Slashdot Mirror
What to Expect From Qt 4
An anonymous reader writes "A presentation given by Matthias Ettrich (director of Qt development, author of LyX, and founder of the KDE project), was given to the annual KDE Developer's Conference in Nove Hardy, Czech Republic. In this presentation, Matthias details what's going to be new in Qt 4.0, which will be used as a base for the next version of KDE after 3.2. Apparently, Qt 4.0 will not only include faster startup times and lighter memory usage, but will have sweeping architectural changes, including a splitting of Qt's GUI classes and non-GUI classes."
They done sent you up da bomb!!!
More bloated, invasive spyware trying to reassign itself as the default application for about 400 media file types. Yay.
first post!!!
Why World Domination. What else?
What is this? Is this "higher" or "lighter" or do we have a neologism here?
I'll stick with my GTK+ thankyouvermuch.
Wait, isn't Qt at version 6 already ?
but, is it absolutely essential? In a time where code needs to remain compatible due to the large amount of projects that are depending on that code, huge architectual changes implemented in a large number at one time will just show that the project wont get used for quite a while. It will take time for developers to start supporting the new format, which will leave end users wanting.
Password Authentication Bypassed for Root
muahahahahahaha
The GTK file dialog is ported back to where it belongs
In addition to SCO, the Canopy Group owns TrollTech too.
BOO! TERRO
I have alwways preffered Gnome to KDE because of speed issues (and the new Gnome is a lot prettier). But if this new base is much faster, then I may be forced to start using KDE again. Then again, my G5 should be arriving soon-- so forget Linux.
The New Root Council, kickin' ass sinc
How about if they buy back the 4.1% of their stock from the Canopy group and the 1.6% of their stock from the SCO group so I don't have to feel dirty about using thier products. I know its a small percentage, and I do like QT, but still, it's unpleasant seeing their logo here.
I'll bet if they could they would buy that 5.7% back. And since its probably expensive to buy back, and Canopy and SCO likely don't want to sell its a pain and a source of fustration to TrollTech.
good thing i logged out for that one
thats the only QT i know about and its at v6.03 afaik
Qt is great (well, if you like C++ and you don't mind the QPL), but there's really one thing I'd like: when will it ever have a font scheme that allows me to use AA fonts together with non-truetype X11 core fonts?
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
if their licensing policy didn't suck. I write low cost software (not "free", not "encombering", reasonably priced) and the QT licensing does not allow me to use it. They pretty much say "Fsck you" in their licensing FAQ to such developers.
Too bad, I liked their stuff, but luckily there is wxWindows...
Turbo Pascal text-mode GUI library circa 1990 or so. Looks like people are copying old nostalgic GUIs even in console apps now:-) Doesn't the word "creative" mean anything anymore?
I have had trouble's with KDE... It tends to be bloated and slow. But but there are a lot of useful apps on it, so maybe this will fix some of it's issues.
-- [Sig] Rome did not create a great empire by negotiation; They did it by killing everyone who opposed them.
I have switched to Gnome until further
Help fight continental drift.
On Saturday evening Matthias Ettrich, director of Qt development, gave within a talk at the KDE Developers' Conference 2003 in Nove Hrady -- besides a presentation of the company, the KDE/FreeQt Foundation and the past and present of the Qt development toolkit -- an outlook on Qt 4. Qt 4 is expected to be released in 2004 and promises to deliver increased performance, both at startup and runtime, more flexibility and productivity and changes to ease the learning process. Read more excerpts from the slides shown with the help of Matthias' home-brewn presentation program.
Qt 4 mostly tries to preserve source-compatibility with a little search and replace and a COMPAT compilation switch. More porting will be required for styles and code that uses the meta object system directly.
The increased startup performance will be reached through reduced number of symbols, less read/write data and fewer static initiliazers. Fewer mallocs, faster and more optimised tool classes and reduced memory consumption will improve the runtime performance enabling Qt 4 to run on embedded devices that are slower and have less memory than today's desktop computers too.
To back up these statements Matthias gave some numbers about Qt Designer which was ported to Qt 4 with only the necessary changes to make it compile: The libqt size decreased by 5%, Designer num relocs went down by 30%, mallocs use by 51%, and memory use by 15%. The measured Designer startup time went down by 18%.
Qt 4 will not be one library, but consists of many allowing finer granulation:
Qt Kernel lib comprising tool, io, thread classes and QObject/QKernelApplication
Qt GUI lib with QApplication, widgets, painter
Others libs for network, XML, SQL, openGL and other purposes
Included among the presented planned features of Qt 4 as of today are:
Designer split up into components. This makes it possible to create a form editor plugin for KDevelop.
