Interview with theKompany.com's Shawn Gordon

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Interview with theKompany.com's Shawn Gordon

Posted by michael on Friday January 17, 2003 @01:48AM from the woe-is-me dept.

arb writes "The Age has an interview with Shawn Gordon, president of theKompany.com where he discusses such issues as RedHat's focus on Gnome and the relegation of KDE 'to second best', other Gnome vs KDE issues, distributions including proprietary bits and so on."

265 comments

Re:How does commercial Free Software work? by Enry · 2003-01-17 01:57 · Score: 1

tkc doesn't sell free software. They're commercial (closed source) apps.
Not a /. interview by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 01:58 · Score: 1, Informative

Um, you did read the fact that this is an already published interview, and not an upcoming /. interview, right?
Embedded/Zaurus software by aldjiblah · 2003-01-17 01:58 · Score: 3, Insightful

Your software for Zaurus/Qtopia has made my Zaurus infinitely more usable, especially tkcAddressbook, tkcCalendar and most of all tkcJabber (nice!). How is the business side of the Zaurus application development - how are sales?

--
sig sig sputnik
1. Re:Embedded/Zaurus software by Enry · 2003-01-17 02:01 · Score: 1
  
  Too bad they won't let Addressbook sync with Evolution. Shawn's attitude towards users is pretty poor.
2. Re:Embedded/Zaurus software by tweek · 2003-01-17 02:15 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  I disagree. I'm a Kapital customer and even on Christmas eve, Shawn was responding to messages on the mailing list from users who had questions about Kapital.
  
  He has consistantly listened to ideas from his customers and has discussed the feasability of each option.
  
  There was a nice healthy discussion regarding distributing Kapital as a statically linked application recently. While I didn't like his answer or agree with the end result, he DID participate and give his reasoning in a clear manner and with extreme consideration to the customer.
  
  --
  "Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
3. Re:Embedded/Zaurus software by grub · 2003-01-17 02:17 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  and even on Christmas eve, Shawn was responding to messages on the mailing list
  
  Maybe he's Jewish? ;)
  
  --
  Trolling is a art,
4. Re:Embedded/Zaurus software by damiam · 2003-01-17 02:23 · Score: 0, Troll
  
  How would anyone here know? We don't work for theKompany.
  
  --
  It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
5. Re:Embedded/Zaurus software by tweek · 2003-01-17 02:27 · Score: 1
  
  Well even if he were, it makes no difference. I was simply pointing out that, at a time when the majority of the people in this country (the U.S.) were spending time with their family (as was I until I got sucked into checking my email...DAMN MY GEEKY WAYS!), Shawn was answering customer questions.
  
  Just because someone doesn't celebrate Christmas doesn't mean they don't enjoy the time off ;)
  
  --
  "Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
6. Re:Embedded/Zaurus software by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 02:43 · Score: 0
  
  How would anyone here know? We don't work for theKompany.
  
  At least he didn't submit it to 'Ask Slashdot'.
7. Re:Embedded/Zaurus software by TrekCycling · 2003-01-17 03:01 · Score: 1
  
  Shawn's definitely good at connecting with customers. I've asked him non-product related questions and he's been happy to answer them before. So he can be extremely helpful. However, I've also seen him fly off the handle for really no good reason, so it's not all good, in my mind.
8. Re:Embedded/Zaurus software by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 03:05 · Score: 0
  
  I think he thinks that the article was a call for interview questions.
9. Re:Embedded/Zaurus software by tweek · 2003-01-17 03:13 · Score: 1
  
  True. True. The recent discussion on the financial viability of Linux gaming companies was interesting as well.
  
  I know TheKompany (why does this name bother me so much? heh) is breaking even but at least it seems he has a handle on a viable linux business market.
  
  --
  "Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
10. Re:Embedded/Zaurus software by znaps · 2003-01-17 03:23 · Score: 1
  
  Shawn sometimes responds to Slashdot threads regarding TheKompany.
Second best? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 01:59 · Score: 4, Interesting

Why? I am fairly new to Linux, but I have to say that I always preferred KDE in RedHat 6.x and 7.x. When I upgraded to 8, I tried out Bluecurve or whatever they called their new desktop and hated it. It was slow, ugly, and just not up to the standard of KDE I was used to, so I bew it away and went back to KDE . I am much happier now...

So, my question is, why is KDE considered second best? Are there technical reasons, or political, or what?
1. Re:Second best? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 02:16 · Score: 0
  
  What you probably used under RH 8.x was a mixture of mainly GNOME and some KDE apps. It was probably NOT KDE itself. Just assuming here.
2. Re:Second best? by IamTheRealMike · 2003-01-17 02:21 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  So, my question is, why is KDE considered second best? Are there technical reasons, or political, or what?
  [sigh] It's not. Look, I'll try and tell it like it is, but nobody is entirely neutral in this debate OK?
  Basically, with Mandrake looking like it's going down the tubes, there are 2 major commercial Linux desktop distros left, Redhat and SuSE. There are others like Xandros of course, but they are more focussed on providing an "appliance" style OS, rather than staying level with the current cutting edge in Linux development.
  RedHat are popular in the states, and are "biased" towards Gnome, that is they have more Gnome hackers with experience than KDE hackers. As such, their distro focusses on Gnome more than KDE. SuSE is similar but opposite, they focus more on KDE than Gnome and afaik don't have any Gnome hackers on the team.
  When Redhat 8 came out, as I'm sure you noticed, they attempted to equalize the desktops somewhat. BlueCurve was an attempt to give Redhat a distinctive brand on the desktop and it worked tremendously well. Nonetheless, some people involved with KDE got a bit upset, because KDE has its own brand (as does gnome) and Bluecurve changed that.
  Today the desktops are basically equal, although they are stronger in different areas. So, GNOME has better usability IMHO, but KDE has more features. I should think theKompany likes KDE/Qt as a developer platform more because Qt is commercially supported, has professional docs and is more cross platform, so (if they pay) they can sell their apps on Windows and MacOS as well. Of course he has hackers with KDE/Qt experience which also tips him. On the other hand, GTK is more Linux specific, but has some cooler features. Some people will tell you that GTK is harder to program for, but in reality that's not the case, if C++ is your thing then both Qt and GTKmm are excellent.
  I think you're exaggurating when you say KDE is slower and uglier on redhat. I think the BlueCurve artwork is great, but you can always retheme it easily, and it should be no slower.
3. Re:Second best? by sydneyfong · 2003-01-17 02:27 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Political. KDE relies on a library, QT, that is GPL'ed, which means that all KDE applications must be GPL'd, and by default, is hard to sell directly for cash.
  
  There IS an option not to GPL the application, but that requires paying licence fees to Trolltech, the company that made QT.
  
  Commericial companies get wary of these issues, since they would always like to preserve the option of selling the software, or at least reserving their rights from their code.
  
  Sun, from their evaluation report, seemed to have chosen GNOME as their future desktop mainly because of the licensing issues, but not of technical merits
  
  --
  Don't quote me on this.
4. Re:Second best? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 02:30 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Political. KDE uses a GPL'd library AND C++, therefor its bad. Using anything more advanced and powerful than C is an unforgivable sin in the "open source" community.
5. Re:Second best? by IamTheRealMike · 2003-01-17 02:37 · Score: 1
  
  Sun, from their evaluation report, seemed to have chosen GNOME as their future desktop mainly because of the licensing issues, but not of technical merits
  It was probably also because they could easily hire a repository of experienced hackers in the form of Ximian, for which there is no such equivalent with KDE (theKompany simply writes some apps that work on KDE, they don't actually contribute much to the project itself iirc).
6. Re:Second best? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 02:39 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  > Today the desktops are basically equal, although they are
  > stronger in different areas. So, GNOME has better usability
  > IMHO, but KDE has more features.
  
  This is a shortsighted opinion of yours and doesn't reflect the reality and obviously show that you never tried KDE for longer than 5 minutes. I know both Desktops on it's best using GNOME CVS HEAD and KDE CVS HEAD here. In my opinion GNOME hangs behind KDE in many ways. I don't want to make GNOME look bad now but I want to give you a fair objective view of the facts.
  
  There are a lot of issues within GNOME such as integration, usability, consitency over the dialogs etc.
  
  GNOME is not as integrated as KDE is. Have you ever dealt with KDE and seen how all the apps are playing together ?
  
  Usability, have you seen what happened recently to GNOME's interface it toally alienate GNOME from the rest of available applications that work and require X with any toolkit.
  
  Consistency. We all know that with the ongoing versions of GNOME the developers are trying to get consistency into the applications but yet all dialogs are still looking differently. There is no real pixel exact layout of the dialogs, menus and windows because many GNOME applications are written either with the GUI hardcoded, or Glade or Bonobo therefore all UI's are looking differently and makes it hard for the UI reviewer to get a structure inside.
  
  On the otherhand KDE's ui are mostly external in separate *.ui files which makes it easier for the UI reviewers to concentrate on the UI and pixel exact layouts.
  
  That's only a minor point of the whole mountain. KParts for example, every new written app follows a strict rule of KDE and embedds itself seamingless into the whole desktop. It has a Webbrowser embedded in a Filemanager and both of them are really usable and and and..
  
  I could write half a day and name more and more features and pros which makes imo KDE far superior. KDE as is right now are milies if not lightyears ahead of GNOME but it's understandable that GNOME people don't want to have their desktop look bad but face it as is GNOME has a hard and long way to go to at least keep up with a little bit of KDE's features. Keeping up with KDE itself is a lost battle.
7. Re:Second best? by KDan · 2003-01-17 03:10 · Score: 1
  
  It was slow, ugly, and just not up to the standard of KDE I was used to, so I bew it away and went back to KDE .
  
  Oh well... I just installed RH8 a couple of weeks back and I love the smooth interface. It really rocks in 1600x1200 once you've made the sidebar "tiny" at the bottom. I also like the little checkbox/exclamation mark applet which tells me when updates are out without me having to bother looking myself. That's probably available in KDE too though.
  
  Bottom line is: use what you like/want. Program for what you like/want. Variety is good.
  
  Daniel
  
  --
  Carpe Diem
8. Re:Second best? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 03:14 · Score: 0
  
  No. QT is QPL'ed. You misunderstand. The point of these QPL rules is to prevent modified, closed versions of QT. You obviously don't understand how QPL works. QT offers commercial versions of QT development tools. Companies can buy licenses to develop closed source software. The reason that there is a free, QPL version, is so that poeple like you don't who bitch about QT's license , as people did years ago.
  
  It's no different than buying development software on a Microsoft OS. Plus, QT is multi-platform. Frankly, it's quite inexpensive. Opera uses it for their browser, with success. http://www.trolltech.com/purchase/qtpricing.html
9. Re:Second best? by StarTux · 2003-01-17 04:01 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  "RedHat are popular in the states, and are "biased" towards Gnome, that is they have more Gnome hackers with experience than KDE hackers. As such, their distro focusses on Gnome more than KDE. SuSE is similar but opposite, they focus more on KDE than Gnome and afaik don't have any Gnome hackers on the team."
  
  SuSE have at least one Gnome hacker on the team, but they have certainly been more focused on KDE. For instance Waldo Bastion who I think still leads KDE development is a SuSE employee.
  
  "Today the desktops are basically equal, although they are stronger in different areas. So, GNOME has better usability IMHO, but KDE has more features. I should think theKompany likes KDE/Qt as a developer platform more because Qt is commercially supported, has professional docs and is more cross platform, so (if they pay) they can sell their apps on Windows and MacOS as well. Of course he has hackers with KDE/Qt experience which also tips him. On the other hand, GTK is more Linux specific, but has some cooler features. Some people will tell you that GTK is harder to program for, but in reality that's not the case, if C++ is your thing then both Qt and GTKmm are excellent"
  
  I liked to use both desktops :). You can ony theme so much, even though Linux desktops are probably the most themeable. Although right now I have settled on KDE as I prefer using the Ximian desktop (whats taking them so long?). From what Shawn has mentioned on the kapital mailing list he seems to really like QT, not just for support but because of its environment.
10. Re:Second best? by Blimey85 · 2003-01-17 04:23 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  with Mandrake looking like it's going down the tubes
  You really should do a bit of research before spouting off like this. Mandrake is far from going down the tubes if by saying "going down the tubes" you mean going out of business. They had some problems, they have since fixed those problems, but are having some issues with a lack of available cash on hand to cover their debt. Due to that, they needed bankruptcy protection while they raise more cash and continue working on the next release of their OS and other products.
  They are far from the point of throwing in the towel and closing their doors. I think a lot of people see this as the end of Mandrake because so many other Linux companies have gone under over the past few years. That does not mean that Mandrake will not be able to make it. They have a very popular distribution that is #1 in some markets and #2 to RedHat in most other markets.
  It's a tough time for most companies right now. Not only is the US economy depressed, other economies around the globe are struggling as well. This has an effect on lots of business and to think that a few temporary setbacks are enough to end a great company such as Mandrake... that's nuts. I'm not claiming that Mandrake will be around forever. They may eventually buckle and fold but that won't happen any time soon.
  
  --
  How is it that one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?
11. Re:Second best? by Guillaume+Laurent · 2003-01-17 04:32 · Score: 1
  
  Some people will tell you that GTK is harder to program for, but in reality that's not the case,
  
  Have you really tried both toolkits extensively yourself, writing a significantly large app with both ?
  
  if C++ is your thing then both Qt and GTKmm are excellent.
  
  Same question.
12. Re:Second best? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 04:44 · Score: 0
  
  But there is a real difference when you try to install both environments from source code.
  I can compile and install all KDE in 1 day (in a PIII), with only 3 packages needed for the others.
  
  I can not compile GNOME in less than 3 days due to a lot of complex dependencies (I always doubt if there are ciclic dependencies) between a lot of packages.
  
  A KDE 3.1 user.
13. Re:Second best? by fault0 · 2003-01-17 05:36 · Score: 1
  
  > if C++ is your thing then both Qt and GTKmm are excellent.
  
  Have you actually ever used gtkmm? The only people I've known who ever liked it were complete C++ purists who hated the idea of moc, or people who've never used Qt.
14. Re:Second best? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 07:08 · Score: 0
  
  You can live in denial all you want, but I suggest you toss your attitude before embarking on a crusade that will only end in your humiliation.
  
  MandrakeSoft is headed for that great dumpster in the sky, sorry to be the harbinger of truth to an otherwise deluded dotter.
15. Re:Second best? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 07:15 · Score: 0
  
  Funny, I like it. It's just by the time you get all of the libraries together your binaries are large and the base memory usage of your application is obnoxious. This is a problem with all toolkits, though.
  
  Qt is more complete because it attempts to be an entire cross-platform environment. That's really its only selling point. The moc approach is really rather dirty, though.
16. Re:Second best? by 0x0d0a · 2003-01-17 07:16 · Score: 1
  
  I know both Desktops on it's best using GNOME CVS HEAD and KDE CVS HEAD here.
  
  After all, what better way to get a reasonable judgement on how consistent and usable a software package is than to use CVS builds?
  
  GNOME is not as integrated as KDE is. Have you ever dealt with KDE and seen how all the apps are playing together ?
  
  I wish people would stop calling this "integration". You can have apps that conform to a common IPC standard without "integrating" bits and pieces of them into each other, a la Explorer, Office, and Windows.
  
  Usability, have you seen what happened recently to GNOME's interface it toally alienate GNOME from the rest of available applications that work and require X with any toolkit.
  
  No. What are you talking about?
  
  Consistency. We all know that with the ongoing versions of GNOME the developers are trying to get consistency into the applications but yet all dialogs are still looking differently.
  
  True. The same is also same of KDE apps. Oh, maybe not the very core ones, but there are only a few of those.
  
  There is no real pixel exact layout of the dialogs, menus and windows because many GNOME applications are written either with the GUI hardcoded
  
  I've done this, once, to learn the toolkit reasonably well. It's quite time-consuming, and not something most people are going to want to do.
  
  or Glade or Bonobo therefore all UI's are looking differently and makes it hard for the UI reviewer to get a structure inside.
  
  Um...what? Glade is a *good* thing for UI design! It makes it easy to *fix* inconsistencies!
  
  You mean high-level widgets, like Open and Save dialogs? Gnome provides standard versions of those, exactly as you want.
  
  That's only a minor point of the whole mountain. KParts for example, every new written app follows a strict rule of KDE and embedds itself seamingless into the whole desktop.
  
  Errr...that's fluff. It doesn't say anything.
  
  It has a Webbrowser embedded in a Filemanager
  
  "Microsoft did it, so it *must* be a good idea!"
  
  GNOME has a hard and long way to go to at least keep up with a little bit of KDE's features. Keeping up with KDE itself is a lost battle.
  
  I know one KDE fan in person. He uses GNOME/GTK apps on a regular basis, because the KDE application set size doesn't cover all his needs.
  
  I don't know any non-KDE users that use KDE/Qt apps (with the possible exception of licq -- its Qt plugin is somewhat nicer than its gtk plugin, though if you wanted to avoid Qt by usin the gtk plugin, you certainly could).
  
  --
  May we never see th
17. Re:Second best? by 0x0d0a · 2003-01-17 07:36 · Score: 1
  
  It's [Qt] no different than buying development software on a Microsoft OS.
  
  What advancements Linux brings, eh?
  
  --
  May we never see th
18. Re:Second best? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 07:41 · Score: 0
  
  Hah, that is funny. You ask if he has actually used gtkmm personally, and then site evidence from people who told you they used it, not from yourself.
19. Re:Second best? by Dr.+Smeegee · 2003-01-17 07:46 · Score: 1
  
  Yep, the RedHat network throbber works just fine in KDE and Gnome. For what it is worth, I have found the BlueCurve theme very attractive on my laptop at 1025x768. I do some office crud (spreadsheets, wp and faxing) and python hacking using SciTE and IDLE - I concour: plenty of room once the menubar is set to "tiny" and all the apps seem to play nicely together.
  
  The "click to install" rpm feature is pretty nice as well, though I usually build from source RPM's now.
  
