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Richard Stallman On KDE/GNOME Cooperation
Karma Sucks writes: "For the first time that I remember, RMS is encouraging collaboration between the GNOME and KDE projects. He offers a concrete idea: Unifying the themes between KDE and GNOME. Matthias Ettrich once went far enough to propose a default unified 'Linux' theme that both Qt and GTK+ could support."
I've never heard of it before. I would have posted themes.org as the link. But that's me. kde-look is a very nice website, but is there a GNOME equivalent?
Everything is mainstream now.
I really hope this will happen. There are so many apps that each has, that a KDE-Gnome work-together would be great. For example, I would love Konsole in Gnome and Galeon in KDE...with the stability they have in their native setting.
Plus, it always seems KDE looks better than Gnome, though I don't know why. Just my opinion.
Fortran programmer...oh yeah. Array math for life!
Oh wait, my bad, this idea is so obvious it's rediculous. Does anybody have a valid reason why it hasn't happened already?
Ideally, I'd like to see as many applications as possible running under both environments. With most Linux distributions currently, the libraries for both environments are supplied. I'd like to see this become standard, and I'd also like to see an interface library developed in collaboration which will translate calls to either gnome or kde, depending on which is running. This library would have to be primarily written in C++ to suit the existing QT/KDE application base, but would also need to have C and other language bindings.
I honestly fail to see how anyone could disagree with this. A common interface to help newbies, and retaining the customization power that makes linux great... just don't make it another OS X ripoff.. PLEASE!
-- Is "Sig" copyrighted by www.sig.com?
quai dit y: frit hors note seau frit?
Copy OSX's theme. That is by far the nicest desktop I've ever seen. Of course, doing that isn't exactly putting a "Linux" stamp on a desktop. There are things that can be changed on the OSX desktop (the transparent dock, for example) and added (GKrellM).
I have no doubt the artists at themes.org could come up with a similarly elegant theme.
Fortran programmer...oh yeah. Array math for life!
I use KDE but prefer Mozilla. I am *sick* of the incompatible clipboards that KDE/GTK use. As a matter of fact, I just complained to my co-worker about this and said, "This is why a monopoly is a good thing: someone to declare 'clipboard functions work this way or no way'". Damn I hate this.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Collaboration, unified themes, this is crazy talk! Where will you ever find developers with diverse beliefs working together to improve a product?
I think there are flying pigs somewhere. Hell has definitely become a ski resort. RMS conceding a point. Wow. Will wonders never cease?
Joe Carnes
RMS is irrelevant. His latest comments show him to be less the firebrand of yore than the pussyfooter of politics. Maybe, in addition to this KDE/Gnome cooperation, he can organize a love-in with his buddy Miguel de Icaza.
Like the ecumenical movement, the original meaning is lost once the position that everything leads to the same outcome is undertaken.
what is needed more is interopability of the component and document models, heck both desktops can't even handle non x clipboards in a compatible way. The first thing a normal desktop user who uses Linux for the first time would ask, why he can't drag a file from konqueror into evolution and why he cant paste his gimp picture into kword over the clipboard!
Heck even e copy from a galeon the copy paste menu way would never generate a paste in kedit!
I'm sure a user would care less about a common L&F than about a precise and normed app interoperability, which should be possible!
KDE is so much nicer to develop for than GNOME imho but I prefer to use GNOME, I'm sure that others have differing opinions about what they like and hate about each environment, but working together to provide maybe the ultimate desktop experiance would be brilliant!
I know this opinion is a little radical and not likely to happen, but if I had my eutopia, that would be it!
We'll soon get GNU/KDE and KGNOME?
He explained his reasons for opposing KDE. As you even said in your summation, it had nothing to do with who was in charge and everything to do with the license. The license has since changed, so there is no more need to oppose KDE.
People who assume his attack on the license was an attack on the people who chose to use that license are the ones who come off as ideologues.
Nope, no sig
Flamewars like the Gnome/KDE one have always been a side-effect on free projects that have the same final purpose (and on free projects in general ;), but it's true that the rivality between developpers of such important components has to disappear. The idea is good, and given its originator it may have a considerable impact on future GUI development aims.
;)
:]
But I'm not quite sure if a compatible theme engine is the way to go... Many people still consider themed desktops as a waste of time and space, and sometimes you can find really awful things on themes.org
Another direction may be the component object model itself. There has been, IIRC, at least one attempt to start an uniform interface between ORBIT and the KDE object model, and others may be under way.
IMHO, this would be a much better challenge for Gnome/KDE integrators, and provide a broader signal to the GUI community.
Microsoft has made COM first, then made XP skinnable. Of course, the Linux themes.org effect was not present then (IIRC), and maybe it was sheer luck. It worked for them anyway.
But I'll sure fancy some skinnable icons while drag/dropping objects between Gnome and KDE apps
Karma cannot be described by words alone.
This is good news! What's next? An abstraction of the widget sets so that programmers can code to a neutral API that can be deployed on both GTK and QT (Or Gnome and KDE) at once?!?! When are we going to see that? :)
AirSpeak - http://itunes.com/apps/AirSpeak
This is probably the most singular unifying architechture change that will propel Linux to the top of all the markets, server, desktop, and embedded.
YEAH RIGHT !
Ok, Im suprised RMS said something without demanding, frothing, or berating. But in the whole scheme of things is this really worth the bits its typed with ?
Some architechtural changes in the next version of each twoard additional compatility would be nice. But aside from that they are different systems, written by different people, with different needs and different goals, as well as different philosiphys on how to achieve what they want. To this end I dont really see what good compatible themes are gonna do for the rest of the projects...
Sig went tro...aahemmm.....fishing........
Huh? anybody?
I'm amazed that RMS can honestly think that unifying themes under GNOME and KDE is a need. Users like diversity although it happens that somebody can think that Linux needs Windows or Mac uniformity (which is just what Microsoft & Apple decided for their users, not the users request). So what's the point in unifying themes? Well.. what do users need? Applications. Want to program a Linux app? Okay... do you use Qt? Do you use kdelibs? do you use Gtk+? or Gnome-libs? Or a scripting language? or X11? I mean, first we have to say officially, well, the _LSB_ has to decide:
- either KDE or GNOME or any other graphical environment is Linux default
- or KDE *and* GNOME and maybe others are the default
- or use X11
Users wants GRAPHICAL APPLICATIONS, so PLEASE release SPECS and STANDARDS so programmers, and eventually software companies can write Linux apps. This is a real issue, but please do not whine at desktop appearance, the need is in standardization, even if we have to standardize TWO graphical environments because Miguel De Icaza and Richard Stallman once thought it was a better idea to start a new project and fight KDE instead of trying to arrange things first or push all the energy in a Qt replacement (rembember harmony?). Well, I'm litteraly stressed by such info. Sorry for the tone of my message.
RMS didn't like KDE because it was not "free" -- and in fact, in his opinion, it's position was threatening Free Software in general (it undermined the GPL, it took people away from developing Free alternatives, etc). So he argued against KDE, in favor of GNOME, a truely Free alternative.
KDE is now Free, in part because of serious amounts of lobbying by the Free Software Community, including RMS. KDE is no longer the bad guy, RMS no longer has a beef with KDE.
Now that the "Free KDE" battle is over, RMS is now saying "Um guys... we won -- ALL of us (KDE and GNOME) won, last year. It's time, past time, to stop sabre-rattling at each other". Since Qt became GPL-compatable, I haven't seen RMS stoking the GNOME v. KDE fires. Now he's trying to quench the GNOME v. KDE fires, because leaving them smouldering is bad for Free Software in general.
That depends on the user.
I experience GNU/Linux users as being very picky.
But from a missionary and/or business viewpoint:
Visually unifying communication to a broad user base.
That's good.
Add a compatible set of window bahaviour
and Joe User can be told where to click what.
But not for my desktop. I am too picky.
--
$ live'dream'
Don't think there is any reason whatsoever now to have separate menus for gnome and kde, as they both can see each other menus and frankly I don see why I have to look for an app in two places. Mandrake tries to unify them but it gets its knickers in a twist when you install a non-mandrake app.
Cipboard sharing and drag and drop could really unify both desktops if they manage some kind of object bridge.
