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Happy Birthday, KDE

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the can-software-blow-out-candles? dept.

KS writes: "Well, today, July 12, 2000 makes exactly 2 years since KDE 1.0 was released. It seems like forever. LinuxPlanet has a nice overview of the event and progress since then." It's amazing how much progress Linux has made in the last few years.

51 of 114 comments (clear)

  1. Getting locked into KDE scares me by Junks+Jerzey · · Score: 4

    It is mildly frustrating that both leading GUI efforts are from the Windows school. That is, both are very geared toward fiddly gadgets and customizing themselves rather than having specific usability goals in mind. Note: I know about Blackbox (which I use) and Sawmill and such, but those are raw window managers for X and nothing more.

    Now that Kylix seems to be locking into Qt and Corel has chosen KDE, there looks to be less opportunity for something cleaner and more user-oriented to come along. Even if someone were working in a different direction, they have a lot of corporate momentum to overcome. That's why most people are using Windows in the first place, unfortunately.

    1. Re:Getting locked into KDE scares me by JordoCrouse · · Score: 2

      Uh, I'll probably be struck dead by a bolt of lightning for suggesting this, but is is possible that the Windows "concept" (actually, its the Xerox concept, isn't it??) is the most intuitive and effient user interface we have come up with so far?

      I mean, voice recogonition is way off still, and I don't vote to have an electrode attached to my frontal lobe, so maybe the mouse and the icon are the best we've got (aside from the terminal screen, but thats another debate I don't want to get into).

      I pose the question to you. Is there, somewhere, a better, easier and more efficent way to present images and information to the human brain?

      --
      Do you have Linux and a DotPal? Click here now!
    2. Re:Getting locked into KDE scares me by Junks+Jerzey · · Score: 2

      C) Do you have a better coherent vision of what a UI should be? If so, why have you done nothing about it? Do you really think that bitching about other people's work does any good?

      Ah, the stock reply: "Do it yourself!" The trouble with big systems like KDE is that they take a long time to build up momentum and then they're unstoppable (a la Windows). I could come up with alternatives. So could other people. But if Corel and Borland and other companies with a lot of money at stake choose KDE, then that's going to make KDE the most viable option for most people, simply because it has the biggest elephants behind it. In the end, we'll wish for something better but settle for KDE, just as we've been doing with Windows all these years.

    3. Re:Getting locked into KDE scares me by drinkypoo · · Score: 3

      We have come a long way since the Xerox GUI Concept.

      What you think of as the Windows environment is actually a bad clone of Motif.

      If Motif was so great, more things would look like it. The only window managers which are not Motif that look/looked like Motif by default were fvwm, and fvwm2.

      On the other hand, they're all basically the same at this point, they just look different. On each window you have a widget that pops up a menu, and some other widgets that do other things to the windows. Some of the widgets sometimes do other things when you click them with other buttons.

      Hey, at least it's not trying to be a mac. :)

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    4. Re:Getting locked into KDE scares me by Arandir · · Score: 4

      Now that Kylix seems to be locking into Qt and Corel has chosen KDE, there looks to be less opportunity for something cleaner and more user-oriented to come along.

      A) Qt is very clean and user-oriented, as much as any GUI library can be. It's up to the developer to craft a decent UI. Qt only supplies the parts.

      B) Like it or not, the UI of KDE and GNOME is already clean and user-oriented. Keeping the Microsoft bias out of it, just what is it about the KDE/GNOME/Windows/Warp desktops that is not clean or user-disoriented? Is it the root menu being in the corner of a panel instead of on the RMB that is somehow *wrong*? What?!

      C) Do you have a better coherent vision of what a UI should be? If so, why have you done nothing about it? Do you really think that bitching about other people's work does any good?

      --
      A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
    5. Re:Getting locked into KDE scares me by Junks+Jerzey · · Score: 2


      It takes you thirteen seconds to come up with the "specific usability goals" thought. This guy asks you for specifics (ie the menu in panel thing). You come back with more rants. If you have nothing more than "I want something different. I don't know what, just different, and usable. Now get to work all you hackers," then you have nothing to contribute to the world.

