Slashdot Mirror
Konqueror.org Launched - KDE2 Web Browser
Rob Kaper writes: "The KDE team has launched www.konqueror.org, a site devoted to their browser component for KDE2. "Konqi" can do HTML4, CSS2, SSL, Java, Javascript, SMB shares and soon even Netscape plug-ins such as Flash. I've seen it in action and looks like a very worthy competitor to Mozilla."
Konqueror itself will be released with KDE2- the web site is there to be a place for users to find out information about it and decide whether or not they want to use it. If GNOME's killer app will be Evolution, KDE's killer app is definitely Konqueror. It is the testbed and backbone for nearly every one of the new KDE2 technologies- KIO, KParts, KHTML, and several more.
It's an interesting world to be in, and the site is only going to get better. As the webmaster, I can say that it *will* definitely get better.
-Chris
Konqi???
You've got to be kidding me. Will the person responsible for this step forward so that they might be beaten with a pointy stick? It sounds like a bloody teletubby for gods sake!
Does anyone actually think to themselves, "ooh i wonder if there's anything new on slashdot, I'll just fire up Konqi".
This is right up there with Geeko, the Suse chameleon/gecko/greenturdwithatail.
Really... If you're going to name your software, for the love of god, please try to make it something inspiring instead of this cutesy crap
why aren't browsers not only keeping up, but staying ahead of the curve?
Because the people they are selling web browsers to (well, selling in a metaphorical sense) are people who view web pages, not those who make them.
Sure, you can argue that being able to display all of the CSS standards would result in a really kick-ass browser that joe-user would flock to since it renders tons of pages really well. But, by and large, struggling to adhere to every minor spec in CSS is a diminishing return proposition. If you hit the high points, you can claim CSS (or CSS1) compatibility. Some of the CSS stuff will work, and some people's pages will look neat. Makes the marketing guys happy. Makes users think you're cool. And you don't have to pay all those programmers to do a thorough job.
Let's face it, there are many other pressures on the browsers maker. If you were project manager for IE or Netscape, and you could develop either better support of CSS features, which may marginally make the rendering of pages better, or a killer end-user feature that will make joe-user go "good golly! lookee here!", which will you go for? And, of course, and spare resources you'd probably put into trying to make the thing crash a bit less often, or making it a bit less of a godawful bloated stinking whale of an application.
I suspect, by this point, that a lot of resources are spent just trying to cope with how bloated these apps are.
As for those that are up-and-coming (perhaps you'd throw Mozilla into this category) there is a struggle to get all of the "must haves" into their browser. Think of it. For a complete browser these days, you have to interpret two markup languages (HTML and XML), one scripting language, tie into Java, have a plugin architecture, support a bunch of graphics formats, tie into e-mail programs (or supply your own), and support multiple platforms. And you have to throw that program up against all of the heinous web pages out there that were poorly written, or perhaps just written in a way to try to cope with both IE and Netscape. That's a tall order... and will take a long time to develop. The pressure to cut corners and get the thing out the door is high (especially if you're a for-pay development concern). I'll be impressed if Konqueror can deliver on all of that within a reasonable time.
You have completely misunderstood the WWW. The goal has _always_ been about managing information. Just reading the title of Tim Berners-Lee initial WWW proposal ( http://www.w3.org/History/1989/proposal.html ) "Information Management: A Proposal" says it.
/mill - tired of all this
I suggest you read about WebDAV ( http://www.webdav.org ).
it's not really the same, though somewhat similar.
The difference is that, in the Microsoft case, they were putting in a browser to expand an almost-monopoly in OSes to an almost-monopoly in browsers.
The difference is mostly that
This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
Konqueror has not been released - konqueror.org has been.
Besides, you can run it from any desktop environment you want - as long as you have the KDE libraries installed, you don't need to be running KDE's window mangager or any other KDE tools to use Konqueror.
RPMs of a recent CVS snapshot for Red Hat Linux can be found at
http://people.redhat.com/bero/experimen tal/. Konqueror is part of the kdebase package.
This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
Web browser?
file manager?
Document viewer?
Customizable?
Uh... so they want to be Emacs? (somebody had to say it =) )
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
Sig:
Barbeque is a noun. Not a verb.