Starting with something simpler, eg theme, is a reasonable idea to me. Believe it or not, trivia like why paste is Ctrl-V in one program but Ctrl-Y in another have stopped many people from migrating away from Windows.
But, in the longer term, they really need to enable the basic components to talk to each other. Clipboard is an obvious target. Linux won't boom on desktop before something equivalent to OLE has been fully implemented and *widely* accepted by all the different camps involved.
Well, it (Qt) wasn't!
RMS attacks KDE. KDE changes.
Qt changes - for the better. Things are safe now, whereas they weren't before.
Now RMS claims that the "ill feelings" he helped foster are not good (ungood?) for the community.
It seems to me that RMS was part of the problem that created this ill will, not part of the solution.
Er.. the licence changed to a Free one because of RMS + GNU. This is a good thing. The GNU developers may have gotten pissed off with the KDE ones and vice versa - unfortunately these kind of things spiral out of control. RMS is now trying to make things right again. What's wrong with that?
I'm not entirely sure what this has to do with themes on linux, but I smell a rat. All he's offering is an email for crying out loud, he's not offering any thing substansive at all, unless you count his blessings as substansive. If you ask me, this is just a way for RMS to get his fingers into KDE.
What a load of tosh. This can only be a good thing and how can setting a default "linux" theme give RMS control over KDE? Although really, this is something which I am surprised that one of the distros (Mandrake?) hasn't already done.
Yeah... I was really surprised when I clicked on the link to mail.gnome.org and saw an email.
A lot of times when you read email then there are cool videos and 3-d graphics. One time I found a live goat!
I guess open source email lists just aren't up to the standards Microsoft users are accustomed to. I mean *sheesh* email on an email list??? How old fashioned!
If you use KDE, then be happy with but dont try to start another KDE vs. GNOME war. That s just stupid. You think KDE is fine for you, well that s OK and use it. I for myself use GNOME (which I can assure you is not dead), but I dont say that KDE is shit or dead.
KDE is just fine for some people and so is GNOME.
So my advice... Shut up and if you love so much KDE try to contribute to it.
What a brilliant and obvious idea!! Kudos!
The only thing that could stop this no-brainer idea is religious zealotry.
Doh.
oh, please. what RMS is saying, and the trap you've fallen into is this: by extension, all non-gpl-compatible software is a "danger". if that's true, then why isn't RMS "attacking" FreeBSD (or any of the thousands of packages released under the BSD license)? if that's true, why isn't RMS "attacking" Microsoft, IBM, Apple, et al?
The answer is simple. RMS isn't "attacking" those licensers (?) because they're not a threat to "his" operating system, but KDE was.
But it's even more insidious than that, IMO. The view RMS is taking is that all software must be "attacked" if it's non-gpl-compatible. That's sad, because it leads to a totalitarian attitude. Oh, wait, too late.
I would love see him address the issues that revolves around licenses. I have developed software under BSD licenses while trying to figure out how to use GPL-compatible software. It would be much simplier if RMS could address this in the next gpl revision...
I also believe that these two desktop projects could do more than the distros to create a clean, consistent method of program installation for Linux. I would like to see the "app-wrapper" style become the norm. Menu conversion hacks just aren't enough!
Why not layer the QT API on top of GTK? (QTK)
Despite of what many of you may think this is not a bad thing(TM). Really, on Windows, QT is layered on top of the Win32 API. Heck, for all platforms (UNIX excluded) QT is layered on top of the native widget API, so why not do the same for Unix!
See also: initial QTK ponderings
"...The ill feelings that linger between GNOME developers and KDE developers are not good for the community, and it is very useful to help calm the antagonism."
Let's here from a few who are (accepted to be) wiser than ourselves:
"Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people." -George Bernard Shaw (emphasis, mine!)
"Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress." -Mahatma Gandhi
"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be." -Douglas Adams
I don't know about anyone else, but I always thought it was funny how the Open Source community yelled about "standards," yet we have so many damn standards that there aren't any.
Now that license issues are cleared up, RMS has a chance and he's gonna take it. Eliminate two, create one. This isn't a bad thing, since you STILL have the source.
We have options for customization, and a lot of freedom, but what we lack is any real consolidation (IE eliminating redundant standards), thus creating a plethora of pitfalls for software developers.
This is one thing I think the Linux Standards Base should cover. More than just one boring, rather useless "base," it should cover MANY bases, and specify standard APIs, installations, and specifications for systems/software. Hell make Linux Standard Base certification like that damn Made for Windows XX logo.
Theory:
LSB defines a desktop base, a server base, and an embedded base.
On the desktop base you have modules (not necessarily compatible), say Gaming Module which includes all necessary packages and auto-detection and config info, a Network client module that automatically loads remote config utilities and any necessary client software, and a workstation module that adds it's required things.
Same for server and embedded.
Also have the LSB supply standard definitions for the GUI APIs. Standard Themes, fonts, what have you.
If you can build a solid foundation for your system and get it under control (community control, it's still ours), then you'll attract users. I think that's a bit of what RMS is trying to do here.
Though I don't care at the moment, gonna buy an OS X machine next time around. The new G4 imac looks snazzy, plus OS X is exactly what the linux community was trying to achieve. open source is good, but it worked against itself with repect to a lack of centralized code base. OS X is a great blend between both open and closed source
While we're talking about having a uniform UI... I would really like to have a Macintosh-style menubar! ie, have one menubar at the top of the screen that changes its contents depending on what application is in focus. Surely with all their sophistication (and excessive effort placed on "skinnable interfaces"!), one or both of GNOME or KDE ought to be able to deliver this simple request!
Kgnode?
Gnoked?
Gnodek?
Kdome?
Kgdneome?
or my favorite:
Gnuked.
-Russ
Me
shit man, the source is there, if it pisses you off *that much* then fix it.
How we know is more important than what we know.
I know that there are some themeing standards out there. WindowBlinds uses one of them. It would be nice if I could use all of the beautiful themes that exist for Windows on my Linux box. Sadly, there are more artists amongst the Windows crowd than the Linux crowed. Granted, tigert, raster, and star88, all rock.
Anyway, I'd just like to say that this has been a long time comin. I have no freaking idea why my WM, and the different GUI toolkits all can't get along Look and Feel wise. If Unix (outside of OSX) is to ever be a desktop competitor, this is one component of the UI equation that must be solved.
-ryan
Maybe I should write an XML theme engine that can generate themes for KDE, GTK, Mozilla, XMMS skins etc. Some sort modular library.
I'll say this just because it needs to be said.
I couldn't care less what everyone tends to be saying about competition being a "good thing". Linux does not stand a chance competing on the desktop simply because of KDE and Gnome fighting over the tiny share of Linux desktops. Application developers have to chose, and as such it's just too much of a pain to develop and/or port any of the apps Linux needs to succeed.
I wish they would grow up. See the greater good. Stop behaving like children. Whatever. It's stupid. Gnome and KDE are both fine, they're just not quite "there" yet. Know what? They'll never be. They will keep playing catch-up with Windows, and never go beyond it. Spew technical facts all you like, they are both half assed attempts at being what the previous version of Windows was.
Oh well. It'll never happen, and we'll keep posting every little security flaw in Windows trying to convince ourselves of that Linux is at least doing well on servers. Oh my. Yes, it is, and Microsoft is managing to keep companies stuck with using Windows on their servers simply because they control the desktop.
Bah.
Hmm, is it my destiny to put RMS on Slashdot each time I mail to the gnome-foundation list?
I once sat through the famous free laser printer story with a room full of law students and confused academics. At the end of the talk a number of particularly amusing students asked if RMS thought, just occassionally, in his deepest darkests moments, he ever considered that Emacs might be just a little bit bloated. Everyone in the room burst out laughing but RMS quietly explained how no, Emacs isn't bloated, every feature is necessary and really the question isn't on topic anyways.
How we know is more important than what we know.
This is like saying combine judaism and islam.
Back in November 2001, when RMS was candidate to the GNOME Board of Directors, there was a discussion on /. about the reasons why he applied.
Just a couple days before, he had said during a conference in Paris that his primary reason to apply to the board was to support cooperation between GNOME and KDE (see my post), eventhough it wasn't clearly stated in his answers to the GNOME board candidacy questionnaire.