  You could plunk me down in front of either UI and I would be happy. Sometimes I just switch between the two for the heck of it! :-)
20. Re:Second best? by fault0 · 2003-01-17 08:41 · Score: 1
  
  1. It's cite, not site.
  2. I cited evidence of people who like gtkmm.
  3. As for my own experiences with gtkmm, I actually used it before I ever used Qt. I went from Apple's C++ MacApp Framework (anyone still remember that? :)) to the BeOS API. When I switched from BeOS to Linux, I used gtkmm before switching to Qt.
21. Re:Second best? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 15:02 · Score: 0
  
  Your reply is far off topic and doesn't show that you have a clue of what you actually write and what the initiator of this message you were replying to wants to say.
  
  Glade itself offers Consistency if used by many people but that is exactly the point. Not everyone is using it specially not for the core of GNOME. some hardcode their UI by using the functions in the CODE some use GLADE to make their UI and some use BONOBO to make their UI, 3 different ways to make an UI and they all look differently.
"Race KDE cannot win" by ultrabot · 2003-01-17 02:00 · Score: 5, Insightful

I think there might be a grain of truth in the fact that KDE has very hard time winning the desktop. Gnome has the huge advantage of licensing (LGPL vs. GPL). It doesn't matter how much smoother or better the technology underlying KDE or KDE applications is.

KDE people also have the weird habit of producing their own versions of various pieces of software. Surely a conservative decisionmaker will choose a desktop-agnostic Mozilla or OpenOffice over the KDE-specific versions. KDE applications might do better by just dropping the K from their names, thus competing on their own terms (snappines and other virtues associated with Qt).

Note that I have been KDE user in the past (alternating with less popular lightweight wm's), but Gnome seems to finally have gotten their stuff together with gnome2.

--
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
1. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by nick255 · 2003-01-17 02:18 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  > Surely a conservative decisionmaker will choose
  > a desktop-agnostic Mozilla or OpenOffice over
  > the KDE-specific versions.
  
  You mean like those people at Apple who chose KHTML for Safari?
2. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by scorp1us · 2003-01-17 02:24 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  As s developer, I dispise GNOME. It's a PITA to program in, where as under Qt/KDE it is very easy. Lets face it, C is not well suited for window environments. Sure it can be done, but it's not a Good Thing. Don't beleive me? Look at Windows. MFC is just C++ classes aound C stuff. It is horrid and I hate using it. Having complex the functions organized in self-managing classes is a dream.
  
  I love KDE, but loath the license. I think all GNOME people are fans of KDE, they just won't come out of the closet because they are scared of the license.
  
  What that the License gets you though, is the ability to ship the same high-grade apps on Windows as on Linux, Mac OS X, and whatever other platform you want. This could singlehandedly be the missing element to bring Linux to the masses. If they use cross-platform apps (Kapital for windows), then switching out the OS is small potatoes (Kapital for Linux) because there are no file-format lock-in issues.
  
  I blame several people. KDE, and GNOME are all to blame. If GNOME people worked on Harmony, they'd be set Free, and there'd be no lisensing issues. KDE was foolish for choosing a toolkit with such a license (but it is a GREAT product, regardless).
  
  Qt are the big winners, yet they have an excellent product and deserve to be commended.
  
  BRING BACK HARMONY. Ironically, that will bring harmony to the Linux world. (Harmony is a GPL replacement toolkit that as started then stopped when the Qt license got more OSS friendly)
  
  --
  Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
3. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by IamTheRealMike · 2003-01-17 02:27 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  KDE people also have the weird habit of producing their own versions of various pieces of software.
  I agree with the basic thrust of the post, but in fairness this occurs with Gnome as well. Gnome seems less centralised to me, for instance they don't produce their own media player as such but RhythmBox is a Gnome app, they don't produce their own email app but there is Balsa and Evolution, etc.
  There is way too much duplication, I agree. The projects are starting to work together a lot more now though, largely thanks to the work at freedesktop.org. Not just there though, for instance KDE was considering using GStreamer for its multimedia architecture at one point (I think they decided to wait for it to mature, which is fair enough).
  Some KDE projects seem rather dead though, I think the more decentralised approach gnome takes (or rather, doesn't take) is a bit better. AbiWord isn't a Gnome app but you'd never know, it integrates nicely etc and is a good deal more active than KWord seems to be. Ditto for Gnumeric and KSpread. Noatun is just a joke, really, but it's kind of the "official" KDE media player.
  Note that I have been KDE user in the past (alternating with less popular lightweight wm's), but Gnome seems to finally have gotten their stuff together with gnome2.
  Agreed, at least in terms of desktop experience. It's not all there yet, but it shows great potential. KDE still leads in terms of developer platform though imho, their documentation is much better (though to be fair to gnome, they don't have a company like trolltech maintaining it for them). Also some Gnome technologies like Bonobo tend to be a bit confusing, especially in the more advanced usage. On the other hand, the KDE usability effort seems to be going nowhere quickly :(
4. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by uradu · 2003-01-17 02:42 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  > Lets face it, C is not well suited for window environments
  
  That's very true, but a straight C API is much easier to wrap in an OO framework. OTOH, a C++ API like KDE is a PITA to bind to other languages, both OO and other. Just look at the gyrations Kylix has to go through to bind one OO framework (CLX) to another (Qt). Unless there is one universal OO mechanism (such as .NET is trying to push through), it's better to have the OS and windowing system implemented in a simple non-OO procedural language. It's just a lot easier to invoke a library entry point and pass in state than to invoke an object method with its implied state.
  
  This is not to say that I don't like KDE and Qt. I think Qt is a great example of the benefits of a well designed OO framework. I'm merely pointing out the hassle if you happen to not be a C++ fan.
5. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by IGnatius+T+Foobar · 2003-01-17 02:51 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  I think there might be a grain of truth in the fact that KDE has very hard time winning the desktop. Gnome has the huge advantage of licensing (LGPL vs. GPL). It doesn't matter how much smoother or better the technology underlying KDE or KDE applications is.
  This cannot be understated. I've been a KDE fan for many years, but I've noticed that most ISV's choose GTK for their applications. To wit: Codeweavers (the config screens for Crossover), VMware, Netscape (the Unix version of Mozilla uses GTK), etc. TheKompany is the exception to the rule. And even then, TheKompany doesn't use KDE anymore, they just use Qt so that their apps can run on all three of the major platforms.
  
  Combine this with the fact that as of late, both GNOME and KDE are very intuitive and usable... Shawn may be right. When Red Hat 8 came out I tried the BlueCurve desktop and I really liked it. I started in KDE mode, but over the last couple of weeks I've been running it in GNOME mode and I really didn't notice a difference. That says something important.
  
  --
  Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
6. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by IamTheRealMike · 2003-01-17 02:52 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Lets face it, C is not well suited for window environments.
  This FUD should have been dispelled a long time ago. The C++ bindings for GTK/GNOME are excellent, in fact they are mor C++ish than Qt, as they make proper use of the standard library, as opposed to Qt that reinvents a lot of it (QString et al) for portability to ancient platforms and needs stuff like a preprocessor for its object model. Check it out before you bash gnome again.
  If you like C++, use it! Nobody is forcing you to use C. The fact that a lot of Gnome software is written in C is because the coders prefer C, that's it. No, really. They do. C++ is a hard, amazingly complex language that isn't to everybodies taste.
  Look at Windows. MFC is just C++ classes aound C stuff.
  The MFC is a good example of how NOT to make bindings, don't write off all language bindings because you had a bad experience with one.
  What that the License gets you though, is the ability to ship the same high-grade apps on Windows as on Linux, Mac OS X, and whatever other platform you want.
  Only if you stick to Qt of course, and pay up (a LOT of money) for each developer. If you want to use the KDE classes, not all of them are available on Windows or MacOS, so....
  This could singlehandedly be the missing element to bring Linux to the masses.
  Actually GTK apps are ported to Windows far more often, because you don't have to pay to do so. Try again.
  BRING BACK HARMONY.
  Oh yeah, that's nice. Why not, and destroy TrollTech at the same time. Do you have any idea how much effort would be required to recreate Qt? A widget toolkit is often many millions of lines of code, and Qt doesn't just do widgets, it does strings, threads and lots more.
  The solution is to make GTK and Qt interoperate better, share theming engines and so on, then you can choose which toolkit you prefer. GTKmm and Qt are basically very similar anyway.
7. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by printman · 2003-01-17 02:52 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  FWIW, FLTK provides the same advantages as Qt but is provided under the LGPL and is a lot smaller and faster.
  The 2.0 release (currently in development) will take us beyond what most of the current toolkits can do, and is the basis of the Equinox Desktop Environment. At the same time, 2.0 retains the same goal of small size, high speed, and portability/cross-platform programming.
  
  --
  I print, therefore I am.
8. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by Leimy · 2003-01-17 02:55 · Score: 1
  
  I think there might be a grain of truth in the fact that KDE has very hard time winning the desktop. Gnome has the huge advantage of licensing (LGPL vs. GPL). It doesn't matter how much smoother or better the technology underlying KDE or KDE applications is.
  
  Are you kidding? If you read the LGPL anyone can take any "copy" of the software that is LGPLd and relicense it as GPL as they deem fit... there will still be an LGPL version out there, that you cannot prevent, but it may be used just the same as any GPL software as far as I care :).
  
  KDE people also have the weird habit of producing their own versions of various pieces of software. Surely a conservative decisionmaker will choose a desktop-agnostic Mozilla or OpenOffice over the KDE-specific versions. KDE applications might do better by just dropping the K from their names, thus competing on their own terms (snappines and other virtues associated with Qt).
  
  Well Mozilla is really huge... Konqueror is pretty tiny in comparison. Konqueror also has the ability to use all the good KDE technology like KIOslaves [kind of like libferris in functionality] transparently... KDE is not just a desktop its a complete framework with which to develop applications. A fairly rich one at that. Why would anyone running KDE not want all KDE apps in this light?
9. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by NDPTAL85 · 2003-01-17 02:55 · Score: 1, Troll
  
  You're going to have to get over that and quickly, before you become annoying.
  
  --
  Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
10. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 02:56 · Score: 0
  
  BRING BACK HARMONY
  
  Do you mean QHarmony?
11. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 03:05 · Score: 0
  
  The truth hurts, don't it? :-D
12. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 03:09 · Score: 0
  
  I agree. Yeah the licensing helps a lot, it's the main reason why Solaris, HP-UX and AIX will have GNOME as the default desktop. There are some wonderful GNOME/GTK apps out there now, it's maturing a lot. I used to use KDE around the 2.x version but now developing apps, GNOME and GTK is the way to go, especially for LGPL reasons. I think RedHat did the right thing, RH8 rocks.
13. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by marm · 2003-01-17 03:37 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  AbiWord isn't a Gnome app but you'd never know, it integrates nicely etc and is a good deal more active than KWord seems to be. Ditto for Gnumeric and KSpread. Noatun is just a joke, really, but it's kind of the "official" KDE media player.
  
  You read in the article about there being something of a cultural difference between the two camps: USA vs. Europe, noisy vs. getting on with it. Well, this is the perfect example. You think AbiWord is far more active than KWord. It has more developers, more mailing list messages, more CVS commits, more releases. But look at the current in-development versions of both of them, and compare them with what they were like a year ago. I think you'll find the comparison doesn't come out in AbiWord's favour. Partly this is architectural - there's FAR more code sharing and reuse in KOffice/KDE/Qt than in AbiWord/GTK, partly because the balance of talking about it/doing it is further towards the doing it end with KWord than with AbiWord. I guess this also explains why Slashdot appears to have a tendency towards GNOME whilst the Linux community as a whole seems to prefer KDE.
  
  And don't diss Noatun: you might not like it but from my point of view it's far nicer than anything else available. It plays all my music, has a good equalizer, does effects, the interface looks and works like everything else on my desktop (although it doesn't have to), and most important of all, happily hides itself down in the system tray when I want it out of the way and stays there. The KDE 3.1 version embeds Xine to play video: now it's the only media player I use. I love it.
  
  On the other hand, the KDE usability effort seems to be going nowhere quickly
  
  I take it you've not used KDE 3.1 yet then? There's some good improvements in there. And let's face it, GNOME usability still has a long long way to go *cough*GTK+ file dialog*cough*
14. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by madhippy · 2003-01-17 03:39 · Score: 1
  
  I'd agree with kde apps dropping the 'k' from their names, the kde menus are 'polluted' due to every app starting with the letter 'k'. When looking for an app on the menu, it takes longer since you have to scan down the menu for the next item then move along a letter and start reading ...
15. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by Ghyl · 2003-01-17 03:42 · Score: 2
  
  Even when Harmony was being worked on, KDE refused to say that they would adopt it when it was finished. Considering that so many of the leading KDE developers worked for Trolltech, this didn't look like it would ever happen. Under these circumstances it would have been foolish for the GNOME developers to do a lot of work on Harmony, and then find that it wouldn't be adopted when done.
16. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by the-matt-mobile · 2003-01-17 03:46 · Score: 1
  
  > Well Mozilla is really huge... Konqueror is pretty
  > tiny in comparison.
  
  Is it? Konq isn't a stand alone application. It shares code. So, while Moz may seem bigger, if you look at everything Konq uses in order to function, this tight little app... well... probably isn't.
  
  > Why would anyone running KDE not want all KDE apps
  > in this light?
  
  If KDE were the only window manager in existance, sure. But at work I have use Windows 2k. But that doesn't matter with GTK because I can still run many of the same apps I use at home (GAIM, Dia, GIMP, etc. etc.). KDE apps run only on KDE (maybe that will change in the future for one reason or another, but for now it's true). Why would I want to use applications that can't follow me where ever I go? Being able to use these apps on Windows first is what made my swich to Linux (and Gnome) easier. For many people, it will not happen the other way around.
17. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 03:54 · Score: 0
  
  VMware is Motif. "To wit" indeed.
18. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by Simon+Brooke · 2003-01-17 04:02 · Score: 1
  
  I think there might be a grain of truth in the fact that KDE has very hard time winning the desktop. Gnome has the huge advantage of licensing (LGPL vs. GPL). It doesn't matter how much smoother or better the technology underlying KDE or KDE applications is.
  
  You're right KDE can't win, if you're going to keep shifting the goal posts like that. As long as KDE was not GPL, all you heard was 'Unclean! Unclean!' . Now that KDE is GPL, that isn't good enough either? For heaven's sake make your mind up.
  
  As for preferring KHTML over Mozilla components, I think Apple pointed out last week exactly what a good decision that was. Gecko is a good component, fair enough - but KHTML is at least as good and very much smaller.
  
  --
  I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
19. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by the-matt-mobile · 2003-01-17 04:08 · Score: 1
  
  When I said "KDE apps run only on KDE" I, of course, meant that "KDE apps run only where KDE's libraries are installed". I suppose someone will split hairs over Gnome being able to run KDE apps and vice-versa. The point is that either due to the license or whatever, KDE apps don't run outside of their little niche, so because of that limitation, I advocate GTK apps.
20. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 04:15 · Score: 0
  
  But look at the current in-development versions of both of them, and compare them with what they were like a year ago. I think you'll find the comparison doesn't come out in AbiWord's favour. Partly this is architectural - there's FAR more code sharing and reuse in KOffice/KDE/Qt than in AbiWord/GTK, partly because the balance of talking about it/doing it is further towards the doing it end with KWord than with AbiWord.
  
  I'm not sure about KWord development status, but current AbiWord cvs is lightyears ahead of the old 1.0.3. The 1.0.x versions basically went into a feature freeze a looooooong tima ago when it was decided that a stable and fairly simple word processor was better than none at all.
  The cvs version has got the thing that one expects from a modern wp. Tables, footnotes, better font handling etc etc. Saying that the Abi:s architecture is worse is not correct. In fact the developers think that they got cleaner and more maintable code because it's written as a cross platform application.
  Further more, racking down on the Abi programmers and saying that they talk about things instead of doing them gets me REALLY upset. They implement new featurs, squash bugs etc in as good or better than anyone else. I have no doubt in my mind that both KWord and the AbiWord crowds have equally good programmers. The people on both applications don't talk, they program.
  Regards, Jörgen.
21. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by electroniceric · 2003-01-17 04:19 · Score: 1
  
  Well, as someone who's spent a fair amount of time on the KDE usability list, I should take some umbrage at this, but I have to admit it's mostly true.
  The reasons for this are largely consistent with what Shawn had to say about KDE: it is rather passive. I think this is a consequence of being extremely open - it's very easy to get involved with KDE, at almost any level because people will listen to you, but they will not stop and wait for you, but just keep going about their business of building stuff for KDE.
  
  And to be fair, you have to give some credit to how difficult a truly open-source usability effort like this is. Usability is mostly about polish: consistency, intuitiveness, ease of learning for behavior, so it's best done by sitting down and going through the whole shebang at once, which is anathema to OSS and especially KDE's development process. The usability folks are now working to collect the usability reviews people have done into a database so developers can refer to them. With luck and some effort to get developers to interact more with the usability project, we can get more broadly involved.
  
  If you want better usability in KDE, help us!
22. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by be-fan · 2003-01-17 04:33 · Score: 1
  
  Or how about the guy who wrote SkyOS's webbrowser (came out recently) or AtheOS's web browser (came out a long time ago) or gtkhtml, all of which are based on khtml?
  
  --
  A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
23. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 04:35 · Score: 0
  
  I have to agree with you. I have tried RH 8.1beta and several distributions with KDE 3.1rc. My impression doesn't change much. Even though you have application like evolution and galeon, GNOME2 does not seem to be an environment with many intergrations. The evolution interface (or GNOME as a whole) is not very user friendly for me. It is not that great as people say.
  Right now, the different between GNOME and KDE is small. But KPart begins to show its power. I guess KDE will once again ahead of GNOME2 in this year.
24. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by Querty · 2003-01-17 04:40 · Score: 1
  
  I'm happy for you that you're that positive about EDE.
  
