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Bero Quits Red Hat Over Treatment of KDE

Posted by chrisd on from the shades-of-raster dept.

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."

421 of 593 comments (clear)

  1. Maybe he will join MandrakeSoft again! by joestar · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Mandrake 9.0 seems to respect KDE & GNOME, and Bero has been part of MandrakeSoft in 1999!

    1. Re:Maybe he will join MandrakeSoft again! by buswolley · · Score: 1
      Yay!! I've been waiting for that! I thought about getting the latest Beta, but, as I am not a developer , I decided that I'd wait a couple of weeks.

      well I'm off to their mirror. (My computer can multitask..But i'm not too good at it myself.)

      --

      A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.

    2. Re:Maybe he will join MandrakeSoft again! by JanneM · · Score: 1

      I do hope Mandrake 9 will give Gnome a good treatment; earlier versions left a lot to be desired. SuSE:s earlier treatment has been pretty bad as well. /Janne

      --
      Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
    3. Re:Maybe he will join MandrakeSoft again! by Dunkalis · · Score: 2

      How did SuSE treat GNOME in previous versions? SuSE 8.0 was my first experience with SuSE (and Linux, for that matter), and GNOME was almost as well treated as KDE.

      I don't mind a company liking one UI over another, and Red Hat has some huge stakes in GNOME (you know what I mean...), and they employ quite a few GNOME developers. They should keep KDE in their distro, but they don't have to give it the same meticulous treatment that they give GNOME. I kind of like what Red Hat has done, from what I can tell from the screenshots.

      --
      Slashdot is a waste of time. I enjoy wasting time.
    4. Re:Maybe he will join MandrakeSoft again! by IpalindromeI · · Score: 1

      People think that installing a custom RH theme means ripping the guts out of KDE. It's the mob mentality.

      --

      --
      Promoting critical thinking since 1994.
  2. I think... by sagenumen · · Score: 1

    I'll be switching too...if all goes as planned

  3. I am with Red Hat on this one... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Plain overreacting. Red Hat is doing the right thing about their business and products.
    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

    1. Re:I am with Red Hat on this one... by sbrown123 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Agreed. The silliness comes from KDE users/developers who see that thier favorite desktop is being "brought down" to equal out to Gnome. They have ignorantly bitten on to a load of FUD launched by the core KDE development crew. Dont believe the hype. Before you respond, read up on what Redhat is ACTUALLY doing to KDE rather than what you have heard from some gossip source.

    2. Re:I am with Red Hat on this one... by rseuhs · · Score: 2
      Wait a minute.

      All major distributions are using KDE as default except one that is using GNOME.

      In 2 months all major distributions are using KDE as default except one that is using some strange newly created mixture of KDE and GNOME.

      Now you can speculate what RedHat had to do to create a unified desktop and wether their "nullifying" efforts are a step towards that goal.

    3. Re:I am with Red Hat on this one... by Spy+Hunter · · Score: 5, Insightful
      I am not with Red Hat. If they want to include KDE, they should do KDE: Konqueror browser, Konqueror file manager, KMail mail, the whole package. Without its apps, KDE is nothing but a mediocre panel.

      It is a common misconception in these discussions that people are mad about the unified look and integration between KDE and GNOME that Red Hat is promoting. Nothing could be further from the truth, and I hope I can speak for all KDE fans when I say the unified look is a step forward, and integration is good. After all, people have been crying out for both for years. But what Red Hat is including is not KDE, it is simply KDE's panel used to launch other applications. The panel is not what makes KDE compelling, it's the app integration. If Red Hat wants to use GNOME app defaults, then what are they doing including KDE at all? It is a joke, simply so they can put "KDE desktop" on their boxes.

      I am also not trying to say that Red Hat should drop all KDE support. No matter what, Red Hat should include libraries to run KDE apps, and I don't think anyone would argue otherwise. If they aren't going to use KDE app defaults, though, they might as well not include KDE as a choice on the login screen. There is no reason to.

      --
      main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
    4. Re:I am with Red Hat on this one... by fault0 · · Score: 2

      > Before you respond, read up on what Redhat is ACTUALLY doing to KDE rather than what you have heard from some gossip source.

      Well, bero himself states that it was crippleware. I generally agree with what RedHat is doing, but I think they should have just kept a common theme between the two environments. Everyone would have been happy then.

      > They have ignorantly bitten on to a load of FUD launched by the core KDE development crew.

      I don't think it's quite the core development crew that's doing this. Anyways, RedHat and KDE have a bad history. Many people dislike each other. A RedHat employee referred to KDE as "crapland", and some KDE users refer to RedHat as Microhat.

    5. Re:I am with Red Hat on this one... by Zocalo · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Before you respond, read up on what Redhat is ACTUALLY doing to KDE rather than what you have heard from some gossip source.

      Actually, I'm planning on waiting for the imminent release, rather than the "null" work in progress, having a play around with it and then making up my mind. There is so much FUD on this issue from the KDE and Gnome developers, as well as Red Hat and the community that this is the *only* way to go.

      As a firm KDE desktop user who runs a lot of Gnome apps within it I'm all for making KDE and Gnome look alike for a consistent desktop. I've basically done this so far by using very similar themes on both window managers and tweaking out the differences where possible, and it was my impression that Red Hat had just taken this one stage futher, which was fine by me. However, for Bero to take this step, especially given that this is the same Bero that so eloquently dispersed the FUD around Red Hat's recent compiler choices, I'm getting a little concerned they may have gone a bit futher than that.

      Red Hat has an excellent track record for me; I've had problems with most of the the other popular choices that Red Hat didn't even bat an eyelid at. They are also pretty on the ball with the security patches, unlike some distros I could mention, which is essential when you are responsible for numerous boxes out on the Internet.

      All in all, I do hope they are not going to spoil their track record over this, but a large part of using open source code is about having the freedom to make a choice, isn't it? I don't see any reason why that shouldn't extend to the distro packagers too, and frankly I think it somewhat hypocritical to believe otherwise.

      --
      UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
    6. Re:I am with Red Hat on this one... by FattMattP · · Score: 2

      Nothing is stopping you from not installing KDE when you install Red Hat and then downloading and installing the official KDE tarballs. Really, you make it sound like Red Hat is twisting your arm. Get over yourself already.

      --
      Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
    7. Re:I am with Red Hat on this one... by drudd · · Score: 2

      Yes, and nothing prevented people from installing netscape when microsoft started shipping IE with their OS.

      Yes, some people did install netscape. Some people still have netscape installed. But IE now controls the marketplace.

      Most users just use what's given to them, most of those don't even know they have options, the rest just don't care.

      So the fact that technically you have options doesn't change the fact that Redhat has a lot of power when it makes these decisions, and taking someone's hard work and intentionally hiding it in the name of "ease of use" is unfair and abusive.

      Doug

      --
      Venn ist das nurnstuck git und Slotermeyer? Ya! Beigerhund das oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!
    8. Re:I am with Red Hat on this one... by georgeb · · Score: 1

      Actually, I'm planning on waiting for the imminent release, rather than the "null" work in progress, having a play around with it and then making up my mind.

      If it's stability you worry about, worry not :). It's my opinion that "null" is surprisingly stable and smooth for a beta. I don't make a habbit out of trying out Red Hat betas so I don't really know if this is out of the ordinary for Red Hat, but it certainly surprised me!

      However, for Bero to take this step, especially given that this is the same Bero that so eloquently dispersed the FUD around Red Hat's recent compiler choices...

      I don't any knowledge of any such talk. If you could point a link to an article regarding Bero's response about the gcc issues I would be grateful.

      I don't see any reason why that shouldn't extend to the distro packagers too, and frankly I think it somewhat hypocritical to believe otherwise.

      Hmm... I do agree. However Red Hat's a big player now. Their decisions affect more than themselves. The simple existence of all these talks prove just how important Red Hat has become. Anyway I am very pleased with the way they have responded to all these issues.

    9. Re:I am with Red Hat on this one... by FattMattP · · Score: 2
      So the fact that technically you have options doesn't change the fact that Redhat has a lot of power when it makes these decisions, and taking someone's hard work and intentionally hiding it in the name of "ease of use" is unfair and abusive.
      What? No it's not. Abusive? Do you even know what that word means? No one is abusing anyone else. IN case you haven't realized, the license the KDE is distributed under allows Red Hat to do these things. If the KDE team doesn't like it, then they should switch to a more restrictive license.
      --
      Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
    10. Re:I am with Red Hat on this one... by Menthos · · Score: 2

      They are not using GNOME defaults. Mozilla, the default web browser, isn't a GNOME application, while Galeon is. They seem to be using a match inbetween with sensible defaults that work in both environments, so these conspiracy theories just seem to be just that: conspiracy theories.

      --

      GNU/Linux. The Freshmaker.

    11. Re:I am with Red Hat on this one... by Zocalo · · Score: 2
      If you could point a link to an article regarding Bero's response about the gcc issues I would be grateful.

      It's here in the Google cache. Bero's server seems to be somewhat swamped at the moment. ;)

      In addition, GCC's take on the matter is here, and associated Slashdot discussion here. Search Google and/or Slashdot for "GCC", "Redhat" and "Bero" for a *lot* more, but it's a bit of a flamefest in places.

      --
      UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
    12. Re:I am with Red Hat on this one... by Scooter · · Score: 1

      Hear hear. I jyst want one desktop - I don't care if it looks like any of the other desktops - I'm just going to be using the one desktop!

      And you are absolutely right about what makes KDE desirable - it's not the prettiness - I don't care about the prettiness - if I wanted pretty, I'd install Enlightenment ffs! It IS all about the ability double click on something in Konqueror and have the thing do something meaningful with the file or device you clicked on - It beggars belief that at version 3, it still doesn't know what to do with most of the file types by default! (and still outputs portents of doom by the bucket load into the terminal window if you start an editor - I'm sure this is fixable - but thats my point - did no one at RH notice it does this??)

      I think a return to the "bad old days" may be in order for me: install the OS and nothing mmore, rip out any remaining "package" driven nonsense, and download it all in source form and cook it. Sure I'll lose the auto update stuff, but then that Red Hat Network thing never works for me anyway!

    13. Re:I am with Red Hat on this one... by Spy+Hunter · · Score: 2
      if you set your session to KDE, it uses all the kde apps by default (konqueror as file manager, web browser.. konsole as the terminal)

      Is this really the case? This goes against what I have read previously. I have not used the betas, but I understood from Red Hat's statements that the set of default applications would be exactly the same in both environments. Do they use KMail for mail and Kate for text editing?

      --
      main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
    14. Re:I am with Red Hat on this one... by juhaz · · Score: 1

      THEY ARE including all those. It's just that they are not on the default menus or used by default.

      And that's exactly what their users want. It may be hard for power-user to believe that someone wouldn't want multiple choises, but newbie is damn sure to be VERY confused if there is billion different text editors, web browsers, file managers, you name it.

      Whole point of being consistent is that those apps stay the same, all the time. They just can't suddenly be totally different. ONE SET OF DEFAULT APPS across both desktops is necessary.

      If you don't like it, then you know enough of it to change the default settings, and add them to menus. Stop whining about this, look at it from bigger perspective instead of that narrow-minded "help! they're destroying my favorite desktop environment!". If you want to see common people use linux on their desktops someday, this is a step in right direction.

      Of course it would be better if KDE and Gnome folks would work towards compatibility together, but since you seem to rather concentrate on your eternal and stupid war against each other, someone else had to do it. That someone is RH.

    15. Re:I am with Red Hat on this one... by Spy+Hunter · · Score: 2
      No, one set of default apps is not necessary. Neither is a crowded menu full of redundant, non-functional applications necessary. What would be good is one of two possibilities:
      1. Red Hat removes KDE, keeping only the libraries so they can run KDE/QT apps if the user installs them. Instead, they focus on improving GNOME and GNOME's one set of default apps. This would be a perfectly valid choice for them to make.
      2. Red Hat keeps two sets of default applications: a set for GNOME consisting of mostly GNOME applications, and a set for KDE consisting of mostly KDE applications. The users choose which desktop they like at the login screen, and are only presented with the default choices associated with that desktop (though all applications should of course be available at all times, the menus and mime-type handlers should prominently present the defaults and the alternates should be harder to find). This is the choice I wish they would make, although it would be more work. (actually, the choice I wish they would make is to stop propping up GNOME and go with KDE like everyone else, but that is not likely, and it is really too late for them to turn back now.)
      Instead, Red Hat has chosen to have only one set of default apps, which renders the choice of desktop rather pointless and redundant. Basically you're choosing between KDE or GNOME panels, and since they are being made compatible down to the panel-applets anyway, what is the point of having them both?
      --
      main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
    16. Re:I am with Red Hat on this one... by Hooya · · Score: 2
      But what Red Hat is including is not KDE, it is simply KDE's panel used to launch other applications

      And where does it say that one cannot use parts of KDE without using the whole thing? Free Software, baby. Take what suits you. RH has no obligation to keep the KDE package 100% intact. or gnome for that matter. as long as they make their changes public, they're exercising the right granted to them by the GNU software license.

      I, for one, really support RH in this. KMail, even tho it does what it does, is light years behind Evolution. why should RH be stuck using KMail when they can pick the best of the breed. i like KDE as much as the next man. but not using the best of everything for everything is suicidal if the company wants to target the desktop. when jon 'sixpack' doe gets RH on his computer and picks gnome he goes.. 'that dang email thing is pretty neat.', picks KDE the next time and goes .. 'that dang xyz is neat.' 'but i can't use both together; this linux thing sucks.' they're not going to know to switch the defaults (hell MS never allowed you to until very recently with XPSP1) in one desktop (windows), how do you expect them to switch the defaults in BOTH kde and gnome? it's great that RH is doing that for them.

      I don't see a problem in using whatever is the best by picking and choosing. regardless of what family it belongs to. that's the true spirit of Free Software. it's a GNU given right.

    17. Re:I am with Red Hat on this one... by HiThere · · Score: 2

      Interesting. I usually go out of my way to make KDE and Gnome desktops look different. Currently I prefer KDE (largely, I admit, because of the automatic archive extraction), but there have been times in the pase when I have preferred Gnome (it had to do with how workspaces and views were handled).

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
    18. Re:I am with Red Hat on this one... by ichimunki · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Thank you! I don't know if I buy bero's complaint that this is somehow crippleware... I find that term unnecessarily inflammatory when discussing Free Software (you've got the damn source code and the freedom to use it, how can that possibly be considered "crippled"?).

      Meanwhile, RedHat seems to be taking an approach normally called "middle-of-the-road". They appear to believe that Mozilla is the leading browser for the Free Software set, so they make that the default no matter which desktop you set up. Let's just be glad they decided to dump the unfree Netscape. They are making their distribution more and more Free by the day. This is a good thing, imo.

      Having a choice of desktop environment is not something the average user wants much of, I believe. And businesses can't truly be excited about trying to support two completely separate work environments. Imagine the support calls: before you can ever start solving the user's problem you have to do a whole "animals" style question-answer game to find out what their system looks like? Forget it.

      So if KDE and its default apps are all that popular wouldn't there be a market for a completely separate distribution centered on that instead? Perhaps bero will go to work for that company, or form his own company... and maybe they will crush RH in the marketplace. But that's all speculation. In the meantime, one has to assume that RedHat has done the consumer research and talked to its larger clients and prospective clients about this and made their decision based on what will drive revenue. Anything is a disservice to their customers, their employees, and their shareholders.

      --
      I do not have a signature
    19. Re:I am with Red Hat on this one... by juhaz · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You still don't understand the main point. This whole unified UI thing, it's not targeted for you, nor me. Or for the whole slashdot crowd.

      It's for the damn normal people, newbies, who redhat wishes would use their product rather than m$ windows.

      They don't want to think about anything like "choice of desktop", or two sets of default applications, they don't want to know ANYTHING at all about gnome, or kde. They want ONE SET, and go on happily using redhat default set without slightest worries or interests at all about whether app they are currently using is something called KDE app or maybe gnome app, or maybe it's product of neither project but independent work.

      So RH puts in different software, they have to make choices, they take what they think is best, no matter which package it belongs to, they make 'em all look same so user doesn't have to give a crap about it either.

      Those of us who know enought to care about this just CHANGE THOSE DEFAULT SETTINGS, insert their own favourite apps into quick launch bars and use kde or gnome like always before. That might take about five minutes, after the install so what the hell is the big deal here?

    20. Re:I am with Red Hat on this one... by Spy+Hunter · · Score: 2

      Of course RH has the right to do whatever they want. And I have the right not to approve of what they are doing. What is your point?

      --
      main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
    21. Re:I am with Red Hat on this one... by Spy+Hunter · · Score: 2

      I understand perfectly. I have already said I am not against the integrated look and feel. I think it is a great thing, in fact. What you are saying is that Red Hat should provide one set of default applications. I agree that this is a good choice (although I would prefer red hat had two sets and allowed the user or sysadmin to choose between gnome and kde, but they are not going to do that so it's beside the point). I just think that it is dumb for Red Hat to go with only one set of default applications and still include the choice of desktop. What is the point? Why not go all the way and simply provide one totally unified desktop? Providing a KDE desktop without the KDE applications is mis-representing KDE as a desktop environment. It is this wishy-washy compromise between having a unified environment and having two different environments that is what I dislike.

      --
      main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
    22. Re:I am with Red Hat on this one... by juhaz · · Score: 1

      The choice of desktop is probably there to make that "change your default settings and menus and do your favorite desktop" thingy for the more experienced users easier and faster.

      So if an old KDE/Gnome user doesn't like the unified desktop look or selection of apps, he can just select his favourite DE, and then put all the default stuff of that desktop into settings... assuming it ("correct" defaults) doesn't happen automatically. It's damn hard to say anything for sure, as there's so much FUD and hype and so few people who have actually used the thing and managed to tell anything reasonable about it.

      Why don't we just sit calm and wait for monday, try it, and base our opinions on real thing instead of rumours.

  4. Good for Bero by 403Forbidden · · Score: 1

    Yes, it's a great loss to the Linux community, but would you really want such a man working on crippleware? I see no problem in his leaving and wish him the best of luck. Maybe he will one day make his own linux distro or something of the sort.

    1. Re:Good for Bero by swagr · · Score: 2

      I used to used berolinux, and from what i recall it was an optimized redhat, because redhat was i386 optimized back then. Don't quote me on that.

      --

      -... --- .-. . -.. ..--..
  5. what exactlly are they doing? by edrugtrader · · Score: 2

    from previous stories on this topic, i got the impression that they were 'krippling' KDE's default setttings, but the user could go back and change everything back to the real defaults.

    is this not the case?

    --
    MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
    1. Re:what exactlly are they doing? by 1010011010 · · Score: 5, Insightful


      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.
    2. Re:what exactlly are they doing? by rseuhs · · Score: 2
      If they don't interoperate, then there make as well be two entirely separate types of desktop linux -- KDE linux and Gnome Linux.

      Just two facts:

      Fact I: Creating a theme won't make interoperation any better, it will only look as it would.

      Fact II: Instead of having 2 major desktops (KDE and GNOME) you have 3 (KDE, GNOME and RedHat's mixture).

      Macs have a default interface. Windows has a default interface. Linux systems should as well.

      All distributions except one use KDE as the default interface.

      Now you explain to me how this one distributor changing from GNOME to KDE-GNOME mixture is a step towards a default interface.

    3. Re:what exactlly are they doing? by MerlynEmrys67 · · Score: 1
      wouldn't that be KDE GNU/Linux or Gnome GNU/Linux ???

      Sending the RMS police after you for that error

      --
      I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
    4. Re:what exactlly are they doing? by Compenguin · · Score: 1

      > Gnome GNU/Linux

      The G in Gnome stands for GNU so thats reduntant.

      Further more GNU stuff on a "normal linux system" Has far more code than the linux kernel

    5. Re:what exactlly are they doing? by AlexMax2742 · · Score: 1
      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.

      What befuddles me is why this hadn't occored to somebody sooner.

      --
      I'm the guy with the unpopular opinion
    6. Re:what exactlly are they doing? by JoeBuck · · Score: 2

      First, neither Red Hat nor Debian default to KDE, so you're wrong about that one. Sun's about to put out a distro, which will run Gnome.

      You only get three desktops (KDE, GNOME, and Red Hat's mixture) if the KDE and GNOME maintainers reject all input from Red Hat. What should happen, and what could happen if people can get their egos out of the way, is for KDE and GNOME people to look at what Red Hat has done, get feedback from users, and determine which changes are improvements, and accept them, and determine which changes are not improvements, and reject them, explaining why.

      For example, the only good argument I've seen against Red Hat's changes is the issue over double-click vs single-click. It seems that the change is in the wrong direction and decreases usability. If that is in fact the case, it should be possible to demonstrate that fact to both the GNOME and the KDE folks, so that everyone uses single click consistently. If not, then the issues that people fight over most should be configurable.

    7. Re:what exactlly are they doing? by Arandir · · Score: 1

      No, it's not the case. Bero did not say why he used the term "crippleware", so it's all guesswork. But "crippleware" is a very strange way to describe default settings. "Crippleware" is referring to software, not some global configuration files. Methinks Bero is upset at something broken, unstable or missing in essential functionality.

      --
      A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
    8. Re:what exactlly are they doing? by juhaz · · Score: 1

      Then he should have said why he used the word.

      Statements like that without proof, or even explanation are very much like FUD. I don't know why bero would do that, he's been very reasonable person, but if he wants to be taken seriously, then he really should explain his opinions, especially one as radical and negative as this, instead of just blurting them out.

    9. Re:what exactlly are they doing? by Arandir · · Score: 1

      Then he should have said why he used the word.

      Why? His message was posted to kde-devel. He is a member of that mailing list. He was posting to announce his address change.

      --
      A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
  6. I wish by kin_korn_karn · · Score: 5, Funny

    I wish I was stupid^H^H^H^H^H^Hwealthy enough that I could quit my job just on principle.

    1. Re:I wish by unicron · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.
    2. Re:I wish by ivan_13013 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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

    3. Re:I wish by cyril3 · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Maybe one day something will seem important enough to you.

      I wish more people were stupid enough to quit their jobs just on principle. Then there might be less unprincipled actions by business.

    4. Re:I wish by Pfhreakaz0id · · Score: 2

      i do have something impotant enough to not qui my job on priciple -- a family. i will work with the shitiest software in the worst situation to put food on the table for my family of four. forgive the lack of capitals, but i'm holding my 6 month old dayughter whgile she sleeps!

      --
      DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
    5. Re:I wish by egriebel · · Score: 1

      Amen brother!! Principles don't put food on the table or kids in college. It's easy to follow principles when you're twenty-something and nobody else is affected by your self-righteousness.

      --
      ACHTUNG! Das computermachine ist nicht fuer gefingerpoken und mittengrabben. Ist nicht fuer gewerken bei das dumpkopfen.
    6. Re:I wish by Graspee_Leemoor · · Score: 2

      "Bravo, young parent. But once the basics are covered you will probably also worry about the kind of world you are making for your children"

      Hmmm. I have clothed and fed my children and provided for them such that they are happy, and my wife too, but OH NO! I just realized I have helped to create a world where there is only one desktop!

      OH MY GOD! I have failed! If only I had quit my job on principle so that... er.... so that somebody else would have done it and the world would still only have one desktop but my family would be starving, living on the streets and clothed in rags....

      graspee

    7. Re:I wish by Pfhreakaz0id · · Score: 2

      LOL!

      That's classic. and so true.

      --
      DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
    8. Re:I wish by PhilHibbs · · Score: 2
      I wish more people were stupid enough to quit their jobs just on principle. Then there might be less unprincipled actions by business.
      But the process of natural selection will leave businesses full of unprincipled people.
  7. "free" software by Mdog · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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
    1. Re:"free" software by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Let me the first to point out that permitting someone to do something, and approving of all are different. In other words: if you believe in freedom of speech, it doesn't mean that you can't critize someone for saying something; if you believe in freedom of softwrae, you surely cna also critizie them for making stupid use of that freedom?

    2. Re:"free" software by 1010011010 · · Score: 5, Insightful


      Real free software people wouldn't be emotionally offended by others taking advantage of their own freedoms to modify the software. RedHat is doing what the GPL allows. This is what it's all about, guys -- freedom with the software you use, develop with and distribute.

      --
      Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
    3. Re:"free" software by Frater+219 · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Real free software people wouldn't be emotionally offended by others taking advantage of their own freedoms to modify the software.

      Okay, so if I use your XSLTFilter on a Web site that displays XML-indexed goatse pictures, you'll suddenly become convinced they're the most attractive thing you've ever seen?

      There's a deep divide between toleration and approval. As I understand it, RMS (for one) is generally speaking opposed to war. However, the GPL under which he releases his software contains no provisions preventing militaries from using it in the development and deployment of weapons systems. RMS tolerates the use of glibc in weapons -- that is to say, he doesn't try to stop it. That doesn't mean he approves of it, or wouldn't be offended by the thought of a missile guided by glibc-linked code blowing up a village in Iraq. (Hell, I'm offended by it, and I didn't even write glibc.)

      The confusion between toleration and approval (or between taking offense and being intolerant) is a dangerous one, like the confusion so many people have between criticism and censorship. It is destructive of public discourse, because it leads people to react emotionally as if they were being threatened with force, when in fact they are merely being told someone's opinion.

    4. Re:"free" software by Nailer · · Score: 4, Informative

      what's got everybody up in arms is that Redhat is trying to enhance its *brand* by hacking KDE.

      Anyone who's used the 8.0 beta can tell you they're enhancing their usability, nmot their brand with their changes. The grab bag of different applications, inconsistent themes, and desktop specific panel apps are there if you want them. But Red Hat have made themes and panel apps consistent by default and put what they consider the best apps forward by outting them on the quick launch area of the taskbar. Its no big deal, and Red Hat 8.0s KDE runs every KDE app I've built and packaged for it.

    5. Re:"free" software by SubtleNuance · · Score: 2

      doing anything to enhance its *brand* is too much... didnt anyone ever tell you brands are fiction? KDE/Gnome are technology, code and frameworks; "brand" has no value in this discussion.

    6. Re:"free" software by analog_line · · Score: 4, Interesting

      There's been a bit more than "criticising". Trying to think up ways that the book could be thrown at Red Hat through the GPL because of this is downright dirty. Wondering if there was a way to keep Red Hat from incorporating KDE at all in some kind of pointless "revenge".

      The rhetoric being levelled at Red Hat from the KDE zealots goes way beyond mere criticism.

