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GNOME 2 to Replace CDE As Solaris Default DE
Gentu writes "OSNews had a quick chat with John Fowler, Sun Software's CTO about Solaris 10, Java, the web services competition and more. In the interview, Fowler reveals the timing in which Gnome2 will become the default desktop environment: Solaris 10, which is expected to have its first beta later in 2003. This is a huge step for Gnome2 in the UNIX world, as it will be replacing CDE for good as the default desktop environment (betas of Gnome 2 for Solaris 8/9 already exist) and becoming a standard part of the large operating environment with millions of installations worldwide. Additionally, Sun is now pushing developers on coding on either GTK+ 2.x or Java (they have in fact revealed plans on creating GTK+ bindings for Java which will make all future Solaris apps look like alike)."
Sun has been babbling about the switch to Gnome from CDE for almost two years now. I use both KDE and Gnome, and both are far more a "desktop" than CDE ever was.
It also confirms my decision to use GTK for GUI development under Linux (I love QT's APIs and structure under KDE, but GTK lets me port to Win32 clients without cost.)
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
with CDE theme? :)
*duck*
Granted, this was the first time I read osnews, but didn't the article seem weird to anyone? They hinted at an interview, but instead of quoting the person, they paraphrased the whole interview... Who knows what the Sun guy actually said, and what got interpreted by the interviewer/writer?
Je ne parle pas francais.
Not a troll, but does anyone else feel that strategically, TrollTech should have made QT LGPL?
KDE is much more tightly done than GNOME and the overall effect is defnly smoother, kinda like Windows done right!
But if Companies prefer GNOME, then in the long run TrollTech will see reduced demand for its product... or am i wrong?
Of course, there is the counterargument that LGPL would ensure that TrollTech would never get any money out of QT, but i suspect that it would have fetchdd more in the long run, like it is doing for Ximian.... consulting you know!
A crank is a little thing that makes revolutions
The initial write up seemed to suggest that this will be a first for interfacing Java and the GNOME-related libs. This is not so. (In fact, with gcj you're able to write native-binary GNOME apps using Java and the above projects... Admittedly, you're giving up portability but Java is nice, or at least interesting, for many other reasons.) There may be other similar projects out there, that's just what I turned up with a few minutes' search on freshmeat and sourceforge.
Bravo to Sun, though, for making the decision to commit to GNOME. CDE is an ugly pain in the ass, IMHO. Even OpenWindows had some degree of retro charm about it, CDE just looked like what happens if you let Soviet housing block architects design a GUI. Feh!
News for Geeks in Austin, TX
If I remember correctly, the engineers at Sun liked gtk because it used C, which they were used to. Also they felt their customers were more used C too, since Motif is C.
Je ne parle pas francais.
I have a copy here of Solaris, Intel Platform Edition. You dont need Sun hardware to run Solaris. AFAIK Solaris is also free (as in beer) for boxen with 4 or less CPUs.
those who control the past, control the future. those who control the present, control the past.
I think you fail to realize the gravity of what is going on here. GNOME is being shipped as the default desktop for the biggest player in the commercial UNIX market.
And Sun is definitely mainstream. Maybe not if you're talking about the home PC market (Joe Dumbass Windows XP user with his shiny new Dell). However, if you're involved in any sort of scientific work or other serious applications such as oil exploration then chances are good that you're using a Sun workstation.
What's important to note here is that a major open source project has become a key component of an OS that holds a large share of the high-end market - a market that open source and MS OS's currently lack the technical merit to enter. In other words, open source software now has credibility for high-end, serious work. An important step.
The rumors that tons of freeware software and even Gnome might be integrated into Solaris started floating around even before Solaris 8 release. After Solaris 8 release, Sun has made several official statements promissing to include the Gnome desktop in Solaris 9. Solaris 9 has been released in May and it still does not include the Gnome desktop. The last rumor I have heard, was that Solaris 9 12/02 (which was supposed to be released this month) will include it. However, I haven't heard a confmation of that rumor in a long time and now this. They're asking us to wait until Solaris 10 release, damn you Sun.
And no, an unsupported add-on beta package is not good enough. I want it to be integrated with Solaris and supported by Sun, just like any other Solaris package (this includes fixing bugs and providing patches as part of Solaris patch clusters).
I think a brand spanking new SunBlade can be had for like 999 dollars. I mean, not Walmart-Lindows-cheap, but I wouldn't call that expensive.
Especially considering that I think you can attach a "PC on a PCI card" and run a full blown x86 OS side-by-side (for what I don't know, maybe apps dev?).
on the other hand, I don't know what to make of this constant change of GUIs. many people loathed it when Sun went with CDE from OpenWin, so they had to support both, and now switching to GNOME when finally CDE is getting reasonabbly stable and whatever (and I am actually pretty sure there are a handful of CDE zealots out there that's very vocal) so they will probabbly need to support all three from now on.
I mean... while good news and all, just another facet of the sun indecision "Sol9 for x86, not for x86, cost $$, maybe not, go with one GUI, but wait lets change it over later." AFAIK Java has not suffered too much amid these indecisions and the specs havn't swayed that much (somebody correct me if I am bs-ing), which is thankful for.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
You can write commercial gnome/gtk applications without paying a penny to anyone. QT license does not allow that (although, it _is_ an open source license)
From the Trolltech FAQ:
For those thinking to develop with the free edition, then just buy a license when they're ready to deploy:
The minimal price for a single platform commercial license is $1240USD. See Trolltech - Pricing Desktop.