      You missed the point completely. The point is that it big changes to KDE are no longer so easy, now that large companies are beginning to lean on it. Look at it this way: If KDE were changed dramatically--for the better--it immediately invalidates half a dozen "How to use KDE" books.

      What I would like is simply a user interface designed for *usability* rather than twiddling. There are good books on the subject that can be used as templates, such as this one or the one by a Microsoft Windows architect who realized that Windows interface was going off in the wrong direction (I forget the name; it is currently in print). It is simply a matter of the KDE (and Gnome) people ignoring what's out there, trying to out do Microsoft at their own game, and missing the point entirely.

    6. Re:Getting locked into KDE scares me by PD · · Score: 2

      The top of the page has a wind-up phonograph icon.

      I could care less about 100 year old technology. I want to know about today's technology, like MP3's.

      oops. I guess I misunderstood the icon.

      --
      If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
    7. Re:Getting locked into KDE scares me by PD · · Score: 4

      > I pose the question to you. Is there, somewhere,
      > a better, easier and more efficent way to
      > present images and information to the human
      > brain?

      Yes, and it's called text. If you need further proof, try rephrasing this article in the form of icons.

      Or, you can think of a word as an icon. The bitmap pattern that forms the following icon between the brackets [courage] is a better graphical representation for the concept of courage than a lion or some such nonsense.

      It's efficient too. The bitmap pattern that forms that excellent icon for courage can be compressed to 7 bytes, including the 0 at the end of the string.

      Whenever I am forced to use Word, the first thing I do is remove all the default tool buttons and replace them with my own text labeled tool buttons. I find it far easier to use them. "Cut" and "Paste" are simpler to read and use than some goofy icon with two sheets of paper or some scissors or a cartoonish bottle of glue.

      --
      If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
    8. Re:Getting locked into KDE scares me by Wah · · Score: 2

      Yes, and it's called text. If you need further proof, try rephrasing this article in the form of icons.

      You write or read much Japan/Chin-ease?

      Or, you can think of a word as an icon. The bitmap pattern that forms the following icon between the brackets [courage] is a better graphical representation for the concept of courage than a lion or some such nonsense.

      But if you have an icon for courage (like the one a good friend of mine has tatooed on his arm) then taking the time to put together the individual letters in a word like courage, then associating the meaning and seperating the concepts of age, rage (which also exist in the word), seems like a lot of work.

      What letters do allow is an easier combination of ideas into new one (amoung various other things linguists would love to tell you about). Supercalifragilisticespialidocious. Draw that in a symbol. :)

      --

      --
      +&x
  2. Re:... by Jason+Earl · · Score: 2

    Exactly, the Gnome project was formed because many in the Free Software community were worried that KDE and the proprietary QT widget set would become a de-facto standard on GNU/Linux systems.

    In fact, it is almost absolutely amazing that Gnome is now at a state where it is comparable to KDE. After all, KDE had a head start, and the Gnome folks had to build a GUI toolkit first and a Corba subsystem first.

    But there you have it.

  3. gnustep by mikpos · · Score: 3
    Just thought I'd throw in my support for GNUstep. They are working very hard at getting it API compatible with OpenStep, and eventually Cocoa as well. In fact, I understand that GNUstep's NSDistantObject is already co-operating with Mac OS X's NSDistantObject (and there is/was some talk of creating a CORBA gateway for it). Right now, only a small part of AppKit is implemented (though nearly all of FoundationKit is), and what's there is slow, probably due to the poor performance of the X11 PostScript xgps that I'm using (if you're lucky enough to have a fast PostScript engine for your windowing system, such as on Windows or NeXT or many Unices, it may be quite a bit faster).

    Anyway, back to the point: if there is any free software written for OpenStep (e.g. NeXT) or Mac OS X, it should be able to run (eventually) without changes on GNUstep. Plus, the API is much cool. Not to suggest that OpenStep is the sole Wave Of The Future, but it is a very nice alternative to GNOME and KDE (or at least it will be once it gets a bit more mature).

