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Five Years of KDE

Posted by michael on from the birthdays-for-everyone dept.

Jacek Fedorynski writes: "Looks like KDE is five years old. Five years seems like a lot of time but just look how much they've achieved in this time." I think the hard part is just beginning - KDE has got all the basics down, and now they have to resist adding too much more crap.

5 of 401 comments (clear)

  1. Matthias knew KDE was a big thing... by shankark · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The announcement that Matthias made that seemed to have sparked off the KDE (and I knew only now that K stood for Kool!) gives the impression that Matthias was onto something big. He was cocksure of KDE's success, confident that it was going to be a big hit (though even Matthias mightn't have expected it to catch on like it has done). Well, thats something that's lacking in the Open Source World 5 years thence. The conviction, that what one is doing is big, and the faith in one's abilities. Guess, there are just too many bloated carcasses floating around with little support/management, and moreover no cohesive force that rallies coders around, whips up their passion into doing something new.

    Way to go, Matthias. Now, if only that announcement could motivate me to getting round to completing my assignment in time.. :(

  2. The international touch by hack0rama · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Since KDE is out of Germany and QT from Norway I was just thinking how much international connection Linux has compared to Windows or Macintosh which are completely US centric.

    Linux - Finland
    GNU - US
    KDE - Germany
    QT - Norway
    GNOME - Mexico ( Miguel )
    OpenOffice - Germany ( Stardivision )
    Mozilla - US
    SAMBA - Australia

  3. Re:Congrats and thanks to KDE by Ars-Fartsica · · Score: 5, Interesting
    2) integrated voice activation

    This is a lame feature and thank god KDE does not attempt it. There is nothing more moronic than a bunch of people talking to their computers (no offense to Star Trekkers).

    If the only thing I can do with this is launch programs, its just a joke.

    3) An easy way to script out application action (like AppleScript)

    There are about a thousand ways to do this on linux that are better than anything Apple has come up with itself. Perl. Python. Bourne Shell for christs sake. Apple has caught up to linux with scripting, but only on the basis of porting the GNU tools through BSD support.

    7) A proper user interface

    Well, supposedly Apple had the ultimate UI before OSX, yet they felt the need to scrap it. You can find numerous articles where UI folks and Apple greybeards shit all over OSX's interface.

    Personally I like the OSX UI, but its more or less eye candy. Functionally almost nothing has changed that isn't purely cosmetic (and resource hungry).

    8) Lots of properly integrated apps

    No. KDE has plenty of apps well integrated through KParts. Apple has Classic and Cocoa, and will have these two environments for a VERY VERY VERY VERY LONG TIME. Since few people are working on any Mac code these days, Apple is going to be supporting MacOS9 apps until doomsday. Already Apple users are being humilliated on the shelves at retailers by Windows 98 and soon XP will finish the job.

    Sure, there is a lot of distance for KDE to go, but as cool as OSX is, Apple has killed itself on strategy. When your userbase is as low as Apple, doing a total presto changeo on the OS, development tools, and even thr fricking monitor connection is just more motivation for Apple users to buy a PC next time around. I commend the for the Apple store concept, but it won't help at this point.

  4. Re:don't add, just tighten by Geek+Boy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Thanks to the modular design of KDE, adding new features doesn't bloat it in any way unless you actually use those features. If you use those features, then of course you have to allocate resources too them.

    KDE doesn't start up features unless you actually want to use them, and this is definitely a good thing.

  5. Re:Congrats and thanks to KDE by fault0 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    1)proper Drag-n-Drop everywhere.

    true

    2) integrated voice activation

    true

    3) An easy way to script out application action (like AppleScript)

    Uh, it's called dcop.

    4) XML for everything, and a VERY organized file structure (This is more of a linux thing).

    Why exactly would you want XML for everything? XML is just a buzzword for apple to capitalize on, imho. XML isn't the fastest thing to parse either. Kconfig's key=value is much faster.

    5) display pdf (or postscript) which makes making PDFs trvially easy

    i heard kprint would have this soon (if it doesn't already). any app that can print could make a pdf (like adobe pdfmaker).

    6) for that matter, a 4th generation display engine

    sorta, all widgets in qt _are_ objects.

    7) A proper user interface (workflow reads like a page, except for tools that you "pick up" from teh bottom/dock)

    Not sure what you mean.. but "proper" is a very subjective term.

    8) Lots of properly integrated apps

    KDE is very integrated. I'd say OSX is much less (Classic).

    9) A proper application structure that reduces clutter yet is more powerful than any current structure.

    KDE or GNOME's .desktop files?

    9) A lot of other little things that OSX has in plentitude (miscellaneous coolnesses).

    Uhm, with the logic used in your post, I could argue that OSX doesn't have a proper Windows-like taskbar, and MANY other features.