KDE Gets The Hat

minkwe writes "Tension is currently rising between the KDE and GNOME followers, following the release of the new beta to Red Hat's upcoming distribution. Neither group appears to be satisfied with the fact that Red Hat has null-ified the difference between the two desktop environments."

Comments

About that hat

[DotComVictim]

So does it support transparency, anti-aliased logos and gradient shading now... that's a pretty fancy hat.

This is the way it should be...

[Anonymous Butthead]

No distro should take preference over which is the default windowmanager... nor promote one more than the other, it is for the end user to decide which enviroment to use. This is what the open source movement is about.... choices!

Re:This is the way it should be...

[laserjet]

Hmm. I thought the open source movement was about... open source.

Re:This is the way it should be...

[ksheff]

So RedHat wants a consistent look for both environments? Big deal. The user can still rip it out and use something totally different and/or configure it they want with the desired apps. Some of the KDE ppl were pissed that they didn't include Konq and Kmail. If they wanted iron fist control over how their precious desktop environment is set up and what apps must be included, they should work for another company.

Re:This is the way it should be...

[Anonymous Butthead]

yes, indeed, the "choice" to use the source, the choice to use what you want...

Re:This is the way it should be...

[laserjet]

Not sure why I got modded up, I was just joking. But, hey, I'll take the karma.

Re:This is the way it should be...

[Economist]

This is even better, you get modded up for saying you don't understand being modded up ;-).

Re:This is the way it should be...

[johnnyb]

No distro should take preference over which is the default windowmanager

***

Why the heck not!? Of course some distros should. Some people don't want that choice, and therefore they should use a distro that doesn't bother them with such a choice. If you don't like _your_ distros that way, don't use them. THAT's where the choice comes in. If every distro becomes a kitchen-sink distro, what is the point of having many? On the other hand, if each distro builds to their audience, we will have a wonderfully diverse operating-system market. THAT's where the choice available in open-source comes in.

In addition, if you want to change something, you have the source code. If you like Red Hat's new distro, but would like more choice, build your own based on Red Hat's but with your changes!

Re:This is the way it should be...

[msobkow]

So RedHat created a KDE Desktop theme using Gnome graphics, and suggested different defaults for the browser and a few other things.

And...?

I've done much the same myself, except I like Opera and paid for it on both Linux and Win32. I opted to use Sylpheed for email. I don't have any office tools in my toolbar, use different dialers, etc. The core is SuSE, but I don't work with the default tools anyhow -- I configure the ones I like for developing code.

More often than not I end up using the Gnome icons for linking those preferred apps. Basically I just look for any icon that seems indicative of the application's function, regardless of what it was originally "designed" for.

Provided RedHat lets you continue to select the existing KDE themes (should you so choose), I really don't see why this whole episode should be an "issue"!

Re:This is the way it should be...

[dcstimm]

I believe redhat should Pick a desktop that makes it easiest for new users to feel like home, of course they can use what ever windowmanager they want but they need to have a default.. Gnome 2 in Redhat limbo 3 (null) looks damn nice... But so does my kde-cvs desktop... So it doesnt matter.. I just wish they would lable Mozilla as Internet Browser, and evolution "Email" and simple easy to find names. New users have problems finding a webbrowser if its called mozilla. :-) and if your a elite user try gentoo or debian...

Re:This is the way it should be...

[zangdesign]

No distro should take preference over which is the default windowmanager ...

Why not? There aren't any rules here except that you don't violate the GPL. I don't see where actively choosing one desktop over the other as the default does any damage to the end-user. He/she/it still has the option to install any other desktop necessary.

This is just good business sense - it simplifies the task of supporting the installation. They would actually be better off if they would just choose to ship ONE desktop and let the users install others if they wanted to. Then they could declare a standard for their distribution and work from that point on.

This is just a lot of sound and fury, signifying that some people need to quit worrying so much.

Re:This is the way it should be...

[quiklilo71]

His flux capacitor is being over run by the ID10t. back into the game grid,damn user. end of line.

Re:This is the way it should be...

[Skater]

My dad hates going to Subway--he feels that when you order a sub of a certain type, they should give you a "standard" sub with that restaurant's usual toppings. In that scenario, you're able to customize your order, but you aren't forced to customize.

This is what many people want.

--RJ

Re:This is the way it should be...

[Rik van Riel]

No distro should take preference over which is the default windowmanager... choices!

RedHat has as much right to make choices as you have. If they think their users like having a default desktop with the important apps on it, they have every right to create such a desktop.

If you don't like it, don't use it.

Re:This is the way it should be...

[Beetjebrak]

So there should be at least ONE distro that attempts such unification. People who don't have the ability to customize their own desktop to the extent necessary for their needs, should be offered a choice. This unified desktop theming seems like a brilliant way to make inroads into the corporate desktop. Nothing fancy, just plain consinstent use of your computer for productivity. I like it! If you want custom, get Slack!

Re:This is the way it should be...

[Reziac]

And choice doesn't end just because RedHat is the one doing the choosing. If you don't like their choices, choose another distro.

I don't know why this seems so obvious to me.. it's not like RH has a monopoly and can dictate what linux desktops will be like forever onward.

Re:This is the way it should be...

[mgkimsal2]

(releasing a misconfigured product from competitors).

KDE is not a 'competitor' to RedHat. Mandrake would be a competitor to RedHat, as would Caldera. KDE is not a competitor.

Re:This is the way it should be...

[JanneM]

Not even that. They don't use the Gnome graphics; instead they have designed their own icon set and themes that are sort of halfway in between the two projects. I don't really care for the look (it's a bit too bright and cartoony for my taste), but I have no doubt that the resulting consistency is a very good thing for most of Redhats userbase.

/Janne

Re:This is the way it should be...

[0x0d0a]

If you don't like their choices, choose another distro

Or change the default settings. Or, hell, don't use GNOME or KDE at all -- I think RH does a good job of maintaing a distro, so I use theirs, but don't use any "desktop environment".

This is almost a complete non-story. Seriously, think about it -- "The default GNOME and KDE themes in some distro look alike!" Oh no, lets run around screaming and waving our hands!

Re:This is the way it should be...

[ksheff]

So RedHat decides what the users want, and misconfigures KDE.

Funny, I thought that's what the job of a distribution was supposed to do: figure out what their users want from the myriad of open source products, make sure everything works well together, package them, and provide some sensible usable defaults. Misconfiguring implies that they cripple it such that it doesn't work properly. I don't think they've done that. From the screenshots, it looks like they've put together a couple of nice desktops without a ton of eye candy.

Re:This is the way it should be...

[Reziac]

Oooh, change the settings, what a concept. But nooo, here on Slashdot, the answer is "when in doubt, panic!" :Q

I hadn't looked at Gnome in a couple years and I was amazed at how much better it looks now than a couple years ago (the version that came with RH6 was, in my opinion, quite pukey-looking). Tho my first thought was "Good, they made Gnome look more like KDE!" And that was without any RedHat involvement. Makes you wonder. :)

RedHat does seem to realise what's needed to keep linux progressing toward a viable desktop for the masses. It's a dirty job, but someone's gotta do it! :)

Re:This is the way it should be...

[DavidTC]

That has to be the stupidist idea I've ever heard. I've never seen anyone else order a sub like me, but, more to the point, I've never seen anyone order a sub the same way as anyone else.

Just have him stand back from the line for ten people and see if he can come up with a sane default that would almost fit 25% of the people who order. He won't be able to do it.

About the only 'default' topping is lettuce. From that point on, everyone picks other stuff. (And, of course, some people don't get the lettuce, but very few of them, usually people who are ordering no toppings at all.)

Re:This is the way it should be...

[Gonzoman]

I agree. The thing I like about Linux is the ability to customize thing to your own preferences. I am currently using WindowMaker as a desktop, but mostly use Gnome and KDE applications. The movement toward unifying the Linux desktop is IMHO wrong headed. Linux is about choice. If you require a consistant "look and feel" then use applications that provide them. But please don't restrict my choice to use the tools that I prefer.

Re:This is the way it should be...

[osu-neko]

I hated Subway for the longest time because I couldn't simply order a sub and get it like I could at Clark's. The fact of the matter was, I couldn't tell you what exactly was on my favorite subs from Clark's -- they were the experts, they made good subs, I ate them and liked them and didn't worry that much about what exactly was on them. It took me a long time to learn to order a sub from Subway that tasted half as good as a sub from Clark's. Learning to order from Subway essentially made me learn how to make a good sandwich myself. Which isn't a bad thing, but frankly I would have been very happy if there was some default selection I could have started from and just modified from there.

Just have him stand back from the line for ten people and see if he can come up with a sane default that would almost fit 25% of the people who order. He won't be able to do it.

Considering this is how most restraunts operate, I doubt very much your assertion is anywhere close to true. One could easily come up with a default selection that will satisfy 75% of customers, even if it doesn't match exactly what they'd order in a build-it-yourself situation, and easily make that over 95% if you allow one "hold the X" in the equation. Anyone who can't do this shouldn't be in the restarant business.

So they modified KDE?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't that the point of open-source software?

Re:So they modified KDE?

[Thoron]

Yes, and I can't see nothing wrong here. Unified desktop is just what many people want. Why not using Mozilla if it's better than Konqueror? Surrival of the fittest applies to software too, especially in free software.

Mirror?

[g8orade]

This is already /.-ed Anyone got a mirror or a copy of the article?

argh

[loginx]

slashdot effect. any HTML page we could look at ?

grrr...

[BoneFlower]

Could someone post a link to another relevant article or the articles content?

damn slashdot effect.

Re:grrr...

[Anonymous Butthead]

Check out the google mirror... basically it states that redhat deved up similar themes for both sides... making both look the same. This release is also called "null"

Re:grrr...

[Anonymous Butthead]

google mirror: http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:FEvPOyQ-bpMJ: www.gnomedesktop.org/print.php%3Fsid%3D616+%22%2Bw ww.gnomedesktop.org/article.php%3Fsid%3D616&hl=en& ie=UTF-8

Re:grrr...

[laserjet]

Here's a link to the google mirror.

Re:grrr...

[Anonymous Coward]

From the google cache:

Texstar of pclinuxonline, recently posted a bunch of screenshots from Redhat's 3rd beta release known as null. Redhat has made a huge effort via the use of similar icons and themes to make their packaging of GNOME and KDE resemble each other more closely . What do you think?

Screenshots:
#1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7 #8 #9 #10 #11 #12 #13 #14 #15 #16 #17 #18 #19 #20

So what?

[keesh]

KDE sucks anyway. Oh, and Vim is better than Emacs, Java is a dead buzzword, PHP is far too slow to use in a production environment, Python is for hippies, Perl 6 is massively outclassed by Ruby, *BSD is dying, OS X is just eyecandy, Mozilla is a buggy piece of shit and spaces are better than tabs.

Re:So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

..or have editors that can deal with tabs. I mean... it's 2002... you'd *think* that editors could deal with whitespace now...

Re:So what?

[Surak]

And C is better than C++, K&R is the 1TBS, csh is better than bash, Solaris is dead, RISC sucks, Amigas are for wannabes, Radeon kicks GeForce's ass, RMS is 10x the programmer Linus is, Linux sucks because its monolithic, and MySQL isn't viable for a production environment because it doesn't make good use of multithreads.

Hacker Tourette's Syndrome. :) I love it. :)

Re:So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, the sequence of events goes roughly like this:

• Article about redhat beta 8.0 appears on pclinuxonline, including screenshots
• Articles pointing to pclinuxonline then appear on both gnomedesktop.org and dot.kde.org.
• The gnomedesktop.org article gets a few people discussing how nice/horrible the new redhat desktop looks and a few mentions of how this will threaten Ximian. dot.kde.org, on the other hand, goes completely ballistic. One KDE developer (Roberto Alsina) posts a message accusing RedHat of being like Stalin because they have changed the icons and moved the "About KDE" boxes. the webmaster of dot.kde.org accuses RedHat of trying to "actively destroy KDE", and on and on and on. Scary stuff from a bunch of loonies.
• gnomedesktop.org story: someone posts a link to the dot.kde.org story, and says that this is why he dislikes KDE... they are bunch of clueless flamers - even the developers. Roberto Alsino upsticks and moves to gnomedesktop.org and proceeds to make a fool of himself by claiming that they are violating the GPL (he hasn't read it, the clueless shit-for-brains, details in the gnomedesktop story) - while being unable to post each message only once. Things rattle on for hundreds of messages with Roberto never gaining anything remotely resembling a clue, and still thinking RedHat is a secret organisation dedicated to the eradication of KDE.
• Slashdot posts link to gnomedesktop.org and blatts it out of existence. You can, however (for the moment), still read the insane ramblings at dot.kde.org. Hold your nose though... there is a strong stench of lunacy about the place.

Re:So what?

[TimToady]

Maybe if Larry Wall keeps writing about it, it'll spontaneously code itself.

Oddly enough, that's precisely what's happening. It's amazing how spontaneous programmers can be.

Re:So what?

[Kashif Shaikh]

KDE sucks anyway. Oh, and Vim is better than Emacs, Java is a dead buzzword, PHP is far too slow to use in a production environment, Python is for hippies, Perl 6 is massively outclassed by Ruby, *BSD is dying, OS X is just eyecandy, Mozilla is a buggy piece of shit and spaces are better than tabs.

And all of the above is better than Windows:)

Re:So what?

[Laser Lou]

And shared source beats open source, mechanical mice are better than optical, the cathedral rules the bazaar, Quake III is better than Unreal Tournament, DC is better than AC, TTL beats CMOS, the 286 is not braindead, and the GoTo statement really is okay.

Re:So what?

[psicE]

Everybody knows real geeks use Blackbox, joe, Objective-C, Amaya, and Eiffel on a Debian GNU/Hurd box.

Re:So what?

[reallocate]

Forgot one:

/ is better than \

Re:So what?

[orangesquid]

yeah.... kickass :) someone else who uses joe, a *real* text editor.

"pico's just as good!" pfff newbies. ;) joe is lightweight, uses easy-to-learn and common wordstar key bindings, and has most of the functionality of vim in one form or another. it's also quite configurable if you tweak joerc...

-orangesquid

Re:So what?

[damiam]

RMS is 10x the programmer Linus is

A lot of people do prefer RMS's OS to Linus's.

Re:So what?

[Kashif Shaikh]

KDE sucks anyway. Oh, and Vim is better than Emacs, Java is a dead buzzword, PHP is far too slow to use in a production environment, Python is for hippies, Perl 6 is massively outclassed by Ruby, *BSD is dying, OS X is just eyecandy, Mozilla is a buggy piece of shit and spaces are better than tabs.

And the world is coming to a end!

Re:So what?

[Bingo Foo]

common wordstar key bindings

{clears throat} ah.... umm.... {realizes it's not worth the time...}

Re:So what?

[stux]

You know, I happen to agree with about 50% of your assertions...

Re:So what?

[rice_burners_suck]

Uh... excuse me? Tabs allow you to put in 8 spaces for the price of one character. Why waste memory and disk space with thousands upon thousands of spaces when you can cut them down to 1/8 by using tabs? I think you aren't using your noggin.

By the way, *BSD is not dying. Last I checked, some folks are making their living entirely from *BSD.

And Mozilla is a lot shittier than you have described.

Re:So what?

[einhverfr]

And Linux is dying, and Apples (espeically the IIE's) are better than oranges (or at least they are more expensive), Windows is the best operating system ever made, and we will never need more than 1MB of RAM!

Re:So what?

[einhverfr]

I think there was a reason that the grandparent to this post was modded funny.

He who laughs last didn't get the joke ;)

Re:So what?

[be-fan]

8 spaces? 8-space tabs are for amateurs. Real programmers use 4-tab spaces!

Re:So what?

[TrentC]

Everybody knows real geeks use Blackbox, joe, Objective-C, Amaya, and Eiffel on a Debian GNU/Hurd box.

Yeah, both of them.

Jay (=

Re:So what?

[N1KO]

Pfft, fluxbox is obviously superior to blackbox in every way.

btw, q3 owns ut

Re:So what?

[JanneM]

And Evil programmers use 3-space tabs to confuse everyone.

/Janne

Re:So what?

[0x0d0a]

Can HURD *run* blackbox, joe, objective C, amaya, *or* Eiffel?

BTW, Eiffel looks like a *sweet* language...for apps what C is for system stuff.

Re:So what?

[0x0d0a]

You use tabs for *compression*?

If you have a *single* mp3 on your hard drive, you're probably looking at a good 5 million characters blown right there. Text files are not the primary drain on resources any more.

Besides, if you compress your text files, gzipped or whatever, you save more than just using tabs instead of spaces.

Unless I'm missing sarcasm here...

Re:So what?

[CaptnMArk]

They CERTAINLY DO NOT!! ;)

Re:So what?

[niik]

The apocalypse has started.

Re:So what?

[Surak]

I don't agree with 50% of my own assertions (I was really just trying to be funny), so the question is do we agree with the same 50%? :-P

Re:So what?

[MrDelSarto]

yeah but it really needs a good text editor before it will become mainstream

Re:So what?

[belroth]

8 spaces? 8-space tabs are for amateurs. Real programmers use 4-tab spaces!

Ridiculous waste of space, use 2-space tabs and get more code on the screen/paper.

Newbies! :-)

Re:So what?

[ajs]

[...] and spaces are better than tabs.

I was with you right up to there, but man! You can't dis the tabs! Only EBCDIC-lovin mainframe-huggers want spaces over tabs. You're not a mainframe-hugger... are you?!

Kidding asside, this whole article is rather disturbing to me. It seems like we're feeding trolls and whiners because it gets Slashdot riled up. That kind of muckraking isn't really productive for the OSS community as a whole.

Re:So what?

[jcast]

You mean Viper?