  4. Enough of the PARC legend! by hawk · · Score: 2

    >and the things Steve Jobs saw at Xerox PARC were the Mac initial inspiratione

    no, No, NO! A thousand times, NO!

    PARC certainly influenced the mac, but it is not the source. The notion
    that the Lisa was insired by PARC is pure urban legend.

    The Lisa project began *before* the PARC tour. There were screen mockups *before* the PARC tour. Try
    http://home.san.rr.com/deans/lisagui.html
    for some of the history.

    Also note that many of the ideas used by PARC predate the project. Notably, Jeff Raskin's Master's thesis . . . yes, Raskin worked at PARC, but he was able to implement some things on the Mac that he'd proposed nearly 20 years earlier.

    hawk

  5. "We have come a long way?" How? by jetson123 · · Score: 2
    We have come a long way since the Xerox GUI Concept.

    Xerox didn't just have "concepts", they delivered a series of fully functional, easy to use office machines, as well as a series of languages and environments for building GUI applications.

    I find that even the best GUI libraries of today are much harder to program and and arguably harder to use than what Xerox delivered 20 years ago.

    So, do you care to elaborate in what way you think we have "come a long way"?

  6. Re:Improvements? by matman · · Score: 2

    the themes that ive seen dont allow you to change the look, shape, etc of the buttons. Maybe I'm wrong :) As far as I knew, QT didnt allow changes in the shapes of buttons and stuff.

  7. Re:I almost agree. by SimonK · · Score: 2

    MacOS X is written on top of Darwin, which is Mach with a BSD-like personality layer on top of it. I heard someone was working on getting an X server working.

    The point being that, while MacOS X software will not work on Unix, Unix software should work on MacOS as well as it works on Unix.

  8. Happy birthday and the best is yet to come. by Forge · · Score: 5

    KDE has been fun since the beginning. Even back in the days of KDE-beta1 it was the nicest desktop available for Linux and it has grown by leaps and bounds since then.

    I mean how many beta quality apps on Linux have the decency to pop up a dialog box saying "This feature isn't here yet" ? These people have combined the best features of Free Software development ( Bazaar Debugging, Responsiveness to clear and sensible user requests and a willingness to postpone releases until the software works. ) With the best features of Proprietary development ( Competent design comities, detailed stile guides, clear and newbi friendly documentation of everything from Library interfaces to "How to use this help menu" ).

    Best of all KDE has been lively and active about building cool software. Through all the flamewars and the license disputes, through all the condemnation, censorship and verbal abuse the KDE team has kept on hacking.

    Sure they took the time out to push for greater clarity and yes they made it a point of duty to produce excellent software. The web site asks at the very top; "Is Unix ready for the desktop", The resounding response from this corner of Cyberspace is "Yes, but only with KDE".

    Through share quality of code the influence of the KDE team has grown exponentially over these last few years. Grown to the point where they, not Debian but they the KDE core can get vendors to change licenses. It's grown to the point where Borland's new Kylix is basically a RAD tool for KDE apps.

    Just goes to show that focusing on making quality free software is the key. As long as it's not all BSD licensed so people can stop it's growth as soon as a coins clink you will be fine.

    Here's to KDE-2.0 and the next level of Desktop advancement on my favorite OS. *nix, because Linux isn't the solution to every problem. Given time ( 3 more years by my estimate ) and KDE will supplant CDE as the "standard" Unix desktop. This weather or not it becomes the standard on Linux.

    And speaking of that other desktop. I won't, not today, It's KDE's day and I'll save my other glowing words for the other peoples day.

    --
    --= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
    1. Re:Happy birthday and the best is yet to come. by drinkypoo · · Score: 2

      I mean how many beta quality apps on Linux have the decency to pop up a dialog box saying "This feature isn't here yet" ?

      This is the equivalent of a webpage which says "UNDER CONSTRUCTION". It's bad practice, and totally pointless. If you have a button that does nothing, this is a hint that you should remove the button. When you actually HAVE a feature, put the button back.

