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Talking With KDE Developer Martin Konold
Gatha writes: "The recently concluded Bang!inux conference was a great place to meet some Open Source developers. Among those speaking at the event was Martin Konold, veteran KDE developer. We managed to get an interview with him. Excerpts follow.
Interview here on FreeOS.com" Konold (along with Matthias Ettrich) began the KDE project several years ago, and in this too-short interview he touches on the project's origins as well as improvements bound for the stable release, like network transparent sound and anti-aliased fonts. (And a lot more apps -- soon.)
As long as KDE is kept relatively modular and happy to work with other environments, I see no absolute need for a a KDElite when you can use one of the many ultra-lite, yet functional, WMs with whichever parts of KDE (and GNOME) you want to use.
But that's the whole problem. You can't just say "I think I'll just use konqueror". Just doing a ps after you start up konqueror proves that. And then you could say "but when I close it, all that's gone again", but that isn't true either. Run _one_ KDE application, and immediately you have cruft sticking to your system. It might all serve it's purpose while the app is running. But when I close the app, and revert to my trusted Windowmaker, I want all of KDE's stuff to get outta there. And it doesn't do that.
And that's a shame, because there are some really nice applications part of KDE that I don't use because they start up and leave behind this whole mess. The worst of which is for example starting konqueror and suddenly finding icons on your desktop. Personally, I don't like icons on the desktop. I don't use them, and I don't want to see them. Yet, if I run konqueror only once, they're there until I manually kill each and every KDE process on my system. That's not a design I like.
But hey, maybe there's an option --noicons that I haven't seen yet. Although I seriously doubt it.
But that's the whole problem. You can't just say "I think I'll just use konqueror". Just doing a ps after you start up konqueror proves that. And then you could say "but when I close it, all that's gone again", but that isn't true either. Run _one_ KDE application, and immediately you have cruft sticking to your system. It might all serve it's purpose while the app is running. But when I close the app, and revert to my trusted Windowmaker, I want all of KDE's stuff to get outta there. And it doesn't do that.
Care to prove it? I am running WindowMaker as my WM and KDE2.1.1 with kdelib 2.1.2 (security/bug fix) and when I start up Konq it loads a ton of stuff.. true enough. But when I quit... within 10 seconds everything KDE is gone. The main thing is kdeinit and that disappears in about 10 seconds.
Take your FUD elsewhere.
Even if it is inflammatory, that does not mean you have to respond like that. You could also just reply: "I disagree that KDE is ahead, because even though it does A, B and C, GNOME does A, B, D and F!". Personally I do think KDE is ahead of GNOME, but so what? First of all KDE started earlier and maybe even more important: many of the good things in KDE are there because GNOME is making good things also. Developers of neither project can sit on their arses and be lazy, they keep each other going. KDE would not be what it is today without GNOME, likewise would GNOME not be what it is today (or even be at all) if it hadn't been for KDE.
I'm not too sure. You claim that it doesn't offer compatibility. Well, the thing is, through the magic of import/export filters and Linux's ability to read many kinds of filesystems (including Mac and Windows fs's), KOffice can provide the same compatibility as OpenOffice.
And since KDE is a Unix desktop environment, it can provide compatibility not only between office suites (i.e., Office and Office for Mac as well as WordPerfect, OpenOffice, and GNOME Office) but also between platforms (i.e., anything that KDE runs on). So, I consider your comments to be utterly unfounded. And as far as "wasted effort" goes, well, TMTOWTDI.
This Craig fellow is the only troll that has sucessfully really gotten under my skin in years[1] of using usenet, Fidonet, 'blogs, and other forms of online communication.
It's not that he's so disruptive, as the simple fact that he's so damn *convincing*. He may even really think that he's sincere, but I read the dot daily, and he's completely destroyed all on-topic discussion for awhile now.
[1] I realized that my 20th anniversary passed, and I've got some time to plan for my 25th anniversary of the first time I logged into a global network (telenet)... I'm vaguely thinking about throwing a party. Hey, any excuse, right?
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Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Write your code to be fast and optimized right now. Don't wait for processor speeds to increase. Look at java. Everyone predicted that Java performance would be much faster as processor speed increase. But, in spite of the processor speeds, java code still runs slowly
Well, Java does run much faster now thanks to good JIT compilers. In fact, it is fast enough for many things. It's no good for certain tasks. So Martin should better stick to what he really knows - he made a lot of insightful comments...
Also, the saying about premature optimization is still valid - statements like the above (Write your code...) will only give wrong impressions to unexperienced coders. It all depends on your time, deadline, resources, your exact requirements etc.