Model/view classes for list box, tree view, icon view and table
New set of classes as part of a main window/docking architecture that distinguish between dockwindows and toolbars with support for tabbed docks.
Accessibility support for the Macintosh platform and for ATK.
Pixmap resource system
Several API cleanups like unifying different APIs and reducing number of concepts aim to simplify common usage [for the benefit of intelligence impaired KDE developers], increase flexibility and remove embarassements.
New meta object code with static read-only data block (no constructors, no cleanup handlers, no relocations, no symbols) with significantly less generated code and minimal connect() memory overhead.
Better connect() syntax
New cast qt_cast(const QObject*) makes string-based QObject::inherits() obsolete.
A new class QPointer, which is successing QGuardedPtr, is lighter and faster.
The event filters were fixed and are now called from QApplication::notify() instead from QObject::event()
The threaded library will be the default with more thread-safety/reentrancy. Atomic refcounting makes QDeepCopy superfluous.
In the styles section the palette and background handling has been revised: A backgroundPolicy was introduced with non-toplevel widgets inheriting their background (policy) from the parent widget. Parents can propagate their content to child-widgets. This shall essentially give (semi)transparency for widgets. And last but not least system-wide double-buffering will allow flicker free update without any hacks at all.
Qt 4 will introduce a new consistent set of light, safe and easy to use value based container tool classes which are implicitly shared and highly optimised, both for speed and memory usage. Using them will expand to less code compared to Qt 3.x and STL which will stay available for further usage together with Qt.
QString and QByteArray were both optimised for performance and memory usage besides API improvements. An important change is that isNull() is dead and will be only available in compatibility mode. Functions like
Word.
I had the opposite experience.
I now run KDE, and mostly gnome apps.
You could probaly just run gnome with the KDE apps just fine.
SHUT UP! I don't care care about the licencing, the speed, the button order reasons you give me, as LONG AS THE FILE DIALOG SUCKS, GTK based applications will NEVER be as popular as qt. Its already been confirmed by MULTIPLE case studies that KDE is the prefered desktop of CHOICE for newbies, experts and corporations alike. I tried gnome for a few weeks but I've came back to KDE because I'm fed up the 1980's stile file dialog. GNOME/GTK is a knee jerk crappy clone of KDE/QT made because of now non existant licencing rules
And don't you mod this flamebait unless you can prove me wrong (and you KNOW I'm right, and thats why you will try and hide the truth)
Paragraph 2:
"Qt 4 mostly tries to preserve source-compatibility with a little search and replace and a COMPAT compilation switch. More porting will be required for styles and code that uses the meta object system directly."
How much stuff do you think uses the meta object system directly, aside from the internals of KDE?
Damnit, Project Opie developers are still talking about how many things are going to change when we move to QT3 (for example ensurevisable())
Flamebait, I tell you! FLAMEBAIT! It's flamebait! Can't you stupid Slash Mods tell this is FLAMEBAIT???? Come on! It's FLAMEBAIT! Mod this flamebait! Flamebait, I tell you! Jesus!
I say "nostalgic":)
Son of a bitch. Am I the only one who read the topic and went 'Woah! Predictions for fiscal fourth quarter? Huh, I wonder what they'll come up with.'
yes, I know it's Slashdot, yes, I know we're geeks, but just for that moment, that hesitating, single moment , I thought.. Slashdot.. the Business site?! Aiyeeee!
SHUT UP! I don't care care about the licencing, the speed, the button order reasons you give me, as LONG AS THE FILE DIALOG SUCKS, GTK based applications will NEVER be as popular as qt. Its already been confirmed by MULTIPLE case studies that KDE is the prefered desktop of CHOICE for newbies, experts and corporations alike. I tried gnome for a few weeks but I've came back to KDE because I'm fed up the 1980's stile file dialog. GNOME/GTK is a knee jerk crappy clone of KDE/QT made because of now non existant licencing rules.
Now this is what I like about Linux; every time I think some annoying little thing about the interface/OS is really starting to annoy me, a new version comes out and something get tweaked to the way I like it.
It's really the reason I have grown to like Linux so much: I can actually see the progress of its development moving forward. It seems in the past few years that Windows has just been moving backwards.
Is more apps that require QT but not all of kde to run. That's why I use gtk apps... because most of them dont require gnome. There are gnome apps of course, and there are progs like Gaim that will give you a little somethin' extra if you have gnome installed, but you don't need it... Are there any qt apps that dont require kde to be installed?