      Teasing someone with a button (Or a URL) is bad practice. It makes people wonder just what you're doing with your time.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    2. Re:Happy birthday and the best is yet to come. by spiral · · Score: 2

      >"Is Unix ready for the desktop"...
      >..."Yes, but only with KDE".

      Bzzzt! Wrong.

      Wake up and smell the caffeine. Mac OS X client looks to be a very promising desktop Unix, and it's time people started accepting it as "part of the family".

      What's more, OS X is based on NEXTSTEP. NeXT deployed a fully-functional Unix with an excellent user-friendly interface over 10 years ago. Take a close look at the changes between Win31 and Win95 (the model everyone uses today) and then take a look at the NeXT UI. It becomes pretty obvious where those "innovations" came from.

      This isn't intended as a flame towards the KDE, or Linux in general. Linux usability has been progressing by leaps and bounds these last few years. The folks involved in these efforts all deserve a BIG round of applause for delivering us from the ugliness of X/Motif and its bastard offspring. The point is that none of this is new; this wheel has been invented before.

      --
      Drinking will help us plan!
  9. Re:GNOME didn't have to build a toolkit by Jason+Earl · · Score: 2

    They had what amounted to a good start on a GUI toolkit with GTK. It was no where near complete, however. It certainly wasn't on par with what TrollTech was offering with QT. I probably did overstate the problem, but the fact remains that early versions of Gnome were severely hindered by the fact that GTK was under serious development. Somehow, however, they have managed to close the gap.

  10. Re:Don't you mean... by JCCyC · · Score: 2
    ...Khappy Kbirthday? (does anybody else think this 'k' thing is out of control?)

    Gnot as gmuch as the 'g' gthing.


    "Standing up to an evil system is exhilarating." --Richard Stallman

  11. KDE... by pb · · Score: 2

    What's this KDE is the standard I hear? Ed, ED, *ED* is the standard! Heck, whatever happened to twm? What's so hard about moving your windows around, people, that you need all this extra garbage? :)

    I thought KDE looked pretty cool, but it still annoyed me too much to actually use it; it was also too slow. The same goes for GNOME. I use fvwm2, with no pager or buttons or any of that, and I select my virtual desktops with CTRL+. There's nothing hard about that. I don't want anything else, so configuration is all done, too. I like sawmill, (sawtooth? sawfish? whatever...) but not enough to use it yet; I'm pretty comfortable with what I have.

    When I get my new machine, and reinstall everything, I'm sure I'll play around again with GNOME and KDE, and try them out with "sawfish", and Enlightenment and whatnot, and see if they're actually speedy or stable yet...

    ...but it'll probably be too much of a hassle to get rid of all that extra GUI crap and make it into a lean, mean, window-managing machine, and I'll be back to using fvwm2.

    Heck, most of the time, I could just tell X to run an app fullscreen on a console, and keep doing that, and switch between those and the text consoles; but sometimes, I still want to have some more windows.
    ---
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.

    --
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
  12. Request for eklarnung... by Pac · · Score: 4

    Please, don't take this as a flamebait, but I fail to see exactly what you are complaining about.

    Yes, Windows seems to be KDE's initial inspiration. But then again, the MAc interface was Windows initial inspiration and the things Steve Jobs saw at Xerox PARC were the Mac initial inspiration. For me it is a perfectly natural evolution.

    If you are out to develop a new technology, the most useful path is to look at existing technology and try to adapt it and work from there. So, as similar to Windows as KDE may be now (and even this last point may be open to discussion), it will certanly evolve in a different direction (and it will probably be leading the way, as the Mac had before it).

    I would also like to know what exactly you have in mind when you say something cleaner and more user-oriented? Which are the specific usability goals you want to see addressed?

    1. Re:Request for eklarnung... by DrCode · · Score: 2

      I'm not sure if Windows was their initial inspiration. The first time I tried KDE, I thought it was inspired by OS/2.