    7. Re:"free" software by xswl0931 · · Score: 1

      I thought the point of Open Source is that I can take the source and do (almost) whatever I want with it? So what's the problem?

    8. Re:"free" software by DrClaw22 · · Score: 1

      The point is that its "free." If the only choice were to buy Red Hat 8.0 then RedHat would be in the same problems that Microsoft is having by forcing people to use their product. I run RedHat 7.3 and its great, though its usually either I have to download sometime, and it'll either run for KDE *or* Gnome, this new advantage is great for common users. For us techies, we should know how to not install the kds - gnome intregration and use like Kds 3 or Gnome or Ice or something else. Its stupid to change something that works though, but we'll see what happens. Redhat is just trying to make money thats what we all want. and if it blows up on them oh well...use mandrake then. thanks
      drclaw22

    9. Re:"free" software by 1010011010 · · Score: 2

      Okay, so if I use your XSLTFilter on a Web site that displays XML-indexed goatse pictures, you'll suddenly become convinced they're the most attractive thing you've ever seen?

      Uh, that's a non-sequitur. I'd not be happy about the content of your site, but I'd be happy that you're using XSLTFilter. And, I wouldn't loudly proclaim that you're a moron for debasing XSLTFilter in that way. You could even modify and redistribute XSLTFilter (it's LGPLed) to produce a porn-only XSLT filter, somehow, and I'd think that was kind of cool -- because you're using XSLTFilter.

      the confusion so many people have between criticism and censorship

      Tell that to the people who are really forceful in their criticism. The people who seem to be morally offended at RedHat's new user interface.

      --
      Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
    10. Re:"free" software by fault0 · · Score: 2

      What does KDE exactly have to do with the GPL? Many things in KDE (including kdelibs), are not GPL at all. They are other free software licenses (BSD, X11, etc..) Don't equate free software with the GPL.

    11. Re:"free" software by 1010011010 · · Score: 2

      Did you get permission to steal KDE's icon's for your website?!!

      LOL! They're Gnome icons, made by Ximian, and available here.

      Seeing as how it's IIS crap I'll bet you think you can just walk all over the free software people, eh?

      Uh, yeah -- that's why I released XSLTFilter under the LGPL. Yeah. That's it. Oh, I also used the xml and xslt libraries from XMLSoft.

      christ!

      On a stick!

      --
      Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
    12. Re:"free" software by jag164 · · Score: 2

      if you believe in freedom of speech, it doesn't mean that you can't critize someone for saying something;

      Actually it does. I can criticise someone all want; that's my half of the freedom of speech. I just can't/won't stop them from saying it.

    13. Re:"free" software by Frater+219 · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Tell that to the people who are really forceful in their criticism. The people who seem to be morally offended at RedHat's new user interface.

      Yup, they're silly buggers, no question there.

      But I don't think it's valuable to call them "fake free software people", or whatever the antonym of your "real free software people" upthread was supposed to be. I don't even know what a "free software person" is meant to be in that context -- an advocate? user? developer? We have clear criteria for what makes a program Free Software but we do not have criteria for what makes a "free software person."

      I find it disturbing sometimes how much resentment there can be in the community. Whenever one of these atrocious flamewars breaks out, it seems to me that it's more because people are looking for a fight, looking for some battle line on whose sides they can form up. Quite often, it seems it's the resentful impulse that was once called levelling that serves as the impulse for this. Levelling is the harmful side of envy: instead of raising yourself up to the level of the envied one, you knock them down to yours.

      Many free-software users hate Microsoft, because they observe that Microsoft has done wrong and profited by it -- but a sizable minority envy Red Hat, because while Red Hat has done no wrong it has profited where others have failed. None in this matter of KDE in Red Hat 8.0 have presented a coherent argument that Red Hat has done wrong; rather, they have seized on something unusual that Red Hat has done and unfoundedly declared it wrong, as a justification for knocking down Red Hat.

      It's foolish, and in the end it drags everyone down. The negative publicity hurts Red Hat directly and the rest of Free Software/Open Source by association. The attitude of intolerance towards modifications -- that if I want to modify your code I need your explicit permission -- creates a contradiction with the operating principles of FS/OSS and works to deprive us of its benefits. The inherent ugliness and acrimony of unnecessary hostility hurts us all.

    14. Re:"free" software by bicho · · Score: 1

      Actually, i do want my ls back :)
      It took me a bit of time to get used to uppercase being listed before lowercase, but just a small fraction of time, and now it makes a lot of sense (it allowed me to some more order).
      I miss it.
      havent checked the man page, so there might be an option to the old ways, is there?

      --

      errera hunamum ets
    15. Re:"free" software by 1010011010 · · Score: 2

      I agree. We need a Free Software version of Reagan's "11th Commandment" --

      Thou shall not speak ill of other free software developers.

      --
      Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
    16. Re:"free" software by mvdwege · · Score: 1

      Hope you get to see this:

      The sorting order is affected by your locale settings. Try setting your locale to 'C', and you will have your old sorting order back. It might be enough to just set LC_COLLATE to 'C', but check the manpages for that.

      Mart
      --
      "I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
    17. Re:"free" software by Natalie's+Hot+Grits · · Score: 1

      "Actually it does."

      ok...

      "I can criticise someone all want; that's my half of the freedom of speech. I just can't/won't stop them from saying it."

      err. nm

      Idiot.

      --
      Two infinite things: your stupidity and mine. But I'm not sure about the latter. If my sig offends you, I'm sorry.
    18. Re:"free" software by fatboy · · Score: 1

      RMS tolerates the use of glibc in weapons -- that is to say, he doesn't try to stop it. That doesn't mean he approves of it, or wouldn't be offended by the thought of a missile guided by glibc-linked code blowing up a village in Iraq. (Hell, I'm offended by it, and I didn't even write glibc.)

      This got me to thinking. (Yes, that is the burning odor you smell) How about using some other compiler with a bug in it that kills someone other than the enemy? That would be worse. Use gcc to kill those bastards.

      --
      --fatboy
    19. Re:"free" software by analog_line · · Score: 2

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

      The discussion on KDE's slashcode discussion site.

    20. Re:"free" software by WNight · · Score: 2

      Bah, you festering cretin. You didn't invoke Godwin's law, if anyone did it was the poster who mentioned Hitler. Godwin's law just states that eventually a thread will mention Hitler if it goes long enough.

      The thread-ending you allude to isn't part of Godwin's law. It's merely tradition that the person mentioning Hitler loses the argument. It doesn't say anything about ending the thread.

      Get it right next time.

    21. Re:"free" software by chris_7d0h · · Score: 1
      Software Free Person?

      My grandpa is one of them.. so, "old people"?

      --
      In a society that believes in nothing, fear becomes the only agenda ~ Bill Durodié
  8. Get Mandrake 9.0 by Joe+Jordan · · Score: 2, Informative

    Want a distro without the KDE politics? Download the recently (like today) released Mandrake 9.0 and don't forget to use a mirror.

    1. Re:Get Mandrake 9.0 by kaustik · · Score: 1

      Because it is still in the pre-order stage. You can download 9.0 RC 3, but not 9.0 final.

    2. Re:Get Mandrake 9.0 by Joe+Jordan · · Score: 1

      Actually 9.0 its pretty official. The press release is here and discussion on the cooker mailing list implies that this is indeed the final version (barring any last second changes, but that doesn't seem likely).

    3. Re:Get Mandrake 9.0 by trevinofunk · · Score: 1

      Oh no, the final just came out today!!

    4. Re:Get Mandrake 9.0 by leviramsey · · Score: 2

      Mandrake tagged the final release RC3 while it was heading out to the mirrors. It will be renamed once all the mirrors get it and then officially announced.

    5. Re:Get Mandrake 9.0 by tomhudson · · Score: 2
      Their press release says it (the final version - Dolphin) as downloadable from mirrors now.

    6. Re:Get Mandrake 9.0 by gsfprez · · Score: 2

      Where are some mirrors for users to d/l Mandrake 9.0 ISO's?

      Before you troll me - i'm asking a question as if i was a Windows administrator, wanting to know what your grass is like. Imagine that i just left my latest MSCE class, and don't know anything about linuxiso.org (none of the new iso's for mandrake or rh are there).

      So - if you could help - instead of flame - me so that I could get on the bandwagon - it would be much appreciated.

      If i wanted to get screamed at for being a "newbie", i'd get on a irc #warez channel.

      (i didn't just leave a Monkey class.. and i'm not a windows user. but i AM interested in seeing if i can migrate my future Windows users at my future company to Linux if they refuse to use a Mac)

      --
      guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
    7. Re:Get Mandrake 9.0 by Anders · · Score: 1

      Where are some mirrors for users to d/l Mandrake 9.0 ISO's?

      Hm. I wanted to do the obvious and point you to the mirror list at Mandrake. However, Mandrake seems to be slashdotted, which surprises me somewhat. Oh well. Instead, try downloading it from this place.

    8. Re:Get Mandrake 9.0 by kaustik · · Score: 1

      Did anyone else notice that the "new" features the press release is bragging about have all been standard Windows features for quite some time now? I'm no MS fan, but I tire of new Linux distros trying to mimick them. Oh well.

  9. Crippleware? by matthewn · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Crippleware? by tempest303 · · Score: 2

      Yes, what exactly is the issue? I'm running the RH8 betas, and while I'm a GNOME user, and thus inherantly biased, I honestly can't see the big difference.

      Can anyone point me to a canonical listing of precisely what the KDE people are so upset about? Most of the objections I've seen seem silly, but I don't want to dismiss the issue without feeling I'm fully informed on it.

      --
      The Free desktop that Just Works
    2. Re:Crippleware? by momobaxter · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Read RedHat's response on what they are doing...seems only cosmetic changes really...

      http://people.redhat.com/otaylor/rh-desktop.html

      --
      "Full sources for linux currently runs to about 200kB compressed" --Linus Torvalds 31-Jan-1992
    3. Re:Crippleware? by tempest303 · · Score: 2

      I have read that, but that's from Owen Taylor. Owen is a brilliant hacker, but the problem with using that essay as a source for the KDE view of the situation is that 1) he's a RH employee, and 2) he's one of the GTK+ lead developers. This pretty much disqualifies him from presenting KDE's side of the story. :-) I'm not saying he isn't being objective, etc, but I want to hear it straight from the source.

      --
      The Free desktop that Just Works
    4. Re:Crippleware? by LMCBoy · · Score: 1

      See my post "Re: Please explain crippleware". Hope it helps.

      --
      Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
    5. Re:Crippleware? by tempest303 · · Score: 2

      wow. that so missed the point. You're probably trolling, but what the hell, i'll bite...

      My point was that I already KNOW Red Hat's point of view - I want to know KDE's side of things. Reading something from a Red Hat employee who also hacks on GTK+ does not count as "hearing KDE's side."

      --
      The Free desktop that Just Works
    6. Re:Crippleware? by fault0 · · Score: 2

      > Can someone who's actually USED a beta of RH8 talk about whether the KDE implementation is in fact crippleware?

      I'm sure bero used Null (he WAS working in RedHat, AFTER ALL.) And he calls it crippleware :)

  10. Good to see. by Spazholio · · Score: 1

    It's refreshing to see someone standing up for their beliefs. Despite the fact that I actually don't know who this is, the fact that CNet and Slashdot covered it leads me to believe he is someone of worth and recognition in the OS community, and hopefully his leaving will raise more than a few eyebrows.

    1. Re:Good to see. by gmajor · · Score: 1

      It's refreshing to see someone standing up for their beliefs.

      Yes, but does standing up for one's beliefs justify that belief? There are other ways to stand up for one's belief, and quitting a job is quite extreme.

      It is ludicrous to quit one's job just because they and their employers don't see eyeball to eyeball - yet, if he felt he could better promote his vision in an environment outside of RedHat, well, more power to him!

    2. Re:Good to see. by Spazholio · · Score: 1

      However, if he is as influential as he is made out to be, leaving the job *does* make a strong statement. It says, basically - "To hell with you guys, I'm taking my (considerable) skills elsewhere, most likely a competitor." Yes, I know the OS community is one great, big happy family - you know what I mean. I know RedHat is big in the community, but you know, I'm hearing a lot about this "Mandrake" thing (humor). Maybe he'll go back there?

  11. With Redhat on this one... by dperkins · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
    1. Re:With Redhat on this one... by no_choice · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I fail to see what Redhat is doing that could so offend Bero

      Bero made his reasons pretty clear in his post to the kde-devel list:

      I don't want to work on crippling KDE, and they don't want an employee who admits RH 8.0's KDE is crippleware.

      That's pretty clear, isn't it?

      he is only creating a larger problem...over something that appears to be rather benign

      It may "appear benign" to you, but Bero has a different opinion. And I seriously doubt that you know more about KDE on RedHat than he does.

      Looks like big egos will always get in the way of better software.

      Sure, why not throw in a gratuitous personal attack? But isn't it at least as likely that Bero recognized RedHat's intention to covertly favor Gnome by crippling their KDE implementation, and chose not to be a part of it -- like he says?

      If this is the case, as I strongly suspect, then we owe Bero our thanks for the warning. If RedHat or its users take heed, this will help us get better software in the long run.

    2. Re:With Redhat on this one... by rnd() · · Score: 2
      I think you're wrong. Why wouldn't Bero just write a script to "fix" the RH8 implementation of KDE and release it to the 10 people out there who care?

      If you are a RH user and you want a full KDE, then don't install the RPMS, compile it from source the way you want it. While you're at it, package it as an RPM and make it availalbe as a substitute for the standard RH8 KDE rpms.

      This whole ordeal sounds like a case of hurt feelings.

      --

      Amazing magic tricks

    3. Re:With Redhat on this one... by Omnifarious · · Score: 2

      I don't want to work on crippling KDE, and they don't want an employee who admits RH 8.0's KDE is crippleware.

      That's pretty clear, isn't it?

      No, actually, it's not. Crippleware is a pejorative, and not a very descriptive one. I'm highly interested in why Bero has left, and complaining about crippling KDE gives me almost no information whatsoever.

      Unlike many, I'm not interested in either painting Bero as a whining egotist or RedHat as evil. I simply want to know what the difference of opinion actually boils down to so I can make some sort of informed opinion myself.

      I will say that the fact that neither Bero, nor RedHat are able to offer me any concrete explanations is annoying. But, I presume that both are waiting until tempers have calmed so they can present their sides with a minimum of rancor.

      --
      Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
  12. I agree. by aussersterne · · Score: 1, Redundant

    This story has already been covered once or twice on Slashdot, and a lot of users have said "This is good, it makes GNOME and KDE consistent, and if a user wants real KDE, he/she can always edit the configuration back to use the default KDE applications, etc."

    But I've been using Red Hat 8 betas and it's not at all clear just how many things been changed... only that many aspects of the KDE environment in Red Hat are not configured in the same way as the 'real' KDE 3.x environment downloaded from kde.org. Yes, I could try and edit the configuration back to what looks like the real default KDE environment, but it would be a pain (many, many things would have to be changed) and I've no doubt that some things would remain broken or 'disconnected' from the KDE environment and replaced by GNOME applications, etc., in interesting RedHat-ish ways.

    I'll be switching to another distribution next upgrade, because I want the KDE environment on my computer, not just kicker and kwm with a lot of GNOME apps and Red Hat apps connected to them.

    --
    STOP . AMERICA . NOW
    1. Re:I agree. by dperkins · · Score: 1

      You have a good point:
      I want the KDE environment on my computer, not just kicker and kwm with a lot of GNOME apps and Red Hat apps connected to them.

      What I fail to see, however, is how RedHat has done wrong by Bero. See, you can still do exactly what you are talking about by installing vanilla KDE on your Redhat box. However, KDE is developing their software for a number of different distros. It seems logical that a distro would take KDE (or whatever) bundled with their software and customize it for their own purposes (in this case to make it more seamless esp. for newbies).

      This is a good business decision if they want to broaden appeal for both Redhat and Linux as a whole. If you want the KDEnvironment, then install it as such!

      Another idea for KDE (or Redhat) would be to include a switchdesk-type option for switching back to vanilla KDE, or to Redhat-branded KDE (or Debian-KDE...etc).

      --
      My sig hates me. That's ok, I never cared for it much anyway.
    2. Re:I agree. by tomhudson · · Score: 2
      So why didn't they just add another option to the graphical login screen, and save all the hullaballoo?

  13. He should change his name ... by LordNimon · · Score: 5, Funny

    to Zero, to reflect his new income level.

    --
    And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
    To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
  14. I use gentoo by dcstimm · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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
    1. Re:I use gentoo by fault0 · · Score: 2

      > It just makes the two desktops look alike so NEW users dont get confused.

      One problem is that they LOOK similiar, but they don't always BEHAVE similiarly. There are a lot of differences including preferences windows, button placement, how the scrollbar behaves, file open/save dialog, etc... Also, the fact that when you change the theme, for example, gnome, the KDE theme won't get changed. This behavior is really quite easy to break.

      > Have you seen the default theme of KDE? ITS UGLY!

      I prefer the default theme these days to thins like Keramick. I don't think it's ugly.

      > And it makes sence because gnome2 is the default DE, why is it bad for qt apps to have unified look?

      I think it's good.

  15. It's rather sad. by Starship+Trooper · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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
    1. Re:It's rather sad. by SirSlud · · Score: 5, Insightful

      People are naturally going to fight over interfaces more than blackboxes.

      When I implement rendering software, its very easy to tell if my approach or your approach is better; bench mark.

      Now hell me how to objectively detemine which interface is better: KDE or GNOME?

      I think its obvious that there is always going to be way more arguments about what the handles and knobs looks like than whether or not that engine is implemented in the best way possible. You can quantitatively test and compare all the kinds of software you say that doesn't suffer from the problems KDE/GNOME do .. interface stuff is way more shades of grey when it comes to the Right Way or the Wrong Way.

      --
      "Old man yells at systemd"
    2. Re:It's rather sad. by Frater+219 · · Score: 4, Insightful
      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.

      You missed the VM system flamewars? The scheduler fights? The CML2 flamewars starring ESR? The kernel developers are by no means an egoless hive-mind, noiselessly producing good code. Read kernel-traffic for a little taste, or delve into the linux-kernel list raw & unfiltered for more than you evidently expect in the way of competition.

      If you want to look for "Not Invented Here" mentalities and competition between kernel projects in the free-software world, consider also Linux vs. BSD. As I understand it, there's no reason that OpenBSD's pf firewall module -- which has some serious advantages over Linux's netfilter -- could not be integrated with the Linux network stack. It hasn't been, though, and I don't imagine it will be.

      Kernels can be fighty places, too.

    3. Re:It's rather sad. by Ploulack · · Score: 2, Interesting

      >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.

      And how exactly can you say the kernel wouldn't have progressed faster with competition ? If you lack any comparison element how can you tell ?

      And in the long run...See yourself in 10 years; you have this incredible feature to integrate in a desktop. But badluck, at this time the comitty steering the UNIFIED DESKTOP doesn't deem your idea interesting (always remember that very bright people can fail to see - planck's idea took a long time to get through, and he was talking with the best crop of physicist of his time). Well, if there's a second project...you have 100% more chances to get your idea through. And both might consider your idea a bit more, being cautious that they could lose it to the other side, just in case.

      Or you don't have that second destop solution: maybe you'll fork the UNIFIED one yourself, thus ten years later proving yourself wrong. :))

      Na, I think it's better with competition. Safer on the long run.

    4. Re:It's rather sad. by akc · · Score: 2, Interesting
      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 disagree. Of course you might like to have everyone work on the same thing - but these are volunteers who work on what gives them enjoyment. You can't get them to work on a common environment - the best you can achieve is common interface standards, and that is happening.

      With this environment then you do get competition, because each camp wants their side to win. This moves each side on faster than it would without the other. We don't know whether one environent will become THE ONE (the others will not disappear immediately - if at all - but will continue anyway as a minority solution).

      As for your one kernel. The kernel development goes through the same thing, look at the number of competing file systems.

    5. Re:It's rather sad. by Otter · · Score: 5, Insightful
      (A little off-topic, but I'd rather argue about this than join round 5 of hundreds of posters arguing about a desktop almost none of them have seen...)

      I think you're mistaken in assuming that computationally enormous is equivalent to hard. Designing and optimizing a Unix-ish operating system is a solved problem. It's been done well for decades by some really smart, well-funded people and there's plenty of experience and available source to draw on.

      The desktop is hard. Apple and Microsoft still haven't gotten it down pat and the CDE guys completely failed at it. I remember a few years ago the attitude was, "We have graphics toolkits, and we've made Windows-like desktops with icons and toolbars. Thanks to the power of open source, we'll have Mac/Windows quality desktop apps in two years!" (I'm quoting the royal "we" of Linux enthusiasts.) It turns out that it's a lot harder than that, and that the devs at Apple and Microsoft and Adobe are a lot smarter and more innovative than a lot of the Linux xealots gave them credit for.

      --
      What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
    6. Re:It's rather sad. by krmt · · Score: 5, Interesting
      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).
      That's funny, you must never read the LKML if you think there's no bickering going on. Perhaps you're too young to know about the gcc/egcs split of a few years back. How about the emacs/xemacs feud? Even stable, mature projects have their splits and their differences, including those on the lower levels of the tool chain.

      And even the lower levels have their problems. There might be one Linux kernel (excepting -ac and other myriad branches and patches), but there's also BSD, Mach, Darwin, and the Hurd out there.

      As for "simple" things like reading Word documents, you try reading a document that's really and collection of embedded COM objects and see how well you do with it. Things like that aren't easy. On the other hand, I can read and write my windows partition, as well as many other file systems, quite easily in Linux, which is something Windows can't do now. I also have virtual desktops, which is simple to implement in your WM using X, but Windows can't do this "simple" thing by default. Every environment has its advantages and disadvantages.

      All those diseparate projects like KDE/Gnome, OO/KOffice, etc. will either learn to cooperate or one will die out. KDE and Gnome have very very slowly been taking steps to meet on some levels, and distros can step in at other levels (like Debian's excellent menu system). OO and Koffice are working towards using the same file format, or at least being able to read and write the same formats. Things will get there, just be patient.

      Oh, and incidentally, I get better frames in Q3 on Linux than I do in Windows.
      --

      "I may not have morals, but I have standards."

    7. Re:It's rather sad. by dusanv · · Score: 1

      You make some valid points (fix the freaking clipboard in X pls). But I have had no problems opening any Excel or Word documents in OpenOffice 1.0.1 so far. Oh and Quake III (and UT2k3) is faster under Linux a tee-wee bit (I benchmarked it, NVidia GF4Ti, NVidia 30.31 driver).

    8. Re:It's rather sad. by ChaosDiscord · · Score: 2
      Linux ... can't even open a simple Word document without formatting errors.

      OpenOffice and AbiWord both open simple Word documents without formatting errors just fine. AbiWord will even open moderately complex Word documents accurately. OpenOffice has proven itself to be extremely accurate on fairly complex Word documents, certainly everything that floats by me.

      Linux stills falls short of Windows when playing Quake.

      And to think that I was running Quake III on Linux faster that my dual boot to Windows...

      Star Office, KOffice, Applix....XFree86, MetroX, XiG

      Interesting that you chose to include commercial software in your list. Are you suggesting that the commercial software folks just give up thier goals of making money and help the open source folks? I don't think so.

      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.

      Even if you ignore competition like Microsoft Windows and MacOS X, Linux still faces from stiff competition from OpenBSD and FreeBSD. The Linux, OpenBSD, and FreeBSD camps regularlly have political disagreements and regularlly race to be the first with hot new features.

      It's also worthing noting that in general the people doing real coding tend to avoid flamewars. The real flamers and trolls tend to be armchair coders and overly enthusiatic users. Relatively little work is lost in these fights. If these people really wanted to work, they know where the code is.

      You're missing the real point: most of these people are working for free on software that they enjoy working on. Complaining that they aren't working as efficiently as possible is going to fall on deaf ears.

      --
      Search 2010 Gen Con events
    9. Re:It's rather sad. by natefaerber · · Score: 1

      In the end Red Hat will be responsible for uniting the Linux Desktop and everyone will praise this move. KNOME (or maybe GDE) will be on the desktop of every man, woman, child and dog (cats don't really give a sh*t).

      The GNU shall set you free!

      --
      -- My HARDWARE, My CHOICE.
    10. Re:It's rather sad. by inerte · · Score: 1

      The strangest thing is that a company worth 300 billion dollars is always releasing new version of its software.

      --
      Buy a Nintendo DS Lite
    11. Re:It's rather sad. by bluGill · · Score: 2

      Where do you get the idea that there is only one linux kernel? Well, okay, there is one kernel called linux, but there are 5 free kernels out there: Hurd, linux, Aa href="http://www.freebsd.org/">FreeBSD, href="http://www.netbsd.org/">NetBSD, and href="http://www.openbsd.org/">OpenBSD. All are differet, and all compete. In fact it has been discovered that sometimes the compititon cannot come togather. OpenBSD's secure mission means they have to sit behind the bleeding edge on some things because it isn't proven yet. (others they sit in front because what they have isn't good enough). NetBSD's mission ot be easially portable to everything means that they often make compromises in that hurt performance on other platforms. Most people run linux, but the others are out there, and there is good reason to choose them, and good reason not to intigrate everything into linux.

      Notice that even though they are all different, XFree86 runs on each, as do both KDE and Gnome. We compete where there is a choice of ways, with no clear winner, while we work togather to ensure (as much as possible) that everything not realted runs on/with either enviorment.

      I'd like to remind you too that most of the flame about incompatabilities is not from developers, but from bystanders who don't understand the underling technical issues. The developers are willing to work togather, and if they don't it is because there are either more pressing issues to solve first, or there is good technical reason not to. (There are notable exceptions of developers who are hard to get along with, but for the most part developers get along)

    12. Re:It's rather sad. by fishbowl · · Score: 4, Interesting
      The problem with the desktop is that it is perceived as an Entertainment device on top of whatever it was supposed to be before the focus on entertainment. And implementation here is not just a technical challenge, but also a legal and political one. Linux is ready for MY desktop, but the kind of *work* I do on my desktop involves writing mathematics papers, creating 2-d graphs on polar coordinates, writing correspondence, and lately, writing a research paper in French for a lit class.

      For math papers, OpenOffice works *better* than the MS equivalent, and for many tasks, makes more sense than using Maple or Mathematica. And Open Office is wonderful for writing in French, or any other Western language.

      When other people say "The Desktop" they're not talking about work, they're talking about Entertainment. And there are real shackles, very high barriers to entry in that arena, that have nothing to do with one piece of free software versus another, and everything to do with the hostility of hardware makers and industry associations!

