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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.)
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.
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...
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).
Server side apps written in Java have the general benefit that you can produce the same application in far less time taking advantage of a more standardized set of library classes and simpler language syntax than C++ which makes team development much more pleasant. Of course, when I'm building end user GUI applications, I don't do it using Swing. But there are Java bindings for Qt now and other interesting options to check out too that might avoid a lot of the annoyances of Swing.
But I know enough to know that the above poster is spewing FUD.
first they've complained that QT is *not* GPLed, now they complain that it is. duh ...
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.
________
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.
Not that I don't think this is optimistic.
Monkey sense
But the problem that commercial vendors must pay to Trolltech still remains. I think this is a very bad situation for a toolkit like Qt.
Think about it, what if Microsoft charged money for linking against its APIs? I think a lot of third-party APIs would pop up and a lot of apps would use different toolkits and ruining the consistency in the OS.
The GPL/Qt dual licening is doing just that, requiring commercial vendors to pay for the library, it is thus encouraging them to use another toolkit. And that is also why the licensing thing is a mess, developers should be encouraged to program for KDE, even if they have a closed-source mindset.
Another problem is that the QPL only allows changes to be distributed as patches. If Trolltech were ever to stop developing Qt, the people that continued to work on Qt would only be allowed to distribute the QPL'd version as the latest one released by Trolltech plus a giant patch, a mess I'd say.
Even worse, if I understand correctly commercial vendors wouldn't be able to get updates at all if Trolltech were ever to quit developing Qt because they are licensed under different terms from the QPL and GPL. If this were ever to happen it would be impossible to develop proprierty applications for KDE.
Monkey sense
This is of course a worsed case scenario but I think it's important to consider this as Qt is at the core of KDE.
Monkey sense
I think that there are a lot of developers that aren't willing to take that bet.
Monkey sense
Also, I wouldn't bet for TrollTech to release BSD under the BSD license if they ever stopped working on Qt. Saying they ran out of money for whatever reason and they would have to sell their assets, you'd be at the mercy of the company buying Qt. IANAL but I don't think that it would be even legal for them to release it under the BSD license, I believe they would have to try to pay as much debts as possible by selling Qt.
Monkey sense
I guess a solution for people not releasing under the GPL would be to develop for GTK+. Both toolkits would then have to interoperate better so that they use the same theme, have the same widgets, etc... one can only dream :).
Monkey sense
The ones that didn't get notice were those that complained that Qt wasn't released under the LGPL, BSD license, etc.. Which is very unfortunate since I'm one of those people :-).
Anyway.. check out the other replies I got to that message, the many follow-ups might give you an insight to why I feel the GPL is not appropriate for a toolkit.
Monkey sense
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"
You mean that they don't care about every one of your license concerns, right? Their users are obviously satisfied.
Look, I think your idea of how the developers feel is accurate.Their concern was to create the best possible GPL/LGPL desktop for Unix users, according to their understanding of what the licenses allow. Their concern is not to pander to everyone who raises an objection against them.
The free software world has no shortage of people, groups and companies who are eager to assure you that your claiming membership in "The Community" gives you some incredible moral authority. The KDE developers don't do that and it seems to really piss people off.
The reality is that today's KDE is licensed in a manner everyone (as far as I know) agrees is "Free" and "Open." At the same time, nothing is ever going to undo 1997-1999. If you're going to take the attitude that situations in the past make KDE apps permanently unacceptable for you, that's your call, but I can't imagine what you think could possibly be changed. Except for the devs groveling and asking your forgiveness.
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
Ever read the philosophy pages at www.gnu.org ? The LGPL is rarely a good idea. The only real good use is to "get your foot in the door". The funny thing is Qt managed to get its foot in the door without the LGPL. There was no toolkit at the time like it, and so it "got in" merely be technical merit. There is no reason at this point to go LGPL. Free software developers use Qt's GPL option, and commercial developers (see a list at Trolltech's website) pay the license fee.
With LGPL, commercial companies would be able to take,take,take without giving a single line of code back. It's a watered down version of the GPL, and not good.
-Justin