  13. Re:Progress? by drinkypoo · · Score: 2

    I think that the "windows explorer" way of wandering around the filesystem is good. I think that being able to preview documents in the explorer is good. I think that bloat is bad, and that's the problem I have with both KDE and GNOME. Note that I haven't run either in quite a while, but one of the nicest things about unix is that it's fast on a slow machine. Neither KDE or GNOME is fast on a P54c at 100mhz with an ISA VGA card.

    Now, most people running linux or other unices (I will pluralize how I like, thank you) are beyond that point now, but don't forget the bazillions who aren't. Some people can't afford the kinds of computers that I can, that maybe you can. My UNIX box is a PPro 180 running openbsd with no X, because it's a server. If it were a faster (300mhz+) system with more ram and such, I'd run X on it to ease administration. I don't.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  14. "standard desktop" by jetson123 · · Score: 3
    KDE is as close to a standard desktop as exists in the Linux world.

    I agree, and I think that should be reason for concern. Why? Because it means that any development for Linux for this "standard desktop" inside a corporation, even just for internal use, requires and expensive, commercial Qt license.

    If people inside corporations had had to pay $1500/developer to get Linux in the door for trying it out on internal development efforts on it, it would have never caught on as a server platform.

    And because the GUI toolkit and desktop is the most important part of a client, desktop OS, having that kind of fee structure for the "standard" GUI toolkit would harm Linux as a client platform.

    So far, there are still viable alternatives to KDE/Qt. But every time a free software developer decides to develop a new piece of software for KDE/Qt rather than Gnome or some other free toolkit, KDE/Qt gets the bug fixes, functionality, and increase in user community. There is a high opportunity cost with choosing KDE/Qt for the other toolkits. Those are the network effects that got MS Windows where it is today.

    Let's not make the same mistake with Linux that the industry made with Windows. Develop for free platforms, even if the alternatives seem more expedient to you in the short term.

    1. Re:"standard desktop" by jetson123 · · Score: 2
      $1500 is peanuts for any company doing internal development in C++.

      Well, both in my work as an independent consultant and in the corporate world, wherever I have worked, $1500 for a library has always been a lot of money. But I will admit that there are companies for which money is no object (defense contractors in the past, .com startups these days, I suppose).

      But even if $1500 is a problem, what makes you think that commercial or non-commercial alternative toolkits can't compete with QT? It's not that they own some interface or other standard (like Microsoft).

      Nothing makes me think that "they can't compete" technically. In fact, I think there are better toolkits than Qt. But the fact is that lots of people develop for KDE/Qt, and that's why I think it's worth pointing out to people who do that there are problems with the Qt license and that that is one of the many reasons they should look at other toolkits.

    2. Re:"standard desktop" by top_down · · Score: 2
      If people inside corporations had had to pay $1500/developer to get Linux in the door for trying it out on internal development efforts on it, it would have never caught on as a server platform.
      $1500 is peanuts for any company doing internal development in C++. And if you only want to try it you can just download a version.

      But even if $1500 is a problem, what makes you think that commercial or non-commercial alternative toolkits can't compete with QT? It's not that they own some interface or other standard (like Microsoft).

      It seems to me that the Trolltech guys have found an execellent way to contribute to the Open Source movement and make money at the same time. We need more initiatives like this as there is still lots of work to be done.
      --

      --
      Anyone who generalizes about slashdotters is a typical slashdotter.
    3. Re:"standard desktop" by jetson123 · · Score: 2
      Between "closed source software" and "open source software" there is "internal software". That software may become open source eventually, or it may just disappear quietly.

      Internal software is a crucial part of open source software, because much of it will eventually become open source. My company has released probably a dozen software packages as open source that started out as internal software (some of it very widely used).

      But if you try to force internal software to be open from the start by placing a QPL-style license on your platform's libraries, many people will simply use a different platform.

      Maybe you are too young to remember, but we had roughly that situation with Motif and Solaris. People would write lots of software for those platforms, in particular at universities, where they were essentially free, but anybody else needed to pay Sun and OSF a lot of money to use them.

      In any case, I don't suggest that there are "license problems": I think it's pretty clear what Troll Tech's intent is, and I don't want them to change it. What I'm suggesting is that if QPL'ed software becomes the basis for a standard Linux desktop, that will be a problem for Linux, and that's why people should develop for something else.