--

Why does /. have a 20 second posting rule when you can get around it by hitting `back' and then `submit'?

Re:So what?

[chris_mahan]

Tabs? Spaces? Haven't you seen the DCSS code? That's real code... :|

Re:So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh and, one more thing: a sweet moment of pure irony. After watching Roberto "KDE is the best thing ever!!" Alsina mouth off on gnomedesktop.org while double-posting every message and claiming that the forum software was buggy... it turns out that it is KDE's flagship application, the "Konqueror" web-browser, that is buggy (as if we need a demonstration).

It doesn't get any better than this... it really doesn't.

Re:So what?

[stux]

I'm not telling ;)

Re:So what?

[Karellen]

Emacs is _not_ an OS, it's a shell.

ridiculous

[tps12]

Now I just can't believe this. People slave away on their open source software "as a hobby" and "for the community." They claim they don't want any recognition in return. Then as soon as someone branches their app, they get all self-righteous.

Reality check: you are not guaranteed anything beyond what is spelled out in your license. None of this appears to violate the [L]GPL, so you brought in upon yourselves. If you didn't want someone to rebrand your app, then you should have gone with a more restrictive license. Red Hat owes you nothing because you told them they could have your work for free. You can't have it both ways, folks.

Re:ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

People slave away on their open source software "as a hobby" and "for the community." They claim they don't want any recognition in return.

now wait a minute. who ever said that people working on open source projects don't want recognition from the community? wasn't me. i think that recognition is a DEFINATELY part of why some people work on open source projects. i know it is for me.

Re:ridiculous

[tps12]

It depends what you mean by "from the community." Most open source coders are well known within their niches (as in, on the mailing lists for their own projects). But if you want to force people to show a splash screen with your face on it in every derivative work, then by all means, specify it in your license.

Re:ridiculous

[larry bagina]

Sorry, Chancellor RMS forbids advertising clauses!

Re:ridiculous

[Clue4All]

I couldn't agree with you more. I've seen this happening a lot lately, with both MusicCity using Gnuecleus's code base for it's new Morpheus client, and NeoNapster using CDex's code. Neither of these companies violated the GPL in any way, but as soon as someone takes your work, improves on it, and begins distributing it, they're suddently stealing your thunder and "ripping off" the original project. That's what can happen when you use the GPL, if you don't like it, use another license and stop bitching.

Re:ridiculous

[Genyin]

Neither of these companies violated the GPL in any way
umm... neonapster DID violate the GPL. They provided source, but did not mention anything about GPL in the binaries, at first at least. (in fact, the license for the binaries flagrantly violated GPL, restricting redistribution. etc)

Re:ridiculous

[T-Ranger]

While true, you dont have to use the GPL as your license if you dont want to; and you can use it with chages as well.. ISTR that the linux kernel, for example, makes specific exceptions to the standard GPL for binary drivers.

The Open Source Initiative's definition of "Open Source" (tm) means that a licence with an ad clause will never be OSI approved, but the point of the top parent is that you chose your license; no one forced you to use that license, so dont bitch if your code is used under the terms of it.

Re:ridiculous

[nathanh]

Damn right, because in large projects it meant 100s of pages of acknowledgements. It's called the "offensive advertising clause" and RMS was wise to explicitly exclude it from the GPL.

If you want your ugly mug plastered over every derivative work then write your own damn license. Don't blame RMS because you're too lazy to figure out what you want.

Re:ridiculous

[Dr_LHA]

The problem that KDE people have is not that Redhat is theming KDE to look like Gnome, but rather that they have also removed the "About KDE" menu item from KDE which displays copyright information and info on KDE from the KDE programs.

There's a very real possibility that this is against the LGPL that kdelibs uses due to this clause:

You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Library's complete source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty; and distribute a copy of this License along with the Library.

Re:ridiculous

[shird]

Isn't this exactly what Microsoft was talking about, with the GPL being 'viral'?. About the GPL being detrimental to software developers and the industry as a whole?

And everyone shouted them down, calling them capitalist scum etc... MS have a few billion to put into research such as this, they could see these issues a mile off, though were ignored.

Re:ridiculous

[tps12]

Actually, from what I've read, the about box just had a list of the main authors, with no allusions to copyright. They are trying to spin it like a copyright notice was removed, but as far as I can see, that just isn't the case. In fact, it appears to be more like a simple advertisement, and forcing Red Hat to leave such an advertisement intact would directly violate the [L]GPL.

Re:ridiculous

[Bruce Perens]

I'm not sure if you're trying to be a troll or not but I'll treat it as a serious question.

No, this is not what Microsoft was talking about. Microsoft was upset because there is an implicit quid-pro-quo in the GPL - if yospu derive works from it, you do so under the same terms as the people who gave you their work to derive from. Microsoft feels that this is "anti-commercial" and would prefer to have the work of the free software community without any reciprocity. I don't see why anyone who writes and gives away their own code would want to give them that. And of course, the GPL terms are much nicer terms than Microsoft puts on a lot of its own code, which are essentially "derive from this or redistribute it in any way, and we'll sue you". So, I suggest that you take the Microsoft complaints as the FUD that they are.

Also, most Free Software developers are themselves capitalists, and they were not calling MS "capitalist scum". They were criticizing Microsoft for various forms of simple dishonesty which have been well documented elsewhere. Please do not confuse Free Software with communism - unless you want to confuse public roads and various other forms of public commons - an essential part of capitalism - as communism too.

Bruce

Re:ridiculous

[Reziac]

I know exactly what you mean. Kinda like a little kid who gets pissed when others won't play by his rules, so he not only takes HIS toys and goes home, but also grabs all the OTHER toys on the playground and runs off with them too!! Hey, if you have a problem with others wanting to play too, get the hell off the playground! :)

But what I really wanted to know is, what's with your sig's link? what's the CLSID supposed to do? (NS3 completely ignores it.)

Re:ridiculous

[jbolden]

NeoNapster did something far worse then simply violate the GPL the original version of their license claimed ownership of the copyright. IMHO this was an accident due to the fact that they are a bunch of idiots and when this was pointed out to them they changed it PDQ. However its worth point out that in theory this made their actions not merely a civil violation of the law but fully criminal.

I think the screaming and yelling was justified. Claiming ownership of a copyright is very big deal.

Re:ridiculous

[liquidsin]

Actually, morpheus did botch it at first, IIRC. They didn't provide the source. But I think gnucleus' problem was more just "we'd appreciate if you tell us you're forking us" and nobody told them. They didn't really bitch about it (from what I remember the site said something like "wow, didn't know they were forking our codebase. welcome aboard")

Re:ridiculous

[SyniK]

"I don't see why anyone who writes and gives away their own code would want to give them that."

Nice troll against the BSD license ;).

"derive from this or redistribute it in any way (and not give it back to the community), and we'll sue you"

Nice troll against M$ when GPL Lawyers are just as rabid.

Other than the holely examples, spot on.

Re:ridiculous

[scottj]

But what I really wanted to know is, what's with your sig's link? what's the CLSID supposed to do? (NS3 completely ignores it.)

The linked page crashed my IE6 on XP. I think that's the intent. IE is retarded.

Re:ridiculous

[Error27]

>>They claim they don't want any recognition in return.

You're absolutely high. Not only is that not true, it is the exact oposite of the truth. For example, the basic idea behind the "Cathedral and the Bazaar" was that open source developers do it for recognition.

>>Reality check: you are not guaranteed anything beyond what is spelled out in your license.

Basically if you break the law, then you get sued. If you are impolite you get shunned. Licenses only cover what is legal not what is polite. (Not that I have an opinion on whether Red Hat was polite or not.)

Re:ridiculous

[LinuxGeek]

"derive from this or redistribute it in any way ( and not give it back to the community), and we'll sue you"

No, you don't seem to understand the actual mechanism that is broken in the example. It distills down to a changing of the license from the original one that the work was released with to anything else.

If company X takes (L)GPL'd source and modifies it for internal use and does not provide the source to the changes, no licensing problem exists because they did not redistribute the work. If that same company redistributes the work and tries to change the license or withhold the source changes, then they are violating the (L)GPL by trying to change the contract between supplier and user. You cannot buy a random software package and resell it under the GPL because you have no right to re-license the work, the same applies in the other direction too.

Re:ridiculous

[Reziac]

Interesting. I'll have to try that with my XP box. I dislike IE in the first place (it pains me greatly that Mozilla's behaviour is MUCH more like IE than like NS), but even so, IMO IE6 was a great leap backward from IE5.0 (I have an internal build M$ handed out at a seminar), which was at least stable and well-mannered. IE6... well, save some pages from M$'s knowledge base. Now try to view them locally in IE6. Talk about mangled!!

Re:ridiculous

[turnstyle]

>> They claim they don't want any recognition in return.
>
> You're absolutely high. Not only is that not true, it is the exact oposite of the truth. For example, the basic idea behind the "Cathedral and the Bazaar" was that open source developers do it for recognition.

There is a *big* difference between the amount of recognition that can be gained from a clear credit in the running interface vs. comments in the source code.

Sure, credit must be kept in the source, but how much does that really matter? These are GUI's after all, and ideally they provide means to guide less saavy users to these environments. But those very same users are *never* going to look at any source.

How then is the programmer to get his due?

I also wanted to say that it's not like "Cathedral and the Bazaar" is the Book Of Law, or anything. It's just one guy's opinions. And if there were a Book Of Law, it'd just be another book by some other guys anyway.

-Scott

Re:ridiculous

[SyniK]

"No, you don't seem to understand the actual mechanism that is broken in the example. It distills down to a changing of the license from the original one that the work was released with to anything else."

GPL programs are just as adament as closed sourced ones about no relicensing. If it's GPL, it stays GPL. If it's closed, it stays closed. Where's the difference? (Only the BSD license.)

Secondly, "internal use"? If you move the GPL app to a secnod box, is that not redistribution? I think the bottom line is, if someone else uses the app, that's redistribution (hence you need to protect their freedom).

From:http://geodsoft.com/opinion/Lice nseIssues.htm
'About the only unequivocally private modification that can be made to GPL licensed software, is for an individual programmer, working at home, to experiment in isolation. As soon as he or she starts to show it to others it becomes a gray area."

And I argee with that. Everything else needs to be court tested.

Re:ridiculous

[LinuxGeek]

GPL programs are just as adament as closed sourced ones about no relicensing. If it's GPL, it stays GPL. If it's closed, it stays closed. Where's the difference? (Only the BSD license.)

There really is nothing special or different about the GPL vs standard commercial license with respect to the obligation the user takes on. I didn't say there was a difference, it seems you thought there is a difference. The creator ( programmer) gets to decide the license (rules) that a user must follow when using the creators work, the user decides whether those rules are exceptable or not.

Secondly, "internal use"? If you move the GPL app to a secnod box, is that not redistribution? I think the bottom line is, if someone else uses the app, that's redistribution (hence you need to protect their freedom).

My definition of redistribution falls closer to the 'are you asking someone to accept license' area. If a corporation is making changes to GPL code they have already accepted the license and must abide by the agreement, letting another user under the corporate umbrella use the modified app works because no re-licensing is required.

Giving your friend a copy of the modified app cannot be done without asking the target user to accept licensing terms, thus it is redistribution.

Re:ridiculous

[SyniK]

"There really is nothing special or different about the GPL vs standard commercial license with respect to the obligation the user takes on."

That's exactly my point.

From the parent to which I was refering to:
"And of course, the GPL terms are much nicer terms than Microsoft puts on a lot of its own code, which are essentially "derive from this or redistribute it in any way, and we'll sue you""
GPL terms are nicer? Nah, jut different. Hence the troll against M$.
--------
We'll have to agree to disargee on our definitions of redistribution and private/internal use. I think a company that rolls out internal GPL apps must make the source available to the employees that use said software.

Re:ridiculous

[Master of Transhuman]

I'm an anarchist and a supporter of the concept of a "free market" which is NOT identical to the concept "capitalism".

And yes, I object to public roads AND Microsoft AND the GPL license AND the notion of intellectual property and restrictions on the use and distribution of anything by anybody.

If you bought it OR somebody gave it you OR it just fell in your lap OR you hacked (stole) it fair and square (but it's info so the original owner still has it), you own it and can do ANYTHING you want with it.

Otherwise we end up with George Lucas wanting to make a law forbidding anyone to change anything the "artist" did. (Yes, he actually advocates this - if a sculptor sells a sculpture, he wants it illegal for the owner to paint it blue...)

screenshots

[laserjet]

Here'w a bunch of screenshots from the article to show what they are talking about:


Screenshots:
#1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7 #8 #9 #10 #11 #12 #13 #14 #15 #16 #17 #18 #19 #20

Re:screenshots

[amemily]

So, it looks kinda like XP. Maybe now Grandma can use Linux without being lost because "it doesn't look like Windows".

Re:screenshots

[user32.ExitWindowsEx]

There's a set of keys in the equivalent of the system tray (see screenshot #7). The equivalent keys only show up in XP when you're dealing with Windows Product Activation.

Re:screenshots

[inkfox]

Sorry - but - I understand the advantage (for RedHat) of branding. But what's the point of uglifying the rest?

Is the Gnome desktop that ugly with RedHat?

This seems like a pitifully inept job, if not downright malicious. KDE and Gnome both look pretty slick in their default installs under other distributions. Why the difference?

Re:screenshots

[anakog]

From screenshot #7:

GNOME is a powerfull, graphical user interface which includes a panel, desktop, system icons, and a graphical file manager.

KDE is a powerfull, graphical user interface which includes a panel, desktop, system icons, and a graphical file manager.

It seems that Red Hat have indeed gone through a great deal of effort to conceal the differences between KDE and GNOME.

Re:screenshots

[RickHunter]

Err... I don't see what all the fuss is about. Screenshots 1-16 are GNOME and 17-20 are KDE. Its not like they've mushed the two together, and its not like there's no differences between them. They don't even have the same window decorations! Sure, the panels look a bit similar, and GNOME's been made up to look a bit like KDE. Big deal - they're both themable desktops. You can change how they look.

Oh, and the RedHat package tool in #7 looks a bit familiar to users of Windows. From the screenshots, this is not a bad thing - the UI looks much better than previous versions of said tool.

So could someone please explain to me what the issue is here? (The gnomedesktop article seems to be down, so I can't seen the original source.)

Re:screenshots

[Nailer]

They don't even have the same window decorations!

Actually, by default, they do. The person that created this screenshots changed the KDE theme from BlueCurve to Keramik.

BlueCurve is a theme for KDE window decoartions, KDE styles, a GTK1 theme, a GTK2 theme, a Metacity theme, and an XMMS theme.

Yay consistency. Better yet, yay Gnome without endless unreadable dark grey/brown icons.

Re:screenshots

[Doc_Linux]

Woah - I saw these screenshots the other day and thought it was GNOME. I like that.

Re:screenshots

[Reziac]

Ah, thanks. The desktops certainly look a good deal more refined than when last I fiddled with 'em (whatever versions came with RH6.0)

For some reason the old joke of replacing someone's desktop with a *screenshot* of their desktop came to mind.. anyone pulled that with a linux screenshot on some hapless Windows user?

(Stop looking at my computer like that! :)

Re:screenshots

[fferreres]

Didnt RMS ask for this? After all, he gave them the GPL, and now they don't like cooperation? Since when??

Google Cache

[BoxJockey]

You can find Google's cache of the article HERE.

bah

[Vodak]

I like gnome better then KDE and I think it's a LOW blow from Redhat to play these games. Microhat needs to stop playing games.

Re:bah

[Izeickl]

If your still using Gnome over KDE what does it matter what it looks like? Microsoft realised the average user wants everything to be easily found/recognised, Redhat does too, the easier it is for someone to transfer from one thing to another the better all round, one of Linux's greatest failings in trying to attract the average user IS choices, let alone which Distro, theres seemingly unending choices/variations on the same types of software, at least this way the part where the average user will stay (The Desktop) either one they pick, they should find it easier to get around.

Re:bah

[johnnyb]

What for? They are building to their audience. There's no games. If you aren't their audience, don't use their distro.

Remember - their software is free. Everything they make is free. If you don't like it, either a) don't use it, or b) take their existing code and make it like you want it, or c) hire someone else to do the same.

To make comparisons between Microsoft and RedHat is just completely stupid.

Slashdotted, but GNOME2 *is* leagues better

[Sleepy]

Grrr... can't read the article.

I know this will annoy KDE supporters to no end, but I always liked the KDE (Qt) widgets, but not necessarily the KDE desktop.

This is why even when I went through my "KDE phase", I ran almost 100% GNOME apps. GNOME apps seem to be much more developed and popular... perhaps at the expense of GNOME 1.x desktop development? The long incubation period of GNOME2 explains a lot...

I am running RH 7.4 B2. I know Beta 3 is out.

I find some things are broken in Beta 2, but GNOME2 is still a huge jump over GNOME 1.4 it isn't even funny. Remember that most GNOME users DON'T run XIMIAN (OK, this is a guess), so they've been stuck on this ancient GNOME1.x codebase that Red Hat never updated.

I know plenty of developers who use GTK 1.x out of licensing issues, when they openly admire Qt but can't touch it. I imagine the improvements in GTK might not erase all of those Qt advantages, but surely it will make a dent. GNOME2 in my opinion has leapfrogged people's expectations.

With a better widget set, and a better desktop infrastructure, we should really see some major Linux application development.

Now what we REALLY need is some friendly cooperation, like along the lines of look & feel, inter-desktop drag and drop, etc.

Re:Slashdotted, but GNOME2 *is* leagues better

[dollargonzo]

hey man, this is all middleware. would does have to do with application development?

Re:Slashdotted, but GNOME2 *is* leagues better

[fatboy]

I know plenty of developers who use GTK 1.x out of licensing issues, when they openly admire Qt but can't touch it.

