both KDE and GNOME have special place with Linux. Both of their vocal users and supporters. While KDE looks more polished these days so does GNOME. It is good to see support for KDE from Lindows and now Userlinuxl. But GNOME is also looking good these days. Hope it can also boast of such support in coming days.
Are there any *other* UserLinux providers except Perens LLC?
AFAIK, no.
Perens, LLC == UserLinux, at least right now.
That is a category error, and not a trivial one. Perens LLC is a business. UserLinux is a particular body of software. Further, while it is acceptable for SUSE Linux to be supported mainly by SUSE, Conectiva Linux to be supported mainly by Conectiva, Red Hat’s products to be supported mainly by Red Hat, it is NOT[/i] acceptable for UserLinux to be mainly supported by Perens LLC. If Perens LLC doesn’t get competition as a UL service provider, the UL project will have failed. So while saying SUSE == SUSE Linux is more intellectual shorthand then intellectual sloppiness, saying Perens LLC == UserLinux implies a serious failure to understand what UL is about.
The fact that UserLinux hasn’t even been released yet and already the only UserLinux service provider has been forced to provide support for KDE indicates that UserLinux’s original no-KDE position isn’t going to fly in the market. Even if KDE is not in the default UserLinux distribution, it is already a supported option for 100% of UserLinux service providers. My guess is that this trend will continue, and even if KDE isn’t officially a part of UserLinux, it will be a de-facto part of UserLinux.
Trouble is, you are basing your conclusions on a sample size of one, and that is seldom, if ever, a good idea.
There might be several reasons for KDE not to become a de-facto part of UL Businesses migrating from Windows to UserLinux, or Red Hat to UserLinux, might not care a wit whether the GUI is KDE or GNOME so long as it works. Also, most proprietary software developers will probably not care about the lack of KDE, even if they want to use Qt. Developing an app against KDE pretty much ties the app to Unix-y systems, while an app built against pure Qt fits in about equally well under Windows, OS X, and more traditionally Unix-y systems, so there is a much bigger market for pure Qt apps than for KDE apps. Probably the main reason for the demand for KDE is that it has the reputation for being the user-friendly desktop, and given that GNOME has become at least as usable as KDE, that reputation may decline.
Oops. I forgot to close the bold tag after the “NOT” in my last post. (Can somebody fix that?)
saying Perens LLC == UserLinux implies a serious failure to understand what UL is about.
—
I understand perfectly well what UL is about. That’s why I qualified my statement. For all practical purposes, Perens LLC == UserLinux *right now*. If UserLinux is successful, that situation will change, but right now, that is not the case, so the comparison between SuSE and SuSE Linux and Perens LLC and UserLinux is valid.
Trouble is, you are basing your conclusions on a sample size of one, and that is seldom, if ever, a good idea.
—
While its certainly not a solid claim, it does indicate the beginning of a trend. There is only a single UserLinux provider, and already they’ve had to provide support for KDE. Take that how you will, but to me it indicates that there is a market demand for cross-desktop support, and that UserLinux service providers may have to bend to that demand.
UserLinux. Is this a distro for drug addicts?
Seriously though, what a silly name. Not something that Joe sixpack is gonna pick up on. From what I’ve seen, Bruce Perens isn’t a bad guy, but he’s not exactly good at marketing his ideas, which is really quite a shame.
When Bruce Perens announced UserLinux, I was genuinely convinved that this was a good idea. Instead, he has failed to bring together people by creating an inclusive community of developers. The market will eventually settle the question of which Desktop Environment, it prefers. What is clear is that Bruce Perens made his choice to please his corporate masters who want to be able to develop software for Linux without paying a commercial license to QT. If you ask me, I find QT’s position very coherent. If you are going to develop GPL software, here are our tools. If you are going to develop proprietary software, pay for them.
If you read through the mailing list, you will see that UserLinux has not even left the incubation stage. It has no installer of its own, no agreed upon configuration tools, no agreement on whether the server should or shouldn’t have a GUI, etc.
It reeks of the same elitism that pervades many other projects. Had Bruce Perens been a bit smarter, he would have or could have worked with Fedora to create a single community of developers and testers. This would have produced better code. If his real goal was to create a nework of Linux service providers, there is absolutely no reason not to go with Fedora.
Hell, if he doesn’t like Fedora, he could have base his distribution on Mandrake’s, which has an open and proven development model, real tools being used by thousands of people, and real products.
Rather he must start from scratch, waste a bunch of his and other people’s time in an effort that if the mailing lists are any indication will go nowhere.
If you want a Linux distribution that has a track record and upholds the opensource ethos in a real democratic way, stick to established projects such as Debian, Slackware, Mandrake or Fedora.
When I referred to QT,Iobviously meant Trolltech in my previous post.