  15. Re:Improvements? by Arandir · · Score: 2

    Hey guess what! KDE integrates with other window managers! And you know what else? It's themable! Oh, as a bonus, you can run GNOME apps under it!

    So if you "hate the look and feel of kde", just change it!

    --
    A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
  16. wrong on both counts by jetson123 · · Score: 2
    There is no need to pay for internal Qt development. Read the license.

    The QPL is at best ambiguous; Troll Tech's FAQ is not:

    11.Using the Free Edition, can I write software for internal use in my company/organization?

    The Qt Free Edition is not intended for such use; it is our policy that when you are using Qt for free, you should in return contribute to the free software community. If you cannot do that, you must get Professional Edition licenses instead.

    The QPL is far closer to the intent of the GPL than the LGPL, which is what I'm assuming you are advocating. All free software library authors should be concerned with is allowing people to write free software.

    I'm concerned with not being forced to release software that I develop internally. That is clearly the intent of Troll Tech, and it clearly goes against the goals of the GPL and the LGPL. Here is a recent quote from RMS on the Plan 9 license:

    [Plan 9 License:] You agree to provide the Original Contributor, at its request, with a copy of the complete Source Code version, Object Code version and related documentation for Modifications created or contributed to by You if used for any purpose.

    [Stallman:] This prohibits modifications for private use, denying the users a basic right

    As for "advocating" or "disguising", I'm doing neither. I'm merely stating my opinion that if Qt becomes the basis for the predominant Linux desktop, that will be very disadvantageous for the adoption of Linux as a whole, contrary to the stated goals of the KDE project.

  17. Not to nitpick, but... by little+alfalfa · · Score: 3

    June 12th was last month.

  18. Re:"standard desktop"--you missed the point by jetson123 · · Score: 2
    Well, in my posting, I suggested people develop for a different toolkit, not that they don't use KDE.

    Still, I have mixed feelings about even using KDE. Yes, you are right that you can use KDE and develop using another toolkit. But non-KDE/Qt applications won't integrate as well with KDE as KDE/Qt applications will, so the more people use KDE, the more pressure there will be to develop for it. And the more people use KDE, the more bug reports and suggestions for improvement get submitted to Troll Tech, quality control that other toolkits miss out on.

    Besides, installing multiple desktop and toolkit systems increases support and training costs and uses up more resources (disk space, memory, etc.).

    I would buy the "use KDE and develop for something else" argument more if KDE was committed to a seamless integration with GTK and other toolkits. But recent statements suggest that they aren't, at least in the short term.

  19. ... by NightHwk · · Score: 2
    Was KDE released before GNOME?

    And were there any alpha/beta versions before 1.0?

    NightHawk

    Tyranny =Gov. choosing how much power to give the People.

    --

  20. GNOME didn't have to build a toolkit by Jon+Peterson · · Score: 2

    They had GTK already in place from Gimp development. They have of course contributed plenty to it since then.

    --
    ----- .sig: file not found
  21. Don't you mean... by Tyrannosaurus · · Score: 4

    ...Khappy Kbirthday? (does anybody else think this 'k' thing is out of control?)

    --

    ---
    Gort! Klatu Barata Nikto!
  22. Re:Progress? by JordoCrouse · · Score: 2

    Its nice to be idealistic, but its also nice to switch between editor sessions with the move of a mouse.

    --
    Do you have Linux and a DotPal? Click here now!
  23. Who's locking you in? by deusx · · Score: 3

    See subject. If you don't like 'fiddly gadgets', don't use programs with fiddly gadgets.