I thought those issues were fixed about 2 years ago. Heck, even RMS is cool with the QPL, last I checked.

Re:Slashdotted, but GNOME2 *is* leagues better

[jmv]

I know plenty of developers who use GTK 1.x out of licensing issues, when they openly admire Qt but can't touch it.

I thought those issues were fixed about 2 years ago. Heck, even RMS is cool with the QPL, last I checked.

Well it depends what you're talking about. For an open-source developer, there's no problem with Qt. For someone who wants to write a closed-source application, Qt costs a lot of money. Then again, it's fair since Troll Tech has to make money somehow and making Qt GPL was already very nice of them...

Re:Slashdotted, but GNOME2 *is* leagues better

[rweir]

Yes the issues were fixed, no RMS is way not cool with the QPL. The solution was for Trolltech to license Qt under a dual GPL/QPL license. I can't think of anyone out there who actually uses the QPL side of it, but people are certainly happy with the GPL part.

It ain't GPL-compatible, but it is Open.

Go Redhat!

[jonr]

Linux needs ONE stable, flexible, powerful and good looking GUI. It would make life so much easier for both developers and end users. Look at all the fuss over Aqua, Apple knows that consistent UI is a Good Thing(TM) and we can see the results in MacOS X. Get over this. The choice is not good in this matter. We need consistency if Linux is ever going to make it on the desktop.
J.

Re:Go Redhat!

[laserjet]

Troll.RR We don't need ONE desktop, choice is good. I would rather have two good desktops.

It's not like having one won't let you run the other's apps - all you need is the libraries, and almost every distro has both available.

Re:Go Redhat!

[Sleepy]

>Linux needs ONE stable, flexible, powerful and good looking GUI

You mean we need a monopoly to make decisions for us?

Re:Go Redhat!

[Sancho]

I agree with the grandparent post, but in addition to ONE stable, flexible, powerful and good looking GUI, we need the choice of changing GUIs without sacrificing program functionality or choice. Have a default UI that's easy to use and an advanced UI for the advanced user that's more customizable. No one wants to take away your choice, they just want to make it easier for the novice.

Re:Go Redhat!

[Hope Thelps]

So you'd be happy if someone forked the kernel forked?

Sorry to break it to you but lots of people fork the kernel. I doubt that that's a particular source of joy in the previous poster's life but I doubt he has a problem with it either.

Re:Go Redhat!

[ces]

Mmmm ... Windowmaker.

Spirit of The One True Black Cube.

Re:Go Redhat!

[0x0d0a]

Linux needs ONE stable, flexible, powerful and good looking GUI.

Fortunately, Linux has plenty of parasitic non-coding visionaries to help advise coders on exactly what they should be doing, which makes up for the above lack.

Re:Go Redhat!

[rseuhs]

It doesn't matter what Apple does.

Anybody knowing anything about user-interfaces will tell you the dock in MacOSX is probably the worst implementation of a panel (maybe the best looking, but certainly the worst productivity-wise) found in desktop environments.

EVERYTHING Apple does will be hyped up as user-friendly. EVERYTHING a Linux-organization does will be bashed as being unuseable.

I stopped caring. I *know* KDE is the best DE *right now* because I've tried *all* of the major DEs.

choice / customization is a *GOOD* thing

[green pizza]

I fully agree... this is why I use opensource in the first place. In fact, I only know of one or two power users that *don't* customize the daylights out of their work environment anyway. I like my distros to do what they were intended to do -- give me an easy way to install the latest goodies in a semi-stable state. I want the distro to leave out the politics and as much preconfiguration as possible --- I want to make the choices, not some committee.

The way I do things: pick the right tool for the right job and after some use, customize (interface, menus, scripts, modules, filesystem layout, etc) to best fit my needs. Linux works great for most of my needs, though I also use SGI, Sun, Mac, and Wintel systems for specific tasks.

Re:choice / customization is a *GOOD* thing

[Sancho]

That's fine, if that's what you want to do. Don't use Redhat, then.
Everyone who said "Open source is about choice" is right. Redhat chooses to make these changes to the source, something they have every right to do. You can choose to reverse these changes, if you want to use Redhat. You can choose to use Suse if you want a more "default install" distribution. You can choose to use Debian if you want even more control, or you can Roll your own Linux.

What you must realize, though, is that if you want Linux to be widely accepted, supported, and user friendly, a common user interface is a must. Red Hat is taking a step in that direction, and this probably also cuts support costs (as someone in the article mentioned). Red Hat isn't taking away your right to customize, they're just providing a different default customization. You can still make the choice, rather than some committee. Remember, some committee made the original Gnome/KDE default choices.

Re:choice / customization is a *GOOD* thing

[DaveAtFraud]

This is far too reasonable of a response. Who are you and what are you doing posting on slashdot?

Re:choice / customization is a *GOOD* thing

[einhverfr]

I fully agree... this is why I use opensource in the first place. In fact, I only know of one or two power users that *don't* customize the daylights out of their work environment anyway. I like my distros to do what they were intended to do -- give me an easy way to install the latest goodies in a semi-stable state. I want the distro to leave out the politics and as much preconfiguration as possible --- I want to make the choices, not some committee.

OK, but that is not what most *customers* want. I agree that choice and customization is a good thing, but for Linux to reach the masses, I think that the customization will need to be done by the vendor pre-shipment. This is what Red-Hat has done. if you don't like it, you can use a different distro or re-customize it.

The market is a good thing. It will select for the best solutions in the long run. Maybe this is why MS is so scared about Linux

Re:choice / customization is a *GOOD* thing

[Skapare]

Making Linux "widely accepted" doesn't mean jamming Linux down people's throat. Hell, they can keep using Windows for all I care. I hate it when I find out some office happens to force everyone to use Windows. But I hate it equally when I find out some office happens to force everyone to use Red Hat. And I'd hate it equally if I find out they force everyone to use Slackware, or FreeBSD.

If Dave wants to use Debian, and Francis wants to use FreeBSD, and Steve wants to use Slackware, and Wilma wants to use Windows, and Mark wants to use a Macintosh, and if they can all be made to communicate as needed (which is very true), then why the hell not? If the office has to hire staff to support these computers, then of course they have to consider the cost of these choices. But if some of those people don't need the snot-nosed kid to come around and reinstall their computer for them, and they can run it themselves, then they should.

The goal for "acceptance" shouldn't be which one OS the office PHB accepts, but rather, that the office accepts what works best for each individual. We are not robots, and I resent corporate attempts to turn people into that.

Re:choice / customization is a *GOOD* thing

[StillAnonymous]

I completely disagree with you on this issue. For an office environment, there HAS to be standards, which means each office (or department) uses the same OS. Unless an individual has a need that cannot be satisfied by the chosen OS (like say, a Win32 developer in a mostly-Unix house), then they should get the default.

While it may not seem to matter to you that you are running Debian and everyone else is running Redhat, but when it comes to the administration of all the systems, I don't think anyone wants the mess that is likely to result from a hodge-podge of different operating systems.

There's a good reason for companies using computers with all the same hardware, and the same situation applies to software too. Complexity = extra costs. If there's a way to simplify it and reduce costs, they will.

Re:choice / customization is a *GOOD* thing

[0x0d0a]

I have little respect for the sort of people who parade around their choice of distro as some sort of badge showing how badass they must be. I've known gurus who use Red Hat and newbies who use Slackware. No one really cares. If you want to impress someone, pull out the code you've written, not the brand name of your distro.

Re:choice / customization is a *GOOD* thing

[Skapare]

Part of the problem appears to be that such a mess, that you refer to as being the result of mixing operating systems, comes about in the first place. We should not have such messes if things worked right. While I won't deny that today there would indeed be this mess, the goal should be to make it so that we can have the mix, without the mess. If that means fixing every operating system, so be it. If one of them doesn't want to play along, that can be a problem. If Linux is more popular, then Windows, the one that probably doesn't want to play along, might, some day, have to take a back seat (well, we can wish).

I have administered a mix of Windows, Linux, and Solaris, with even some BSD machines. And not all of them were servers, either. There were some messes at first, but I removed them.

Where the cost of having a mix outweighs the cost of the benefits of invidualized computers, the one with the greater savings should win. Have you ever seen any studies on the cost savings of individualized computers to see if they are more or less than the savings of having all the same? I've never seen such a thing. Almost every manager I have met has no clue in how to measure things like increased worker productivity. Instead, the only thing they measure is the discount price they get for buying everything in one place (which certainly is an important factor, but it shows that technical issues just get thrown aside too easily).

Re:choice / customization is a *GOOD* thing

[rseuhs]

Actually, that's wrong.

You only have to standardize on the platform. If you platform is StarOffice, you can use Linux and Windows. If you platform is KDE, you can use Linux, BSD and Solaris (and other stuff, too). If your platform is Java, you can use pretty much every OS around.

Re:choice / customization is a *GOOD* thing

[caduguid]

I thought the same thing above when I saw a previous poster wrote "If I've read correctly the kde.dot text above".

You read the article?! Part of me wanted to scream "Narc!"

Which Desktop? Who Cares....

[Not The Real Me]

Since I use RedHat as a server and not as a workstation I couldn't care less whether I use Gnome or KDE. The only thing that matters is that I get a GUI editor instead of that stupid VIM.

Until Cakewalk, Macromedia's Dreamweaver Ultradev, and Adobe's Photoshop and Premiere runs on Linux, Linux is just a server. If I want to manage my Linux servers, Webmin does almost everything that I need since I have not seen any X apps that can do what Webmin does.

And what's up with the X Window System?

[green pizza]

Command-line console utilities and the various shells are still far from perfection... so why are all of the lemmings moving to GUIs? They're just slow and inefficent anyway! NeWS was bad, X11 is worse. Windows and Mac OS are even less flexible.

If you have to make an X app, please do us all a favor and use "clean" straight xlib, stay away from the bloat of Motif, GTK, and Qt.

New meaning to "Red" in Red Hat

[green pizza]

*Sigh*
I really wish Debian was a bit more with it... I think I may try Sarge soon.

Re:New meaning to "Red" in Red Hat

[FredGray]

I think I may try Sarge soon.

Be careful: rumor has it that Debian will start migrating to gcc 3.2 soon, so we're probably about to enter one of those periods where "unstable" really means it...

Re:New meaning to "Red" in Red Hat

[damiam]

Sarge isn't unstable. Only fully tested packages make their way into sarge. Whatever they do to fuck up sid shouldn't affect sarge.

Besides, I've used sid since gcc 2.9.5, and I've never had any problems with gcc migrations.

Re:New meaning to "Red" in Red Hat

[pherthyl]

"Besides, I've used sid since gcc 2.9.5, and I've never had any problems with gcc migrations"

Thats because there haven't been any GCC migrations since 2.9.5. GCC 3.0, 3.1, and 3.11 all had serious bugs or would be obsolete within a few weeks so Debian didn't move to them (although they were available in the package tree).

Re:New meaning to "Red" in Red Hat

[rweir]

+3 Informative? More like -1, Talking Out My Arse.

A rather important Boolean expression:
Sarge == Testing != Unstable.

Firstly, for people who aren't up with the whole gcc 3.2 thing:
The newest GCC release, 3.2, changes the C++ ABI. The ABI is basically the set of rules for how binary programs call functions in libraries, and how those functions are named in the libraries. Because C++ supports things like polymorphism and overloading, you have to 'mangle' the function names so that int blah(int k) gets a different name, in the library, to int blah(string k). The rules for how to mangle functions names has changed from release-to-release, but GCC 3.2 is (supposed) to be the last change for a long time.

The problem is that all current C++ libraries and programs (in Debian at least) are compiled with GCC 2.95 and they can't (easily) interoperate with things compiled with GCC 3.2. So, to switch to GCC 3.2, you pretty much have to recompile everything with GCC 3.2, which is a bitch.
I say 'pretty much' because there are a few ways to hack around the problem, but none of them are very neat. This is an especially big problem for Debian because it allows upgrades from release to release; I can stick in some install disks from Debian 1.0 and (if my hardware is still supported;) install Debian, configure it and upgrade to the current unstable with out a reboot. Thus, there needs to be some way to move from GCC 2.95 C++ programs and libraries to the GCC 3.2-compiled versions of same with breaking things in the process.

Why Sarge won't break anyway:
Packages only hit testing after surviving in unstable for at least two weeks without a Release Critical bug report. Thus, the gcc 3.2 transition will happen in unstable, and pretty much everything (C++ stuff anyhow) will be re-compiled with gcc 3.2. When everything is pretty much working, it will trickle down into Sarge (testing), no breakage required.

I think it should be like this

[Billly Gates]

The whole point of using free software is that the users and not the developers or corporations decide what you use and how to use it. If the gnome developers are angry that users prefer kde because of feature x,y, and z, then they should include it. If they do not want the features then don't code it. Plain and simple. I decide and not redhat, the kde development team, or the gnome development on what I use.

I think including both and having the individual user decide is the best way. Such as I laugh when I see all the clueless windows users wonder why debate and flame each other and which editor to use. In the windows world you only use notepad and purchase VC if you want to do any programming. Microsoft lays out everything for them. If you do not like the way redhat does something you can change it. I downloaded afterstep which redhat no longer supports as an example.

Storm in a tea cup...er...hat?

[PeterClark]

Ok, the GNOME link collapsed long before I got a chance to look at any of the discussion points, but I have looked at the screenshots. Besides the fact that RH has done a good job of making both G and K look boring and uninteresting (although the Keramic window border still manages to look good, despite their best efforts), I don't see what the problem is.

Actually, I would like to see more visual and functional integration of the two. If I could just find a non-Aqua theme that is similar for both KDE and GNOME, I would be truly delighted. While the discontinuity of having two separate themes doesn't bother me much, the neat freak in me wishes for something more...complementary.

:Peter

Re:grrr... (just the URL mam)

[Stephen Samuel]

The Gnome article Stolen from butthead's post.

OK.... focusing on just the themes

[Kaypro]

What RedHat did in the beta (null) was to unify Gnome 1, Gnome 2, KDE and xmms themes. Wasn't this precisely what ESR was saying? Actually it works quite well. The whole interface is slick and unified. Just swap RedHat's default icons for your favorites and you're golden.

Re:OK.... focusing on just the themes

[sprzepiora]

As it stated in the foot notes comments, you can change BACK to the default settings with GConf. End of discussion. What they did is do away with the appearance of fragmentation between UI's while leaving the power to switch if you like/know about it, a smart move IMHO.

Re:OK.... focusing on just the themes

[Sunnan]

ESR? You mean RMS. Blame where blame is due... :)
Actually, I think this is a step in the right direction.

There are some minor issues to work on.

Re:OK.... focusing on just the themes

[unsinged int]

Um...you mean RMS. You linked to a Slashdot article about RMS suggesting KDE and Gnome collaborate.

Re:OK.... focusing on just the themes

[Sunnan]

Moderators:
What's so funny about this? I'm not dissing the mods, but can someone just fill me in on the joke?

Now I can compare functionality

[Foresto]

I'm looking forward to trying this out. If Red Hat has made both desktops look nearly the same, I should be able to more objectively compare their functionality. Imagine that... evaluating a desktop environment without prejudice based on the default appearance.

Re:Now I can compare functionality

[An Onerous Coward]

The disadvantage, of course, is that it's not quite as obvious which desktop you're in. That's a shame, because they do behave quite differently, and even an experienced user might have the occasional brain freeze.

That's why I had to give up on Mozilla's "IE" theme. The Orbit theme is a bit loud, but I know exactly what I'm looking at.

This is great!

[wfrp01]

The competition between KDE and Gnome is wonderful! To all those who plead "let's all just get along ... let's combine these efforts into one desktop uber alles." ...bullocks. Competition invigorates. Both of these desktops are evolving at a phenomenal pace. Why? Well, duh, to survive.

As long as we don't forget about sportsmanship...

Whine, whine, whine

[amemily]

I find this hilarious, ./ers whining because Red Hat made KDE looks like XP and if I'm not mistaken, this is the same group that wants Linux to be easy enough for Grandma to use.

If Red Hat wants their window manager to resemble XP, I say more power to them. If the desktop looks familar enough to them, maybe a few more Windows users will switch.

Re:Whine, whine, whine

[Ziviyr]

Seeing RedHat 5.2 come up looking like Windows is why I have never looked back at it. The Windows appearance is typically tied to a certain mentality that I find disfunctional and draining.

Then again I used to be an Amiga user and used to laugh at everybody and everything for no reason in particular.

Still, I think I'll stick with Debian (which hasn't been working out for me, stubborn Amigan).

Hey, wait a minute!!!

[kko]

Vim is not better than Emacs!!!

Re:Hey, wait a minute!!!

[ceejayoz]

Everyone knows Notepad beats both of them, anyways.

Re:beautiful...

[Verizon Guy]

But they keep saying... MySQL is best at SELECTs!

Good Job Redhat!!!

[Thomas A. Anderson]

Most of us agree that more users using Linux as a desktop is a good thing. Most of us agree the way to get there is to make Linux easier to use for the more *average* user. I think this goes a long ways in that direction.

As long as RedHat isn't limiting the choices of us geeks (and they are not, as far as I can tell), a simplified, unified desktop is great. I own a internet cafe/gaming center running linux, and most of my customers get a scared look in their eyes the first time they see linux (I use kde 3.01). So many options... Very quickly the scared look goes away, but I think this desktop would scare them *much* less...

Sorry KDE and Gnome, but you folks have to stop bitching about this - in the long run this is better for us all.

Greg

Re:Good Job Redhat!!!

[twener]

> I own a internet cafe/gaming center running linux, and most of my customers get a scared look in their eyes the first time they see linux (I use kde 3.01). So many options...

You should bother with KDE's kiosk mode to trim down "useless" options.