Chaos is Divine *
HAND
Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page)
A couple of years ago someone on the KDE team posted a nice analysis of the performance bottlenecks associated with dynamic linking, C++, and gcc, particularly as regards Qt use.
So I have to wonder, with Qt 4, KDE 3, gcc 3.3, how many of the performance problems remain?
"Provided by the management for your protection."
it's GNU/LINUX, non linox!!!!
That website used Slashcode, right? Either that, or I've been spending so much time here that all sites are starting to remind me of /.
will this make KDE less "sluggish"?
imo KDE kicks the crap out of anything in terms of functionality and appearance, but everything feels like a real effort to do.
I'd like to see more use of the standard library. The traditional complaints of poorly conforming compilers is mostly just history. Except for support of the export keyword, most C++ compilers and standard library implementations are now quite good. Most platforms even have several excellent compiler / library combinations to choose from.
Even though it would be hell for already existing apps, I would love to see use of standard library components rather than the re-invented QT versions. And even in those cases were the QT versions have extra features, I still think the advantages of using a library that is already familliar with most C++ programmers outweighs the disadvantages. Of course, that's just IMHO.
ec
QT seems like a good toolkit and getting rid of bloat is always a good thing. I just wish that they'd put a little pressure on their parent company (the Canopy Group) to tell their cousin company, SCO, to back off. Canopy seems to be the master mind behind the ghastly attacks on the GPL; it's ironic that Trolltech has has handled the issure pretty well: free for free work, pay for business use. Fair enough. But Trolltech should help us stand up to bullies and they are in a position to make a statment.
I believe someone got the name of the town wrong, it's Nove Hrady and not Nove Hardy.
First, the signal/slot mechanism really bugs me. I am annoyed with the need to use non-ANSI C++ techniques (e.g. public slots, moc) to achieve results that could easily be done with legal C++ code. While not strictly illegal, the use of the SIGNAL and SLOT macros, along with the Q_OBJECT macro, are not very good techniques. Specifically the reliance on macros to achieve basic GUI functionality violates a key principle in Meyers' "Effective C++", namely avoiding reliance on the preprocessor.
Second, several GUI widgets do not have a proper separation of data from view. I am thinking specifically of QTable and QListView. A better approach, from an OO design perspective, is the one taken in Java Swing. The JTable and JTree provide a nice mechanism for separating the data model from the GUI display. I find it obnoxious to have to subclass QTable and build-in data model methods to achieve results that would be cleaner under a Model-View design paradigm.
The QT online documentation is not easy to navigate. They should take a lesson from the Java API docs and reorganize the QT docs along those lines.
I agree with you exactly, it sounds nice but why do we need to change an architectual change when the current QT architecture is the best there is?
Why fix what isnt broken? Especially when you are ahead of the curve and on the cutting edge? Why not polish what you have? Thats the exact problem Gnome has, they keep restarting and redoing everything and they get NO WHERE.
KDE 4.0 would be better if it were based on the current QT because it could be polished, if they instead have to rewrite alot of code for a port, this is going to slow Linux on the desktop, and for what? A tiny bit more speed? I want to be sure that the benefits outway the cost here. The cost being time.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
This is the exact problem Gnome has. They keep messing around under the hood and nothing changes from the user point of view, development is moving at turtle pace because developers who want to write gnome apps cant figure out what to use because some new bonobo/mono type thing comes out every 6 months.
Developers need stability if they are going to work on big projects, we need at least a few years before a big re-write. I cant develop for Gnome because everytime I try to start they change something.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Calls to boycott Trolltech were getting scored "Troll" two weeks ago. However, it's getting more respectable.
Here's Trolltech's owner's list. I'm not sure if the "SCO group" is our hated enemy or a similar sounding company name. I'm not sure how many of those "employees" are canopy stooges and I'm not sure if the other Cap Investors are shills for Canopy. It'd also be nice to know who Trolltech owes any debt that they may have to and whether or not Canopy has special rights, like extra board slots or warrants.
Trolltech needs to come clean on this issue.
I don't have any major complain from Qt, as I have been using it a lot in our company and found out that it is the best.
.NET libraries, providing almost everything needed under the sun.
I only have this problem: the TreeView widget is single-linked. This a major problem for us, since our apps contains lots of trees. We have to do a lot of tricks, like keeping a pointer to the last item all the time.
I've posted this on the Qt newsgroup but I was ignored. Although many people have complained about it, Qt engineers ignored us. I think they should fix it in version 4.