    My stock install of Mandrake Linux has a WM switcher on login. For kicks, I swap between the choices on occasion. All of my programs tend to continue working. Generally, I go back to KDE, because Gnome ends up having too many nagging little things that rub me wrong (no Holy War... rub ME wrong. I don't care about YOU :) )

    As for Kylix... Either don't use it, or make enough of a stink (see: Harmony project versus QT) for them to provide a mechanism for alternate CLX visual component sets wrapped around other GUI toolkits. I mean for God's sake, they're API compatible under Windows' GUI and QT on Linux, it can't be THAT hard. Hell, start a project to create an alternate set yourself.

    dI don't see Linux being fertile ground for limitations of choice. Generally, if a number of people don't like something, eventually one of them will fix it or start a new project. (again, see: Mandrake Linux)

    Anyway...

  24. Re:Improvements? by matman · · Score: 2

    I hate the look and feel of kde. If it simply integrated with window managers other than kwm (which it may) and had a good theme set (ability to use pixmaps) I'd use it. Otherwise, I'm going for gnome, simply because it looks a hell of a lot better.

  25. Re:and about harmony... by Arandir · · Score: 2

    I seriously doubt KDE would have switched

    Do you even understand what Harmony was all about? Do you really? If you do then you know that it wouldn't make one bit of difference what the KDE team did. If you don't like Qt and Harmony is available, then just use Harmony! Gee, isn't that simple?

    --
    A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
  26. Corrections by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2
    1. There is no need to pay for internal Qt development. Read the license.

    2. If you are so concerned about being able to develop closed-source software, why disguise it with a call to "develop for free platforms"? The QPL is far closer to the intent of the GPL than the LGPL, which is what I'm assuming you are advocating. All free software library authors should be concerned with is allowing people to write free software.

    There seems to be a degree of schizophrenia amongst the people of this "community" - on one hand there is an outcry when someone releases a closed-source program for Linux, especially if it is a good one. This is the "free software is the only good software" face.

    On the other hand if someone releases a FREE SOFTWARE library that cannot be used by CLOSED SOURCE programmers for free (eg GPL and QPL), there is _yet_ another outcry, this one being their personal preference for Linux and UNIX-like operating systems, and their desire to get the same cool software available on Windows, free software be damned.

    Be consistent guys, this little dichotomy makes this movement look two-faced. I like free software and I too want Linux Everywhere, but these two goals are not equivalent.

  27. ED: The True Path [off-topic] by Guy+Harris · · Score: 2
    Ed, ED, *ED* is the standard!

    Absolutely.

    (Yes, I still use ed on occasion, if I want to do a quick short editing job. I use KDE on my home machine, though; it mostly runs xterms and Netscape and xmms/xmcd, but I do find the folder icons more convenient for browsing through the pile of PDF standards documents than finding a free xterm or popping up a new one - or keeping one around, iconified - and cding around and firing up Acroread by hand.)

  28. Motif is a clone of Windows by cpeterso · · Score: 5

    Motif is a clone of Windows. Windows was a clone of the Mac. According to this Windows timeline, Windows 1.0 was released on November 20, 1985 and even Windows 3.0 was released on May 22, 1990. According to the Motif FAQ, Motif 1.1.3 was released in August 1991. How then could Windows be a copy of Motif?

    The "Unix Haters Handbook" claims that a "stated design goal" of Motic was to copy Windows. Look at the "Motif Self-Abuse Kit" section of "The X-Windows Disaster".

    A stated design goal of Motif was to give the X Window System the window management capabilities of HP's circa-1988 window manager and the visual elegance of Microsoft Windows. We kid you not. Recipe for disaster: start with the Microsoft Windows metaphor, which was designed and hand coded in assembler. Build something on top of three or four layers of X to look like Windows. Call it "Motif."

    --
    cpeterso
    1. Re:Motif is a clone of Windows by LizardKing · · Score: 2

      Motif is a clone of Windows ... Windows 1.0 was released on November 20, 1985

      Yup, but Windows 1.0 looked like DOS with a bitmapped display. No resizable windows, no drag and drop, no GUI toolkit. The look and feel of Windows 3.x was a long way off in 1985. Have a quick look around the web for sites hosting pictures of Windows 1.0 - 2.0 to see what I mean when I say that Motif owes little to early incarnations of Windows.

      And don't forget that Microsoft were a co-sponsor of Motif. They treated it as a testbed for what became the Windows 95 UI, hence the curious mish-mash of Windows / HP interface design in Motif.