I'm really happy to see that it was not only electoral bulls**t.
Maybe he is the last person you could have think of for such a task (especially knowing his position toward the KDE team in the old days of the QPL), but here he comes with this simple (as in not heavily political) practical (as in usefull) first step... so let's try !
One word: viper.e r/ viper_3.html
http://www.lns.cornell.edu/public/COMP/info/vip
dude, the spirit of the whole RMS post is *COOPERATION*. I don't think your post is getting with the program, so to speak. ;-) By the way, I'm a GNOME supporter.
~~~~~~~~~
dissertus scribendo latine videri volo.
You can run apps from both KDE and Gnome
and it looks real perdy. (i run a lot of epplets too =)
I use a lot of apps from kde (in my E desktop) KDE has so many apps and functions i think it has to take the crown from emacs*
Gnome i dont use, but i still have some gtk apps, although not many the gnome ppl. (eg xchat)
-Trevelyan
*emacs is my os, linux just does the i/o
will become KDE is my os, linux just does the i/o
You apparantly do not understand the difference between "GPL compatable" and "free".
Horseshit. RMS recognizes that non-GPLed software can still be free:
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Since we're ushering this new era of KDE/Gnome friendliness, I have one simple request...
Can one (or both) of these two desktops allow me to scale the title bar on the windows? I can change all of the other fonts to a bigger size, but when I change the title bar font it just gets cut off vertically. Sorry, but some of us try to run high resolutions on smaller monitors.
By the way, here's cool theme from KDE-Look.org (one of the few ones that didn't rip off some pre-existing OS (majority were XP/MacOS X)):
Gorilla @ KDE-Look.org (preview)
Notice how small the title bar font is... just think the joy you could bring to small children if that scaled with the font size! It would be perfect on this theme...
Same taste, twice the bloat! Actually, 3 times. KDE on top of Qt on top of GTK on top of X. If that happens, I'll go back to AfterStep or Fvwm. Interoperability is the key. As others have mentioned before, start with fixing the damn clipboard, and things will progress from there. A unified config file format wouldn't hurt either.
Debian is close to releasing and they are talking about a unified Linux desktop theme. Hell most have frozen over or this is a sign of the apocalypse!
Gorkman
From RMS's message:
The ill feelings that linger between GNOME developers and KDE developers are not good for the community, and it is very useful to help calm the antagonism.
The only reason there are ill feelings is because of RMS's jihad. He's right in that they are bad, yet he continues to provoke them, protestations to the contrary notwithstanding. Anything that's not GPVed is fair game for RMS's blind, unfeeling hatred.
Disinfect the GNU General Public Virus!
- It will address what's generally felt to be KDE's biggest drawback.
- Do the same for Mozilla and every other C++ project, free and non-free, running on GNU systems.
- Point up the importance of the GNU contribution to what's generally referred to as Linux. (Not that I'm thrilled to see him getting more ammunition to pester us on that score, but it's not until I was cursing out the FSF for making C++ apps run so slow that I realized he's actually got a good point.)
Besides, it's something he's in a position to actually do, and which doesn't require anyone to sacrifice existing work.(Poor guy -- he's like Alan Greenspan, where every public utterance is turned into a grand policy question.)
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Think about it. Compare to 'windows' in its simplicity if you like. We want to create a unified GNU/Linux desktop operating system and not play around with fancy names. (Designed for X Windows, anyone? :-)
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
when it comes to exwindows users. I had a bad time copying and pasting stuff as well under Gnome as under KDE.
;-P
Now i use Fluxbox and i copy with the middle mouse button. Im not really in depth yet of Unix innerworking and im sure not into its standards but i really like that way. Actually i miss it at work where i have to use a Win2k machine. Its just nice.
Of course an additional keyboard shortcut is a desperate needed extra when you dont want to move your fingers away from the keyboard...
Ok, you made the point, who cares about look&feel integration when all the apps i need (i.e. licq, evolution, mozilla, konqueror, gftp, whatever,) seem to work under a third, non KDE, non GNOME desktop...wow, i guess im quite confused about that point. Well, dont be too hard on me, its late over here
cu,
Lispy
Not only that, but also Mozilla is reaching! Gasp! Could the Doom of the World be upon us?
Everything is mainstream now.
Am I the only one here who doesn't want KDE and GNOME merged into an uber-desktop? There are many reasons for not doing so, in my humble opinion.
GNOME essentially arose becuase KDE used QT as its base toolkit, which was non GPL. Thanks possibly due to the spectre of rivalry from GNOME, QT went GPL.
I think that KDE and GNOME do benefit from a little rivalry and sniping; I'm hoping that application competition will result in survival of the fittest
I am however not against application interoperability; I do think that the KDe and GNOME people should knock some heads together to ensure that their respective apps can pass data to and from each other and even operate on the 'enemy' desktop.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Here at the office, we are finding that a lot of GNOME apps are far more usable for day to day tasks. Most of our employees are moving to Evolution - they absolutely love the calendar, task lists, and contacts. (I only use the email portion, myself.) Also, Galeon is a faster and stabler browser than Konqueror. But as a desktop, GNOME just won't cut it for production use. (Two of my coworkers switched to Ximian GNOME for a few weeks, and declared it practically unusable.) So we're definitely going to stick with KDE as the environment now, but for apps...Gnumeric, Evolution, and Galeon are all better than their KDE equivilents.
Some better interoperation (cut-n-paste, default browser & mail clients, themes) would really make our lives a whole lot easier. In the meantime we will hobble by.
I suppose that both desktops are shooting to someday have enough apps that it is not necessary to mix-and-match quite so much. But in the meantime...
Now if we can get them all working together with an xserver, say XFree... and have the whole gui/graphics driver thing settled once and for all...
And then we get them to work with the Kernel developers, and after that the other peripheral developers... and then we can shrink wrap the whole thing and sell it, lets say, for $99 bucks.
doh!
A bit late, I'm very, very afraid.
RMS just said something that actually sounds reasonable!
Let me check... ah yes, "Sign no. 23 of the imminent Apocalypse."
Glückwünsche, haben Sie Slashdot ermordet, indem Sie zum korporativen Druck beugten und Subskriptionen einlei
You are either a troll or new here...
No sig for the moment.
shit man, the source is there, if it pisses you off *that much* then fix it.
Getting rid of the inconsistency and incompatabilty in X is hardly a one man job.
It's hardly a 1000 man job.
Hell, removing inconsistency from X is like removing religion from church - it just can't be done.
C-X C-S
Great! But let's use a combination XSL and RDF (and perhaps XUL) - let's be smart at least in the file format.
What's next? Surfing the net for information? Warez the sinergetic fusion of design and e-commerce?
Buy a Nintendo DS Lite
(please mod this down -1 and Flamebait thank you!)
.NET i mean a lot of gnome developers got so pissed that they wanted to cut off the head of miguel de icaza because of the shit shouting out on reports and other crap.
.NET technology already because they added some more dependencies to it like SOUP.
hello there,
i am mainly gnome user and migrated to gnome 2 some das ago. i must say that doing this was a hard task. i dont want to sound like a troll nor do i want to rant shit but here the problems that occoured:
- you need to install nearly all programming languages available on your system only to get gnome 2 compiled. often you ask yourself 'why?'. example gnome 2 has only 1 python file that is required to get a basic gnome 2 installation. i am no python programmer nor am i interested in python but you are forced to install python to get gnome 2 compiled because that one fucking file requires it. i mean ok gnome is a programming language independant project and i respect it. but if someone wants to code python gnome applications then its ok but i dont need to install it. so the basic target of compiling gnome 2 from CVS terribly sucks, bad planned stuff.
- gnome 2 got a shitload of new libraries and modules that you need to compile its mainly a complete BREAKUP of previous gnome 1 currently the CVS looks more than a warfield than really usable, not to mention all the problems, bugs etc. and if you look at their roadmap then gnome 2 should be done middle of march, this is exactly 30 days from today on (15 Feb. 2002). i doubt and seriously i really doubt that they get a working DESKTOP done until that time. at the end there is no TESTCASE possible.