You're seriously misinformed. Konqueror is not "one gigantic app". In fact, the executable is but a few hundred Kb. Almost *everything* in Konqueror is a component, even the file manager and the web browser if I'm not mistaken. This is the same with IE, Nautilus, Mozilla etc. This breaking-down of functionality actually facilitates debugging, not the opposite as you seem to think :-)
--
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
First beta (1.90, "Konfucious")in a week, gold (2.0, "Kopernicus") in September.
the fundamental rule of KDE (and Gnome) development is "We hate Microsoft, but we copy their every move anyway."
Not quite.
I can't speak for all of us, but my version of that rule (and I have the impression that most other KDE/Gnome developers share it) is more like
"Microsoft is bad, but that doesn't mean everything they do is bad".
If Microsoft comes up with something good (which has, by the way, almost never been the case - virtually all of the good stuff they have has been copied from someone else), the fact that Microsoft has it is not a reason not to re-implement it.
Having the option to make the UI look a lot like theirs is also a good thing because most future Linux/*BSD/... users are Windows users right now, and they don't want to relearn everything.
For those of us who don't like this UI look, it can easily be switched to something nicer.
Both KDE and Gnome are reasonably configurable about looks by now.
This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
Never checked that button in my life. Read the FAQ on how default posting levels work moron.
Yeh, I know how it works. I also know what the +1 box is for. Just beacuse a certan number of your posts were good at one point in time dosn't mean that all of them will be all the time. If you want to say something usless, click the box.
When I read a +2 I don't want to see a one line comment saying "Read the FAQ...moron". I don't litter in the +2 space please.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
- This isn't trying to be cross platform in the same was as Mozilla is and this has a head start in terms of simplicity.
- A lot of the features claimed in the article are targets, not where the package is right now
Knowing how good KDE hackers are, I'm sure this will turn out to be every bit as good as they claim it is and for KDE users, it will be a better fit to that environment because of the component technology it uses. But whatever sucess Konqueror scores, there is still a place for Mozilla.--
A casual glance at the website indicates that it is a new development, unrelated to kfm.
There was no indication of when this wonderful beast could finally be up and running. Reading between the lines in some places, it is not ready yet.
Mielipiteet omiani - Opinions personal, facts suspect.
It's not quite true - konqueror is really quite usable by now.
...), and do you call 4.0 stable?)
KOffice could do a lot of interesting things when the first screenshots were put up - it just turned out the technology used was not reliable, so it was rewritten.
Also, this type of "marketing" (I wouldn't call it that) is, to an extent, required - we need users because in opensourceland, users == developers, and you can't get something like KOffice with only one person.
(By the way, I think it's odd you'd mention XFree86 as someone who doesn't do it - did you forget all the time before 4.0 ("we'll have 3D support then",
This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
I have played with linux and have had problems when trying to upgrade to Netscape 4.7.2 . If it were not for the built in KDE browser I would have been browserless. The only function that the old browser did not perform was FTP downloads. I had to use the Command Line version of FTP to do any downloads. I will look forward to an upgraded version of an already worthwhile product.
Jumping to correct solutions slowly is better than jumping to incorrect solutions quickly.
Hmmm. XML based configuration of menus and other stuff; support for ECMA script; support for an object embedding and linking model... Stir in Reiser FS (to handle data storage at the file system level instead of the file level)...
I can see this assemblage of stuff morphing into a VB like application platform.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
The objection in Microsoft's case is that the browser if foisted upon everyone who only wants the operating system. When you try to patch the operating system by installing a service pack for Windows NT, it requires you to install Internet Explorer. The browser is similarly bundled with a variety of other Microsoft software. You cannot install IIS nor Exchange without first installing Internet Explorer. I find this less disturbing because IIS and Exchange are not core components of the operating system, but it still indicative of a trend.
The same objection will never be made in the case of Linux. You will always be able to have Linux without whatever you don't want. Download, configure, build. Make your own distribution. It is what RMS is always saying but nobody is listening: Free Software is about Freedom. With Linux, KDE, GNOME, Mozilla, and the rest, you get to decide.
Care to share where some of the worst bombs are? :-) Seriously, I've noticed that the latest version of Explorer on the Mac and Mozilla on, well, anything, do an almost perfect job at CSS1, at least according to the w3.org test suite
That's the sound of the market not insisting on standards compliance. But note that things are really beginning to catch up now. Within a year, I susptect sites that don't effectively use CSS (including slashdot) are going to look increasingly dorky.
Really, really hard I think. Seriously, once you start getting to support CSS at the level of units in ems, exes picas, mm and pixels when your output is some random CRT, I think it would make the strong weep.