Re:Good Job Redhat!!!

[Thomas A. Anderson]

Yes, this is certainly an option - it would make it easier for first timers. But another aspect of the store is linux advocacy - in this respect I think it's important to show all the cool stuff that comes with a standard linux distro (even though I use gentoo, which doesn't fit this category). Plus, there is a college and high school within blocks of the store, so there are many *curious* people who like to tinker. Then there's the "just wanna play counter-strike" or "read email" folks...

A Much To-Do About Nothing!

[zentec]

Jesus H. Jumping Christ! Can we stop this nonsense of which window manager is better? This does nothing productive, and it cements the perception that people who use Linux on the desktop do so because they have nothing better to do between Star Trek/Star Wars conventions.

KDE and Gnome have their merits, and I use one or the other frequently. The bad news is that I still maintain a Windows2000 partition simply because neither one is "there" yet.

I'm sure that the energy wasted in this non-issue would be better served creating an environment where my parents could get XF86 working. The damned thing intimidates me, I can't imagine what it's like to someone trying out Linux for the first time.

It's time the Open Source development teams quit putting up barbed-wire around their little camps and just get on with making their stuff better. These out-bursts remind me of the little cliques you saw in BBS chat rooms in the '90's.

Well then...

[Anonymous Coward]

Neither group appears to be satisfied with th fact that Red Hat has null-ified the difference between the two desktop environments.

I wonder how they feel about having their server null-ified by shashdot?

Comment from a KDE developer.

[digitaltraveller]

I haven't written Konqueror or anything like that, but I have submitted a few decent sized patches to a couple of KDE apps that have been accepted.
And I think this is just great. It is exactly what Linux needs to break into mainstream. The people who won't like it will be the Suse and Mandrake's of the world who won't like RedHat raising the usability bar so significantly. This should have been done along time ago IMHO.
I can't wait for this to be released stable.

Re:Comment from a KDE developer.

[ndogg]

Sure, but couldn't they have at least used a theme that is more neutral between the GNOME and KDE camps, and apply them to both desktops?

Re:Comment from a KDE developer.

[ndogg]

Janne: Red Hat has done the same thing to Gnome as it has to KDE, i.e. replaced the default look'n'feel, menu system and so on with their own designs. If you're worried that KDE now looks like Gnome, rest assured that it doesn't. Indeed, the most common complaint among Gnomers is that it makes Gnome look far too much like KDE. :)

I should take my own advice and RTFA.

Now they know . . .

[npsimons]

. . . how the Linux kernel developers have felt for years. In other words, this hasn't been the first time RedHat has done this, and they are sure to do it again. It's all a part of Open Source, so get used to it. If RedHat does anything stupid (like they have done in the past with their packaged kernels), it will come back to haunt them. If they do anything good, then great, it will go back to the community.

Re:Now they know . . .

[Nailer]

Which Linux kernel developers? When was the lat time they did `this'? How is providing a consistent desktop theme bad? What did Red Hat so with their packacged kernels that was bad?

I can't believe this load of unsupported tripe gets moderated up. If the author had anythign to say I'm sure he'd have provided some supporting arguments, but he's trolling instead.

Re:Now they know . . .

[ivan256]

What they do to the kernel wouldn't be so bad if they used appropriate versioning. When I write a module that lives outside of the kernel, I don't want to have to include a table of what features are in which RedHat kernel in my makefile. If it's 2.4.18 with the vm subsystem from 2.4.9, DON'T CALL THE KERNEL 2.4.9! That's not helpful.

Re:Now they know . . .

[mz001b]

. . how the Linux kernel developers have felt for years. In other words, this hasn't been the first time RedHat has done this, and they are sure to do it again.

Please give a reference to what you are claiming here. Redhat has given a lot back to the Linux community and pays some of the salaries of Linux kernel developers (like Alan Cox). They've also funded developments in gcc.

Re:Now they know . . .

[MisterP]

"If it's 2.4.18 with the vm subsystem from 2.4.9, DON'T CALL THE KERNEL 2.4.9!"

i'm assuming you mean "if it's a 2.4.9 with the vm subsystem from 2.4.10+ don't call it 2.4.9"

oh you have no idea how much i banged my head because of this. if i had the choice, i'd never use RH again.

Re:Now they know . . .

[npsimons]

Which Linux kernel developers?

Me, for one. Not anymore mind you, but I do hack on it when I get the chance these days.

When was the lat time they did `this'? What did Red Hat so with their packacged kernels that was bad?

I'm not sure, because I stopped running RedHat a long time ago for the kind of stuff I was no longer willing to put with. But I can name some things from when I did run RedHat:

1. Including a beta compiler in the distribution as the default, which doesn't compile the kernel properly.
2. Many, many patches that they never passed upstream, but just wrapped up in the source RPM.
3. Other patches that were RedHat specific and mostly there to cover up inconsistencies and problems with RedHat.

All I'm saying is, this isn't the first time RedHat's done something like this. They aren't being deliberately annoying, and I'm sure some of their changes are good (as were some of the non RedHat specific patches they added to their kernel packages), but for f*cks sake, I wish they'd at least tell the upstream maintainers.

How is providing a consistent desktop theme bad?

It's not, but the least they could do is pass the patches upstream and let the maintainers know about it, instead of breaking things and causing headaches for their customers and the upstream maintainers.

I know the GPL doesn't mandate cooperation, but cooperation is a part of the spirit of the GPL.

Re:Now they know . . .

[ivan256]

No, I meant what I said (although the version numbers might be a little off). They take new features that change device driver interfaces, filesystems, and whatever else and they keep an old vm and version number. They provide a list of patches, but no decription of what they do or why they needed them. The changelog their kernel maintainer provides is a joke.

What's worse, the vm that they use is tuned poorly by default or just plain broken. It is completely unsuitable for heavy I/O, because it will use all available memory for buffer cache. After a few minutes of I/O, your memory is full, and you processes are suddenly competing with kswapd and kreclaimd for CPU time. (and loosing).

Can't stand to be the same as the rest ?

[Graspee_Leemoor]

How the fuck did you get over 25 karma ?

As everyone keeps pointing out, it's all about choice. "Microhat" - oh haha really clever.

You're obviously one of those people using linux because you hate Windows rather than because you love open source.

Now, being among like minded people you can't stand it and have to pick a side within a side, so you hate KDE and love gnome.

I bet when you go on gnome-loving forums you decide to hate mozilla and love opera (or vice versa).

graspee

Wow...

[deblorvayn]

I don't care if they do blend the two together. Now that I've seen the screen shots, I want to -use- their latest version. That's saying a lot from a Debian user!

Redhat is doing the right thing here.

[Bob Bitchen]

What will the KDE crew do now? Make their own
linux distro? KDE is good, I like and use it but
we need to remember that the "desktop" is the current
battleground not which desktop. The challenger
is linux and the defender is Windows.
(Mac OS X is gaining fast and may end up sealing
the fate of the linux desktop) So forget about gnome
vs. kde and redhat this or redhat that. Ease of use and a
seamless interface to the web, etc. are the keys to success.

Mosfet.org updated about why this is bad

[mosfet]

I've updated my web site with my opinion on this. Basically they made KDE a shell for Gnome apps so when you select the "KDE" desktop you don't get the KDE web browser, email client, etc... You get all Gnome apps. This is in addition to removing "KDE" from the KDE "About" boxes. They negated the differences between the desktops by removing much of KDE.

Re:Mosfet.org updated about why this is bad

[Nailer]

• RedHat must die. Red Hat. Two words. We all must die at some point, Mosfet ;)
  Red Hat included KDE when the licensing situation was cleared up, and were one of the first distros to have KDE 3.03 packages for their stable release. As someone who posts frequently to RH bugzilla, I know that KDE issues are being fixed by other people than Bero.
  
• When you select to use "KDE" as your default desktop you no longer get the KDE web browser, the KDE email program, etc. This is simply false. You are lying. Konqueror is still there I'm using it to type this in Red Hat null. its in the menus too, but not in the main menu because of a reported, acknowledged bug with /etc/X11/applnk - its in a menu maked extras instead. Personally I don't mind the
  Actually, the major apps on Red Hat's quiclauncher are Mozilla and OpenOffice, which are neither KDE nor Gnome apps. Although I love Konq, Mozilla *will* render more pages, so I think itsa good default. Likewise, Openoffie is useable for the 99.9% of people who need to open, edit, and save Microsoft office documents, and Koffice and Abiword / Gnumeric are not.
  
• They have even gone so far as to remove KDE from the "About" boxes of the KDE apps you get to keep when using their fake KDE desktop. . You are lying, again. All my apps say Foo (using KDE 3.0.3-2) in thei abotu menus. Why not make your comments after installing Red Hat and attempting to know what you are talking about?
  
• If users select to use the KDE desktop they should obviously get access to KDE applications as the default, not Gnome ones. Doing otherwise cripples the entire thing.
  Are you sure about that? I would have thought that users should obviously get access to the best applications as the default. Doing otherwise is a self-selving wank on behalf of the desktop. Sorry, Mozilla will work for more pages than Konq and therefore makes a good alternative to Konq, which is still there.
  
• Not only does it make KDE less efficent because you have to have both toolkits running Users can and will expect to be able to run the best apps avaliable regardless of toolkit. Anything that stops them from doing that is a bug.
  
• No more Konqueror :(. Really? The app I'm typing in sure *looks* like Konqeuror on Red Hat Null.
  
• And you can forget about cool stuff like Liquid working properly because many of the KDE apps have been replaced. Which ones? I think the only reason Liquid wouldn't work properly is if you deliberately broke it to make it not work with Red Hat, which wouldn't surprise me.
  
• you can forget about simple things like color schemes working properly everywhere.
  Color schemes DON'T work properly everywhere. That's one of the things that's broken about Linux. last time I checked KDE color schemes didn't affect GTK2 apps and vice versa. That said, KDE color schemes still work fine in Null.
  
• You can forget about all the code sharing features of KDE Why?
  
• You can forget about interoperability between KDE apps because many of them aren't used.. As I said before, all the apps are still there.
  
• you can forget about the cool new default style and icons. I would rather forget about the cool new default style and icons than forget abotu consistent looking applications
  
• I have always said RH were a bunch of bastards. God I hate these people. Grow up. You clearly haven't even used Null but you've already formed a very emotional opinion about it based on heresay.
  

Re:Mosfet.org updated about why this is bad

[zentec]

Here we go!

This is demonstrates exactly what I mentioned in my previous post. Instead of taking what good can be harvested out of the Red Hat changes, KDE developers have their panties in a bunch for people tresspassin' in their 'hood.

Give me a break! I've worked in the television industry for almost 10 years, I've seen a lot of big b-i-g B-IG egos in that time. But I've never seen such big egos with such a childish slant.

It's not about promoting Linux, it's about promoting and controlling your little cyber-kingdom and territory.

The people in Redmond must be rolling on the floor over this one, they know they have nothing to fear from these bozos.

Re:Mosfet.org updated about why this is bad

[mz001b]

Redhat has also changed the Gnome icons, which I've personally always thought were quite nice, to the new uniform set. As many others have said, you can always go back to the original ones with the new RH. They are trying to make GNOME more like KDE or KDE more like GNOME, they are trying to unify some of the differences so that it is easier to support (that is what people pay them to do, after all). You have several options, including using some other distro besides RH, installing Xiamian GNOME if you want, changing the Redhat defaults for either GNOME or KDE (whichever you prefer) to something that you prefer (which may or may not be aligned with the "official" KDE/GNOME ideas).

Re:Mosfet.org updated about why this is bad

[Reziac]

It's not about promoting Linux, it's about promoting and controlling your little cyber-kingdom and territory.

Noticed that, didja? Better don your asbestos underwear -- I had to, last time I made such a remark.

Yet everyone here wails no end when M$ and the RIAA do the same control-freakery. Ironic, eh?

Re:Mosfet.org updated about why this is bad

[mchappee]

OK, first of all, you're an idiot. I read your website every once in a while when I'm in the mood for a kneejerk "the world is out to get me" rant. The fact that I read it in Konqueror is relevant to the fact that I like KDE and KDE apps. That said, I think what Redhat is doing is correct. It's not Show Friends it's Show Business. With one sweeping redesign that halve their support costs. Now, let's delve into the insanity a bit:

>RedHat, who never has supported KDE and has had only one guy
>packaging the whole thing in his spare time, (compared to dozens of
>people working on Gnome), now apparently has changed some of the most
>important default KDE applications to Gnome ones when using the KDE
>desktop.

Wah. They chose Gnome because your camp had license issues. Your license issues have been resolved, but the choice had been made. They would be stupid to choose KDE at this point. They've put a lot of time and money into Gnome. Gnome is obviously the desktop that they push, why hire an army of packagers for an "also ran" desktop?

>When you select to use "KDE" as your default desktop you no longer
>get the KDE web browser, the KDE email program, etc...

This is going to be a recurring theme to this post, so get used to it: It's their distro. They can put what they want in their menus. If a user is having e-mail problems they want to be in a position to help. They can't have support people for each desktop. If Evolution is both the KDE Desktop e-mail program and the Gnome Desktop e-mail program, they just reduced by 50% the staff needed to support e-mail problems.

>When you select a KDE desktop you basically get the window manager,
>the panel, and a bunch of Gnome apps.

I can't speak for everyone, but I define a "Desktop" as a window manager and a panel. An e-mail program does not a "Desktop" make. Apps are apps, only you and Microsoft seem to get that confused.

>They have even gone so far as to remove KDE from the "About" boxes of
>the KDE apps you get to keep when using their fake KDE desktop.

And when someone has a problem with the software, are they going to call KDE? Nope. The apps, the desktop, the OS - all Redhat's responsibility. It's their distro, it's their problem. And it's quite the enormous problem. By removing KDE from the menus they are obsolving KDE of the responsibility to do what it cannot: Answer the phone when a Redhat user calls for support. Don't worry, KDE will be back in the menu by the next beta. Removing it makes sense, but Redhat will cave to the whiners.

>This of course is a huge blow to KDE.

The ambiguous "This" must be refering to your post, right?

>If users select to use the KDE desktop they should obviously get
>access to KDE applications as the default, not Gnome ones. Doing
>otherwise cripples the entire thing.

Oh yes, Obviously. Because you can't have a "Desktop" without KCalc, right? I don't know what "The entire thing" is, so I won't touch it.

>Not only does it make KDE less efficent because you have to have both
>toolkits running but people will not see any of the advantages KDE
>applications have.

Redhat is not here to trumpet the KDE project. And, hard as it may be for you, they're noy here to trumpet the Gnome project either. They're here to provide a unified Linux distribution of the highest quality possible, with the lowest support costs possible, and the highest cost possible. They use the tools that help them achieve these goals. That's what all of those dots are between "Start Business" and "Make Profit". They don't owe the KDE project anything.

>No more Konqueror :( And you can forget about cool stuff like Liquid
>working properly because many of the KDE apps have been replaced.

ftp://rawhide.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/beta/n ul l/en/os/i386/RedHat/RPMS/kdeaddons-konqueror-3.0.3 -1.i386.rpm
Looks to me like Konqueror is alive and well in the latest beta. And that part about Liquid is just unabashed horn tooting. Liquid is pretty, BTW.

>you can forget about simple things like color schemes working
>properly everywhere.

OK, you haven't even used this beta version, have you? Have you even seen it, or is your rant completely IRC-based?

>with RH you pretty much can forget about using KDE - they've reduced
>it to nothing on their platform.

And there we have it, folks! Yes, you "can forget about using KDE". You can forget about it, and get some fucking work done. That's the point, dude. The market that Redhat want's doesn't want to care about using KDE. They want to use their computers to do work. That's it. The people using these computers don't want to know what OS is on it, let alone what window manager or calculator program. I said it before, and I'll say it again: It's not Show Friends, it's Show Business.

Matthew

Re:Mosfet.org updated about why this is bad

[jbolden]

Oh by the people in Redmond you can't mean the company that pulled OEM licenses for changing a single icon on the desktop? Obviously they aren't going to be laughing.

The KDE people are angry that their work is getting repackaged as optional utilities for Gnome/GTK rather than as an alternative to Gnome. That's not unjustified; most likely they are on the KDE project because they like KDE more than Gnome.

And as for me its not about promoting Linux its about promoting free software. If free software wins and the Linux kernal dies I won't be unhappy with that outcome at all. If Linux becomes a corporate, profit oriented commercial product with a free limited interior and a bunch of expensive add ons that isn't victory.

Re:Mosfet.org updated about why this is bad

[Kashif Shaikh]

I'm glad Nailer nailed the point home to mosfet and others. Personally, I'm glad Redhat is making things consistent...they are lowering the barrier to linux.

Second point:[rant on]: I absolutely hate the dozens of 'k' programs...i.e koffice,kedit,kwrite,kview,knotes,kjot,kruler,kcvs ,ksdk,kdeveloper,kfuck this, kfuck that.

I know kde is trying to create a desktop environment, but that doesn't mean 100s of k programs...why the fuck is koffice even being implemented? Work on making one thing perfect, and don't spread yourselves too thin. I've used kde 3.0, and even though it tries too hard to be like windows, it's still better than gnome2 IMO. These days I use WindowMaker because I like the different and unique approach it takes.

[rant off]

Re:Mosfet.org updated about why this is bad

[snowlick]

KDE is a package deal. People work hard on it with that in mind. When someone comes along and picks and chooses pieces from the whole, the original idea is trashed. As all of you know, a big part of the Open Source community is the belief in it. For anyone to do anything for free they must believe what they are doing is worthwhile. I can't help but feel bad for the KDE folks who are watching their baby be split into pieces, and incorporated into someone else's dream. You know, this is Red Hat we're talking about here. This *could* seriously alter the future of KDE. When the very idea behind a project changes, a lot of people become disenchanted. Unfortunately, the thin veneer of idealism is all that holds many projects together.