Other than that, Qt is indeed the finest toolkit out there. It simplifies development a lot, and it fills the great void that exists in C++ libraries. It's really like the Java libraries or the
The biggest advantage of it is that it works as expected; in other words, you just create one widget inside the other, and voila, there is the app's gui. You can even do it programmatically, without the KDesigner.
Finally, it does C++ justice. It's the only library that shows how powerful C++ can be. After having used Qt and Java, I may safely say its up on par with Java...even better I would say, since it uses all of C++ capabilities, including the most important one: templates.
Maybe they will quit with the architectual changes every few months and actually add features!
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Why aren't they supporting STL interfaces to their containers? And do they really think their containers are more efficient than any implementation of STL?
So I dont see why people complain about loadtimes when its faster than XP. Sure its slower than Afterstep or Fluxbox, maybe its slower than Gnome, but its also more powerful and more refined.
I dont care about speed issues, I can upgrade my CPU or my harddrive to SCSI, I do get angry when I have to learn a new API.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Do you know how to save your Gnome preferences? While running KDE I can load up the Gnome preferences panels but the changes are never saved. By default, my Gnome apps have large fonts, large UI widgets, and just look 'orrible.
While I haven't read the above-mentioned book, "Effective C++", I have been forced to make
the transition from C to C++ (at my University).
Having a C background makes me see macros as one
obvious solution to a problem, while they don't
even teach macros in my C++ programming classes.
Even talking to friends that program in C++ w/o
starting out in C, it seems like C++ programmers
are afraid of the preprocessor. Why is this?
I'm not trying to be critical, I am genuinely curious as to why C++ programmers avoid macros and other preprocessor directives at all costs. Anyone have an explanation?
Japan has a better powergrid than ours. Who gave you the idea that we had the best in the world? DO not assume our system is the best just because we are the USA. Japan has alot of things better than us, as does Korea. Japan has the best power grid in the world, the most efficient public transportation in the world, the best cellphone technology in the world. They also have better robotics than us,
South Korea is the most wired country in the world, with the best internet technology in the world.
just because its USA does not automatically equal best.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Most of the applicatons you presented as GTK apps do not use GTK widgets:
Openoffice/Staroffice does not use GTK at all (in fact the first SO port to Linux was done by Matthias Kalle Dallheimer, a KDE founder...)
Mplayer has an optional GTK gui, which is hardly used by anyone. It also has at least two KDE guis. Not a very good GTK app.
XMMS has it's own GUI, GTK is basically used for the file dialog, which is arguably not the most impressive part of GTK.
Mozilla/Netscape uses XUL, it's own toolkit, again no GTK widgets are used, just some basic drawing routines.
This leaves GIMP (functional, but ugly) and GAIM (never used it, AOL is not my thing) for GTK.
Moritz
the only feature I want from QT is a LGPL license.
Is it too much to ask that the next Qt will use the standard C++ string class instead of its own reinvention and kitchen-sink-itis that it suffers from at the moment?
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
It will take time for developers to start supporting the new format, which will leave end users wanting.
I expect I'll just do the same thing with qt4 that I did with qt3 (and gtk 2, etc.): install it, but keep older versions around until all the programs which use the library have been updated. This is the way libraries are supposed to work; you increment the major version when you've broken binary compatibility, you keep all the major versions installed that you need, and you uninstall them when you no longer need them.
Just start e.g. kmoon or klipper. KDE and GNOME use the same docking protocol, so any existing docked program would suffice.
Moritz
It is official; Linux Magazine has now confirmed: GTK+ is dying
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered GTK+ community when IDC confirmed that GTK+ market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all desktops. Coming on the heels of a recent Linux Journal survey which plainly states that GTK+ has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. GTK+ is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent comprehensive programming test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict GTK+'s future. The hand writing is on the wall: GTK+ faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for GTK+ because GTK+ is dying. Things are looking very bad for GTK+. As many of us are already aware, GTK+ continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
GNOME is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time GNOME developers Havoc Pennington and Owen Taylor only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: GNOME is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
XFCE leader Olivier Fourdan states that there are 7000 users of XFCE. How many users of ROX are there? Let's see. The number of XFCE versus ROX posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 ROX users. Nautilus posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of XFCE posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of Nautilus. A recent article put GNOME at about 80 percent of the GTK+ market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 GTK+ users. This is consistent with the number of GNOME Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Sun, abysmal sales and so on, Eazel went out of business and was taken over by Ximian who sell another troubled Toolkit. Now Ximian is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that GTK+ has steadily declined in market share. GTK+ is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If GTK+ is to survive at all it will be among Toolkit dilettante dabblers. GTK+ continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, GTK+ is dead.
