'Gnome Foundation' Takes Aim at MS Office

Spasemunki writes: "The NYTimes has a piece today on an agreement reached among I.B.M., Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems and several other developers to create the Gnome Foundation, a developer consortium that will undertake, among other things, the creation of a standardized desktop interface for Linux, and a suite of productivity programs designed to compete with MS office. As the name might imply, their efforts will center around the Gnome desktop manager, with Sun moving to adopt Gnome as the GUI for Solaris. Looks like some big names are getting interested in putting Linux on the desktop."

Comments

Gtk, GNOME, and the desktop

[LionKimbro]

Several things need to be said (and then moderated up), because no one else is saying them.

1. Be grateful for the support that companies are giving us. Because we really need it. I know, I know, it's not in fashion to have the assistance of companies; but really, we can use the help. The IBM Linux commercial even admits it: Linux has found an ally from an unexpected source.
2. StarOffice doesn't cut it! It's practically it's own little gated desktop system. It can't operate outside of it's bounds. It will be very difficult to communicate with StarOffice from programs outside of StarOffice. Do you think that you are going to be able to write your own application, and then embed a StarOffice doc within it? Yeah; right. Here's what you need: Bonobo. Trying to avoid it is like trying to engineer a system without shared libraries. Bonobo is a system fundamental.
3. Where are the figures behind claims that GNOME is bloated? Are you talking about when you used Enlightenment as your window manager? What?
4. Window Managers, BTW, are not desktops. They never were, and they never shall be. Window Managers, are Window Managers.
5. GTK+ code is beautiful. The C API is a little awekward because it partitions off it's own name space. GTK+ 2.0 is making it a little nicer. In the mean time, I refer you to the Python code to construct a window:
   • from gtk import *
   • win = GtkWindow()
   • win.set_title( "Hello, World" )
   • win.show()
   • win.connect( "destroy", mainquit )
   • mainloop()
   Go ahead, try it right now. Oh yes, another thing; the GTK+ library is LGPL'ed. As in Unambiguously Free Software.
6. If you are using KDE, you are on legal shaky ground. Have you been paying attention? KDE is a hodge-podge of licenses, sometimes in ways that make no sense. Does this attract business support? (Oh, that's right, you don't need business' sopport. You don't want any help. You want to stay within your 3133+ crew of Hax0rs. Whatever.)
7. It's a Good thing that your grandmother can use your system. It's a Good thing that AOL is being ported to Linux. These are Good things; these are what we have been working so very hard for. At least I am.
8. Okay, I'm done ranting here. But again; these things need to be said. It's sad to look at the list of Score: 5's, and they all essentially communicate to companies: "We don't need your kind around here..."

Re:Several Troubling Questions

[styopa]

1) Is this the death knell of KDE?
2) Is this a move by the big corporate tech companies to 'Bogart' the Linux marketplace?
3) Is this really good for the open-source movement?

I don't think that this is a death kneel for KDE. Will it mean that more and more standard installations will have Gnome as the primary desktop? Maybe. Just because several major companies have said that they are adopting Gnome as their standard does not necessarly mean that it will happen. First, we have to see Gnome distributed as a standard. Second, see Gnome actually implemented on those distributions. If those two things actually occur, then there is a higher chance for Gnome to take a more high profile existance in the different Linux distros. But just because the major UNICES are using it doesn't not necessarly imply that the other Linux distros will.

Are the big corps trying to 'Bogard' the Linux marketplace? I'd say no. All of the companies listed above realize that UNIX is not ready for the home user. They also seem to understand that they have a worse chance of taking on MS in the low-mid size server market that Linux now has 24% in. By supporting a common user interface between the different UNICES and Linux they stand to gain in many ways, all of which include keeping Linux.

Linux is starting to eat away at MS's marketshare. By supporting a common GUI between Linux and UNIX, there becomes more incentive for a corperation to use Linux on their workstations and have their huge UNIX box in the background with seamless connectivity, no more WinFrame. As people get used to Linux, it will gain more market share in the home market, people don't like to learn more than one system. By making MS not the standard they can sell more of their product.

Are these companies after Linux's marketshare? Not really. The big corps listed in the article know that their product is not a good product for home use. In some of cases it is TOO powerful for workstation use, which is where Linux comes in. Linux can scale downwards very easily, which is something the brand name UNICES cannot do. At the same time the big corps are not worried about Linux taking their market share either, they know that Linux does not scale upwards at the level any of the brand name UNICES can (we all know that it is true, deal with it). Anyway, companies like Sun are more conserned with selling hardware and services anyway, why do you think they released Solaris 8 for free (8 processors or less). In the case of Sun, if pushing Linux means selling more hardware then they are all for it.