Then again, a license is a license. Red Hat was totally in the right to do what they did. The question is, how does large-scale project snatching effect the developers? This has happened a million times before in the paying world, and the free one too I'm sure.

Re:Mosfet.org updated about why this is bad

[Karn]

Well, Redhat just can't with win some people. It's a case of "Damned if you do, damned if you don't." About the only way these so-called Open Source advocates would come to accept Redhat is if they got rid of the gui installer, make KDE the default desktop, and lost 99% of their market share.

It's not enough that the company's business model is intertwined with Open Source, GPL software. It's not enough that they fund GCC, kernel,, gnome development, as well as many other GPL projects.

I never thought I'd see so much bitching about a company that sells/supports GPL software. I guess many slashdotters are just a lot of ingrateful elitists.

Nice rant, btw.

Re:Mosfet.org updated about why this is bad

[0x0d0a]

So some big wheels in KDE think KDE must be a package deal. Other people writing KDE disagree.

So let those "package deal" foks write their package deal system, and let it compete with RH's stock system. Make a RH binary release. Whichever is better will come out on top, plain and simple.

Re:Mosfet.org updated about why this is bad

[0x0d0a]

Your web site is awfully boring at the moment...I get an "access denied" message for "/" with both lynx and dillo.

Re:Mosfet.org updated about why this is bad

[Nailer]

When someone comes along and picks and chooses pieces from the whole

Please, please knwo that KDE is intact. The desktop, the panel, Konqueror, Knode, Koffice, etc. Moset is simply lying when he says Konqueror isn't avaliable in the menus. It is.

What Red Hat have doen is picked what they saw to be the best apps to handle some particular tasks by default.

Mozilla (although I love Konq) simply renders more pages out there than Konqueror. I think a new Linux user would simply be happier with a web browser than can view the most popular web site in his country (here, www.ninemsn.com.au) than one that can't. Because of this, Red hat (I believe) thinks it is the better tool, and logically makes it the default.

Likewise, OpenOffice can read, edit, and save to Microsoft Office documents, and unfortunate necessity in todays world, better than KOffice or Abiword/Gnumeric can. Because of this, Red hat (I believe) thinks it is the better tool, and logically makes it the default.

Neither Mozilla nor OpenOffice are GNOME or KDE packages (sadly, they use their own wacky toolkits and reinvent the wheel yet again). So this isn't a matter of Red Hat sabotaging KDE in favor of Gnome.

I'm a KDE user sitting in front of my machien usign the same apps I always do. All of KDE is here and I'm typing this into Konquror which I launched from the KDE menu.

The QT Konqueror window I'm looking at looks the same as the GTK1 xchat, XMMS, and the GTK2 Packages app behind it. This rocks.

Red Hat are picking the best apps for the job for their defaults. Just like real people do.

Re:Mosfet.org updated about why this is bad

[kevin lyda]

in reading your article, one word kept running through my head: twink. you either lied, misled, or posted out of ignorance. lame.

Re:Mosfet.org updated about why this is bad

[FooBarWidget]

Here's a RedHat+GNOME user.

Re:Mosfet.org updated about why this is bad

[Karn]

What I meant was, the only way many of these "Redhat is EVIL!" people would come to accept Redhat is if noone used it. Basically, some people dislike it because they see it as 'mainstream'. In my opinion, this is an elitist attitude which gives nothing back to Open/Free software, does nothing for the community.

Re:Mosfet.org updated about why this is bad

[Ninja Programmer]

Dude, check your posts with the preview button.

That said:

If users select to use the KDE desktop they should obviously get access to KDE applications as the default, not Gnome ones. Doing otherwise cripples the entire thing.
Are you sure about that? I would have thought that users should obviously get access to the best applications as the default. Doing otherwise is a self-selving wank on behalf of the desktop. Sorry, Mozilla will work for more pages than Konq and therefore makes a good alternative to Konq, which is still there.

I am with Mosfet on this one. If a user wants KDE, s/he should get KDE. If you want the "BEST" apps, you need some other choice mechanism (besides some defined criteria for "best".)

You can forget about all the code sharing features of KDE
Why?

Because Gnome apps don't know/care about KParts?

Re:Mosfet.org updated about why this is bad

[Hope Thelps]

But I _explicitly_ chose to _not_ use the default (which is GNOME) but instead chose explicitly to use KDE which _should_ also make Konqueror my default browser!

Why? If you prefer a particular browser then you can choose it regardless of which desktop you're on. And if you like a particular desktop you can choose it regardless of which browser you chose. Why should switching one mess up the other?

Konqueror is there if you wish to use it.

Re:Mosfet.org updated about why this is bad

[Nailer]

But I _explicitly_ chose to _not_ use the default (which is GNOME)

No, it isn't. The default is neither KDE nor Gnome. Red Hat aren't putting Galeon on your desktop, nor are they expecting to to actually use Abiword for anything serious. They've actually chosen two GNOME/KDE neutral apps for Office Suite and Web Browser.

You selected to use the KDE desktop. When you selected to install KDE, Red Hat installed Kong, KOffice, Kmail, etc. and pu them there in your menus. But most new users to linux would rather have the browser than renders more web pages and the office suite that's finished rather than the one that doesn't and the one that isn't. Likewise, Evolution is much more simialr to what a Windows users expects from a PIM than KMail is (because KMail isn't a PIM, its an email program and nothign more) The rest of us can change the defaults.

Re:Mosfet.org updated about why this is bad

[Nailer]

Because Gnome apps don't know/care about KParts?

Again, the main apps involved, for webv browser and office suite, aren't Gnome apps. But more importantly, all those applications are still there in the menus (unless you're affected by the /etc/X11/applnk bug, but the menus are how I launched the Konq session I'm using to type this), contrary to Mosfet's lies.

desktop brand test?

[stock]

As it is a beta, they might want to find a
objective way to have beta testers choose
between KDE or GNOME... like the coca cola
vs pepsi test...

However if the final release won't show the
About info, it then *is* a one microsoft way
of approaching their product... they have a rats
ass respect for KDE or Gnome coders.

Robert

Re:What's wrong with detail?

[mabinogi]

They removed the 'about' boxes from all the KDE apps

Well now wait a doggone minute...

[quiklilo71]

Who really cares? The desktop wars are always fun, it pushes all products to "Excel" or change thier "Outlook." Heck I'm not making a "Powerpoint", I'm just stating the facts. Competition is good for linux, it pushes us to open new "windows" and grow. This is evident in the way open source coverage has grown "XP"ediately in media coverage lately. You mark my "Word", it does not matter; KDE or Gnome, which ever product continues to "Project" themselves forward with quality features, smooth intergration and stable ease of use; that will dominate the desktop.

Re:Well now wait a doggone minute...

[IndependentVik]

That post was so "Money", baby!

Re:Well now wait a doggone minute...

[blackula]

Wow you guys are "morons"!

yawn

[RestiffBard]

who cares? this is just.. dumb. what are we worried about here? anyone else notice that lilo looks different on different distros? who cares?

add this to the pointless and time-wasting flame wars bin, next to vi vs. emacs and the rest of the dumb things we bitch about.

I hate KDE and Gnome

[toki]

Actually, it's X11 that I despise the most. It's great if you're doing Unix sysadmin tasks or a network engineer, but if you're just a normal user looking to use a regular desktop, X11 just plain stinks. KDE and Gnome are both cumbersome, resource-intensive, and huge bandaids covering the shortcomings of the X11 system. The best both of them can do is cover about 50% of the features that other GUI systems such as MS Windows and Mac OS X give you without an add-on.

Re:I hate KDE and Gnome

[Thyrsus]

Mac OS X runs its GUIs via the X window system. Yes, it adds things, especially to support OS 9 applications. The whole point to the X design was to provide mechanism, not policy. Desktop environments - Gnome, KDE, (Aqua for Mac OS X, unless I'm mistaken) - provide policy.

Re:I hate KDE and Gnome

[kevin lyda]

justify that 50% you just yanked out of your ass.

Re:I hate KDE and Gnome

[toki]

It seems none of you were interested in an actual intellectual response; rather some of you've resorted to name calling, while others didn't bother justifying your knee-jerk reactions while demanding me to further justify my conclusions. So here goes:

X11 is slow because it works on outdated hardware. It doesn't have much in the way of optimizations for new, fast hardware, it was designed for old Sun b/w frame buffers and such. Even the new optimizations available hardly take advantage of the latest 2D and 3D hardware acceleration.

X11 itself doesn't do much. You can't even reasonably use it without a window manager, and even then it doesn't do much. To get the features that are available in other GUI environments, you must use KDE or Gnome. Even then, you still can't do simple tasks via the GUI that you can with other OSes, such as change the resolution. There isn't a unified graphical installer for applications for Linux (although some distributions do have them), which is fine if you're a slashdot reading geek, but if you're a regular consumer you're going to find it very difficult.

Font control is probably the biggest mess out of all the issues. Fonts look just plain bad under X11. Sure, you can fidget around and get them looking descent, but that requires mucking around with KDE, Gnome, and X11 font settings, the later being way more difficult than it should be. That's great if you're a tinkerer and putterer, but again if you're a regular consumer, you don't have the time or knowledge to accomplish this.

I've used Gnome and KDE from the getgo, I remember years ago when I got the pre-1.0 beta of KDE to compile on a SunOS 4.1.4 box with a great amount of tweaking. Well I got tired of tweaking. Most people just want something that works, and works well.

It would require some work, but I think that scrapping X altogether and building a new, modern GUI from scratch would make Linux and other OSes a viable desktop platform. Mac OS X did it, BeOS almost did it. I believe there is a clone of BeOS's GUI in the works for Linux. That would be a great place to start.

Also, the Mac OS X GUI (Aqua) has nothing to do with X. It's based mostly on NeXTStep's graphical environment, which was as groundbreaking in the early 90's as Mac OS X is now. 10 years ago I could drag and drop a file into a graphical email client and it would show up as an icon. NeXT was doing it well before Microsoft.

When compared to Mac OS X, BeOS, and even MS Windows. X and KDE/Gnome still don't compare.

It's important to note the distinction between

[Anonymous Coward]

Sarge and Sid. Is is "unstable" and will always be. Sarge is currently "testing" and will one day be "stable".

Settle the fuck down

[Anonymous Coward]

The whiny rant on your site, including such gems as "RH [are] a bunch of bastards", does nothing to aid your cause. Were Red Hat truely serious about destroying KDE as you claim, they simply wouldn't supply it with their distro.

You seem genuinely shocked that a company who has funded Gnome development for years isn't pouring resources into KDE. Be realistic about it - what kind of business sense is it to resource supporting two projects that replicate the tasks of each other. They put Mozilla as the default web browser, when they committed resources to Mozilla development? Oh the horror! I know that as a Linux user, I would rather they committed all their resources to improving one project, and get Linux out there on corporate desktops sooner.

Don't get me wrong, I've run KDE for two years and like it. But posting a flamebait rant, as you have, that a company has a different agenda to what you'd rather they do, demonstrates a lack of maturity. You should be content that they are still taking time to supply KDE with their distro. If they wanted to kill it off and strip the user of choice, they simply wouldn't include it.

Re:Settle the fuck down

[0x0d0a]

If the KDE folks are so pissed off at RH's release (the best stab so far at integrating KDE and GNOME), then they can release to RH a bunch of alternate code/settings that implements things the way they'd like. If RH goes for it, great, everyone's again happy. If RH doesn't, then they can fork the distro.

I am running limbo...

[Critical_]

Yes it is true that KDE is nothing other than a shell. Most applications you use are those of Gnome. I have very mixed feelings over this. Sure, I really like some of the stuff KDE has to offer, but in the end, I like the fact that I can change to KDE or Gnome and the look and feel is still the same. I know people have jumped the gun (like mosfet) by saying that nothing works and how this is the worst thing to ever happen, but eerything is still there. RedHat choose to standardize on Gnome. If you don't like it, DON'T USE IT! No one is sticking a gun to your head making you use it. As for the about box changes, I don't understand what the issue is. If i want to run a standard KDE configuration, then I'll revert back to the KDE defaults. As it is, the system works and looks great.

Woops

[Critical_]

That's what i get for not previewing the subject. I have ran Limbo but now I am running NULL.

Someone finally makes Linux apps look consistent

[Nailer]

And you're complaining?

I'm usign the Red Hat beta Null right now. I *like* the fact that all my apps - GTK1, GTK2, QT, XUL, and XMMS skins - look consistent. Other people I know have been asking for this for years.

Did people complain when people made their KDE and GNOME menus consistent? Not if I remeber correctly. Because nobody ever says `today, I feel like launching a GTK app .... and maybe it should be a web browser, Instead, they just want the best web browser avaliable and expect it to be in their goddamned internet menu.

Likewise, nobody says `today I wish half my app would look like X, and the other half Y'. The lack onconsistent theming between these two desktops is retarded (If you find that offensive, becausee it implies mentally retarded people are stupid, they are).

Red Hat have done some excellent work on Null and done a lot of useability improvements to their desktops. Consistent looking menus and widgets and comparable panel apps is just the start of what should hopefully become a linux desktop where people pick apps based on quality rather than toolkit, and the desktop reflects this.

Grow up

[ilovekimmy]

Redhat can do as they wish as long as they don't violate the license. The real problem is that all those greats features they're losing by not using KDE apps exclusively shouldn't be KDE only features, all X apps should share code and integrate well, etc. KDE (and GNOME and anything else)'s apps should have to stand on their own, individually, not all or nothing. Redhat SHOULD choose default apps (while allowing users to change the default globally [i.e. in GNOME and KDE by changing on setting not two]), for a particular task, and have them the default everywhere. This makes it easier for users to switch between desktops and try different things out. Switching desktops and switching mail clients and switching browsers are each seperate tasks, individual switches if you will, instead of only one giant switch.

Retarded can be stupid or not, it depends

[BoomerSooner]

Is it physical retardation or mental. Now in the case of mental you're right. However, Stephen Hawking is physically retarded and it's doubtful you're intelligent enough to call him stupid.

Just thought your (if your offended) comment deserved a comment of its own.

Re:Retarded can be stupid or not, it depends

[donglekey]

Stephen Hawking is not physically retarded.

Re:Retarded can be stupid or not, it depends

[Carnivore]

Hawking isn't retarded. He has a degenerative disease. He is physically _disabled_, which is different. Retardation has the connotation of a slow down during development, as in to retard the development of the system.

Typo

[Bruce Perens]

Typo: Read "yospu" as "you". Sorry.

It's not that bad...

[loginx]

It's really easy to get KDE to behave the usual way actually.
I just installed (null) and indeed, the desktop was exactly like GNOME's but the redhat desktop for GNOME is not the original one either.
it took me about 10 minutes to set KDE to behave exactly the way I want it too and to use all the original KDE icons.

It's really not that bad.

There's nothing wrong with it

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, gee, mosfet, sorry to tell you, but if you didn't want them to do this, you should've put it in your software license. Nobody forced you to contribute code to KDE under the GPL. Redhat's actions are not only totally legal, but totally right. The ability of third parties to customize Free Software to their specific needs is one of the most important freedoms afforded by the GPL.

They did correct my biggest complaint

[einhverfr]

Which is he difficulty of doing dependency resolution post-install. Sure RPM can tell you what you need, but none of the post-install frontends in RedHat would actually resolve these dependencies for you (the one think I really really liked about SuSE).This is good and I wish them the best.

Besides, RedHat wants a supportable desktop so they can go after the corporate workstation market. I am sure this has a lot to do with it.

KDE to launch Gnome apps... so what?

[cesarcardoso]

GNOME applications are way better than KDE ones - sorry, I wouldn't change Evolutions for KMail, or Galeon for Konqueror. So what?

QT is ugly. GTK+1 is acceptable, GTK+2 is beautiful. So what?

(null)'s default theme is beautiful and - sin of the sins for KDErs - Mosfet doesn't made it (Mosfet looks like the only KDEr with artistic pendors, so he can maintain this "God blows everyone that dares not to use my artwork" attitude. Personally IMHO tigert and jimmac kicks ass.). Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooo what?

The question is: people becomes confused with too much choice. People prefer default looks by default.

And that's way OS vendors/packagers puts default looks and feels on their desktops. Microsoft does it, Apple does it, IBM does it, Sun does it, HPaq does it. Why not RedHat? And yes, if you hate their artwork (I LOVED it), you can always install what YOU want - isn't that the joy of Linux?

Re:KDE to launch Gnome apps... so what?

[Karn]

Windows 9x themes didn't really change anything about the widgets, save the color and font. GTK and QT support not only changing the widget color and font, but they allow bitmapped coloring of widgets, and the widgets can look completely different (ie radio buttons, check boxes, and scrollbars can look totally different.)

Windows 9x themeing does NOT provide the same level of tweakability as GTK/Qt themeing.

Subway standard

[DoctorFrog]

"Put everything on it."

Want Linux to be successful -- this is good

[mrscott]

I'm mostly a Windows guy by background and have been supporting it for years. I would love to be able to roll Linux out to my users, but I need a clean, easy to use interface. I don't give a damn what it is -- I just want it to work consistently and with ease -- like Windows. Yeah -- like Windows. Every single one of my users, no matter their skill level can very easily do things like change their background, resolution, create Word documents, print files, email said files, etc -- on Windows. Before Linux can truly move ahead, some serious integration issues need to be addressed. All I want is a desktop that does its job -- who cares what it is? A user in an office should never have to care. They should simply be able to use it.

I see Red Hat's move as a step in this direction and although some folks do not like Red Hat, I think we are going to begin to see them make major inroads at the desktop, which is good for all of us.

Re:Want Linux to be successful -- this is good

[nagora]

All I want is a desktop that does its job -- who cares what it is? A user in an office should never have to care. They should simply be able to use it.