- gnome 2 development plattform SUCKS yes it suck terrible. well sounds tolling but well lemme explain.
- CVS module A requires autoconf 2.13, automake 1.3 to get the scripts set up correctly.
- CVS module B requires autoconf 2.50, automake 1.4 to get the scripts set up correctly.
- CVS module C requires autoconf 2.52, automake 1.5 to get the scripts set up correctly.
seriously well planned. not to mention that there is no single letter written in the README's or INSTALL files that at least detail the requirements correctly. no you need to play trivia with the configure.in files. not to mention that the buildscripts are so broken at the moment that a lot of autogenerated files must be made manually e.g. make gnome-mokka.h only to get the file.
now result:
if i compare the above stuff with the current CVS of KDE3 and QT3 then i must say 'well it takes some hours to compile but at least it compiles' even the testphase for kde 3 seem to be longer for me than that for gnome 2. i think that after KDE 3 comes finally out its probably the better decission for people who wants a desktop.
issue commercial companies:
attentive readers of gnome mailinglist will find out that a lot of SUN people behave like they were owners of GNOME. e.g. you get strange looking emails from them with directives and orders. example: 'we want this and we want that' sure if they pay fine for gnome then why not. same for ximian and their sick roadmap with
issue evolution:
evolution is a nice pim for gnome, probably the best on the market right now but it has a lot of issues. the new current CVS uses
gnome development community itself:
i havent see so many people on one place that carry their nose that high in the air i wonder how they still see their own road when they walk. hope none of them hit a wall by mistake. mainly patches welcome but stay out of our community. no ? you dont want to stay out ? you are a troll +b !*ruediger*@* (this is a fake ident) but as i always said pride comes before the fall.
gtk 2 matures gnome, the gimp matures gnome:
no not today but i see it comming, all these people hung out on the same channel and influences them. a lot of people dont like desktops and really get pissed by the idea that they cant use simple gtk applications anymore because of the big dependency. well oki yes.. yes... yes you can say, hum install packs i dont care but thats not the point a lot of these people are EXPERTS (well no one is really stupid if he/she decides for linux, so its no need to make people more stupid in the public as they in reality are) besides its a known and most used phrase of the gnome developers "why do you want to compile, a normal user should use RPM's or DEB's".. excuse me isnt it open source ? like SOURCECODE ? like 'i want to tweak' ? so why the fuck does some of the 'usability sun or redhat suckers' come up with that shit ? either help or shut the fuck up.
oki now some sentences to kde:
well i always eye on kde and to say the truth, 'yes kde is more usable' it is better thought, better planned and kde 3 offers programs already that you can use for daily work. look at gnome after the gnome 2 release comes out, then where are the apps ? they still needs to get ported (if not dead already) i mean i have a nice sweat desktop and a shit on it. using nautilus to watch pron pictures all the day is not what i call serious work. kde 3 comes with so many applications, more than my heart can carry. but on the otherhand kde has some sideeffects that makes me avoid using it. e.g. no 'the gimp' i dont like the idea (i am selfspeaking here) to mix widgetsets, thats what i have done 7-8 years back on linux and it made me sick. i want a unified desktop (thats the reason for a desktop) and i want unified applications. now kde offers a lot of applications. but the reason why people more and more decide to use gnome instead of kde is simple because of the gimp and because of the possiblility to hack in 'C'. at least they are my reasons. but neverthless KDE 3 will make it. now why comes that a gnome user says this. its simple because of all the applications.
now i tested gnome 2 what do i get. nothing. the same applications, same gnome utils, some ui refered changes but basically a gnome 1 desktop (nothing new) oki from the coding point of view a lot of shit changed (no doubt) but apps. where are the apps. its the same like buying a xbox with 1 game it makes no fun so i better go for the old well known playstation 2 with 200 games. its simple. not only that kde 3 has a longer roadmap, no there are already so many applications available for it because a lot of people had the time porting it.
you guys on KDE dont need to worry, gnome may become good but it never touches KDE you guys dont only offer KDE on the release day, you also know that people get the applications for it. unfortunately its not the case for GNOME.
as a last sentence, let me tell you (only to clarify the facts) that there is no BROWSER and no MAILCLIENT for GNOME 2. you probably need to sideinstall GNOME 1 to get all your lovely tools operating, but then you must ask yourself WHY ? in this case you better stay on your GNOME 1. i for myself wait until the bitter end of GNOME 2 development until it gets released on 29 MARCH (who ever wants to belive that) and decide then FINAL KDE 3 and FINAL GNOME 2 but from what i can tell now GNOME 2 is somewhere between KDE 1 and KDE 2 but no way compareable to KDE 3. with other words, as it looks now it FINALLY lost.
Let's see... signs 23, 35, and 11... and # 12 is "Hulk Hogan rejoins the WWF"... looks like the end is near to me...
Glückwünsche, haben Sie Slashdot ermordet, indem Sie zum korporativen Druck beugten und Subskriptionen einlei
...that when I bring up the subject of cooperation among similar projects, I'm rated a troll, yet RMS stands before us like a demi-god because he can't seem to figure out what exactly he believes in.
If anyone ever tells you "Don't shoot me, I'm just the messenger" -- shoot him.
Only paranoid people would have such thoughts. We at Microsoft have no reason to use such sleazy tactics.
I saw a suggestion quite a long time ago (I think it was by Jamie Zawinski) that the drawing for widgets should be handled by a 'widget server' rather than the programs themselves.
:-(
Since then, Windows XP has come out, and does something similar with UXTHEME.DLL. To draw a disabled button on previous Windows versions you'd have told it to "draw a filled rectangle with a border round it and put some grey text on it"; on XP, you say "Draw the {background; border; text} for a disabled button".
So all you do is write one GTK+ and one KDE theme that use a widget server to draw their controls, and there you are - unified themes. It still wouldn't make the scrollbars in the NeXTSTEP themes actually behave like proper NeXTSTEP scrollbars though
If I have to reconfigure ONE more window manager to do focus-follows-mouse-sloppily, I'll have to change my email address to chris@loonybin.org.
.wmrc:
I advocate an XML-based prefs format that is shared by many WMs, with less-capable ones simply ignoring the features they can't understand.
In
<keyboard>
<focus>
<follow/>
<sloppy/>
</focus>
<repeat>
<speed value=6 scale=10/>
</repeat>
<clicksound value=false/>
</keyboard>
or something like that.
If KDE and GNOME both strive for the same look and feel, at least as a default, what will this mean for the two desktops in the long run? Most users will most likely keep the default theme that comes with their desktop. What would be the impetus to use one or the other? Perhaps then the desktop that will become the standard will be the one that gets installed by default on the most distros?
The X Clipboard and XDnD are both defined protocols which, unfortunately, Qt2 (and thus KDE2) did not follow. Qt3 does, so hopefully, the clipboard and dnd between Gtk and Qt apps will work correctly.
1. Theme 'unification' possible.
There are various ways to theme KDE. Icon sets,
widget styles, window manager borders...
It's very possible to use identical-looking window decorations - KDE supports IceWM decos, so just use an IceWM theme that's identical to a sawfish theme.
It's also possible to have practically identical-looking widgets, because both KDE and GNOME support pixmap themes for widgets. Note, though, that this requires a little more CPU. Especially GTK pixmap themes seem to make widget redraw sluggish, though perhaps this is fixed now (I haven't tried recently).
Icon sets... easy, and KDE is close to supporting SVG icons, so there's another common format.
The only reason that KDE and GNOME will not ship with identical 'themes' is that I doubt the teams will agree on a common 'theme'. Who knows...
2. RMS talks about ill feeling between GNOME and KDE developers. Rubbish. I don't know of any KDE developers who have anything personal against any GNOME developers. Either GNOME developers have something against KDE developers, and we never noticed, or RMS is just making it up as he goes along, which seems more likely to me.
IT'S ABOUT FUCKING TIME.
Inventing a whole new theme will require a lot of time and arguing about how it should look/work/etc. Don't go there. Instead:
IMHO there should be a GNOME/Gtk theme called "KDE" which exactly mimics the most-default KDE theme, and a KDE/Qt theme called "GNOME" which does vice-versa.