      But that's the "desktop" as an entertainment venue, and not as a workplace. Because of the current state of affairs where we are willing to accept (1) unnecessary expenses and (2) distractions from functions that apply to work tasks, we seem to find things like "windows" and "osx", or even "gnome" or "kde" to be reasonable items to have in a workplace -- because those are the things we are accustomed to.

      Why is the Windows Solitaire program considered a tolerable standard feature on a business machine? Why is it that even in environments demanding hardcore accountability, strict adherence to schedule, and zero loss, we find any such systems? What stopped there being a "next level" in workplace equipment?

      --
      -fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
    13. Re:It's rather sad. by zmooc · · Score: 2
      I would actually consider all other platforms the named desktop environments and office suites run on to be competition of the Linux-platform and therefore it's kernel. Solaris, *BSD etc are all serious competitors. It's tests in which those platforms are compared that really keep innovation going. This is not about man-hours, this is about trying to be the best (so this whole ego isn't such a bad thing after all; it's what keeps all free software development going) and the best is always going to be better when a few groups are competing to be it than when there would be a single group working on it.

      I think the arguments you name are irrelevant; the reason Word documents don't look perfectly is not lack of man-hours, it is the lack of a standard. And about Quake; I don't really know, but it's got nothing to do with Linux; if Quake were mainly targeted at the Linux platform it would probably perform better.

      But anyway; I think you're right about the ego-problem, but regarding competition I think you're basicly wrong; competition is what keeps it all going, we just shouldn't have too many teams in the running and those teams indeed need strong leaders which are accepted by their members. But what we need most are commonly accepted standards for a lot more things than we have now to improve interoperability. Especially on the desktop.

      --
      0x or or snor perron?!
    14. Re:It's rather sad. by quake74 · · Score: 1
      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.

      What? I really don't understand that 'yet'. The problem is that 'easier' doesn't mean that it can be done faster! I'd rather work for months trying to solve a hard problem than working the same amount of time solving a (easier) boring problem. You can call it ego if you want.

      quake74

    15. Re:It's rather sad. by Nailer · · Score: 2

      Now hell me how to objectively detemine which interface is better: KDE or GNOME?

      From a user point of view, neither is better. Using the current KDE and Gnome, they're pretty much the same. A panel on the bottom of screen, a series of launchers (one for a menu of all my available apps), a taskbar stacked 2 high that groups apps of the same type into pop up list boxes. Themes on KDE look and Sun Shine in a Bag that look the same (because they've been ported between the two). Panel apps are now standardized. So is cut and paste.

      The panel is effectively the only real difference between KDE and Gnome. The apps are the same - most Gnome users I know use KDE apps and most KDE users I know use Gnome apps. Users can and will choose apps based on quality not toolkit. Its up to the developers to respect those wishes.

      I don't think anyone cares whether that panel is a GTK or a QT app, as long as it look the same as their other apps. Unify the component models is soem way (which at this early point its still possible to do), unify the theming (easy) and bang, you've got a Linux desktop that allows end users to choose the best apps for themselves - rather than developers choosing it for them.

    16. Re:It's rather sad. by corey_lawson · · Score: 1

      ...but eventually things in Linux seem to work out so that either the best ideas win and are generally accepted by all or the competing egos are equally provided (ext2fs/ext3fs/reiserfs/xfs).

      People seem to think of KDE & Gnome as being more than what they are, i.e., KDE+all the Kapps vs. Gnome+all the Gnome apps. If I think the best app for a certain task happens to be implemented in a KDE version, great. If another app is best implemented in a Gnome app, great.

      If I need both, why should I have to choose one desktop environment or another to run the apps *I* want to run? Isn't this the f'ing point?

      If it isn't then why have both strived to provide a good measure of interoperability between each other, so that a Gnome app can run in KDE, and vice-versa?

      RedHat is trying to do that. Like others have said, if it minimizes applets of one environment over another, tough nuts. Grow up. If the other apps you like instead can still be run, though, hey, that is still fine, isn't it?

    17. Re:It's rather sad. by Tim+Browse · · Score: 2
      OpenOffice and AbiWord both open simple Word documents without formatting errors just fine. AbiWord will even open moderately complex Word documents accurately.

      Really? I normally use MS Word, but try out Abiword every few months. So far I haven't switched precisely because it can't open simple Word documents without formatting errors.

      And I don't use complex Word features - I use standard heading styles, bulleted lists and sometimes a (simple) table or two in the documents I write.

      Sigh. I just tried out the latest version of Abiword (1.0.3) to check the current status. Ignoring the weird redraw bug with the left margin on initial load (on vanilla Windows XP, not SP1), I just tried to load a simple 3 page Word doc I wrote the other day. It's really simple - headings, paragraphs, and bullet lists. Not even a table in sight.

      Abiword crashed when trying to load it. Just disappeared completely - no SEH handler or anything, it just disappeared.

      This concludes my 4-monthly evaluation of Abiword :-)

      Tim

    18. Re:It's rather sad. by RzUpAnmsCwrds · · Score: 2

      "I also have virtual desktops"

      Windows XP Powertoys can do that. Or, if you're looking for multi-client support, look into the server versions of Windows.

      Oh, you said "by default".

      Sorry. Sometimes I forget how hard it is to download a 500k free program.

    19. Re:It's rather sad. by Buck2 · · Score: 1

      For math papers, OpenOffice works *better* ...

      If you are seriously doing a lot of math papers you would be well served to familiarize yourself with LaTeX.

      --

      As my father lik@(munch munch)... ....
    20. Re:It's rather sad. by uchian · · Score: 1

      I believe most people call it the RDE
      (Redhat Desktop Environment)

    21. Re:It's rather sad. by gorjusborg · · Score: 1

      "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!" I am not so sure that a standard is what 'we' need. One of the great things about the free software movement is that anyone can 'steal' others' good ideas and ditch the bad ones. If there were really an undisputed BEST (much like XFree86) then most people would use it. Also, who would feel the need to start a 'competing' project if there were already a perfect program out there. I won't complain that we don't have an MS Office yet. At least someone hasn't decided that we need a stupid paper clip to take over the lower right hand corner of our word processor.

      --
      If it's not one thing, it's Steve's Mother
    22. Re:It's rather sad. by SirSlud · · Score: 2

      My point is, prove it. Go ahead and prove what you just said. Its difficult.

      Renderware, kernals .. its easier to proove. Make sure your benchmark isn't biased and reflects real world use as close as you can, and then compare numbers.

      Interface stuff is way more subjective, the science isn't fully trusted by the IT community, and thus you're always going to have way more arguments and FUD from people deveoping and critiquing it.

      --
      "Old man yells at systemd"
    23. Re:It's rather sad. by Malor · · Score: 1

      (-1, offtopic)

      Do you have a pointer to a conversation about that? My experience with pf in 3.0 was that it was great for small sites/firewalls, but choked badly in full-scale production. (I'm sure it's better now). I didn't see any features in it that I thought were superior to iptables.... if anything, it looked like iptables did more.

      Not trying to start a flamewar here, just interested in where you developed your opinion?

    24. Re:It's rather sad. by MConlon · · Score: 1
      For math papers, OpenOffice works *better* than the MS equivalent, and for many tasks, makes more sense than using Maple or Mathematica.

      As another poster noted, you should be using LaTeX for this sort of thing. Maple exports to LaTeX... I expect Mathematica does too, but I haven't got it yet. (It's on order.)

      MJC

    25. Re:It's rather sad. by Dehumanizer · · Score: 1

      And YOU obviouly know pf, right?

      Hell, I doubt you even know netfilter...

      --
      The Tlog - a technology blog
    26. Re:It's rather sad. by crush · · Score: 2
      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.

      Hmm.. this is an interesting claim. I just opened a couple of Word documents in Abiword with no problem. I also opened them in OpenOffice.org with no problem. Yeah, they were both simple documents without tables in them, but they worked fine.

      There are myriad competing, mutually incompatible yet separately inadequate office suites

      What exactly do you mean by "incompatible" office suites? If you save documents from them in RTF, or ASCII or HTML or whatever then they work just fine.

      and X servers (XFree86, MetroX, XiG).

      Again, what exactly do you mean by "incompatible" here? Do you just mean "different"? All that MetroX and XiGraphics offer are extra drivers for cards that haven't been (in a limited number of cases) released as drivers for XFree86 yet. Yet I can definitely export a client display from a machine running MetroX onto an XFree86 server and vice-versa. That's because they both use the Open X Protocol. Hard to see how they could be more compatible.

      I hope you'll forgive me if I misread your post, but I smell a dirty great big troll here.

    27. Re:It's rather sad. by fishbowl · · Score: 2

      I'm familiar with LaTeX, thank you.

      I stand by my assessment of OpenOffice Math.

      --
      -fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
  16. The Goal? by nonmaskable · · Score: 1

    I wonder what Red Hat was thinking. If they wanted to alienate KDE users they could have dropped KDE from their distro entirely. Why did they waste money crippling it?

    It's clear from the KDE community reaction (well documented in megabytes of flames this last month) that many who love RH and KDE will switch to Mandrake or SuSE over the way RH has treated KDE.

    1. Re:The Goal? by Jondor · · Score: 2

      Yeah, besides, I still fail to see what they try to accomplise. Who they try to make happy.
      Newbies don't realy care what they use. The use what you use because that means they have help at hand. Companies can standarize on one or the other. Again, just take your pick. (as RedHat basicly did with Gnome)
      Old hands made their choise for a reason and are not going to like it when a distro screws up "their" gnome/kde.
      Changing the picture doesn't make the programs inter-operatable either.. I wish them all the luck, but I guess it's time to pick an other distro once again here too..

      --
      Nobody expects the spanish inquisition!
    2. Re:The Goal? by Frequanaut · · Score: 1

      Why are you assuming that they've 'crippled' kde?

      The KDE community needs to get a grip. Maybe they should change their license. Redhat can do whatever they please, within the bounds of that.

      I'm using null right now. It's quite nice. I don't think anything is crippled.

    3. Re:The Goal? by GigsVT · · Score: 1

      Why did they waste money crippling it?

      How is adding options to something "crippling it"?

      It's clear from the KDE community reaction that many who love RH and KDE will switch to Mandrake or SuSE over the way RH has treated KDE.

      Bullshit. The only people I see whining are the ones that never liked Red Hat to start with.

      --
      I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
    4. Re:The Goal? by KewlPC · · Score: 1

      Actually, I've always liked RedHat (the other distros I've used are Mandrake, Slackware, and TurboLinux, as well as all 3 BSDs). But I really like KDE. Not just the apps, but the whole shebang, environment and all.

      I am definately thinking of giving Mandrake 9.0 a try. A unified desktop is NOT what I want. I want KDE including the KDE environment. I want a choice. And it looks like my choice from now on is going to be Mandrake.

  17. You people are missing the point by SirSlud · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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"
    1. Re:You people are missing the point by Coplan · · Score: 5, Interesting
      Wish I had mod points right now...I'd mod you up rather than reply.

      I agree with you 100%. But I can also see where some people are worried. A respectable man disowns a company he works for over political reasons such as the modification of KDE, and it will make people question the company. Things like this will always bring rise to the Redhat/Microsoft comparison that happens way too often.

      BUT the whole Lemming mentality happens way too often as well. Someone respectable leaves something like redhat behind, and all of the sudden people think it's tainted. Now, don't get me wrong. In a situation like this, questions do arise in my head. But I further research an analyze the situation. Perhaps our hero doesn't want to modify KDE because he thinks it works BEST the default way. Makes sense. But I'm willing to try out the new modified version before I agree with him.

      So I announce now that I will go against the grain, and I will at least try out Redhat 8.0 before I denounce it. I will try Xandros too, and the latest Debian, and so on. I'm an OS mosquito, I go where the brightest light is.

  18. Quitting... yeah, that'll help by 1010011010 · · Score: 2


    I'm sure that, since he is no longer an employee, he'll have even more influence over RedHat's decisions.

    I think it would have been better for him to demonstrate a better way -- such as making a set of RPMs for RedHat 8.0 available for how he thinks KDE should be. I remember downloading RPMs from ~bero in the past.

    --
    Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
    1. Re:Quitting... yeah, that'll help by LMCBoy · · Score: 2

      If you follow the article's links you'll notice that RH actually asked him to leave since they didn't want an employee saying the RH KDE was crippled. So it wasn't as if he had a bruised ego and stomped out in a huff. He probably did ask if he could make "pure" KDE RPMs; if so, that probably didn't fly too well at RH.

      --
      Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
  19. He's already updated his /. user bio by Luminous+Coward · · Score: 1
    User Bio
    Formerly bero at redhat.com, I've stopped working for the "break KDE" company. Mail if you need to know more.
    His other account hasn't changed AFAIK.
  20. Over reacting? by Squeezer · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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?
  21. Seems a pity for Bero to leave RedHat over this by lakeland · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I have a lot of respect for Bero, back when I used redhat I used to use his packages of KDE CVS because I couldn't get it to compile.

    However, I can understand why redhat is standardising its interface this and I'm not sure it is a bad thing. The difference between KDE and Gnome _IS_ confusing to new users, and it is somewhat ugly to mix GTK and QT apps on the screen at the same time. I think that KDE and Gnome should compete on the technical merits of their class libraries, not on how pretty their default install is.

    Consider Ximian, Lindows, etc. They all modify kde to look like windows. Why is it ok for them to do that, but no ok for RedHat to give all their programs a similar look-and-feel.

    Anyway, I hope financial reasons won't mean Bero is no longer able to contribute to the open source community.

    1. Re:Seems a pity for Bero to leave RedHat over this by Mark+Gordon · · Score: 2

      > Consider Ximian, Lindows, etc. They all modify kde to look like windows.

      Ximian modifies KDE? When did this happen?

    2. Re:Seems a pity for Bero to leave RedHat over this by lakeland · · Score: 1

      Xandros sorry, Strange company name starting with X :-)

  22. Please explain crippleware. by FreeLinux · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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....

    1. Re:Please explain crippleware. by LMCBoy · · Score: 4, Interesting

      First of all, let me say that Redhat is free to do whatever they like with KDE, since it is GPL'd.

      However, what they're doing is not very nice, and it isn't at all about themes and icons...if that's all it was, there would be no issue.

      First there was the issue of the removal of the "About KDE" item in all KDE app help menus. From Redhat's point of view, they're trying to make a Redhat-branded desktop, so seeing "About KDE" in some of the apps might be confusing to the user. From KDE's point of view, if Redhat "de-brands" the desktop, then the about box is really their only chance to let the user know about the app's authorship. It *really* makes it seem like Redhat is, if not trying to take credit for the apps themselves, then at least trying remove credit from where it's due (the KDE devs).
      I don't know for sure, but I think Redhat may have decided to replace the "About KDE" items. Time (or beta testers :) will tell.

      Second, and more importantly, they have replaced KDE apps with equivalent apps, either from GNOME or independent projects. For example, they replaced konqueror with Mozilla, Koffice with OpenOffice, KMail with Evolution.

      Some people say these alternatives are better anyway, so who cares? Is KDE just whining because they can't keep up? I don't think so. For one thing, even if you change the widget style, these apps aren't going to be very well-integrated into the rest of the desktop, both in terms of look-and-feel and interoperability with other apps. This tight integration is one of KDE's great strengths; without it, KDE is, well, crippled. Plus, since these apps depend on libraries that are not preloaded when KDE starts up, they will appear to be sluggish to the user, who might incorrectly conclude that KDE is slow and clunky.

      In summary, it isn't about themes or icons. It's that Redhat removed all trace of KDE from the apps, and replaced core KDE components with alternatives that are likely to confuse and frustrate users.

      --
      Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
    2. Re:Please explain crippleware. by sirinek · · Score: 2, Flamebait

      Frankly I'd replace konqueror with mozilla too, since mozilla isnt a steaming pile of crap that cant parse simple javascript, DHTML or some web forms correctly. And yes I am using KDE3.

      siri

    3. Re:Please explain crippleware. by 0x0d0a · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Second, and more importantly, they have replaced KDE apps with equivalent apps, either from GNOME or independent projects. For example, they replaced konqueror with Mozilla, Koffice with OpenOffice, KMail with Evolution.

      Yes. So? The alternative would be using all KDE apps in their place. So the KDE people are pissed off because RH isn't excising all competitors to their software from their distro and using only KDE? That's just silly.

      --
      May we never see th
    4. Re:Please explain crippleware. by Wakkow · · Score: 1

      It seems that you're only reading what you want to see.. Read the next paragraph. Integration is critical to KDE's strengths. Hell, integration is critical to a decent desktop. You take that away, then what's the point of even including it?

    5. Re:Please explain crippleware. by pjl5602 · · Score: 1
      First there was the issue of the removal of the "About KDE" item in all KDE app help menus. From Redhat's point of view, they're trying to make a Redhat-branded desktop, so seeing "About KDE" in some of the apps might be confusing to the user. From KDE's point of view, if Redhat "de-brands" the desktop, then the about box is really their only chance to let the user know about the app's authorship. It *really* makes it seem like Redhat is, if not trying to take credit for the apps themselves, then at least trying remove credit from where it's due (the KDE devs).

      Um, "About KDE" is an advertisement for KDE. The "About App" was NEVER removed by RedHat. It is the "About App" menu item that tells the user who the authors of the app are. Removing the "About KDE" menu item is a total non-issue.

    6. Re:Please explain crippleware. by Arandir · · Score: 2

      so far everything points to Red Hat simply changing the default themes and icons

      This is Redhat's version of things. But it's obviously not the problem, because a heck of a lot of other distros do it. There's something deeper going on. The key word in Bero's extremely short message is "crippleware".

      You don't use a word like "crippleware" to describe a theme or icon set you dislike. You use it to describe software that is unstable or hindered in its functionality.

      If you go check, you'll find that no KDE developer has complained about the theme or icon set Redhat is using. Their complaints are about other things.

      --
      A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
    7. Re:Please explain crippleware. by Arandir · · Score: 2

      The alternative would be using all KDE apps in their place.

      That's not the alternative. My KDE menu shows "Mozilla". I didn't put it there, KDE put it there! You see, during installation, KDE looked for other common applications to put in its menu, and found Mozilla.

      It doesn't bother me that Redhat is fiddling around with their menus. But I am suspicious that they don't know what they're doing in their fiddling of the menus. Let's suppose that a user has Konqueror, Mozilla, Galeon, Phoenix and Opera installed. They open up the Redhat root menu and see "Web Browser". Which browser does that refer to? Where are the other browsers?

      --
      A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
    8. Re:Please explain crippleware. by Wesley+Felter · · Score: 2

      Second, and more importantly, they have replaced KDE apps with equivalent apps, either from GNOME or independent projects. For example, they replaced konqueror with Mozilla, Koffice with OpenOffice, KMail with Evolution.

      For one thing, even if you change the widget style, these apps aren't going to be very well-integrated into the rest of the desktop, both in terms of look-and-feel and interoperability with other apps. This tight integration is one of KDE's great strengths; without it, KDE is, well, crippled. Plus, since these apps depend on libraries that are not preloaded when KDE starts up, they will appear to be sluggish to the user, who might incorrectly conclude that KDE is slow and clunky.

      Look at it the other way...

      Second, and more importantly, they have replaced GNOME apps with equivalent apps from independent projects. For example, they replaced Galeon with Mozilla and GNOME Office with OpenOffice.

      For one thing, even if you change the widget style, these apps aren't going to be very well-integrated into the rest of the desktop, both in terms of look-and-feel and interoperability with other apps. This tight integration is one of GNOME's great strengths; without it, GNOME is, well, crippled. Plus, since these apps depend on libraries that are not preloaded when GNOME starts up, they will appear to be sluggish to the user, who might incorrectly conclude that GNOME is slow and clunky.

      Yet you don't hear the GNOME folks complaining.

    9. Re:Please explain crippleware. by FattMattP · · Score: 2
      First there was the issue of the removal of the "About KDE" item in all KDE app help menus. From Redhat's point of view, they're trying to make a Redhat-branded desktop, so seeing "About KDE" in some of the apps might be confusing to the user. From KDE's point of view, if Redhat "de-brands" the desktop, then the about box is really their only chance to let the user know about the app's authorship.
      Wrong. The About KDE menu is just a glorified ad for the whole project. There is a second About menu right above the "About KDE" menu in each KDE program that gives credit for each specific program.
      Second, and more importantly, they have replaced KDE apps with equivalent apps, either from GNOME or independent projects. For example, they replaced konqueror with Mozilla, Koffice with OpenOffice, KMail with Evolution.
      Wrong again. The programs haven't been replaced. Only the links in the startup menu have changed. If you don't want to run OpenOffice, you can just add KOffice right back to the menu. KMail and Konqueror are both in the menu, they are just lsited by their name and not as "Web Browser" and "Email."

      Maybe you should actually install and use the distribution next time before just spouting off at the mouth.

      --
      Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
    10. Re:Please explain crippleware. by jcostom · · Score: 2
      Second, and more importantly, they have replaced KDE apps with equivalent apps, either from GNOME or independent projects. For example, they replaced konqueror with Mozilla, Koffice with OpenOffice, KMail with Evolution.

      Stop and realize the silliness of your "point"... Changing launcher icons on the panel != replacing applications. Can you run Konq on RH8? Sure can. Can you run Koffice? Yup.

      --

      The unsig!
    11. Re:Please explain crippleware. by stock · · Score: 1

      I sent this email :
      Date: Thu, 3 Oct 2002 18:20:38 +0200 (CEST)
      From: Robert M. Stockmann
      To: sup-manager@redhat.com, than@redhat.de
      Cc: bero@redhat.com, bero@redhat.de, kalle@kde.org, granroth@kde.org, bero@berolinux.org, bero@kde.org
      Subject: KDE desktop on RedHat 8.0 messy?

      Hi,

      An ex-employee bero aka Bernhard Rosenkraenzer recently resigned from RedHat because he doesn't want to work on crippling KDE.

      Well KDE being messy on RedHat 8.0 remains to be seen. So i made a fresh install of RedHat 8.0 and here's what i found:

      My setup here is a Matrox G400 32Mb dualhead, with two 21" monitors. Furthermore to get the +xinerama option running i installed the beta driver mgadrivers-2.0.tgz from matrox.com on top of XFree86 4.2.0.

      I created 2 users , stock (running KDE) and foobar (running GNOME). I attached two desktop shots from both freshly initialized desktops. As you can see with the KDE desktop the icon subtitles are shifted to the screen on the right. With the GNOME desktop nothing is wrong.

      Now i really would like to buy RedHat 8.0, but if my xinerama test fails at home, how am i possibly going to buy the new Redhat 8.0 box? Any clues as how KDE fails and GNOME succesfully runs +Xinerama?

      Regards,
      Robert

      and here are the URL's to the screenshots:
      http://crashrecovery.org/xinerama-gnome-rh80.jpg
      http://crashrecovery.org/xinerama-kde-rh80.jpg

  23. This is not meant to start a flamewar by MarcoAtWork · · Score: 3, Interesting

    But I really don't quite understand the vast resentment about this latest RedHat move: will somebody please enlighten me why it's so out of line?

    Besides 'nicety' issues (it would be nice if RH didn't do this) and besides marketing reasons (obviously having a consistent interface is very desirable) can anybody explain any legal reason why RH isn't allowed to do what they are doing?

    As far as I remember, when you GPL your software, anybody can do practically whatever they want with it as long as they provide it at cost (duplication costs) and as long as they publish their (modified) sources.

    If you don't like the way RH ships their preconfigured Gnome/KDE desktop, well, uninstall the provided packages and install the ones you can download from ftp.kde.org and so on.

    The people that would be interested in having a 'pure' KDE and/or a 'pure' Gnome, are technically inclined people which are more than capable of doing what I just outlined: I really doubt that your average non-power-user cares at all about this, as long as they can use mozilla, openoffice etc. I don't think they'd care.

    If you have licensed your software under a specific license (GPL, BSD, Artistic...) and a licensee does things to your software that you don't like, well, maybe you didn't think long & hard enough before opting to use the license you've been using. The only solution is to decide on a new license (good luck in getting everybody to agree) and to fork the codebase under that new license, but it's definitely not a painless or sometimes even possible solution (given the 'viral' nature of the GPL).

    --
    -- the cake is a lie
    1. Re:This is not meant to start a flamewar by JabberWokky · · Score: 3, Insightful
      can anybody explain any legal reason why RH isn't allowed to do what they are doing?

      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
    2. Re:This is not meant to start a flamewar by JoeBuck · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

    3. Re:This is not meant to start a flamewar by JabberWokky · · Score: 2
      consider your wedding invitation from me to be cancelled :-)

      :) I was trying to come up with a totally legal yet obviously unfriendly and unaccepted way of acting. I'm not on Red Hat's side, but I'm also not a ranting KDE user on this issue (although I rant at times, and am a KDE user).

      Really, the crux of the situation (other than the removal of author credits), is simply one of identity. When a group works hard on putting out something of quality, and somebody else changes it to suit them and then calls it the same thing, it's upsetting. If you didn't like the wedding metaphor, think of it like this (although in this case, the legality of the metaphor doesn't match up): I like Tullamore Dew, good Irish whiskey. Imagine if somebody thought it was too strong, and they watered it down half and half, and sold it as Tullamore Dew. Not somebody minor, either - somebody almost synomous with whiskey, whose watered down version of Tullamore Dew would be reviewed and considered by many to to be the definitive version of Tully. Sure, the people who *really* know their whiskeys would know better, but the majority of people would just think Tullmore Dew is a really watered down whiskey.

      It's a metaphor, so don't try to stretch it too much - the relevant point is that of identity confusion when something is altered and put out under the same name through a major, high profile distribution channel. Some people might prefer the watered down version - tastes differ. But to the creators of KDE, it's a slap in the face, and produces serious problems with support. Red Hat's KDE support has always been under par, and many many 'common KDE problems' are applicable only to the Red Hat RPMs, which have often been unofficially released with no Red Hat support, put together by Bero. Many times in KDE support channels, somebody will ask (for the 4872th time) about a bug, and the immediate answer is "Change your distro to something other than Red Hat". The problems are rampant, and many people think it will only get worse due to Red Hat mucking with KDE's internals and shifting things around.

      Again, there are some people associated with KDE who either like Red Hat's actions (darn few, though), and a good chunk, like me, who don't really care, as they don't use Red Hat. I'm just kinda trying to sum up the non-kneejerk arguements that I've seen on KDE forums against Red Hat.