This is what I do:

1. Install WindowMaker
2. Copy over my standard WM setup and icons from one of the other office machines
3. Copy over .xmodmap to change CapsLock to Control and the funny menu key to CapsLock
4. Show desktop to new employee and say "The function keys take you from screen 1 to screen 10, the number's in the top left. Screen 2 has Opera, Netscape and Mozilla [points to icons] so you can use whichever you like. This icon is Pan which lets you read newsgroups. Screen 3 is for graphics: that's Sketch, the Gimp and GQView. Screen 4 has Open Office and Acrobat Reader and screen 5 is music players; that's a cd player and that's an Ogg/mp3 player. The email program is on the right under the calculator. Any questions?"

Generally speaking that's all anyone needs to be told about the desktop.

TWW

Re:Want Linux to be successful -- this is good

[dwkunkel]

Our engineering group has a large and growing number of Linux users. Most of them have taken my advice and use the XFCE desktop because it's fast, easily configured, and doesn't get in the way. A minimalist desktop appeals to those that just want to get their work done.

Re:Want Linux to be successful -- this is good

[nagora]

A minimalist desktop appeals to those that just want to get their work done

Indeed, that's why I use WindowMaker. I did try XFCE but it was quite a while ago and it wasn't quite ready yet but the philosophy's right.

TWW

usability and Linux for sissies

[feldsteins]

I admit I am absolutely fascinated by the whole Linux phenomenon and this debate gets right to one of the core issues. Open source may indeed be "about choice" but until someone chooses to make a usable, consumer-ized distribution the world will choose to use another operating system on the desktop.

Linux will never be more than a geek toy and a server OS until and unless someone takes seriously the idea that its general usablity has a long way to go. I predict that when/if this happens, that consumerized distro will be universally hated and soundly thrashed in these forums for "taking away choice," and using "too much eye candy," etc.

There are, naturally, other hurdles for Linux making inroads on the desktop. But its consumer-friendliness is certainly one of the biggies. Perhaps Redhat is making more moves in that direction than I realized. I guess the signs are there...it's already been branded as the "Linux for sissies" in these forums.

Re:usability and Linux for sissies

[symbolic]

You make some very good points. But I don't think it has to involve removing choice, so much as it should make some of them less obvious. This is kind of how Apple handled it with OSX. Very pretty and functional interface, but if you really want to get your hands dirty, you can easily go for it.

Re:usability and Linux for sissies

[IamTheRealMike]

I admit I am absolutely fascinated by the whole Linux phenomenon and this debate gets right to one of the core issues. Open source may indeed be "about choice" but until someone chooses to make a usable, consumer-ized distribution the world will choose to use another operating system on the desktop.

Well, this is perhaps true (and perhaps not? there are plenty of odd looking cars about), but this is exactly what's happening with companies like Lycoris and Lindows. For instance, Lindows have wrapped "Click'n'Run" around apt-get. I'd hate that name, but then again, Lindows isn't meant for me. So open source really is about choice. The people here on Slashdot may not like Lindows overly much (being mainly developers), but the customer will be able to choose the Windowsified versions of Linux if they so wish.

Linux will never be more than a geek toy and a server OS until and unless someone takes seriously the idea that its general usablity has a long way to go.

People are taking it seriously. Perhaps you missed the announcement that the GNOME Human Interface Guide has been released. It's modelled after the Apple docs of the same name, but having never seen the Apple version I don't know whether the advice contained within is similar or not. I've flicked over it, and it seems to have a lot of good information. The GNOME people also subject virtually all their work to an UI review process now, and it really does show. I'm using GNOME 2 now, and although it's still primitive in terms of features (and still too many bugs!) usability is not one of my complaints with it. KDE have something similar, though their usability effort is not yet quite ramped up as much as the GNOME team is. GNOME2 also shows how to make a usable interface that doesn't simply copy Windows or the Mac.

I predict that when/if this happens, that consumerized distro will be universally hated and soundly thrashed in these forums for "taking away choice," and using "too much eye candy," etc.

Well when Lindows/Lycoris etc were annouced, some people did trash them, but really most were pretty reasonable. Although these distros may take away choice by default, you don't have to choose these distros, so there's not less choice than before, but more choice!

There are, naturally, other hurdles for Linux making inroads on the desktop.

Certainly, there are lots. Package management, application quality, online training - this hasn't even been started yet, but there are far too many people who freeze at the sight of something that's different to what they're used to. The only rememedy for this is for the computer itself to handhold them through the basics, perhaps using online tutorials.

Perhaps Redhat is making more moves in that direction than I realized. I guess the signs are there...it's already been branded as the "Linux for sissies" in these forums.

It has? Could you point me to the post that brands RedHat as Linux for sissies? I haven't seen it yet.

Re:usability and Linux for sissies

[GauteL]

Eh.. I have problems with people arguing that MacOS X gives you choice, while sometimes the same people bitch about GNOME taking away choices (I'm not trying to imply that this includes you, because I frankly do not know).

The interface of OSX is pretty and functional, and it does NOT have an extreme amount of options. It doesn't even have focus follows mouse does it?

I would not miss these things. I think the GNOME-project is right about minimalizing options, I just think it's strange that OSX gets praised for the same things GNOME gets bitchslapped for.

Re:usability and Linux for sissies

[feldsteins]

Please show me the data that supports you assumption that linux is unusable on the desktop.

What kind of BS demand is that? Please show me the data that says it is usable! I am basing my judgement on the 5 years of experience I have directly supporting and training users in a large multi-platform environment and also on my own personal experiences running Windows, Mac OS and two flavors of Linux...each across numerous versions. If you have better data than that then you know something the rest of us don't. Please share!

The fact that there isn't any data from serious independent studies showing the state of Linux usability doesn't mean, however, that we can assume Linux is just as usuable as any other desktop OS - although I'm sure you'd like to. There's plenty of reason to believe otherwise (see above). And frankly, I think it's the people who are in denial about the state of Linux usability that are the largest roadblock on the path to getting it fixed.

you are obivously pretty green to GNU\linux

I'm really not sure what that means. That I'm not a linux developer? That I've never used it? That I haven't read up on it? Whatever it is supposed to mean it is irrelevant to my point, which I still stand by.

Re:usability and Linux for sissies

[feldsteins]

Could you point me to the post that brands RedHat as Linux for sissies?

Alas, I cannot. In fact I don't mean to say that I'm staking my reputation on the fact that the word "sissy" was used. But I am standing behind the sentiment - that the Redhat distribution has been repeatedly referred to with disdain and labled a distribution more suitable for people who are inexperienced with Linux and that users "in the know" would never be caught using it.

RedHat

[tollieman]

Ahh, seems that even though I earned my RHCE (yeah big deal) I still stay with Slackware, I prefer to start out with the minimum, then add what I want, not what they want me to start out with.


I guess freedom is'nt free after all...There is always a catch.

Tollieman

I don't get it

[Karn]

Read the KDE FAQ:
http://www.kde.org/whatiskde/index.html

"Together with a free implementation of UNIX such as Linux, UNIX/KDE constitutes a completely free and open computing platform available to anyone free of charge including its source code for anyone to modify."

Now, they don't go into detail here, but they are touting customization as an advantage of KDE. I would think modifying Konqueror or the KDE menus would both apply here.. So, do they or don't they want people modifying their software? Redhat and Ximian have always modified Gnome, so what's the big deal with Redhat modding KDE?

They didn't make KDE look like Gnome, they have recognized KDE as a valid option. Perhaps if they made KDE look WORSE than Gnome, then we'd have something to bitch about.

"Navindra Umanee: This is bad. Why are they doing this? They seem to be actively trying to destroy us by making us look bad. What is the point of all these stupid changes to cripple KDE and make us look like (or worse than) GNOME?"

They only thing they have done is accept KDE as a valid desktop option for users. They have always taken the default Gnome and customized it, and now they are doing the same to KDE.

If they don't want companies modifying their software,they need to release KDE under a more restrictive license. People can't release under a free/open license which *encourages* people to modify it and expect people not to.

Re:I don't get it

[Karn]

It's all a matter of opinion. I think the screens look way better than the boring default.

you must've missed his link

[Trepidity]

He linked to the Emacs page, which is in fact the OS that RMS has produced. It just needs a kernel to bootstrap it. =P

Re:I'm tired of the bickering...

[__aaaaxm1522]

And don't forget former physicists turned Linux system administrators at open source companies, who pull down over $80k a year.

Now litte kid, go back to your nice game of counterstrike and come back when you're old enough to participate in a grown up world.

Mod Parent Down

[phoxix]

GTK, QT, and Motif are not bloat. They are created so that application developers don't have to deal with x directly and can spend better time worrying about the actual functionality of their application.

Programming directly under X would force a programmer to deal with many various problems that he need not with a toolkit. So instead of having to deal with code that creates tabs for him, he uses GTK which provide widgets to easily create the tabs for him.

See how life is easy with a toolkit?

Sunny Dubey

Re:Mod Parent Down

[J. J. Ramsey]

Um, the guy you responded to was *joking*. Take a look at what the guy you responded to was responding to.

Call me weird

[SomeOtherGuy]

But I use Fluxbox as my WM with mostly gtk apps. Gqview, Galeon, Gimp, Grip, Etc. I don't get what the whole Gnome VS. Kde thing is. It's all about the apps. Hell, I would give up all the WM's and go back to TWM before I would give up the apps.

"About KDE"

[xant]

Anyone want to comment on the fact that the first link claims that "About KDE" has been removed? I think unifying the appearances is a good thing, but I don't see what RedHat hopes to gain by not giving credit where it's due. Even if the licenses don't explicitly say these dialogs need to remain untouched (and for all I know they do) RH is making a bad PR move right there.

Everything else about the changes looks gravy to me.

Re:"About KDE"

[ajs]

many have reported that it's still there. I'll have to look once I have it installed on my home box (my work laptop and desktop will continue to run 7.3 until the new version is stable).

*WHEW* It's just the /. effect...

[da cog]

I just came back home from watching Signs, so when I clicked on the link and my browser told me I couldn't connect I was like, "OH MY GOD, IT's HAPPENING!!!"

Then I remembered, "Oh, wait, that's right..." ;)

I don't care as long as they fix the FONTS

[Anonymous Coward]

get some real TTF fonts for chrissakes.

Re:I don't care as long as they fix the FONTS

[Majix]

The fonts in the new NULL beta are the best I've ever seen on a Linux desktop. I don't know what magic they're using, but my old RH 7.3 install with the Microsoft Web Fonts, XFT2 and GNOME2 anti-aliasing doesn't hold a candle against the NULL beta.

Now looking at the NULL beta XFT config file, I can see that there's a ton of setups listed, alias size tresholds, sub pixel aliasing etc. Also, there's a new Red Hat developed GNOME2 program for changing the between various aliasing modes.

Please get your facts straight

[Software Cowboy]

I'm running null on my laptop right now and when you start a KDE app (I use the KCalc app rather than the Gnome calc, for example) you find the about section still lists the authors and the fact it comes from KDE.

As far as I can tell, none of the KDE apps have been removed. The only thing different is that they have picked what they consider best of breed apps and given them generic labels like mail, or browser.

You don't get all Gnome apps, you get a mix. The nice thing is that they look somewhat integrated and it works. I thought the idea was to give the end user a good experience. RedHat is trying to do that by picking the best of the apps out there for the defaults.

You know, I had more respect for the KDE guys before these ludicrous rants based on falsehoods. It is not even childish, it is just plain pathetic.

Thanks, Bruce

[einhverfr]

Well I am a developer of an open source project (actually the project lead). Lets see-- I have called Microsoft a Monopolist, incompetent security engineers, etc.

I am starting my own business, so I am a capitalist. But we are going to use open source software wherever possible. And it won't be possible everywhere, but it will be the backbone of our network and on nearly all the desktops.

After all Linux, like Redhat, IBM, and HP is communist, right?

All based on what they heard on irc...

[rd]

Quote:

Navindra Umanee: Can you give me full details on the changes? Have you tried this beta?

Ian Geiser: Mostly off of what I have heard on IRC. I was planning on downloading this weekend...


from http://dot.kde.org/1030073479/1030203696/

But I use XFCE...

[sasha328]

Will it's interface be also unified or ratehr nullified?

Some of you are PATHETIC

[Corbin Dallas]

I know I shouldn't be, but I'm stunned that so many slashdotters are so quick to pounce on all KDE developers because of the comments made by a few people. Try checking out more comments before flaming volunteers, eh? Hell, even Gnomers are said to be concerned about the changes to thier environment, but I guess since it's slashdotted no one cares. ( Out of sight, out of mind. )

Personally, I think that if Red Hat:

1) Doesn't violate any licences

and

2) Notes any changes they made to either environment

Then I have no problem with it, and from what I've read on the Dot, most KDE developers seem to be thinking along these lines as well.

So, for everyone making negative comments, quit yer bashing! The very people you bash have probably done more to help the community than you ever will.

All spelling mistakes in this post were on purpose, so bite me.

Umm...

[KewlPC]

So many people are talking about how easy this will make it to switch back and forth between Gnome and KDE. Who the hell does this? Most people pick a desktop environment they like and stick with it. As long as you have the libraries for both installed, you can run Gnome and GTK+ apps from KDE, and vice versa. You guys realize this, right?

If you're going to make all the desktops look the same, why even offer more than one in the first place? I switched to KDE because I preferred its look and feel over Gnome's, but left Gnome installed so that I could run the occasional Gnome app (I use GnoRPM instead of Kpackage, etc.). I know that RedHat likes Gnome (probably because the G stands for GNU), but this whole thing is stupid. People who want Gnome will use Gnome. RedHat should let their users who want KDE have KDE, and freaking have it look like KDE.

Nevermind that those screenshots look an awful lot like Windows XP. I guess it's Mandrake for my Linux workstation from here on. Let's not forget that this will prevent Linux from making inroads in the UNIX workstation arena, a market that has time and again shown they don't want Windows. ILM, Rythm & Hues, et al, will be mighty pleased when they "upgrade" to the new RedHat distro only to find their desktop (whichever they choose) looks just like WinXP (and yes, I realize that ILM uses OpenMotif, but looking at the Film Gimp website it would seem that Rythm & Hues uses KDE). If I liked Windows, I'd use that on my workstation instead of KDE and Linux.

Yes, you heard right, I have been using Linux on a desktop machine for what seems like forever, and have been *gasp* getting work done. Both programming and VFX work. The fact that in some apps the buttons are in different places than others makes little difference to me, and I'll never understand Jeff Raskin and his crowd who simply cannot cope if two different programs don't have the exact same menu layout or whatever.

Re:Umm...

[KewlPC]

And it only figures that the KDE screenshots look more like XP than the Gnome ones. This says to me that RedHat is either

a)Trying to give an XP-like desktop for the wannabes switching from, oh, say, WinXP, while still giving their staff something that doesn't completely resemble Windows.

b)Make all their users who run KDE switch to Gnome. How long could you stand to look at WinXP? I'm forced to use WinXP occasionally (mostly when I get talked into fixing my neighbor's PCs; I don't have the XP monstrosity on my system), and I can take it for about 2 minutes, then I want to tear my eyes out.

I really hope that there is a backlash, especially in the corporate and server environment, and RedHat wakes up and fires whoever's idea this was.

Re:Umm...

[KewlPC]

I'm aware of the defaults you get from a CVS installation but one of the main features of KDE is the ability to change the look-and-feel. Should this ability be reserved solely for end-users?

IMHO, yes. Distros should have the default theme enabled by default. If they want to include extra themes, fine. I myself have changed some of the look & feel settings on my system. But, from what it sounds like, RedHat has removed the "default" KDE theme and replaced it with their own, and is leaving out Konqueror (ok, I use Mozilla 90% of the time, but for the occasional page that Mozilla doesn't render properly, I use Konqueror, which usually renders those pages just fine) and Kmail (which I use).

If RedHat included the "default" KDE and Gnome themes, and just by default had their own theme switched on, that would be one thing. But it sounds as if they're changing more than just the theme. Some people say they've removed the "About KDE" box, and in general have tried hard to make Gnome and KDE look, feel, and function the same (and now they both look like WinXP). So then why not just drop one or the other alltogether? Especially if support costs are the deciding issue.

I imagine some GUI "designer" (read: GUI overthinker, such as Jeff Raskin) had a hand in this.

It only figures that changing Gnome and KDE around wasn't enough; they had to go and change them around to look like Windows XP ;)

Good to see that KDE and GNOME have user's in mind

[tenchiken]

NOT.

First of all, this is actually some developers over on the KDE side of the house complaining. I just wish the KDE/GNOME guys would get over the NIH concerns.

Already they are doing a couple of stupid things that will ensure the dominance of Windows for another 5 years.

QT# does not implement the standards form interface making it incompatable with a large number of Windows and Mono applications.

A common Linux API's in C# would be a nice start. Some simple SOAP bingings that are platform independent would make the Linux experience much nicer.

Think about how to play together rather then "my program is better then yours"

Oh Grow Up

[VJoseph]

I know I'm probably going to get negative karma for this, but I have to say it.

GROW UP!!!!!

I'm a KDE fan, and I often check out kde-look.org to look for nice new ways to improve that way my desktop look. What I have noticed on there is that a large number of theme, icons, and whatever are designed to make KDE look more like WinXP or OS X, and everybody seems to love them. So nobody has a problem with making Linux look and act like a different OS, but everybody has a problem with it when somebody decides to make one Linux desktop look like another Linux desktop? I can't believe this is even an issue.

I have to say I'm really disappointed that my fellow Linux and Unix users would get upset about something that is so irrelevant. There are much more important things about...like stopping this childish desktop war. If you like KDE, use KDE. If you like GNOME, use GNOME. If you don't like the icons or styles that Red Hat included with their distro, then change the damn thing. There's no need to cry about it.