Fact: GTK+ is dying
It is official; Linux Magazine has now confirmed: GTK+ is dying
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered GTK+ community when IDC confirmed that GTK+ market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all desktops. Coming on the heels of a recent Linux Journal survey which plainly states that GTK+ has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. GTK+ is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent comprehensive programming test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict GTK+'s future. The hand writing is on the wall: GTK+ faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for GTK+ because GTK+ is dying. Things are looking very bad for GTK+. As many of us are already aware, GTK+ continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
GNOME is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time GNOME developers Havoc Pennington and Owen Taylor only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: GNOME is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
XFCE leader Olivier Fourdan states that there are 7000 users of XFCE. How many users of ROX are there? Let's see. The number of XFCE versus ROX posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 ROX users. Nautilus posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of XFCE posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of Nautilus. A recent article put GNOME at about 80 percent of the GTK+ market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 GTK+ users. This is consistent with the number of GNOME Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Sun, abysmal sales and so on, Eazel went out of business and was taken over by Ximian who sell another troubled Toolkit. Now Ximian is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that GTK+ has steadily declined in market share. GTK+ is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If GTK+ is to survive at all it will be among Toolkit dilettante dabblers. GTK+ continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, GTK+ is dead.
Fact: GTK+ is dying
Quote:
As an employee of a company in the same office buildings as SCO and partly funded by Canopy Group, I strongly encourage a boycott of all companies funded by the Canopy Group.
There was a lot of buzz about mergers a few weeks ago. It seemed that everyone was going to join into one large company called, you know it: SCO! .......
Help fight continental drift.
When can we expect a stand alone HTML rendering engine properly wrapped (and supported) by QT. Yes I know they have a rich text widget that supports simple HTML rendering BUT I have a project that needs something more sophisticated. Is there a KHTML or Gecko wrap out there that would give me x-platform across Linux, Windows and the Mac for use with stand alone QT applications???
Sigh. I really hate to say this, but I must agree with keeping API's backwards compatible across versions of libraries.
I've been using Linux for years now, and one of the biggest annoyances is that software packages tend to be tied very closely to a specific version of a library. Without backwards compatibility, you sometimes need to have two or three different versions of the same library installed in order to use different applications.
When a library is used by a wide variety of applications, like Qt, GTK, libc, and so on, backwards compatibility should be ensured. Yes, this means the library may be a bit more bloated than it has to be, but the bloat isn't as bad as the bloat that results from having to install an ancient version of Qt in order to run an app that hasn't had active development for a few years.
This is coming from someone who doesn't do much software development; I just maintain a lot of systems and software libraries.
It is official; Linux Magazine has now confirmed: GTK+ is dying
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered GTK+ community when IDC confirmed that GTK+ market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all desktops. Coming on the heels of a recent Linux Journal survey which plainly states that GTK+ has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. GTK+ is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent comprehensive programming test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict GTK+'s future. The hand writing is on the wall: GTK+ faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for GTK+ because GTK+ is dying. Things are looking very bad for GTK+. As many of us are already aware, GTK+ continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
GNOME is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time GNOME developers Havoc Pennington and Owen Taylor only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: GNOME is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
XFCE leader Olivier Fourdan states that there are 7000 users of XFCE. How many users of ROX are there? Let's see. The number of XFCE versus ROX posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 ROX users. Nautilus posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of XFCE posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of Nautilus. A recent article put GNOME at about 80 percent of the GTK+ market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 GTK+ users. This is consistent with the number of GNOME Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Sun, abysmal sales and so on, Eazel went out of business and was taken over by Ximian who sell another troubled Toolkit. Now Ximian is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that GTK+ has steadily declined in market share. GTK+ is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If GTK+ is to survive at all it will be among Toolkit dilettante dabblers. GTK+ continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, GTK+ is dead.
Fact: GTK+ is dying
KDE is overriding your GTK preferences. Look in the KDE control center under Look&Feel/Style and deselect Apply fonts and colors to non-KDE apps, and then get rid of ~/.gtkrc-kde.
