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Bero Quits Red Hat Over Treatment of KDE
Vicegrip writes "In an article on leaked release notes on Redhat 8.0 CNet also revealed that Bernhard Rosenkraenzer, known here on Slashdot as berorh, has quit over objections he has on what Redhat is doing to KDE in the new release. Bero says that the new version of KDE in Redhat 8.0 is going to be crippleware.
I know I always found Bero's comments here on Slashdot helpful and insightful. His worries about what Redhat is doing to KDE for 8.0 have me rather concerned and thinking of switching distributions."
I am one of those who say that Red Hat should only support either Gnome *or* KDE, but allow through the libraries to run each other's applications, in a way that it is completely unified (apps to behave and look the same even if they are from different toolkits).
More discussion about this here:
http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=1808
Let me be the first of 100's to point out that when you write free software, people are free to do what they like with it. No one seems to get up in arms when Redhat enhances "ls" to make it more friendly for their users...what's got everybody up in arms is that Redhat is trying to enhance its *brand* by hacking KDE.
Real free software people would be against (or at least oblivious) to the branding in the first place.
Slashdot 's editors are dickheads
Can someone who's actually USED a beta of RH8 talk about whether the KDE implementation is in fact crippleware? I was under the impression that it was just subjected to some Red Hat skinning and rejiggered so that some of the "scares the newbies" features were off by default. That doesn't sound like crippleware, but someone out there must know more.
I fail to see what Redhat is doing that could so offend Bero that he would quit his job with them. Redhat has already acknowledged that they have more Gnome experience on their staff, and Bero quitting will only exacerbate that problem. It seems to me that he is only creating a larger problem for KDE by leaving a position of influence at Redhat over something that appears to be rather benign, and actually insightful on Redhat's part. Looks like big egos will always get in the way of better software.
My sig hates me. That's ok, I never cared for it much anyway.
I use gentoo and when i am in the irc channels I always here people asking if they can get the kde theme that Redhat Null (beta) uses. I think it totally intergrates the new look perfectly with every other app. This guy is making a big deal about nothing. Have you seen the default theme of KDE? ITS UGLY! The new look doesnt make kde look like gnome2! It just makes the two desktops look alike so NEW users dont get confused. I remember installing Mandrake 7.1 and they did the same EXACT thing, This is not new. The new user should be able to launch both kde and gnome and they should look Identical. Redhat will make sure EVERY thing works and if it doesnt people will complain and Redhat will make the changes based on user experience. Come on guys, LETs get over this.
And it makes sence because gnome2 is the default DE, why is it bad for qt apps to have unified look?
Gezz!
keanmarine.com
Linux has started to become the platform of choice for extremely complex and involved multimedia production, powering enormous render farms and video storage RAID arrays, yet still, Linux falls on its face for mundane day-to-day productivity work. Linux can render the incredibly lifelike texturing and animation exhibited in "Monsters Inc." and "Titanic", yet it can't even open a simple Word document without formatting errors. While delivering superior performance rendering these intensely detailed and hard-wrought movie scenes, Linux stills falls short of Windows when playing Quake. How did we get into this perplexing state of affairs?
I'll tell you why -- good old fashioned ego. Whereas the low end (kernel developers, compiler writers, etc.) and high end (clustering software, 3D modelling and rendering, etc.) of development is led by strong, well-organised teams of well-trained developers with vision and understanding, the middle ground of the Linux world is polluted with warring egos and silly spats like this. There are myriad competing, mutually incompatible yet separately inadequate office suites (Star Office, KOffice, Applix,...), desktop environments (KDE, Gnome, XFCE, CDE, UDE, ROX,...), and X servers (XFree86, MetroX, XiG). We can't even decide on a printing system! If all the man-hours poured into fighting over KDE and GNOME were combined into a common vision, we would have one perfect end-user desktop, instead of two poor imitations of Windows.
Don't give me the old "competition" argument either. There is only one Linux kernel, which seems to progress just fine without another competing project nipping at its feet and instigating flamewars. The endless KDE vs. GNOME, Applix vs. StarOffice, and other feuds have wasted more productivity than would be gained by and competitive drive.
I, for one, am somewhat miffed that while my operating system powers Hollywood blockbusters and NASA supercomputers, it still can't fully replace Windows on my office desktop. Linux is growing up; its users need to grow up with it, shed their egos and work towards the common goal of creating an excellent working environment.
