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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."
So does it support transparency, anti-aliased logos and gradient shading now... that's a pretty fancy hat.
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.
Hmm. I thought the open source movement was about... open source.
Moon Macrosystems. Sun's biggest competitor.
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.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
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.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
Here'w a bunch of screenshots from the article to show what they are talking about:
Screenshots:
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Moon Macrosystems. Sun's biggest competitor.
You can find Google's cache of the article HERE.
"UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever things."
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:
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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.
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.
http://saveie6.com/
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.
Eddy.WriteLinux.Com
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.
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.
This is far too reasonable of a response. Who are you and what are you doing posting on slashdot?
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
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.
And you're complaining?
.... 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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?
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).
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.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
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.
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?
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...
Got Code?
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.