Re:Oh Grow Up

[TheDanish]

But people who don't even know about this might not realize something they couldn't care less about! Not that the UI has anything at all to do with the big picture, except for it work and be easy to use, but for not being a purist, you should be ashamed of your self.

I have no idea what the hell I'm talking about, and I don't even know how what I said could possibly make any sense. But apparently it makes sense to some people. Or maybe I'm mistaken over the whole thing.

Yes! Functional names, not brand names.

[Thyrsus]

Mod the parent up! Not geek-recognition-only-brand names, but functional names are crucial to letting new users succeed. And at this point, 90% are still new users! Only when 90% of everybody knows your brand name, can you start using it instead of the functional name.

This looks AWESOME!

[NaCh0]

Finally! It looks like someone at Red Hat 'got it.' A consistant looking desktop based on getting work done. You want email? Choose email from the list. You want a browser, same deal. And the mixture of Gnome and KDE apps appears like it was done based on which has the best quality (subjective as that may be). If the other distros aren't scared, they should be. This must have been a massive undertaking. I can't wait to use it for real!

Agreed: Why did it take Red Hat to do this?

[GroundBounce]

Many people have been calling (and some working on) interoperability between desktops for some time. Both the GNOME and KDE developers have been paying lip service to this for years, and the result has been a little bit of drag-n-drop interoperability and a few minor theme tweaks. Finally, Red Hat is actually doing something significant about it. Why? Because Red Hat actually has a financial stake in listening to their users.

Unlike KDE developers, who hear primarily from people regarding KDE issues, and GNOME developers, who hear primarily from people regarding GNOME issues, Red Hat hears from everyone, including people who use both GNOME and KDE and have to put up with the highly inconsistent desktop and app interfaces. In addition to my normal tasks, I also support desktop Linux users at work, and regardless of how we geeks think, average users, even otherwise technical people who just aren't computer geeks, are annoyed and confused by the wildly different interfaces between GNOME, KDE, and various other applications (such as OO). It may sound strange to many here, but I've been asked several times why you can't embed a DIA drawing in an OpenOffice document. It's a real-world problem and Red Hat is actually trying to do something about it, at least at the desktop level. Unfortunately, they can't as easily do much about the apps themselves.

The open source development model has been very good at producing software that is of high functional quality, but it has been much less successful in several areas of consistency, such as user interfaces, printing, and font handling. This is one area where high level integrators like distro vendors can help make a difference. Whether or not you like the icons, it's good that Red Hat is taking this step, knowing full well that it will be controversial among the more hardcore Linux community.

Re:Agreed: Why did it take Red Hat to do this?

[SilverSun]

I almost agree with you, but

Unfortunately, they can't as easily do much about the apps themselves.

Why not? they are free to contribute to KDE (and they do) and they a free to contribute to GNOME (and they do). So why don't they contrubite interoperability to both? I guess they will sooner or later. Hopefully sonner.

Re:Agreed: Why did it take Red Hat to do this?

[FooBarWidget]

"Both the GNOME and KDE developers have been paying lip service to this for years, and the result has been a little bit of drag-n-drop interoperability and a few minor theme tweaks. Finally, Red Hat is actually doing something significant about it."

No, what you're talking about is consistency in looks. Interoperability means that apps can work together, which have nothing to do with the GUI.

Re:Agreed: Why did it take Red Hat to do this?

[analog_line]

It took Red Hat to do it, because Red Hat is one of the few Linux distributors that actually acts like a regular OS distributing corporation, and less like a hippy collective that's doing it for enough money to get by on.

I've got nothing against hippies, or collectives, or doing what you do for the love of it. I do a lot of stuff for completely idealistic, and not really realistic reasons. However, when you do that, things like customer opinions tend to fall on deaf ears. Most Linux companies do things because they're the way they believe it should be done, not because that's how their users want it to be done. For the most part, Linux distro makers are evangelists, preaching their particular version of the gospel to all who would hear. They're not interested in changing their views, because they're convinced that this is the right way (either for everyone, or themselves) an there really isn't any reason for them to change it. At best you're politely told to look elsewhere for something that fits your needs, and at worst you're insulted for being a peon under the proprietary software devils.

Red Hat (and Mandrake, Lindows, and Lycoris to varying extents) are Linux distributions that are built and rebuilt thanks to user feedback, both corporate and home (though Red Hat is far more corporate oriented). They go out and ask customers and potential customers what they want from Linux and aside from completely impossible things ("We want Office XP to run natively on it") they do their best to get things working, so they can add whomever as a customer.

For a very long time, this customer-centric attitude was hampered severely by a seemingly overwhelming desire not to step on the toes of anyone in the open source community. Lately though, Red Hat has done a lot of things that haven't made the open source zealots happy, but have made their customers happy. IIRC, Red Hat went out on a limb and introduced problems into gcc 2.96 that broke a lot of stuff in order to get support for some processor (Itanium? I don't recall exactly) that their corporate customers wanted to get Linux running on. And now this. Developers are pissed that their whims aren't being honored, but if that's what they wanted, they should've released their code under a more restrictive license. As it is, they can fume and hate Red Hat as much as their hearts desire, but Red Hat probably doesn't care too much about it. Sure, they'll probably be diplomatic about it, and try to smooth some feathers, but in the end, it's Red Hat's RIGHT to do all this stuff, and they're going to exercise those rights, if it gets Red Hat Linux on a corporation's workstations or servers. If people try and release code that won't run on Red Hat in some sort of idiotic retribution, as long as they release it under the GPL, LGPL, or any other license that allows people to modify and redistribute the source code, and Red Hat's users want it, Red Hat will cheerfully remove the Red Hat-checking code and redistribute it.

Linux is in the midst of maturing, and growing up into the real world. It's going to be painful, but when isn't growing up a painful, wrenching experience?

Re:Agreed: Why did it take Red Hat to do this?

[HiThere]

I'm not at all sure I like this. I'm rather sure I don't. This isn't about interoperability. This is about credit.

I sometimes switch from KDE to Gnome, or vice-verse, and there are reasons that I do so. Unifying the desktops nullifies one of those reasons, i.e., it makes the system less advantageous in some circumstances.

It's not clear to me which distribution I would choose if I decided that Red Hat had gone too far. Mandrake is an obvious possibility, but I don't like their menu editor. You'ld think that requiring all of the menu icons to be in the same directory tree would speed things up, but it seems to be slower. (What seems to be... it crawls!) Still, I don't update my menus that often, so it's live-with able. SuSE... isn't their installer proprietary? LibraNet might be a possibility... I just don't know. Fortunately, I have time to decide. It's not even certain that they will choose this as the standard install.

I feel that both the KDE and the Gnome development teams have the right to be mightily pissed at Red Hat. This appears to be a quite uncivil act. It's clearly legal, but this doesn't make it proper behavior.

The only reason I use kde is

[ByteEnable]

because the konqueror file manager is the best file manager out there for linux. I can have multiple windows inside that main window.

My wife loves KDE and Gnome but...

[dennisr]

We just finished setting up her new eMac. She was on RedHat 7.3 for about a week before giving up. She tried both KDE and GNOME. Her main problem? No decent printer drivers! She's an artist and all the printer drivers we tried for her HP 1220C sucked. Sure GIMP looks great on the screen but try to color correct and print out something identical - just didn't work for us. She loved KDE and all the little toys, hell she spend a day just tweaking her desktop! The main point of this post is for her printing is the killer app and it isn't there yet. She could take either desktop.

You might be a KDE basher if...

[LMCBoy]

...App names which begin with "K" make you want to punch little puppies.

...You think the default KDE look is simultaneously "too much like Windows" and "too much like Mac Aqua".

...You see no irony in the statement: "Linux only needs one desktop; those KDE'ers are just a bunch of splitters, they should come back and work on GNOME".

...You believe that any discussion of Linux on the desktop is incomplete if the superiority of [Enlightenment/BlackBox/OSX/CLI/Altair] (choose one) goes unmentioned.

...You're still pissed that the KDE 1.x addressbook got replaced.

That's all I got. Feel free to add more.

I do not like it but I Ximianize my Red Hat anyway

[kubusja]

I do not like the new look. I would rather
GNOME-ized KDE than vice versa. But I do not
care as I Ximianize my Red Hat anyway.

Kubus

Cool! Now we Have the KNOME Desktop!...

[GroundBounce]

Or should we call it GDE?

Here's my list of favorite apps:

Gonqueror
Gapital
Kimp
Knumeric
Knucash
Gil lustrator
Gword
Kaleon
Givio

Re:Cool! Now we Have the KNOME Desktop!...

[Orbital Sander]

Or should we call it GDE?

Since it has so many features found in both, why don't we call it the Common Desktop Environment?

Jeez...

[Critical_]

This is my 2nd or 3rd comment on this article and I'll just cap it off for now. Most of the people who posted comments don't run the new Beta of RedHat. Sure, RedHat choose certain applications as defaults and made both gnome and kde look the same. However, if you want to use KMail, Konqueror, KWord, etc. they are all still there. If you want to use them in KDE, customize the menu in KDE so they point to your preferred apps. At first I thought the moron menus in RedHat were terrible: Browse Internet, Check E-mail, etc. But the more I thought about it, the better it was for *most* newer users. If I want to be a power user, all I gotta do is edit the menu to my liking. Most power users already do this. For all of you that have said that their is no more "About...", well, every KDE app I ran had the About box that mentioned the authors, project name, and license (GPL). Sure, they lost that stupid intro "about" screen that you got when starting the app, but who cares. I like what they've done.

Also to Mosfet... let me get it off my chest... you are a great programmer and I respect you but you are a sensationalist idiot. I applied you Liquid theme to RedHat's new beta and it worked fine. Your webpage says that it doesn't work in the new beta. Now why is that? You may be a great programmer, but you are no better than 99.99999999% of slashdotters who come on here and make stuff up. Why don't you download the new beta and try it for yourself before bashing it?

Good and bad

[Northbend]

Being a KDE enthusiastic I don't see how this could be entirely bad. This only shows the power of KDE and how heavily it can be customized. After all this is how KDE is promoted
And the fact that RedHat finally seems to embrace KDE as a desktop environment for their distribution is also good news.
However, removing the about-box really seems to be a violation of the license if the same information is not displayed anywhere else. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Now change the name of KPP and KMAIL

[codepunk]

Users have no clue what in the world KPP is. So I suggest redhat change the menu name to Dialup Settings or something to that effect. Please get rid of the KXXX crap it just confuses users...

Re:Now change the name of KPP and KMAIL

[asv108]

While were at it, tell apple to go get rid of ithis and ithat, it confuses the user.

Re:Now change the name of KPP and KMAIL

[rseuhs]

Come on, if Apple does it, it's easy and user-friendly.

If anything Linux-related does it, it's hard, horribly complicated and only for geeks.

Re:Now change the name of KPP and KMAIL

[LMCBoy]

Uh, you already can get rid of the K-names. Just tell KDE to use the "program description" instead of the program name in the menus, and you'll see entries like "internet settings", "web browser", "email", etc.

Those darn KDE guys thought of everything! Quick, somebody come up with some other reason to hate them!!!

Re:Now change the name of KPP and KMAIL

[elvum]

Well, actually, yes. KMAIL is OK, but KPP could have been designed to confuse people.
And the generalisations you make sarcastically have a considerable basis in truth (in my opinion, anyway...)

Re:Now change the name of KPP and KMAIL

[bigjocker]

You are so damn right. I use KDE for everything, and they have done a wonderful job. I even was thinking about trying RedHat for my new PC, but I'll stick with mandrake ... I hate mozilla and galleon ... And I dont want to change the configuration to get the KDE version that comes predefined on other distros.

Re:Now change the name of KPP and KMAIL

[Oestergaard]

I agree with you that the K naming is not intuitive - but hey, it's branding!

You want L'Oreal to change "Egoiste" into "Smell-good stuff", not to confuse consumers?

I completely understand that the K* people keep their naming like they do - some distros put more descriptive names in the menu, like "E-mail (KMail)".

After all, who wants to type "world\ wide\ web\ browser http://slashdot.org" in a shell anyway? No way - every moron out there knows what an "explorer" is, there is no reason why "konqueror" should be any different. Or kate. Or KPPP.

So my mother might not guess what KPPP is. But she wouldn't know what gdb is either - or Visual Studio or Maya for that matter.

It's not the K that confuses people. It the sudden availability of *choice* :)

Re:Someone finally makes Linux apps look consisten

[ealar dlanvuli]

I think I'm going to adopt those words in leu of retarded.

I've always found using "retarded" instead of "gay" because I know/interact with almost no retarded people, a rather stupid thing to do. I like your verbage though and think I'll adopt it.

Trouble with the maples?

[demo9orgon]

Does this whole KDE and GNOME thing remind anyone else of the Rush Song, with Red Hat weilding the proverbial "hatchet, axe, and saw"?

Yes, you are quite mistaken.

[DCMonkey]

Mac OS X does no such thing. They have thier own GUI system based on Display PDF. If anything, X runs on top of that.

IMO, the whole point to the X design was to say "not my problem".

Oh my god!

[Rogerborg]

You mean a commercial company that's paying the rent by distinctively re-packaging a free OS has distinctively re-packaged the OS again?

If you don't like what Red Hat's doing, then use the power of the almighty buck to reward another distro.

Re:Someone finally makes Linux apps look consisten

[slamb]

Likewise, nobody says `today I wish half my app would look like X, and the other half Y'. The lack onconsistent theming between these two desktops is retarded (If you find that offensive, becausee it implies mentally retarded people are stupid, they are).

Actually, I feel that way.

My ideal situation would be for all applications to look and behave in the same way. It might be themeable, but there's only one theme - all applications use it.

But Qt-based, gtk-based, and XUL-based applications do not behave in the same way. So I would rather they be visually distinct. The consistency of appearance is a foolish one IMHO because it falsely implies a consistency of behavior.

(Obligatory quote: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds." It's not really appropriate - I respect the RedHat developers even if I disagree with this decision. I just like the quote. ;)

Fortunately, much of it can be turned off fairly easily, at least in the KDE area. I installed (null) tonight and have done this already. What I don't see any way to get rid of is their bad iconset.

Nope, choice is good.

[Eric Damron]

"Linux needs ONE stable, flexible, powerful and good looking GUI."

True, we only need one but having a choice isn't a bad thing.

"It would make life so much easier for both developers and end users."

The users can load which ever desktop they like and the hardest thing about different desktops is that some of them have trays and other's do not. Not really a big deal.

All in all choice is good and I wouldn't suggest that we drop Gnome or KDE. I would suggest that we have a minimum standard set of libraries. That's what developers really need.

Um... not really a big deal...

[rainmanjag]

Let's keep in mind here we're only talking about a desktop environment and not a religion... so @!$#ing what if RedHat changes the icons and changes default applications? Change them back if you don't like them... Good lord, if I somehow were able to release a different distribution of Windows, I might not want IE to be the default browser... I might not want Outlook to be the default mail client... Maybe I want Mozilla instead... that'd be my perogative... but you're bitching the way Microsoft would be if Kollar-Kelly makes them allow alternate distros of Windows...

Anyways, there's really two parts to the desktop environment: the libraries used by the applications supporting the environment and the basic desktop tools such as the panel/taskbar and the desktop/file browser... As far as the applications, use the best application for the job regardless of the environment... if you ask me, that's Evolution and Galeon right now... As far as the desktop tools, log into the environment that has the one you like the most... I think Nautilus still leaves much to be desired so I use Konq...

Get off the damn high horse, KDE developer folk... GNOME isn't nearly as bad as you make it out to be, so cut that out... and as a user, I use the right tool for the right job... Konq is a crappy browser compared to the Gecko based ones, and KMail doesn't compare to Evolution... RedHat went with a desktop neutral solution (Mozilla), and you're still giving them shit about it...

At least the GNOME people are more concerned about the user experience...

Re:Um... not really a big deal...

[curious.corn]

What a lousy troll...

Re:Um... not really a big deal...

[rainmanjag]

Not really... I find it funny how my first post got rated insightful by one moderator and troll by another... I guess it just depends on whether you're a diehard KDE person... cause the only trollish thing I did which really wasn't trollish was criticize the posture of the KDE developers...

You are an idiot

[bwoodring]

You think the only choices for programming in the Windows world are Notepad and Visual Studio? What a fucking retard.

I bet... no wait, I fucking guarantee we have more text editors than Linux users do. Well, at least more *complete* text editors, I'm sure SourceForge is cluttered with 10,000 half completed ones.

How about this: Textpad vs. UltraEdit, both of which kick the shit out of any GUI text editor on Linux. Or if you prefer console, we have... wait... Vi and Emacs! because they both run under NT you dumb gitbag.

Windows computers make up 90%+ of the desktops of the world, and on those computers, you are functionally illiterate. Congratulations fuckwad, like the Simpsons character you so closely resemble, you've wasted your life.

Re:You are an idiot

[Erik Hollensbe]

>How about this: Textpad vs. UltraEdit, both of which kick the shit out of any GUI text editor on Linux.

Give me a break. Both vi and emacs have X versions, both of which perform rather nicely.

TextPad and UltraEdit are little more than scriptable versions of notepad. And last I checked (although I'll admit I haven't used them in a while), you can't even make modifications to the libraries they use in realtime, forcing you to restart the editor. Plus, the languages used to configure these editors are yet another language you have to learn.

I'm an emacs user, but tend to use vi for simple editing tasks (for speed). vi is availiable, for FREE (try getting a copy of either of those editors for free that way) on nearly EVERY unix machine in existence. vi is the unix equivalent of windows' notepad.