CSS3 is, alas, way out there; there's not even a unified proposal yet
I suspect that the first universal thing we'll see out of CSS3 is the paged media stuff, which is already sort of available in Explorer.
Doing style right is hard, and I think everybody can see now that it's worth doing right. At least, I hope that's the case...
Babar
-- Fred Brooks _The Mythical Man Month_
Am inclined to agree. They've done it because it's 'cool' and shows off the elegance of the underlying componentised design, I guess, but the very screenshots they use to show this off clearly demonstrate why this is a usability nightmare:
Here you've got several unrelated applications munged together in panes of one window, with one menu bar and tool bar for all of them, but one status bar for each of them, which seems unrelated to the content pane. It's unclear how the panes relate to each other and how changes in one might affect the others and the rest of the system.
The advantage of this over having separate windows which the user can manage themselves? None AFAICT.
Konq's a great web browser though. I easily prefer even v1 to Netscape 4.
--
This comment was brought to you by And Clover.
I would like to enlighten all the people who are complaining that KDE is going the Microsoft way and trying to make Konqueror one huge app.
A) In this case, the Microsoft way is the right way.
B) Konqueror and to a slightly lesser extent, IE, are not one huge app.
By integrating access to all sorts of data, the user experiance is greatly simplified and made much more efficient. Maybe it's just me, but browsing some files, typing in a URL to download a file, then going back to the file manager to unzip it and install is sheer coolness (or Koolness!)Normally, this efficiency would come at the expense of speed and bloat, but not in this case. Such is the magic of COM (or KOM, what KDE calls its clone if it) Because Konqueror and IE are implemented as a set of COM objects, these can be loaded at will. Unlike Bonobo (which is a damn ugly architecture, IMHO) large portions of applications with a significant amount of glue inbetween are not loaded. Instead, the system is built on a set of small reusable object. In some cases the overall bloat of the system can actually go down! Take, for example, MS Word. When IE browses over to a MS word file, the MS word editing object is loaded and inserted into IE. If you had wanted to see it, you would have had to open up word anyway, or a redundant version of the interface would have had to have been built into IE. In the case both word and IE browsing a word document are loaded, then only one copy of the editing object is loaded into memory. See, magic! This object-ness can become even more interesting. Imagine a system API implemented as a set of COM objects. (Kinda like DirectX without the hungarian notation.) Now the system is VERY cleanly extendible, with no dependencies on a specific version of the API and no ulgy _createWindowEx2ExtendedEnhancedAFX()-type function calls. In addition to all that, it's fast. Common COM local object calls are about has efficient was a C++ virtual function call (it's a deference through a v-table) Compare this to all the marshalling and dispatching inherent in Cobra, and you'll see why COM is so nifty. So it's fast, flexible, and can save memory. What's not to like?
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Just tried them both in today's CVS snapshot - it can deal with dynamicdrive.com perfectly,
netmeister.org doesn't work (black page), but a quick check at validator. w3.org shows why...
Please try making the pages more standards-compliant.
This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
It doesn't seem to have a mail client and news reader tacked on it! Woohoo.
It just browses stuff whether it be the web, ftp or local files.
That looks like a pretty nifty browser. I particularly like how it allows you to split the browser window into multiple frames for simultaneously viewing a web site, an ftp site, and your local disk. Drag and drop ftp within the browser is kind of cool.
:)
However, I use Window Maker, and I don't want to bog down my system with the QT libs. So it's not really something for me.
Maybe one of the Mozilla-based browsers that come out next year will be right for someone in my situation. I just want something light-weight that'll handle HTML 4.0, javascript, and the other standards-based stuff. I really don't care for the proprietary things like Realmedia, Flash, and so on.
I'll take the first 100% standards-based, light-weight, speedy, crash-proof browser for Linux that comes along.
ftp.kde.org works for me...
If you still can't get there, you might want to try
http://people.redhat.com/bero/experimen tal/
or
http://www.nebsllc.com/kde/ftpkde2/curr ent/
for current KDE snapshots.
This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
How is it's development?
Me, I want a browser with support for HTML 4, CSS1, and perhaps XML.
It could happen with Lynx but will it?
So it's a copy of Magellan for KDE?
If you want to think of it that way, go ahead. :^) I can assure you that the Evolution developers are thinking of it as a substitute for Outlook, not Magellan. But since they all seem to be in about the same application space, it doesn't really matter.