      Chris

  29. Hmmm... birth is not release 1.0 by boloni · · Score: 2


    I guess that the real counting should be made from the original article by Matthias Ettrich about the need of an integrated desktop for Linux.

    If you count it this way, KDE is about 3 3/4 years old and will be 4 in october.

    In a way or another, the roots of Gnome are also traced back to that point, as the original Gnome documents where mainly about how this differs from KDE...

    Lotzi

    PS: Btw: we know how konqi looks like. He even have Katie now. Let's see how the Gnome looks like: is it just a big step?

  30. Oh god yes by dizee · · Score: 2

    KDE has been around for a while.

    I remember using it about 3 years ago and it still hasn't gotten any prettier (prettier, not better). Since June 12th was the 1.0 release date, and I had used it before then, I'm sure there were pre-1.0 releases. To tell the truth, I don't much remember what version I ran because I didn't like it. It got removed shortly after the first time I used it. :)

    I tried a lot of different WMs. fvwm for the minimalistic approach, fvwm95 looked too much like Win95, so it was singled out. Afterstep was nice, but I ended up using enlightenment because it was so much prettier, albeit godawful slow on my p200mmx linux box (boy did that sucker cost a lot).

    I used WindowMaker later, it was nice, reminded me of Afterstep with some cooler features.

    GNOME, in my opinion, is much prettier than KDE and has about the same functionality, so that is why I prefer it.

    If KDE would get rid of QT, maybe I might use it. Sorry, but QT is just ugly.

    That's it for this episode of flashback with Mike ;)

    Mike

    "I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet, tasty beer."

    1. Re:Oh god yes by bugger · · Score: 2

      >GNOME, in my opinion, is much prettier than KDE
      >and has about the same functionality, so that is
      >why I prefer it.

      >If KDE would get rid of QT, maybe I might use
      >it. Sorry, but QT is just ugly.

      QT is not ugly. Try KDE 1.91 (that's the current beta). Whoa. Pretty. I have Gnome 1.2 installed, too, and *HAD* been running Gnome 1.x before switching to KDE 1.91.

      KDE 1.91 (beta) is functional (for what I do/need). It's stable (!) enough for my needs (essentially konsole + mozilla).

      Sorry, but on my system Gnome 1.2 lost.

  31. Re:Improvements? by Skeezix · · Score: 4

    Well maybe you haven't been keeping up with what's really been changing in KDE. There is a profound difference between KDE 2 and KDE 1. And in between there was KDE 1.1. In the Gnome camp similar strides have been made. Look at the changelogs from various files just to get an idea. It's amazing. Large scale free software projects seem to develop slowly from the point of view of outsiders who aren't really involved in working with the code. Mozilla is an excellent example. The developers told us that things were moving right along, but so many people complained over and over about the delays. Come on, folks. It's open source! If you don't like the delays, get in there and help!
    ----

    --
    Celebrate the finer things in life
  32. Download Windows 1.0 here by cpeterso · · Score: 2


    The 386 Experience claims to have have Windows 1.0 and MS DOS 1.10 for download. I have NOT tried them, so don't blaim me if they nuke your computer.


    --
    cpeterso
  33. Re:That is incorrect by jetson123 · · Score: 2
    What this does is allow you to write the software under the GPL and use it internally. However if you write it as such and someone in your organization wishes to distribute it, they can. Just like if you use GPL-derived software, regardless of what point 11 says. The trolls themselves have said that this is true. So what is the problem?

    You can place your own software under the GPL, but the QPL terms still apply, in addition to whatever terms you put in it yourself.

    It is plain wrong to claim that internally written GPL'ed software is subject to such requirements. This is a direct consequence of the QPL. Troll Tech's claims to the contrary are wrong and misleading.

  34. Re:and about harmony... by Arandir · · Score: 2

    Just consider me a cross between Grima Wormtongue and Biff from BTTF :-)

    --
    A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
  35. s/Linux/Free Software. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3

    KDE is for UNIX, not just Linux.