Unless of course this is a stpuid idea, in which case, forget I brought it up...
I'm a bloodsucking fiend! Look at my outfit!
I took it to mean that it would allow gnome.themes.org and kde.themes.org to have the same theme files which when applied change the appearance as the user prefers.
It seems pretty easy to do, and it would make a few people's lives easier too.
Oh hey and the themes.org poll currently has a cowboyneal option too!
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
Right now, KDE has an enormous lead over GNOME with ordinary users. The reason for this is pretty simple: KDE has a unified web/file/desktop browser that is fast, clean, intuitive, and full-featured. Non-technical users, especially prior Windows users, have come to expect this in an interface. They are used to a high degree of object oriented design and a consistent 'look' to the interface. Nautilus is highly lacking in this regard. It is very slow, has clunky web browsing support, is very lacking in basic features / configurability, and does not have a clean unified feel. Because of this, users must switch back and forth between Nautilus and Mozilla/galeon. And Nautilus downright sucks for any sort of GUI file management, thus requiring yet another utility if one desires such functionality. So now you have Nautilus for your desktop icons, Mozilla for web browsing, and something else for file-management. And none of them talk to each other.
In my opinion, if GNOME and KDE want to cooperate in the future, they need to decide on a single object model, a single RPC/IPC mechanism, and a single clipboard system. Judging by KDE's proven success in this area, it only makes sense to use it as the standard rather than break both and start from scratch. Unfortunately, it seems the GNOME people are extremely stubborn about switching to C++. The reason of course, is historical: the old rule of thumb that C is more efficient than C++.. or more accurately, that C++ compilers are slow. This is beginning to change, and no doubt, g++ would be improving much faster if more people were using it.
Or we can just keep going about re-inventing each others' wheels. Pretty silly if you ask me. One other note, the human aspect, is another advantage KDE has. GNOME needs some better unified leadership and goals. Compare, for instance, kdelibs to the dozens of library packages needed to compile GNOME. Having unified releases is a good thing for everyone.
Why?
Nobody is suggesting anyone be locked into these. Nobody is suggesting these be graven into stone never to become v.2 as progress marches on.
What this would do would be provide a common basis for new folks, a baseline for support folks, a universal look for screen-shots and documentation. If along the way some solid UI design were applied, usability testing done and minimal esthetics incorporated then so much the better.
Tweak away, replace, bend, fold, spindle, mutilate. But at least folks who are bewildered and lost could go to a common default and see something reasonable and trivially relate it to the documention or support folks. A simple menu option of "Default" would do wonders and all the better that it be consistant across toolkits.
Of course the next question is "What?" Here's where I think a good process of involving folks who are knowledgable in this area along with things like testing and feedback and skills in UI-standards-making would be incredibly valuable. Nothing against the coders but frankly, and many would agree, many desktops today are bad Windows reimplementations, wannabe-MacOS X looks or terrible pistaches of any number of good-ideas-running-into-eachother. A committee of KDE and Gnome AND others working on a timeline with a budget and a set of goals and opportunity for community feedback would be ideal, something with conflict-resolution built in from the beginning.
And if it stinks up the place it gets ignored. Or fixed in v.2. But at least we'll have taken the chance of a basic common UI gtting a shot and possibly accruing the benefits that would accrue from such. As for those looking to use something different, more innovative, more complex, more suited to them - go right ahead.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Then how about a network clipboard that enable copy/pase functions between unix/linux/windows PCs?
Once you put something in that clipboard it will be accessable to any machine you want to access it from.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
...because if we are then the number one thing that must be resolved is a consistent look and feel for users. Linux will *never* go anywhere on the desktop when one app uses single clicks for something, another uses double clicks, one uses motif l&f another uses redmond. This kind of thing scares users...
Simple, ordinary folk care about consistent (non-scary) desktops... and they are the people who's buy-in you have to get if linux is to make inroads on the desktop.
Having competing standards is fine for uber-hackers who like to mix and match everything they get but uber-hackers shouldn't be who a desktop should be aimed at if you want it to succeed.
Actually, the X has a fairly sophisticated clipboard model, maybe a little bit too sophisticated. [...] Also read this for a backgrounder about clipboard and X: http://www.jwz.org/doc/x-cut-and-paste.html
Gee, that's nice. Care to explain how to make that "sophisticated" clipboard model work with something other than plain text?
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
I don't know about default desktops, but it would be good to have a simple default window manager in placement of twm. From my own experience,has the smallest binary, yet is most featureful of the small window managers. If I recall correctly, it is Gnome compliant or something like that. You can check it out for yourself.
For a newbie, it would be good to install that window manager and let them get used to the way it is. After they get more experience with it, they can install another window manager and/or desktop.
testing out my trending skills
Really? Actually there were many changes into the Mac UI. There were watershed events like the introduction of the Platinum look but along the way many tweaks were rolled out also:
(apologies if I don't know the proper terms)
- Collapsable "Windowshade" widget and action
- Drag-to-a-bottom-tab windows
- Tear-off task switcher
- Pop-open folders for drilling-down
- Navigation Services
- Heirarchical Apple Menu
- The still-born Themes & sound-sets
- The applet-bar (blanking completely on the name)
- Adoption of Alt-Tab for task switching
- The fully keyboard-navigatable desktop
While they weren't jarring in-your-face changes they were all significent changes and certianly not symptomatic of a moribund UI.I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
its easy enough to have emacs respond to vi like commands..it does have an internal lisp interpreter after all. The revers is probably not so easy however which is why i like emacs.
Some day Mozilla will be your OS :)
RMS is calling for this?
Because gnome sucks ass! Unify THIS!
If I wanted one way of doing things.. I'd use windows.. Whne I am running linux.. I WANT several ways of doing things.. thats it strength!
Have either X11 or MacOS or M$win, and of course ISP - and your desktop is with you.
===
Mozilla?
- Unify theme, i.e. Look & Feel, e.g. base on OS X
- Unify component models and/or protocols: KCOP and Bonobo
- Unify APIs, e.g. layer Qt on GTK
but that the idea of producing aBear in mind that moving from C/C++ APIs to a common VM and high-level class library would not just be unification of KDE and GNOME, but would add real, I would say critical, capabilities to Linux app development. To recap some earlier discussions, a VM would:
- Allow cross-(hardware)-platform app distribution, so Linux apps can be installed by normal people without compilers on their PDAs etc.
- Provide a platform that can compete with
.NET and Java in ease of use (GC etc.), reliability (no pointers), security etc.
- Can help unify the scripting languages Python, PERL, not forgetting the various LISPs and Schemes such as Sawfish's LISP engine and RMS's Guile.
Something like Parrot would be a great place to start (it's a JIT compiler as well as interpreter, before all the speed freaks leap on me).This assumes of course that RMS can persuade Miguel away from his attempt to clone everything that comes out of Redmond...
If I said this or most people saying this they would have most likely been ignored.
Good job RMS,
Matt
KDE1 had it's own drag and drop, in KDE2 it uses the same XDnD protocol as gnome. I can drag and drop between konqueror and GTK apps.
The clipboard is fixed in QT3/KDE3
I for one fail to see what so many people are getting worked up about, all he's suggesting is some level of colaboration between the KDE and GNOME projects; which is a perfectly sensible idea imo.
I would love to be able to use which ever evnviroment I wanted, but maintain the overall apperance of desktop, if my gnome apps (such as X-Chat) would pickup the styling of my KDE enviroment (as I am want to use) it would be great.
Co-operation is a good thing, so is standardisation to a certain degree, it doesn't take away your choice, it gives you more, if you could compile your X applications against either KDE or GNOME libs without having to have conditional code things would be a lot easier, you can just pick whichever you wanted to link against; how is that reducing your options?
Why do I get the feeling so many people decide that nothing RMS says can be a good thing and go off half-cocked at the slightest excuse? I don't agree with all his POV's, but at least I'll give credit for when he does something I agree with and try to shoot him down for no reason.
Let the flames and recriminations begin.
Yeah, I had a sig once; I got bored of it.
The main reason for the split, is the widget set dependence of GNOME and KDE. Until this issue is resolved, deeper interoperability issues won't likely be resolved.
