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Seven Years of KDE Celebrated
Ashcrow writes "Almost exactly 7 years ago, Matthias Ettrich announced the start of a new desktop environment, originally called Kool Desktop Environment. Check out LinuxFrench's article (English translation) and the news at Dot KDE. Thanks to the KDE Team for a great 7 years!"
Congratulations to the KDE team. Choice is the spice of life, and they've helped provide it!
-Erwos
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
at least it wasn't "kewl d3skt0p env."
though sometimes when seeing the latest junk for karumba I start to wonder..
anime+manga together at last.. in real time.
I was always told that the 'K' in KDE didn't mean anything. It was just picked because it came before L in Linux. Meh... anyway congrats to the KDE team for bringing me a good working desktop environment all these years. If it wasn't for KDE, I wouldn't have switch to linux. Cheers!
I recently built a new box and got to the point where I had to go with either KDE or Gnome (not both, time was an issue). I choose KDE because it seemed that the project has more momentum. Am I way off here? I'd love to hear slashdoters sound off on this one.
In 7 years they have created a wonderful desktop. For some years now we have olny used Linux at home and at office, and my wife (designer) and my son (7 years old) use it comfortably thanks to KDE, OpenOffice, Mozilla et al.
Thanks for a wonderful product, and for demonstrating that a holy war (QT license, QT vs GTK, KDE vs Gnome, etc) should not deminish your efforts.
Life isn't like a box of chocolates. It's more like a jar of jalapenos. What you do today, might burn your ass tomorrow.
KDE is my desktop of choice and part of the reason I decided to give linux a go. Congrats KDE guys!
I've got KDE 3.1 with SuSE 8.2 and I'm seriously impressed with it. It's the best version yet! Cheers people! You've got a great product, keep it going... :)
-- Fuck Beta
7 Years and hundreds of developers couldn't do what Apple did with OSX in 4 years.
Thank goodness.
I really had to install Wine sometimes just to play solitair, what an overhead!
So now the real reasoning behind KDE is revealed: To build a non-windows solitaire device.
Kongratulations to the KDE development team. I kan hardly believe that it has been seven years for this krazy and kool environment for linux. There's gno way that Gnome kan katch up with your konstant innovations in application naming! Gnow that I think about it, Gnome's gnot even kapable of kashing in on single-letter usage they way KDE kan! Keep the gnew stuff koming!
Anyone got any screenshots of the earliest KDE?
Get your own free personal location tracker
I'm just a user and this announcement makes me fell really old.
I had alot of fun compiling KDE 1.0 for the SPARC 5 I had on my desk back then - though it was little slower than CDE at the time.
Have you compiled your kernel today??
... and all I got was this free software!
wtf are you talking about ?
The windows version has about the same license term as the X11 version. Except you don't have the option of releasing it under GPL..
Qt was written by Troll Tech and forms part of their business: why would you expect them to let you use it for free in a commercial application? They're already doing more than most commercial companies in allowing GPL use. Write your own toolkit or use Gtk or something else.
In this month's edition of Linux Journal, KDE was rated as the favorite desktop environment by the readers. There's a nice birthday present for you KDE!
WURD!!
Around 1999 I had for a few years been experimenting with Linux but hadn't really ever made the switch for more than a week or two, due to lacking real desktop usability. I discovered Slackware and KDE almost in the same heartbeat and converted....and stuck, finally. KDE was the power behind keeping me on Linux and off Windows. Now I have a great desktop that I use every day for hours on end and love every minute of it.
Good job, KDE, and keep going. Gnome? Don't you boys give up, either, because it gives KDE motivation to keep churning out quality. However, you should buy them a beer or two because they've done some fine work for the *nix world, no matter which side of the fence you like to sit on.
Blog,Twitter
seems to me you also have been boycotting intelligence, but I suspect you didn't have much to start with.
Once again, GNOME is behind KDE by a year. No matter how much effort developers put into GNOME, it well never catch KDE in the annivesary department.
I'm not really complaining about Trolltech. Their terms are ofcourse understadable , and its rather admirable of them to actually provide a GPL license for it. I'm more complaining about KDE for using Qt.
Ofcourse one can use another toolkit, but then you can't take advantage of all the nice KDE classes and such. The application also won't "fit" in the desktop environment.