      --
      Evan (no reference)

      --
      "$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
    4. Re:This is not meant to start a flamewar by dan+the+person · · Score: 2

      So if the KDE panel displayed a copyright and license notice in response to some command (such as a click on a menu choice), and Red Hat took it out, that may be a GPL violation.

      KDE applications have two Help/About boxes.

      They have Help/About KDE
      and Help/About application name (e.g. "About Konqueror")

      "About KDE" displays information about what the KDE project is, where you can view their webpages etc. This is the one redhat removed.

      "About application-name" displays information about the application including who wrote it and the license aggreement.

      So, no, redhat did not remove the thing that displayed the license agreement, they removed the annoying redundant one.

    5. Re:This is not meant to start a flamewar by juhaz · · Score: 1

      If you'd just please undestand that RedHat _did not_ remove author credits, nor license information.

      What they did remove was general ad about KDE project. Which is all fine for me, 'cause they are not using the whole KDE they shouldn't be advertising it either, it would just confuse users if they thought they were running KDE when they were really using RedHat's combination desktop, they might even report moz/gnome app/oo bugs to kde project if they thought all things in desktop are from same source.

      The parts of it they are using have the "about: specific software" screens intact... like they should.

    6. Re:This is not meant to start a flamewar by JabberWokky · · Score: 2
      I beg to differ. There were a series of commits to Red Hat's CVS that removed all 'About' dialogues, including the application specific one that displays three tabs: About the Application, Authors and License. They also removed, and have left out the About KDE, which has three tabs: general information about KDE, how to report bugs and wishes, and how to join the KDE team. That's the advertising for the community project that *is* KDE.

      it would just confuse users if they thought they were running KDE when they were really using RedHat's combination desktop

      Right. They are running Red Hat Desktop. Not KDE. Do you start to have an inkling of why it deeply insulted some of the KDE developers and supporters to have that removed? KDE is a good chunk of the Red Hat desktop - "all" they did was remove it's identity.

      --
      Evan (no references, and I'm starting to slide towards seeing why some people were pissed at Red Hat thanks to people on Slashdot trying to convince me that Red Hat wasn't so bad)

      --
      "$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
    7. Re:This is not meant to start a flamewar by JabberWokky · · Score: 2
      To clarify, the first About referenced, the application specific one, was later returned. The About KDE was not. Sorry for the confusion - you can tell by the way I worded that I had intended to say that, and I just didn't tack on the clause. Oops.

      --
      Evan (still no reference)

      --
      "$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
    8. Re:This is not meant to start a flamewar by juhaz · · Score: 1

      Gnome is a good chunk of the Red Hat desktop. OO is a good chunk. Mozilla is a good chunk. XFree86 is a DAMN BIG chunk. Linux kernel and GNU-projects are damn big chunks too.

      And no, I don't happen to get slightest inkling why KDE developers should get some special advertisement that other projects that happen to be part of Red Hat Linux distribution don't.

      And most certaily don't happen to get how on Earth could anybody be insulted by _their_ project of all those dozens not being uplifted to sit on right side of God, of course being most importand and only one deserving an about box.

      Maybe they should put an checkbox somewhere for those people that are somehow insulted that says "insert about-dialogs" which would result in "about: redhat" in every application and would result in about kilometer long listing of all projects possibly available. Would that make you happy? Or is it only that KDE must get attention where others don't really matter.

    9. Re:This is not meant to start a flamewar by JabberWokky · · Score: 2
      I don't happen to get slightest inkling why KDE developers should get some special advertisement that other projects that happen to be part of Red Hat Linux distribution don't.

      Because they put it there, and Red Hat took it away. Simple as that. KDE is a project that functions via volunteers and contributions, just like any other open source project. I don't think KDE is looking to (in your words) "sit on the right side of God", but rather to have a visible identification to encourage people to participate in KDE.

      I'm not sure how that's a deistic thing.

      in every application and would result in about kilometer long listing of all projects possibly available. Would that make you happy?

      Yup. Anything to promote the participation of people in community projects. I'd like it to be very clear what software they are using, who contributed to it, and how they can assist their efforts. Recognition of the authors - nay, even praise of them - is an important aspect of the community. Many of them don't get paid, and having their names on a part of a working system developed by thousands of people is important. It's the same reason why, during fundraisers, the organizer will recognize all the volunteers, asking for a round of applause, often singling out a couple that put in a special effort. For many of them, all they get is that credit. It's pretty shitty to take that away from them.

      Yeah - I'm pretty damn glad that Mozilla's about:credits is back... I didn't like it when it was removed from Netscape. I like the Gimp Splash screens with the shots of all the developers at the conventions. I just walked somebody through how to use Pine last night, and we fired off an email to their 'user count' mailbox. It just lets them know that there's another happy user of Pine out there.

      I'm not sure why you're so dead set against giving credit, both for the project and for the authors. You seem to be rather vehement about it though. Relax, enjoy the ride, and give a nod to the people who did all the hard work that went into it. :)

      --
      Evan (no references)

      --
      "$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
    10. Re:This is not meant to start a flamewar by juhaz · · Score: 1

      Well, I'm not against credits per se, even if I've been on their side on this rather aggressively. They have their place, and this might not be it... or it might be, it depends.

      But I am against people that are immediately starting to yell murder and death about removal of ads, I think that they are overreacting, and even if you disagree with that, they won't get anything done with flaming. Stay cool, folks, and express your opinion to RH nicely, and explain it too. If you want them to listen, that is.

      Anyway, actually that "unified about:redhat for unified desktop" window could be rather good compromise, even if that too started being overly sarcastic... not the described gigantic horrible list window, but maybe something small saying that redhat desktop is a composite work combined from parts of many different projects, no names here, yet, but a hyperlink to web page or local document (like about: mozilla) where would be more detailed explanation, and contact info for all of those.

      Bit late for that, though... well, maybe for 8.1.

    11. Re:This is not meant to start a flamewar by JabberWokky · · Score: 2
      they won't get anything done with flaming.

      I have never seen any public flaming, and I follow KDE news and announcements quite closely. I have seen some emotional and wholesale bashing on KDE's internal forums like the Dot and a couple of mailing lists (notably KDE-Cafe, which has left lists.kde.org because it's a place for KDE people to vent and/or discuss stuff like the US going into Iraq - i.e., personal opinions). But neither of those places provides any sort of official statement, and the most vehement haters of this are ac's (the Dot's Anonymous Cowards), and people who just showed up and in some cases happen to share the same IP address as anti-gnome or pro-gnome trolls (i.e., they are trolling for responses one way or another).

      The (very minimal and preliminary) official KDE response has been primarily focused on the concern of Red Hat pushing a KDE solution with their history of bad support for KDE and broken binaries being amplified by these changes. As I say, my only beef with Red Hat and KDE is that people will come into KDE lists and channels, state their problem without mentioning their distro, and people on the list/channel can simply say: "You're using Red Hat. Compile it youself or change distros - Red Hat's KDE packages are buggy". And given the number of bugs that are Red Hat specific already, that's a valid concern.

      So, there's no real 'KDE flaming Red Hat'. Unless you care to take Anonymous Cowards and Trolls from Slashdot as representing Open Source... in which case, I'll also let you take ac's and Trolls from the Dot as representing KDE. :) Otherwise, it's been pretty mellow (other than at Linux and Main, which seems to have a - ahem - creative quoting of people and very - provocative - writing style).

      I think Bero's actions surprised and slightly baffled everybody, although he likely knows of planned changes coming down the pike, so it worries quite a few people. The closest thing to 'crippling' KDE has been using ugly alternate themes, icons, odd, heavyweight choices of primary applications (Mozilla as opposed to Konqueror configured to use gecko, or even Mozilla compiled with Qt to lower overhead in a KDE environment) and such. Some do consider this crippling the 'KDE experience', which has been carefully crafted to work smoothly together. I just consider it lousy a desktop expereince from a distro new to the desktop game. Mandrake or (my preference of) SuSE is better anyway. Gentoo, debian, OSX, AIX and *BSD also come highly recommended. And then there are the totally Desktop focused distros that focus on packaging and polishing KDE - Lycoris, Xandros, Connectiva, most of whom have altered KDE more than Red Hat has - but have done so in a more professional manner.

      KDE is hardly unavailable in a clean, professional format.

      --
      Evan (no reference)

      --
      "$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
  24. I have used the beta. by miffo.swe · · Score: 2

    I cant say that the changes are that big of a deal. A couple of applications has been exchanged so that the user uses the same ones in Gnome and KDE. Anyone can choose the one they like to try from the menu. The changes are very superficial and to say they cripples KDE in any way is to really overreact. The theme used can be changed easy to the default theme.

    I just see this as an honest effort from redhat to make things simpler for the user. They could just as well just plain dropped the KDE desktop and only included the libs.

    Why do some of you even complain when you outright screamed when OEM's couldnt remove ie or change icons in windows?

    --
    HTTP/1.1 400
  25. Why should it? by sys$manager · · Score: 1

    Windows is powerful on the desktop, but it falls short in anything more than a four or eight way server.

    Solaris is good up to 100+ CPUs but sucks on the desktop.

    IRIX is good for scalability and professional level desktop apps, but doesn't have the capabiltiy to be a generic workstation.

    AIX, server, not workstation.

    HP-UX, Tru64, etc, same

    VMS, rocks for transaction based services, bites bag for applications.

    Linux is trying to be everything at once. I think with more focus on one end or the other, Linux would go a lot farther. It doesn't have the developer base to do EVERYTHING well, just like the commercial OS vendors.

  26. Crippling KDE??? by sterno · · Score: 2

    Out of curiosity, in what way is KDE being crippled by Redhat? I'm aware that they are making some interface tweaks to make Gnome and KDE look more similar (a good idea IMHO). Are they taking steps beyond this that are actually having a negative impact on KDE as a whole? I mean if Redhat is in fact doing something notibly detrimental to KDE, then I'd be more than happy to switch distros (seeing as KDE is what I use). But otherwise this sounds like an overreaction.

    --
    This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
    1. Re:Crippling KDE??? by fault0 · · Score: 2

      > Out of curiosity, in what way is KDE being crippled by Redhat?

      Things like using xft2 early without testing, changing KDE service types (thus, breaking third party kde apps that use kparts/ktrader.)

      > some interface tweaks to make Gnome and KDE look more similar (a good idea IMHO).

      agreed. i think they should just put in a way to revert their changes in KDE as quickly as you can do it in GNOME (through a gconf key)

      I think making the environments is such a good idea that I actually installed null on a text box last week. This was the first time I've used Redhat since RH 4.2 :)

      > But otherwise this sounds like an overreaction.

      I agree

    2. Re:Crippling KDE??? by Wdomburg · · Score: 3, Informative

      >Things like using xft2 early without testing,

      It might be considered premature, but its the direction things are moving in both the GNOME and KDE world. One thing that is rarely pointed out by the khicken littles is that this code hasn't been declared stable for GNOME either.

      >changing KDE service types (thus, breaking third
      >party kde apps that use kparts/ktrader.)

      They only changes the binary names. The whole point of ktrader is that you don't *need* to hard code names or paths.

      Matt

    3. Re:Crippling KDE??? by minkwe · · Score: 1

      Could you PLEASE be more specific than above? I'm tired of hear-say. Could you actually name the services and explain how they break things?

      Do you have any evidence thay they haven't tested the xft2 included, or that they would release without testing?. I thought (null) was a beta ( translate - for testing purposes)

      --
      "Fighting terrorists with millitary might is like killing a mosquitor on your Dad's forehead with a rifle."
    4. Re:Crippling KDE??? by fault0 · · Score: 2

      > Could you PLEASE be more specific than above? I'm tired of hear-say. Could you actually name the services and explain how they break things?

      They first, remove "kde-" from the filenames, then they change a few names to avoid name conflicts. Removing "kde-" is alright (not sure why they did it, a end user won't notice), as it can be fixed automagically by kde (appending "kde-"), but the second action is NOT alright for comptability.

  27. ha ha by Ballmer · · Score: 5, Funny

    I win! I win!

    Developers developers developers developers developers!

  28. All we are saying by stoolpigeon · · Score: 2

    is give peace a chance.

    .

    --
    It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
  29. What should Red Hat do? by steveha · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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
    1. Re:What should Red Hat do? by phorm · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Any bugs Red Hat introduces to KDE will increase their support costs. People who buy Red Hat call Red Hat when they have trouble.

      On a side note, those who download RedHat for free don't get some of that support without paying. If it becomes a large known issue, a patch goes up. If it's a minor issue with only a few people, I would expect RH to charge them service fees.

      How do you think companies with free software/OS's make money? One of the big ways is support.

    2. Re:What should Red Hat do? by Elias+Israel · · Score: 2

      I know: Maybe if we all start calling it KDE/Linux, they'll be satisfied.

    3. Re:What should Red Hat do? by raindog2 · · Score: 1

      I'm really enthusiastic about what Red Hat is trying to do, and I think all distros should look into a similar strategy. I've started trying to write a Tcl extension that lets you build Tcl apps that emulate the look of your currently running desktop. Making all Linux apps have the ability to look the same will go a long way towards making Linux a palatable desktop OS for a far wider audience than currently uses it.

      That said, I bet you that if they had done something as simple as leave the "About KDE" menu items in there, we'd be hearing a lot less whining from the KDE camp right about now and Red Hat might still have Bero around. Maybe someone like Mandrake in the "little guy tries harder" mold will get it right, shipping a distribution with a theme that looks great on both GNOME and KDE, with menus that work the same under both (Mandrake almost does this already, but you can mark menu items as KDE or GNOME specific) and without any perceived slights against the developers or clumsy bug-inducing font manipulation (which Mandrake is guilty of to a lesser extent as well.) I'd say a distribution like Lycoris/Lindows/Xandros might be the one to tackle this but they all seem to have pretty much decided on straight-up KDE with a WindowsXP-like theme already. Maybe if Red Hat hadn't been so adamantly pro-GNOME in the past they would have done the same.

      Anyway.... off to install Mandrake 9.0 ;)

  30. Unless... by bsDaemon · · Score: 2

    ...it's a GNU/Brand

  31. Whooptie doo by analog_line · · Score: 2

    I've yet to see anything tat Red Hat has done to their distribution of KDE that would classify it as "crippleware". Removing the "about KDE" box is rude, and obnoxious, but none of it cripples KDE in the least. Unless someone can show me different, all of the changes can be reversed easily by anyone with a clue. That doesn't cripple a damn thing.

    All this kvetching and martyrdom bullshit from the KDE developers is just that. Pissed off that someone is using your code in ways that offend, insult, or annoy you? Fork the codebase and develop under a more restrictive license. These pointless martyrdom gestures and venom-laden rants only make you look dumb and childish.

    1. Re:Whooptie doo by SirSlud · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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??

      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 .. thats cause for applause, even if I have no personal opinion on the nature of the disagreement between him and his former employer.

      --
      "Old man yells at systemd"
    2. Re:Whooptie doo by analog_line · · Score: 2

      He most certainly would like people to think he's a martyr. Why else post publicly about it, on a KDE mailing list, where those of like mind will be sure to praise him for sacrificing his job for his principles.

      He obviously wants people to get angry at Red Hat over this, hence the flames he lights around his own feet so everyone can see. Leaving his job because his personal principles is fine, I don't have a problem with that. His manner, however, leaves much to question in my mind.

      "Whether or not KDE is "cripplewear" in RH is besides the point;"

      It is EXACTLY the point. He's getting up on a stump, accusing Red Hat of crippling KDE, and lighing his bridge on fire behind him so people will come and see what the fire is about.

    3. Re:Whooptie doo by standards · · Score: 1

      There is no need to have applause for anyone who leaves their employer and then bashes them publically.

      There is no need to applause an employer who publicly bashes a former employee.

      I wouldn't hire him if I thought he'd later be a liability. Sounds like he's being a liability to RedHat.

  32. Linux needs something much better by sjonke · · Score: 1

    than KDE or GNOME. KDE and Gnome both have pretty faces at first glance, but within minutes of use prove to be slapped together messes. The solution isn't to consolidate the two, rather it's to throw both out and start over from scratch, this time with a game plan going in. Neither will ever pose a real threat to Windows and they are too far gone to turn around.

    --
    --- What?
    1. Re:Linux needs something much better by rseuhs · · Score: 2
      Can you come up with one example which makes KDE so unusable that it has to be thrown out?

      KDE can do everything Windows can do - and much more.

    2. Re:Linux needs something much better by Wdomburg · · Score: 2

      >KDE and Gnome both have pretty faces at first
      >glance, but within minutes of use prove to be
      >slapped together messes. The solution isn't to
      >consolidate the two, rather it's to throw both
      >out and start over from scratch, this time with a
      >game plan going in. Neither will ever pose a real
      >threat to Windows and they are too far gone to
      >turn around.

      Can you name a few things you think are insurmountable issues in either desktop? Not small complains, I mean something large enough to throw out a half decade of development and hundreds of thousands of lines of code on either project.

      I can't comment on KDE much, but my impression has been that as of KDE 3.x, it is really coming into its own.

      With GNOME 2.0, I *know* that it is, since I'm sitting here using it. They have a solid infrastructure for configuration and site management, accessibility, font management, and component technology. Around the corner is a full multimedia framework capable of handling most video and audio formats you can throw at it.

      If you really believe you can do a better job, go ahead and start a project. I don't expect you'll have anything approaching either project in five years.

      Matt

    3. Re:Linux needs something much better by billd · · Score: 1

      Wow, that's great. Thanks for pointing out 'the solution'. Where can I download it from?

      --

      -----

      For great justice!

    4. Re:Linux needs something much better by uchian · · Score: 1

      Sounds like you've come up with a great idea for a personal project! Come back in five years time when you've reached the state KDE and Gnome are in now, just in time for someone else to say "you know what, Skonke's desktop really is just a slapped together mess, the solution is to throw it out and start over from scratch...."

      Really, I have a point here. If you think KDE is a "slapped together mess" (I can't speak for Gnome, I don't use it...), you haven't tried developing for it (KDE is beautiful, and it's not often you can say that about an API). If you don't think it's usable, well then that's a reason to jump on the KDE usability mailing list and start posting solutions to the things you don't like about it.

      But if it's something like "GNOME apps don't work well in KDE" or visa-versa, I assure you that it will be easier to add that functionality than it will be spending the next five years developing a new desktop that may very well include that functionality but which misses out on some other "vital" piece of functionality.

    5. Re:Linux needs something much better by King_TJ · · Score: 2

      Whether or not you're right, I think it's way too late in the game to worry about it.

      Gnome and KDE, for better or for worse, have risen to the top as the "best of breed" desktop interfaces. Now the real efforts begin on finding ways to consolidate the two into one.

      When you speak of "starting over from scratch", I also assume you're talking about a whole new widget set? (If you use GTK+, isn't it going to turn out rather like Gnome, no matter what else you do?)

      IMHO, *every* GUI I've seen running on top of X has a rather "slapped together" feel compared to recent versions of Windows. I think this is somewhat inherent in the design. Often-times, you're simply trying to put a windowed front-end on tradional command-line components. When you do this, things feel cobbled together. Take, for example, any X-based CD burning applications. Even the best of the bunch (like X-Roast) is still just a pretty front-end, passing command line parameters to "cdrecord".

      With Win-based CD recording tools, you don't see this happening. Even companies like GoldenHawk that originally made DOS-based command line CD burning utils. did complete re-writes for native Windows versions (CDRWIN), instead of just passing parameters to their old DOS utility and calling it a Windows version.

    6. Re:Linux needs something much better by dan+the+person · · Score: 2

      Can you come up with one example which makes KDE so unusable that it has to be thrown out?

      under windows i can browse all the machines on my network without having to know any cryptic commands and without having to know the names of the machines beforehand.

    7. Re:Linux needs something much better by rseuhs · · Score: 2
      Funny, KDE comes with a SMB-browser that does the same thing.

      Also, even if it were true, this is hardly an architectural flaw that would made it necessary to "trow KDE out".

    8. Re:Linux needs something much better by entrigant · · Score: 1

      Now the real efforts begin on finding ways to consolidate the two into one.

      No no no no no no NOO!! For the love of god where do you anti-choice people come from? I can almost hear you chanting here... "conform.... conform... conform..." You're the kind of annoying prick that loves the idea of school uniforms 'cause god forbid ppl have a choice. Please just pick one environment, use it, and pretend there is no choice and stop trying to ruin it for the rest of us who like having OPTIONS.

    9. Re:Linux needs something much better by dan+the+person · · Score: 2

      Using KDEs SMB browser you can not browse all the machines on the network

      smb:// does not work, it tries to connect to a web site called smb.

      You need to know the name of each machine beforehand and do smb://machinename/ to browse the shares.

      KDE also has another 'network neigbourhood' protocol lan:// but this is totally specific to KDE and requires that a special server (lisa) be installed on all the machines

      I agree though that this can be fixed easily within the existing KDE framework. However i was replying to the second part of the statement "KDE can do everything Windows can do - and much more. " which is totally false.

  33. Re:bad news for Linux? by Lussarn · · Score: 1

    Any thoughts?

    Yes, Linux 8 is definitely on the horizon.. of jupiter.

    And Linux as a name is about ten times more widespread than redhat. I don't think this will do anyone any harm, except redhat users prefering KDE.

  34. Re:Slackware forgives you... by sonnyjz · · Score: 1

    Well said, everyone should take his opinion under consideration

    --
    - Sonnyjz
  35. Exactly WHAT is Red Hat doing to cripple KDE? by meldroc · · Score: 2

    Through all the flames and accusations, the only thing I've definitively concluded Red Hat is doing is changing the default themes & colors & such so that KDE apps and GNOME apps behave as identically as possible, in order to minimize interface confusion for users. Maybe they're doing other stuff, but I haven't got a straight answer.

    WHAT IS RED HAT DOING TO KDE? While we're at it, are they doing similar stuff to GNOME?

    --

    Meldroc, Waster of Electrons
  36. KDE on RH 8 by tiny12 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    i use RH 7.3 because it included KDE 3. when i tried limbo (RH 8 beta) it was hard to tell what WM i was using. i gave up on it because it didn't even resemble anything i was used to, and it was very slow. if i wanted to learn a new GUI setup i'd go buy a MAC and learn OS X. the thing i have always like most about RH is that it used standard GNU\Linux apps, but made installing and upgrading them a cinch. if i can't install the next version of RH and easily get into KDE or Gnome's default setups i'll just switch to mandrake or debian, both of which are now just as easy to install or upgrade new packages with.

    1. Re:KDE on RH 8 by FattMattP · · Score: 2
      i use RH 7.3 because it included KDE 3. when i tried limbo (RH 8 beta) it was hard to tell what WM i was using. i gave up on it because it didn't even resemble anything i was used to, and it was very slow.
      Why didn't you go to the control panel and choose the default KDE theme then? A few clicks and you'd be right back to what you were used to.
      --
      Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
  37. Of course I knew this story would get posted by bogie · · Score: 2

    Way to stir up the pot Slashdot. Just what we needed, Thanks!!!

    Of course what do the editiors care? They just light the fuse and walk away. It the bystanders who end up getting hurt.

    Now this useless blown up story about a developer who disagreed with his employer will spread all around the internet.

    I look forward to tomorrow's frontpage of Cnet, NY Times etc where they all say the entire opensource community has turned on Redhat. And also how the split between Gnome and KDE is ripping the community apart, and maybe a little Linux is too fragmented FUD as well.

    Did I say thanks already?

    --
    If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
    1. Re:Of course I knew this story would get posted by miffo.swe · · Score: 2

      Theese so called flamewars is good because they clear the air. Wy in gods name should we keep silent about these things? Isnt the whole community based on openess and transparacy? The day people stop adressing issues that needs to be taken care of is the day were no better than Microsoft.

      I dont care for a second what mainstream press thinks as long as linux keeps getting better. We need to discuss how to go further with the desktop. Some standard is really needed for the user interface to avoid ending up with a pretty big fork. If not then the dists is going to be forced to choose one and that would really suck.

      Talk about fork.

      --
      HTTP/1.1 400
    2. Re:Of course I knew this story would get posted by miffo.swe · · Score: 2

      If intelligence would power fireflies you would have just enough to power its ass.

      For those who take something like this personal perhaps its all smoke and ruins but those people really need to lighten up a bit. This isnt war its a hobby damnit! If people get upset over theese things they really need to get out more.

      --
      HTTP/1.1 400
  38. Quit? by selectspec · · Score: 2

    Sounds to me like he was fired. What kind of wierd ethics puts some freeware project ahead of the company you work for? Redhat does pour alot of cash into open source. Shouldn't they be allowed to steer it as they see fit?

    --

    Someone you trust is one of us.

  39. Sooner or later... by rseuhs · · Score: 2, Flamebait
    ...something like this had to happen.

    RedHat pushes GNOME and GNOME was only created to kill KDE. (Yes, you can mod this down, but it's still the truth and you know it.) RedHat doesn't like KDE and the only reason there were KDE-packages (other than those included in the RedHat releasees) was Bero creating them in his spare time. Yes that's correct, RedHat did not pay their "KDE-maintainer" to create packages for KDE-releases.

    If you look at non-technical usegroups, you will see that in areas where KDE-centric distributions dominate (like SuSE does in Europe), about 5 to 15% of users post with Linux, while Linux is pretty much non-existant in American usegroups (although Linux has risen very much in the last months, it's still usually less than 5%).

    Coincidence? Maybe. I didn't do statistics on all newsgroups.

    (Yes, I do know that usegroup users are not representative for the all computer users, yet is proves that Linux can be used by A LOT of users on the desktop RIGHT NOW and that no magic "formula" is needed. The software is available RIGHT NOW.

    Will RedHat's attempts to "nullify" their desktop make it more successful on the desktop? I don't think so (Will GNOME apps use KDE's great printing dialogue that lets you create or even email PDFs? No. Will GNOME PIM apps be aware of the KDE-counterparts? No. Creating a theme does not solve any problem), anyway we will see what happens. They certainly can't do any worse on the desktop than they are currently doing.

    1. Re:Sooner or later... by Frater+219 · · Score: 5, Informative
      RedHat pushes GNOME and GNOME was only created to kill KDE. (Yes, you can mod this down, but it's still the truth and you know it.)

      Actually, it's false, and I suspect you might not know it. GNOME was created by the GNU folks as an alternative to KDE at a time when KDE was dependent on a piece of non-free software, specifically the Qt libraries. Though it's now Free, Qt was at the time "shared source," more or less. Once Qt became Free, people kept developing and using GNOME because they were used to it and had come to prefer it.