Loneliness is a power that we possess to give or take away forever
Its not about whether RH or KDE is right.
An employee of RH was being asked to work on something he disagreed with. So he left.
KDE is free to moan, RH is free to mod KDE, and this guy is free to get employment elsewhere.
Personally, it restores some of my confidence in humans. At least we're not all wage slaves who couldn't give a rats ass what they were working for and who they were serving.
"Old man yells at systemd"
Yeah, no shit. I remember back in the day when you might actually be hard to replace. Now, even in the most advanced IT positions, your boss has a drawer full of resumes of people just as smart as you think you are. Pretty scary, actually.
Finally, math books without any of that base 6 crap in them.
Redhat wants to create a desktop where gnome and kde looks remarkabily similar. I think its a good idea. With the power of linux, if you don't like how Redhat's default interface is, then run KDE's wizards and change it to how you like.
I'm sad to see him go, I hope things work out for him.
Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
I'd really like for him to explain "crippleware". How are they crippling it? While he has seen it and I have to wait for another week, so far everything points to Red Hat simply changing the default themes and icons. I connot see how this is crippling KDE.
Furthermore, it is my understanding that the default KDE themes are in there and simply need to be selected from the configurator. How is this crippling it.
To go one step further, I see a fair bit of ranting, especially on Slashdot(go figure), about how bad this new Red Hat theme is. The thing is, if you don't like it change it. How many people actually continue to use KDEs default themes? Few if any, I'll bet. Pretty much everybody changes the desktop to their own preferrences. So, what's the big deal about selecting your own preferrences over the Red Hat theme versus selecting your own preferrences over the KDE themes?
Much ado about nothing....
AFAIK, it is the case. RedHat's trying to do something for people who aren't emotionally involved with either KDE or Gnome -- make a consistent, usable desktop. I think this is a good thing to do. KDE and Gnome are working together these days (see freedesktop.org). This is encouragement from RedHat to make KDE and Gnome more interoperable. If they don't interoperate, then there make as well be two entirely separate types of desktop linux -- KDE linux and Gnome Linux. Vendors would need to pick one (or both) to support.
Macs have a default interface. Windows has a default interface. Linux systems should as well. Note that you can run QT programs on Windows and MacOS -- similarly, you can use the toolkit of your own choice on a Linux system. But having a default desktop system would be a good thing for Linux in the desktop arena.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Red Hat used to be pushing GNOME, and pretty much ignoring KDE. The KDE guys didn't like this.
Now Red Hat is trying to integrate KDE into their distro seamlessly. The KDE guys don't like this at all.
What should Red Hat do to make these guys happy? I think the only way the KDE guys would be happy is if Red Hat puts in KDE without changing anything. Great, now Red Hat has two different install options that look and work very differently. What a support nightmare. So, Red Hat would have to budget more money for support of KDE, or else just say it isn't supported... in other words, push GNOME and ignore KDE.
So it looks like the only way the KDE guys will be happy is if Red Hat goes out of their way to increase their support costs. Let's face it, if it is going to cost money to keep the KDE guys happy, Red Hat isn't going to do it!
P.S. Calling the Red Hat version of KDE "crippleware" isn't helpful. Red Hat isn't trying to hurt KDE; they are a business, and how does hurting KDE make money for them?
Any bugs Red Hat introduces to KDE will increase their support costs. People who buy Red Hat call Red Hat when they have trouble.
Red Hat is doing this so that a user can run KDE apps or GNOME apps without really caring which is which. Some of the KDE guys are complaining that Red Hat will make KDE look bad. The idea is that no one will even notice whether they are using KDE or not.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Holy crap, what does it say about the state of labour in the IT world when quitting a job because you're being asked to do something you don't want to do is grounds for others suggesting you're trying to be a martyr??
.. thats cause for applause, even if I have no personal opinion on the nature of the disagreement between him and his former employer.
He's not trying to be a martyr. He's trying to have a job in which he agrees with the things he's asked to do. It's those who remain in the job at the expense of their happiness that are the dumb and childish ones. Whether or not KDE is "cripplewear" in RH is besides the point; he has set of values, he's actually going to do something about it
"Old man yells at systemd"
personally, I find the default KDE look and behavior irritating. if Redhat is going to skin it up and make it purty, then more power to 'em.