KKK?!?!? uggggghh
looks like someone's trying to shove a square peg into a round hole.
first off, KDE can't do much about the QT license. It's a blessing that they have QT with the gpl license. the article is about kde, and not qt's licensing. next, kde choose the gpl license long before the qt was licensed as such. (recall the kde 1.x days and before when there were massive land and air wars over the licensing in compatibilities? i didn't think so)
next, i'm under the impression that kde itself is under the gpl license. that kinda makes it hard to develop software under a closed source license. if you're developing worthy qt applications, you can afford the 3k per developer to pay QT. if you're a cheep mo-fo' i suspect you can look into using other toolkits for your development (swg, awt, gnome, gtk, etc, etc, etc) there's many many other windowing toolkits with less restrictive licensing.
Thank you KDE, for beautifying my desktop for 5-6 years now.
Matthias Ettrich, you showed it was possible to do something we thought was not possible or did not have the confidence/ability to do. Even Miguel de Icaza was amazed with the potential KDE was showing and we all know that led to GNOME! You started something great, man.
(Please browse at -1 to read this comment.)
It's neat to flash back to the early history of KDE.
Back in early 1998, I was setting up a Linux system with a custom program I wrote to help my church manage ticket sales. It ran a KDE 1.0 beta. The hardware? 486/100 with 16MB RAM. For the most part it ran fine!
One has to wonder why it takes longer now to do anything in KDE 3.1 on a 64MB machine than it did under KDE 1.0 on a 16MB 486.
Eh? KDE is a lot more configureable than Windows is.
Well, that's an interesting argument in favor of its wider use, especially where some Slashdot readers are concerned. But to convince the PHBs to adopt it, you'll need something a bit more business-oriented. How about "is a big fat smelly vagina with enhanced productivity and lowered TCO?
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
I was going to post a "stupid k-letter jokes under this thread please" comment, but you were too fast for me.
-- Repeat with me: "There is no right to profits".
Yeah, having all these applications held back by the GPL really sucks. Just look at the stifled innovation!
-Malloc___________________ I want to be free()!
K stands for K.. nothing more nothing less..
Damned annoying urban legend..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
..but Gnome is still better, IMHO.
They still can't figure out if 'OK' should be at the left or at the right of 'Cancel'. Although they both improve at open-source-speed (= 1.36 x ludacrous speed*).
But then again, if we both think we're using the best environment, and they are not the same, then that must mean we're just a bit different...
*: see 'spaceballs, the movie'
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
I'm serious by the way. I'm running into corporate fear of even deploying open source on an almost daily basis at the moment, so any insights on this from the "other side" are very useful for me.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
"Almost exactly just doesnt sound right to me... still, big congratulations.
sounds more like yer beeching that KDE chose to use the gpl license. kde could have paid for qt licenses and then opted to dual license their software or event to make it a closed API.
you want to develop an application that will "fit" into a destop environment without paying tributes to those backs you stand on? go check out the gnome project. they chose to use the lgpl for their desktop librarires. that, or i hear there's not many licensing issues with developing closed source applications on the win32 platform...
See, this is the beauty of the GPL. Commercial companies should NOT be able to profit off of someone else's work without paying for it in some way (either financially or by opening up their own source code). Trolltech provides a very comprehensive, useful, and well-designed class library, and you expect to just be able to use it without cost? Free as in speech software is good; free as in beer software can have dangerous effects on software devleopers' job security.
Your [SHIFT] key obviously works since you used the ( and ) characters. Are they the only characters it works for? Well, I guess it works for the Q and the T as well, so it does work. I suggest you use it.
I'm not a prophet or a stone-age man,
I'm just a mortal with potential of a super man.
I've been using KDE at home since late 1998 (I think) and at work since mid 2000. Awesome desktop environment!
The heat from below can burn your eyes out
["KDE Sucks! GNOME rules!" (reverse, repeat)] (reverse, repeat)
;)
Both of these projects are so good now, it's great while browsing to run into comments occasionally (going back years) asserting that one or the other would cease to be, or that the presence of both in the world of free / Free software was harmful, because it mean duplication of effort, dilution of attention, etc.
Ha!
Hari Seldon *must* have been involved, to see how much these allegedly self-motivated projects catalyze each other.
However much you like either one, note that KDE now has integrated CD (and DVD!) burning software -- IMO on par with anything I've seen on the commerical side (Nero, etc) whereas before I prefered GnomeToaster to anything else, and GNOME now has a good file-chooser (which had been one of my least favorite points about GNOME apps).
Meanwhile, with the right libraries on your system, the Virtucon-backed fluxbox gives you access to the best of both worlds
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
No, the Gnome libraries are mostly LGPL, you can write applications and release them under whatever licenses you want.