      They did it for the same reason RMS started GNU in the first place: to give people who insist on Free Software a good system to use. RMS didn't start GNU to "kill" SunOS or HP/UX or BSD, but to have the kind of system that his ethics and aesthetics preferred. Yes, BSD was non-free when GNU was started: BSD depended on AT&T proprietary Unix code. That quit being the case in 1994 or so -- but you wouldn't expect all the GNU and Linux developers to suddenly jump ship for BSD, would you? Of course not; as with GNOME and KDE, they had come to prefer their own system and kept developing it because they wished to.

      That's called freedom. Not "killing" -- freedom. Learn to recognize it.

    2. Re:Sooner or later... by gaj · · Score: 2

      My ass GNOME was "only created to kill KDE". It was created to replace KDE, because KDE had license issues.

    3. Re:Sooner or later... by rseuhs · · Score: 2
      Actually, it's false, and I suspect you might not know it. GNOME was created by the GNU folks as an alternative to KDE at a time when KDE was dependent on a piece of non-free software, specifically the Qt libraries.

      Of course I do know that and it doesn't change the fact that GNOME would not exist without KDE.

      Though it's now Free, Qt was at the time "shared source," more or less.

      Actually the change from QPL to GPL/QPL did not change anything in real life as the QPL pretty much allowed everything that was needed for a GPL-project like KDE. But I don't want to go through all this license debating again.

    4. Re:Sooner or later... by tempest303 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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
    5. Re:Sooner or later... by Frater+219 · · Score: 4, Informative
      Of course I do know that and it doesn't change the fact that GNOME would not exist without KDE.

      If you know the truth of proposition P (viz., that the purpose of the creation of GNOME was other than to "kill" KDE) but you assert in debate proposition not-P (that the purpose of creating GNOME was to "kill" KDE) then you engage in a wrongful act of lying. There is no place in intelligent debate for lying. The only purpose lying can serve in discussion is to attempt to lead another astray -- to cause another to think or act on the basis of information you know is wrong. Though lying may serve some useful purposes in certain social occasions (contra Kant) it has no justification in debate and is wholly immoral.

      Now, back on topic -- license problems may not be a "real life" issue to you if you are neither a Free Software developer or distributor, nor of the opinion that secret-source, thought-monopoly software is harmful. However, not all the world is in the same boat you are. To a substantial number of people -- among them the GNU and GNOME core developers, self-evidently -- these are issues most assuredly real. They would be remiss in their ethical duties to set aside their own principles simply because a fool might someday mock them as impractical.

    6. Re:Sooner or later... by Moritz+Moeller+-+Her · · Score: 2

      QT had license issues not KDE. They should have replaced QT instead of KDE...

      --
      Moritz
    7. Re:Sooner or later... by rseuhs · · Score: 1, Flamebait

      Look, "creating an alternative to replace something" is the same as "trying to kill something", but it's not that important.

    8. Re:Sooner or later... by HopeOS · · Score: 3, Informative

      QT had more than license issues. One of the GNOME design goals was an all C implementation. KDE did not meet that criteria and therefore a new implementation was started. It was not however started from scratch. GNOME is built on GTK which is built on GLib. Whether this was a wise decision or not only time will tell. I personally use C for libraries and C++ for applications. It gives me more leverage later on if I want to incorporate that functionality into PHP, Perl, Python, Java, or whatever.

      -Hope

    9. Re:Sooner or later... by gaj · · Score: 2

      Hmmm .. pray tell me, what GUI toolkit is KDE developed with?

    10. Re:Sooner or later... by blm5300 · · Score: 1

      Yes an _alternative_!!! Not the replacement!!!

      Funnily enough, influential people seem to think that there can only be one desktop for linux (eg Miguel de Icaza et al) This eliminates the biggest advantage of Linux: CHOICE!!. With respect to this "crippling" of KDE where is the choice if you remove all the advatages and niceties of one alternative?

      Personally I don't like either Gnome or KDE. I prefer Enlightenment. But that doesn't mean I think KDE or Gnome should go away!

      Isn't it funny, it seems people think choice is important only if you want to choose something else

    11. Re:Sooner or later... by puppetluva · · Score: 2

      didn't anyone tell you? P = NP !

      I have a very clever proof, but I can't fit it into this textbox.

  40. Amen by WankersRevenge · · Score: 1

    As a writer, I'm constantly faced with the same old scenario of "killing my babies" - bits of prose which I love but does nothing to help the overall piece. So I delete those prose bits. Its painful. It sucks. But its has to be done to create a better work

    I believe Linux programmers should follow suit if they ever want to see Linux takeover the mainstream desktop.

    Fuck KDE. Fuck Gnome. I don't care. Lets just choose one and go with it. Hell, create a Unity desktop - but one desktop for everyone to focus on. Redhats made the first step with null, the question is - are we ready to follow suit?

    1. Re:Amen by geekd · · Score: 1, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:Amen by krmt · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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."

    3. Re:Amen by Isaac-Lew · · Score: 2
      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.

      Funny...I'm running the RH beta now, & I can still choose between KDE & Gnome (thanks to switchdesk, or by editing ~/.Xdefaults) and even neither (console or icewm). So what choices has Red Hat denied me?

    4. Re:Amen by quinto2000 · · Score: 2

      I think there's nothing wrong with competing desktop environments. You are right about trimming the fat and out of place apps (don't give them a place on the menu) and removing options that are nonsensical, but I see Gnome and KDE as two separate stories in the same theme, not one big story that needs to be tightened up.Within each desktop though, sure, cut the superflous bits of prose.

      --
      Ceci n'est pas un post
    5. Re:Amen by fault0 · · Score: 4, Informative

      I don't think anyone would have complained if RedHat had just changed the default look. Other distros have been doing this forever. The fact that they introduced bugs, broke some third-party app compatability, and made KDE slower as a whole (replacing konq with Moz, etc.)

      RedHat should have given the user a choice at least. If the user installed KDE (not default), then by gosh, they probably wanted to run KDE.

    6. Re:Amen by krmt · · Score: 2

      I'm not saying Redhat did deny you any kind of choice. If you read the post that was parent to mine, he was saying we should all line up like good little lemmings behind Redhat's decision of the One True Desktop. Redhat is free to choose whatever they want to do, but the rest of us should not have to follow suit. Not that Redhat is trying to make us follow suit, but the parent would very much like this.

      --

      "I may not have morals, but I have standards."

    7. Re:Amen by 0x0d0a · · Score: 3, Informative

      But then they would have had to test two totally different KDEs and support them. That's non-trivial, and even more confusing to users trying to figure out what's being installed. You'd have KDE+GNOME style KDE, *and* vanilla KDE (which would have to be packaged separately and eat more space, as well, and would have to be marked as incompatible with KDE+GNOME style KDE).

      If someone really wants KDE, they can get it straight from kde.org -- I get a fair amount of software from the original source. The KDE project can distribute their blessed distribution however they want to do so. If you *really* want vanilla KDE with no GNOME integration done at all, then there are distros like Mandrake that *have* taken this approach...but I like seeing the diversity among distros that characterizes Linux. If someone wants to make a distro that has a totally terminal-based UI through an X server and AAlib and runs Enlightenment...well, they can do so. The users will end up voting by using whichever they prefer -- it could be that Red Hat is doing the wrong thing or the right thing. People will try both, and comment on them. RH will probably polish things up in 8.1, and if people still don't like the approach...well, Mandrake will get them.

      --
      May we never see th
    8. Re:Amen by Karn · · Score: 1

      I have considered this myself, but it is a topic which is extremely flame-prone.

      While I think there should be an infinite amount of basic window managers for X (such as BlackBox, FluxBox, Window Maker, etc.), do we really need two desktop environments?

      I am constantly switching myself back and forth between KDE and Gnome for various reasons, and I am always considering switching my users over as well.. It becomes difficult to recommend a desktop to them, because in a year the other desktop which you didn't recommend may surpass the other.

      I really wish KDE would have taken up the FSF on their offer to provide a totally free QT replacement - we would have our one Desktop environement and things would be much easier for us admins and our users..

      --


      Why do I keep typing pythong?
    9. Re:Amen by WankersRevenge · · Score: 1

      I commend Red Hat for their effort but I would prefer an outside unity desktop. Since I don't see that on my radar, I'm all behind Red Hat, whether I look like a lemming or not.

      I dig Linux but the problem in the desktop world is that there is too much choice. Its too balkanized, creating confusion in terms of what works with what. People scream about web standards, what the hell is wrong with desktop standards?

      Here's my current dilema - my work is donating old computers to some inner city schools. So we're slapping Linux on them. These people probably have never used a computer. This is the first time they are using a desktop. You see where I'm going with this?

      Linux will always be about choice - no one can dictate to you what desktop for you to use on an open system - but damn it, if the community can just agree on one common desktop standard and put its energy into that, then I truly believe Linux will become the leader in desktop adoption, rather than a desktop novelty.

    10. Re:Amen by Chas · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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!!!
    11. Re:Amen by odaiwai · · Score: 2

      If it's the first time they've used a computer, they're going to go: "Oh *this*is how a computer works - I can pretty much how everything looks and behaves if I want. (And, when someone else logs in, they get their settings, so it's kewl!)"

      The only problem is that their teachers are going to be those people who have learned how to use a computer out of a book, because they have to tech it, and think that all computers come with Word and Excel. They'll be lost, but the kids'll just pick it up.

      dave

    12. Re:Amen by juhaz · · Score: 1

      A newbie using RH doesn't even know, and most certainly doesn't want to know that there is something called KDE, under the hood and same goes for Gnome. That's the whole point of this modification, and it can't be that hard to understand. Why don't you people use your brains, if you have 'em?

      Newbies are using RedHat, with no idea about different desktop environments and if they see something is broken, they think RH is broken. NOT KDE and NOT Gnome, they can't think anything about those if they don't even know they exist.

      It isn't even crippled. Nobody can seriously think that changing a damn browser in MENUS is crippling something. Konqueror is still there, not that anyone would want to use it, it's just not in your default menu.

    13. Re:Amen by WNight · · Score: 2

      What's wrong with replacing Konq? In a system where you can borrow code and applications at will, why not use Mozilla? It only takes a second or two longer to start than Konq and where Konq crashes every few minutes (literally, I restarted it five times in twenty minutes once, and it's worse as a file browser) Mozilla is stable for weeks. (I actually rarely see it crash, I usually reboot once a month or so for hardware tweaking and it's still going strong at that point, the initial instance I opened minutes after reboot.)

      What does Konq possibly offer?

      Besides, your're missing the point. If someone installed Redhat, obviously they want merged desktops. If they don't, they can download and install a seperate KDE that puts it in /opt and isn't integrated at all.

      Personally this whole multiple desktops thing seems weird. I use KDE because it's the default, but I use Gnome apps a lot. If they all looked alike, it wouldn't bother me one bit.

  41. hmm by Laplace · · Score: 2

    Kde is technically better, but out of the box it looks like ass. You can hardly blame Red Had for wanting a consistent and attractive interface.

    Oh, and guess what: you don't have to use Red Hat. I don't. Funny how the world works. no?

    --
    The middle mind speaks!
  42. Who do I by geekoid · · Score: 5, Funny

    send my resume to for the newly open posistion? ;)

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  43. So...what is his new handle... by dperkins · · Score: 1

    bero[insert initials of new company here...] berohp beromandrakesoft bero...rh in a couple of months?

    --
    My sig hates me. That's ok, I never cared for it much anyway.
  44. WTF ?? by Intrinsic · · Score: 1

    This may sound like a stupid question but wouldnt it be better for both of the developers of KDE and GNOME to just work togeather to make one killer WM ?

    1. Re:WTF ?? by GigsVT · · Score: 1

      Except that neither one is a WM.

      --
      I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
  45. amen to that by sydlexic · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    (for the KDE lovers out there, I find Gnome just about as annoying and "more unintegrated" ... 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.

    1. Re:amen to that by Badanov · · Score: 1

      I have found KDE and its applications ponderous to use. I prefer Gnome.

      --
      Dawn of the Dead
  46. Specialized vs. diverse use of an OS by Fastball · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  47. Re:bad news for Linux? by Elentar · · Score: 1

    Or perhaps those technical people who help a company make decisions will read about this here on Slashdot and be more informed when they are asked if Red Hat 8.0 is appropriate.

    Knowing that Red Hat is intentionally hiding some of KDE's features from the users *is* important. I used to consider KDE clunky and unintuitive, and swore by Gnome. Then, I tried KDE 3. It works. While Gnome continues to bloat itself with poorly designed projects (some of which are dead) and dependencies from hell, KDE just gets better.

    This doesn't mean that RH 8.0 will suck, but given that Red Hat loves Gnome, it's something to watch out for. And knowing what to watch out for is really important.

    Finally, I think it's good that companies have somebody watching what they do, even when those companies are like Red Hat.

    --Elentar

    --
    The wheel it turns, around and around, with an ancient rumbling sound.
  48. This IS the way to better software . . . by Idou · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "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!
    1. Re:This IS the way to better software . . . by JoelClark · · Score: 1

      I find myself wondering if you are over the age of 14, since nobody with car, house and wife payments considers themselves "yes men" for depending on their paycheck. You know what? I don't give a rat's ass what my company does. In fact, everytime the .com I work for sues someone I get a little more exicited. The only thing that matters is my option prices....period. Once you get pubic hair you will learn the truth in life. I write open source software in my spare time because I like to give back, but between 9 and 5 the gloves are off--my livelyhood depends on it.

  49. Just drop KDE by diamondc · · Score: 1

    Red Hat should just drop KDE and put all their resources into GNOME. Every KDE program has a GNOME equivalent. It's not big suprise that they're realling pushing for gtk/gnome, seeing that most of their top hackers are old school gtk/gnome hackers. Let Mandrake and SuSe take over the polishing up KDE for distribution job.

    --
    "I keep looking in the want-ads under 'revolutionary' but there don't seem to be any listings.. "
    1. Re:Just drop KDE by WetCat · · Score: 1

      Mod parent Troll! :( I do NOT like GNOME at all. I hate its look and feel
      and I hate to develop for it - for example in KDE you
      have kxmlrpcd where you can send messages to programs
      from command line - I see no corresponding feature in
      GNOME.
      You can also embed programs into each other in KDE.
      How to do it in GNOME?

    2. Re:Just drop KDE by rseuhs · · Score: 2
      Actually RedHat was doing this all along. Their only (now ex) KDE-maintainer was not even paid for KDE-packages, so he had to do it in his free time and unpaid.

    3. Re:Just drop KDE by Hope+Thelps · · Score: 1

      Mod parent Troll! :( I do NOT like GNOME at all. I hate its look and feel

      I agree. I distinctly remember it saying somewhere in the moderation guidelines that "troll" moderation was to be used on posts advocating things that WetCat doesn't like.

      --
      To summarise the summary of the summary: people are a problem. ~ h2g2
    4. Re:Just drop KDE by willodotcom · · Score: 1

      Use the kde apps then. There's no problem. I could argue about web rendering ability, but I won't ;-) Personally I get sick and tired of slashdot engulfed in flames as soon as Gnome/KDE/Redhat are mentioned. Basically, Redhat has made a decision. They've chosen the Gnome road, (they helped build it) and now all the kde lovers are bitching about it cos they got left behind. That's understandable. But at the end of the day, it's a piece of software. If you like it, if you believe in it, use it and change it if you want to. That's Open Source.

  50. Re:"free" software (MOD PARENT UP) by SirSlud · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Hello dolly!

    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' ... 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.

    When people are free to do crap, don't forget others are well within their rights to freedom to voice dissatisfaction .. 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.

    --
    "Old man yells at systemd"
  51. What about normal users? by dwheeler · · Score: 2
    What about "normal" users? Is grandma going to be shocked that the latest system doesn't look like stock KDE? No. Grandma is going to have trouble because the various applications don't work the "same way" - the GNOME apps and KDE apps look too darn different.

    Personally, I think trying to make it so users DON'T KNOW NOR CARE what the underlying libraries are makes sense, the resulting system will become much easier to use. If the KDE apps are crippled, then that's a problem, but I'd expect that to be fixed in future releases. More importantly, it's likely that this process will encourage more reuse between the groups, and that's a good thing.

    --
    - David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
  52. What RedHat should do... by sterno · · Score: 1

    RedHat should ignore them. If they wanted control over their product they shouldn't have released it under the GPL.

    --
    This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
    1. Re:What RedHat should do... by fault0 · · Score: 2

      KDE != completely GPL

  53. The scoop by TheFlu · · Score: 2, Flamebait

    Here is RedHat's take on this issue, which makes a lot of sense to me. If you're interested in trying an alternative to Gnome or KDE, check out WindowMaker, it's fast, stable, simple and has some nice themes.

    --

    --It's Pimptastic!--

  54. HERE IS THE ANSWER EVERYONE.... by greymond · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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
    1. Re:HERE IS THE ANSWER EVERYONE.... by greymond · · Score: 1
      And one more thing

      Remember this past slashdot article: here

      --
      Ave Molech Setting
    2. Re:HERE IS THE ANSWER EVERYONE.... by Ed_Moyse · · Score: 1
      This is probably the most painful thread I've ever read on Slashdot, and the above typifies it. Virtually noone seems to have bothered to understand why Bero and others are upset about this, preferring rather to make wild supositions like the above.

      • If KDE coders wanted to exclude "noobs" they wouldn't have a usability mailing list.

      • If KDE was upset about Redhat "theming" KDE there wouldn't be so much activity on www.kde-look.org.


      I use KDE because it's fast, stable and well-integrated. (I like Gnome too, but imo KDE is better linked together) By replacing native KDE apps with Gtk etc. replacements, that speed has gone (multiple libraries need to be loaded), and the integration is seriously compromised.


      The key point that upsets KDE people is that most "noobs" won't understand this - they'll try "KDE" under Redhat and probably not be that impressed. They aren't going to change the file-manager/browser/mail combination back to KDE defaults because they won't realise they should! Redhat 8.0 is extremely bad publicity for KDE.


      Please try and understand what people are upset about before posting.

    3. Re:HERE IS THE ANSWER EVERYONE.... by greymond · · Score: 1

      Again from the article I read it seems that when I install RH8 I will have 3 choices when it comes to my gui

      1) Gnome (default on all previous RH)
      2) KDE (I do think is the nicest)
      3) Bluecurve (the userfriendly but slow hack of KDE)

      Granted i'm positive Bluecurve will be "slower" but you have to remember "slow" on a linux is still way faster than say "slow" on an XP machine - so a noob wouldn't really notice/care. Also on the topic of slow the graphic install of redhat since 7.1 has been WAY SLOWER than any of there previous install systems, but is still 20 times faster than a windows install.

      And btw - most noobs don't know what a usability mailing list is let alone why they should use one. However most noobs will quickly learn that is they right click on kde it brings up a properties/theme configuration panel that they can relate to and start playing with themes/backgrounds which will lead them on the path to other gui's.

      --
      Ave Molech Setting
    4. Re:HERE IS THE ANSWER EVERYONE.... by karmawarrior · · Score: 1
      I'm not sure that's right. They'll "try KDE", but under RedHat's regime, will not know that that's what they're doing. The About KDE dialogs are removed, the look is the same as GNOME, the newcomers will just be running a program called KWord, etc, without actually knowing that it's a KDE app.

      It's ironic, but I think the same changes that KDE developers are up in arms about are the ones that will specifically reduce any "harm" KDE suffers at the RedHat's hands. And, in one sense, it might actually be beneficial:

      Newcomer: I kind of like Konqueror, though there are areas I'd like it to work a bit better...
      KDE advocate: You should try running it under KDE! It's awesome then.
      Newcomer: Thanks I'll try that

      See what I mean?

      --
      KMSMA (WWBD?)
    5. Re:HERE IS THE ANSWER EVERYONE.... by Ed_Moyse · · Score: 1
      Maybe. I hadn't thought of it in those terms. Honestly though, most KDE "apps" are (imho anyway) worse than the Gtk (or whatever) alternatives that exist. They're improving incredibly fast, and I put up with their shortcomings because of the excellent integration. A user who doesn't see the integration probably won't be that inspired.


      I guess we'll have to wait and see, but I just wanted to make the point that the KDE people have some reason to be upset, and it's not about keeping "noobs" out, or getting upset at the bluecurve theme.

  55. "free" speach by DVega · · Score: 1
    "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."


    And when you live in a democracy with free speach, people are free to disagree with Red Hat.

    --
    MOD THE CHILD UP!
    1. Re:"free" speach by windex · · Score: 1

      And when people spell speech as speach, it's clear they are from Alabama.

    2. Re:"free" speach by tomstdenis · · Score: 1

      mod +1, laugh my ass off funny!

      --
      Someday, I'll have a real sig.
    3. Re:"free" speach by locoluis · · Score: 1

      Yeah, it's very clear he's from Alabama... ... for all values of Alabama between Argentina and the Pacific Ocean. :p

      --
      --- Sueños del Sur - a webcomic about four young siblings
  56. Re:bad news for Linux? by Isaac-Lew · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Knowing that Red Hat is intentionally hiding some of KDE's features from the users *is* important.

    Would you care to explain exactly which KDE features are hidden? I'm using (null) now, and other than the theming I do not see any differences (I still can access the KDE control center to change my settings for example).

  57. Anyone who's used it likes it. by Nailer · · Score: 5, Informative
    I'm a KDE user whose been using Null since release:

    Red Hat have:
    • Unified the default QT, GTK 1, GTK 2, and XMMS look. Someday every Linux distro will do the same.
    • Red Hat patched KDE to support the freedesktop.org standard taskbar system - yay, panel apps working in both KDE and Gnome. Older KDE taskbar apps still seem to work fine. Again, someday I think KDE will ship with this by default.
    • Selected what they consider the best applicatioon for each category (web browsing, email, office etc) and used those as default quick launchers on both the Gnome and KDE taskbar. This makes sense: users pick apps based on quality rather than toolkit. Mozilla renders more pages than Konqueror. OpenOffice is more capable than Abiword or KOffice. Evolution matches more of a Windows users understanding of a good PIM than KMail / Konrganizaer / Sylpheed, etc. This isn't a bias towards Gnome - 2 of the three main apps aren't even based on Gnome or GTK, and OpenOffice actually integrates better with KDE than Gnome. They haven't removed Konq, KMail or any other major KDE apps, they've just changed what's in the quicklaunch bar. Konq stil exists, and its still in the menu. So is Kmail. Again, I think someday every Linux distro will do the same. Most desktop users don't know, or care what a toolkit is, and they shouldn't have to.
    • Removed the About KDE dialog. Not that every copyright, author credit, and license are still there - in About -> App. The About KDE screen is a just an ad for KDE. Its not a big deal, I don't really care either way.
    • Made KDE use double click for desktop items - this was the only thing I disliked about 8.0 - its a really dumb idea and violates just about everything anybody's written on the subject of usign a mouse. Someone buy Havoc Pennington a Jacob Nielsen book. Then make KDE single click again, fix Gnome 2 to do the same, and thus don't require new users to click desktop items twice in the space of 500ms - and keep desktop icons consistent with web pages, and all their other apps. Ask anyone involved in usability - double click makes no sense.

    1. Re:Anyone who's used it likes it. by corey_lawson · · Score: 1

      double-click is a Microsoft-ism (probably the one kudo for the Windows GUI over Apple's and X's), where you have been able to [clumsily] navigate through menus, icons in windows and even items in the taskbar with the keyboard, and NOT with limited "hotkey" combos.

      A mouse double-click is analogous to "select icon with keyboard arrow keys, and then hit Enter key to activate it". Hard to see how to do that in a single-click environment. It is hard to see how click-and-hold can let you choose between either drag or move the selection to another icon to activate it (ala menus).

      While double-click may not make sense to some, those who have difficulty using the mouse or use the keyboard while minimizing their use of the mouse will hate you for enforcing single-click if it screws up keyboard navigation and selection of everything, not just menu items and hot-key'd items.

    2. Re:Anyone who's used it likes it. by tempest303 · · Score: 2

      Ok, first, big points to you for actually seeming objective. This looks like a pretty decent summary of what the big stink has been over.

      but on to my comments...

      Someone buy Havoc Pennington a Jacob Nielsen book.

      Heh... I'll take Havoc's opinion's on usability any day of the week over Jakob's. If fear to think what an OS designed by Jakob would look like... probably like a Mac, but with about 1/10th the features, and a keyboard with only 1 button, because more buttons is too distracting and confusing. Not that he doesn't have a point, but Jakob seems willing to utterly forsake anything that stands in the way of *his* view of usability. Can you imagine how dull the would be if every page looked like this?

      Ask anyone involved in usability - double click makes no sense.

      No, it makes sense. It's certainly suboptimal, but I don't think it's nonsensical. I like to think of double-clicking in terms of what JWZ once said about Linux - to paraphrase: It isn't that Linux doesn't suck, it's that it sucks less than the alternatives. I think double-clicking falls firmly into this catagory of "sucks less". Yeah, it does suck, but the alternative of having people* suffer through a metric double fuckload false positive single-clicks sucks so much worse. Most newbies, whom single-click is really aimed at, never use their file manager anyhow, and never will, no matter how "easy" it is. What they will use is a file selector in an application, something that KDE has the upper hand on for the moment. It's a little cluttered, but it's pretty good. Thankfully, the major flaws in the GTK+ standard file selector are worked out (ie: it doesn't erase fscking file names when you change paths), but I'm really anticipating the introduction of a new and improved one with GTK+ 2.4, which is when it's tentatively slated to ship with.

      *myself included - I'm a self-proclaimed single-click hater. That's my NUMBER ONE gripe about Konqueror. There are other things, but that, I could not stand.

      --
      The Free desktop that Just Works
    3. Re:Anyone who's used it likes it. by StillaCoward · · Score: 1

      What I would love is to be able to set up my desktop the way I setup my windows desktop.

      That is, double-click, with the middle mouse button set as double-click.

      Then you get the benefits of both. I only have to click once to open an item, but I don't get the false single clicks.

      This is by far the best approach for me.

      Barring that, I fall back on KDE's single-click, but totally hate it. Of course, I hate normal double-click even worse....

    4. Re:Anyone who's used it likes it. by rnd() · · Score: 2
      use double click for desktop items - this was the only thing I disliked about 8.0 - its a really dumb idea and violates just about everything anybody's written on the subject of usign a mouse. Someone buy Havoc Pennington a Jacob Nielsen book.

      What about when dragging an icon? It seems to me that when dragging icons is involved, double-clicking makes sense, since without it some movements of the mouse and button are somewhat ambiguous, particularly when produced by a newbie.

