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KDE & Gnome Usability Engineers Interviewed
Gentu writes "After the recent flamewar between the KDE and Gnome user camps, OSNews brings together the most influencial KDE and Gnome usability engineers to talk about how they will be able to overcome a number of obstacles in order to 'unify' KDE and Gnome in ways that could bring to the Unix desktop an easy to use, integrated and fully interoperated DE to better compete with the commercial alternatives. Waldo from SuSE and Havoc from Red Hat are taking part to the interview, and also Aaron, the head of KDE's usability."
There is no flamewar. There is no "war".
Users can use whatever they want, the two proejcts get along better than most to be honest.
THis whole fued thing has been overhyped by "news" sites since gnome was created and it's quite silly.
it's just a simple choice of DE, nothing more.
Oh now Linux developers are actually trying to make a unified GUI standard? Its sure nice to see everyone moving to the right idea here, but I am sure people will still complain because it is all about 'choice'...
The one reason that people walk by a Linux system and immediately think it's arcane is typically the use of anti-aliased fonts. People feel much more comfortable learning systems that look pretty. After all, people never bought Windows because it was stable (not that I'm saying this is the only reason or anything, but it certainly helps ...).
In the long run, we're all dead.
So, I plea to everyone that develops new KDE apps, _DON'T_ use that silly K-ism shtick. It was fun the first two versions. It's getting old. Be original for a change, okay? Thanks.
What I would like to see is not another technical feat, but an effort to bring the Linux desk top closer to the a-technical masses.
I've recently had the "pleasure" of reinstalling Red Hat Linux and neither Gnome nor KDE are user-friendly at all. Yes, they do copy the Windows 95 desk top, but no, that's not going to help my father. And don't even start about the built-in file/web/help/and-what-not browsers.
With all this high configurability that's available in both windowing systems, couldn't a group of more human-interface oriented people build a layman interface on top of either Gnome or KDE?
I just installed Gentoo, to try out kde 3.1. Well, it is just great. The one problem was this. The FIRST option in Konqueror setting menu is Show Menubar. Click on it by accident (which is easy since it is the first option), and you are in lost world. It was ok for me, since I know how to tinker and find out that control+M turns tyhe menu back (still it was difficult), imagine the newbie hitting this setting. WTF..
Most KDE developers have chosen KDE because they think it is superior. Otherwise they would have chosen Gnome. For example, I worked on Gnome stuff for a while but it was almost unusable for me. Then I decided to give KDE a try and never went back.
So today the fundamental rift is that KDE developers think that C++/Qt is the most productive environment. Using GLib is just no fun, it is painful compared to C++/Qt, Java, C#, basically every modern programmign environment. And I also think that it is not possible to compete with MacOS X and Windows using C/Glib technology. They are already years ahead, and trying to catch up using a more primitive programming environment is crazy. I could understand to go 100% Mono, but C/glib?
I would rather stop developing on GUI software and/or buy a Mac than write GUI apps using glib.
Unfortunately, getting such a thing into KDE looks set to be next to impossible. A small but vocal minority appear to be dead-set against using even GObject, which only tackles a small subset of the problem of code sharing - the idea of using GObject seems to scare them witless.
I wouldn't normally name names, but it's starting to get very irritating. Neil Stevens and Zack Rusin in particular, (there are others) consistantly object whenver the possibility of using something based on GObject (even when wrapped in the KDE style) is brought up. I've yet to see them state what is wrong with GObject, beyond "it's not appropriate" or "KDE developers should only have to use Qt C++".
To be honest, this isn't the first time I wish KDE had gone with CORBA. Unfortunately, by dropping it before it matured, they blew a hole in the consistancy of the Linux desktop a mile wide, leaving their answer to "how do we get consistancy" to be "only use KDE apps".
"The new start menu is also an abomination. In fact, those two days with Windows XP reminded me why most people hate computers. I'd hate them too if that was all that was out there."
as a linux/freebsd user you would think i wouldn't, but i actually quite like the new start menu. i really like the fact that it adds shortcuts on the fly to your most recently used programs. i think it looks very elegant and it also simplifies a lot of tasks for people such as my mother (the usual metaphor!) in terms of its "My Recent Documents", "Connect To" etc...
my problem here with these guys statements is that they all, and in particular Aaron just makes these swooping opinionated statements without any meat to back them up.
i was also concerned that none of them have much experience with Windows XP. i would assume that apple looks at it all the time to not only imitate things it has done well, but to avoid things it does badly. surely these guys should be analysing osx and XP and doing the same thing?
I find it highly disturbing that they don't use Windows every so often. I mean, come on, Microsoft spends TONS of cash on usability studies and 99% of the world knows Windows.
I don't want an XP clone (although the thought is not that bad) but if you are creating a new UI, XP should be required study. Both for it's good AND bad points.
They should also use OSX, MacOS9, Be, and any other OS worth mentioning on a regular basis. XP is not the be-all-end-all.
Unix is the ONLY OS without a standard GUI.
IMHO, the KDE vs. GNOME battle hurts Linux on the desktop more than it helps. Great, we have choices. But really, if there was a LINUX GUI, not two half-assed UI's, we could be much further along on our way to a really good UI. Red Hat 8.0 is the only distro to "get" this and they were crucified for trying it.
1. The best code from each would have been used and the worst would have been dropped.
2. There would be twice as many developers.
3. Users would not have to choose their problems.
4. Tech support would be possible.
5. Graphical tools could be made for system configuration and packaging if they did not have to support a multitude of OS's.
Too many options is good for a technical individual, too many options is NOT a good thing for a group. If they can't get together, I hope they both fail or lose mindshare. The Linux community would be better off with it's own standard GUI.
It's not the packaging, the number of distro's or X Windows holding Linux back as I hear so often. It's the desktop. The other problems can be solved with a standard GUI.
If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. - James Madison
MS did a lot of work on this. Maybe a lot of the results are distasteful - but that doesn't mean one should hide one's head in the sand. There may be some good things and some bad things, but choices can be made more intelligently when there is a broad base of knowledge to draw upon.
(Same comments for Mac UI of course...)