It is official; Linux Magazine has now confirmed: GTK+ is dying
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered GTK+ community when IDC confirmed that GTK+ market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all desktops. Coming on the heels of a recent Linux Journal survey which plainly states that GTK+ has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. GTK+ is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent comprehensive programming test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict GTK+'s future. The hand writing is on the wall: GTK+ faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for GTK+ because GTK+ is dying. Things are looking very bad for GTK+. As many of us are already aware, GTK+ continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
GNOME is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time GNOME developers Havoc Pennington and Owen Taylor only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: GNOME is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
XFCE leader Olivier Fourdan states that there are 7000 users of XFCE. How many users of ROX are there? Let's see. The number of XFCE versus ROX posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 ROX users. Nautilus posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of XFCE posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of Nautilus. A recent article put GNOME at about 80 percent of the GTK+ market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 GTK+ users. This is consistent with the number of GNOME Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Sun, abysmal sales and so on, Eazel went out of business and was taken over by Ximian who sell another troubled Toolkit. Now Ximian is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that GTK+ has steadily declined in market share. GTK+ is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If GTK+ is to survive at all it will be among Toolkit dilettante dabblers. GTK+ continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, GTK+ is dead.
Fact: GTK+ is dying
Troll? Come on guys, we're not bashing Apple.
You don't have to throw a hissy fit cuz someone's bashing your fave tool.
from http://www.pclinuxonline.com/modules.php?mop=modlo ad&name=Forums&file=viewtopic&topic=870&forum= 37
As an employee of a company in the same office buildings as SCO and partly funded by Canopy Group, I strongly encourage a boycott of all companies funded by the Canopy Group.
Taking money from Ralph Yarrow (Canopy) made all of us sick to our stomachs but we held our noses and moved into their offices in the hope their stake would stay small. And we were out of business if we didn't.
There was a lot of buzz about mergers a few weeks ago. It seemed that everyone was going to join into one large company called, you know it: SCO! That buzz ended yesterday. Now the talk, all over the group, is how to distance ourselves from SCO and Canopy. The mention of our company on Slashdot resulted in very negative feedback and two potential customers walking away. Other's got it even worse. I hear Trolltech spent most of the day on the phone smoothing things over with their customers. Upper management meetings were held all afternoon among the group's companies (I'm not privvy to those, but can guess the subject matter). Companies that were considering a merger with SCO (some as close as 5 days away) are now backpedalling as fast as they can.
Canopy Group is the key to pressuring SCO. Thats where they get their money and their actions could harm the whole group and Canopy's plans. Pressure on the Canopy Group's members will result in pressure on SCO.
Save me from SCO! Boycott Canopy Group. If they want to point a gun at their own head, I'd rather they do it away from me. Write letters to the all the Canopy Group companies. We are all very small and even a few letters would have a major effect. The three we received yesterday sent management into a tizzy. Oh, yeah. And start at the bottom of the alphabetical list of companies, please.
Thanks for listening...
-------- more --------------
Ignoring your personal attacks, the point remains that the pressure point here is Canopy and their group members. SCO could care less about a boycott, Canopy will continue to funnel money to them. The key is Canopy and Canopy is vulnerable through their holdings.
Ralph Yarrow cares about only one thing: the bottom line.
Only three emails to my company convinced mangement that there was a problem. They spent most of the afternoon in closed door meetings deciding on how best to distance themselves from this mess (at least that was the discussion when I was called into offer my opinions). They dreamed of the day we would be slashdotted, but are very dismayed that when it finally happened, it was entirely negative and harmful. From my colleagues in other companies, I gather the scene was common all over the office park yesterday. A couple hundred more emails will have a dramatic impact. The pressure will proceed directly from companies of the Canopy Group up to Ralph. When he sees the bottom line being attacked he will rein in SCO.
Some have said that it is unfair to punish the other companies. But the other companies are already being punished for SCO's actions. We have already lost potential customers who informed us they did not want to be associated with Canopy/SCO in any way. My product's release date has been placed on hold indefinitely while this uproar is going on. I fear this nonsense will ruin us. It would be foolish to start the rollout under this dark cloud.
The party line from SCO is that the opposition is from just a few disgruntled 'pot-smoking hippie-types' that can be ignored and they will go away. (From an overheard conversation in the restrooms. No doubt, Monday morning SCO employees will receive news of a new policy about talking in the restroom. But it wasn't the employees forgetting to check the stalls before tossing around disparaging remarks).
Give them a reason to
At least that's what "the internet" tells me:
:)
search for Nove Hrady:
1. dot.kde.org
2. www.novehrady.cz
I love google
Writeups of the talks I went to are at:
the Nove Hrady wiki.
Many people have come to Linux because they want to get off the upgrade treadmill that commercial companies are subjecting them to. Commercial companies have all sorts of incentives for breaking backwards compatibility, like being able to sell new licenses.
Of course, the dual-license for Qt means that Troll Tech has most of the same incentives: they need to come out with new and "improved" versions in order to make their paying customers happy. And that's perhaps why dual-licensed software is not such a good idea for open source development after all.