  The screenshots are fairly horrific looking. The only things that look half-decent are the gnome icons I came across.
  
  It may be superior, but ugliness goes straight to bone (in my case at least). If I recall, I was so disgusted with the QT "digital number" widget that I had a hard time seeing the better parts of QT. It still haunts me; "The horrrroorrrrrrr!!!!!"
25. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 04:43 · Score: 0
  
  You shouldn't try to talk with that dick stuck in your mouth.
26. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by StillaCoward · 2003-01-17 05:31 · Score: 1
  
  It seems like you are comparing apples and oranges. Gnome apps will only run where Gnome libraries are installed as well. Also, you do need libraries installed to run GTK and QT apps....
  
  The direct comparison would be QT apps to GTK apps. In that case, the main GTK advantage is that GTK is free on all platforms.
27. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by twener · 2003-01-17 05:42 · Score: 1
  
  > most ISV's choose GTK for their applications. [..] TheKompany is the exception to the rule.
  
  Can you say SuSE, Opera, Borland or Hancom?
  
  > And even then, TheKompany doesn't use KDE anymore, they just use Qt so that their apps can run on all three of the major platforms.
  
  And how many applications of the "Gnome camp" or in reality only GTK applications?
28. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by yugami · 2003-01-17 05:54 · Score: 1
  
  >Konq isn't a stand alone application. It shares >code. So, while Moz may seem bigger, if you look at >everything Konq uses in order to function, this >tight little app... well... probably isn't.
  
  KHTML is much smaller than gecko
29. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by fault0 · 2003-01-17 05:59 · Score: 1
  
  If Harmony was ever 100% source compatable with Qt, it would have really been a drop in replacement for Qt. KDE only provides source, and only ever has. The packager could have picked to use Harmony or Qt.
  
  > Considering that so many of the leading KDE developers worked for Trolltech, this didn't look like it would ever happen.
  
  At that time, very few did.
30. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 06:03 · Score: 0
  
  You shouldn't try to talk with that dick stuck in your ass. :X
31. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by fault0 · 2003-01-17 06:06 · Score: 1
  
  Most of Qt's users in terms of ISVs are proprietary clients on Windows. Because of the nature of Qt, you would never know if they are using Qt..or something like MFC. On X, on the other hand, it's very easy to tell if someone is using Motif, Qt, or GTK.
  
  Trolltech's buisness comes from these people.
32. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 06:06 · Score: 0
  
  Yes, Abiword is nice. however far from being mature. KDE is better organisized. They build up a real community with common guidelines. A family of developers.
33. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by fault0 · 2003-01-17 06:10 · Score: 1
  
  > IMHO, I think this is how most open source projects have been run for the last twenty years. By your chacterizations, it sounds like GNOME just seems to be more of a mini-Government than a free software project.
  
  In KDE 3.1, change kcontrol->desktop->panels->menus->Menu Item Format to "Description (Name)".
  
  whee..
34. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by IamTheRealMike · 2003-01-17 06:18 · Score: 1
  
  The Gecko vs KHTML debate has already been thrashed to death here, but remember this:
  Very, very few people on Linux use KHTML (according to my website stats at any rate). Gecko rules them all, with IE coming in at second place, probably due to people visiting at work, or curious Windows users.
  Apple seem to have chosen KHTML purely on the basis that when they made the decision it was faster than Gecko (actually since then Gecko has been speeded up by something like 20% and is closing to catching KHTML while keeping its featureset).
  I don't buy the idea that they chose it because it was easier to screw around in the internals - Gecko is such a strong engine already that they wouldn't have needed to do the kind of deep surgery they had to do with KHTML. I think basically they knew when they started that by the time it came out Macs would be being kicked for being slow, so they optimized for speed from the get go.
  So the decision by Redhat to use Mozilla instead of Konqueror makes perfect sense, considering that most end users won't care how "integrated" Konq might be, Mozilla renders the most pages and has tabs. And these days it's pretty fast too, so really I think the Apple/Safari thing is a bad example to choose.
35. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by IamTheRealMike · 2003-01-17 06:27 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Partly this is architectural - there's FAR more code sharing and reuse in KOffice/KDE/Qt than in AbiWord/GTK, partly because the balance of talking about it/doing it is further towards the doing it end with KWord than with AbiWord. I guess this also explains why Slashdot appears to have a tendency towards GNOME whilst the Linux community as a whole seems to prefer KDE.
  Nope, can't agree with that. Firstly, I don't think Slashdot has a tendancy either way, I see just as many stupid trolls for and against both.
  Secondly, for quite some time (dunno if this is still the case) KOffice had David Faure being paid to work on it. AbiWord hasn't had paid employees on it for a loooong time, so they're doing pretty well. Whenever I hear about people word processing on Linux, they're using OpenOffice or AbiWord. For spreadsheets, it's OpenOffice or Gnumeric. Maybe there is an utterly silent majority which actually uses KOffice, but I'd be pretty surprised. Mindshare does in fact matter, and I've found gnome/gtk based projects tend to have much better communication with the outside world than KDE based ones. AbiWord stable is getting pretty old now, but it's the one I'm interested in because I can see it developing and it's getting very cool very fast. KOffice on the other hand.... what is it doing? I do read dot.kde.org sometimes, but haven't seen a KOffice story for ages. The koffice development mailing list has about 200-300 emails so far this year, the same number as abiword development, which focuses only on a word processor, not a whole office suite.
  FWIW I am European, and I think the characterisation by Gordon of the KDE developers as "get on and do it" and of others as "make lots of noise" is stupid - which desktop project was it that threw a hissy fit when Redhat altered some themes and changed some branding (something gnome also went through)? I know Europeans and Americans, and haven't noticed a great deal of difference between them in the way described.
  I take it you've not used KDE 3.1 yet then? There's some good improvements in there. And let's face it, GNOME usability still has a long long way to go *cough*GTK+ file dialog*cough*
  I take it you've not used GNOME2.1? I monitor what KDE and GNOME do, and so far GNOME has KDE beat by miles in the usability stakes. The GNOME/GTK world has a strong set of UI guidelines in the form of the HIG that even non-gnome apps are complying with (like xchat, gaim etc) because despite its lack of perfection, it gives a clear direction and it makes sense to follow it.
  Last time I checked, I couldn't even find the KDE equivalents on usability.kde.org (though I have seen at least one before) and I've been told there are two such guides, both unfinished. The kde usability list seems to flap around without clear direction whereas you can visibly see and feel GTK apps get more usable.
  And don't diss Noatun: you might not like it but from my point of view it's far nicer than anything else available.
  You're certainly entitled to your view, but you're the first I've met who actually prefers it to XMMS. To be fair, the version in KDE3 is much improved over the one in 2.2 but it's still a hellhole usability wise. What made me laugh was the default plugin was called "Excellent" with the tagline, "A very simple, and therefore usable interface". First mistake, simple != usable. In fact, Excellent tripped me up several times, for instance it took me quite a while to figure out how to click on a part of the time slider to make it jump to a part of the song. Left clicking moves it in increments. Right clicking? No. Double clicking? No. Ohhh, that's right, middling clicking lets you move the slider to the part under the mouse. Obvious. Three types of playlist, none of which are compatible with each other and the only halfway decent one does NOT read .m3u files????!?
  The only interface I found I could actually stand was the WinAmp one. Noatun does have some saving graces like the keygrabber plugin, and the notification tray icon is nice (though it doesn't actually notify you of anything). Nonetheless, I feel I'm justified in slamming it.
  And let's face it, GNOME usability still has a long long way to go *cough*GTK+ file dialog*cough*
  The file dialog is the exception that proves the rule, and a new one is definately going in for GTK2.4, that's guaranteed. It's harder for GTK because unlike KDE/Qt GTK is actually widely used outside of the desktop project. You can't just introduce random dependancies on Nautilus for instance. I'd also like to point out that the KDE file picker is simply a direct lift of the Windows one with all the UI faults it comes with, I won't write an UI review of it here because they exist elsewhere.
  Really, GNOME has had to make some tough choices, ones that a small but vocal minority was opposed to every step of the way. Simplifying the UI was needed, GNOME 1.4 had an even more bloated UI than KDE in this respect, but KDE hasn't yet picked up the gauntlet. I don't think it is, but if Shawns theory holds true then it's simply because the KDE team don't like making controversial decisions, which is maybe why it looks and works so much like Windows.
36. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by praedor · 2003-01-17 06:56 · Score: 1
  
  Except...mozilla's UI is butt-ugly and totally wrong for ANY desktop. The default UI themes are WRONG for both Gnome AND KDE and neither desktop system's theming/coloration system works with mozilla. You have several apps up and running, they are likely to all look compatible with each other instead of a random scattering of UIs and colors. Start up mozilla and it looks either VERY much like a windoze app or some blue thing with no compatibility with your system look/feel/theme.
  
  Openoffice/staroffice...same thing only you get one and only one UI - a windoze interface.
  
  I select my desktop colors and themes for a reason. They work best with ME and the colors work best with me. It looks coherent and is the same across apps (I use KDE). I start up a gtk app or mozilla or staroffice/oo and they are bastard stepchildren clashing with everything. Same goes in Gnome, which I have run on occassion when I've trashed KDE during an upgrade or rebuild or some such. Those two apps don't look right in Gnome either.
  
  Publish your API and let the desktop handle the GUI part. I want the apps I use to obey my color and theme selection, period. I made the selection for a reason. Lowest common demoninator GUI design is butt-ugly.
  
  --
  In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
37. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by BlueLines · 2003-01-17 07:06 · Score: 1
  
  For current versions, yes. The new versions (starting with Workstation 4.0, which is in a f+f release right now) all use a tabbed GTK+ ui.
  
  --
  --BlueLines "The cost of living hasn't affected it's popularity." -anonymous
38. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by 0x0d0a · 2003-01-17 07:40 · Score: 1
  
  Yup. People were excited about Be's web browser too, talked about how fast and lightweight it was...and it became a heavy anchor around Be's neck, because web page compatibility ended up sucking.
  
  --
  May we never see th
39. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by Moritz+Moeller+-+Her · 2003-01-17 07:46 · Score: 1
  
  > Firstly, I don't think Slashdot has a tendancy either way,
  > I see just as many stupid trolls for and against both.
  
  Excuse me? Are you joking? Look e.g at the announcement of safari, which was totally hidden. Next came an article from Mozilla/Gecko users ans how they can't sleep at night because khtml was chosen.
  
  > The GNOME/GTK world has a strong set of UI guidelines in the form of the HIG that even
  > non-gnome apps are complying with (like xchat, gaim etc) because despite its lack of perfection,
  > it gives a clear direction and it makes sense to follow it.
  
  > Last time I checked, I couldn't even find the KDE equivalents on usability.kde.org (though I
  > have seen at least one before) and I've been told there are two such guides, both unfinished.
  
  Please have a look at the KDE User interface guide, which exists in a usable form for longer than GNOME-1.0.
  http://developer.kde.org/documentation /standards/k de/style/basics/
  Generally due to the more modular code, KDE behaves more consistently than GNOME/GTK.
  
  The GNOMES, should have adapted the same Interface GUIDE, but no, they had to start from scratch, just to be different.
  
  Finally the statments about noatun -- which I btw find worse than xmms --, which made me laugh hard:
  > Excellent tripped me up several times, for instance it took me quite a while to figure out
  > how to click on a part of the time slider to make it jump to a part of the song. Left clicking
  > moves it in increments. Right clicking? No. Double clicking? No. Ohhh, that's right, middling
  > clicking lets you move the slider to the part under the mouse. Obvious.
  
  Yes. It is totally obious. Middle clicking a slider has meant jump here for over ten years on X11. All sliders in KDE obey it.[Unless you choose a different look'n'feel style] BTW, even my GTK apps obey this.
  
  That you don't know this shows your own ignorance.
  
  --
  Moritz
40. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by Moritz+Moeller+-+Her · 2003-01-17 07:52 · Score: 1
  
  > Openoffice/staroffice...same thing only you get
  > one and only one UI - a windoze interface.
  
  Nope. Choose Options, OpenOffice.org, View and Choose a Look&Feel.
  
  You can choose between Macintosh(MacOS9),OS/2, Xwindows (Gnustep??) and Default (Windows lookalike).
  
  I prefer "Macintosh" in combination with colored tabs from OS/2.
  
  --
  Moritz
41. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by 0x0d0a · 2003-01-17 07:53 · Score: 1
  
  The GNOMES, should have adapted the same Interface GUIDE, but no, they had to start from scratch, just to be different.
  
  Yeah, with a little extra effort on their part they could have managed to break the clipboard interface, just like Qt/KDE did!
  
  --
  May we never see th
42. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by 0x0d0a · 2003-01-17 08:03 · Score: 1
  
  Can you say SuSE, Opera, Borland or Hancom?
  
  SuSE is almost dead (at least in the States), Borland simply isn't that significant any more, and Hancom is almost certainly not going to become a major player (at least with Open Office as a competitor). There was a short time when Opera could have taken over, but with competition on faster computers these days from Explorer, an ever-faster Mozilla, Konqueror and a couple of Mac browsers, I'd say that Opera has peaked and is starting the long slow descent into obsolescence.
  
  With the exception of Hancom, all of those companies are dying stars.
  
  --
  May we never see th
43. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by 0x0d0a · 2003-01-17 08:17 · Score: 1
  
  I guess this also explains why Slashdot appears to have a tendency towards GNOME whilst the Linux community as a whole seems to prefer KDE.
  
  The *Linux community as a whole* seems to prefer KDE? What are you *smoking*? Look at the quantities of software for each, look at what the most popular distribution is.
  
  --
  May we never see th
44. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by Enahs · 2003-01-17 08:38 · Score: 1
  
  KDE people also have the weird habit of producing their own versions of various pieces of software. Surely a conservative decisionmaker will choose a desktop-agnostic Mozilla or OpenOffice over the KDE-specific versions.
  May I remind you that KDE predates both open-sourced Mozilla and OpenOffice...
  And I can't say I agree about Gnome2. Multiple-windowmanager support seems to be an afterthought, at best, among other things. And I've noticed that it seems that, as far as an HTML widget is concerned, Gnome may be going the way of KDE. What advantage has Gnome had from using Gecko, anyway? If this is fixed now, I'm sorry, but have you ever opened a Web page in Nautilus and attempted to print the current document? Good luck.
  I've been a GNOME user, and I've been a KDE user, and use apps and utilities from both (even on OS X!) I personally find KDE to be snappier, more useful, and has even managed to keep me from switching back to Window Maker or Fluxbox. ;-D
  And slightly OT: this was posted using the KHTML-based Safari Web browser on OS X v10.2.
  
  --
  Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
45. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by scorp1us · 2003-01-17 09:02 · Score: 1
  
  Too all of those of you who think my opinion is 'dated'....
  
  The fact is that any developer who does not want to make a GPL app has to pay for a license. I looked into it. It's only GPL if you 1) stick to linux and 2) you write a GPL app.
  
  If you want to write something that is cross-platform (one of the two greatest things about QT) you have to pay $1500. As I have no company, and am only 1 person, and none of my little apps (or even any # of copies of them) could ever add up to be $1500 I have to pony up to do cross platform stuff. Even if I want to write free GPL apps for Windows, I still have to pay.
  
  Repeat after me:
  Qt is not free.
  
  The Kompany has to and does pay for their licenses.
  
  --
  Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
46. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by twener · 2003-01-17 09:11 · Score: 1
  
  > SuSE is almost dead (at least in the States)
  
  You wish. All your comments only show that you're a closed-minded US american who likely thinks it's patriotic to hail RedHat and Gnome and slag down everything/everyone other.
47. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by twener · 2003-01-17 09:15 · Score: 1
  
  > The *Linux community as a whole* seems to prefer KDE? What are you *smoking*?
  
  I wonder what you're smoking. :-) Nearly every poll shows that.
  
  > Look at the quantities of software for each
  
  I regularly see more KDE software than Gnome software in the release digests on linuxtoday.com and more reader views of the KDE digest.
  
  > look at what the most popular distribution is
  
  According to distrowatch.com it's Mandrake, and to desktoplinux.com polls it's either Mandrake or Debian.
48. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by marm · 2003-01-17 09:39 · Score: 1
  and it became a heavy anchor around Be's neck, because web page compatibility ended up sucking.
  
  The differences here being that:
  
  KHTML already has very good web page compatibility, in fact for a rendering engine that most designers hadn't even heard of until very recently, let alone tested against, it's outstandingly good
  
  Web designers won't ignore a browser made by Apple, so even if KHTML sucked, which it doesn't, designers would hack their pages to work
  
  So there's no comparison really.
49. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 10:32 · Score: 0
  
  You are either uninformed or purposefully misrepresenting Apple's decision. They have stated quite publicly that they chose KHTML for it's technical merits including the small code base and the fact that it isn't choc full of spaghetti code *cough* like some other *cough* browsers ;)
50. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 10:56 · Score: 0
  
  rofl, what you say is so true.
  Qt's digit thing is still ugly, after a half decade of watching the toolkit. It wouldn't even be so bad if people didn't use it, but then you look at KDE and see it all over the place.
51. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 11:30 · Score: 0
  
  It's fairly disappointing when you play the nationalist card. I don't know about the previous poster, but I don't care about RedHat, or where something originates from. Yet I more or less see considerable likelihood that the poster will be correct in the long term.
  
  SuSE's presence really is almost nonexistent in the U.S. Opera really is never going to stay around if it has to live off of desktop sales (although I bought a license in a vain attempt to provide them some support), and I really don't have the energy to get into the rest.
  