What is clear is that Bruce Perens made his choice to please his corporate masters who want to be able to develop software for Linux without paying a commercial license to QT. If you ask me, I find QT’s position very coherent. If you are going to develop GPL software, here are our tools. If you are going to develop proprietary software, pay for them.
What are you trying to say here? Yes, Trolltech’s position has always and still is very coherent. But that doesn’t mean that choosing a desktop system based on Trolltech is necessarily the right thing to do for a system that prides itself on being open.
Or are you saying that you think it’s good to be open only to some, but not to all? This has nothing to do with “corporate masters”. I have no corporate masters myself, but I find it wrong to go around claiming “we are open we are free” but then turning around and favouring a particular group (GPL software folks). Saying that all desktop software must be licensed under the GPL and only the GPL is wrong, and not open. Therefore I don’t see KDE having any future except among the GPL crowd (and perhaps the some of the corporate crowd who feel that if they don’t pay for something it must be crap).
So Perens suggests that what the world really needs is a common standard around which to unite, suggests that everyone unite around UserLinux, and then…gives people multiple standards within that choice.
Is anyone else seeing this as getting absolutely nowhere? What’s the point of a common standard if that standard is inherently fragmented? Now we’ve given the developers the choice of writing your UserLinux-oriented app for KDE or Gnome, both of which are largely incompatible with one-another.
So, now that the whole idea of a common standard for the Linux desktop has been discarded, what sets UserLinux apart from other distros? Not all that much.
For a big development house, the licensing fees that Trolltech are peanuts, particularly considering the big savings they would realize through the efficiency of component/library reuse that is at the heart of KDE.
A big development house cares about the maturity of the framework and by most accounts, even Bruce’s, KDE is architecturally superior to GNOME.
So GNOME thus stands as the whimsical choice of Bruce Perens, selected perhaps more out of personal loyalty to some old developer friends and folks at the GNOME foundation than due to technical superiority.
As somebody else pointed out, you will see much more of this. Corporations will demand that KDE be installed. I run a community computer lab that has about 100 different users, with capacity for 45 concurrent users. Of those only about 8-10 have made GNOME their desktop.
This is far from scientific and I actually like the fact that there are two competing desktops, but very few new users like GNOME. That is my experience. So, UserLinux, I believe, bet on the wrong horse.
Over the long run, all software systems tend to reach parity as they copy the best features of the time. So the execution of UserLinux, in terms of strategy and logistics, may become more important than its choice of desktop environment. From what I have seen in the mailing list, the effort is premature, poorly led and with very little actual coding being done.
“The market will eventually settle the question of which Desktop Environment, it prefers.”
One, I’m more worried about what the loser does, than the fact of losing.
Two, the “market” could decide just as well that it prefers both, or neither.
Try not to get your hopes up on a particular outcome.
To me it’s all about the journey. I personally prefer KDE because I have found the community to be open and able to reach consensus where it matters, apart from being full of true and brilliant hackers.
Check out the latest KDEvelop or Quanta. Hell, even Koffice is a joy to use now. What free software needs is more people submitting their bug reports and more people writing good documentation. There isn’t one bug that I have submitted that hasn’t been fixed. Sometimes, within minutes.
So I would ask other people, and I am deviating slightly from our topic today, to take part in whatever capacity they can. I read today something that I want to pass on in the spirit of sharing that is at the heart of free software:
“To lead you don’t have to do what others can’t, just what others won’t.”
When you get your hands on the newest KDE 3.2, ask yourself where will it/we bein four years? Folks, we are making history.
To return to our topic, I think Bruce could learn a hell of a lot by watching how the KDE people interact and how they have learned to drive technology forward while being transparent, democratic and consensus-driven.
That the industry will make the same mistake twice? That when OSS will take off they will rely on one company who dictates the desktop?
Why do you think that IBM is dividing its attention too Novell (Suse) and Red Hat. Why do you think they pick gtk+?
I thought that in OpenSource no company can dictate anything. Actually, it’s not like I think that, I am being told that since several years, by Linux advocates.
a few points.
qt is quite definately technically superior. that isnt to say that gtk isnt well done, or bad. not to mention that alot of the cool new technologies coming to the linux desktop are coming out of (or through) the gnome foundation.
the whole “kde is more userfriendly then gnome” thing is a myth, and has been since gnome hit 2.4. my roommate has seen several different distros on my pc, such as debian, slackware, and fedora. recently (due to the free coupon) he saw lindows. now lindows kde looks alot more polished then any other distros kde i have ever seen. but he watched me poking around a bit in it and he goes “wtf is that?” i tell him its linux (he is a bit of an idiot when it comes to pcs), he says “Man, that looks cheap. you should install fedora again.” i just sat there laughing for a bit, for obvious reasons. but it just goes to show, for someone who only uses linux for enemy-territory, unreal 2k3, and frozen-bubble, gnome was both easier and looked nicer. so why is the default desktop of every user friendly distro out there kde? its because of old views on gnome that havnt been updated as it has gotten better and better.