      --

      Amazing magic tricks

    5. Re:Anyone who's used it likes it. by nonmaskable · · Score: 4, Informative

      > I'm a KDE user whose been using Null since
      > release:

      But not an informed one. You left a lot out, in addition to putting the RH spin on what you included. RH has also:

      - Added lots of buggy Xft stuff to QT
      - Buggy changes to support vfolder
      - Broke service name compatibility
      - Broke plugin handling

      The gruesome details are all in bugzilla.

      These are off the top of my head, I've probably left some out.

    6. Re:Anyone who's used it likes it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      It wouldn't be a Red Hat *.0 release without huge annoying showstopper bugs.

    7. Re:Anyone who's used it likes it. by changa_lion · · Score: 1

      Double-click is a Microsoft-ism?

      What?

      I seem to remember the Macintosh using Double-Click from day one.

      Single click on the desktop was a Microsoft-ism from win98 as IE got welded to the desktop.

    8. Re:Anyone who's used it likes it. by Nailer · · Score: 5, Interesting

      But not an informed one. You left a lot out, in addition to putting the RH spin on what you included.

      Since KDE has never released a proper announcement of what their issues with Red Hat beyond some generally false stuff in their forums (cheers Mosfet) and as an extensive KDE user I haven't encountered them, I may indeed not know everything.

      I didn't put a RH spin on anything. Users should pick the best apps. RH aren't trying to turn KDE into Gnome - 2 of 3 non KDE their `best apps' aren't Gnome apps either. And Konq, KMail etc still work (apart from the plugin bug you mentioned). I'm a Konq fan, but at the end of the day, Mozilla can render more pages (such as www.ninemsn.com.au, the most popular site in the country) and Konq can't. And as I said, every KDE app I've rebuilt for Null has been fine.

      The Xft additions seem to work well enough that I haven't noticed them negatively at all - just that for once I got Xfthack quality font rendering out of the box on a Linux distro without having to screw around. This is a good thing. I don't know what's buggy about it and when I do notice something, I spend a bit of time in Bugzilla reporting it or checking it out.

      Konqueror plugisn are broken, huh? Flash works fine on www.xdude.com works fine (using the Flash 6 beta under Konqueror on the current Null). Quicktime / Crossover also work fine, albeit a little slowly than I'd like. But I accept there are likely remaining bugs in Konq plugins, as Macromedia.com doesn't work properly, and last time I looked its also in Mozilla marked for RH to fix, along with the latest Nautilus fuckups. How is this malicious? What have Red Hat done to deliberately break it? And why would they deliberately break it if they're going to fix it? You haven't said so I'll treat RH as innocent until proven guilty.

      I don't know about what applications vfolders you're talking about, or what `service names are'. Care to tell or give us a bugzilla link?

    9. Re:Anyone who's used it likes it. by RedBear · · Score: 1
      Ask anyone involved in usability - double click makes no sense

      Sure, double-clicking on desktop items makes no sense. Unless you are aiming your product at a market filled with about 900 bazillion people who have spent the last 12 years (since Win 3.0, at least) double-clicking the icons on their desktop.

      You don't make money by trying to leverage your product to make people do something the "right" way. You make money by giving them a product they can easily slip into using on a daily basis, without being frustrated by a thousand usless quirks^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H "usability enhancements". You make money by giving people a tool that is the most efficient and helpful way to complete their daily tasks. Coming from a Windows/Macintosh computer which they have used just fine for a decade or more, and being faced with icons that act like web links, can drive the average user nuts, even more than bigger problems would.

      I have set up numerous versions and flavors of Linux over the last few years, and had major headaches along the way, mainly with setting up X ("hear, hear" everyone says ;). But do you know what one of the things was that always irritated me more than anything? The fact that KDE used single-click on the desktop, violating the dynamic set forth by every other popular desktop environment. I have always immediately changed that "feature". It may make sense from someone's POV, but not from mine, and not from the POV of the millions of people who have been using Win/Mac/BeOS/Whatever for as long as they've been using a PC. I've used Win/Mac/BeOS, and in every single one if you click once, it selects, if you double-click, it launches. I've lost count of the number of times I've double-clicked and launched an app twice, or clicked once in an attempt to select, and had it launch instead. Argh.

      Another part of this is if you right-click on something that isn't selected, you don't get the proper right-click context menu. (At least this is the behavior in the desktop OS that 90% of the world's population is used to using.) So many of us have developed the habit of click-once-to-select, right-click-to-get-proper-context-menu.

      You want to disrupt this ingrained and fairly efficient process, simply because single-clicking follows some sort of "ask anyone" usability rules? People aren't machines, and when you take usability too far it often has the opposite of the desired effect. People have different ways of using the computer, so obviously not all usability rules can apply everywhere, to everyone. Even Micros~1 tried to change the desktop to use single-clicks, and people hated it. Remember "Windows Desktop Update"? That seemed to fall by the wayside rather quickly, and the reasons should be obvious.

      The rest of the changes and points you outlined I agree with completely and made perfect sense. So I was kind of surprised by this one. Making KDE use double-clicks on the desktop makes just as much sense as every other change they've made in RH8. They know their target audience and they aren't pulling any punches.
    10. Re:Anyone who's used it likes it. by uchian · · Score: 2

      On the other hand, newbies can't reliably double click anyway.

      Don't you remember when you was a newbie to the mouse? I sure do (it was about 10 years ago mind), and I've seen other people new to computers grappling with the mouse recently.

      Double clicking just ain't as natural an action as most computer users (who eat, sleep, breath and use a mouse) belive it is!

    11. Re:Anyone who's used it likes it. by Macrobat · · Score: 2
      Can you imagine how dull the would be if every page looked like this? [useit.com]
      "Holy crap!! Where are all the meaningless [img] tags?"

      Closes out lynx, fires up Mozilla...

      "Oh...I get it. No graphics."

      --
      "Hardly used" will not fetch you a better price for your brain.
    12. Re:Anyone who's used it likes it. by njchick · · Score: 1

      Double click comes from Mac, where there is only one mouse button. Since Red Hat doesn't support PPC yet, they probably don't care.

    13. Re:Anyone who's used it likes it. by Arandir · · Score: 1

      I'm a self-proclaimed single-click hater. That's my NUMBER ONE gripe about Konqueror.

      Konqueror is not just a file manager. It's also a web browser. Are you advocating that double-click shoudl be the standard for accessing HTML links?

      Think long and hard before you answer. Think about Konqueror the file manager and Konqueror the browser both displaying the very same FTP directory.

      --
      A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
    14. Re:Anyone who's used it likes it. by orange7 · · Score: 1

      Pffft. Double-click is not a Microsoftism. It may well have originated with the original Mac Finder, though I could be wrong on that.

      It's puzzling how you could be so ignorant, unless you're too young to remember the 80s. Which may not be such a bad thing.

      A.

    15. Re:Anyone who's used it likes it. by tempest303 · · Score: 2

      Hrm... I see your point, it's a good one.

      My answer, Zen master Anadir, is this:

      Yours is a trick question! Using the same shell for a file manager and a web browser is crap usability in the first place, and thus there IS no answer to your question, because the two tasks should never have been combined into the same viewer in the first place!

      Having consistency between apps is good, but trying to overextend apps into doing things they weren't meant to do is the path to madness

      (for the record, now that I've taken a stance on TWO "flamewar" issues, I'm not a Vi user, either. I code exclusively in Python, and thus get to use IDLE, and can play Switzerland in the editor/IDE flamewar!)

      --
      The Free desktop that Just Works
    16. Re:Anyone who's used it likes it. by blackwings · · Score: 1

      Yes,

      I agree and what's even more important is the fac that the main purpose of a file manager is NOT to execute programms (you use things the windows/kde/gnome taskbar to do things like that), but to manage files.

      As selecting files should be a much more common action than executing an application it does not make much sense to make it much harder/non intuitive to do.

      I know that most power users (most slashdot readers), (miss)uses file managers in a old MacOS execute program by double click a document way, but that does not make it the right way for an unexperienced user, singleclick in the file manager will only confuse those users into thinking the filemanager(s) is some kind of windows3.x style program manager.

    17. Re:Anyone who's used it likes it. by tempest303 · · Score: 2

      gah. here I crafted what I thought was a clever post, but I forgot to fill in the link in the second to last line.

      "the path to madness" bit should point here

      Note to self: never ever post when sleep deprived.

      --
      The Free desktop that Just Works
    18. Re:Anyone who's used it likes it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      No, "lots of buggy Xft" stuff was not added to
      anything. Keith Packard himself who wrote Xft
      and fontconfig, requested that this new code
      be put into use once it was considered stable,
      and once Keith considered it to be stable, the
      code was added to the distribution. It is very
      high quality font rendering code, and although
      an official XFree86 release has not shipped
      with it in it yet, Keith maintains all of these
      libraries, etc. on his own separate from XFree86
      and deemed them ready for public usage.

      Now users can enjoy the fruits of Keith's and
      other's hard work today, instead of having to
      wait 6 months for an XFree86 release to come
      out that contains the stuff, and another 2, 3,
      or even 5 months after that for a distribution
      to ship any of it.

      It exists now, in Red Hat Linux 8. No need
      to wait for 2005.

    19. Re:Anyone who's used it likes it. by juhaz · · Score: 1

      For christs sake, those are BUGS. Ever heard of 'em? And null is beta-version! It's supposed to have bugs. Even if some of them are still in 8.0, RH x.0 releases usually do have bugs.

      Having bugs in your software, even when those bugs result from your own modification (which aims to make both KDE and Gnome better, and which happens to be point of open source software, mind you) is not the same thing as deliberately crippling something. Please, people get a clue.

      So if this is all there is about it, then people yelling about crippleware are plain and simply FUDing, well, nothing new here, guessed that a long ago when the noise first started.

    20. Re:Anyone who's used it likes it. by sLaSh_N_bUrN_(.Y.) · · Score: 1

      I only use KDE (I have tried others, just don't like them as much, sorry). After a fresh install, the first thing I do is configure OO.org as default and install Evolution. I love the Idea of having koffice, kword, kmail.... all work together, but they are just mature enough yet.

    21. Re:Anyone who's used it likes it. by Mark+Bainter · · Score: 2
      Most desktop users don't know, or care what a toolkit is, and they shouldn't have to.

      This argument is all too common imo. It basically boils down to "users shouldn't have to know anything about their computers to use them" I think this is bunk. It is exactly this kind of mentality that eventually results in the "point-and-grunt" interface that we have in windows. That is most definatley NOT the direction I want to see linux take.

      I don't think users should know 4 programming languages, and how to edit their filesystem or anything, but I don't think it's too much to ask that they learn how the thing works, even tot he point of understanding the relationship of libraries, widget sets, etc.

      This crap of removing choice in favor of making this easier for users is bunk. Part of the cost of moving to a better system like linux is getting a clue. deal with it people.

      --
      "No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."
      --James Madison
    22. Re:Anyone who's used it likes it. by Nailer · · Score: 2

      I don't think it's too much to ask that they learn how the thing works, even tot he point of understanding the relationship of libraries, widget sets, etc.

      Why should they when they have better things to do? Other systems avoid this problem - last time I looked VCL and MFC apps are painted the same under Windows these days.

      This crap of removing choice in favor of making this easier for users is bunk.

      Actually, this crap of assuming that anything which makes things easier to use is somehow removing choice is bunk. Red Hat haven't removed anything.

    23. Re:Anyone who's used it likes it. by RevAaron · · Score: 2

      Riiight. Double-clicks didn't originate with M$. The Xerox Alto had the first double-clickable icons. If you're interested in the first commercially available system with such a convention, the Apple LIsa and then the Macintosh.

      --

      Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
    24. Re:Anyone who's used it likes it. by Arandir · · Score: 1

      Using the same shell for a file manager and a web browser is crap usability in the first place

      I don't think it matters if it's the same shell or two different applications. Consider the case of Nautilus displaying a list of files and Mozilla displaying a list of files. One is a directory on a local filesystem while the other is a ftp site. But to the user they are both displaying the same kind of information.

      --
      A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
    25. Re:Anyone who's used it likes it. by RevAaron · · Score: 2

      It basically boils down to "users shouldn't have to know anything about their computers to use them" I think this is bunk.

      Unfortunately, just because you think something *should* be won't make it happen. Most users don't care about what toolkit powers an app. Even if they were forced into using an inconsistent, multi-toolkit OS like GNU/Linux+X11 by pigheaded idealists with no knowlege of what really works in the field, they wouldn't learn about what toolkit is behind which app. But since no one is forced to use Linux, they'd all just put Windows back on their machines, or better yet, buy a Mac.

      Why should users have to know about what toolkit powers the app their using?

      The great thing about Linux is that it's very malleable. It's OK for it to go the way of "point-and-grunt," if that's the kind of thing its users want. It's OK for this to happen because you don't have to use the software that makes it that way. You can continue using AfterStep and an old version of GNOME, no one will stop you.

      I think it is too much to ask of users that they learn about things the OS should take care of. You think they should have to know about the way libraries work, relationships between them, and various widget sets. Why? Why not more details, or details about different parts of the system? Do you know how to program? In C and assembler? Could you write a driver for a new device for Linux? Both character and block?

      I used Linux for 4 years as my primary OS. I know a lot about it, like a lot of Linux users, especially ones who didn't just start using with Mandrake 7. I'm not interested in using a Windows clone on top of X11. That is largely because most of the people who want this don't know how to do it right and because they are trying to both create the ultimate h4x0r OS for people who like to dick around with administrative tasks more than actually use their computers and create a WinDOS clone. I don't want either, myself.

      I shouldn't have to take into consideration what toolkit I'm using just to get work done, regardless of whether this "work" is working on code, a spreadsheet, or a listening to mp3s.

      I am a programmer. I know a couple languages really well, and little bits of way too many. However, when I sit down to use a computer, regardless of what OS it's running, I still expect it to just work.

      Two years ago, I switched to Mac OS X, and I can't see ever going back. OS X is very far from perfect, but there's no way Linux will ever be the better option for me. BeOS maybe, or perhaps an actually modern OS if one ever comes out.

      --

      Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
    26. Re:Anyone who's used it likes it. by tempest303 · · Score: 2

      This still doesn't get around the idea of over-extending the metaphor of a program. Mozilla probably shouldn't list files either, just like Konq and Nautilus shouldn't be web browsers, they should stick to being file managers. Anyway, the only time you'd ever get a listing of files is

      A) when you're browsing an FTP site
      or
      B) when you're intentionally trying to see the directory listing of a web server's folder.

      For A, Mozilla shouldn't do FTP at all. Why should it? That's just extra crap, or, though I typically loathe the word, "bloat." If you want FTP, use an FTP client (which would optimally be your file manager!).

      For B, if you're doing this, you're a Power User(TM) and I guarantee that you'll be able to find a million other holes in a particular platform's consistency, too, but all of them academic, and of little to no importance to 95% of users. Consistency is good, but it isn't an Edict from God or something - it's only as good as what it can do for us. Sometimes consistency can and should be sacrificed in the name of something more important, like not accidently opening 12 copies of your damn word processor because you slipped and singled clicked on something when selecting multiple files. That's a lot worse than having to double-click, IMHO. Especially if it's configurable (though I hate to add or keep yet another preference in either Konq or Nautilus).

      Also, note that practically EVERYONE but KDE uses double-click in their file manager to mean "open". Apple does it, and always has, Microsoft does it, heck, even Amiga did it. The former 2 companies, Apple in particular have poured tons of money into usability, and still, double-click remains. Apple is especially important in this example, because I think they've shown that they're willing to go "against the grain" of what the rest of the industry is doing in the name of more usable software. This isn't conclusive, of course, but it should probably be a hint when the experts from a broad range of the industry and craft almost all seem to converge on one particular behavior a particular aspect of software.

      --
      The Free desktop that Just Works
    27. Re:Anyone who's used it likes it. by SuperDuperMan · · Score: 1

      Another problem with the FTP build into Mozilla, Opera and IE is that you can't select multiple files or a folder and grab them all at the same time. With a real file manager you could.

    28. Re:Anyone who's used it likes it. by Arandir · · Score: 1

      Mozilla shouldn't do FTP at all. Why should it?

      We've gotten way off topic (single versus double clicks), but you make an awesome point.

      --
      A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
    29. Re:Anyone who's used it likes it. by Mark+Bainter · · Score: 2
      Why should they when they have better things to do? Other systems avoid this problem - last time I looked VCL and MFC apps are painted the same under Windows these days.

      Hey great! Then guess what, these people who want that can use windows.

      I didn't say making something easier to use removes choice. My comment was in response to the general feeling that we should all have one way to do things so that it's easier for those people too lazy to excercise their brain to figure out what they want.

      --
      "No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."
      --James Madison
    30. Re:Anyone who's used it likes it. by Mark+Bainter · · Score: 2
      Most users don't care about what toolkit powers an app.

      And that's fine. Just don't expect people who do care to dumb down their favorite system just because you want to use it and want it to look and act just like your chosen os.

      [snip]
      since no one is forced to use Linux, they'd all just put Windows back on their machines, or better yet, buy a Mac.

      YES! This exactly what I'd like to see happen. I am not a "everyone should use linux" type of person. Linux is for people who like the way linux works, imo. If someone wants an operating system that works like windows then they should install windows. If they just want a reliable system that's easy to use and doesn't require much from the user, buy a mac, or even install BeOS. Don't bitch and moan about linux not being for you.

      The great thing about Linux is that it's very malleable. It's OK for it to go the way of "point-and-grunt," if that's the kind of thing its users want.

      That's just it, I don't think it /is/ what the users want. From everything I've seen there is a small but extremely vocal minority of people who basically want windows for linux.

      I think it is too much to ask of users that they learn about things the OS should take care of. You think they should have to know about the way libraries work, relationships between them, and various widget sets. Why? Why not more details, or details about different parts of the system? Do you know how to program?

      I don't. Why not more details? I dunno, there's probably more they should know, I didn't want to try and list everything. I don't think they should know these things to get started, but if they want to use a powerful system they should be prepared to put in the effort required. That means learning. yes, I do know how to program. More languages than I care to count right now. And yes, I think a full time linux user should have basic development knowledge. They should know at least enough to submit a halfway intelligent bug report. Maybe not when they start, but they should be prepared to put in the effort to learn that much.

      people who like to dick around with administrative tasks more than actually use their computers

      Heh. Woah. So, administrators don't "use" their computers? Is there some standard for what defines "using" a computer now? Word Processing? Playing games? Instant Messaging? What is it that counts as valid use?

      I still expect it to just work.

      That's fine. Then use an os that "just works". Don't use an OS that is meant for people who like to or don't mind tinkering. If you wanted a car that "just works" you wouldn't buy a 400hp turbocharged race-car with nitrous. You buy that if you are prepared for the effort and learning involved, and are willing to trade that for the power. Same with linux.

      Two years ago, I switched to Mac OS X, and I can't see ever going back. OS X is very far from perfect, but there's no way Linux will ever be the better option for me.

      Cool. Linux isn't for everyone. Nor should it try to be. If you're happy with OS-X then that's great. No OS is ever going to meet /everyone's/ needs, and trying to will only end up with an OS that purely addresses the lowest common denominator. Personally I agree with you, that OS-X and/or BeOS are probably the best OSes for people who can't or aren't willing to put in the effort linux requires. And that's not in any way intended to be a negative thing. It's not an insult. People are just different.

      --
      "No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."
      --James Madison
  58. Re:Just use Windows XP by tomhudson · · Score: 1
    Re:Just use Windows XP: The desktop sure isn't crippleware

    Ok, let's call it what it really is - spyware.

  59. It's not competition, it's choice by ErfC · · Score: 2
    The reason we have different projects isn't so much about competition and ego, despite the fact that so many people seem to think otherwise (or try to make it otherwise). That may happen from time to time (or a lot), but most of the time it's because different people have different ideas on how to do something. They have different ideas of what "excellent" is.

    I like all the options. Because of all the options, I get to use really useful, powerful systems, like FVWM2, Galeon, LaTeX, etc, rather than the more "mainstream" KDE/Gnome, Mozilla, OpenOffice, or whatever, all of which are much harder to use (for me) than the ones I do use. Different people feel different things are important, and they grab the bits of various projects that they like and build on them. I can then find the projects that most closely match my own priorities and use those.

    I have no idea what this RedHat KDE cafuffle is about, because I chose to use Mandrake. Why couldn't the Mandrake people (or the SUSE people, or whoever) just work for RedHat instead? Because they have different ideas of how to make a distro.

    We don't have a common vision, and this is a Good Thing.

    --

    -Erf C.
    Cthulu always calls collect...

  60. death to KDE by j1mmy · · Score: 1

    it's about time. I've always found KDE to be ugly and unpleasant since I first encountered it almost three years ago. I'll be glad to see it go.

    1. Re:death to KDE by uchian · · Score: 2

      Just to take the opposite stance here, I have the same feelings about Gnome.

      So, that put's paid to all the arguments about a "unified desktop" :-)

  61. Re:Just use Windows XP by molarmass192 · · Score: 1

    ... changing its a violation of the license agreement. Commercial software licenses are the only way to protect developer freedom .

    I sure as hell hope you were being sarcastic about this.

    --

    Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
  62. I think ... by GundyRage · · Score: 1

    ... you should think for yourself rather than take one man's word for it - if KDE is crippled, it will show. Install it, try it, love it or leave it. Don't rush to judge. It's RedHat's distro; they can do what they want. A few will disagree whatever they do.

    I say more power to them for doing what they think users will like, thus making more sales. You can't always bow down idealists.

    If it works, watch others follow with their homogenized versions of their products and maybe the desktops will quit fighting over the crumbs, get on the same page, and go for the big markets. I'm dying to install Linux of some kind on every computer in my family; I'm just waiting for the distro that will keep the distress phone calls from my mom and dad to a minimum. I hope this one is it.

    Love to all,
    Gabriel

  63. ISOs? by svu · · Score: 1

    They were saying about existing ISOs for 8.0. Does anybody have them anywhere?

  64. Try it? by phorm · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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

  65. How you gonna fight MS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    ...when you're fighting yourself

  66. So how does he get income now? by bluGill · · Score: 4, Funny

    As an out of work programer, I can tell you first hand that this is not the enviorment to quit in if there is any other choice. Mind you his reasons for leaving are good, but it is aweful hard to get a job today. Maybe he has name recignition to get one, but there are a lot of good programers (and many bad ones too I suppose) who are looking for work.

    Good luck is all I can say. If you find a job, please think of the rest of us without work, and see if you can do something for us. (hint, get me a job. :)

    1. Re:So how does he get income now? by groman · · Score: 1

      but there are a lot of good programers (and many bad ones too I suppose) who are looking for work.

      Really!? I don't know of any. In fact, I know of companies that looked for people and couldn't find them, right here in Silicon Valley

      Maybe you mean high school graduates who know perl? Plenty of those around.

    2. Re:So how does he get income now? by Soup50 · · Score: 1

      but there are a lot of good programers (and many bad ones too I suppose) who are looking for work. Really!? I don't know of any. In fact, I know of companies that looked for people and couldn't find them, right here in Silicon Valley

      Actually, I worked for a large telecomunications company who, one day, let all of their contract employees go, including myself. Some of these people were VERY good coders who had crucial knowledge regarding their current and future products. By losing these people, they pretty much shot themselves in the foot.

      It is another example of the people in management being out of touch with their workforce. The middle management had no idea this was coming down the pike and had no say over who was cut. They let go some very good and knowledgable people that day (and more a month or so later).

      There ARE many good coders out of work. Some of the people I worked with had 10-15 years of experience working for leading edge companies with great experience. They have not had any solid leads since we were let go in June. Granted, I know the southwest is a little worse off than other areas, but it is pathetic right now.

  67. long overdue by g4dget · · Score: 2
    It's free software and people try different things with it. Whether it catches on or not ultimately is decided by users.

    I think it makes a lot of sense for RedHat to cherry-pick the best components from KDE and Gnome and integrate them at the desktop and packaging level. Such integration is long overdue. KDE seems a little better at presenting a Windows-like desktop, but Gnome has some key applications for which KDE does not have a mature equivalent. And third party additions like OpenOffice are yet different and also need to be accomodated

    KDE developers can kick and scream all they want, this is good for users, and RedHat is doing the right thing.

  68. not berorh anymore? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    is there a slashdot id berounemployed?

  69. Re:a prayer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1
    I read the news today, oh boy
    About a lucky guy who made the grade
    And though the news was rather sad
    I just had to laugh
    I saw the photograph

    Linus blew his brains out in a car
    He just had noticed that Linux was gay
    A group of losers stood and stared
    They giggled and pointed at him. HAH AHHAHAHHAHAH!

  70. Re:bad news for Linux? by Wdomburg · · Score: 2

    >While Gnome continues to bloat itself with poorly
    >designed projects (some of which are dead) and
    >dependencies from hell, KDE just gets better.

    Quick quiz, which of the following projects are dead - GConf? Pkg-config? Glib? GDK/GTK? ATK? Fontconfig? Pango? GStreamer? ORBit? Bonobo? libxml? libxslt?

    Here's a hint: the answer is none of them.

    As for calling these "bloat", "dependency hell", and "poorly designed"... Well, I simply don't agree with you on any count. Gnome 2.0 is a lot leaner on my machine than any of the Gnome 1.x releases, and they're commiting to exactly what comprises the desktop and development platform, so third party applications can know exactly what they can depend on having.

    Matt

  71. Re:bad news for Linux? by jasonditz · · Score: 1

    The layperson isn't getting their Linux news from slashdot, so I doubt it matters that much.

  72. If you are "geek" enough to know ... by wbattestilli · · Score: 1

    the difference between KDE and GNOME and RedHat's thing, then you are "geek" enough to compile source or install the RPM's that someone will create 24 hours after the RH 8.0 isos hit the mirrors.

    I'm not saying that I wouldn't quit if my views diverged greatly from my employer; I'm just saying that it doesn't really matter to most of us.

    I won't use this desktop for even a day, but I'll still use redhat for the same reason that I've used redhat for years...It is the best supported distro out there with respect to commercial apps and Free binary packages. Redhat has never been the best desktop OS since GNU/Linux had a modern desktop.

    Besides, this is probably a smart move from the corporate desktop point of view.

  73. Bollax by joshsnow · · Score: 1

    If the coin was reversed, no doubt you'd be responding to similar bullshite about the Gnome developers. It's bull. The simple truth is that RedHat favour Gnome, they want to go with Gnome but they're afraid to ship without KDE (because KDE is the most widely used) so they're trying to neutralize KDE. It really is that simple.