  It doesn't fucking matter where a distribution comes from. They all more or less package the same shit, all in similar ways, that originates and receives development from people all over the world. Attacking the U.S. because _you_ care about the national orgination of a product shows how _closed-minded_ _you_ are. I resent your your bigotry, even more because you insinuate that it is the target of yours that is to blame. Grow up.
52. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 12:27 · Score: 0
  
  KHTML is smaller, but not even close to "at least as good." Drop your religion and improve KHTML, don't make asinine claims.
53. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by shellbeach · 2003-01-17 14:48 · Score: 1
  
  Yes. It is totally obious. Middle clicking a slider has meant jump here for over ten years on X11. All sliders in KDE obey it.[Unless you choose a different look'n'feel style] BTW, even my GTK apps obey this.
  *lol* You've got to be kidding me, right?? KDE, which considers itself the bastion of user-friendliness, which re-designed UNIX cut-and-paste, which tried in every aspect to clone windows (even to the point of making its filemanager a web-browser as well) ... uses one of the most archaic, unintuitive aspects of X?? And this is supposed to be "totally obvious"??
  Now, come on - do you really expect new linux users to grasp this idea? Or do you think KDE is the power-users' interface (*chukle*)
54. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 14:56 · Score: 0
  
  hmm...I dont think that STL implementation of string handles unicode so reinventing the wheel there is justified.
  
  i couldve sworn gtkmm does something similar itself.
55. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 14:59 · Score: 0
  
  http://gtkmm.sourceforge.net/gtkmm2/docs/reference /html/classGlib_1_1ustring.html#z2_12
56. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 16:16 · Score: 0
  
  I'd scream bloody murder if KDE took away the ability to jump a slider with the middle button. I have been using unix for about 10 years, yet I use KDE. Why? Because it gives me a very nice interface that doesn't try *too* hard to be non unix-like. Sure, some KDE things are flat out stupid ripoffs of windows, but it acts unixy enough that I don't really notice (meta-left mouse button to move windows, sane middle-click pasting, middle click scrollbars, focus follows pointer, etc). Of course, for people who don't like the superior unix way of doing things, everything is configurable.
  
  In short, just because you don't get something doesn't mean it's bad.
57. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by WzDD · 2003-01-17 20:52 · Score: 1
  
  >a C++ API like KDE is a PITA to bind to other
  >languages, both OO and other.
  
  From my experience, PyQt, a Python binding to Qt, makes much more sense from an OO programming perspective (and is thus far easier to do Cool Things with) than PyGTK. This is nothing to do with the work of the primary PyGTK author - he's done a fantastic job. The underlying toolkit is just so much more of a mess.
  
  The fact that PyQt maps almost directly to the Qt C++ API and therefore is excellently documented by Trolltech is also a major plus.
58. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by WzDD · 2003-01-17 21:14 · Score: 1
  
  >The file dialog is the exception that proves the
  >rule, and a new one is definately going in for
  >GTK2.4, that's guaranteed. It's harder for GTK
  > because unlike KDE/Qt GTK is actually widely used
  > outside of the desktop project.
  
  Your above comment doesn't make sense. GTK is widely used outside of GNOME, just as Qt is widely used outside of KDE. This wide use hasn't prevented Qt from getting a lovely file dialog.
59. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by Moritz+Moeller+-+Her · 2003-01-17 23:29 · Score: 1
  
  Look Mr. smart-ass,
  KDE is a unix dektop. It "looks" like Windows by default, to convince lamers like you that they can use it, but it also uses standard X11 style cut'n'paste. BTW, konqueror/kfm was filemanager and browser before windows98. In fact the idea is ingenious and KDE has been internet enabled much more radically than Windows. Try saving from MS Word to an ftp folder.
  
  KDE in fact can be configured to look like a Motif Desktop. If jumping by middleclick annoys you, just choose a crippled looknfeel, that changes this behaviour.
  
  Now would you please also tell me what is archaic about jumping to a certain point in a slider by using mouse button 3? Are GNOME and KDE archaic? Is it better to have no way of jumping to a certain point like Windows?
  
  I would shout my mouth if I were as clueless as you.
  
  --
  Moritz
60. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by shellbeach · 2003-01-18 17:48 · Score: 1
  
  My point was as follows:
  KDE likes to see itself as a close thing to windows, as far as I can gather. Or at least, many slashdotters see KDE as the optimal migration aid for windows users. On the other hand, I don't know of many "power-users" of linux that use KDE - this may merely represent short-sightedness on my behalf/mixing with a unique subset of users, but in my experience people who actually want to get work done don't stay with KDE - they migrate to more memory efficient, faster WMs and either use a better file manager than konqueror or simply use the CLI.
  In which case, we can conclude that a majority of KDE users are newbies and/or people who don't like to "get their hands dirty" with configuring the basic underlying OS. I'm not saying this isn't a bad thing, mind you. BUT: what you're not going to find in this audience are people who know that the middle mouse button moves the slider to the point under the mouse - Windows, as you point out, has no such feature.
  OK, you say - this is an advantage of KDE. But this whole sub-thread came about because of someone pointing out that you couldn't move the time slider in noatun with the left mouse button. And this behaviour is exactly what windows users are used to - try xmms or winamp and you'll see what I mean.
  Now would you please also tell me what is archaic about jumping to a certain point in a slider by using mouse button 3? Are GNOME and KDE archaic? Is it better to have no way of jumping to a certain point like Windows?
  My point was that most users are not familiar with this usage - again, it goes back to the fact that Windows does not have this and therefore forcing a newbie to use this feature to gain functionality is simply going to alienate them. (Again, I'm not saying that it should alienate them, just that it generally does - they don't like things to be different) Perhaps "archaic" was a bad word, but as I recall it was one of the few features of X that I never liked when I started using linux (probably because it was coupled with having to drag the slider with the middle mouse button, which always seemed counterintuitive).
  But in anycase, I hope you see my point - if a feature doesn't make sense to newbies (who've probably never had to click a middle mouse button before in their lives) it isn't a smart thing to put into KDE, especially when it's in a music playing program and when the defacto standard applications of linux and windows use a different method of scrolling (in fact, middle mouse clicking does not work with xmms on the time slider, despite the fact it's built with gtk!).
  (I might also mention that I've never seen an application in the last four or five years that's required you to use the middle mouse button to move a slider, so noatun seems to be rather unique. Yes, I know that GTK (and motif) also use the middle mouse button to set the slider position, but you can just as easily drag the slider a la windows (which makes more sense anyway since you can *see* where you're scrolling); while Xforms doesn't use the middle mouse button in the same way (you scroll by smaller increments instead) and the toolkit that OpenOffice uses doesn't recognise middle-mouse button clicks in the scroll bar at all. So it's not even a shared feature between linux toolkits.)
61. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by Moritz+Moeller+-+Her · 2003-01-19 05:35 · Score: 1
  
  KDE likes to see itself as a close thing to windows, as far as I can gather. Or at least, many slashdotters see KDE as the optimal migration aid for windows users. On the other hand, I don't know of many "power-users" of linux that use KDE - this may merely represent short-sightedness on my behalf/mixing with a unique subset of users, but in my experience people who actually want to get work done don't stay with KDE - they migrate to more memory efficient, faster WMs and either use a better file manager than konqueror or simply use the CLI.
  
  I don't think KDE is any closer to Windows(Luna or Classic) than to Liquid or OS/2 Workplace, Beos,...
  KDE wants to be easy to use for people coming to linux which means Windows users. But I consider myself a power user and I have never even used windows. My experiments with other WMs have always disappointed me for their lack of features or comfort (icewm is my favorite minimalist WM). KDE is so tweakable and customizable, that I consider it as perfect for the power user. Also, which file manager is superior to konqueror? rox and nautilus are a lot less powerful.
  
  But this whole sub-thread came about because of someone pointing out that you couldn't move the time slider in noatun with the left mouse button. And this behaviour is exactly what windows users are used to - try xmms or winamp and you'll see what I mean.
  
  I also prefer xmms interface to noatun, especially because the playlists in noatun suck. But you can very well move the slider with the left mouse button by clicking on it and dragging it in noatun. Putting the middle click jumping into the interface does not hurt the newbie and is great for the KDE power user. In fact I miss the functionality in lyx (xforms, 1.3 will feature a qt interface and does jump on middle click), openoffice and xmms. There is no valid reason against it.
  
  --
  Moritz
62. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by shellbeach · 2003-01-19 10:54 · Score: 1
  
  Personally, I use rox - although it may not have all the features of konqueror, I find it infinitely faster ... and the fact I can use it on my ancient P120 laptop and it's even fast on that impresses me enormously. Konqueror only seems useful to me when using single window navigation, and even then I find it clumsy -perhaps it's because the first gui file-manager I experienced was the mac finder, but I expect folders to open instantly. Yet even on my Celeron 500 konqueror takes two seconds to open my home directory, even when the program is already cached in memory. (yeah, I know the computer's a dinosaur compared to new PCs these days, but it runs everything I use (IceWM, rox, lyx, sixpack, phoenix, gimp, nedit) more than adequately - and file-manager software shouldn't require the resources of a P4 2Gig to run adequately) To me, konqueror's performance is substandard and I can't use it as a filemanager - the CLI is far faster. (In fact, one of the things I like about rox is that it integrates with the CLI perfectly - it's so easy to switch between terminal and file-manager window)
  But anyway - I can see the point that middle-clicking on the scroll bar to move to that exact point could be useful ... although I find I generally need to see the text I'm scrolling through to find the spot I'm looking for and hence just drag the scoll bar :)
63. Re:"Race KDE cannot win" by vegetablespork · 2003-01-20 16:00 · Score: 1
  
  Web designers won't ignore a browser made by Apple
  <cynical>
  Yeah, they'll say "This page best viewed in IE. 'Safari' and other 'alternative' browsers aren't supported."
  </cynical>
  
  --
  Call (206) 338-5780 COLLECT for information about a genuine BA, BS, MA, MS, MBA, or Ph.D.
Interesting company concept by sboyko · 2003-01-17 02:01 · Score: 5, Interesting

Never mind the KDE/Gnome discussion, I found it fascinating to read how TheKompany.com is made up of people who have not all met face-to-face. The founder has only met one of his employees ever.

His employees were all basically referred and the traditional face-to-face interviews were obviously never done.

It's a new way of doing business. I like it.

--
SCO, Microsoft, P2P, what's your hot button?
1. Re:Interesting company concept by x0n · 2003-01-17 02:09 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  ...
  It's a new way of doing business. I like it.
  
  Nonsense! hitmen, crack dealers and major crimelords have worked this way for years!
  
  - Oisin
  
  --
  
  PGP KeyId: 0x08D63965
2. Re:Interesting company concept by pubjames · 2003-01-17 02:10 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Never mind the KDE/Gnome discussion, I found it fascinating to read how TheKompany.com is made up of people who have not all met face-to-face. The founder has only met one of his employees ever.
  
  His employees were all basically referred and the traditional face-to-face interviews were obviously never done.
  
  It's a new way of doing business. I like it.
  
  Exactly what I thought when I read the article. I have often toyed with the idea of employing someone over the net, but I've never had the balls to actually do it. It seems to me it must be a very efficient way to run a business.
  
  I'd be interested on what kind of contracts he uses. Does he employ these people full-time, or by project? Another issue - getting stuff delivered on time. I guess if you make products like theKompany.com, it doesn't matter if you slip. But working for clients, you have to deliver when you promised to, or you'll quickly go out of business. Is it practical to run a business this way if you need to deliver to clients with tight deadlines?
3. Re:Interesting company concept by sboyko · 2003-01-17 02:14 · Score: 1
  
  OK, it's a new way of doing *legal* business. :)
  
  --
  SCO, Microsoft, P2P, what's your hot button?
4. Re:Interesting company concept by pubjames · 2003-01-17 02:20 · Score: 1
  
  It's a new way of doing business. I like it.
  
  Furthermore, aren't there some great tax-avoidance (not tax evasion - that's illegal) measures you could take with such a company? It sounds like an idea case for an off-shore company, as you're not employing anyone in your country of residence and the company doesn't need any physical premisies.
5. Re:Interesting company concept by MikeBabcock · 2003-01-17 02:57 · Score: 1
  
  Maybe he should be the target of a future Slashdot interview?
  
  I too have considered hiring people over the Internet to telecommute but I would want some form of personal assurance that they'd get the work done to the best of their abilities and not break any laws in the process.
  
  And yes, in hiring programmers, I'm concerned that someone who is never physically met or supervised might not be on the up-and-up, although I'm pretty convinced that over 80% would be.
  
  --
  - Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
6. Re:Interesting company concept by mark_lybarger · 2003-01-17 03:30 · Score: 1
  
  i've always wanted to find a job over the internet telecommuting, but probably didn't look hard enough.
  
  that said, what makes having an employee take up a 10x10 office space (costing you ~10k year), your face to face interview and all that assure that stuff is going to get done to the best of their abilities, on time and in a legal manner? i'd say give it a shot on a temp basis each time and if it works out, go longer term.
7. Re:Interesting company concept by The+Welcome+Rain · 2003-01-17 03:35 · Score: 1
  
  Wasabi Systems has been doing this for quite a while too.
  
  --
  Some keywords for the NSA in the Lord of the Rings universe: One Ring bind find Sauron quest Nazgul freedom
8. Re:Interesting company concept by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 04:32 · Score: 0
  
  Another issue - getting stuff delivered on time. I guess if you make products like theKompany.com, it doesn't matter if you slip.
  
  very true. for example, the tkcMail product is about 3 months late.
9. Re:Interesting company concept by MikeBabcock · 2003-01-22 05:17 · Score: 1
  
  Contracting for a smaller job first and seeing how they do would probably be a good start.
  
  Asking them for references of other currently-employed programmers they've worked with (as opposed to just employers) would be another thought.
  
  See the comp.lang.c forum's logs / faq for information on the problems in trying to figure out how to interview / hire a programmer in the first place. Good stuff I'd never thought of until I was reading it ...
  
  --
  - Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
Jeez by yatest5 · 2003-01-17 02:09 · Score: 0, Flamebait

Never mind RTFA, read the fucking summary dipshit!
--
- Mod parent up! [a] by Anonymous Coward (Score:5) Thurs, June 31, @13:37
Re:How does commercial Free Software work? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 02:11 · Score: 0

Um, tech support is an expense, not a revenue generator. Maybe it works differently in, say, Soviet Russia, but here in the US ISPs want to minimize calls to tech support.
Write Once, Run Anywhere? by JBhoy · 2003-01-17 02:15 · Score: 2, Interesting

Sound familiar? That's why Java is so popular. The very problems described in this interview are the kind of problems Java and its standard class libraries resolve.
1. Re:Write Once, Run Anywhere? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 02:18 · Score: 0
  
  And don't.
2. Re:Write Once, Run Anywhere? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 02:24 · Score: 0
  
  bah JAVA_HOME incompatabilities, bah!!
3. Re:Write Once, Run Anywhere? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 02:34 · Score: 0
  
  bah JAVA_HOME incompatabilities, bah!!
  
  Idiot.
  JAVA_HOME is just an environmental variable to tell your startup script which jvm to use.
  If someone built an application based on Java1.4 APIs they probably want you to run it against a 1.4 jvm. export JAVA_HOME=/usr/local/jdk1.4
  oooh that was tough.
  
  You have problems with PATH "incompatabilities" as well?
4. Re:Write Once, Run Anywhere? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 02:35 · Score: 0
  
  Dude, you're on crack. Nobody with half a brain writes desktop Java apps. They're slow as all hell. They're fine for the server, but no end user in their right mind would purchase a desktop app written in Java.
5. Re:Write Once, Run Anywhere? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 02:37 · Score: 0
  
  I'd say the language itself and its supporting class libraries are more of a reason than WORA.
  Though WORA is nice as well, but you still end up testing on each target platform.
6. Re:Write Once, Run Anywhere? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 02:40 · Score: 0
  
  not an idiot. just saying there are always problems. and it's a joke see. there are BIG problems (if we're getting serious dipshit minded) where many java projects demand that you use different versions of libraries and supply their own versions to that end.
  
  It's serious clutter, almost of the order that Shawn describes.
7. Re:Write Once, Run Anywhere? by mark_lybarger · 2003-01-17 03:37 · Score: 1
  
  Java GUI's aren't that popular because their is a very large resource cost involved with them. On the contrary, QT provides a cross platform GUI toolkit and it's snappy. snappy i tell ya. looks nice and is really snappy.
  
  java gui's are still quirky. yes they are portable. i like the fact that netbeans looks the same on linux as it does on windows. i like netbeans itself as a development tool, but it uses resources. if you can't get your manager to spend the 100$ to upgrade your ram because of the red tape that goes with a memory upgrade in an organization, you go with eclipse which uses native widgets.
8. Re:Write Once, Run Anywhere? by ShavenYak · 2003-01-17 03:38 · Score: 1
  
  They're fine for the server, but no end user in their right mind would purchase a desktop app written in Java.
  
  Shh... don't tell the MoneyDance people!
  
  --
  
  Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
9. Re:Write Once, Run Anywhere? by JBhoy · 2003-01-17 04:24 · Score: 1
  
  Heh. Moneydance has been /.'d. Thanks for the link, I'll try it again later.
  
  Personally, I'm tired of the same old FUD strutting around, loudly proclaiming that Java is too slow on the desktop. That's simply not true anymore, and it hasn't been true for a while.
  