If you want a free software IMAP reader, and you're adventurous, you could always try Mutt or GNUS in the meantime. :^)
The RSA patent expires in September. Then, we'll be able to put openssl right into Konqueror, Lynx and other web browsers, AFAIK.
--
Assuming you are the same AC as before, and that you *really are* serious, go to http://www.tucows.com/ and then on via the operating system of your choice (try win95) to the software menus.
There, you will see hundreds of applications; freeware, shareware and (I think) demos doing everything their authors could imagine. A lot of them duplicate each other. Welcome to the real world.
As for Ivory Towers, where are you? Cuba? China? A company that only uses M$ products? Duplication is normal, otherwise we would all be using whatever text processors were available in 1985.
Konquerer is another web browser with lots of lovely add-ons. If it is the best, I will move to it. If not, Mozilla should be ready by then.
Mielipiteet omiani - Opinions personal, facts suspect.
take my karma, please!
html4.0 is almost finished.
css1 is almost completed.
css2 has partial support.
Java applets work.
JavaScript still needs some work.
They are working at blinding speeds, though.
Try it out for yourself if you really want to know.
-- Thrakkerzog
The KDE html widget was started well before Mozilla was born as an open source project. Gnome took the same approach: have you ever noticed that the Gnome help browser has its own html rendering engine?
When both of these were started, there was no lightweight, modern, open source rendering widget available for the approrpiate language and toolkit, and therefore both projects developed one.
KDE had the head start, and thus their widget was getting pretty capable by the time Moz was OSed. Gnome were a little behind, and therefore it was worth them switching to Mozilla (And recently this work has been taken up by Eazel for Nautilus).
The result: both Konqueror and Nautilus look as though they will be pretty capable. If they maintain some sort of parity, I guess who uses which will depend on which desktop they use (and therefore to some extent which Linux distro).
The competition will encourage developers to provide good standards support, and to fix any deficiencies in their project. Neither side will be able to argue that 'You need 64Mb for a modern web browser' if the competitor runs in 32Mb.
So I am convinced that Konqueror is a good thing, even though I expect to be browsing on Nautilus a year from now.
Until Linux as a whole is standardised by a central body incorporated under law, it will never succeed in drawing in users who want an OS that they can do something with, rather than people who want a toy they can spend all of their time configuring.
That's precisely what is *not* needed. Free Software and Open Standards are all about *interoperability*. For example - Corel might be producing the Linux distribution you want: it works out of the box and requires very little tinkering.
However, I would expect to be able to exchange files with you, created on (say) a Debian box, or a BSD box, or a Linux box created for myself from scratch. It's all about choice.
You are free to use a 100% KDE or Gnome setup if you so choose: you will find that if you only use Gnome applications, for example, they will work together very well.
... but it's a choice. I you then decide to use Athena Ghostview, you have that option. Isn't that fair enough?
--
It's not complete and bugfree, and it has several flaws, but trying it out just to see the huge improvements from KDE1 is fun! :-)
--
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
No, Microsoft got in trouble for leveraging its monopolistic level of control of the operating system market to destroy competitors in other markets. The browser integration was designed specifically to make it impossible to get Windows without IE, and thus reduce incentive to get Netscape, by putting the Windows GUI, user shell and IE into one big congealed lump.
In a technical sense, though, it makes sense to integrate browser components with other parts of a system. For example, a HTML control could be made into a general GUI object, and used from things such as help browsers; graphic file decoders, a JavaScript engine and such may also be modularised as that. Which doesn't necessarily mean putting a web-navigation toolbar on every window in the system or having directories shown by default as "web pages".
As for non-GUI-dependent applications, they can be useful. (I read all my mail with mutt in an xterm.) Though as far as console-based browsers go, they're unlikely to advance far beyond where Lynx is today.
Konqueror actually supports encryption already, if OpenSSL is installed.
The export restrictions are no longer there, the RSA patent will expire soon (and has never been valid outside of the US), and since Konqueror doesn't use RSA directly (that's OpenSSL's part), it's not a problem.
As for the component architecture, KDE is using a shared library approach (the embedded widgets are actually in the same process), which is functionally similar to what bonobo does, but very different technically.
Both approaches have their good and bad sides - bonobo is more general, the KDE approach is more lightweight (and therefore faster) and probably more stable.
This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
SSL support is there (if you have installed OpenSSL when compiling Konqueror).
XHTML (I presume this is what you mean with XML?) is not yet fully supported, but most pages written in XHTML display well in Konqueror (to a renderer, there's not much of a difference between HTML 4.0 and XHTML 1.0).