Elaborate ? I want to be able to write applications for the linux desktop and release them under whatever I want, be it a BSD license or properitary, whithout to many strings attached.
Please explain how GPL sucks ass, and how Microsoft will be able to steal KDE, which is GPLed.
There was an interesting interview with Matthias Ettrich, done in 1998, and available here.
:-)
Amazing to see how KDE grew since then, and a good reminder of all these (past) issues with Qt, and the QtMozilla huge hack...
And by the way, is this "KEmacs" thing a reality somewhere?
Everytime KDE is mentioned, gnome advocates try and convince me why is GNOME is better, when it is NOT! Here is a detailed description WHY GNOME SUCKS KDE RULES!
1) The file dialog.
KDE 0.x ALPHAs had a better file dialog than gnome! Today, the KDE one is the best file dialgog in existance, with influence from all desktops.
2) More apps!
KDE comes with over 150 Apps in the full install, with applications for all fields, plus its sleak integration with non kde apps (eg gimp, openoffice) make things more consistant.
3) Configureable as hell.
The KDE control center has loads of knobs/dials/sliders and boxes to fiddle with, yet keeps things elegent. In gnome, half the options don't exisit and you are rudley told "use gconf-editor n00b by gnome zealots" (not joking about this, telling the truth gets you a -1, troll and footnotes).
4) I-kandy!
The Kde eye candy is really powerful, with styles such as dotNEt, mosfet liquid, kermamik, Crystal and more. Looking at art.gnome.org reveals the same old theme in different colours. Since gnome dosen't provide a colour changing dialog for its widgets most "themes" are just colour changes. The Crystal from CVS is an Aqua killer, your eyes will want to love it.
5) Its development framework rocks.
Take a good look at kioslaves, kparts, dcop, arts and qt and see why KDE is a programmer's dream. Modern c++, wonderful IDE, powerful command line scripting. Gnome gives you obsolete c, with a bunch of kludge libraries such as glib, Orbit, bonobo to hack together a application.
6)The defacto choice on Linux. All major Distributions support it by default. This means Mandrake, SuSE, Xandros, ArkLinux, Jamd, Lindows, Slackware, Knoppix, Gentoo and more. How many gnome ones can you mention (Redhat, sure if you like using server distros as your desktop Debian, nope thats the old 1.4 branch Gnoppix, a retarded knoppix rip off.) Most distributions offer gnome as an unsupported alternative.
Also, the only reason why gnome was created in the first place is null and void. Now that Novell has taken over Ximain you can expect VENDOR lock in. Want groupware for linux? Thats $300 a seat.
Get the new Mandrake 9.2 and see the Quality of KDE vs the Sorry state of Gnome 2.4 (and, they STILL haven't fixed that ****ing file dialog), not to mention they REMOVED ALL THE FEATURES. Gnome 2.2 is probably the only gnome version remotley close to kde, that is, KDE 2.0, not the KDE 3.2. I tried the "brokenboring" alpha of it and when it is released this december it will finally put Gnome out of it's misery and kill it off the Linux desktop.
Interesting take. I use KDE, and Nautilus. To each their own.
I don't subscribe to RMS's GNUtopian vision.
and Apple couldn't have done it without the help of KDE and the whole OSS commuinity.
::whipping noises::
down troll! DOWN!
WTPOUAWYHTTOTWPA
What's the point of using acronyms when you have to type out the whole phrase anyways?
WindowMaker is a window manager. KDE and Gnome are desktop environments, which include a windows manager as one component. Thus, your statement is meaningless.
You can do this. Many of the KDE libraries are also under the LGPL. But the fact is that many of the KDE classes that you want to use are actually extensions of QT classes. If you want to use those particular QT classes and the functions that go with them you have two choices, pay TrollTech or GPL. It sounds reasonable to me.
If you don't like the choices then don't use KDE classes and functions. Write your own. The licensing is NOT stopping you from developing your own software for any desktop and licensing that software as you see fit.
The best part of KDE is the way QT/XFS-XTT makes all of the fonts look nice and antialiased. I used to dread using X11 because of the ugly fonts, but now everything is quite nice.
this sig limit is too small to put anything good h
I switched over to KDE from Gnome about 2 months ago after using Gnome since 1.4ish (and I used 2.0, 2.2 and 2.4).