  No, you don't use Java for kernel hacking. You don't use C++/KDE/Gnome for kernel hacking either. Start adding widgets and a usable event model to your favorite "faster than Java" development platform and you start to see that Java isn't that slow.
10. Re:Write Once, Run Anywhere? by bcrowell · 2003-01-17 04:54 · Score: 1
  Yeah, I'm surprised that 90% of the comments have been about KDE vs Gnome, which isn't even what the article is about. For me, the key was this:
  
  The current situation is an absolute and utter nightmare. When we started three and a half years ago you could make an RPM and pretty much without exception any RPM based system could use it. Now not only are RPMs not compatible between distributions, they aren't even compatible between versions of distributions. Here's a list of the packages we have to make for a single program for it to work properly across linux distributions without making 100MB static builds:
  gcc 2.95 static and shared
  
  gcc 3.2 static and shared
  
  RedHat 7.2, 7.3, 8.0
  
  Mandrake 8.1, 8.2, 9.0
  
  SuSE 7.3, 8.0, 8.1
  
  Slackware 8.0, 8.1
  
  Caldera 3.1
  
  When is the Linux community going to wake up to what a pitiful mess software distribution is? Linux will never be a popular desktop OS until this problem is solved. How are you going to explain to a naive end-user what it means when they can't run an app because it requires foolib 2.0, and they have foolib 3.0 (Mandrake version) installed?
  Java is one solution. But in truth, the shared library disaster is specifically a C++ problem. The problem is that unless you're extremely careful, any modification you make to an exposed class in C++ is likely to cause a binary incompatibility. This isn't a problem with Perl, for instance (although your Perl libraries might have C++ linked in to them, in which case you still have the problem,).
  And that's assuming you're trying to avoid binary incompatibilities. What's really sick is people like Red Hat intentionally introducing these incompatibilities. It starts to sound a lot like the old world of proprietary Unix, where you'd be locked into one vendor.
  --
  Find free books.
11. Re:Write Once, Run Anywhere? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 05:00 · Score: 0
  
  You're still an idiot.
  
  How is this a java-specific problem?
  You mean to tell me that there are no problems with shared libraries on programs created with languages other than java?
  I suppose your computer consists a collection of statically linked software only?
12. Re:Write Once, Run Anywhere? by LMCBoy · 2003-01-17 05:18 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  I think you meant "write once, crawl anywhere"...
  
  --
  Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
13. Re:Write Once, Run Anywhere? by ShavenYak · 2003-01-17 15:20 · Score: 1
  
  Aww, I said NOT to tell them no one would buy their app! ;)
  
  Yes, I thought it rather ironic that the site was down even as I was about to point it out as an example of an at least semi-usable Java desktop app. When I looked at it some time ago, it was pretty decent, but it's no match for Quicken in terms of features. Frankly though, if there's a speed difference between the two I didn't see it.
  
  --
  
  Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
14. Re:Write Once, Run Anywhere? by Arandir · 2003-01-17 15:32 · Score: 1
  
  "Write once, run anywhere" is a great goal. I wish all the applications I wrote did that.
  
  But it is not the only goal. You also want speed and smallness. Java doesn't cut it in the speed department for GUI applications.
  
  A lot of developers give execution speed and UI latency a higher priority than "write once, hope it runs on the platform I never tested."
  
  --
  A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
I hope it goes well in the future. by stevey · 2003-01-17 02:16 · Score: 1

TheKompany is great - and Shaun always presents himself in a very good light.

If I were unemployed it's one of the first companies I'd try to approach.
1. Re:I hope it goes well in the future. by TrekCycling · 2003-01-17 02:57 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  You're joking, right? I like TKC's products. In fact I bought like 4 Zaurus apps in my life and I bought Quanta Gold. But Shawn isn't the king of people skills. If he's not lambasting people on the TKC mailing list he's laying into people on IRC for things they *didn't* say. So, no, I don't think he always presents himself in a good light. I would say that's probably something he needs to work on.
Re:How does commercial Free Software work? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 02:17 · Score: 0

As someone who doesn't read subject lines, story posts, articles or comments thoroughly before posting, what insights can you provide regarding how far up your ass you head is shoved? ;P

Seriously, this isn't a Slashdot interview. Although I almost thought it was too because of the way the post is worded. The editors need to work on that a bit...
Can't we all just get along by HealYourChurchWebSit · 2003-01-17 02:18 · Score: 5, Insightful

Here's the real problem:

"... focus on Gnome and the relegation of KDE 'to second best', other Gnome vs KDE issues ..."

With Mandrake focusing its attention on finances -- it is time for a leader such as RedHat to do what my father used to say to my brothers and I when we'd be squabbling over this-n-that "I don't care who's fault it is, I'll knock both your heads together -- now play nice!"

So long as we have these pissing battles between Gnome and KDE -- Windows will continue to enjoy its top of the heap status.

--
--- have you healed your church website?
1. Re:Can't we all just get along by IamTheRealMike · 2003-01-17 03:13 · Score: 1
  
  That's what they're doing. They're sponsoring a lot of the desktop standards effort that's busy rejoining kde and gnome.
2. Re:Can't we all just get along by jacoplane · 2003-01-17 03:51 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  Not extremely exciting, but the guy who left red hat to fork a kde-based distribution can be found here: ark linux
3. Re:Can't we all just get along by diamondc · 2003-01-17 06:47 · Score: 1
  
  Why should RedHat do that? They're not a charity, they have to make business choices and it's been clear since RedHat 5 or 6 that they favored GNOME.
  
  --
  "I keep looking in the want-ads under 'revolutionary' but there don't seem to be any listings.. "
Competition is what we need by Max+Romantschuk · 2003-01-17 02:19 · Score: 4, Insightful

As I see it, both KDE and Gnome are good, and no matter which is better neither is revolutionary.

But the most important thing is that the competitive enviroment is maintained. If one get's to dominate too much, there's no real need to really invent stuff. Just look at what happened to Windows I haven't really noticed much of a difference since NT 4...

--
.: Max Romantschuk :: http://max.romantschuk.fi/
1. Re:Competition is what we need by digerata · 2003-01-17 04:28 · Score: 1
  
  Just look at what happened to Windows I haven't really noticed much of a difference since NT 4... That statement would be valid before XP came out. XP in some circles is not considered anything special, but looking only at the windows desktop, it was an evolutionary step.
  But supporting your argument, what caused that step? Mac OS X, otherwise known as the competition. Indeed, competition is very good for the desktops.
  
  --
  
  1;
2. Re:Competition is what we need by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 08:59 · Score: 0
  
  I haven't really noticed much of a difference since NT 4...
  
  That's not true. Windows currentely takes way more CPU power, RAM and hard drive space than it did in the days of NT4.
3. Re:Competition is what we need by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 11:49 · Score: 0
  
  We don't need two different desktops in linux to maintain competitive environment--that's already done by things like windows and OS X.
Support QT..... by oliverthered · 2003-01-17 02:21 · Score: 4, Interesting

Companies often use GTK because it's the non-cost closed source option.

With QT it's either open up you code under GPL, or pay us. Which I think is by far the best option.

Also QT runs on hand helds and the like and it's C++

--
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
1. Re:Support QT..... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 02:27 · Score: 0
  
  what companies use gtk? ximian doesn't count.
2. Re:Support QT..... by ciupman · 2003-01-17 03:16 · Score: 1
  
  GTK has bindings for C++ (GTK++) and a lot other languages (Python,JAVA,TCL,EIFFEL) ;)
  
  --
  I fuse with Mercer every single day...
3. Re:Support QT..... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 06:15 · Score: 0
  
  QT has bindings for C (Qtc) and a lot other languages (Python, Perl, Java, C#, Ocaml on the way).
  
  http://webcvs.kde.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/kdebind in gs/
kde rocks the gnu wwworld by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 02:22 · Score: 0

as yet another star rises from the ruins. thanks so much mr kompany.

careful to avoid being swallowed dupe buy those scamsters over at wall street of deceit.

again, many kudeos, we've become acustomed to yOUR interface.
He's lucky [was Re:Interesting company concept] by Christianfreak · 2003-01-17 02:23 · Score: 3, Interesting

I worked for a company that tried this. We had IRC chats, phone conversations and later on even did have face to face meetings from time to time (we were all in the US).

It was a nightmare, communication was horrible. Sure a lot of problems boiled down to mis-management but it was certainly compounded by the fact that we were far apart, and people could basically do whatever they wanted and get paid for it. There was tons of turn over, they kept hiring incompetent people and firing them. Almost sort of an expensive trial and error.

--
The Anti-Blog
1. Re:He's lucky [was Re:Interesting company concept] by IamTheRealMike · 2003-01-17 02:30 · Score: 1
  
  There was tons of turn over, they kept hiring incompetent people and firing them. Almost sort of an expensive trial and error.
  I guess that's why he uses personal recommendation only.
  CodeWeavers and Ximian do something similar, though not quite to the same extent.
Very telling... by pXgray · 2003-01-17 02:23 · Score: 1, Offtopic

The fact that over half of the visible, moderated comments seem to assume this is a Slashdot interview, it proves once again that most initial posters do not bother to read the article.

--

End of Post
You are at the end of the post. To the north lies the post.
There is a sig here.
1. Re:Very telling... by Meeble · 2003-01-17 03:11 · Score: 1
  
  haha that's what I first thought. I mean the first line says "arb writes "The Age has an interview with Shawn Gordon, president of theKompany.com " I got it, and I have the attention span of a 11yr old and the patience of a gnat. ;)
  
  --
  Fear Breeds Knowledge
Re:Can't we all just get along? by beanerspace · 2003-01-17 02:25 · Score: 1

I think a quote from the article shows that RedHat is in one respect, resolving the argument by letting KDE die a quiet death. Here's a quote from the interview supporting this point:
"We know that Red Hat has never been a fan of KDE, nor has it ever supported KDE. As I recall, they financed the original work on Gnome and despite what a large company they are, there was only one KDE advocate at the company who quit last summer and has since made a forked version of Red Hat called Ark Linux if I recall.

Lets face it, the operating systems are going to drive the interface, and the big companies going to drive the O/S -- how else could a buggy system such as Win95 have been inflicted on us all?

I admire the work gone into KDE, but perhaps its time to make an alliance that will save everyone concerned on the Linux side?

--

healyourchurchwebsite.com - WWJB?
"Race KDE cannot lose" by On+Lawn · 2003-01-17 02:32 · Score: 1

I know we like to see things in a context of mortal combat: good v evil, Buccaneers v Eagles, Brazil v Portugal and so on. In fact that natural human inclination is why the 6 o'clock news can't get past politics as anything but "right v left". Just choose two sides, and let one conquer the other one.

While KDE v Gnome was fashionable, say in 1997, I don't think it holds context any more. Gnome has won contracts and support with Sun, IBM and others while KDE has won support with IBM, the EU and others. The programming resources brought to the table here are far from over-extended.

You see, I to like the GTK2 libraries a lot more then GTK. I like how they took the time to build it up with all C code. I like LGPL better then GPL (but I like Artistic better then both).

But for all that I'd switch to KDE in a second if I thought that the wierd foot was out for blood, or that KDE was circling the drain. I just don't think its a competition like that.

_____________________________
OnRoad: Hacking that which costs more and is more deadly.
Re:How does commercial Free Software work? by Real+World+Stuff · 2003-01-17 02:34 · Score: 0

This has not been done to my knowledge. A first.

With the future acquisition of VA by IBM, the caliber of the Open Softare movement will reflect the corporate control and vision that can only be provided by a multinational multibillion corporation. IBM will reign in the counterproductive rougues and apply a standard to the Linux platform. This commercialization will be a step in the right direction to compete with Microsoft ( a comany whose stock just split and is offering a look at their code)

--
If we don't fight for ourselves no one will.
Gnome winning? by Tyreth · 2003-01-17 02:38 · Score: 1

I've always preferred Gnome. Well, until a couple of weeks ago when I became uncertain. I had resigned to the fact that kde was more popular and almost certain to dominate the desktop despite my preferring gnome. Yet Shawn made the point that gnome has the funding, and therefore the powerful applications. It will be interesting to see how this pans out.

On another thought, perhaps we need to change the attitude we have towards making applications. Many have considered it, and some do it - separating the program from the interface, Qt or GTK. What if we create the program like games are often made today? An engine with an interface, but a powerful sdk for developing your own mods and changes. So if we have a powerful e-mail client such as evolution, have all the code and features done including interface, but designed in such a way that any new programmer could come along and create a Qt, OpenGL or whatever interface himself. We separate the code from the interface, with functions to hook them together.

This could potentially tie in with plugins, making them easier to create, since most parts of the program would be made easily accessible to the interface for new programmers.
1. Re:Gnome winning? by MikeBabcock · 2003-01-17 02:49 · Score: 1
  
  I'm surprised that an XML interface language hasn't developped yet. By interface, I mean callbacks and GUI notifications (although not necessarily just for GUIs). I see no reason why a visual inteface using Gtk+ or Qt couldn't be communicating with the App its tied to via socket calls (much like the X protocol and actual graphic displays). This way, the backend app communicates that the window named "setup_part2" is to be created, gets callbacks in that 'namespace' for window initialization being complete, sends button awareness messages, etc.
  
  It seems complex, until its hidden in the libraries and one can ignore one's GUI code in one's app code completely.
  
  --
  - Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
2. Re:Gnome winning? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 03:35 · Score: 1, Interesting
  
  They have. It's called
  "Mozilla". Keep in mind the GTK started as a toolkit for one program.
3. Re:Gnome winning? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 03:37 · Score: 0
  
  There are a few. See XUL (as used by Mozilla), and things like XWT.
  
  The argument against it is that the further you abstract the program from the windowing kit, the slower your programs get.
  
  That's why Java Swing GUI's aren't so hot (aside from the fact that they use pure java for rendering to an image buffer that is then painted to a peer window instead of using native peer widgets).
4. Re:Gnome winning? by IamTheRealMike · 2003-01-17 06:40 · Score: 1
  
  I've always preferred Gnome. Well, until a couple of weeks ago when I became uncertain. I had resigned to the fact that kde was more popular and almost certain to dominate the desktop despite my preferring gnome.
  I dunno. I've not seen any compelling stats for which is more popular. Anyway, it's odd but when I uesd KDE I used mainly KDE apps, and now I use gnome I mainly use gnome apps. Except I did use some GTK/GNOME apps in KDE, and now I don't use and KDE/Qt apps at all, most of the time when I find an app I want it uses GTK. Dunno why.
  On another thought, perhaps we need to change the attitude we have towards making applications. Many have considered it, and some do it - separating the program from the interface, Qt or GTK.
  A lot of apps do this, there are lots of front ends to LAME, or cdrecord etc. But yeah, it's something to look in to.
5. Re:Gnome winning? by I+hate+Perl · 2003-01-17 08:37 · Score: 1
  
  Because , my friend, with C++ I can say derive my Widget from an existing QT ListView widget and override say, drawing of a single cell, where I can use QT drawing primitives to draw a chart or whatever I want.
  This way QT widget handles 99% of the extensive logic required for handling a complicated widget like a multi-column list, while I can easily change only behavior I want.
  How do I do stuff like that with XML ?
6. Re:Gnome winning? by MikeBabcock · 2003-01-22 03:57 · Score: 1
  
  My point may have been unclear -- you wouldn't do it any differently than you do now -- the class you derive from might be called ListViewX which knows how to communicate with either the QT ListView or the Gtk+ ListView or the MFC ListView. That was more my point. Its a nearly impossible dream, but a worthy one.
  
  --
  - Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
If Only... by Tsali · 2003-01-17 02:45 · Score: 1

You could easily customize GTK apps in other windowing systems, I'd probably convert over... although if Mono is sustained, I'll probably switch in a heart beat....

Back to topic, KDE is a top rate set and Qt is a top rate library. Its nice having a choice for how I want to manage my desktop. This choice may beat you the death with all the different builds you have to do - so be it.

J.

--
This space for rent.
Where have you been for the last two years? by PeterClark · 2003-01-17 02:48 · Score: 3, Insightful

What's wrong with KDE's (and QT's) GPL license? Or are we going to get into that silly "LGPL is better than GPL" argument? It's possible (because of QT's dual license) to produce closed-source software, which is what theKompany has done. Or have I been trolled?

:Peter
1. Re:Where have you been for the last two years? by arkanes · 2003-01-17 03:00 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  Look at wxWindows for a LGPL, cross platform (GTK, X11, Windows, Motif, some others) toolkit. It's sort of a cross between Qt and the MFC (no preprocessor, so no signals/slots, uses MFC style event tables), but it's (much) cleaner than MFC. It's not as polished as Qt, but it's open source on all platforms without spending lots of money (You have to pay for a commercial Qt license if you want to work on windows, or use the sadly outmoded NC version), and help is very forthcoming on the wx-users mailing list.
2. Re:Where have you been for the last two years? by IamTheRealMike · 2003-01-17 03:21 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  What's wrong with KDE's (and QT's) GPL license?
  Two major problems:
  1) It means you can only write GPLd software with it. Apple were pretty keen not to let Safari be open sourced, though god knows why, it's hardly a cutting edge browser so they actually had to produce Qt wrappers and de-Qt parts to prevent it becoming GPL software.
  2) It's only free software when using X11. That means KDE software can't be ported to Windows or MacOS and use the native graphics layer on each, they have to use an X server. Also, if one day (unlikely but possible) we all decide to move away from X, unless Trolltech update the license KDE is kind of shafted. Obviously that's the least likely of all scenarios, and anyway I expect Trolltech would just update the license, but you get the idea.
  Of course you can write commercial or portable software with Qt, but have you seen the prices? It's $1500 per developer for the professional edition, meaning unless you are a rich company you have to make your software GPLd and X specific (which is what they intended, but hey).
  In contrast, GTK can be used for commercial and portable apps, and really it's quite a good toolkit these days. Hence the flamewars.
3. Re:Where have you been for the last two years? by SILIZIUMM · 2003-01-17 03:44 · Score: 1
  
  I don't know all the details on the license bundled for this package, but I saw a boxed version of QT on Trolltech's website the other day : http://www.trolltech.com/products/box.html
  
  The page says "The Qt 3.0 box is offered in addition to the Qt license purchase for $149". Not sure, but it seems that you can use it on Linux/Win. Anyone know more about that, especially the license (can you write non-GPL apps (LGPL, BSD, closed, etc.) ?
4. Re:Where have you been for the last two years? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 04:17 · Score: 0
  
  The pricing for a single developer is
  as follows from their web page
  
  Single platform
  (Either Qt/X11 or Qt/Windows or Qt/Mac)
  Pro version: $ 1550 USD
  
  Enterprise Version: $ 2330 USD
  
  Qt DuoPack
  (Combination of any two of Qt/X11, Qt/Windows or Qt/Mac for the same developer)
  Pro version: $ 2325 USD
  
  Enterprise Version: $ 3495 USD
  
  Qt TrioPack
  (Qt/X11, Qt/Windows and Qt/Mac for the same developer)
  Pro version: $ 3100 USD
  
  Enterprise Version: $ 4660 USD
  
  Qt is cool stuff, and they certainly have every right to charge for it, but it is simply too expensive for me to use.
  