... it just has a little better graphics). from what I've seen in the pre-release, RH80 has a much more polished and professional UI than anything else out there.
(for the KDE lovers out there, I find Gnome just about as annoying and "more unintegrated"
How can you compare a specific, detailed task like animation to the diverse needs of common end-users? That's like comparing a single piston to a automobile with options. I'm surprised the parent post was modded up to 5.
"Looks like big egos will always get in the way of better software."
I must disagree with this. I think strong principles are a great virtue of the open source community. Instead of being less productive at a KDEless Redhat, Bero will be more productive somewhere else. This doesn't say anything bad about Redhat or Bero and only further supports the diversification (and competition) of the community.
I am sure that the majority of MS employees would not walk out if suddenly MS decided to do something as drastic as go Open Source. You may call this corporate strength, but I call it 40,000 "yes" men (and women) who don't give a fsck what their company does, as long as that paycheck comes on Friday.
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
Hello dolly!
... ripping shit down to rebuild, rejecting norms, rejecting opinions and denouncing things we percieve as misguided or wrong is a key part of the process required to arrive at newer and superior solutions.
.. and even quit your job if you like, although the way people go on here, you'd think they were envious or scared of the freedom to do just that.
It's like people have confused 'freedom' with 'freedom do you whatever the hell you want without actually being subjected to what other people _think_ of it'. Which is a shame, because peer discussion and judgement is about the most important check/balance in society. While we try and limit the actions that can result from peer judgement (to avoid mob justice, for instance), we should try and avoid attempting to squash criticism just because its not 'productive'
When people are free to do crap, don't forget others are well within their rights to freedom to voice dissatisfaction
"Old man yells at systemd"
The "one desktop for everyone to focus on" argument sucks ass.
If you want one desktop, use Windows.
I, on the other hand, *like* choice.
Let me summarize what I have read:
From the article:
"Red Hat's new "Bluecurve" desktop interface, a customization of the traditional KDE or Gnome interfaces."
Translates too:
Red Hat decided - instead of using just KDE and Gnome to add Bluecurve which is a modified version of KDE that is "more user friendly"
Former RH employee
"I don't want to work on crippling KDE, and they (Red Hat) don't want an employee who admits (Red Hat) 8.0's KDE is crippleware,"
Translates too:
I think the majority of linux users will not want to use this "user-friendly" crap because linux users are all power users and red hat is dulling themselves down just to try and bring more noobs to linux and make some money and i'm too self-righteous to be involved in that hideous plot.
The words "Cripple KDE and former RH employee" appear on Slashdot and the masses go crazy....
Ave Molech Setting
And who is Redhat to decide this? They can do whatever they want to their distro, it's theirs. But I'll be damned if they choose what happens to everyone else. Mandrake, if faced with the choice, would more than likely choose KDE, as would SuSE.
And what about Debian or Slack, quite arguably the two most "pure" distros of all? What gives Redhat the power to dictate the desktop environment for them?
The fact is, for most desktop developers, having Linux take over the mainstream desktop isn't the priority. It's providing the best desktop software on the planet for themselves and their users. This whole "Linux vs. The World" is just some childish notion that attempts to shoehorn people. A big part of Linux is that it is Free Software, and with that comes the freedom to choose what you want. Distros have their default desktop, but that shouldn't interfere with me in any way.
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
The simplest solution for anything I've ever seen is this:
Try it for god sakes. Before you bitch about it or even see it, just try it. Wait until Redhat 8.0 comes out, get a copy, install it, and check out the GUI.
If it sucks big-time, then flaming is somewhat justified. If it works better than what has gone before, then either use it or go crawling back to your old glitchy GUI versions and feel that hollow satisfaction that your whining was warranted.
Seems to me, the only way anyone wins is if it's an improvement - phorm
...when you're fighting yourself
This is just more evidence for the idea that GNU/Linux users don't really want to win the battle... don't want GNU/Linux to become popular... that there is an elitist attitude among many out there (myself included) that relishes the role of the underdog, and wants things to stay with GNU/Linux in that position. So we all need to reconcile these two feelings... ask the question-- do you really want to see GNU/Linux become mainstream? Further, are you willing to see the use of open-source through to its end? So far, in my experience, both of these answers have been "no".