This is good for the open-source movement. The support of those big corps will only give more good press to Linux, which can only serve to increase the user base. A large user base means more testers and more programmers. It means that more programs will be written for Linux. This is a good thing for Linux.

Re:Invent the wheel twice?

[Rob Kaper]

There's already two GPLed Office Suites around: StarOffice (soon GPL but already functional) and KOffice (already GPL but not fully functional - yet, but it'll be soon)

Couldn't they concentrate effords?

With all respect to the Koffice team (I'm very fond of KDE), they should do with Koffice what the GIMP guys are doing for GIMP 2.0: making it toolkit/environment independant. The new GIMP should allow both KDE and Gnome front-ends with the same engine. Why not follow this approach for the Office suite?

*NIX would be even better if some of these common modules would seperate engine from interface, just like the OS is seperated from the GUI.

A few existing examples: Kicq has done this by creating ICQlib. XMMS uses mpg-123, aKtion uses xanim..

This would be harder for Koffice of course, because of the KParts integration within KDE, but there is no reason to have a unified rendering and file format (including filters) engine for office tasks such as word processing and presentation.

Why its a Good Thing

[WhyteRabbyt]

Im sure this will get the usual share of cliched responses, but lets' forget that for the moment. The interesting thing here is what the 'big boys' consider is needed for a commercially viable desktop-oriented Linux, why they're doing it, and what they're prepared to do about it.

You might not think you need a fancy GUI, especially if it looks like Windows, but there are an awful lot of consumers out there who just wantr to click on buttons, not memorise a new and unique argument set for every action they want to undertake. Hence an elegant GUI is a Good Thing for a certain group of users. A unified GUI is a Good Thing for developers, and thus commercial interests. A unified GUI with the features that simplify cross-porting of established software (ie drag and drop, unified colour printing, clipboarding, all that sorta stuff) that's a Good Thing for those developers tired of doing it all again from scratch. Whether KDE or Gnome is better is moot. For the desktop, those features can be incredibly useful, even if you can get along without them

Very little of Linux, per se, is desktop oriented. That means whatever solutions are developed, are probably pretty much cross-platform. For the other Unix vendors, even those competing against Linux for share, that makes assisting in the development of the solution also a Good Thing. If you're paranoid that Sun might hijack it, thats dumb. Gnome is still GPL'd, so they can't. But if they use it as a stepping stone toeards features they want, then that benefits us in the long term, if only to spur KDE to compete.

Whatever happens, this is a Good Thing. Don't let the zealots and bigots persuade you otherwise. Any expansion or improvement of the available feature set is a good thing, because Open Source is a Darwinian process. If its cruft, it'll fall by the wayside. And it doesnt matter if Sun et.c have selfish motives; the process is one they can only partake in; they can't, ultimately, control it.

Do we need another office suite? Maybe not, but is it a problem if we get one? At the end of the day, its all down to choice, and more available choices is never a bad thing. At least we do get the choice.

Pax,

White Rabbit +++ Divide by Cucumber Error ++

A fundamental change of business model

[blakestah]

This is really it. The major corporate players are now USING open source to achieve that which their business models could not.

They are using it to break the Office monopoly. They want to be able, in a year's time, to go to a CTO and sell them on linux, GNOME, and StarOffice. With players like Sun, HP, and Dell, and the bottom line (the price), this strategy will work.

Once StarOffice makes inroads in Office Suites against MS Office, Microsoft will be forced to compete on quality and service with a free adversary that already kicks Microsoft's butt in service. Make no mistake about it. IF StarOffice meets corporate expectations, it will rapidly grow in its user base. As will linux as a desktop OS.

The open source model will have broken a very strong monopoly being maintained by anticompetitive tactics.

Expect lots and lots of FUD coming out of Redmond. This threatens their living more than the antitrust suit.

Re:great another one

[Christianfreak]

Its interesting that so many people on /. are against standards. There's nothing wrong with standards so long as they are not controlled by one company. I think its interesting that we have 5 big names involved in this one. This is defenatly something Linux needs. So everyone might start using Gnome on Linux. So what? You don't have to use it, and they didn't squish anyone to get there it is just the one being adopted. Maybe that only means its the best.

Never knock on Death's door: