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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 know RMS. He explained the situation to me.
See... he was sitting at home doing bong hits when this earwig crawled out of his beard and whispered in his ear "kde and gnome...kde and gnome...one and the same...make it so."
I think the answer to your last question can be summed up in one word. Ego.
Yes ego. It's not just for the criminally monopolists =)
He wasn't just part of it, he WAS it. This asshole believes he is the god of all things free, and when people don't do what he says he gets all upset. The Free Software movement needs RMS for his uncompromising attitude - but at the same time is handicapped by RMS' uncompromising attitude.
He convinces those who don't need convincing, and he drives away those that do need convincing. In the long term I'm not convinced the costs outweight the benefits of allowing this giant ego to dominate the future of Linux.
He started the Free Software movement and deserves plenty of credit.
We love you Richard!
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.
Reports are that he died from complications resulting from "Richard Stallman On KDE/GNOME Cooperation". Truly a internet icon. He will be missed :(
Confronting the KDE propaganda machine.
The KDE project is famous for its funded and organised trolling of weblogs and message board associated with Linux and Free software/open source. Outrageous newbie impressing claims are made for the software and huge quanities of FUD are spread to destroy competitors. If this sounds familiar, then you are correct, most of these tactics were lifted straight from Microsoft's arsenal of dirty tricks. The Windows look and feel is not the only thing the KDE project has copied! In this short article I will address some of the lies and FUD spread by the KDE trolling teams. It is my hope that this, in some small way, will redress the balance and re-introduce two things almost eradicated by the KDE project: Honesty and facts.
The oft-heard cry of the noisiest KDE advocates. No explanation is given, the reader is expected to simply grok the wholesomeness of KDE and the lack of this mystical quality in GNOME. It is nonsense of course. Neither desktop is particularly "integrated" compared to Windows XP, and certainly not compared any version of the Apple Mac. Whatever "integrated" actually means.
Again, such nebulous arguments are never explained, and the reader is expected to simply understand the truth of the zealots statement. Both KDE and GNOME have user-interface irritations (all systems do), but "ease of use" is not a simple thing to measure. KDE has never been subjected to detailed user testing, unlike GNOME, and the claims of user-friendliness are from crazed supporters and not average users. Furthermore, the KDE faithful rarely look beyond simple-minded copying of Windows, and forget that administering a desktop system is just as important as having widgets in the correct place on the toolbar. For example: What about application installation and removal? GNOME has the excellent RedCarpet by Ximian, which makes the installation, removal and updating of applications trivial. KDE users are expected to fend for themselves with brutal command line driven systems. GNOME also has the excellent Ximian setup tools to handle various tricky cross-platform and potentially risky system configuration operations. KDE offers none of this, only a few small half-assed Linux-only tools, which make no attempt at check-pointing to return to known working configurations.
In what sense? Arguably more people use KDE, but it is a close run thing. Most KDE zealots use the results of online polls as proof of their superior userbase - which is, quite frankly, complete and utter nonsense. Online polls are the joke of the century; it doesn't even require a motivated script kiddie to render then worthless. A single post alerting the faithful on a zealot-ridden site can skew the result so much it makes American presidential elections look fair and well organised. Popularity is also difficult to measure when *both* GNOME and KDE are frequently installed on the same system. The systems can co-exist and even run at the same time, except for certain applications such as panels. Many KDE users actually run GNOME applications for their superior features and stability, not realising that by doing so they are barely running KDE at all.
One of the few solid measures of popularity is commercial use of a desktop, and here, GNOME is far ahead with both Hewlett Packard and Sun committing to using GNOME as the desktop for their Unix systems. This also ties in with the previously mentioned ease of use. Sun's major contribution to the GNOME project is in the areas of user/developer documentation, testing, accessiblity and user-testing. Three of the less glamourous parts of desktop development. The arrival of the GNOME 2.x series will see these contributions reach fruitition and allow GNOME to make a quantum leap ahead of KDE in most of the basic computer/user issues.
Oh for a penny every time this lie is told in any KDE story! Konqueror not a bad piece of software. It's authors deserve praise for the work done on it. However, the sheer amount of orgasmic gushing by the KDE faithful is completely out of proportion to its actual quality. It is quite unreliable and even simple standards compliant pages can crash it quite comprehensively. It is also lax in its support of basic web standards compared to either Mozilla or Opera. It is also extremely slow - much slower than the latest incarnations of the GNOME Nautilus filemanager/browser (a target of much KDE FUD during its development).
See also: Qt/TrollTech. This is the most common wail heard by KDE developers, and yet it is easily disproved by looking at the actual applications for GNOME/GTK and KDE/Qt. KDE applications often have larger version numbers than GNOME ones... an old trick played by commerical software developers. Most KDE apps seem to jump for 1.x releases long before they are ready - KOffice being the best example. None of the components in Koffice are worthy of a 1.0 release, let alone 1.1 or 1.2.
GNOME applications get much more testing in their 0.x stages and despite shorter development phases they mature and reach stable featureful release states much more quickly. Some examples of this are: the superb Evolution (groupware/email), Gnumeric (spreadsheet), Pan (newsreader), The GIMP (image manipulation), Abiword (word processing), RedCarpet, X-Chat (IRC client), XMMS (media player), Galeon (web browser), and for developers: Glade and Anjuta. All of these packages ooze quality, and far outclass their KDE counterparts. It is no understatement to say that GNOME is at least 18 months ahead of KDE in applications, and pulling still further ahead.
It's not only in the area of user applications that GNOME is vastly more advanced. With the forthcoming 2.x release, a number of impressive behind the scenes technologies will finally mature: component technology (bonobo), media (Gstreamer), internationalisation (pango). As a developement platform, GNOME 2.x is, conservatively, 2-3 years ahead of KDE. And what is more, because it is not tied to a lowest common denominator cross-platform bloat-fest like the Qt toolkit, the lead (as with applications) can only increase further.
It is also worth noting that GNOME also develops code for use outside the project (see the XML libraries as one example) - the KDE project rarely (if ever) engages in this kind of work. KDE developers ensure that all software must link with Qt, and hence tie it closely with the Qt toolkit preventing re-use and enhancing the value of TrollTech intellectual property.
Yet despite all this, we are still regularly fed the lie that Qt and C++ makes application and desktop development easier. Judge for yourself.
KDE is written in C++. While this is not necessarily a problem, it can be when Visual Basic reject programmers (which the KDE project is overrun with) do not know enough to avoid important pitfalls that plague C++ software projects. Stupid use of autoincrementing operators and iteration with C++ objects; and masses of unnecessary allocations and deallocations of memory are two of the most common. KDE suffers badly from both problems.
Perhaps the most cretinous of all problems is blaming the extremely slow startup times of KDE apps on GCC. The GNOME 1.x releases were hardly svelt (2.x fixes many of these issues), but GNOME is a fashion cat-walk superwaif when compared to KDE's 500lb fat-momma cheese-burger scoffing trailer trash. One need only look at the recent fuss over ugly KDE hacks (such as prelinking) used to bandage up the design and coding flaws in the decrepit KDE architecture to see the truth.
Fundamental misunderstanding. The KDE project releases as one big lump of code due to its use of C++ and the many problems this causes with libraries. The project bumps the version number of the entire KDE system for the smallest modifications. GNOME, on the other hand is componentized and each component releases on a (almost) separate schedule, bumping it's own version number but not the main GNOME version (1.4, for example). Occasional releases of the entire GNOME system happen, and that's when the GNOME version number is bumped (currently it is at 1.4). To see this in action, use RedCarpet and you will regular updates to GNOME components. GNOME development is not slower, it is in fact faster and more advanced. Lamers and newbies, however, fail to understand the advantages of this method and just see KDE 1.1.1 followed a few weeks later by KDE 1.1.2. Wow! KDE roolz.
The Qt toolkit (the software at the heart of KDE) is supposedly a cross-platform toolkit allowing the lucky developer the opportunity to write Windows/Linux/Mac software all at once. And yet, among the magical mythical claims made, the most nonsensical is that it makes applications which take advantage of the distinct features of the different platforms. This is of course, nonsense. Qt is a bloated, slow layer that is slapped over a native system's APIs in an attempt to make all the systems look alike. It no more takes advantage of Linux/Windows/Mac than Java does - in fact it offers many of the disadvantages of Java with few of the advantages. If you have ever wondered why the KDE desktop looks so much like Windows... you need look no further than Qt. Qt is a lowest common denominator toolkit, and that LCD is Windows - Trolltech's, the creator of Qt, real market.