I won't even get started on EMACS. Let's just say that over 20 years of work is just simply being copied by other editors nowadays. And of course, if you don't like pretty much any little thing in emacs, you can fix it and do it while you're still coding.

Ironically, you didn't even touch on the REAL editors in windows. Slickedit? XEmacs/Win32?

>Windows computers make up 90%+ of the desktops of the world, and on those computers, you are functionally illiterate. Congratulations fuckwad, like the Simpsons character you so closely resemble, you've wasted your life.

And windows DEVELOPERS are less than 1% of that quote. I'm not saying that windows developers are useless or stupid, I'm just saying that the other 99% of windows users don't even know what notepad is much less a programmers editor.

And let me let you in on a little something - unless billy starts porting his toy OS to something that runs on big iron, all windows is ever going to be useful for is school papers and video games.

Yes, I'm feeding the troll. My karma sucks anyways.

Re:You are an idiot

[sgage]

You know, when every other fucking word you write is "fuck*", you come across a fucking fuckwit. In conclusion, fuck off.

Re:Oh no!

[twener]

This isn't an IRC log but a (perhaps biased) summary of dot.kde.org postings. Just click "Parent" to see all postings.

Looks nice

[MoobY]

Am I the only one to think that Red Hat's style for KDE looks reeally nice, giving us a good desktop when sharing KDE and Gnome apps (I personally use Mozilla and Evolution in a KDE desktop, which I think is the best choice amongst all similar apps). So for now, if Red Hat removes the hat from the "start button," and when they did not mess around with any of the about boxes, I would be very pleased to switch to Red Hat null.

Redhat has her own audience

[tonleelau]

Redhat is not equal to linux. Just setup Gentoo 1.2 with KDE 3.0.3. happy with it.

Re:More Tourette..

[nils]

Do. Not. Feed. The. Troll.

Questionable... but Required

[den_erpel]

Although I stubornly refuse to work with RedHat after another one of their famous progressive actions, I think this one is from a different nature.
Unfortunately, I just admit, John Doe wants a simular look and feel for all the machines he is working on. Just try to explain the concept of Window Managers, and the layered structure (OS/X/WM).
Most ppl work with a "computer" and start a browser and some office program, they really do not care what it is running (but the sysadmins do). With Mozilla and OpenOffice.org, GNU/Linux finally seems to have mature solutions for this (FS/OS). For the first time in years (ever since the demise of WP), a user has again a choice what software to use for his/her "productivity" tasks with these mature solutions.
The only confusing thing is the desktop which has so many looks and feels. Imagine a secretary, used to work with KDE, working on a replacement machine and needs to start Mozilla in windowmaker
We should not see this as an attack on KDE of Gnome, but as a move to a common interface, at least for the non expert users. For the rest of us, we will keep starting several X servers with multiple window managers and compiling and packaging them from CVS.
I guess it's a corporate geek reflex that we do not like meddling with our software, but is general and widespread use (albeit eclectic with the best of the best) not the best recognition?

so what

[iwbcman]

This appears to me to be a silly issue... who cares what redhat does ? those who really insist on choice and are willing to act upon it arent likely to be using redhat in the first place whats so bad about molding gnome and kde together in the new redhat release ? I think this is great, personally. I dont use redhat, rahter gentoo, and I have installed both gnome and kde (as well as fluxbox and enlightnment) each time I use one of them I need apps from the other, the single biggest problem confronting newbies using linux distros is finding out which programs are installed, wht they do, which ones are needed and how to execute them...if you install kde and gnome and run kde you may not even know that gnome is on your system, because gnome menus are not included in your kde desktop(gnome2 has kde menus) ....what this means is that your average newbie does not have a clue as to what he/she just installed on their machine, and more importantly WHERE these things are installed-this is where the menus come in-if stuff is not listed in the menus newbies arent going to find it, some for weeks, others for months, and some NEVER....molding kde and gnome together in temrs of themes and skins(under the surface totally different functionality) simply makes the learning curve for newbies much more appetizing... finally I would love to see a tiny set of standard menu dialogs(file open,save,save as, close, print, edit,copy, paste, find etc.) written in Gtk+(gnome2) which are used universally in all X programs-gtk+ is much leaner than QT and has the best themeing I have ever seen...if one could put together a set of bindings which enables kde programmers to use the gtk+-bnased standard menus and seperate the standard menus into their own libraries so that compiled programs consiting of QT and gtk+ libraries are not redunantly copying the same functionality and producing massive executables...maybe some form of GTQ or qtk+-we really need a unified vfs system, standard menu files, a unified messaging/communications system-running ORBit2 frome gnome2 and the DCOM stuff from kde at the same time is OVERKILL and universal themeing----a reworking of gtk+ is probably more feasible than rewriting QT-perhaps a set of super-high level extremely abstract OO libraries could bind QT and gtk+ together in a way that endprogrammers would not have to worry to much about and from which endusers would profit....

color schemes?

[Moritz Moeller - Her]

you can forget about simple things like color schemes working properly everywhere.
Color schemes DON'T work properly everywhere. That's one of the things that's broken about Linux. last time I checked KDE color schemes didn't affect GTK2 apps and vice versa. That said, KDE color schemes still work fine in Null.

On my system GNOME2 apps follow my KDE color scheme. Of course I do not use Redhat but SuSE.

At last =)

[KeyserDK]

First of all it's quite a funny 'stir' if you look into it.

The GNOME camp believes the icons are KDE style.

The KDE camp believes the icons are GNOME style.

Personally I think the icons are ugly and KDE style, but i'm a gnome user :=). Their metacity theme "Bluecurve" is very nice though. However I think it's The Right Thing To Do, simply because it's better for the users - as a default. The user can always change it.

Re:Someone finally makes Linux apps look consisten

[imr]

If I've read correctly the kde.dot text above, they re not complaining about the common look but about:
1/ red hat made the "about kde" entry in konqueror disappeared.
2/ red hat behaviour toward kde has always been disrecpectfull (they feel)
3/ 1/ + 2/ made them feel the changes were made to have kde disappear in terms of look and feel, and credits, in the redhat distro.
I think it's red hat's fault if they can't have a good relationship with a project they get a lot from, and if they get bad pr afterward.
(remember the linux expo pr fiasco (for red hat) between red hat and kde).

Should we change KDE

[Zapdos]

to Kiddie Desktop Enviroment? Or rumor central? The about box is there. None of this discussion was on the limbo mailing list (which is used for Null). All I see here is assumtion, and rumor. If the KDE camp wants to force a default look then they should change their license. If they have issues, they should ask questions on the proper mailing list for the RedHat beta they are testing. Not posting rumors that they got from IRC.

Ok.. so there is a GNOME-centric distribution

[GauteL]

.. this is wrong exactly why?

Red Hat gets a lot of shit for being GNOME-centric. It includes KDE, but granted have never really made that big of an effort of integrating KDE.

Now, how many distributions out there is KDE-centric? Just about everyone! SuSE, Mandrake, Caldera, Conectiva, etc..

Can someone then please tell me what is so wrong about there being a big GNOME-centric distribution? I'd love to know, because frankly I'm a misguided fool that thinks it's great that different distributions cater to different needs.

I'm a GNOME-user, and I love Red Hat for their work on GNOME, and their level of integration with it. Red Hat is the best distribution out there for me. If you are a KDE-user, then why not try out Mandrake, SuSE, Conectiva, etc..? They might be a better choice for you.

Re:Someone finally makes Linux apps look consisten

[mickwd]

Actually, I think that the choice between the two desktops is good, and that (healthy) competition between them helps both of them improve.

Red Hat's idea sounds good in practise, but what I would like to see is the following:

a) A set of themes which make KDE and Gnome look and behave similarly (as similarly as possible, anyway);

AND

b) Some sort of unified control panel application which applies settings, themes, etc, to BOTH KDE and Gnome environments.

It should be possible to have a control panel application which detects which environment it's running under and uses the appropriate GUI toolkit - separation of program logic from GUI code and all that - even to detect at run-time whether both KDE and Gnome are installed.

Of course, both environments will not be identical. But the differences between them could be minimised in this way.

desktop icons are lame

[io333]

I use KDE over Gnome for one reason only: with KDE I can easily remove all the desktop icons (the "home" and "trash" icons) and have a completely clean look. I have never found a way to do this in Gnome wihtout removing the desktop alltogether. Is there a way to do this in Gnome?

Re:desktop icons are lame

[SouthSideMike]

it is nautilus "feature" not a gnome issue, launch nautilus and select the advanced preferences and under desktop settings, uncheck "use nautilus to draw the desktop" or something very similair to that, and you will be all set.

Re:They haven't done that

[Anonymous Coward]

RedHat has does the same thing to GNOME too, so quit complaining. OpenOffice and Mozilla have replaced GNOME Office and Galeon. GNOME 2's menu panel (which is one of it's best features) has been replaced by one similar to KDE's panel.

They're trying to be fair in offending everyone equally. People have been begging for GNOME and KDE to merge. Like it or not, this is precisely what you'll get if they do merge.

Barney-esque

[chill]

What is with the trend towards soft-edged, rounded, muted icons, windows and menus?

Everything reminds me of "Barney the Dinosaur" and other 2-year-old soft-n-cuddly, non-offensive, no-sharp-edges T.V. shows.

Ugh!

I hope RedHat just "unified" everything, and it can all be changed with a theme.

Get your hands from Emacs

[axxackall]

KDE sucks anyway

You're right, but ...

Vim is better than Emacs

... You're an idiot.

Java is a dead buzzword

You're tight again

PHP is far too slow

You're right again.

Python is for hippies

Again, you're a moron.

*BSD is dying, OS X is just eyecandy

But here you are right again.

Mozilla is a buggy piece of shit

That's stupid.

spaces are better than tabs

The final point is correct.

So, it seems to me you've let your brother/friend type every other sentence for you and one of you is normal, while the other is stupid idiotic moron.

Next time make a separate ./ account for you brother/friend.

Re:Someone finally makes Linux apps look consisten

[erat]

Sounds to me like you're the zealot, friend.

People such as yourself are no longer in the cross-hairs of the folks making commercial-ready desktops. You talk about architecture as if an end user gives a rat's patootie about it. All they want is functionality and the ability to move from one app to the next without feeling like they have to re-learn everything first.

It looks to me like someone's actually thinking out of the techie/programmer box by starting to build/configure apps for end users. This is long overdue and should be applauded.

Luckilly, the people who still pointlessly try to keep the GNOME/KDE "war" alive are decreasing in number. It's over, buddy. Nobody won, so now there's cooperation. Deal with it.

(Why am I replying to an AC? Someone should slap me...)

Nothing has really changed

[X-Nc]

You know, there really was never that mugh of a difference between GNOME and KDE to begin with. Functionaly they both was 99% the same. The only things they had that were different were non-important aspects like window decorations and decorations and the like. Using them was like driving an SUV. One was painted blue with mag hubcaps and the other silver with crome. The idea of there being a difference is like arguing that the head of a penny is a completely different coin from the tail.

Neither of them are different enough from each other for this whole topic to be even discussed in the first place.

For the record: I think that both GNOME and KDE are excellent desktop environments and will both help with getting Linux on the desktop.

How to get credit...

[Courageous]

How then is the programmer to get his due?

End-user documentation, when present, must prominently give credit to both [COMPANY-NAME], the [SOFTWARE-NAME] software and its list of contributors, and likewise must include an associated reference to [WEBSITE NAME AND URL].

When an "About Box" or other primary user interface element which is routinely used by end-users to get version or status information about a graphical application constructed using this software, this user interface element must prominently give credit to [COMPANY-NAME], the [SOFTWARE-NAME] software and its list of contributors, and must also include a reference to [WEBSITE NAME AND URL].

C//

Re:They haven't done that

[nasty_penguin]

I believe that galean runs on top of the mozilla engine. They compement eachother, so one was never meant to replace the other.

Screw xlib, i want eyecandy

[ShortSpecialBus]

Gimme my athena widgets!

This realese is the best one so far....

[Oxide]

Finally.... a useable Linux. I'm running it right now and it is waaaaaaaaaay good.

The Thing is, Users want Both

[GroundBounce]

You are technically correct, the problem is that users want both technical interoperability and consisetncy, and Red Hat must be hearing this in spades, otherwise why would they be doing something that they know is virtually guaranteed to piss off a large number of both KDE and GNOME evangelists?

Both issues are problems that the Linux community is going to need to solve if average corporate Windows users are to be happy accepting Linux as an alternative.

Both issues are very pervasive. The consistency issue affects desktop UIs, app UIs, font handling, printing, system configuration, and I'm sure several others.

Interoperability still has a long way to go too. When I answer previous Windows users' document embedding questions by telling them that Linux has no consistent document embedding mechanism that works across all applications, they are typically pretty surprised.

For many of these users (primarily the ones just want to get their work done and don't have a technical interest in computers), their systems may crash less, but the interoperability and consistency problems make their overall experience less pleasant than it was with Windows. As long as this is the case, Linux has an uphill battle.

Re:RedHat (null) beta nice! A little feedback...

[crush]

I'm not sure what the save current settings option does when one logs out but I don't think it works right.

It's supposed to be able to return you to the exact state in terms of running applications. Are you sure that you've done this (from the Nautilus help manual):

• 1.Open the GNOME Main Menu (footprint) and choose Programs->Settings->SessionStartup Programs. (The menu option may be Session Properties and Startup Programs.)
• 2. The GNOME Control Center opens in the Session Properties and Startup Programs section. If you see a Startup Programs tab, click it.
• Make sure the checkbox labeled "Automatically save changes to session" is enabled. (If your GNOME Control Center window has tabs, this checkbox is under the Session Options tab.)

And also upon MainMenu->Logout->SaveCurrentSetup is checked? I suspect that you need to take the actions above.

One other problem I encountered had to do with printing. Null was the first Redhat I've tried that detected my printer (epson c80) during the install, however it did not get setup properly and automatically, the reboot sequence displayed Fail for lpd, no printer configured.

Have you tried using CUPS? It's worked perfectly for me when I switched from using the LPrng printing system. I also made sure that I had gimp-print and foomatic packages installed and it works very nicely. Try using the /usr/bin/redhat-switch-printer command to switch over to cups. (The RH redhat-switch-X commands work with a re-implementation of Debian's "alternatives" system).

Copyright, license, and author information intact

[Nailer]

The copyright information, full license agreement, and list of authors is still intact on every KDE application. I'm looking at it right now.

Konquerer 3.03, using KDE 3.0.3-2
Web browser, file manager
(c) 1999 - 2002, the Konqueror Developers
http://www.konqueror.org

Authors:
David Faure
faure@kde.org
developers (parts, I/Olib} and maintainer

[list of athors follows]

License agreement
GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
Version 2, June 1991
[rest of license follows]

That's because all this information in contained in the About Konqueror screen. About KDE is an advertisement for KDE. You can remove about KDE from every KDE app and still thank every author, display every license, and show every author. And that;s exactly what Red Hat have done.

Re:Someone finally makes Linux apps look consisten

[Nailer]

1) All of Red Hat's KDE apps still include every copyright, every license, and every author's name. That's because they live in About [Application}. About KDE is basically an advertisement for KDE.

2) Some people feel Red Hat's behaviour has always been disrespectful, just as I'm sure there are KDE developers who have had issues with Debian changing things in their package to improve (in the distro makers eyes) the output. But these people, in both cases, are a minority. Look at what the developers in the post actually said - they're all overwhelmingly not fussed about Red Hat's actions. Likewise the only KDE developer here approves.

Re:Someone finally makes Linux apps look consisten

[imr]

That's because they live in About [Application}. About KDE is basically an advertisement for KDE.
yes, and it would be a sign of respect to leave it there. Don't you think?
Look at what the developers in the post actually said
Yes, that's the reason of my post. They werent as infuriated as the news from slashdot tried to make them look.
Yet a real ressentment against rh exist in enough kde developper to have that kind of wrong news arrise. Try to check the incident with the rh pr man and the reactions that came from it.
All and all, kde developper are providing some free work. Respect and recognition is the least that should come from those who get anything from it.
I always praise kde or gnome people whenever I can. I always give credits where credits is due. I never transform another person work when unnecessary.
Why shouldnt rh?

Unifying Desktops is more than matching the "look"

[Hafer]

Unifying by means of looking identical and stopping there is just silly: As long as the feel of apps is different, identically looking but differently feeling apps is even worse with respect to usability and learning curve, imho.
To my knowledge, but i'm no developer, luckily there already exists a collaboration between G and K aiming at unifying the functionality (mime-types, drag'n-drop, shortcuts, menu-experience etc). RH would be better off if they would support the collaboration instead of simply pasting everything with a big red brush.
If they do both, the better ;-)

Healthy Theme Support

[emolitor]

Well if anything this shows how healthy the theme support is in either project. The fact that they can get near identical views is a good thing IMNSHO. While neither project may be satisfied they I imagine that many users (myself included) are satisfied. I've been debating building a theme pack (engine) similar to this as a deb. Set up your apps right and get a similar experience on Debian regardless of what WM/Desktop you're using. (Hmmm, wonder how many desktops you could "similarize")

Re:Yes! Functional names, not brand names.

[ichimunki]

Or they could add the tag (or at least a pop-up) in the main menu like "Mozilla (Web Browser)" and "Galeon (Web Browser)" and "Konqueror (Web Browser)" and "Links (Text mode web browser)" and give us all the choices, but clearly labeled. Personally, I like when applications have their own names, but agree that for new users it gets harder and harder to figure out which program does what.

What did they "break"?

[ubernostrum]

You make it sound like KDE suddenly doesn't work anymore...dude, they removed a stupid little box that serves no useful purpose and changed the default theme. Oh God, run, KDE's broken to hell and back now...

tabs vs indentation

[jvalenzu]

tabs are always 8 horizontal units. You're talking about 4-space indentation.