This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
KFM does do ftp. Just use an FTP URL like ftp://ftp.foo.org/pr0n/ to get to the pr0n directory of ftp.foo.org as an anonymous user. To connect with a username/password, use ftp://luser@ftp.foo.org/pr0n.
Once you are connected, you can browse around in your nice, GUI KFM window.
Konqi 2000 R-R-R-Ready To Ass-s-s-s-st You, Pee-Wee!
:)
Bowie J. Poag
Bowie J. Poag
Well first of all, I would like to question what makes it a threat to mozilla? It is all well and good that kde has its own filemanager/browser, things that are pretty standard these days, but will it be a great browser? I personally do not think so. Sure Konqueror will be usable but it will lack the ever important crypto in the source version. Crypto binaries are a option I suppose. But my point is that the a pure Konqueror will not allow the user to order stuff through encrypted channels or even read e-mail in some cases. Perhaps I am missing the whole point in general but why praise a browser that few people have really ever even tried? I would think that less than a tenth of the number of people who have tried a mozilla/netscape 6 release have tried this konqueror thing- it is not battle proven. Since the original post mentioned mozilla, I have to mention that the GNOME team is/has integrated mozilla into their filemanager of the future, nautilus. I know that GNOME has bonobo which is responsible for its component architecture, including the mozilla integration, but I have recently read that KDE 2.0 is suppposed to be highly componentilized also. Is KDE using something like bonobo?
"Internet Explorer is not demonstrably the current 'best of breed' Web browser"
Real men dump cores! Read my journal, I am neat.
I must say, I'm impressed. The interface looks clean. The program seems to have covered all the basics from file management, web browsing, ftp transfer, image viewing, and document previewing which are all things that should be hamdled by a.... hmmm?
What would you call it? The standard terms File Manager and Web Browser conjure completely different visions of applications functionality.
I wonder how long before MS does something similar and calls it an "Innovation"? And before some High Priest of Redmond jumps all over me saying that IE5 already does it, think again and read up on the app. It does a few things IE5 doesn't do very well or at all.
"The words of the prophets are written on the Slashdot walls."
If you read the web page you soon realize that Konqueror is more than just a web browser, it's view and file manager as well. Sound familiar? Internet explorer does this for windows and this has been one of the arguments against Microsoft in the recent court case. I personally believe that MS and now KDE have got it right on this point, many years ago their was a similar argument about GUI's being bundled with the OS but most would object to the absence of one now. I am expecting the same to happen with browser functionality, all desktop operating systems will go this way eventually and one-day we will look back and wonder what the fuss was about.
Evolution is the GNOME email, calendar, and contact manager. Think of it as Outlook on Linux and on steroids, and you'll get the idea. Check out the Evolution page at Helix Code for details.
how much of it is working so I can download it now and use it instead of netscape?
Almost all of the functionality is there right now, it just needs to be fixed up.
You can get a current copy out of the KDE CVS tree, or get an RPM at
http://people.redhat.com/bero/experimen tal/.
Konqueror is part of the kdebase package. It needs kdesupport and kdelibs to run.
This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
There is entirely too much abuse of useless java apps, useless javascript requirements, useless flash, and a bunch of other crap that looks pretty but makes your website less usable.
[what follows is slightly OT]
I agree with you on the whole 'too much useless crap' notion, but you seem to think that usability is the most important part of website design, as does most of the slashdot community. A lot of you/us seem bent on the idea of 'make everything text, get rid of images, get rid of animations'
I believe that it's good to consider the users who are unable to view all that fun stuff, but without it, what exactly _is_ the web? I'll tell you: gopher.
Every month, I shell out the $7 for the printed version of Wired magazine. Why? Most of the stuff in there is available online now, from wired, or otherwise. Simple. I like all the cool stuff they do with their mag. Fluorescent spot colors, metallic inks, scratch and sniff covers, all of that makes it worth the $7 to me.
Same with web sites. If a site is bland, but has good information, you'll get somewhat poor user opinions. Same as a flashy, animated, graphic, loud site with no good information. The key is getting a mix of both that degrades gracefully to browsers that don't support 'features' of your site.
Sorry. My rant-of-the-week.
I think that the key difference is that Microsoft forced the bundling, you have the choice of IE and Windows or neither.
One word which does seem to apply within and across Linux distributions is 'choice'.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
How does Konquerer handle layers and DHTML? It says that it supports JavaScript standards, but how does it display pages that rely heavily on DHTML (like my own (http://www.netmeister.org) or anything from http://www.dynamicdrive.com/)?