To Be Written. Ideas: Qt started out as non-Free. KDE developers knew this violated the GPL, didn't care, stole others' GPL code by porting it to link (in violation of the license) with Qt and are therefore untrustworthy. KDE core developers work for TrollTech. Expensive per developer licensing for writing closed-source with Qt, and hence KDE. Trolltech only moved towards the GPL because of the success of GNOME. Labyrinthine licensing nightmare (3 licenses to deal with). Gradual migration of features belonging in KDE into Qt (and so into TrollTech's IP portfolio), allowing easy porting of apps to the revenue generating Windows world (see TheKompany for a perfect example), thereby making KDE an irrelevant launcher of Qt applications. Claims made that Qt is GPL, while true, hide the real truth. There cannot be a real fork of Qt for the KDE project: Core developers work for Trolltech; any fork would need to be full GPL and hence ban any closed-source apps from KDE altogether (all KDE apps must link with Qt); Any commerical licensees of Qt (non-GPL) would and could only follow TrollTech. KDE is stitched up good and proper.
To be Written. Ideas: Mosfet liquid theme is an ugly and unstable hack. GNOME GTk icons are better thought-out and of a far higher quality than the poorly drawn and cartoonish and confusing KDE ones. Qt is basically a Windows-look on a Unix platform.
Pika je prekrasan dio tijela, finta je u djeliminom brijanju. Ako je zarasla, izgleda odvratno, a nije fina ni kad je skroz elava. Ja volim lizati finu, istu, djelimino obrijanu piku.
Kurac, pika, govno, sisa!
Kurac, pika, govno, sisa!
Kurac, pika, govno, sisa!
Kurac, pika, govno, sisa!
Wow! Let me... uhm... use this opportunity to illustrate that it is elitists like you that will ensure till the end of time that Linux will never succeed on the desktop.
/. all week. But since you elitists/purists/whatever tend to have only one opinion, you are hindering your own success.
.config file in /etc to change their word processor's font size, they should pack up their computer back into its original box and slap a "return to sender" label on the box.
The parent to yours was probably the most insightful thing I read on
Linux, in order to gain even desktop acceptance, needs all the features listed and more. Looking to Hell and back for an obscure HOWTO isn't help. Help is help, not HOWTOs, get it? Typing apt-get doesn't qualify as updating. It's crap. You need a Windows-Update lookalike to succeed.
You people remind me of that quote by Mike Myers, "Welcome to all things Scottish... where our motto is, 'If it's not Scottish, it's CRAP!'" If you want to lead to your own demise, by my guest.
Judging from your low user number, there is no changing you. Your primary concern is not for the success of Linux, it's to "keep away those stupid users." You're probably the real-life version of SNL's "Nick Burns, the company computer guy." You probably thing that if someone isn't willing to use vi to edit a
Grow up. Get a life. You are the perfect example of why Linux will never succeed on the desktop. The reason some corporate customers are gradually moving away from *nix to Windows is because of expensive prick sysadmins like you who don't give a shit except to promote their elitist agenda. Reminds me of that troll post between the HR rep and the Unix admin (props to whoever wrote that). So there.
::: I'd rather see more work on KDE/QT.
Sorry to say, but QT/KDE is COMPLETELY UNUSABLE PICE OF CRAP. I can't uderstand how anybody can prefer qt to gtk+. Gnome is piece of crap too, but gtk isn't.
Ignorant bullshit.
First, what amounts to the "most successful" desktop currently has no fucking help whatsoever.
Second, gnome-apt is a graphical update utility. It is a frontend to apt-get. It doesn't look like windows update, but it acts like windows update. So strike-fucking-two.
It's idiots like you that want an MS-Windows clone that you don't have to pay for that make me sick. You have no clue what it is your looking at, but since it doesn't look like your 'leet Windows desktop, it must suck.
Y'know what? Bite me. Linux is a lot easier to use than MS-Windows. I know. I've installed it in places where computer newbies use it. And I *always* get comments along the lines of, "This is much easier than my computer at home."
So don't come up to me with your, "I know better than you, oldtimer" inexperienced diaper-assed attitude.
And the corporate numbers indicate that Unix is finally making an inroad *into* the corporate desktop.
So go home and play your 'leet games. I don't care. Quality is not measured by numbers; if that were so, Budweiser would truly be the best beer, and the Ford Escort would be the best car.
I have no elitest agenda. All I care about is that I have a good time programming, and that punks like you don't try to tell *me* how to spend my coding time.
BTW, you didn't illustrate anything except your own ignorance. I invalidated every point except one-- the MS-Office clone. And the best you can do is harp on obscure HOWTOs, instead of looking at KDE and GNOME help (which both provide more information that MS-Windows help), and apt-get, which has a damned good front end and is a better update utility than MS-Windows has.
Get a life. More than that, grow a brain.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
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.