The guys at LugRadio have released Season 2 Episode 11. In this episode they interview Aaron Seigo, KDE developer, he talks about what KDE’s up to and dispels some myths about the desktop environment.
LugRadio interview with KDE devel Aaron Seigo
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Those “Linux Radio” stations either are too boring or trying too hard to be funny, really annoying.
“Those “Linux Radio” stations either are too boring or trying too hard to be funny, really annoying.”
there are interesting perspectives which you can only get from listening to people. RMS tends to be very slow and deliberate when hearing him but he comes as kind of rude and introvert when you read him for example
First the guys discuss about “why not build a full DE using Python”, and then whether KDE4 could be written from scratch…sigh
hehe, i find RMS comes off as a self-rightous sob most of the time, be it in person or on text, but maybe thats just me.
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downloading now, but knowing the lugradio guys, this is bound to be interesting (they are pretty much all hardline gnome guys)
Aaron does really a great job at explaining where KDE is heading, and trashing some KDE myths. Some of the topics:
– The new meta info framework / desktop search
– The new usability process in KDE
– Hula good marketing: why a less capable and tested groupware server got such a buzz?
– Myth: KDE “slow” adoption of freedesktop stuff: KDE helped to build and adopted most of the standards and software (trash, windows manager, menu, HAL, icon standards, etc…), but decided to only consider adoption some others at the new major release (4.0). The reason: for some things, KDE already has a working implementation, and the right time to consider these changes is at major releases. Examples: DBUS and the new audio engine. So it is not true, and unfair to say that KDE does not care or implement freedesktop stuff. It is the opposite: it helps develop them and adopt them as soon as possible.
Etc…
The interviewers are a bit biased against KDE, as they admitted in the interview. But Aaron did *very* well.
I see a pattern here … media is slowly being influenced by the so called “free but corporate friendly” GNOME pool. The fact that KDE is as free but not corporate friendly (since it does not allow building pure commercial products) shows up in the media as being unpopular.
The previous discussion about paying developers for features is a case in point. I fully agree with Waldo’s replies that open-source started by developers writing software for themselves. If others liked it, then it was a pleasant side effect. The “bounty” hunting going on in some projects points to a desperate need to commercialise free software.
This is the reason, with all its warts, I prefer KDE over GNOME because it retains the true spirit of open-source.
A point that is often ignored, is that most of the commonly used freedesktop standards are based on KDE specifications and implementations in the first place. For example:
– The .desktop files (based KDE’s .kdelnk specification)
– The system tray protocol (based on KDE’s tray protocol)
– DBUS, based on DCOP
Others developed elsewhere have been in use in KDE for years:
– XBEL (used since KDE 2.1)
– XDnD (used since KDE 2.0 IIRC)
It should however be noted, that just because a proposal is on freedesktop.org doesn’t make it a standard, or even a good idea. There are (and should be) both good and bad ideas there, and the desktops can vote with their feet.
I’ve been a fan of Aaron’s since I stumbled across his blog ( http://aseigo.blogspot.com ).
He cares about usability, users, optimization, all the while staying pragmatic and down to earth, and producing great code.
Can’t wait to listen to the show. The lugradio guys seem Gnome biased, but not overly so. Not more than I’m KDE biased, so I don’t mind.
>since it does not allow building pure commercial products
That’s a misunderstanding, there is no problem whatsoever with building pure commercial products on KDE. I don’t know why people still try to push this ridiculous statement as fact.
First of, all of KDE core libs are either LGPL, BSD or MIT, in accordance with the KDE licensing policy. Second you get Qt licensed as GPL, QPL or commercial, hence allowing the building of commercial applications. Trying to state othervise are pure FUD.
> >since it does not allow building pure commercial
> > products
> That’s a misunderstanding, there is no problem
> whatsoever with building pure commercial products on
> KDE. I don’t know why people still try to push this
> ridiculous statement as fact.
>
> First of, all of KDE core libs are either LGPL, BSD or
> MIT, in accordance with the KDE licensing policy. Second
> you get Qt licensed as GPL, QPL or commercial, hence
> allowing the building of commercial applications. Trying
> to state othervise are pure FUD.
Also, there is nothing that says “GPL apps cannot be commercial”. So long as the commercial software is distributed morally, it is certainly acceptable to use Qt/KDE for it.
Note that the GNOME bounty project is sponsored by Novell, and there has been no decision as to whether the project will generalise the bounty system or continue with it once that sponsorship is over. Also note that paying developers for writing code is NOT EVEN REMOTELY outside the spirit of FOSS development. Nor is commercialising the complements of that development, such as services!
Our friends in companies such as Sun, Red Hat, Novell, Canonical, Mandrake, and so many other smaller companies appreciate being paid for their work. Do you appreciate their work? Do you appreciate that they can do this work because they are paid for it? There is no problem with the commercialisation of FOSS – it’s a challenge to balance the interests on either side, and it shows us that we’re succeeding.
I don’t suppose anyone has a mirror of this?
nm. Here are some.
torrents at
http://lugradio.bishopburton.ac.uk/
> – The .desktop files (based KDE’s .kdelnk specification)
> – The system tray protocol (based on KDE’s tray
> protocol)
> – DBUS, based on DCOP
>
> Others developed elsewhere have been in use in
> KDE for years:
>
> – XBEL (used since KDE 2.1)
> – XDnD (used since KDE 2.0 IIRC)
I’d like to add the icon loading specification which was specified 1:1 according to the mechanism that KDE has used since KDE 2.0. This mechanism was created by me and was _deliberately_ created in a way so that Gnome could make use of it as well. Actually I asked the Gnome people to make use of it at GUADEC in Denmark and it was adopted soon afterwards.
Best Regards,
Torsten Rahn