However, can anyone tell me why running konsole requires me to go online? I run it, and instead of just running, it appears to want to send data somewhere, hence the going online. (I have the machine running KDE on an internal network, connected to the Windows machine that has the modem, running ICS). aterm, xterm, rxvt, etc don't do this, this is purely a KDE thing (in fact I think a lot of KDE software does this, not just konsole).
Now when KOffice matures a bit, I think that there will be even more software from the KDE developers that is top quality. It is currently too rough, and has very limited import and export options at the moment (I wanted to save a KIllustrator picture as a bitmap image (any format) at a certain DPI, no such luck).
Still, both environments have their pluses and their minuses. The continued rivalry is only good for those of us who want a usable Unix desktop system.
Konqueror is great as well. Now if only it put a little more space between lines of text...
I would read it as a comment which is meaningless unless you're given more details. (Although it's quite possible that he did give more details but they got edited out).
There's good reasons to point at certain bits of each project and say they're more advanced than the other project. I don't think your question can be answered more precisely in a way which is fair, without looking carefully at the technical details. I'd rather not get into the kind of flamewars that tend to emerge when people answer such questions here :-)
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
AFAIK, in KDE 1.X when you started kfm(the *old* file manager) this caused a bunch of icons to appear on the desktop.
In KDE 2.X however, starting konqueror does *not* do anything but start konqueror. Ok, so that's not quite entirely true. It also starts some kdeinit processes that are used for the cookie jar(handling web cookies), ioslaves(transparent access to many different protocols) etc. However, as of KDE 2.1 these processes are also closed when you close your last instance of konqueror.
NO cruft! Just a great set of applications(I use sawfish and access the KDE applications in this way).
Have you ever stopped to think that you aren't the one who gets to decide which license is "good" and which license is "not good?" I found it hilarious how people bitched about Qt being linked to KDE, even though it was the case of GPL'ed code including non-GPL'ed code, not vice versa. Trolltech was alright with it, the KDE devs were all right with it, and everyone else had no business having criticizing them
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
I would say that he is saying that QT 1.4x had the same degree of features that GTK2.0 will have, and that the realse of QT3 will bring even more features that KDE can use, thus theoreticaly leading to a more powerful desktop.
I havent used eith GTK or QT beyound the first couple of chapters of their respective tutorials, so I don't know how accurate the statement is.
Advanced users are users too!
i'm guessing you haven't tried the version of KOffice in CVS? the one with the nearly complete rewrite of KWord? if you did you would find that not only are the apps becoming more robust, featurefull, and elegant but that the number and quality of filters is growing. this includes support for MS Word and Excel, Quatro Pro, Dia stencils, etc.. in fact an effort between a number of Free word processors is underway to build a set of filters, and this group includes the KWord developers.
between kword, kspread, kugar, kivio, kpresenter, kchart, kformula, krayon and killustrator i think that good progress is being made and a very comprehensive office solution is emerging.
ok, lets assume for a moment that they didn't release it under the BSD (even though they have signed a contract stating that they will) .. there is still the GPL licensed version! and that version while Unix only (we would lose the windows version if it didn't go BSD) is exactly equivelent to their Qt Enterprise version feature for feature, line for line of code. the difference is only the license. so, We The Community would just take the GPL'd version. and that is a worst case scenario. more likely is that it would be released under the BSD license per the contract.
However, the QPL does allow linking with non-GPLed Open Source-ish software, so it gives developers more freedom to choose their own license (no, I know, this is not what the FSF calls Freedom, but I didn't mean to set off a philisophical argument).
But I know enough to know that the above poster is spewing FUD.
This doesn't happen with interfaces. If a KDE application doesn't conform to the KDE style guide, then it is considered a bug and will be fixed. There is a lot of thought that goes into KDE's interface. Of course we can't control applications that are not part of KDE.
Matt Newell
Have you tried Koffice from CVS? I'm guessing that you haven't.
KWrite is very stable and has all of the features that the average person needs.
KSpread is rock solid and has everything a person wants from a spread sheet.
KPresenter is also rock solid and has all the features needed to be a viable presentation program. It does a wonderful job of making HTML slides.
The three most important Office apps have come a long way and will be released soon. They have matured a lot and will prove to everyone that KOffice is here to stay.
Matt Newell
I meant KWord not KWrite.
Matt Newell
What is the number of users of gnome?
What is the number of users of KDE?
I have been searching the net, but its hard to find data
first they've complained that QT is *not* GPLed, now they complain that it is. duh ...
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The interface is also very important, the koffice interface is amateurish at best, and downright clumsy and ineffective at worst. And above that, convincing someone to use a linux box and switch to a limited, clumsy tool like KOffice, when they've been using windows with microsoft office, or open office, just isn't an effective choice, and isn't going to happen in most cases.