  I have been using the Visual Component Framework (http://sourceforge.net/projects/vcf) for development
5. Re:Where have you been for the last two years? by _|()|\| · 2003-01-17 04:20 · Score: 1
  
  The page says "The Qt 3.0 box is offered in addition to the Qt license purchase for $149".
  In other words, after paying $1,550 for a license and $480 for support, you have the option of paying an additional $149 for media.
6. Re:Where have you been for the last two years? by patter · 2003-01-17 04:22 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Look at wxWindows [wxwindows.org]
  
  Hmm, well I may be somewhat redundant, but I've been looking for and evaluating several cross platform GUI toolkits.
  
  I started with QT, because a few years ago, did some work in it. Doesn't look like it's changed much, but to write apps that run on Windows/*nix, I've gotta cough up $3000 USD per seat.
  
  Then I grabbed GTK+, wrote a simple app, used glade to make the GUI, and compiled on Linux and Windows -- great says I. Then I wondered why the Windows version looked like the Linux version. Strange, windows programs should look like Windows programs IMHO ;).
  
  Then I found wxWindows -- this is to me the one that's had 10 years of development, yet next to no press. They do what NO ONE in the GUI toolkit business has thought of -- the apps look like native apps, yet the same source code compiles and runs on multiple platforms ! That and it's LGPL'd so I can make OSS stuff, closed source stuff, etc.
  
  Another plus I find is that unlike most OSS stuff that's made for Windows developers this thing supports (very well) Visual C++, and Borland C++ builder.
  
  One thing that's a complete pain in the neck to me is building stuff with cygwin. If I'm programming on Windows, I'm going to have a decent development tool for the environment, and sorry gcc isn't it (it's great on *nix, but that's because the OS has a good shell already).
  
  From looking at the documentation and investigating a little, it looks like I can take my MFC programs and port them (the parallels are amazing -- and the API is probably a lot better than MFC from what I've read).
  
  I think this is the ultimate solution for me, I can write apps that run on Windows, *nix (wrapping either GTK+ or Motif/Lesstif), and MacOS 9 and 10.
  
  If the native OS doesn't have a widget, wxWindows emulates it (such as MDI on GTK+).
  
  --
  -- If at first you do succeed, try to hide your astonishment. -- Harry F. Banks
7. Re:Where have you been for the last two years? by Waffle+Iron · 2003-01-17 04:50 · Score: 1
  
  Another cool thing you can do with wxWindows is hack your project out in a couple of days with wxPython. Then you can easily mess around with it in this RAD-like environment until you get the UI finalized.
  If it has satisfactory performance at this point, ship it. Otherwise, port it over to straight C++ wxWindows.
8. Re:Where have you been for the last two years? by evilviper · 2003-01-17 05:33 · Score: 1
  
  Or are we going to get into that silly "LGPL is better than GPL" argument?
  
  Silly? And what standards do you know of that are based on GPLed softward? Hell, I don't think the internet would be using TCP/IP (it might not even exist) if it wasn't for the Open Sourcing of BSD and it's TCP/IP stack.
  
  How about SSH? IPSec? Anything that has caught on has had a BSD-licensed implimentation that developers were free to use in any way they wanted.
  
  If you think that any GPLed software is going to become a standard, you are very naieve, or have been taking rms's statements to heart too much.
  
  --
  Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
9. Re:Where have you been for the last two years? by Suppafly · 2003-01-17 07:27 · Score: 1
  
  While wxWindows is easy to use and multiple platform, its hard to imagine any serious app using wxWindows. It just doesn't create polished looking apps. Every program I've ever used which used wxWindows looked absolutely horrible. The wxWindows widgets just don't look native on any system, and they don't always act natively. Perhaps on win95 and old linux desktops it looks ok, but on modern systems its obvious with wxwindows is used because they look and feel clunky.
10. Re:Where have you been for the last two years? by arkanes · 2003-01-17 07:54 · Score: 1
  
  You're either confused or were doing something wrong, because wxWindows uses native widgets (except in a couple cases like wxUniversal). Certain widgets are emulated when there's no native one to wrap (Tree view on GTK, for example), but where there's a native control, wxWindows uses it.
11. Re:Where have you been for the last two years? by SideshowBob · 2003-01-17 10:28 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  "so they actually had to produce Qt wrappers and de-Qt parts to prevent it becoming GPL software."
  
  That almost certainly is not why Apple developed KWQ (the abstraction layer that lets them tie Safari into Cocoa). They did that because Apple's own browser needs to have a good, thorough implementation of the Aqua user experience. Apple cares a lot more about the user experience (and thus is willing to go to the extra work to have it) than the typical /.'er seems to realize.
12. Re:Where have you been for the last two years? by marm · 2003-01-17 10:34 · Score: 1
  
  but where there's a native control, wxWindows uses it.
  
  Except where it decides not to, like the file dialog, which isn't anything like the GTK+ version.
  
  I have to agree with the other poster about this: wxWindows does suffer a little from the fact it wraps widgets rather than emulating them. Layouts don't quite match from platform to platform, because the underlying toolkit has different ideas about where to put the widgets. A layout that works well with the GTK+ backend often looks scruffy in Windows, and vice versa. Sometimes the underlying widgets behave in subtly different ways, which makes the interface not behave correctly on one platform. It's tough to fix this without resorting to a lot of platform tweaks #ifdef'ed around the code, which partially defeats the point of a cross-platform toolkit.
  
  Audacity is the canonical example, and probably the highest-profile wxWindows app too: it doesn't really look and feel like a GTK+ app when on X11, and on Windows it doesn't quite look or feel right there either, and that's with quite a lot of tweaking for platforms.
13. Re:Where have you been for the last two years? by SILIZIUMM · 2003-01-17 13:24 · Score: 1
  
  Geez, I feel that QT is a *real* nice toolkit, but (as a student) I don't have that money to buy a license, only to mess around with applications I could compile on Linux and Win (and Mac but I don't have a Mac so heh...). I could develop with the free/X11 for sure, but I couldn't compile them on Windows. I guess I have to look for something else hmmm...
14. Re:Where have you been for the last two years? by greenrd · 2003-01-17 14:15 · Score: 1
  
  I think Java is what you're looking for. Don't believe outdated opinions like "it's all interpreted", or "it's only good for applets".
  
  --
  Female Prison Rape in NY
15. Re:Where have you been for the last two years? by SILIZIUMM · 2003-01-17 14:25 · Score: 1
  
  I don't think so, here's why : I wanted to use Qt because I am learning C++, thus I wanted to program C++ apps. I already looked at Java but for some reason I don't like it, but that's my opinion..
16. Re:Where have you been for the last two years? by WzDD · 2003-01-17 20:56 · Score: 1
  
  wxWindows is great, but a long way away from matching Qt or even GTK in terms of API flexibility. For reasonably simple applications, it's a great choice. For anything more complicated, I would recommend Qt.
  
  I would also have to question how much Qt you have used, because Qt also does what you claim "NO ONE in the GUI toolkit business has thought of" - ie, programs written for Qt compile to produce native Windows widgets on Windows, native Mac widgets on Mac, and their own widgets under X.
17. Re:Where have you been for the last two years? by WzDD · 2003-01-17 21:01 · Score: 1
  
  >where there's a native control, wxWindows uses >it.
  
  >Except where it decides not to, like the file
  >dialog, which isn't anything like the GTK+
  >version.
  
  I take your point, but come on :) this can only be a good thing. The GTK file selector is an abomination.
  
  1) Creating a directory resets the files listing to the top for no reason.
  
  2) You cannot remove a directory at all.
  
  3) Even when you are allowed to highlight multiple files, highlighting multiple files and then clicking "delete" only removes the first one. No indication that this is the case is given, and after the files are removed the files listing is reset to the top of the list again.
  
  Silly things like resetting the files listing because you're too lazy to work out where the listing should be positioned after a bunch of files that were currently in the view window were deleted have a dramatic effect on usability and "polish". As far as I'm concerned this is one area where the WzWindows people made a very good decision.
18. Re:Where have you been for the last two years? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 21:04 · Score: 0
  
  > As far as I'm concerned this is one area where the WzWindows people made a very good decision.
  
  Haha, WzWindows :-)
19. Re:Where have you been for the last two years? by arkanes · 2003-01-18 04:28 · Score: 1
  
  If you really want a 100% identical interface on all platforms, you can use wxUniversal, which emulates all the widgets. The trade off is that you don't get platform specific functionality that people expect without lots of extra work - you won't match the system colors, or the system fonts, you might have different default keybindings, you won't match themes, etc, etc, etc.
20. Re:Where have you been for the last two years? by arkanes · 2003-01-18 04:35 · Score: 1
  
  BLeh, stupid submit button is right there next to preview :(
  I was never trying to claim that wxWindows is some catchall solution for cross platform development, there is no such thing, but it is a) better than Qt on any platform besides X11, assuming you're making free software, and b) quite effective in it's own right. Wrapping rather than emulating is a design choice, and some cases it might hurt you, in others is's exactly what you want.
Re:Is this your new thing tps12? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 02:53 · Score: 0

that should be be "an "Ask...""
Keep them both by bgfay · 2003-01-17 02:54 · Score: 4, Insightful

This is the beauty of using an open system. I've used KDE, I'm using Gnome. Switching between them is pretty much painless (as is switching between KDE/Gnome and Windows). That there are two systems for window management likely means that both will get better faster. Gnome sees a great innovation in KDE and implements it. KDE sees that Gnome is running faster and works to make KDE run faster. And back and forth.

The problem with Windows has been that there was no real competition. That problem is being solved. I know that there are folks out there who are devoted to Debian and hate what Red Hat has done with 8.0, but regardless, I could hand the Red Hat discs to any of my family members and they could install it on their computer without wiping out the Windows install. This is one thing the Linux community has been shooting for. Are there problems with RH 8.0 and BlueCurve? Sure, but it's something that compares well with XP.

I like having KDE and Gnome to choose from and, at this point, I don't know enough to choose one over the other forever and ever amen. Right now, though, I have the choice and that's what brought me to the party in the first place.

--
Yeah, I'm as old as my UID would suggest.
1. Re:Keep them both by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 05:56 · Score: 0
  
  I know that there are folks out there who are devoted to Debian and hate what Red Hat has done with 8.0
  
  I'm devoted to Debian, and like what Red Hat has done with 8.0 ;).
Sorry, what is the problem again? by Conor+Turton · 2003-01-17 02:55 · Score: 1

I can't understand why there's a problem. You just install the required libraries to support to other desktop and you can run KDE apps under Gnome and Gnome apps under KDE. Its not rocket science and it solves the problems for the advocates for both desktops. THe fact that people seem to think they HAVE to be forced to follow one or the other is ludicrous. You use what you prefer but you don't have to let it stop you using the apps of the other. For example I run KDE but I love OGLE, Evolution and PAN. Got the Gnome libs installed and all function absolutely fine under KDE.

--
Conor "You're not married,you haven't got a girlfriend and you've never seen Star Trek? Good Lord!" - Patrick Stewart
1. Re:Sorry, what is the problem again? by m1chael · 2003-01-17 03:13 · Score: 0
  
  this isnt the 'problem', people seem to want a unified *looking* and *feeling* desktop. i know this can be achieved with themes but its just not the same. one toolkit to rule them all?
  
  --
  I know you are psychotic, but please make an effort.
2. Re:Sorry, what is the problem again? by Strog · 2003-01-17 07:11 · Score: 1
  
  Which one will you choose for them?
  
  Some want QT, some want GTK and others will choose Motif. The reason we have seom many choices is because people don't all want the same thing. If someone wants everything the same then they are free to choose one and don't install any other.
  
  I think if Trolltech had resolved the license issue once and for all at the beginning then we might have close to one toolkit. A lot of people went with Gnome early on because of commercial, ideological, etc. issues with QT. The result was Gnome evolved into a very nice desktop enviroment and gathered a solid following. KDE had all the buzz and initial momenteum but now they have to share the spotlight.
  
  I used to bounce around between Gnome, KDE and Elightenment. What really got me to go Gnome at that time was Unreal Tournament. Everything just worked like it was supposed to (sound, performance, etc.). I had issues with the other wm/desktops I tried.
  
  I really like Mandrake's approach of making all the menus integrated so I didn't have to worry about looking under a Gnome, KDE, etc. section to find an app I wanted. I could run Gnome and still find all my apps easily and they ran just as nice. KDE 2.x started wooing me and I have been on KDE mostly ever since with the ocassional Blackbox or Fluxbox. I still use several Gnome apps and use it once in a while. I tend to go KDE/Fluxbox equally on my BSD boxes (don't really know why it is different).
Fight on by pkphilip · 2003-01-17 03:14 · Score: 1

No matter what one might say in favour of KDE and GNOME perhaps playing nice to form a single unified desktop environment, it is probably for the best that we have two competing environments because without it the speed of innovation in desktops will go down drastically.

It is good that now there is even competition for browsers - Konqueror vs Mozilla.. keeps the pressure on for getting good stuff out quicker.

As far as interoperability between these desktop environments - someone will figure out a way to make that work without too much pain. Redhat's bluecurve was an attempt in that direction. I am sure there will be many more such attempts and this is good for the rest of us users.
Outdated opinion (was: Re:"Race KDE cannot win") by Reinout · 2003-01-17 03:28 · Score: 4, Informative

... there'd be no lisensing issues. KDE was foolish for choosing a toolkit with such a license
BRING BACK HARMONY. (....) Harmony is a GPL replacement toolkit ....
I'm getting the feeling that the poster doesn't know that QT now comes under the GPL license (instead of their original non-GPL one). The poster loves KDE, but loaths it's licence. The license is GPL! Nothing wrong with that (as the poster likes linux).
Funny (or not) thing is that RMS is basically backing gnome (LGPL) while at the same time advising everyone to stay clear of the LGPL because it is an inferior language. GPL is preferred. KDE&QT is GPL, so it would be better to put the FSF's weight more (and more openly) behind KDE. By "better" I mean from a purely FSF-political standpoint.
Reinout

--
Reinout van Rees
Gnome- Evolution! by bach37 · 2003-01-17 03:31 · Score: 1

At first I picked Gnome simply because Evolution is made to work with Gnome- from the Galeon or Mozilla browser, to the palm syncing software. Then, I tried KDE for a little while, but found it too much like Mac OS 10- disgusting and annoying. Anyways, just my thoughts.

-Scott
1. Re:Gnome- Evolution! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 15:05 · Score: 0
  
  You are funny really because it is obvious that you never tried MacOS. GNOME is going more and more to look, work and feel like MacOS than anything else.
you iidiot by hopey · 2003-01-17 03:36 · Score: 1

Maybe I'm stupid but I couldn't find program menu editor from new gnome and changed to kde.

hopey
1. Re:you iidiot by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 04:33 · Score: 0
  
  Not stupid, but possbily masochistic.
  
  You do make a valid point though, some very important tasks (such as menu editting) arent' very intuitive under Gnome.
  
  A quick search should have turned up, in the "Location" bar of Nautilus, type "applications://" - you must be running Gnome 2.0.2 or higher I believe.
2. Re:you iidiot by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 04:42 · Score: 0
  
  I tried KDE a long time ago but it wasn't very configurable so I went back to GNOME/Sawfish. Now with Sawfish all but dried up and Metacity having just as few configuration options as was available in KDE I'm not sure what I'll do.
3. Re:you iidiot by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 05:12 · Score: 0
  
  So you think GNOME is more configurable now that it has a Windows Registry (aka GConf) ? Amen !
Pay us? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 03:36 · Score: 0

> With QT it's either open up you code under GPL,
> or pay us. Which I think is by far the best option

I don't know about you but I haven't been paid when I use a closed source Qt app. In fact, I end up paying *more* to that company because they licensed Qt from TrollTech.

What bothers me about the TrollTech arrangement is that KDE functionality is continually being absorbed and reinvented in Qt. KDE ends up with either two versions of everything or has to give up it's own implementation.

I personally wish Harmony didn't die since it allowed KDE to chart it's own course.
There's a lot of misinformation about KDE. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 03:40 · Score: 3, Interesting

Let's face it, most of the people out there bashing KDE all tht time are just misinformed and have never really spent much time with it and are still playing politics to this day because of personal biases.

With regard to Red Hat and Bluecurve... Those of use who use KDE do not think that everything was well in Red Hat 8. I'm a longtime Red Hat user. I installed Red Hat 8 and tried to make their KDE work. I gave up. I ended up going to ftp.kde.org to see if there was an "official" distribution of KDE and Qt for Red Hat 8 that would repair the obvious rendering bugs, have working fonts, either function with standard KDE icon themes or use a non-broken set of Bluecurve icons, and would actually use KDE applications for app-to-app functionality instead of GNOME ones.

But no dice, apparently the official KDE packages for Red Hat 8 are made by Red Hat, so the KDE I downloaded was essentially the same (and essentially as broken) as the KDE on the Red Hat 8 CDs. I switched back to Red Hat 7.

And what's with all the license complaining still? Qt is dual-licensed, GPL or commercial with paid development. This should be enough to keep the GPL zealots happy and the "GPL sucks for companies" people happy... but apparently some people will not rest until an inferior product, GNOME, has been declared the winner by the 800-lb gorillas of the Linux world and KDE has been marginalized.