    1. Re:Bollax by infiniti99 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:Bollax by fault0 · · Score: 3

      > That's utter bullshit. Red Hat has shipped without KDE before and they could do it again. In fact, if they actually wanted to neutralize it, that's exactly what they'd do.

      Shipping without KDE would probably be a good solution to all of this drama. Of course, it'd just create more RedHat-forked distros. Another, uh, Mandrake.

      What they've done to KDE is a much easier way to neutralize it than not shipping it. Of course, I don't think Redhat is purposely doing this or anything.

      > Do you seriously believe that Red Hat continues to include KDE because they hate it?

      They probably include it to help customers who prefer KDE. *shrug*

      Redhat hate (well, maybe not as strong as hate, perhaps apathy) of KDE is well known, and the opposite is true as well.

    3. Re:Bollax by fraczak · · Score: 1

      Honestly, do you realy use any of the KDE applications. If yes which ones.

      Does anybody do?

      W.

    4. Re:Bollax by infiniti99 · · Score: 2

      Konsole is the best shell I've ever used.
      I'm posting this with Konqueror..
      I use Kmail for all email use.
      Kate for development (that and vi)
      KMahjongg for fun? :)

      Probably others..

    5. Re:Bollax by Yakko · · Score: 1
      Despite the valid points of you and others, KDE's desktop won't ever see display time on my screen.

      Why? Because I made it so. The apps are responsible for my GNOME preference, even tho I'm sure KDE equivalents exist for each app. KDE was ugly and "looked just like win95," and that perception I got from the first impression stuck. GNOME had themes and looked however I wanted it to look, but its stability was nothing short of shit.

      Also, the "mountain out of a molehill" situations from both GNOME and KDE advocates turned me off. Guess what this RHS thing is? Another artificial mountain.

      ... so I ignored both desktops entirely, while running their apps, tho the large percentage of apps were of the gtk variety (not necessarily GNOME-compliant). Two KDE apps I used to run were kwintv and kicq, and that was because they Just Worked when nothing else did. I still do this today, even tho I have no KDE apps that I run. (I run the GNOME panel, but that's basically all of GNOME I run. I came from AfterStep and fvwm, btw)

      On "ending the desktop war," forget it. No one will be able to stop either side, and you've got millions of folks like me who will just run their own idea of a desktop, and be able to run the apps from the other desktops, or (heaven forbid) the Master Desktop.

      --

      --
      Me spell chucker work grate. Need grandma chicken.
    6. Re:Bollax by jcostom · · Score: 2
      Kmail? Ugh. What utter crapware.

      It's got this little problem with mailing lists. You subscribe to a mailing list and thread the mailbox you've got your list filted into. Great, so far so good. Now, delete the first message in a thread. Chances are, if it's an active list with several threads going on at once, you'll see that Kmail will dynamically re-arrange your mailbox. By the time you finish reading that thread and deleting messages, you're probably 2/3 of the way down through the new messages, forcing you to go back up to the top and start the next thread with this re-arranging madness. Monumentally stupid behavior, but the kmail developers regarded this as a feature, not a bug!!!!!! Their reasoning? You should never delete a message in a mailing list folder. Huh?

      Use mutt. It's only about a gazillion times better.

      --

      The unsig!
    7. Re:Bollax by Vinum · · Score: 1

      I use KOrganizer with KPilot to keep my Palm Pilot and my desktop in sync. ;)

      I'm also a huge fan of KOffice.

    8. Re:Bollax by epukinsk · · Score: 2

      Yeah, no one important installs GNOME as the default. And there are not really any desktop agnostic distros. Red Hat is basically the only thing keeping GNOME alive.

      Erik

    9. Re:Bollax by reallocate · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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"
    10. Re:Bollax by einstein · · Score: 1

      um. yeah, why are you deleting mail in a mailing list?
      ---

      --

      I post links to stuff here

    11. Re:Bollax by OrangeSpyderMan · · Score: 1

      AFAIK Sun by no means installs Gnome as default, if that's what you're saying. It's currently a beta-download for Solaris 9, and it isn't that good at the mo'.

      --
      Try NetBSD... safe,straightforward,useful.
    12. Re:Bollax by zur · · Score: 1

      Debian has no "default" desktop environment.

    13. Re:Bollax by leandrod · · Score: 2
      > AFAIK Sun by no means installs Gnome as default, if that's what you're saying. It's currently a beta-download for Solaris 9, and it isn't that good at the mo'.

      True enough, but Sun has already committed to use Gnome in the near future. HP is supposed to follow suit, and probably IBM too.

      But then Sun is not quite there in the desktop, nor is Debian. For now RH is the main Gnome champion on the desktop, but both Debian and Sun are striving to reach it. Some Debian derivatives are already there, but they are not nearly as popular as the mothership.

      --
      Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
      DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
      GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
    14. Re:Bollax by leandrod · · Score: 2
      > Debian has no "default" desktop environment.

      True enough, Debian offers both KDE and Gnome in equal footing. But historically and philosophically Debian is much nearer to Gnome than to KDE.

      Remember Debian is about full free software rather than just open source, to the point of calling the main distribution GNU/Linux, building a GNU Hurd distribution, and generally being more strict in the DFSG than OSI is in interpreting its own DFSG derivative, the OSD.

      BTW Debian once was even officially aligned with the FSF and full part of the GNU Project. They decided to part ways over the inclusion of proprietary software, but as we get free software alternatives to just about everything, there may arrive the day when it ceases supporting both proprietary software and free software dependant on proprietary stuff.

      --
      Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
      DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
      GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
    15. Re:Bollax by minus9 · · Score: 1

      "They've done many things to add bugs, make it slower, break compatibility of their fork with real KDE"

      Yup, Redhat want users to think their distribution is incompatible and full of bugs, that would be pure genius from a business point of view.
      Please try to avoid attributing characteristics of the squabbling Slashdot minions to companies in the real world.

    16. Re:Bollax by evilviper · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
    17. Re:Bollax by Cro+Magnon · · Score: 1

      IMO, much of Debian's "preferrence" for Gnome is a question of bad timing (from KDE's view). IIRC, QT went GPL too late to get into 2.2 (Potato), which kept KDE out of Debian stable for years. And KDE 3 missed Woody's release, so Debian's KDE is old.

      --
      Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
    18. Re:Bollax by WNight · · Score: 2

      Who cares about the desktop that a program was written for? If it works, use it. I use Konsole because it was easy and I like it, I use GCombust because it seems to work the best.

      But if they renamed it Combust, I think it'd be better. It'd drop the irrelevant tag and thus probably a whole lot of baggage and still retain the functionality.

      It's silly for the makers of a desktop to be doing anything but making a desktop. If they really want a K-themed browser, write a XUL skin for Mozilla, ditto with email. If they want Kmp3, draw a skin for xmms maybe. But don't reinvent the wheel just to add another checkbox to a list that nobody cares about, because of a silly contest with someone.

      The whole desktop thing is silly. All the user sees (and cares about) is a theme. Just some pretty icons and a cascading menu. This is worth a religious war?

      You probably think the Republicans and the Democrats differ in a meaningful way too. (Insert whatever parties dominate politics where you live.)

  74. Another person to build Free Software! by m11533 · · Score: 1

    There is PLENTY of work building free software. I don't see the problem? Did someone say there is a depression in the software industry? They just don't know how to count the REAL new software economy. Now, if only it put food on the table and paid our mortgage.

  75. The real Problem.... by imsabbel · · Score: 1

    how does it help a new user if his linux distro has 2 different, but identical looking desktops?

    Why not using kde OR genome and modify it to make it more user friendly. This kind of mimicry does only confuse people.
    KDE and Gnome are still 2 different things, even if they look identical.

    --
    HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
  76. People, click the links! Nothing about crippleware by Mustang+Matt · · Score: 2

    He's simply viewing the actions of making KDE act the same as Gnome is crippling it's functionality, NOTHING about crippleware!
    >>
    Hi,
    Effective immediately, I've left Red Hat (mostly in mutual agreement - I
    don't want to work on crippling KDE, and they don't want an employee who
    admits RH 8.0's KDE is crippleware).

    If anyone needs/wants to contact me, please use the addresses
    bero@berolinux.org or bero@kde.org.

    For any RH specific KDE issues, please contact Than Ngo .

    LLaP
    bero

    --
    The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
  77. It's mind boggling by brettlbecker · · Score: 4, Insightful
    that many in the open-source community are so violently against the implementation of the open-source idea. Most of us hate Microsoft and their domination, and hope that GNU/Linux will be able to start making real inroads in this fight. But when Red Hat, the company that already makes the most user-friendly distro and offers the best support for its product, decides to integrate the look and feel of the desktop and so stop this stupid pissing fight between KDE and GNOME, people start yelling that this is creating "crippleware" or that Red Hat is somehow in the wrong to use the basic principle of open source. The thing is, Red Hat understands that too much choice can be just as paralyzing as no choice at all.

    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
  78. KDE is "K"illing themselves by Erwos · · Score: 1

    Does the KDE team even realize how inane disputes like the one they're in with RedHat end up hurting more than helping? C'mon, guys, if you didn't want this to happen, you shouldn't have used the license you did. Suck up those egos a bit, please.

    Endless whining only hurts KDE. Accept reality, and get on with life. If you were really interested in the open source community's interests, you'd quietly accept that sometimes things you don't like happen with free licenses and get on with the coding.

    If RedHat did indeed cripple KDE (of which no one has seen real proof of), than RH will suffer a marketshare loss. Happy now? Your holy vengeance will have been wreaked!

    -Erwos

    --
    Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
  79. Amen by 0x0d0a · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Very true. Red Hat is doing something that consumers have wanted (and Linux tweakers have been doing for some time with themes) -- making their KDE and GNOME apps look similar.

    KDE people whining about this are going to be ignored. The GNOME people have accepted the loss of their icons without throwing fits, though it certainly changes RH GNOME's "look and feel". I can't figure out why the KDE people can't do the same for the changes that affected their "look and feel."

    --
    May we never see th
  80. Can't blame him by brer_rabbit · · Score: 2

    I'd tell them to take their desktop and shove it unless they called it GNU/KDE.

  81. Toleration vs. Approval by Gerry+Gleason · · Score: 2, Funny

    To be more specific, his position is that you can't restrict what people do with the software, even if you wanted to. It's more of a legal position than anything else.

    I've been looking at projects under an extended GPL called the GGPL, which pulls together GPL, the UN charter on human rights, and a set of sustainable development principles. My first reaction to the language about not using products under this license in war of any kind was similar. Just how would you stop them, legally, or practically.

    You probably can't, but that doesn't mean you can't disapprove, and say so. Most of the effect is social anyway, and making a stand can be pretty effective in this domain. Legitimate millitary people would stay away, and the others probably wouldn't know about it anyway, or be bound by it in any case.

    So I say, tollerate and disaprove, which is more or less what is happening in this case. It is RedHat's right to do it, and it is his right to disapprove of what they have done. I'm sure he knows he has no legal standing to object.

  82. Who cares? KDE is still KDE by HanzoSan · · Score: 2

    Its open source, Redhat can do what they want.

    --
    If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
  83. RH does have KDE by 0x0d0a · · Score: 2

    Actually, if I remember correctly, Red Hat *does* have KDE as an install option currently (as opposed to GNOME). The KDE guys didn't like it because GNOME was the default checked option in the installer.

    --
    May we never see th
    1. Re:RH does have KDE by uchian · · Score: 1

      No, it was because the RPM's supplied with Redhat where generally broken.

      The reason for this is that Bero was the only person working on KDE packaging, and had to do it in his spare time.

      That's why if you read on the KDE download page, it says (Note that the "Rehat employ mentioned in the second paragraph is Bero)

      " The KDE Project strives in most cases to be distribution neutral and to never single out any particular vendor or OS for special treatment. However, the realities of the situation demands that we address Red Hat as a special case. This is because while Red Hat does have the largest user base in North America, it doesn't support KDE and will not build packages for us to release.

      As a result, the quality and quantity of packages for Red Hat are spotty. The "official" ones on the servers are built by a Red Hat employee in his spare time. He has neither the time nor the resources to build packages for all permutations of the distribution, however. For some releases, we have received packages from dedicated Red Hat users that we have uploaded to our servers as "unofficial" packages.

      If you are dissatisfied with the Red Hat packages (or lack thereof), please let them know that. As a profit-making company, they will respond to adequate customer demand."

  84. Re:Make the switch by Wdomburg · · Score: 4, Informative

    >Go with Mandrake. It's not just for newbies
    >anymore. They go to the edge...
    >
    >Postfix over sendmail

    Postfix was added to Red Hat in 7.3.

    >Postgres over MySQL

    Postgres has been in since 5.0, about five years ago. (On a side note, MySQL didn't make it in until 7.0).

    >i586 over i386

    Red Hat compiles -mcpu=i586 -march=i386, which means optimization for i586, but without using instructions that are incompatible with i386. The performance increase for doing -march=i586 is negligable except in a few corner cases.

    However, the kernel and glibc are shipped with optimizations for multiple architectures, so as to provide most of the benefits without locking out non-pentium architectures.

    Matt

  85. What all the fuss is about by Snafoo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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
    1. Re:What all the fuss is about by wray · · Score: 1

      You accounted for everyone but RedHat! What about RedHat's right to offer their distinctive look and feel?

      --
      Guess what? I got a fever! And the only prescription.. is more cowbell!
    2. Re:What all the fuss is about by minkwe · · Score: 1

      Its a little more than that. There's a lot of envy involved. Back with the introduction of Mandrake 8.0, mandrake changed the default gnome theme to make it look like the default KDE theme. Nobody coughed because KDE is default on Mandrake.

      My translation of this is thus:

      1. Some KDE militants convinced themselves for a long time that GNOME was doomed to fail.
      2. However they still envy the fact that Major Players Like RedHat, Sun, HP etc etc decide to go with GNOME for their systems.
      3. They hear rumours about GNOME making strides in advancement but only when RedHat releases Null with a fully integrated GNOME2 setup, including lots of cool configuration tools all based on GNOME2 do they see the bright future for GNOME.
      4. In an unconcious attempt to fight back they bring up a conspiracy theory that RedHat has crippled KDE by changing the default look.
      5. When that is rebutted, they then say RedHat has replaced their favorite application.
      6. Then it is pointed out that their applications are still available, so they cry out "but the About KDE dialog is missing => GPL violated". Unfortunately for them, all credits for the authors are still available.
      7. Then they cry out "but the service names have been changed => most apps will break, lots of bugs" yet non of them could explain exactly which services have been changed and how it breaks things.

      I wonder what excuse they would come up with now to complain about RedHat. If GNOME did not exist, there would be no problem so the real issue is with GNOME (obviously). So why not fight the battle with GNOME where its supposed to be fought, by merits. Only time will tell.

      --
      "Fighting terrorists with millitary might is like killing a mosquitor on your Dad's forehead with a rifle."
  86. What he doesn't seem to get ... by Presence1 · · Score: 1

    ...and many here do, is that this is ENGINEERING A PRODUCT, and that this is NOT ART!

    Developers need to get their ego OUT of the development process and decisions. We are building a product that is useful to others, and it is the OTHERS who decide whether it is useful.

    Know your audience, listen to them closely, and build what THEY WANT.

    Our job is to make the most reliable, efficient and robust implementation of what they want, not to tell them what they want.

    In fact, there are very few situations in which developers have a real chance of actually knowing what the users want, generally limited to building developer tools, and situations where the developer is also a domain expert in the project area.

    This kind of "I'm writing it and I know best about everything" nonsense is the main thing holding back Linux and the open source movement.

    In contrast, the main thing moving Linux forward is serious projects focused building to customer-centric (vs egocentric) specs.

    [flame off]

  87. Bero's email to the KDE list by Vicegrip · · Score: 1, Redundant

    I should probably have included it in my submission to Slashdot. My humble apologies to the maintainers of that website for any inconvenience caused by the traffic. I just linked to the site the way CNet did :-(

    List: kde-devel
    Subject: New address
    From: Bernhard Rosenkraenzer
    Date: 2002-09-25 7:36:31
    [Download message RAW]

    Hi,
    Effective immediately, I've left Red Hat (mostly in mutual agreement - I
    don't want to work on crippling KDE, and they don't want an employee who
    admits RH 8.0's KDE is crippleware).

    If anyone needs/wants to contact me, please use the addresses
    bero@berolinux.org or bero@kde.org.

    For any RH specific KDE issues, please contact Than Ngo .

    LLaP
    bero

    --
    Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
  88. I think this is a good thing! by sielwolf · · Score: 2

    KDE in Redhat 8.0 is going to be crippleware.

    I think this is great! Finally, an IT firm is considering the "differently-abled" when it comes to software UI! Although I do take some offense at the use of cripple...

    Wait. We're talking about the same thing right?

    --
    What is music when you despise all sound?
  89. Everything old is new again by X-Nc · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Remember when Raster left RH over disagreements about Enlightenment? Now Bero is leaving over disagreements about KDE. Personally I am surprised that he stuck around there this long. I can understand where the KDE people are coming from but to be honest, this move by RH is one that has been long overdue by all the distro vendors. There should be a desktop option that is usable for non-techies. GNOME and KDE are still there for those who want to use them. This is Software Libre, after all.

    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.
  90. There are two sides to this situation by barole · · Score: 2, Insightful
    As a KDE user, I am not that bothered by what red hat is doing. I think that most KDE users use some KDE apps, some gnome apps, some apps that are neither. It is my right to choose which software I run. So, for example, when I started using KDE, I used konquerer because that was the browser for KDE. Eventually, I decided that I liked mozilla better and switched to that.

    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.

    1. Re:There are two sides to this situation by barole · · Score: 1
      I think that many times when people create things - whether paintings, novels, or software - one of the motivating factors is to get recognition from others. That does not taint the works that are created - it is just one of the reasons that people create things. Would it be better if they were creating them for money?

      Using the konquerer example, I am not saying that they should have preferential treatment. However, if you work on konquerer knowing that it is the official browser of KDE and then find that one of the major distributions will include a "KDE" that has mozilla as its primary browser, then you will feel that your work is being treated unfairly.

      How can you call the resulting desktop KDE when some of the major components have been replaced?

      Perhaps the best solution is for Red Hat to supply 3 desktops: standard KDE, standard gnome, and a mish-mash "Red-Hat" desktop.

  91. Apologist exposed!!! by Moritz+Moeller+-+Her · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    > GNOME was created by the GNU folks as an
    > alternative to KDE at a time when KDE was
    > dependent on a piece of non-free software,
    > specifically the Qt libraries.

    So instead of replacing the qt library by free software (harmony project) and uniting all forces behind KDE (and harmony) some big ego jerks started spreading lies about KDE and Trolltech and started gnome, which still lags behind KDE by month even though it got a lot more money.

    In fact Miguel de ICaza was disappointed that his ideas did not impress anyone at KDE, so he left and started GNome, which he left to get some scraps of the .net craze after Ximian's "distribution" did not convince anyone to give him money for it.

    Richard Stallman discovered that he had not realized the need for a free unified desktop. He felt insulted that someone else (Matthias Ettrich) had that idea and did not call it GNU XYZ something. In fact they did not even ask him for permission. Disrespectful like that Finnish guy... So he supported GNOME for political and personal reasons.

    Trolltech got so annoyed that they made a big gift to the world by donating qt to free software. After that nothing would stop KDE.
    But no, some people still think GNOME is more politically correct and should therefore be used.

    --
    Moritz
    1. Re:Apologist exposed!!! by Brackney · · Score: 1
      In fact Miguel de ICaza was disappointed that his ideas did not impress anyone at KDE, so he left and started GNome, which he left to get some scraps of the .net craze after Ximian's "distribution" did not convince anyone to give him money for it.

      I guess I'm a moron then, because I've paid Ximian on a couple occasions for their desktop distro, and I've encouraged my friends who use it to do the same. I appreciate the value they add to my desktop in terms of look and feel through artwork and metathemes, but also through very tangible contributions to the community such as ease of maintenance via Red Carpet and applications like Evolution. I believe it's worth paying for - despite what Steve Ballmer claims about us misguided Linux zealots... ;)
  92. KDE annoyances by David+Jao · · Score: 1
    They certainly can't do any worse on the desktop than they are currently doing.

    If you tell me how to change the following aspects of KDE behavior to the way I have them right now in GNOME, I'll switch to KDE right away:

    1. The GNOME pager that I use right now renders a miniature version of each virtual desktop that I have, with miniature windows, in color. I have never been able to get KDE to do the same thing.
    2. In GNOME, panel buttons extend all the way to the edge of the screen. That means, specifically, if my mouse pointer is positioned on the edgemost possible pixel of the panel, I can still click the mouse and execute the panel button. I would like KDE to duplicate this behavior, because edge pixels are very valuable by virtue of being easy to hit.
    Please do not tell me to rtfm. I have been told to rtfm about a dozen times and invariably when I press the matter the other person admits that they don't know either. I do not think it is even possible to get KDE to do what I describe. If I am wrong, I would really appreciate being told how.

    For my usage habits, these two differences alone make GNOME vastly more usable than KDE and I could not even consider KDE for daily work unless KDE were to address or surpass GNOME on these points.

    1. Re:KDE annoyances by bani · · Score: 2

      "and I could not even consider KDE for daily work unless KDE were to address or surpass GNOME on these points."

      come on, be honest here. you wouldn't consider KDE even if it did.

    2. Re:KDE annoyances by rseuhs · · Score: 2
      If you tell me how to change the following aspects of KDE behavior to the way I have them right now in GNOME, I'll switch to KDE right away:

      The GNOME pager that I use right now renders a miniature version of each virtual desktop that I have, with miniature windows, in color. I have never been able to get KDE to do the same thing.

      Just start "kpager". Does exactly what you want.

      In GNOME, panel buttons extend all the way to the edge of the screen. That means, specifically, if my mouse pointer is positioned on the edgemost possible pixel of the panel, I can still click the mouse and execute the panel button. I would like KDE to duplicate this behavior, because edge pixels are very valuable by virtue of being easy to hit.

      You haven't used KDE for quite some time, right? KDE does exactly that for a very long time (from v2.1 on AFAIR, but maybe even from v2.0 on)

      I have been told to rtfm about a dozen times and invariably when I press the matter the other person admits that they don't know either. I do not think it is even possible to get KDE to do what I describe. If I am wrong, I would really appreciate being told how.

      That must be a really, really long time ago because both features are in KDE's default installation.

    3. Re:KDE annoyances by David+Jao · · Score: 1
      come on, be honest here. you wouldn't consider KDE even if it did.

      Technically, if you'll excuse my mathematics background for the moment, that statement is true, albeit vacuously: Since KDE does not have these features, any statement of the form "if KDE did, then ..." is in fact true.

      But, seriously, can you not read? The first thing I said was that I would switch immediately if KDE could do the things I listed.

    4. Re:KDE annoyances by David+Jao · · Score: 1
      Just start "kpager". Does exactly what you want.

      Does kpager integrate into the KDE panel? From what I can tell so far, it does not.

      You haven't used KDE for quite some time, right? KDE does exactly that for a very long time (from v2.1 on AFAIR, but maybe even from v2.0 on)

      Thanks for the tip, I just tried 3.0 and it does have the buttons done right.

    5. Re:KDE annoyances by uchian · · Score: 1

      1. Whilst I don't think you can dock it into the panel, the KDE pager has a "Desktop Preview" option which does what you say (you click on the up arrow just to the side of the pager and a full-color-with-icon-representations appears on the screen).

      There is also the "kasbar" panel extension, which is a different style of pager in it's own panel. I don't like it very much, but it might be just what you are looking for. Add one to your desktop by right-clicking on the panel, then add->extension->kasbar.

      2. KDE does this, since at least 2.0 Erm, didn't you notice?

      If your talking about the "hide" butons on panel, they can be turned on and off by right clicking the panel and selecting preferences (they are in the "hiding" tab. I don't believe they are on by default anymore anyway though.

    6. Re:KDE annoyances by rseuhs · · Score: 2

      kpager does not integrate in the panel but you can put the kpager window on top of the panel or you can make the panel smaller and put kpager beside it..

  93. Re:bad news for Linux? by yusexz · · Score: 1

    Perhaps Slashdot should be keeping quiet about this, rather than broadcasting it.

    It's a little scary hearing someone saying this, and specially so nonchanlantly (no offense to poster specifically, intentions seem good).
    But this comment is basically suggesting the censorship of information. isnt that what open source software and freedom of speech are so against?

    simply because this news may perhaps not be great for m$-alternative software [we dont even know what kind of impact this release will have], doesnt mean it should be held from the masses [and slashdot readers arent exactly the masses anyway].

    personally, i started out with more user friendly distros such as mandrake and red hat. we use red hat at work because it offers the strengths of gnu/linux [dont wanna piss anyone off ;)], but its easy to maintain despite transitioning between the different admins that we have coming and going. and i still keep a copy of it installed on my laptop. again because its easy to use, and it gets the job done.
    i'm interested to see what all this talk of convergence actually amounts to. anything that offers an alternative to m$ is at least worth checking out, in my book.

  94. Linux-Easy.com Is Gone! by VJoseph · · Score: 1

    Damn. Bero's linux-easy.com is gone. This is where he kept KDE builds for Red Hat users. It's now a...umm...I have no idea what this site is supposed to be. This is a bad thing for sure.

    All that's left is this cached page from Google.
    http://216.239.51.100/search?hl=en&lr=&ie =UTF-8&oe =UTF-8&q=cache%3Awww.linux-easy.com%2Fdaily%2F

  95. Who to contact at Red Hat? by swsnyder · · Score: 1
    I've purchased (as in paid for) nearly every version of Red Hat Linux since v5.2. I've been happy to part with my money, considering it the price of continuing post-installation fixes and updates.

    That said, I don't think I can continue using RHL as my desktop distro. I like the KDE interface. I don't want to use a kinda-sorta merging of 2 different graphical environments. Besides voting with my dollars, I want to let Red Hat know the reason I won't be coughing up the bucks for RHL v8.0+. Who do I contact to let them know that this customer thinks they're making a big mistake?

  96. Don't Make Software Your Religion by jeramybsmith · · Score: 2
    So what if rh8 KDE really is crippleware? What is the big deal? I am sad that Bero would take such a thing so personally and to such an extreme. He can easily maintain his own personal virginal KDE rpms.

    Sadly, I think more and more people are becoming polarized in their software views where things must be "their way" or "no way".