-- "Tradition is the illusion of permanence."
Has anyone tested how extensive the CSS/CSS2 support in Konqueror is? All of the other main browsers (yes, even Mozilla) support CSS in a very patchy 'mine field' sort of way.
I'm getting really tired of writing CSS that works in only one version of one platform. What's up with that?
How hard could it possibly be to support CSS in an even way, across *all* platforms??
CSS Level 1
CSS Level 2
Two last notes:
IE5 *on the MACINTOSH* has the most extensive CSS1 coverage BEFORE IT WAS EVEN A COMPLETE RECOMMENDATION. Almost perfect (still problems with embedded fonts and some other stuff).
What about CSS3? Anyone heard what the browsers are doing about this? IE3 supported some minimal CSS1 back in the day, why aren't browsers not only keeping up, but staying ahead of the curve?
Rami James
Pixel Pusher
ALST R&D Center, IL
--
rJames.org - illustration
ok. most of the OSS guys out there, including me, are solid in support of GNOME and Mozilla. I myself was a GNOME maniac, till i am forced to use this SuSE 6.3 (eval) system, which doesn't even have the courtesy to include GNOME along. I think people (call them lusers or anything) prefer a smooth transition onto Linux, and i think KDE gives them everything that they need. I'm not saying that the Helix Code guyz are beating around the bush, but i guess u've gotta give the credit to those who deserve it. whether we like it or not, Konqueror definitely opens up a new avenue in the list of Linux browsers, and Mozilla, howmuch ever it maybe hyped just hasn't got it. Its too slow, crashes a lot, and doesn't even have stable Java support. Opera seemed to be a good alternative for a brief period of time, but it looks like another looser. I've seen other projects (Mnemonic) have good ideals, but who never got anywhere. I think getting the ideas and implemeting them, and moreover, making them usable by the users, is a big concern, and guys no denying that the KDE guys are doing it all.
This site is beautifully presented, with some beautiful screenshots and entertaining writing. I believe nitehorse is responsible, so: Good job!
Here's the flash support that was being referred to:
On Tue, 25 Apr 2000, Stefan Schimanski wrote:
> I've uploaded two screenshots of the flash version of Moorhuhnjagd running
> in Konqueror:
>
> ftp://139.174.246.173/pub/nsplugin/moor1.jpg or
> http://www.kudling.de/kde/moor1.jpg
>
> ftp://139.174.246.173/pub/nsplugin/moor2.jpg or
> http://www.kudling.de/kde/moor2.jpg
(Please browse at -1 to read this comment.)
I do find this trend of converging every possible function into a single app to be most disconcerting. It happened with Win98 and KFM, it's happenning to Konqueror, and even Mozilla is getting in on the act (in a few different ways, but it's just as guilty as the others). Gnome's Nautilus seems to be slightly different (each aspect being a Bonobo component, and thus a separate module) but the end result seems to be the same, so I'll roll it in here too.
A Web browser is a Web browser. A file manager is a file manager. A media player is a media player. Trying to combine these into one massive app is just a bad idea, no matter the platform or widget set or whatever. Rolling FTP into the original KFM was different; that's still managing files (on a remote machine, perhaps, but same basic idea). Not at all like Web browsing, where the goal is to view files rather than manage them.
So why bring them together into one massive app that's nightmarish to debug when you can simply make several smaller apps, each of which does its job more efficiently and is still much easier to program and maintain? You also don't have the overhead of interface components which might make sense in, say, a Web browser but not a file manager (do file managers really need a throbber? And what use is the "delete" function on a Web browser where 99.99% of the time you wouldn't even have permission to delete files anyway?)
Nothing against KDE; I prefer Gnome myself but use both on a regular basis since the Solaris boxen here only have KDE. But I'm not so sure that making Konqueror into The App That Does Everything (tm) is such a good idea.
What happend here?
It looks like your post was intended for the last news item "Attacking Open Source".
The old notion of RMS-style "Free Software", with it's conotations of socialism and collectivism . . .
Would it help you if you saw it as naked capitalism: 'May the best product win'?
Who the hell is supposed to lay down which compiler, browser, editor, GUI or whatever I wish to use? You? No way. Welcome to the old Eastern Europe. Sorry, but that idea has nothing to recommend it - nothing at all.
Mielipiteet omiani - Opinions personal, facts suspect.