You *should* be able to use Qt write a complete GNOME application that obeys GNOMEs theming rules, uses Bonobo, GConf and other GNOME technologies.
You *should* be able to use Gtk+ write a complete KDE application that obeys KDE's theming rules, uses KParts, DCOP and other KDE technologies.
Yes, it may be *easier* to write KDE applications with Qt, and GNOME applications with Gtk+, each desktop/platform shouldn't be *tied* to these widget sets.
That's not the way it works now. At the moment, I believe that GNOME's technologies (at least the one's in GNOME 2) are more decoupled from the widget set than KDE's. For instance, it's possible to write a Qt application that uses GConf2, Orbit2, GStreamer, and Bonobo2 without linking in any Gtk+. If you *really* work at it, you should also be able to integrate with GNOME's accessibility framework by hooking Qt components to the appropriate ATK+ options. That's a fair chunk of GNOME already. But there are many other GNOME features that Qt applications can't take advantage of.
it is there for a reason. that is real copy/pasting. heck, if you want to copy and paste images, well that doesnt work right all the time in windows either. the only OS that has ever had a REALLY good clipboard implementation is MacOS...but I hate macos... so ;)
When Qt didn't use my specific licence, KDE was a danger to the community.
He could have at least read the previous licences that were not the GPL, but that would have been a waste of his time - anything that he isn't in control of is a danger. Now at least he can focus on real problems instead of inventing a bogeyman.
I admire his effort to reconcile the emnity that he helped to stir up (and has almost entirely disappeared anyway), but I don't admire the way he tries to justify what he did in the same message - he has to point out that they were a danger and he saved the world from a bunch of guys from Norway that would let you look at and change their source code. This "we won, lets work with KDE" message may have been appropriate within a year or two of Qt going GPL, but now it just looks like he's trying to remind the world of a personal victory (athough I'm sure other less stubborn people were the ones that convinced Troll that they could GPL Qt and still get enough money to eat).
This is an opinion. He wrote what he wrote and he knows why, I can only assume and point out my assumptions, and I'll keep doing it for as long as he wants to be in charge of other peoples projects. Perhaps Gnome and KDE should work together on some things, but I think they should both remain indepenant in their core projects. I don't think a monoculture is the way to go, or even identical look and feel (the suggestion by RMS of compatable themes).
KDE has supported GTK themes for a long time now.
t ml
http://www.kde.org/announcements/k3c-announce.h
In addition to native KDE2 themes, we are pleased to announce that KDE now supports pixmap GTK themes. For importing a GTK theme into KDE, you just need to use the 'klegacyimport' wizard, available as a little standalone GUI application. However, while GTK themes are displayed faster and more efficiently than even native GTK itself, we do not recommend using this format for creating new themes. Theme developers should prefer KDE2's native widget theming which yields superior results both in terms of quality and speed. A nice HowTo and some documentation on KDE2 theming is available here.
The change in RMS's voice was astounding. Suddenly it became menacing, powerful, harsh as stone. A shadow seemed to pass over the high Sun, and the porch for a moment grew dark. All trembled, and the Gnomes stopped their ears.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Uraeus linuxrising org:
> And as the free software saying goes,
> a itch that don't itch a developer,
> doesn't get scratched.
RMS:
That was said by Eric Raymond who belongs to another movement, and it reflects the spirit of that movement. The spirit of the free software movement is to do projects because they are important for the community and for our freedom. They don't have to "scratch an itch".
Is this really an accurate portrayal of (one of) the differences between "open source" and FSF sanctioned free software? Open source developers are out to do what's best for themselves (and maybe helping out others as a by-product by releasing their code), while free software developers are motivated only by love of their fellow (hu)man. I'm not really heavily involved in either development community, and didn't realize that there was such a sharp divide (if it actually exists outside of RMS head). Can some free software/open source developer types weigh in on this? Why do you write code?
Commom Desktop Enviroment
Seems to have something to do with him not being voted onto the GNOME board. If you read this interview http://www.fosdem.org/interviews/1696.html ... my favorite Q and A
RB - What is your reaction to your non-election for the Gnome board ?
RMS - I think I will do better next year. In response to my candidacy, some people launched flaming attacks while others said that I was impossible to work with. By responding calmly, not sinking to the same level, and sticking to the issues that matter rather than personal ones, I showed as well as said that they were wrong.
I think RMS is going to start kissing a little more ass so he can make the public's perception of him positive. In other words RMS is going to become a politician of sorts. I personally think RMS is funny - and you have to respect the man because he never gives in on his beliefs. Not that those beliefs are always right. Anyway, this is just one of those things that he's pushing for so when he's running for the GNOME board or whatever they're called he can say "Hey I helped bridge that gap".
Just a thought
Why stop at Gnome and KDE. Why can't we make the theme engine work for java, tk, fltk, Motif(Choose any free implementation), Athena, Xaw, Etc. Providing a unified look, although not always a unified feel for all the applications.
I get the feeling that KDE theming is more advanced so should be used as the starting point for the theming engine. I believe KDE themes are based on replacable theme engines(libraries) instead of images sets, different drawing libraries allow a large number of color combinations to be choosen, and be applied to almost any theme. Correct me if I am wrong on this points
There should be a choice of C or C++ (Maybe even Java) theme libraries. This will make both C and C++ programmers happy.
This way we can have a consistent look without being forced to use the same languages, or libraries. After having a unified theme, further integration such as file dialogs, drag and drop, file system abstraction can be open to discussion.
What's the point of themes? In fact, what's the point of KDE or GNOME? In my experience, they just drain resources. I use xfce, no complaints.
STL. STL. STL. And I'll say it again, STL.
G++'s STL blows. It's so substandard that it borders on the unusable. Take the vector<> as an example. One of the big wins with vector<> is that it can be used as a bounds-checked array. All you have to do is use the appropriate method--or derive a class off of vector<> and override operator[] appropriately--and stack smashes are a thing of the past.
Whoops. G++'s STL doesn't support the vector.at() method, which is necessary for bounds-checking.
There are all sorts of substandard crap in the standard G++ STL. It's gotten to the point where I've flat-out given up on G++'s STL, and am using STLport 4.5.3 instead.
If you want to improve my C++ experience, pay attention to the STL.
"....we had to attack it [KDE] to make people aware of the threat"
The attacks were vehement, nasty and for the most part unwarranted. I never saw KDE as a "threat" and considering it a threat did nothing but waste a lot of energy (IMHO). Especially considering where the software was headed and the fact that EVERYONE KNEW that QT would have an open source license eventually.
While I endorse the idea of some interoperability I tend to take a step back and look for other motives. Members of the KDE team have long tried to get some interoperability between the 2 desktops and were repeatedly rebuffed. It's a nice idea, but considering some of the mudslinging thats gone on over the past few years, I'm with holding judgment.
Hopefully the axe is buried, considering there are some admin's out there running open relays because it was the right thing to do in 1990, I expect to see it dug up a few more times. That's the problem with religious wars where you unfairly vilify the enemy it makes it hard to work with them when they are on your side. I'm glad some people are starting to consider the big picture.
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
Why does everyone quote Stallan? He's a hothead who would rather quibble than write code. The best thing would be to ignore this man. I think free software under the GPL license is a good idea and has many proper applications, but why do we care about Stallman's latest petty outburst?
Admire people not for their big mouths, but for their merits.
The best possible route for Linux is to have KDE and GNOME apps perfectly interoperate, but compete on esthetics, quality, documentation, and everything else. Using a common look will accomplish almost nothing, and will even be counterproductive if it just adds to user frustration over apps that don't behave completely as expected.
The native widget look is merely emulated by Qt. In fact, you can change the look at runtime to Motif, Windows, whatever. You could change UNIX/Windows' Qt look to resemble Mac as well if not for a copyright by Apple on Aqua.
hey imagine the wonderful results we would get if we get that nifty fast little rox filer into the whole foray.. just how Mac OSX like we can make our desktops...
The fact is both GNOME and KDE should stop trying to mimic MS windows...
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
"Don't feed the troll"...
Just look at his username. What good can one get discussing anything with such people?
On the other hand, as a Linux desktop user (Mandrake 8.1 but seriously considering Suse), I would say that you are going a bit too far when you say Linux is easier to use than Windows.