"We must still have chaos within in order to be able to give birth to a dancing star." --Friedrich Nietzsche
Nope. There is no legal reason for them not to - they are allowed to do this. I'm also allowed to walk up to your finace right before you get married and tell her that in my opinon, she's a mongrel whore, thus ruining your wedding. Both acts are not morally sound, however. RedHat has committed source patches to change some of the fundimental UI for KDE (including the one possible legal violation, removing the About KDE, which lists the authors as copyright owners and the GPL as the license the application is distributed under), and that's not, in the open source world, considered a nice thing to do. Sure, it's legal. Doesn't mean that they aren't being asses.
--
Evan (no reference)
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
The underlying phenomenon here was illuminated many moons ago by ESR in his 'noosphere' essay, and is broadly obvious to anyone with a background in marketing.
Windows has a distinctive look-and-feel. The macintosh has a distinctive l&f. Why? Branding, branding branding! The same organisation that is responsible for the overall package -- the OS in Microsoft's case; computer in Apple's --- is responsible for the interface. The visual differences between KDE and Gnome exist for similar reasons. By replacing their respective brand-imagery with its own, RedHat now gets to gobble up the mindshare of both teams -- the only form of 'payment' that these projects really ask for --- without any sort of renumeration. Need I remind the reader how important mindshare is to the financing and ultimate success of any open source project? Would KDE have received funding from the German government if it had just been some grey nnonymous widget-maker for a couple of American software firms?
Sure, you could characterise this as a case of warring egos; but egos are essential to survival: The perfectly altruisitic quickly become fodder for the pragmatically selfish. KDE and Gnome are well within their rights to protest; their identities are their equity. That's how this market works --- regardless of the apparent legality or probity of such maneuvers under license.
- undoware.ca
There is an old saying... "Vote with your feet."
I don't run either GNOME nor KDE. I run XFce. That is the wonderful thing about Software Libre. Choices are a Good Thing<tm>.
--
If I actually could spell I'd have spelled it right in the first place.
However, if you look at it from the KDE developers' point of view, it is different. Imagine that you are a konquerer developer. Until now, you know that if someone tries out KDE, they will try out konquerer and that makes you happy. They may not stick with it, but that is ok. However, with the new redhat, even if a user chooses KDE, they may never see konquerer! Now you begin to wonder what are you writing all this open source code for if no one will see it. I think that is why the KDE developers are so upset.
Of course I do know that and it doesn't change the fact that GNOME would not exist without KDE.
I disagree. That's like saying Window Maker wouldn't exist without KDE, or that FluxBox wouldn't exist without KDE. I believe there are certain irreconcilable differences between the two development groups, and that multiple Linux desktops are inevitable. Even if KDE or GNOME ends up "winning the war" and becomes the de facto standard for all the major distros, and more importantly, for ISV's, this will STILL not change the fact that there will be multiple Linux desktops. That's the double-edged sword of Free Software - if you don't like it, you're free to try something else. This leads to a lot of initial divisive fighting, but eventually it ends up creating incredible software - look at the great FreeDesktop.org standards! The more of those standards KDE and GNOME pick up, the lower the bar is for users to switch between desktops. Basically, we can have our cake, and eat it, too.
The Free desktop that Just Works
It seems the KDE community chooses to concentrate much more on their endless whining and political stunts than on development, and the comparitive quality of KDE and GNOME applications bears this out. Especially considering the head-start the KDE project had.
Ehm, this must be a matter of opinion, since I believe KDE to be putting out better quality applications (in a shorter timespan too, they are not losing their head-start, they are increasing their lead). As for "political stunts", consider this: when I think of GNOME, I think of Ximian and Eazel (the millions wasted, the strange Google ads). When I think of KDE, I think of a team of developers "getting shit done." About the only bad mark that KDE has ever had was with the old Qt licensing, which all boiled down to wanting to "get shit done" instead of worrying about licensing. If you want to talk about politics, talk about GNOME.
Maybe if they had been developing instead of throwing tantrums their applications would be the ones Red Hat had chosen instead.