I like KDE better. That's really all I can say. Gnome isn't bad, but I spent too much time wondering if Gnome was ever going to get polished. That and Nautilus just sucks.
When I was using Windows I used Directory Opus as my file manager and when I first started to use Linux full time that was the program I missed the most. Then... then I found Konqueror. Life's been good ever since. From that point it was a slow conversion to KDE as a whole.
I'm very happy with it. Koffice included. I'm very much looking forward to SVG support in the next version as well as a few other little bits I've read up on.
Good job guys!
And just a clarification, I like Gnome. I just like KDE better and you know what's cool? I'm not longer stuck between these two choices:
Windows DE or Windows DE.
The only things I needed to add for her were OpenOffice, Acrobat and XawTV - they all installed without incident.
That means it should have all of my annoyances worked out sometime in 2006!
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
Troll?
:-( If they were I think there would be no stopping Qt from taking off. I would actually pick it up and write some more than trivial apps if it were open on windows and mac, besides just linux.
Qt is by a for profit company, TrollTech. They have written a sizeable chunk of code and get to choose the license. If you wrote the code you would get to choose the license.
I think TrollTech was brilliant in many ways with their license. You can either use their code for free, but you have to release your code. This works great to allow people to write code for kicks and popularizes their toolkit so it is used more often. Then their for profit license where people can choose to pay for the license and not have to open their app's code.
The only thing I dislike about TrollTech's license is that their windows and mac implementations are not offered under their open license.
Granted the moc and such is a terrible idea, but a C++ programming env that is so crossplatform is a great thing.
Norris/Palin 2012
Fact: We deserve leaders who can kick your ass and field dress your carcass.
I was about to say... "Gee, I wonder how much longer it would have taken Apple if they had to write their own rendering engine for their browser."
These trolls piss me off too. I fail to see the point of flaming another DE. It's like, okay use what you like and let me use what I like. Is there a point to flaming someone for their choice of tools?
KDE has turned out some fine stuff and the price can't be beat.
Oh yeah... and when OSX runs on more than one platform, I'll be impressed. Windows and OSX can bind you to whatever... but KDE runs not just on multiple platforms, but under multiple OSes and that's something OSX has yet to mimic. (Although... it's not quite the same because this is a DE vs. OS so it's not quite a normal comparison, but I think you get my point.)
And that Qt will be licensed under a BSD license should TrollTech ever stop development of the GPL'd version.
What's the difference between free and GPL?
> seems to me you also have been boycotting intelligence
As indicated by the suggestion that the U.S. "defend[ed] Saddam's regime".It has been said 100's of times. Apple is a Hardware companay. They make money by selling Hardware.
...
And they have been very succesfull at that. They own about 3% to 4% of the GLOBAL pc market. That's lots of pc's seriously! They are the ONLY PC/Harware company still a live from the era of the first PC's (before they were called PC's).
Remember Commodore, they it's spinn off Amiga, Atari, Adam (coleco), Tandy, Next
Apple is still with us makeing great products and changing they way people think about Comps every day.
BSD licensed software can't be stolen....
Problem is, Desktop environments are a tricky subject by virtue of their complexity.
KDE isnt something that just sits there and manages and beautifies little boxes for you. It tries to be much, much more. It's a whole "Desktop Environment" and experience. Much like windows explorer is a desktop environment, and a huge OS tacked on. Windows has been around for much longer than 7 years, and their budget is BILLIONS, where open source usually has a budget of exactly zero. Sometimes less. KDE doesnt employ legions of people to specifically make things as stupid-proof as possible, either.
In any event, there are other Window Managers that don't come with the "Experience" of KDE, GNOME, CDE, and others. Such as, windowmaker, afterstep, fvwm, blackbox (/me pimps blackbox) and a HUGE number of others. They work fabulously, quickly, and quite elegantly. As for KDE, I would say they've done fan-fucking-tastic given the budget, free development, FREE product, and so on. They are not perfect, but MS isnt either (remember code red, nimda, Blaster, Klez, and every other cirus on the face of the earth? KDE's "Experience" doesnt include mass propagating internet worms, have you noticed?)
In the interest of not excluding a big guy, MacOS is great too. Mostly because they arent a bunch of Lobotimized numbskulls who push out software as fast as possible, and they employ plenty of Interface Designers.
Oooo big language.
Zealot? I use Windows 2000, Windows XP and Linux. KDE is much more powerful desktop environment than Windows. Almost everything from Window borders to buttons, taskbar backgrounds can be altered. You can have many dockbars, multiple start menus etc... not to mention a user defineable number of desktop tabs.