For a very special kind of user, the kind you have to baby-sit be them on Windows, Linux or Mac, maybe. But I would really love to have everything working from the start.
Installation should tell me "Look pal, we don't support your funny soundcard, go buy something usable". Which I eventually did, but I shouldn't have to cope with a system that thinks some sound is being played when it isn't.
Apart from StarOffice, and I hate 5.2, all other pseudo-Word software couldn't cope with lightly formatted Word files.
But then there is development, and Linux is a far superior, controllable platform if you know what you after. And of course, Mozilla gets better each night.
I guess what I am trying to say is that Linux today is not always the best solution for the desktop, but it is amazing how far it came in, say, two years (if memory serves, two years ago it was still quite easy to burn a monitor misconfiguring X during installation - today distros will configure it automatically). I believe that Microsoft is even lending a hand, by changing its licensing policy. The corporate world will be looking very hard at Linux for their millions of desktops.
But there is still a long way to go before Linux desktops can show the maturity one sees in MacOS X, for instance.
He started the Free Software movement and deserves plenty of credit.
We love you Richard!
Now there's some of that world-famous "Linux Community Spirit" (tm) that we've all read so much about.
People like you people never learn, do you?
This chunk of code works just fine for me, in gcc 3.0.2. The problems have already been addressed. 2.95's STL did slightly suck, but 3.0.2's is fine --- not that 2.95's was even unusably bad.
std::vector<int> foo(1);
foo.at(0)=1;
printf("%d\n", foo.at(0));
Version after version, distro after distro, app after app, I still don't have a unified clipboard to simply copy and paste between apps.
Give me a unified clipboard, or give me death.
Hell, they got Mr Perfect back :)
Thanks to GNOME and KDE. I don't use them, but they look all windowy and stuff so slow people will probably love it. Everyone should help add more GUIs. I mean.. using keyboards is complicated and school is dont teech good much. One day.. anyone, no matter what their crack intake will be able to operate Linux. My ex wife would really appreciate that. Thanks again!
That's old history now, but people should know that RMS didn't go storming off at the first sign of conflict.
It may have been mentioned before, but the real reason is that RMS can't stand to not have the FSF in charge of anything that has the GPL as a license and is also successful.
This is NOT flamebait, it's the truth, at least as I see it. When a GPL'd project is unsuccessful or new, RMS dismisses it along the lines of "this will substitute until we finish" whatever. When it becomes successful he's right there trying to claim it. Such as the whole GNU/Linux thing. I hate to break it, but GNU got a boost with Linux, not Linux a boost with GNU. It could have just as been the BSD tools that ended up in the first Linux distros, and there are still people working toward a "low-GPL" linux distro.
What RMS is looking for here is a merge, or a way to give the edge to GNOME.
Don't get me wrong, GNOME is a great project, but so is KDE, and we NEED this competition. It's necessary for innovation, and we should NOT let RMS mangle KDE into one of the FSF's projects.
My question is, when he fails to get control of KDE in this way, will he instead insist on calling it GNU/KDE because it builds on top of GNU tools?
Don't moderate me flamebait because you disagree with my opinion. You'd do better to rebut my argument instead.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
I never got to play with NeXTSTEP; how does it's scrollbars work differently from most?
I've just bought my first Mac, and love OS X. I wish I could get my hands on a copy of OpenStep to play with on some old hardware I have laying about...
yawn...
zzzZZZzzz,
clone304
I agree that RMS's position is consistent.
I, for one, would love to have a unified desktop look/feel for Linux. For us "geeks", having many choices and dealing with mouse clicks, clipboard etc not working between different apps may be all right, but it is a real hindrance to Linux being accepted by the wider masses.
This, and an earlier topic about standard configuration files will be what brings Linux into the regular, run-of-the-mill business and home use.
A unified, inter-working GNOME/KDE would give me the best of both worlds on the desktop. I recently looked into mixing and matching: This is an international location and KDE's intl support simply rocks, but I was seriously looking into evolution + mozilla + KDE (windows skin) for some Windows replacement desktops in a business. They just did not go that well together.
If OpenOffice + KDE + mozilla + evolution + a few Gnome apps can be made to work beautifully, you have a serious desktop replacement. I'd like to be able to mix and match in this fashion and not have to explain why things look different and why clipboard works in some, does not work across other apps.
If anything, there are too many standards.
;)
Too many APIs, yes, I would agree.
Standards? No. I think the last attempt at standardizing X toolkits was Motif/CDE.
it would be hypocritical for communities founded on freedom and openness to embrace the principles of oppression and design by fiat which underlie your suggestions.
So standards and guidelines are fascist now?
Whatever. If oppressive standards build things like global networks, I'll be happily oppressed.
If a system has a dozen redundant modules, then any bloat is the administator's fault - he or she did not remove the extra ones
How is having at least 4 ways[1] to create a pushbutton object "the administrator's fault"?
It's not like I can take gtk_create_pushbutton()[2] from the GTK library and replace it with Qt::Button or somesuch and expect the GTK program to run.
Perhaps you are thinking of the associated pixmap libraries or desktop environment libraries.
Well, they're kinda, like, required for most every app, so of course I included them.
That you can run them alongside one another is only meant to be a charming illustration of the community spirit and excellent engineering at work.
Excellent engineering.
That's why programs crash when you try to do complex things like "paste".
This isn't engineering, engineering implies well thought out design.
C-X C-S
[1] Gtk, Qt, Motif, Athena... (Fltk, FOX, OpenLook, Tk, XForms, WxWindows...)
[2] If that were a real GTK call, it'd be about 35 characters longer.
Quick example. Let's say I write an application that uses an *.ini style config file. There are a number of generic function calls that I'm going to want to make through the program, one of which might be readconfig(file*,parser*,confdata*). The challenge is coming up with something simple enough to make it easy to use while flexible enough to support structured data trees.
Disclaimer: I haven't put a whole lot of thought into this. Such a level of API may be useful, but in some cases may not be pratical to implement. Regardless, it is a fun problem to stew over.
assert(expired(knowledge));
Just kidding, this is a great idea.
Three cheers for RMS, hip hip hooray, hip hip hooray, hip hip hooray!
Could be a good idea, but the problem might be that because of the fact both have to follow that standard, innovation will decrease. Not that that's really an issue. Both Gnome and KDE are copying existing desktops anyway. Sure... some cool functionality is added, but the desktop isn't really innovative. Seems like more and more OSS is just copying and not creating (there are exceptions ofcourse). And if you have to please the average desktop user, copy the drop-shadow, have real transparency etc, not some ugly hacks. Because that's part of what makes other OS's popular. It looks smooth... and consistent... hm
grow up.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
There are several exciting theme systems out there now: both PicoGUI's theme system and Enlightenment's Ebits are theme systems based on a database, capable of storing data for the windowing system, the widget toolkit, and all the applications. If a system like this were implemented in the major GUI toolkits and window managers on the desktop, it should give a way for all applications, toolkits, and window managers to be consistant and completely under the user's control.
-- 2 + 2 = 5, for very large values of 2
Yeah right, this all smells familiar.
He's done it with the GNU/Linux thing now he wants
a piece of the KDE pie.
Doesn't a certain other company offer useful ideas
like this then take over once every one does what
they want?
Keep KDE and Gnome seperate I say.
Competition is good and healthy.
People need a choice.
Anyway, just unifying the themes isn't going to
bring around any sudden flashes of inspiration
is it?
Apparently the kde-look.org guys are at it too... (link goes to GTK area of kde-look.org)
Yeh, designing the be-all, end-all interface would only take about a year for a group of hobbyists, wouldn't it? Because basically, all that UI-design stuff is just art fag stuff which is no problem for "hackers" who are "often highly creative artistically" ([c] Eric Raymond). Those psychologists, ergonomists and designers can't be contributing anything interesting, because they don't have computer science degrees. Hell, "psychology" even sounds like it might be a liberal art! All that's needed is for some "engineers" to set up a mailing list and swap ideas and soon we'll have something much better than the Mac. I mean, c'mon people, this isn't exactly kernel hacking.
