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Richard Stallman On KDE/GNOME Cooperation

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the getting-along-is-the-whole-point dept.

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."

2 of 391 comments (clear)

  1. Might be a good idea by koh · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
  2. Re:To Hell with RMS by BlaisePascal · · Score: 5, Insightful
    That's not a fair reading, in my opinion.


    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.