The price is very reasonable for the functionality, but I only have so much money to spend on tools, and I'm not willing to plunk down the coin now just in case I need to be able to use my code commercially (i.e. to support a client site.)
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Not to be anal retentive or a Troll or anything, but Apple is actually now the leader distributor of UNIX, with OS X. Of course there's no arguing that in it's markets, Sun is the leader of commercial UNIX, but overall...Steve Jobs slings the most *nix licenses. That's just info.
And what I was getting at is that in the markets that Sun is aiming at, most users (geeks) know of Gnome already and its features/benefits. The only thing this is doing is making it easy to put it on the Sun machines...because it's already there! I doubt it is going to attract that many new Gnome fans. What would be bigger news, as I've already said, is if a PC with Gnome were to be targetted at "Joe Dumbass Windows XP User." Not so likely....but hey we can always dream!
OpenWin was intended to run with DisplayPostscript, and did so very nicely. When the Unix standards wars and POSIX were ongoing, CDE was selected as the standard from various vendors contributions (components of HP's ToolTalk, Motif, etc.)
I've never run into anyone who thought CDE was better than OpenWin, but that's what was selected as the standard, and that's what Sun provided. If they hadn't, they would have been locked out of a lot of important markets.
It's not like there is a "constant change of GUIs" as you indicate. OpenWin was the Sun standard from about 1987 (not sure) until around 1990-1995, when CDE was spec'd. Now they're shifting to Gnome.
Note that all the way through, applications continued to run with the different desktop managers. Or were you under the impression that different versions of apps were running for different desktop managers?
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
If Mono, Gtk#, and Gnome2 keep going the way they are going, Sun may be shipping a .NET-based desktop before Microsoft is :-)
Allthough flamebait, I agree with you. We run Solaris at school for Java programming, Matlab, Maple and some other stuff. CDE is default of course. Most people have no idea how to do anything. They can open a terminal and know how to start (x)emacs and compile a Java program. When they get home they start their Windows machine and would never think of trying say Linux.
I have of course changed to Window Maker which is fast, stable and pretty. For what we do there's no need for Gnome, or even a filemanager. I presume many of Sun's customers have the same needs, but Gnome is still way better than CDE.
Ciryon
The cost of QT is per developer, so in order to have their customer's application developers use QT, they'd have to include a QT license with the distribution of Solaris development tools. Not cheap. Not cheap at all.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
QT costs money for other platforms. GTK is free everywhere.
Qt works properly on other platforms. GTK+ is broken everywhere except X11 (doesn't work, or is very buggy, doesn't look like a native app).
If you are going to recommend an alternative to Qt for cross-platform GUI development, you do yourself a great disservice by suggesting GTK+. Try wxWindows instead - a much better alternative than GTK+, although it does still have issues.
Whenever SUN and GNOME is brought up, there are always someone suggesting they should have used KDE instead. I'm a GNOME-user and I do not want to get into a discussion about quality here, so lets assumed that the (biased) assumption that KDE is better than GNOME is correct.*
The main issue is control. GTK+ and most GNOME-libraries are based on a LGPL-license, while Qt is based on GPL. This is all fine and dandy for free software, and this is certainly not a question of morality. Qt is free software.
For closed source development however things look different. For GTK+/GNOME you can develop closed apps without problems, with Qt/KDE you have to obtain a license from Trolltech. This could be fine for SUN themselves, but:
SUN would not like to be held totally at ransom by Trolltech for all third-party developers. If Trolltech wanted to, they could cease giving out commercial licenses for the SUN Solaris platform at ANY TIME. Do you think any OS-developer would be boneheaded enough to let someone else control the platform? Do you think Microsoft would form the next Windows using Qt?`
The question for SUN is:
"Do we use a platform that is in direct control by another company for third-party development, or do we use a platform that is not?"
This is an easy question to answer wether or not you like KDE or GNOME better.
(*) It might be. I like GNOME better, but this might be my biased opinion. I just wanted to state that this was irrelevant.
I know this isn't the point that the submitter chose to focus on, but I have to point out the anti-IBM spin that the OSNews author let through or inserted:
The omission of AIX on POWER4 is completely bogus. IBM is Sun's only real competition right now, and Big Blue's offerings outperform Solaris on Sparc at a fraction of the cost.
I'm sorry, but who really thinks that it's a bad thing that IBM is paying a large number of developers to contribute GPL'ed code to the Linux kernel? IBM's work has had a lot to do with the high-end progress that we've seen in 2.4 and will see in 2.6. They're not steering the kernel and they're not subverting the process, they're just submitting their patches like anyone else could. They're adding their efforts to the efforts of others in the community, and everyone is benefiting from the results.
Sun, on the other hand, is willing to make the massive contribution of writing some drivers, if no one else will do it form them. Otherwise, they're satisfied to offer Linux, only as a low-end player, and do their darndest to make sure it stays that way.
It's false that IBM is "not evolving AIX" anymore -- their last release was less than 2 months ago. But their actions clearly show that they want to help Linux grow into the role that AIX currently fills (to be clear, that would be running on pSeries machines to outperform Solaris on Sparc). Obviously, Sun has a problem with that, but why should anybody else?