now, as for parens descisions with his distro, quite honestly i am all for focus. i applaud groups like lindows or xandros who focus on one DE, and a set of apps based off of that DE. makes things far less complicated, and gives an overall polished feel.
imho, not including Qt would have been a mistake, only including one DE is not. and if you disagree with that reasoning and flame the crap out of anyone saying stuff that is in favor with that statement (as i have seen all over the place since parens first said that), then i suggest you flame knoppix, xandros, and lindows as well for not allowing for Choice. The appriate response for someone who really enjoys kde, and finds out a big distro will be comming out soon that doesnt include it should be “Looks cool, but ill stick with what i like” as i do with each new kde distro.
Oh, so that Bruce Perens is the new adaptive guru, the one who give the advice to be followed in the linux world.
For a big development house, the licensing fees that Trolltech are peanuts, particularly considering the big savings they would realize through the efficiency of component/library reuse that is at the heart of KDE.
Yes, I do realize this.
But from a more idealogical standpoint I think GNOME is a better choice in the long run. Forcing people to either use the GPL or pay Trolltech is simply unfair and definatly not in the spirit of an open desktop or even a set standard. If the kernel was licensed in this way, Linux would *never* have become so popular with businesses.
Besides, I’m more worried about the little guy, who might not want to GPL his/her application, but finds the Trolltech license unfair or unnesseary. Or what about people like me, who tend to release things as either BSD or proprietary? KDE would force me to use GPL or pay trolltech, and I like neither choice!
Regardless of KDE being more technically advanced, I see more future in GNOME on licensing principles. Besides, eventually GTK and GNOME will become as advanced as KDE, keep in mind that KDE has been in development a *lot* longer than GNOME. And with GNOME getting big backing from people like Sun and IBM, I’d say sticking with GNOME will eventually turn out to be a great business move as well.
Offtopic: In terms of ease of use, now that I’m used to GNOMES (mostly) instant apply options, an apply type system seems messy and annoying.
This, of course, is probably largely user specific.
You can release as BSD or whatever just fine. Qt is also licensed under the QPL, which allows for that kind of licensing.
As for the little guy, he can talk to Troll Tech’s sales repersentatives. There is a plan where he can difer payment for six months or so.
If he is not going to make $1500 in six months, he may just as well make it free software and beg for donations.
so why is the default desktop of every user friendly distro out there kde? its because of old views on gnome that havnt been updated as it has gotten better and better.
Actually, it has more to do with history. Back when these user-friendly distros (i.e. Lindows, Lycoris, Xandros) got started, KDE was more usable than GNOME. These distros got started either when GNOME was at version 1.x or when GNOME 2 was just coming out and Metacity had yet to be officially part of GNOME. By the time GNOME 2.4 came out, Lindows, Lycoris, and Xandros had most or all of their config tools, value-add features, etc. tied to KDE, and converting all that into something integrated into GNOME would require time, energy, and QA.
You are so incongruent, it’s not even funny.
Forcing people to either use the GPL or pay Trolltech is simply unfair and definatly not in the spirit of an open desktop or even a set standard.
Stop babbling, bubba. Unless you can formulate a coherent proposition as to what is the spirit of the open desktop, which is a new set of hollow terms, stop throwin these terms around. They only muddy the waters. It’s not a set standard. What kind of standards are we talking about here?
Trolltech’s position is both ethically tenable and coherent. It boils down to this: “We think community is good, so we give our stuff away. If you use our stuf to build community stuff, we will give it to you. We think making money is good as it allows our company to be self-sustaining, so if you decide to make money on our work, we also deserve to be remunerated.”
>If the kernel was licensed in this way, Linux would *never* >have become so popular with businesses.
But the Kernel is licensed under the GPL with some libraries being LGPL.
Or what about people like me, who tend to release things as either BSD or proprietary? KDE would force me to use GPL or pay trolltech, and I like neither choice!
IF you release under a BSD license, anybody can re-release under a GPL license, so I don’t see how you make any sense at all. The BSD is a who-cares license that allows anybody to do whatever the hell they want with the code.
Regardless of KDE being more technically advanced, I see more future in GNOME on licensing principles.
I respectfully disagree. Just look at the evolution and follow the KDE and GNOME mailing lists. I did say that over time -meaning years- most technologies tend to reach parity.
IBM has not decided to favor one desktop or a single distribution.
>Offtopic: In terms of ease of use, now that I’m used to >GNOMES (mostly) instant apply options, an apply type system >seems messy and annoying.
This, of course, is probably >largely user specific.
I agree…