The fact that KDE is still as good as it is and is still as popular as it is demonstrates just what a great product it can be (notice I said "can be" because we all now know just how much depends on distributors).
1. Re:There's a lot of misinformation about KDE. by IamTheRealMike · 2003-01-17 06:35 · Score: 1
  
  SuSE 8.1 doesn't have a very great GNOME 2 setup either, most people who have tried it said it feels unfinished and parts are broken.
  So.... what is your point again? If you prefer a KDE centric distro, use SuSE or Mandrake.
2. Re:There's a lot of misinformation about KDE. by Almost-Retired · 2003-01-17 10:09 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah, well you didn't look too hard on the kde site. There have been special rh8.0 packages of kde available, all 106 files, for at least 2 weeks just for the 3.0.5a release. Before that there was a set of 3.0.4's, then 3.0.5's.
  
  I think that actually started out to be 3.0.2 but I won't say so on the good book.
  
  I too tried to make rh8.0 and evolution work, but evo apparently has no way to switch it to use a pop server, only imap, and thats about as worthless as the proverbial tits on a boarhog to me when my isp only has a pop server. That was redhat mistake #1, assuming everyine has access to an imap server. (whatever the heck that is, maybe it is the latest and greatest, but its not *here* *now* for me)
  
  So, all of the redhat supplied kde got ripped out, and the rh8.0 versions from the kde site were installed. It mostly worked then and is all working now. Heck, I couldn't even find a method to add my favs to the toolbar in gnome! 45 seconds of clicking in kde, what can I say.
  
  Likewise, trying to use the bluecurve in prefs-->look and feel-->window decorations is a 100% guaranteed kwin crasher. I liked the looks of the BlueCurve decorated window, but when it crashes kwin 100% of the time just winning a game or closing gedit out, then its not worth the hassle because thats exactly what it is. Switching that back to the "KDE2 default" and everything is stable. This bug has been reported, but its apparently non-issue to redhat.
  
  It the little gotcha's like that that have driven the longtime linux users away from the redhat8.0 look because it doesn't mean squat to me how it looks as long as it works, and bluecurve didn't work for me in any way but visually.
  
  And thats one redhat users attitude about bluecurve. Apply salt if your experience is different.
  
  --
  Cheers, Gene
Re:Can't we all just get along? by mark_lybarger · 2003-01-17 03:45 · Score: 1

how else could a buggy system such as Win95 have been inflicted on us all

i'm not quite sure, but it certainly didn't have anything to do with Microsoft forcing vendors into exclusive contracts to install their software on the hardware they sold. big companies didn't drive the O/S, IIRC A big company pretty much forced it there.
My favourite.. by Chicane-UK · 2003-01-17 04:21 · Score: 1

In my personal opinion (put on flame suit) GNOME has always been infinately better than KDE. I find KDE ugly, and irritating to use.. but I can also see the amount of work that has gone into it.

GNOME has hits flaws and quirks, but I just get up and going on GNOME, and can customize it to my needs a hell of a lot faster than I can with KDE.

--
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
1. Re:My favourite.. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 04:46 · Score: 0
  
  Have you tried KDE 3.1? Just curious. It's significantly better than KDE 3.0.x, and more easily customized IMO.
2. Re:My favourite.. by nutshell42 · 2003-01-17 04:49 · Score: 1
  
  In my personal opinion (put on flame suit) KDE has always been infinately better than GNOME. I find GNOME ugly, and irritating to use.. but I can also see the amount of work that has gone into it.
  KDE has hits flaws and quirks, but I just get up and going on KDE, and can customize it to my needs a hell of a lot faster than I can with GNOME.
  Sorry, I just had to do that =)
  
  --
  Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
3. Re:My favourite.. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 05:09 · Score: 0
  
  I bet he hasn't tried ANY kde versions before otherwise he wouldn't come up telling us that KDE is strange to use. It's as easy and if not as intuitive to use was Windows is and Windows is used by everyone. Everyone who uses Windows finds himself confortable in KDE in less than 1 min.
  
  Different than the alienated GNOME which looks differently, which behaves inconsistently, which has NO apps, where's apps are all unfinished and crashing, where one dialog looks differently than the others, where the entire Desktop is immature.
4. Re:My favourite.. by bogie · 2003-01-17 08:20 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  "n my personal opinion (put on flame suit) GNOME has always been infinately better than KDE. I find KDE ugly, and irritating to use"
  
  What an odd thing to say. Most people who have been using Gnome and KDE since they started would say only now has Gnome about caught up with KDE in quality. After all KDE had a huge head start. Also ugly? In what way? They both look pretty much the same to me. Either desktop can also be made to look like anything from Windows XP to OS X to Next etc etc.
  
  The only people i have ever heard say one is "easier" to use then the other are the completely biased ones. They are both easy to use and have been for quite some time.
  
  Your post reminds me of the early days when all the KDE bashers used to say "but KDE isn't themeable like GNOME!".
  
  "GNOME has hits flaws and quirks, but I just get up and going on GNOME, and can customize it to my needs a hell of a lot faster than I can with KDE."
  
  Again good for you, but customize it? Ever hear of KDE's control panel? It doesn't get any easier than that. It just sounds like you made up your mind a long time ago that Gnome was somehow "better" than KDE and your either unwilling to learn more about KDE or are just hopeless biased.
  
  Today they both about equal and anyone newbie could get their work done easily with either desktop.
  
  --
  If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
5. Re:My favourite.. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 15:52 · Score: 0
  
  What, feed a troll?
Mod this up... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 04:22 · Score: 0

This is the truth!
Gnome will always be favored by corporations by mrm677 · 2003-01-17 04:27 · Score: 1

Why? GTK libraries are LGPL. Before I get flamed, listen to this story:

I am a researcher at a large university. We develop software for numerous entities including national labs, industry, and acadamia. About a year ago, we wanted to start a new tool with a better user interface (we've been using Tcl/Tk for other projects). We started developing with QT but quickly had to abandon after our supervisor pointed out the GPL issue. You see, we can't GPL our code even though we nearly always open-source it under our own license. QT libraries our either GPL or you buy a license. Our funding sources prevent the use of GPL libraries because we often sign agreements with them such that they can use our code in commercial products. We have the money to purchase QT licenses, but dealing with the budgets (bureaucracy) and licences with other organizations is just to complex and unwanted by most involved (except for some developers).

This is the exact same reason why Gnome has more commercial support (at least in the U.S.) than KDE. Sad but true.
1. Re:Gnome will always be favored by corporations by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 05:15 · Score: 0
  
  i only have a few words, i used the 1.x series of KDE, then decided to try Gnome, used Gnome for about 3-4 months, then i got back to KDE (it was the 2.x series this time) and i falled in love :). Then last year i decided to give gnome a second chance and tried the 2.x series, well nothing to be impressed, always the same gnome, i don't know ho to say it in english...it feels "empty" just this.
  
  For commercial software...well...i'm a programmer, i make software, Qt is better than GTK (for me), and i think that software MUST be free, so, GPL if perfectly fine, well, let say is the only way to go.
  If somebody wants to make software in other ways well, you have the freedom, but i want the freedom to decide for myself, so, long live KDE.
2. Re:Gnome will always be favored by corporations by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 05:55 · Score: 0
  
  Incorrect. TrollTech offers special academic licences.
3. Re:Gnome will always be favored by corporations by anno1602 · 2003-01-17 07:53 · Score: 1
  
  Well, there are some libraries that are LGPL in KDE, too: KHTML and KJS (ECMA/JavaScript), for one. Apple chose KHTML and KJS for their Safari browser, and were able to do so exactly because it is LGPL'd.
4. Re:Gnome will always be favored by corporations by mrm677 · 2003-01-17 08:47 · Score: 1
  
  Read my post again. We have people license our code who are not academic. We can't give them code, that uses QT, because it would then violate an academic license.
Good point, and a question by GMFTatsujin · 2003-01-17 04:40 · Score: 1

I'm fairly new to Linux, so pardon me if I sounds like a dork. :)

I recently downloaded Gentoo (NICE!) and in reading the emerge docs, it states that you can set a flag in the source compilation process to include KDE and Gnome functionality into the build scripts for apps that support them.

This leads me to believe that I can run a Gnome app in KDE and still have all the Gnome-y goodness within that application. Ditto for running KDE apps in Gnome.

Is this true? If so, why worry about using one desktop or the other exclusively? Is this something the only Gentoo does, or does it just handle it more gracefully? What are the disadvantages of mixing like this?

Just a little confused. Thanks!
GMFTatsujin
1. Re:Good point, and a question by Steffen · 2003-01-17 05:59 · Score: 1
  
  You are correct. As long as the libraries that a gnome app requires (gtk) are present, the app will run, even if you aren't running a window manager or desktop. There is no magic to it. I've been running Konquerer under gnome for some time now.
2. Re:Good point, and a question by Dan+Ost · 2003-01-17 06:00 · Score: 1
  
  As long as you have the correct libraries present,
  you can run KDE apps in Gnome and vice versa.
  
  The issue here has far more to do with how the
  underlying libraries for KDE and Gnome are
  licensed. Gnome is LGPL which has certain
  advantages for vendors developing non-free
  software. KDE is conditionally GPL (it's GPL if
  you code is GPL but if you pay money, you can
  still use the library without releasing your
  code).
  
  I guess there are other issues as well, but I
  think most of them are secondary to the idiological
  one presented above (LGPL better or worse than
  conditionally GPL?).
  
  That's my understanding. I don't really feel
  strongly either way. Having two competing desktops
  seems like a good thing to me.
  
  --
  
  *sigh* back to work...
MOD PARENT UP. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 04:44 · Score: 0

Because it's right.
Best KDE Distro? by mobosplash · 2003-01-17 04:49 · Score: 1

So what is the best distro for KDE fans?

I like KDE a lot more than Gnome and would be interested in a KDE focused distro. Failing that, I guess a distro that had an easy way to customize to a KDE centric setup.
1. Re:Best KDE Distro? by nutshell42 · 2003-01-17 04:55 · Score: 1
  
  Probably Mandrake.
  But it really depends on what you want, if you want a "only the good sides of Windows"-distribution Mandrake's the best joice, if you want a "corporate-user"-distribution you should take a look at SuSE, if you want a "just as cool as debian but with a current version KDE without hunting for inofficial sources"-distribution I recommend gentoo (which is not biased towards KDE but isn't against it either (as Redhat arguably is)
  jm2
  
  --
  Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
2. Re:Best KDE Distro? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 05:01 · Score: 0
  
  Maybe Arch or Yoper. They have beta with 3.1rc.
  Mandrake also released 9.1beta1 lately. Haven't try it though.
3. Re:Best KDE Distro? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 05:37 · Score: 0
  
  Slackware is pretty good...doesn't install a lot of the crap other distros do in all the menus.
4. Re:Best KDE Distro? by phutureboy · 2003-01-17 05:56 · Score: 1
  
  Check out Xandros also...
5. Re:Best KDE Distro? by fault0 · 2003-01-17 06:49 · Score: 1
  
  To tell you the truth... any distro that is not Redhat.
  
  Redhat is also fine, as long as you install third party KDE rpms or build it from source (and don't use the supplied version of KDE)
6. Re:Best KDE Distro? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 10:44 · Score: 0
  
  I once thought as you do now, but I use KDE on Redhat 8.0 with no problem. I've tried Mandrake 9.0, but it was too buggy to use. I also downloaded the Suse evaluation CD, but it wouldn't run on my hardware. At this point I just wanted to be able to use my computer again! I think Redhat is such a good distro that the time spent customizing KDE is worth it.
7. Re:Best KDE Distro? by invisibastard · 2003-01-17 14:16 · Score: 1
  
  RedHat's phoebe has a nice version of KDE 3.1 that works well for me. Alt Linux has KDE 3.1 as well, and is a bit better than phoebe. Would someone please explain to me what is broken in RedHat KDE? I ask out of ignorance. When I used RedHat 8.0, I ran KDE with no problems. I agree with the people calling for the dropping of the K-names. It reminds me too much of bad comics, like "Kooky Klowns". Thanks.
RH and KDE by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 05:11 · Score: 0

RedHat's bastardization of KDE is akin to Microsoft's bastardization of Java, in my book. I'd rather RH didn't include KDE at all than suffer through the nastiness they did to it in the name of UI uniformity.
C is for interfaces by ChaosDiscord · 2003-01-17 05:11 · Score: 2, Insightful

Lets face it, C is not well suited for window environments.

Fair enough. Window environment programming really does benefit from a language with solid object oriented programming support.
But, C++ is not well suited to interacting with other languages or truly dynamic library use. These are two key elements of anything you're planning on making "core system libraries". Personally I include my GUI libraries in the fuzzy mess I label the core system libraries.
C's interface is the defacto interlanguage interface. Most mature languages develop some way of relatively easily explosing C functions in shared libraries. C's interface is very stable. C++'s varies from vendor to vendor and from compiler version to compiler version (GCC 2.95, 2.96, 3.0, 3.1, and 3.). A library in C plays well with Perl, Java, Python, C++, and many other languages. This is a good thing. (Mind you, this just means that the interface should be in C, but the implementation can be in C++. I certainly agree.)
Second C can be used dynamically. Not automatic dynamic linking, I'm talking about searching the filesystem for a library and using dlopen and dlsym (or LoadLibrary and GetProcAddress under Windows) to find functions you need. This technique is sometimes necessary and it's important that core libraries support it. C++'s interface is just too messy to support this.
Look at Windows. MFC is just C++ classes aound C stuff.

MFC suffers from more fundamental problems than being a C++ wrapper over a C interface. MFC was originally developed fairly early in C++'s life and so had to work around weaknesses in the early language and in Microsoft's early implementation. Those original workarounds remain in place for compatibility, but significantly complicate the code. MFC tries to be all things to all people, and it tried to accomplish this goal from version one. As a result, it's a giant interconnected monstrousity with lots of non-obvious magic. For the longest time any use of MFC required you to use the Document/View framework, and that assumption still runs throughout the code. It's not possible to point to a subset of MFC and say, "this is the GUI interface as distinct from the application framework code." MFC is too bloody big.
Thin Windows API C++ wrappers exist and are much more pleasant to use. You can easily cook up your own in a few days and slowly expand it as you need it. If you want a more heavy duty C++ wrapper over the Windows C API, there are some of those as well. One of them is called Qt. :-)

--
Search 2010 Gen Con events
1. Re:C is for interfaces by marm · 2003-01-17 10:12 · Score: 1
  
  C's interface is very stable. C++'s varies from vendor to vendor and from compiler version to compiler version
  
  This used to be true, but there is now a standard C++ ABI on Linux which all the major compilers now follow, gcc included (from 3.2 onwards). This should now be a concern of the past... about time too.
  
  [dlopen/dlsym etc.] C++'s interface is just too messy to support this.
  
  Which is of course why KDE uses this technique almost everywhere, dynamically loading C++ plugins on demand. KDE's component architecture (KParts) is built around doing exactly this. I think the Mozilla and OpenOffice.org component systems also work in essentially the same way. It does involve a little extra overhead (you use a ComponentFactory to create the object whose methods you call) but it's pretty minimal. It's just as easy for the programmer as it is to dlopen a C library and call functions, if not easier.
2. Re:C is for interfaces by ChaosDiscord · 2003-01-17 10:38 · Score: 1
  
  This used to be true, but there is now a standard C++ ABI on Linux which all the major compilers now follow, gcc included (from 3.2 onwards). This should now be a concern of the past... about time too.
  
  It's a nice theory, but we were told that the C++ ABI was finalized and all would be well with GCC 3.0. Then GCC 3.1Then GCC 3.2. It needs a few years of stability before I'm willing to trust it.
  I say all of this as a huge fan of C++ (I think it's the best language for most application development), and of GCC (my compiler of choice). C++ is a big language and it's hard to be certain that every last detail has been sorted out. It will take time. If you're writing "core system libraries," you shouldn't be on the cutting edge, you should be sticking yourself in a nice stable, boring place.
  
  [dlopen/dlsym etc.] C++'s interface is just too messy to support this.
  Which is of course why KDE uses this technique almost everywhere, dynamically loading C++ plugins on demand. KDE's component architecture (KParts) is built around doing exactly this. I think the Mozilla and OpenOffice.org component systems also work in essentially the same way. It does involve a little extra overhead (you use a ComponentFactory to create the object whose methods you call) but it's pretty minimal. It's just as easy for the programmer as it is to dlopen a C library and call functions, if not easier.
  
  The point of making the interface available to dlopen/dlsym is that you can bootstrap yourself up with extremely minimal support. dlopen/dlsym are absolutely core elements of most unix-like operating systems. KParts/DCOM/COM/whatever are not. You need to link in at least minimal support to access the component system. The added complexity of the system increases the likelyhood of compatibility problems between different versions and implementations. (You can't completely avoid this as a problem, it's even possible with dlopen/dlsym, it's just less likely given the relatively simplicity.) While I must profess ignorance of the actual implementation and usage of KParts, I do have experience with Microsoft's similar COM. While COM is very useful, it is much more complicated than simply LoadLibrary.
  
  --
  Search 2010 Gen Con events
I can't stand KDE or GNOME by analog_line · 2003-01-17 05:23 · Score: 1

Both camps have a lot of vocal jerks in them, who apparently hate each other for NO GOOD REASON.

That, and the fact that neither GNOME or KDE is worth the time of day as far as I'm concerned. They're both bloated Windows-wannabes. I'll pass. No thanks. I gave at the office.

Anyone out there who wants to try something that's ACTUALLY different, check out Enlightenment (which is what I use for Linux) or AfterStep or WindowMaker. Real people providing real alternatives to the twerps in the GNOME and KDE battalions. Psssst, you can even use GNOME and KDE software in them...
1. Re:I can't stand KDE or GNOME by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 06:07 · Score: 0
  
  You're calling Gnome and KDE bloated, but endorsing Enlightenment? Enlightenment is such a huge pig that it makes Gnome and KDE look streamlined.
  I agree with alternate choices such as Afterstep, Windowmaker, FVWM, Sawfish and Blackbox. But you really have to be kidding mentioning Enlightenment with these others.
2. Re:I can't stand KDE or GNOME by fault0 · 2003-01-17 06:20 · Score: 1
  
  Also all the *box derivatives from blackbox, such as fluxbox, openbox, (and sorta, waimea), also all deserve recognition.
  