Bill Gates must love hopelessly overambitious, ill-thought-out "conquer the desktop" efforts like these.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
QPL was a Free (as defined by the FSF) license, just not GPL-compatible
I can't believe how well Hogan sold that Rock Bottom last night. He might actually want to perform again. Chanc is right. It is the apocalypse.
Yes, in this whole GNOME vs. KDE thing, what get's lost in the shuffle is that both groups of developers really don't have much of a background in usability design and both make a lot of GUI design faux pas on the basis of "Microsoft does it, so it has to be good". People who actually know about designing usable interfaces know that, contrary to popular belief in the linux community, Microsoft is one of the most profoundly incompetant companies on the planet when it comes to designing usable interfaces. They just keep doing so many stupid things. And they can get away with it for exactly the same reason they can get away with all those bugs and security holes: when you've got a monopoly and the hearts and minds of hundreds of thousands of dim-witted CEO's and IT managers, you can do close to anything you want.
Back to the GNOME and KDE, I seriously doubt that either most GNOME or KDE hackers know what Fitts' Law is, and many would say "bullshit" or "it's a matter of opinion" if you tried to intelligently explain it to them. In the current open source desktop movements, there's an amount of stupidity and unknowledgableness that would never be tolerated with something considered as sacred at "the kernel". It's a double standard, really.
Of course, the beauty of open source is that if something does something really really stupid, you can fork of their project and do your own non-stupid thing.
KDE is OBVIOUSLY better because it's made by annoying Europeans. Boy they sure can code over there, in between jaunts down to the local hash shop!
That explains why Linux dominates netcraft's longest uptimes list. NOT!
The QPL was not the original licence. QPL didn't come along until 1999. The original Qt licence is very non-free - there are restrictions on even using it to create (not distribute) software, there are special restrictions if you're getting paid to develop software, and so on.
However, even with QPL the problem still exisited that a lot of KDE code was released under the GPL, and the authors hadn't explicitly allowed linking with non-GPLed code. That was RMS's concern from the QPL until until the GPL dual licencing.
Please try to get your facts straight. Five minutes with Google can keep you from looking like a fool.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
What about bonobo? Shouldnt someone implement
bonobo in KDE ? Possibly replacing KParts?
Would have been great if gnome gained access
to e.g. khtml, and kde gained access to all the
existing bonobo components!
I can think of many areas of cooperation between Gnome and KDE -- and themes are pretty low on that list. This isn't a troll, but an honest question: What's so important about themes?
My computers are for programming, writing, and web browsing; why would I waste CPU time and memory on fancy wallpapers and pretty rounded corners and all this "stuff" that fascinates some people so much? If I want pretty pictures, I'll frame'm on the wall, where I can see them when the computer is off!
Can someone explain theme-mania to me, please?
All about me
QT has a wrong implementation by only using the PRIMAIRY atom.
This will be fixed in QT 3.0.
In the mean time, what's so difficult about selecting something and then use the middle mousebutton?
That works fine between all apps, QT, GTK, Motif...
It works, and I get pretty fast downloads depending on which server I use.
I use a local mirror and I get download speeds of about 120 kb/sec.
Oh wait, it's created by Ximian.
I guess that makes Red Carpet evil huh?
The standard is defined right here:l
http://www.jwz.org/doc/x-cut-and-paste.htm
*There is no "my version of the right thing"!*
"Ultimately, the right thing in X is to support the X clipboard - everything else is an extension."
GNOME *is* using the X clipboard...
...I need some one to blame!!
.NET, I mean, mono.
KDE is my historical uber-enemy !!!
Ohh almost forgot, I still have
buaaaaaaaahahahahhaaaa
We are Turing O-Machines. The Oracle is out there.
> In the mean time, what's so difficult about
> selecting something and then use the middle
> mousebutton?
> That works fine between all apps, QT, GTK,
> Motif...
Don't be an ass -- if an application supports Ctrl-C clipping and Ctrl-V pasting it's highly annoying that doing so won't work between applications. There is no excuse (maybe a reason, but no excuse) for such behavior. Besides, on my Toshiba laptop three-button emulation sucks (completely unnatural figer position to click both button strips) and I have YET to find a Linux setting to make use of my scroll buttons(the enhanced middle button that is split into two strips on my laptop: Scroll Up, Scroll Down).
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
OK, then select a piece of text in an GTK+ app and press CTRL+V in a QT app.
Works fine here.
Yes that IS a good excuse, because it WORKS.
wasting everybody's time with eye candy....
Do you actually *use* KDE and Mozilla together? If you did you'd quickly realize that what you just suggested is the reason for my frustration; ergo, complaint.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
peace and goodwill
What, am I to assume that you think Windows has this? You are seriously deluded if you think *any* software vendor gives you 24/7 tech support unless you have a credit card in your hand when you call.
if we're going to standardize, it would be a good idea to eliminate uncessary ambiguity in the interface by standardizing on a Single Menubar.
reasons: http://home.earthlink.net/~johnrpenner/Articles/S
I might actually use mozilla if it would properly integrate into my system. It has its own look, theme, etc, that is at TOTAL odds to all my other apps.
If they could fix the clipboard crap, they should also fix the Mozilla-in-its-own-theme-world crap too.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
I think that there is no doubt that being able to have multiple desktop environments is a good thing. What is good for one person, is not good for another. And the ability to provide an environment that appropriate for the user is an advantage that Linux has over windoze. But perhaps we need a common platform (beneath both QT and GTK and whatever) that provides "desktop environment services" to the above environment(s). The services would include things that make the user experience a little bit more seamless if they are using apps from the two environments (which I *do* think happens a lot). So I mean things like clipboard services, themes (as according to rms), hotkeys, etc. I am sure that it is possible to define such a layer in such a way that developers of the above environments can inovate to their hearts content. Besides, I love layers! :)
You don't use an excellent web browser because it look funny?!
One somewhat-major problem in user interface standards is the fact that each toolkit has to rewrite the entire look and feel of the user interface, because X only provides basic graphic operations. Adoption of a user interface manager instead of a graphics manager like X would consolidate many of these issues, while still allowing the user to customize the look and feel of the the entire system. An example of a project to accomplish this is Berlin. Berlin is not finished, but the concepts and design are there, and a good deal of code, and with the help of some good coders the project could be advanced to a usable state in no time.
Yes, I use Mozilla as my standard browser. ALL cut & paste actions work fine.
I don't see why you have so many problems.
This is ironic... in the Windows world people use all kinds of alternative programs BECAUSE they look different, and in Linux people don't use programs because they look different...
I don't normally use mozilla because:
1) it is STILL huge.
2) I select a KDE theme and style because I want and like my system to look a certain way - that I set it to look like. Mozilla ignores this.
This is how M$ wrongly handles things. On Mac OS, for instance, all PROPER Mac apps look the same. Their scrollbar buttons are all consistent and PROPERLY placed together at the bottom right of any window. No unnecessary and stupid mouse dancing to select the a scroll arrow. In comes IE on the Mac, done ALL wrong with the damn buttons all over bejesus - scroll buttons top and bottom like some retard designed it and no way to correct it.
If a user on a Mac, Windoze, or Linux sets up a theme/style, then all apps that want to play there should obey the user's designs. The USER knows better how things should behave and work on their computer...not the coder.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
you are a troll
That's because Mozilla is more than a browser. It's a complete cross-platform framework.
Mozilla doesn't use QT, and therebefore doesn't look like a QT app.
Why don't you look for a Mozilla theme that looks like KDE?
Perhaps it SHOULD use QT (and GTK and anything else too). The GUI should be totally separate and divorced from what it does internally. Let there be multiple frontends with the same core. A UI isn't the app, it is just the means of communicating with the app.
This is one of the areas where M$ goes wrong.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
there's already a standard desktop and theme format for Linux ... http://www.afterstep.org
GCC 3.0 has been out for almost a year. All the problems you mention have long, long since been solved. Among other things, the library was completely rewritten (the old library predates the standard).
You're using version 2. Version 2's library was written before they finished tweaking the C++ Standard. So you blame the GCC people for not being able to tell the future?
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
The version I heard was that for a particularly esoteric set of multiple inheritances, GCC would produce incorrect code. I haven't verified this myself, though, so I can't contradict you at all.