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."
"Race KDE cannot win"
by
ultrabot
·
· 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.
"... 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.
Competition is what we need
by
Max+Romantschuk
·
· 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...
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.
Slashdot Mirror
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
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?
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
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.