Because, when all is said and done, there is really little that is innovative in any of Gtk+, Qt, wxWindows, FLTK, etc. They just are making different tradeoffs for different markets. And if any of them need a significant and incompatible API overhaul, it's probably because their developers were learning on the job. OO GUI toolkits have been around since the 1970's, and there really isn't a lot of new stuff to figure out about them.
... that Trolltech are part of the SCO empire/Canopy group:
...
The Canopy Group.
I've gone off using Qt since I found this out, and will be investigating other cross-platform toolkits, as much as it pains me to do so
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Maybe, but more likely the preemptive patch in kernel 2.6 will. ;-)
As much attention (and general discussion) as the desktop is getting I'd love to see a couple of 'Ask Slashdot's' with people like Matthias.
I can think of a few questions I'd love to ask.
Quack, quack.
I don't know why you all are worried about QuickTime 4 f. I personally use QuickTime 6 on my iMac. Sheesh. You can't even see the latest pron and movie trailer's with Qt 4. Oh Wait... I think this is somthing else.. Damn you! you- 133t linux users fooled me again.
Two Towers-Two Worlds.One seeks triumphs and freedom for man.The other deems man unworthy and wrecks them.
That's old news, man. QT4 has been out for years. We're up to QT6.3 now, and I can't wait for the next version with Pixlet...
Don't stress over this. Take your Ritalin.
I'd rate this as a troll, or maybe hypocritical. The writer calls for folks to boycott TrollTech, yet works for a company supported by Canopy/SCO, in a building with SCO?
Right...
Here's a better idea: kick in the funding to match whatever Canopy provides TrollTech, they do sell licenses...or does the tune change when it comes down to actual dollars and cents?
Commercial development...
QT is a library. That's why the LGPL was written and that's why Gtk is LGPL'd. By GPL'ing the library, Troll Tech ensures that no product can be written for the library unless it too is under the GPL. The only way for a corporation to get out from under that bind is to pay Troll Tech. That's the point, and that's how Troll Tech makes their money.
Unfortunately there is nothing to protect non-GPL (or non-QPL) development under QT and thus KDE.
So. Tell us, who's on the board at Trolltech? Any Canopy reps?
Sounds like Canopy set them up and controls
the board. Sorry D00D.
The founder of Novell has nothing to do with Canopy. Canopy is owned by Ray Noorda who was originaly brought in to rescue the mainframe company Novell. Some techs insdie were working on networking and showed it off during the bankruptcy. Noorda is not the founder, simply the CEO who was there during the bankruptcy.
Mpw as to Trolltech doing a SCO, that is impossible due to the license. KDEe.v. can at anytime move the license of Qt to BSD if they see fit. They simply do not as "the Trolls" provide a great service.
What I find funny is that the parent (a real troll) thinks that 4.1 % is enough to control the company. TrollTech has shown over and over that it has not intention of committing suicide, whereas Caldera/SCO has consistently done so. Remember when Caldera move their OSS system over to a closed source. Likewise, when caldera got the right to sell unix (they really do not own unix or the code; they just act like it), they announced the death of Linux and said that Unix would kill it. Now, they are claiming that Linux stole code.
Caldera/SCO is very different than TrollTech.
As to the poster, I would guess that you are from MS, Sun, or canopy group. If you are from GNOME, please stop this crap. It hurts you as much KDE to spread these kind of lies.
I can not believe that I answered this troll, but sheese....
Expect the Windows version to languish in old versions, and to get jerked around simply trying to distribute it. It's not that begrudge Troll making money, and if charging more for Qt on Windows than MS does for all of Visual Studio is their model, so be it, but I simply can't use the most recent version of Qt with the FreeQt license whether my app is GPL'd or not. This makes Qt far less supportable than GTK, since I have to keep this version discrepancy in mind.
You might want to have a look at this new QtDirectFB screenshot:
http://www.directfb.org/screenshots/FirstQt.png
I'm really looking forward to having the KDE libraries independent from QtX11.
Best Regards,
Denis Oliver Kropp
Qt4 will definately help in some ways. In particular, the fact that all widgets will now be double-buffered (instead of just most of the widgets) means that a lot of tearing will go away. Startup time should be reduced a little bit as well. Hopefully, a lot of work will go into fixing synchronization issues, which is the real problem holding back X-based GUIs.
