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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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
RMS wrote: When Qt was non-free, KDE was a danger to the community
... I don't think a monoculture is the way to go
The way I read it as, not having been under a rock for the last decade is: When Qt didn't use my specific licence, KDE was a danger to the community.
He meant exactly what he said. Part of communication is understanding where the other person is coming from, and not taking potshots at others because they believe in different things than you. RMS believes that it's important that people use all Free software, and a huge project of Free software that depended on non-Free software was a threat to that. He did what he felt he had to; deal.
I'll keep doing it for as long as he wants to be in charge of other peoples projects.
Why, when RMS makes comments on what direction GNOME and KDE should go, "he wants to be in charge", but you can make all the comments you want? He has the right to make his opinion known, as do you, and people can listen or not as they want.
"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.
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.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
I take it you don't do alot of Windows development. COM most certainly does not always work, and when it fails it isn't terribly helpful at finding the problem. DirectX is extremely dependent upon independent hardware developers to provide high quality drivers, a task they're not all up to. As for the Win32 API, there are multiple versions with many incompatibilities. You might find Microsoft's list of incompatibilities between versions of Windows interesting reading.
Possibly moving the focused windows up to the top edge so that they are joined onto the menubar, or some kind of hysteresis so that if you drag fast enough across the gap the focus does not change, or some idea nobody has thought of, would solve this. But until somebody does this I doubt you will see much interest in top-of-screen menubars from either the Linux or Windows advanced programmers.