    --
    Never overestimate the end user. -jeramy b. smith
  97. This is offtopic, but I have to point this out... by symbolic · · Score: 2

    It would be foolhardy for Red Hat to try to compete for all Microsoft users today, Troan said. "This isn't for the secretary," he said, only for people doing basic tasks such as entering data in a Web site.

    No shortage of arrogance here...

  98. What is so hard to understand? by TheAwfulTruth · · Score: 2

    Single click open is not a good idea because it removes or makes much harder the ability to SELECT the item WITHOUT launching it. Something possibly done much more often than launching.

    One click -> Select
    Double-click -> Select and Launch

    It's a good system. Single-click launch systems are more dangerous and more error prone. You should only Launch when your REALLY mean it. There's nothing worse than launching a hundred kwords. Or even one when all you REALLY wanted was to select a file for a cut and paste operation.

    --
    Contrary to popular belief, coding is not all free blow-jobs and beer. Those things cost MONEY!
    1. Re:What is so hard to understand? by tempest303 · · Score: 2

      Which is *precisely* why I hate it. As I said before, double-click sucks too, but it sucks less. I wish people would understand this, or at least make a convincing counter-argument to these issues.

      --
      The Free desktop that Just Works
  99. Yawn by shoppa · · Score: 2
    Yawn

    I don't use KDE or Gnome. I think a serial console is pretty nifty. And these glass TTY's sure are a lot faster than a Model 33ASR, but sometimes I miss the paper punch.

  100. Red Hat is trying to become more profitable by Psx29 · · Score: 1

    Don't you think it helps to have one desktop look that people can associate with? The mindless computer using drones of society need something without choices, so long as it's not chosen by microsoft or other closed source thugs. So isn't Red Hat doing the right thing?

  101. Hmmm... by Azureash · · Score: 1

    It's sad to see the open source community bickering like this about two good applications that could be even better. (Sigh...) so much energy wasted that could be spent coding...

    Bill G doesn't need to beat Linux; we're doing it ourselves.

    --
    Look at my karma - I'm bad, just like Michael Jackson!
  102. Not quite. by rodgerd · · Score: 5, Funny

    The only way a lot of the KDE guys would be happy is if RH excised GNOME, ditched every gtk+ app, fired everyone who worked on GNOME, and ran a Stalinesque show trial where everyone publicly humiliated themselves for having ever dared to do anything other than pour money into KDE.

  103. Just like to say.. by fault0 · · Score: 2

    that I agree with you 100%.

  104. RedHat is not a Showcase by MrJones · · Score: 1

    RedHat is not a showcase of desktops, it has to
    provide simple and common look desktop for
    corporate users.
    If Bero quits for this, then I think he make a bad
    decision. Come on, quiting at RedHat only for this?
    Working for RedHat is a dream job!
    If you want a fullblown KDE desktop, just download
    the damn .rpm from www.kde.org
    If you want Linux to be in the Corporate world,
    install RedHat 8.0

    I'm with RedHat this time, because it is working
    on standards, and standards *are* good!

    --
    Get my e-mail after a captcha test in: http://tinymailt
  105. Re:quit whineing by Spy+Hunter · · Score: 2
    Sure Red Hat is allowed to not include redundant apps. Why are they including KDE at all? It is redundant if it is not different from GNOME in at least its default apps. They should remove it entirely, or let it be different. They shouldn't include it while making it use all the same apps as gnome, and still claim that it is KDE. That's what is redundant.

    As for KMail and Konqueror being not as good, that's a matter of opinion, it depends on what you use them for, and you know it.

    --
    main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
  106. What of the next Ximian release? by Brackney · · Score: 1

    I'm intensely curious what all this Bluecurve noise means for the next Ximian release. I love my Ximian desktop, and I've never done a Red Hat upgrade until Ximian's ready for it. I'm certainly willing to give Bluecurve a try, but I suspect I'll end up right back with my current Ximian settings.

  107. Re:People, click the links! Nothing about cripplew by GigsVT · · Score: 1

    and they don't want an employee who
    admits RH 8.0's KDE is crippleware

    Uhhhh...that is something about crippleware. Still immature on his part I think,

    --
    I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
  108. berorh? by joepa · · Score: 1

    Not extremely important, but I believe his name on Slashdot is bero.

  109. Using GCC3 does not equate to sabotage. by Nailer · · Score: 4, Interesting

    RH has also:
    - Broke plugin handling

    The gruesome details are all in bugzilla.

    If I'm uninformed, then you sir, are a liar. Read the actual bug report sometime. Red Hat have done nothign of the sort - they've just compiled KDE with the current GCC - Macromedia has yet to release a GCC 3 based Flash (tho it would seem Flash 6 corrects the problem). You're trying to make out that Red Hat have deliberately sabotages KDE plugins. When Suse, Mandrake, and every other distro also compile KDE with GCC3, will you accuse them of the same?

  110. Where should people send their resumes to? by Zapdos · · Score: 2
    Mod me down, Go ahead, I just think that this is stupid.

    He quit his job over the treatment of KDE software? My brother has been out of work since April, as a matter of fact quite a few people are out of work right now. We are currently not hiring, I know of nobody hiring.

    We need a new topic for careless and stupid advocacy.

    --
    Get a free ipod.
    1. Re:Where should people send their resumes to? by /dev/trash · · Score: 1

      if I had mod points I'd use em all for you. This is so true. I've been out of work almost a year. Unless you have 15 years experience and a PhD, you can forget about finding a job, well unless you count a mcJob something you wanna do.

  111. Plagiarism is taboo for a reason by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful
    What is significant is that RedHat has systematically removed the KDE logos and trademarks from KDE.


    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.

    1. Re:Plagiarism is taboo for a reason by titaniafq · · Score: 1

      They changed the Gnome logo to a "Red Hat" as well...so what...change it back. Its Open Source.

      I don't like the KDE logo...so my KDE box has a different logo...my choice!

      --
      -- Do not bite the bait of pleasure till you know there is no hook beneath it.
  112. Re:I don't by Chas · · Score: 1

    The thing you're forgetting is that this is NOT aimed at you.

    You CAN edit it back. But you won't. Because it's "too hard". And you're "sure" that some stuff would remain broken.

    In other words, we have smoke being blown from a nether oriface.

    This isn't about Gnome or KDE. This is about providing a unified end-user experience to those who are using the OS for the first time.

    Experienced users are still more than free to hack it to whatever they wish.

    --


    Chas - The one, the only.
    THANK GOD!!!
  113. But it's GPL'd! by TardisX · · Score: 1
    Redhat do exactly what the GPL advocates say is so great about the GPL (make changes, release the changes) and people are up in arms.

    If you don't like it, vote with your feet. But Redhat are making things better, not worse.

    --

    Command attempted to use minibuffer while in minibuffer
  114. kpager by David+Jao · · Score: 1
    kpager is also a little bit buggy, at least in kde 3.0.0. It only took about five minutes of use to uncover this little artifact (where the xterm in the screenshot is missing in kpager).

    To be fair, I really should be using the newest version of KDE. I just started with 3.0.0 because that's what came with my distro (redhat 7.3, speaking of which).

  115. Changing Default Apps != Crippleware! by grendelkhan · · Score: 2

    This still doesn't answer the question. Saying Crippleware implies a lack of functionality, none of your points demonstrate that. Now, I'm not saying that Bero is blowing this all out of proportion, I'd just like to know specifically what his reasoning for using that phrase was.

    --
    Wu-Tang Name: Half-Cut Skeleton Get your own Wu-Na
  116. Raster and Bero by ChuckyTip · · Score: 1

    Hey maybe Bero can team up with the other ex-Redhat primadonna (Rasterman) and develop their own distribution. Oh no, that won't work because linux on the desktop is dead

  117. I hope RedHat improves KDE, Moz, OO integration... by Chuck+Messenger · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I use KDE with Moz and OO -- believing each to be the best-of-breed. I don't find the lack of integration too problematical. But it would be great if RedHat spends some resources on improving the integration between these three -- perhaps that will be a beneficial outcome.

  118. can I have bero's job? by _|()|\| · · Score: 2
    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.

    Bernhard quits a job developing free software (in a recession, mind you) over a disagreement with the product manager and you're glad that he's not a wage slave? Trust fund baby is more like it. Maybe he thinks he can write his own ticket, but most of us are just putting gas in the president's Porsche.

  119. bah... by destiney · · Score: 1


    I use windowmaker..

  120. Thought-provoking remark from Redhat's Troan. by QuantumWeasel · · Score: 1
    This C|Net artcile includes a fascinating remark:
    Bluecurve (the trademarked term is left over from an earlier Red Hat acquisition) will help Red Hat keep control over the effort to unify the two interfaces, Troan said. Although Bluecurve is open-source software, letting programmers change it if they wish, people won't be able to call modified projects Bluecurve because of the trademark, he said.
    Certainly, distros have a right and an obligation to protect their trademarks, e.g.Redhat, Mandrake, etc. But is there a precedent for protecting a "look-and-feel" trademark in the Open Source(TM) community? Is this an essential part of joining the mainstream? And how do people feel about it? To wit, if I modify Bluecurve(TM) (which I understand to be GPL'ed), can I distribute my changes without infringing on the Bluecurve(TM) trademark? For instance, could Redhat(TM) release a Linux(TM) distribution without calling it Linux?????
    1. Re:Thought-provoking remark from Redhat's Troan. by Queuetue · · Score: 1

      Read it again. You're free to release as many versions as you want, and make any changes you wish, as long as you follow the GPL.

      You just can't name your new creation Bluecurve (tm), because that's a marketing tool for RedHat.

      You also can't create a new BSD-based operating system and name it Linux, without Mr. Torvald's permission. He owns the name "Linux (tm)".

  121. Once Again by cranos · · Score: 1

    Okay I know this has been said before and will be said again, but people its Open Source Software, the source is out there for anyone to use and modify how they wish. If you don't want others playing with your code go closed source other wise shut the hell up.

    The only thing KDE has any right to complain about is the removal of the about KDE fields, and even that can be worked out without the major bitching thats been going on lately.

  122. ls enhancements by Teach · · Score: 1

    No one seems to get up in arms when Redhat enhances "ls" to make it more friendly for their users...

    Actually I was pretty ticked when I installed whatever version of RedHat they changed that in (7.2?) and 'ls -a' didn't sort by ASCII value.

    I don't want my files to be in alphabetical-only order. I want dotfiles first, then UPPERCASE, then lowercase. At the time I poked around in the docs for quite some time and finally figured out some switch that seemed to make it work "properly", but when I upgraded to 7.3 it broke again and I haven't been up to hunting again.

    Though to be fair, I do like the color-coded directory contents, so if that was RedHat's idea way back, then I guess we're even.

    --
    Graham "Teach" Mitchell, computer science teacher, Leander HS
  123. Why Not says I. by SomeOtherGuy · · Score: 2

    Is tinkering like this not the only reason while it is understandable that so many distros exist -- and why open source kicks ass over closed source? I mean -- what you do to seperate yourself from the next guy is a noble move in such a crowded arena.

    --
    (+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
  124. This is exactly what I guessed would happen by forgoil · · Score: 2

    So Red Hat is "Free Software", but do they care about the spirit of the whole thing? Or do they even care about the customers?

    They will make sure that as many Linux users as possible has to use Red Hat. Examples of this is servers from big vendors with special hardware that is only supported if you run Red Hat (even if you can hack it into another distro that means you can kiss help from that vendor good bye, and that won't go over well with the management, for good reasons) and how Red Hat wants control over various key parts of the OS.

    They have a huge investment in gnome, and not just pride. If gnome would fail on account of KDE this would mean that they have not only thrown a huge sum of money in a black hole, they also will look weak for potential buyers (and the corporate servers is what can make real money after all). If you fail big time on something as big as gnome, well, you can figure it out yourself.

    So Red Hat is willing to do what they can to make sure that as many, if not all, users of Red Hat runs the software they endorse. Some of the software they don't care about and will just throw in with minor effort, so those will remain choices (vi/emacs for example).

  125. I wish... by uriyan · · Score: 1

    I wish RedHat cared more of the people who don't have the memory or don't want to have both Qt and Gtk+ (and their various wrappers) loaded at the same time. Neither of them is particularly small; it is quite apparent to me that having both at the same time is simply not worth it.

  126. Re:quit whineing by Menthos · · Score: 3, Informative
    Why are they including KDE at all?

    Maybe because there are third-party apps that use KDE libraries, just like there are third-party apps that use GNOME libraries. I just wish more people would realize that wanting to have GNOME and/or KDE installed is not always necessarily the same as wanting to have the look-and-feel of GNOME/KDE.

    --

    GNU/Linux. The Freshmaker.

  127. why he REALLY left by EvilStein · · Score: 2

    They took away the free sodas, espresso machines, and the foosball table.

    Come on, that's one of the few reasons people leave places anymore, isn't it? :P

  128. Looks like most people knows a lot more than I do by pointwood · · Score: 2

    It amazes me how much people seem know about the reasons he has chosen to quit his job at Redhat. The post on the mailinglist gives a little hint for *part* of the reason, but I don't believe that is the whole reason. Furthermore, he didn't explain what he meant with "crippleware" and we certainly don't know the internal discussions at Redhat.

  129. Re:From a KDE developer... by mccalli · · Score: 2
    KDE gets the bug reports for KDE. Is RedHat now going to take all the bug reports and fix the bugs, contributing back the KDE source? I didn't see very much happening in the past. I don't see more happening in the future. So now KDE gets bug reports for broken KDE patches written at RedHat by GNOME programmers. If I see those reports, they will be closed immediately with a message: "Try another distro." Perhaps a nastygram to RedHat would be appropriate in each case too.

    Childish.

    If you get those reports, and if they really are to do with Red Hat code, then just close with an informative message pointing at Red Hat's support page. 'Nastygrams' are just purile.

    Cheers,
    Ian

  130. Microsoft should not be allowed to but KDE should? by maxm · · Score: 1

    When Microsoft prevents somebody from loading another browser icon onto the desktop it is shady business and a matter for the court system.

    If somebody from KDE project wants to prevent Redhat for loading other icons on to the desktop it is high moral standards.

    If this isn't double standards I don't know what is!

    --
    Max M - IT's Mad Science
  131. Jesus! by Moritz+Moeller+-+Her · · Score: 2

    GTK did not even exist when KDE started. GNOME's design goals were just to be different from KDE. So they implemented object oriented programming in C. Also they took the motif replacement gtk from gimp and tried to work with it.

    A better way would have been to put resources into harmony and create C bindings for thos unwilling to learn OOP in C++.

    Until today nobody serious thinks gtk is better than qt.

    --
    Moritz
  132. Type rlan:/ or lan:/ anywhere in KDE by Moritz+Moeller+-+Her · · Score: 2

    or use komba. Any decent distribution will preconfigure them. I am not talking about Redhat.

    --
    Moritz
    1. Re:Type rlan:/ or lan:/ anywhere in KDE by dan+the+person · · Score: 2

      I am using mandrake 9.0

      When i type rlan:/ i get a dialog that says:

      "Could not read /tmp/resLisa-dcarter"

      When i type lan:/ it changes to lan://localhost and displays a blank page.

  133. Re:KDE, open source...not really by 10Ghz · · Score: 2

    RH is free to change KDE. But KDE and KDE-users are also free to disagree with those changes. Freedom is a two-way street.

    --
    Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
  134. Re:quit whineing by Spy+Hunter · · Score: 1

    Look, I just got done saying how I was all for the unified look and feel, and how I wasn't advocating removing the KDE libraries from Red Hat, and now you're acting like I said just the reverse! Will you try to understand my position at least a little before you start criticizing it? Please read my first post and see if that doesn't clear things up.

    --
    main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
  135. You expect bugs in a Beta by RatFink100 · · Score: 2

    You're talking about bugs. That's the whole point of releasing beta versions - to find and correct bugs.

    It's unfair to criticize a beta release for having bugs. Do you really believe that releasing buggy code is a goal for RH in the same way that those other useability changes are?

  136. Insightful? by Sue+Blake · · Score: 1

    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.

    Actually, the boss in question probably has a drawer full of ASP/VB/Delphi programmers' resumes. Perhaps 1 in 100 of the resumes would actually be worth looking at. It might be harder than you think to find good programmers/techies (and believe me, a degree doesn't make a good programmer. Experience, and lots of experience, makes a good programmer).

    --
    Sue Blake, FreeBSD developer and advocate
  137. Uberware is more like it. by supabeast! · · Score: 2

    What Red Hat is doing is a great example of open source in action. Rather than release yet another Linux distribution that screws users by trying to make KDE and Gnome both work as intended by the two UI teams, Red Hat has taken what they fell is the best of both worlds and made it into something user-friendly. Hopefully Red Hat will also have the sense to strip apps of silly, nondescriptive names as well, and we can have a major desktop Linux distro that grandma can use.

    For the people who think Red Hat is crippling KDE, or Gnome, or whatever, deal with it the simple way- just download the official releases yourself.

  138. That's his story. by Haeleth · · Score: 1

    I'm not saying it's not true, but I generally like to hear more than one side of things before I jump to conclusions.

  139. Re:quit whineing by HiThere · · Score: 2

    Yes. They are allowed to. And it's quite impolite.

    Yes, it is legal. So what? It's impolite.

    If a company is impolite to the major groups that it deals with, how can individuals expect better treatment?

    It is legal (probably) to walk down the street, and as you pass anyone of a group that you disapprove of, blow a razzberry. But it's impolite. And very few people would defend that as decent behavior.

    Red Hat is being slightly less blatant, but hardly less impolite. And I don't understand why people are defending them. (I currently have a purchased version of Red Hat 7.3 professional installed on my systems, and I like it quite well. I had been planning on purchasing Red Hat 8.0, but now I'm dubious.)

    --

    I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
  140. Re: you obviously don't understand me *at all*! by King_TJ · · Score: 2

    Anti-choice? That's absurd! I hated school uniforms, and I hate only having limited choices on my PC.

    All I'm saying is that KDE and Gnome both try to serve the same demographic. They're attempts to bring a Windows-style GUI to the X environment, while still keeping unique touches that they perceive makes them "better" than the Windows GUI.

    There will *always* be plenty of other choices for X, that serve different purposes. For example, people using the LTSP project and serving X remotely to "thin client" PCs are not generally fond of KDE or Gnome because they're way too graphics-intensive and difficult to "lock down" so users can't muck up the environment.

    That's why these people will still use FVWM or TWM or "BlackBox" or "ICEWm" or who knows what else. It's not like consolidating KDE and Gnome will bring about the "end of choice" for Linux and X!

    From the beginning, people accused KDE and Gnome authors of bickering with each other needlessly, just due to "ego". Both people wanted to "come out on top" as the superior interface designer. The users (who are, after all, the ones that ultimately matter) just wanted something that worked well. I don't see why some people find it so "awful" of a concept, to take the best features of both and roll them together into one?

    I'd certainly prefer that to taking up disk space keeping both installed, so I can go back and forth between them. I'd prefer that to the half-assed looking applicatioon menus, with sub-folders saying "KDE Applications" in Gnome, and "Gnome/GTK Apps" in KDE.

  141. Check your facts next time. by HopeOS · · Score: 2
    From the KDE website:
    A bit of KDE History
    * KDE was founded in October 1996
    From the front page of www.gtk.org we have:
    GTK+ was initially developed for and used by the GIMP, the GNU Image Manipulation Program. Therefore, it is named "The GIMP Toolkit", so that the origins of the project are remembered. Today GTK+ is used by a large number of applications, and is the toolkit used by the GNU project's GNOME desktop.
    From the gimp source code (libgimpbase.h) we have:
    /* LIBGIMP - The GIMP Library
    * Copyright (C) 1995-1997 Peter Mattis and Spencer Kimball */
    So you are wrong. But that's not all. The date which KDE was started is immaterial. The date that GNOME was started is the only date relevent to the discussion since that was the point at which the decision not to use Harmony was made. Your speculation on the GNOME programmers unwillingness to learn OOP is unfounded. GTK is based on OOP design principles. It's merely implemented in C per the previously stated design criteria.


    Thanks for playing.

    -Hope
    1. Re:Check your facts next time. by HopeOS · · Score: 2

      On re-reading the parent posts, the issue of GTK and KDE's use of OOP is not wholly pertinent. The real issue is the GNOME designers' decision to base the underlying object layer on C rather than provide C bindings for applications that cannot use C++. This was a design decision, and one that I agree with entirely. Creating C wrappers for C++ objects is one thing. Creating extensible wrappers while preserving object inheritance and polymorphism is a major undertaking. Recognizing this, they naturally looked elsewhere.

      -Hope

  142. Fair's Fair by QuantumWeasel · · Score: 1
    I have read it. What I was trying -- unsucessfully -- to get at is an apparent contradiction. Sure, anyone can modify the GPL'ed Bluecurve(TM) and redistribute it under the terms of the GPL. But can they do so without referring to it as Bluecurve(TM)? Similarly, I can hack a Linux(TM) kernel and redistribute it under the GPL. But can I do so without calling it Linux(TM)? I note that all of the Linux-derived distros I know all include "Linux" somewhere in the name of the offering/product.

    So really, how meaningful is trademark protection of the sort Mr. Troan seemed to intend? Granted, I can't go off and come up with a totally unrelated desktop and call it "Bluecurve." That would infringe on Redhat's "Bluecurve" trademark. But I can modify it (even beyond all recognition) and still offer it as a derived work called "QuantumWeasel Bluecurve," a la "Redhat Linux," Mandrake GNU/Linux," Turbo Linux," et cetera.

    So my heretofore implied points is explicitly this: Who are Redhat to think they can protect the look/feel of Bluecurve without also respecting the KDE and Gnome looks/feels on the same footing? KDE(TM) and Gnome(TM) are claimed as trademarks by their respective foundations.

    If I've missed something, I'd appreciate someone pointing it out.

  143. Bad Omen, Bad bad omen by Rares+Marian · · Score: 1

    A newbie using Pee Cee doesn't even know, and most certainly doesn't want to know that there is something called Linux, under the hood and same goes for Windows. That's the whole point of this modification, and it can't be that hard to understand. Why don't you people use your brains, if you have 'em?

    Newbies are using Pee Cee, with no idea about different operating systems and if they see something is broken, they think PC is broken. NOT Linux and NOT Windows, they can't think anything about those if they don't even know they exist.

    --Must repeat that last line to make the point--

    they can't think anything about those if they don't even know they exist.

    they can't think anything about those if they don't even know they exist.

    they can't think anything about those if they don't even know they exist.

    It isn't even crippled. Nobody can seriously think that changing a damn kernel in SYSTEM is crippling something. Linux is still there, not that anyone would want to use it, it's just not in your default INSTALL.

    --
    The message on the other side of this sig is false.
  144. Re: you obviously don't understand me *at all*! by entrigant · · Score: 1

    FVWM, TWM, Blackbox, ICEWm etc. are on a different playing field than KDE and Gnome. In KDE and Gnome's playing fiel they are all that's there. Consolidate (sp?) them into one and suddenly there's no options for what they do.

    I want to use a desktop environment, not a window manager. Gnome and KDE approach things from different angles as well. Trying to mix them together would be a disaster. KDE prefers a more traditional modular "bunch of small tools that can be put together in any number of ways" approach and gnome seems to prefer an unorganized mix of a bunch of large all-encompasing applications with more of an emphasis on pretty gfx than on good code. Personally I don't want Gnome's development style mixed in with KDE at all.

    Why don't every single X window manager take all their best features and create the ultimate X window manager? I just don't get it.. I mean I use linux 'cause I like the crapload of choice.. I got my choice of what.. 3 or 4 X servers, at least 3 compilers, at least 3 desktop environments, an ungodly amount of window managers, a gazillion different tools for the command line... I can just keep going and going. Do I want to store my user info in /etc/passwd, /etc/shadow, a mysql or postgresql database? I can do any of those.. I don't like sysvinit... I think I'll use another .. hell lets redo the boot scripts too and create a whole new boot system.. choice choice choice... and off in the background, like I said, all I can hear from people like you is "conform... conform... conform.." It's like a big ass thorn in my side.

    Also I'm not sure how the developers for KDE or Gnome feel but if it was my project the users can bitch and complain about my ego until they turn blue in the face.. it's my project that I'd most likely be making for my enjoyment. If they wanna use it that's fine but I won't be taking orders. It's probably not like that tho... somnehow these authors of large non-profit free time consuming projects somehow get the mindset that they must please the cheap users who feel they should get everything and give nothing.

  145. Think first, young student! by Moritz+Moeller+-+Her · · Score: 2

    Gimp may be older than KDE, but the gimp toolkit is younger. The first versions of gimp were motif based. GTK is a motif replacement library.
    The first stable relase was in 1998, two years after KDE was founded.

    From the Changelog of gtk-1.00:
    Mon Apr 13 19:16:22 PDT 1998 Shawn T. Amundson

    * Released GTK+ 1.0.0

    See here http://www.gimp.org/~sjburges/gimp-history.html

    "The GIMP had a lot of neat stuff attached to its first public release, version 0.54, (January 1996). It had a plug-in system, so developers could make separate programs to add to GIMP without breaking anything in the main distribution. It had some basic tools to do drawing, and channel operations. It had an undo feature the likes of which was not found in any known image manipulation program. It had loyal users swearing by it. It was protected by the GPL. And it had a cool name.

    But all was not well with the GIMP. It had rather frequent crashes, that could be caused by plug-ins or problems in the main code. It had a dependency on Motif for its GUI toolkit, which made efficient distribution to a lot of users impossible."

    --
    Moritz
  146. Last Post! by alpg · · Score: 1

    Real software engineers don't debug programs, they verify correctness.
    This process doesn't necessarily involve execution of anything on a
    computer, except perhaps a Correctness Verification Aid package.

    - this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...

  147. The issue is Object Model, not Widget Set. by HopeOS · · Score: 2

    The release date of GTK 1.0 is immaterial. The author suggests that the design and framework for GTK was initiated from scratch as a response to KDE. This is simply incorrect. The people tasked with developing GNOME looked for a basis to begin their work. As the core design of the GIMP graphic library met their needs, they used it.

    To suggest that GTK was a ground-up rewrite discounts all the original work done in the Gimp library. Even glib, the foundation for GTK shows a copyright of 1995-1997. Certaintly, they don't contend that glib was written in response to KDE as well.

    Lastly, GTK is not a motif replacement library. Less-tif is a motif replacement library. GTK is an event-based object model that evolved out of the GIMP GUI library. And it is this object model that became the basis of Gnome; hence, the discussion.

    -Hope