KDE itself is getting much better. I'm using a CVS version of KDE, and can say that things are *much* faster. Konqueror starts instantly, and most apps start in less than 2 seconds. Konqueror has zero rubber-banding when resizing medium-complexity websites, and hardly noticible rubber-banding when doing reflow-heavy sites like Slashdot. The KOffice apps are all very fast, none exhibit any rubber-banding at all and all start up in a couple of seconds. All the standard widgets are really fast --- Juk for example, resizes with zero redraw even with a 2000-item listview. The only apps that really need work are those that use custom views or widgets (like Konqueror).
My setup is KDE CVS from Aug. 8, 2003. I'm Gentoo 1.4 on a 2GHz P4.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
[22:19] MightyPalm (~NotLlama@x1-6-00 << his username is highly wrong
[22:19] <TwoSheds> oops
[22:19] <TwoSheds> lol i thought it said not lame
[22:19] <TwoSheds> it says not llama
[22:19] <TwoSheds> that may or may not be wrong
[22:19] <TwoSheds> plese pretend that i never said anything
-2 off topic dya think?
The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
How you can control a company with 6 percent ownership.
1) You funded it. You have the rights to buy more shares cheap.
2) You control the board.
3) You own the debt and can "call" at anytime.
If they cant pay, you own the company.
4) The "employees" that "own" it are shills for you.
5) You control the "foundation" that controls the company (i.e. TrollTech foundation).
Sorry, D00D, these are legit. questions to ask about Trolltech and all Canopy funded properties.
No wonder you find the online docs difficult to navigate...you must not be paying attention ;-). See the article on dot.kde.org...you will find:
* Model/view classes for list box, tree view, icon view and table
Hopefully this will solve your problem.
Eron
Oops. I missed an important detail.
You can have a GPL'd library linked to non-GPL'd (but GPL-compatible) application code, as long as the linked binary is licensed under the GPL. The application code need not be GPL'd; any GPL-compatible license is ok. Sorry about that.
signed,
Unfrozen Caveman Developer, who is frightened and amazed by your advanced licensing schemes!
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
I should hope so!!!
The last time I used KDE it sucked all of 128MB on my desktop and left everyone else using it with the impression the KDE sucked the big whazoo! To be honest, it did suck when you consider that just the desktop used up all the available RAM and everything else sent you swapping
I do hope they are able to get the RAM consumption down, right now I consider KDE effectively useless because of it. It uses more RAM than Mozilla does and it's been a classic hog.
When the WM uses more RAM than all the applications typically used, combined, it's time to kill the developers.
But I am biased. I use WindowMaker with only 600KB of RAM used.
The point hes trying to make is, do your research. You cannot get all your information from fox news or from government officials and expect it to be true!
The government is biased, this is like getting information about computers from Bill Gates, of course Windows will be the best piece of software ever written!
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
the point /* I */ was trying to make was that while Qt might be the best out there now, it can, and therefore should be improved. That's what open source is about anyway, isn't it? constant improvement!
So I used a not-entirely-accurate analogy, so what! I got my point across to those willing to look for it!
Error 666 - Satanic SCO code found in your Linux kernel.
Ralph Yarrow, head of Canopy which owns 40% of SCO is on the board of directors of Trolltech.
Opps.
Or at least in this fast passed world!
Canopy controls the Trolltech Board of Directors.
Uh. Cat got your tounge?
Quit your Flaming.
(+1 Informative? Moderators Suck. )
I was not referring to CuckOO.o, the OOo kpart.
I was instead referring to the initial Staroffice-3.x port to linux, which happened in 1998 or even earlier. Gnome did not exist back then.
Xine is in fact (like mplayer) just a video decoding app, the widgets are not interesting. Xine is also used by arts and therefore by noatun, the KDE player.
Moritz
But that does mean that 5% of all the profits you help give to Trolltech or Apple will probably go to companies like SCO and Microsoft.
All the more reason for careful restrictions on business to business investment. You end up with a tangled web, and the consumers in the free market are no longer able to boycott the companies they want to.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Qt isn't even integrated into KDE! It doesen't even use the same file dialog!
It is jsut as integrated with GNOME!
"Mozilla/Netscape, OpenOffice/StarOffice, GIMP, gAIM, MPlayer, and XMMS are ALL GTK apps. "
Mozilla/Netscape is not GTK! OpenOffice/StarOffice is not GTK!
Mplayer! t doesen't even matter what toolkit they sue it's the video libraries that matter, taht's why makinga Qt Mplayer was so easy.
XMMS, yes it's GTK, but ehy there are comparable KDE apps such as Juk or Noatun.
Gaim, yes GTK also, but there is Kopete and Kmess too.
Anyway, you should really check your facts befor eposting such stupid things.