  > Both camps have a lot of vocal jerks in them, who apparently hate each other for NO GOOD REASON.
  
  Well, the fact that GNOME was mainly started as a reaction to KDE probably has something to do with that. :)
Differences between GNOME and KDE by Ghyl · 2003-01-17 05:30 · Score: 1

The KDE developers seem to work on KDE purely for the fun of developing it. As for GNOME, in addition to this aspect, there seems to be a sense of idealism, - of making the world a better place. This idealism is also reflected in GNOME's open and democratic organizational structures. Every GNOME hacker gets an equal vote when electing the GNOME Foundation.
Compare this with KDE e.V, which, unfortunately, is run more like a private club, by a group of mostly German hackers, trying to ensure they retain the reins of control. For example, this is from their 'Policy for becoming a member of KDE e.V.'
The KDE e.V. bylaws will be changed to say that the applicant must be invited to become a member, and that the applicant must be supported by two active members of KDE e.V.
This raises the image of those stuffy old Victorian clubs where a member brings along a friend he wants to join, and the old members gather around the table and get the opportunity to blackball him first.
Attitudes like this have lead to all the problems that the KDE League has suffered from, in terms of lack of accountability, openness and the nonprofit status controversy.
GNOME, on the other hand, has shown in the past that it can be trusted "to do the right thing". It hasn't taken the easy path of including a non-free library simply because it was convenient. It may sound corny, but GNOME has a real sense of social responsibility about it, and of helping the disadvantaged in the world.
1. Re:Differences between GNOME and KDE by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 05:52 · Score: 1, Interesting
  
  Nice troll, but i'll bite.
  
  Your comparisons are invalid. The KDE e.V. has never really done much. It was just made as a legal entity that dates to KDE/Trolltech deal that Qt would be automatically licensed under a BSD-type license under several conditions.
  
  The KDE league is not affliated with the KDE project at all. Whether or not there was any accountability problems at itself is unknown.
  
  Anyways, the KDE project is a lot less organized than the GNOME project. Why? Because there really hasn't been many reasons to in KDE. In the top of the KDE structure is the "release dude", and there are several people who run the CVS server, and create accounts and such. Then there are maintainers of individual projects (documented in the Maintainers.xml file).
  
  IMHO, I don't see how you could characterize KDE as less as Free and Open than GNOME. It's quite easy to get a kde cvs account. If anything, KDE is more pragmatic than GNOME is, avoiding a whole bunch of red tape. IMHO, I think this is how most open source projects have been run for the last twenty years. By your chacterizations, it sounds like GNOME just seems to be more of a mini-Government than a free software project.
  
  Anyways, the KDE project doen't need no stinkin' Foundation. We use what works -- public mailing lists (as does other big open projects such as Linux, XFree86, etc...)
2. Re:Differences between GNOME and KDE by Ghyl · 2003-01-17 12:16 · Score: 1
  
  I can't see how you can claim that KDE e.V. is unimportant.
  KDE e.V. is a registered non-profit organisation set up to represent the KDE Project in legal and financial matters, by supporting the developers. Furthermore, it collaborates with Trolltech through the FreeQt Foundation and sends Officers to the KDE League... KDE e.V. has a majority in the League so that its members will always have full control over the League... KDE e.V. holds the trademark and the copyright for KDE the core brands.[sic]
  Both projects and others, are run using mailing lists, maintainers, release dude type people etc. Both, also, have organizations in place to make those decisions that can't be made this way. In GNOME's case it's elected by all the hackers and in KDE's case it's a self appointed clique. There's no getting away from this fact.
  The first time the average KDE hacker usually knows about these decisions is when they're announced to the public. Saying things such as we don't have elections so we can avoid red tape, is a rather chilling thing to say.
Accessibility by jirka · 2003-01-17 05:53 · Score: 1

Since this seems to be another GNOME vs KDE flamewar and I feel like commenting ...

GNOME vs. KDE: How about accessiblity? Which can a blind person use? Which can be used in US government contracts?

Just a note, I think people are forgetting about, to me at least, the most exciting "feature" of GNOME.

Having said that, I think that KDE is a fine desktop, with different goals and different audience.
1. Re:Accessibility by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 06:25 · Score: 0
  
  Hello George,
  
  Well you forget that KDE has accessibility as does GNOME but on the otherhand the question should be where does the blind person find the programs for his tasks. But honestly you as not disabled ones probably care as much for ally than I'm doing. It's just another try to shade the real problems within GNOME all the wrong decisions that had happened, the fact that a lot of design decisions where made and and and. Talking about this is just a waste of your and my time and makes me somehow tired. You and I must admit that KDE is far superior over GNOME even if you work and develop for GNOME.
  
  Anyways I doubt that disableds ever use LINUX, KDE or GNOME in first case. They probably stick to Windows because it's easier to maintain, faster to setup, and comes with all the apps and drivers for braile machines etc. that a disabled needs. Needless to mention that the insurance probably gonna pay them such a machine.
  
  Leave out the fact about ALLY, what does remain in GNOME ? I admit that the libraries are good to program with for a C programmer but there are a lot of issues.
  
  - Nautilusview is something that people hate,
  - GConf is something that people hate,
  - New ordering of the Buttons is something that people hate,
  - Usability of Nautilus is what people hate,
  - Inconsistences of Dialogs and layout of buttons are something that people hate,
  - Something simple like a Fileselector is missing,
  - Something simple like a align-to-grid is missing,
  
  and and and. All these things are now in GNOME 2.0 and soon in 2.2 and they are slowly being fixed. I ask myself why Miguel de Icaza started another Desktop at all. His main concern was that QT used to be POS but then he could simply have written a FREE implementation of FREE-QT so we all would have only one desktop a cool one and now today we are all bashing out heads and deal with narrowminded people etc. But belive me as mich as I like GNOME and as much as I like switching back to it I for my own faced the true reality and I stay on KDE 3.1 because it is mature. You should really install KDE and forget about QT and other prejudices for some minutes and seriously TRY to work with KDE even if you don't like it afterwards but you at least may realize the full powers of KDE not just some badly looking widgets or ugly colors. There is far more behind KDE than this but people are inpatient to try all these features.
2. Re:Accessibility by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 06:42 · Score: 0
  
  Well, of course, GNOME's advanced accessbility features is something that is overlooked often while describing it.
  
  But saying that accessibility is not goal of KDE is also a misstatement. In fact, in recent months, great strides
  
  Of course, the biggest idea
  
  Again, the goal of accessiblity is not to make one desktop have more accessiblity than another, but to make sure that any person who needs accessiblity features is not left behind. This is why people like Bill Haneman (architect of GNOME accessibility project), and JP Schnapper-Castera (founder of KDE accessiblity project) are involved in both KDE and GNOME accessbility.
3. Re:Accessibility by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 08:46 · Score: 0
  
  You're missing the point.
  
  KDE could be 10000000 times better for what I know.
  
  Now, in ten years - what do you think will be the basis for the desktop interface on Linux:
  
  1. A free library that can be used any way you want,
  including writing commercial closed applications.
  
  2. A library where you have to pay a significant amount of money if you want to develop non-free applications.
  
  Sun and HP aren't stupid. It isn't because KDE is bad that they don't want to use it - they just don't want to be dependent on Qt.
  
  If KDE manages to replace Qt with something that is either BSD or LGPL licensed they have a chance, otherwise it will die regardless of how good it is.
  
  What market share do you think gcc would have if the license had stated that any programs compiled with it must be licensed under the GPL?
4. Re:Accessibility by jirka · 2003-01-17 10:57 · Score: 1
  
  I didn't follow either desktop that much in recent months due to having lots of schoolwork to do, but I do remember KDE people saying that do not have enough resources to tackle accessibility (some months ago). GNOME would not have the resources had Sun not taken up the project. It would be great if that has changed. I didn't really mean that accessibility isn't a goal of KDE, though it does seem that KDE has a different set of users in mind.
  
  My original point was that accessibility was completely overlooked in the discussion, yet it seems (to me) a key point for a usable desktop that would bring free software to the masses.
5. Re:Accessibility by jirka · 2003-01-17 11:01 · Score: 1
  
  What are you smoking? And where can I get some?
6. Re:Accessibility by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 15:13 · Score: 0
  
  Well this answer disqualyfied you regardless the fact that you develop on GNOME. Zero basis of argumentation.
7. Re:Accessibility by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 15:16 · Score: 0
  
  But the same can be said with GNOME nowadays. Have you ever read the 'Armageddon-ReadMe' on gnomesupport.org that someone wrote. GTK and GNOME are not really free as in 'free beer' 'free as we speak' they are heavily controlled by companies such as RedHat and Sun. I think that QT and KDE are not bad and probably stay for another 10 years alive without any problems. For GNOME they are going to remove themselves and they did best to get their developer and userbase decreased to a critical state.
Re:Gnome winning?-XUL-The final frontier. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 06:03 · Score: 0

Yup! But some people still don't get it

Here's a good place to start for things XUL. Luxor borrows a bit from XUL and show some of the XML advantages over the API approach we all have been using.

Note how easy it is to develop a web site. XUL and other XML technologies will do the same for the interface.
Re:"Race KDE cannot win"-Goalpost. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 06:24 · Score: 0

"You're right KDE can't win, if you're going to keep shifting the goal posts like that. As long as KDE was not GPL, all you heard was 'Unclean! Unclean!' . Now that KDE is GPL, that isn't good enough either? For heaven's sake make your mind up."

And WHOM is shifting the goalpost? The GPL people got what they want. Now the commercial audience has weighted in with their opinion. If the two groups were one and the same then you would have a point.
Has anyone noticed all the crybabies KDE attracts? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 06:44 · Score: 0

Gordon says he doesn't support Gnome and then bitches over the fact that RedHat does. Why should Redhat give a damn about someone with Gordon's attuide? I wouldn't.
Yup by 0x0d0a · 2003-01-17 07:01 · Score: 1

Basically, with Mandrake looking like it's going down the tubes, there are 2 major commercial Linux desktop distros left, Redhat and SuSE.

AFAI can tell, SuSE is in even worse shape than Mandrake, at least in the States. Red Hat is the only one that's doing particularly well. I think their approach was better -- focus on the most lucrative markets quickly (business server stuff) to build profitability, then use this established foothold to start going after the desktop market. Mandrake (and to a lesser extent SuSE) tried to be pure desktop distributions at a time when Linux really wasn't all that competitive with Windows for the average user.

RedHat are popular in the states, and are "biased" towards Gnome, that is they have more Gnome hackers with experience than KDE hackers.

Yup. I could never figure out why the KDE folks can complain so bitterly about RH not throwing money at beefing up their KDE support. I don't see the GNOME folks complaining about Mandrake not supporting *them* well.

Some people will tell you that GTK is harder to program for, but in reality that's not the case, if C++ is your thing then both Qt and GTKmm are excellent.

MMmmm...I used GTKmm for a while, and while IMHO it fits better with the OO design of C++, it's really easier to use if you're familiar with GTK+ than if you're just starting from scratch. Incidently, Guillimue (I'm sure I mispelled his name) Laurent, one of the GTKmm designers, got fed up with how difficult it was to cleanly do a GNOME C++ API (unlike GTK), and ended up moving to Qt.

I think you're exaggurating when you say KDE is slower and uglier on redhat.

I've found KDE to be slower than GTK, period.

Uglier is, of course, a matter of taste. :-)

I think the BlueCurve artwork is great, but you can always retheme it easily, and it should be no slower.

I'm not a huge fan of BlueCurve, but then I like a rather spartan interface...

--
May we never see th
1. Re:Yup by Guillaume+Laurent · 2003-01-17 10:22 · Score: 1
  
  Incidently, Guillimue (I'm sure I mispelled his name) Laurent, one of the GTKmm designers, got fed up with how difficult it was to cleanly do a GNOME C++ API (unlike GTK), and ended up moving to Qt.
  
  You indeed mispelled my name :-). You also totally misunderstood the reasons why I left gtkmm. They are explained here, and they have nothing to do with the difficulty of wrapping Gnome as opposed to GTK. Ask Murray Cumming if wrapping GTK+ is easy :-).
  
  That said, I'm indeed extremely happy to have moved to KDE/Qt, even if that wasn't the reason why I left. Sooner or later, it would have been anyway.
I think it's worse than you make out by 0x0d0a · 2003-01-17 07:20 · Score: 1

Mandrake is far from going down the tubes if by saying "going down the tubes" you mean going out of business.

Um...

They had some problems, they have since fixed those problems, but are having some issues with a lack of available cash on hand to cover their debt. Due to that, they needed bankruptcy protection while they raise more cash and continue working on the next release of their OS and other products.

Ah. You *do* realize that companies that are going to go out of business act as if nothing is wrong up until the last possible minute to avoid losing customers, investors, and credit? "Lack of available cash" and asking for donations sounds to *me* like serious trouble.

I'm betting against Mandrake existing as a company in three years, but we'll see.

This has an effect on lots of business and to think that a few temporary setbacks are enough to end a great company such as Mandrake... that's nuts. I'm not claiming that Mandrake will be around forever. They may eventually buckle and fold but that won't happen any time soon.

Happened to Loki. Can definitely happen to Mandrake.

--
May we never see th
Fine-grained packaging by 0x0d0a · 2003-01-17 07:34 · Score: 1

But there is a real difference when you try to install both environments from source code.
I can compile and install all KDE in 1 day (in a PIII), with only 3 packages needed for the others.

I'd be more inclined to say that finely-grained packaging is a better idea than monolithic packaging.

There are large parts of GNOME that I'm don't use (Nautilus, Control Center, the Panel). I simply don't install those, and use the chunks that I want. With KDE, you're stuck with all kinds of crap that you may or may not want. RPM *should* be finely-grained.

Second, yes, it's painful to manually download and build each package. Which is why we have things like emerge and apt-get:

APT 0.5.4 implements a new command: apt-get build-dep. This command will try to retrieve every build dependency of a given source package. Support in APT-RPM was already implemented, which turns APT into a fantastic option for users of unsupported ports (like Conectiva for PowerPC), and general package building tasks.

Don't blame *GNOME* because they packaged things the way RPMs should be packaged and then you chose not to use the right tool to build them. That's completely unfair to them.

--
May we never see th
1. Re:Fine-grained packaging by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 20:16 · Score: 0
  
  > With KDE, you're stuck with all kinds of crap that you may
  > or may not want. RPM *should* be finely-grained.
  
  That's why it's called a DESKTOP ENVIRONMENT and not Windowmanager. The purpose of a Desktop Environment is to make sure such apps are being installed.
You would by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 07:41 · Score: 0

Lets see, youre a vendor of basically freely available software, who hopes to make income selling support of an underdog OS. What do you do: a) piss off developers of commercial products or b) none of the above
Packaging costs $150 ;-) by 0x0d0a · 2003-01-17 07:44 · Score: 1

Sounds like they're making a real run to compete with Sun and their prices on *cases* for high-end systems.

--
May we never see th
GNOME2 feels unfinished because, ... by Moritz+Moeller+-+Her · 2003-01-17 08:03 · Score: 2, Informative

it IS unfinished. SuSE has not put much refinement into the GNOME2 packages, they more or less take the release of GNOME2 as it is released. So please complain to the GNOMEs, not to SuSE. It is not a distributors job to finish and fix a desktop environment.
SuSE has not broken these packages with their changes, they were crap to begin with. Redhat broke KDE with their changes.

I know that OTOH KDE releases feel finished, because I compile them myself and there is nothing broken or unpolished in them. KDE-3.1 will be better than ever!

--
Moritz
I'm thrilled that Redhat focuses on Gnome by SuperDuperMan · 2003-01-17 08:38 · Score: 1

While I do prefer KDE I don't like the fact that the QT library that it's based on is not 100% free open source.

My reasoning is this, if KDE becomes the defacto standard that the expense of licensing the QT libraries required for KDE applications for commercial applications will be a deterrent to those who might otherwise produce quality commercial applications for the platform.

Even though the company I work for does not yet produce products for other platforms we would like to write against a library that provides the cross platform capabilities. The current costs for QT for commercial use are far to high for us to justify at this time. If they become the defacto standard the prices will likely stay the same or increase because of a monopoly.
1. Re:I'm thrilled that Redhat focuses on Gnome by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 21:13 · Score: 0
  
  I don't like the fact that the QT library that it's based on is not 100% free open source.
  
  Yes it is, you idiot. It's GPL. The GPL is Open Source. In fact, it's more in line with the FSF's idea of the software world than gtk because gtk is LGPL. GPL forces Free software, LGPL doesn't. Of course, you like software that's free for YOU, but you don't like software that you have to provide for free. Now that Qt is GPL'd, a lot of gnomers seem pretty hypocritical.
But it does by marm · 2003-01-17 09:11 · Score: 1

The *Linux community as a whole* seems to prefer KDE? What are you *smoking*? Look at the quantities of software for each, look at what the most popular distribution is.

Every poll, every survey, every popularity contest that I can remember in the last 2 years has voted KDE as 'Best Desktop Environment', including Linux Journal's Reader's Choice awards, which frankly ought to be biased towards GNOME, if you believe the theories, because of LJ's mostly North American audience. Simple as that.

Forgetting of course all the newbie Linux users who don't vote in these things, and in my experience tend to head straight towards KDE because of its familiarity for Windows refugees...

As for software - well, number one, the Linux community are not all developers. Second, I dispute the idea that GNOME/GTK has more software. Well, perhaps it used to, but GNOME 2.0 has thrown that advantage away completely. And much of that software was half-finished and duplicated 19 other projects because GNOME didn't adopt one. How many Xine frontends does a desktop need anyway?

And as for distros... haven't you met a Red Hat user who uses KDE? I've met plenty. In fact, more of them than use GNOME... but hey, that's just the circles I move in.
Re:How does commercial Free Software work? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-17 20:09 · Score: 0

the editors need to work. period. at least cmdr fucko and his drongos can put a basic spell check or something into the "very small" shell scripts, no?