Red Hat chose GNOME way back in the day, as far as Linux desktops are concerned. KDE wasn't all that great back then, and GNOME was fully GPL. I think the licensing had to do more with their decision than quality of applications (especially considering that GNOME at that time was awful). Of course, it is harder to turn back now that Red Hat promoted GNOME so much. Considering that Red Hat is the only major distribution shipping GNOME as the default desktop, I wonder if Red Hat could end the desktop war by simply switching to KDE as default? Something to think about...
It is also important to remember that the people debating this are people like you and I, not the actual core KDE developers (or GNOME developers for that matter). They are not throwing tantrums, they are coding. I'd even guess that most of them don't even have Slashdot accounts. KDE continues to have a very strong developer community that generally does not worry about things like this. Please place blame appropriately.
I wish more people cared enough to put their principles before money or even security. You don't have to be stupid or wealthy to be a person who tries to always do what they think is right.
As for me, personally I am curious and interested to see what RH has done with the desktop in v8, and don't feel too strongly about the KDE/GNOME/Bluecurve arguments -- and I don't know enough about whether I should agree with Bero's statements about crippling KDE.
-=Ivan
I wish more people were stupid enough to quit their jobs just on principle. Then there might be less unprincipled actions by business.
Note: They aren't aiming this at people who can go in and simply reset the configuration the way they want.
This is little more than an elaborate theme and a default set of applications.
It has nothing to do with "slowing down" KDE or "removing choice". It has to do with delivering a common user experience across both desktops.
If you don't like it, don't use it!
If you don't like it, and have to use it, change the config to something YOU can live with.
I don't get what the hell is so hard to understand about this relatively straightforward concept.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
This is plagiarism, and in academia it is taboo for a reason. Did you see how the kde logo got replaced with a red hat? Did you see how they got rid of all of those program names that had k's in them?
That is how marketers work, they maximize their brandname's recognition, and minimize that of their competitors. Marketers have never cared much for such academic concepts as fair attribution.
If you don't want to pay us developers money, fine, Einstein wasn't made wealthy either, but we don't go calling it Addison-Wesley's theory of relativity just cause they print it for us, do we? Well, the trend is that with RedHat we will never know what person other than RedHat wrote the code. It will be just like Microsoft stealing other people's ideas and never crediting them, except now it is code not ideas.
Stallman needs to get off his behind, and issue the new GPL with provisions requiring proper crediting, and restricting the removal of trademarks and logos, and if he doesn't do it (he has been thinking about it for how many years now?), then someone else needs to.
Kudos to Bero, a man of principle.
Why is it considered "insightful" to compare Red Hat's effort to unify Gnome and KDE to calling someone's fiancee a mongrel whore on her wedding day?
Just to be safe: consider your wedding invitation from me to be cancelled :-).
If you insist on KDE's moral right to have an About box on the desktop, then every other author of everything on your system has the same right. This was the problem with the old BSD advertising clause (which required that blurbs of the author's choice had to be displayed by the system and appear in all documentation); the GPL folks have always rejected this concept.
Free software is a bazaar. If folks don't like the GUI changes, Red Hat will come under pressure to change them; if people do like the GUI changes, KDE will come under pressure to accept them.
If the KDE folks act too much like control freaks, they risk losing control of their own project. This happened to RMS a couple of times, with the emacs/xemacs split and the egcs split, although the latter split was healed when RMS surrendered control of GCC to the egcs team. Some aspects of what Red Hat did to KDE are arguably broken, others are arguably improvements. If the KDE folks have a good attitude, the result could be a better KDE. Otherwise, I predict that other distributors will emulate Red Hat's approach, and KDE will lose control of what KDE looks like on other distros as well.
This strikes me as a bit of a fuss by prima donna developers. If I can take the KDE source and muck about with it, why can't RedHat?
Asserting tht RedHat is trying to "neutralize" KDE is attributing political motives to their actions. Instead, I think, they're simply trying to sell more copies of RedHat Linux.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Many people do not like KDE... The only reason KDE is the default desktops on many distros is simply because it looks a lot more like windows...
Just the fact that RedHat and Sun both agree that GNOME is a better desktop should say a lot. Besides, even if KDE was just as good as GNOME, GNOME would still have quite a lead, as most apps are based on GTK. Loading and maintaining twice as many toolkits and libraries is a waste of system resources, and effort.
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