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Understanding that quite a lot of work has gone into the Koffice suite, and the desire not to lose some of that effort, this is still a very bad choice.
KOffice is many, many years from being in a state of usability for any serious production purposes. With all due respect, it's just not nearly good enough to be considered for any real world use. Sorry, but it's just not even close. Sure it will take effort to clean the openoffice code, but nowhere NEAR the effort it would take to get KOffice into a usable state.
As most linux users (and most macintosh users) can tell you, a viable office suite is the single most critical link in desktop usage.
Of course the open source community is rooted heavily in duplication of efforts, so that's not a compelling argument here, but in this case, you should seriously consider the costs vs. the advantages.
A standardized office suite, compatible across distributions, and platforms is the boat Linux needs, and it will decide, possibly for good, whether we are all on that boat, or it sails without us because of pride or short-sightedness.
A KDE desktop with a native Openoffice would be the closest thing Linux has ever seen to becoming a competitive desktop alternative to windows. Ya, I'll probably just have to switch to Gnome like everyone else, but I've always preferred KDE, and hate to see it shoot itself by missing an opportunity like this, not to mention lose all the potential here.
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KDE? GNOME ...? Sawmill? WINDOW MAKER?!!!
BAH!
The ONE TRUE window manager for UNIX is MWM, with perhaps it's successor CDE/dtwm. That's the UNIX look'n'feel for ya'. (OOOH those yummy three little buttons!)
The ONE true wm for Linux is FVWM, configured into oblivion with GoodStuff and whatnot, but still looking somwhat like MWM (see above). That's what Linux should look like.
An' don't give me TWM with a bazillion of Xterms. We're not living in bedrock and go back to Xenix on your 286 if you actually want THAT.
/Of course, i personally use none of the above, but that's a whole different story
.And poke her, with the soft cushions!!!
The middle mind speaks!
The Free Qt Foundation is an organisation dedicated to keeping Qt free and alive no matter what happens to Trolltech. Indeed, the agreement between Trolltech and the Free Qt Foundation specifically states that if Trolltech ever go under or stop development of Qt, then Qt will automatically be released under the BSD License - and you can't get much freer than that.
Nice try, but fortunately for KDE (and us), somebody thought of this (and fixed the problem) a long long time before you did.
Even though I agree that KDE is technically superiour to Gnome (except for Bonobo, Evolution and Nautilus :) I don't want to switch to a desktop environment whose developers don't care one bit about its users license concerns.
For example:
That's an additude I could understand somewhat if they weren't building a desktop environment. He's basicly saying that he doesn't care that people don't write KDE apps, what kind of attitude is that?Also it is still very bad that the Qt library is licensed under the GPL. This is locking out everyone that doesn't want to use the GPL.
Monkey sense
That should have been that I *do* think this is optimistic. *sigh*
Monkey sense
Not that I don't think this is optimistic.
Monkey sense
I believe that's Matthias Ettrich.
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C'mon, flame me!
No sig for the moment.
Although I am not quite knowledgable enough to know what to make of this comment:
Would anyone care to help fill in the details?(just to clarify, I am not a partisan one way vs the other as far as KDE vs Gnome. I am encouraged just by the increasingly viable alternatives to the Big Bad Software Corp.)
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Think about that quote: "We always keep a look out at other environments and grab what we like. We say, 'hey! that looks good, let's put it in.'" That's maybe a good way for technichal ideas, but it's bad for the interface. By simply stealing here and there you lose consistency, one of the most important points of an interface. You end up with hundred nice features that looked good somewhere else, and with hundred different ways to uses that features.
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Here is some information about him:
blackfarm@mountain.netm epage
HomePage:http://sites.netscape.net/blackfam972/ho
Your ICQ: 103920729
Your AIM: blackfam972
Location: Suagr Grove West Virgiana
Occupation: Navy
Apparently, Craig has figured out how to spam PHP-NUKE webpolls, and done this two two recent "What's your favorite Desktop Environment" polls: one at Warped Systems and another at PCLinuxOnline.com, which was removed due to the controversy.
The evidence for this accusation can be found here, where the admin of warped systems notes that the web poll is being spammed by a user with the same IP address as Craig. Craig has also posted several other comments in the current thread, including Here and here, and a reply to the "anonymous coward" post that links to the second poll he spammed.
So, if you've had enough of Craig, send him a little note telling him how annoying and counter-productive he is being. Tell him how he's giving a bad name to KDE users, the Navy, Backpackers, and Virginians in general. And tell him if he is going to indiscriminantly rig polls and spam web boards, he should hide his tracks better.
Phew, at least I did something productive today.