Maybe one day you'll be able to use alternative products and offer sensible opinions of them instead of offering childish abuse.
The kdelibs (khtml, kjs, kparts, ...) are licensed under the lgpl (even some bsd I think). That's why Apple was able to use khtml and kjs. ...) on the other hand are gpl licensed.
The kde applications (konqueror, kmail,
If only I could come up with a good sig
Even Microsoft doesn't charge for people to use their API.
Some Mono nay-sayers have suggested that Microsoft may indeed start doing exactly that, charging for use of its .NET framework by asserting its patents.
Will I retire or break 10K?
BSD.
"If you're thinking what I'm thinking, you're right." -
Oh I'm sorry, I missed the last bit of yur post.
...I need me some peaches.
The man is quite obviously an alchoholic, and one who can afford to blow quite a bit more money on it than anyone else would.
I wouldnt ever drink grey goose vodka to get completely smashed, But i would drink it for a little while.
anyhow, the point is, the guy likes his expensive booze. I mean, I could hire a hooker, fondle her breasts, and ask her to pleasure herself for me, afterwards core out a peach and send the lady on her way to save some cash... But I could also just keep her for a night and have a much, much better lay.
The only thing I dislike about TrollTech's license is that their windows and mac implementations are not offered under their open license.
Another Slashdot user informed me that KDE has been ported to Cygwin+XFree86. If KDE for Windows doesn't Just Work(tm) for you, what problems did you run into?
Will I retire or break 10K?
It's the same for me, except I use Windows 2k. It's the smoothest, fastest running OS that just works for me, by virtue that I've been using Windows since 3.11.
Price. But it depends on the specific piece of software. The price might just be worth it.
I can develop commercial Windows apps for less than it would cost me to make KDE ones because of the QT licence. How utterly stupid is that?
X apps written and compiled with the GTK+ toolkit will run just fine inside KDE. X apps written and compiled with the Winelib toolkit (many of which are ported Windows apps) will run just fine inside KDE. X apps written and compiled with the GNUstep toolkit (many of which are ported Cocoa apps) will run just fine inside KDE. Your point?
Will I retire or break 10K?
The only thing I dislike about TrollTech's license is that their windows and mac implementations are not offered under their open license. :-(
m l
Not true for the Mac:
http://www.trolltech.com/download/qt/mac.ht
I have to admit, when I first saw the announcement (I'm Clayton, #5 in the Matthias's original thread), I simply thought, "What a dumbass; he doesn't know anything about X," and moved on. However, the few times that I've been presented with KDE recently, I've been pretty impressed at what a full-featured and easy-to-use desktop it's turned out to be.
Nice work, folks. I hope you keep it up.
I'll spring to his defense, since it is clearly made up. How easily riled the proletarians get when they hear about the good life, even when it is clearly a honey pot like this post was. Look me in the eye and tell me you don't want to be sitting in your own library knocking back some likkors when your wife calls you to dinner. He could have taken this one half step farther and described his fine azz Courvoisier snifter and the thong his maid was wearing, but the author seemed to feel that people would see past his obvious troll. Too bad you were caught in the net - why not think for two seconds before falling into autorant mode you idiot.
Eat recycled food - it's good for the environment, and OK for you.
The closest Trolltech ever came to a Free version of Qt for Windows was Qt 2.3 Non-Commercial Edition for Windows. It was binary-only (for obvious reasons), there was no official TT support, and the license was not compatible with most (if not all) OSI licenses. Trolltech suggested that developers include an exception clause if their License Of Choice allowed it.
Of course, some cheap rat-bastards decided to piss in the pool and use the Non-Comm version for closed-source commercial software, and TT caught them violating the license. Once burned, twice shy, so there's no 3.x version, now or probably ever. And without source or support, the 2.3 version is pretty much abandonware.
This sig intentionally left blank.
Reread his posting. He's pretending it's the old days, before QT was GPLed.
Funny. I used to use Konqueror in Gnome. (I too hate Nautilus.) But then I just went back to KDE. I love Gnome's speed and overall good looks, but KDE has more features and configurability. So KDE's my env of choice. But the choice was hard to make.
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
The Canopy group already has a stake in Troll Tech. You don't have to "own" a company to exert influence. Troll Tech doesn't have to stop developing QT to freeze all native commercial development under KDE dead in its tracks... it just has to raise the price.
What if Canopy were to fund a SCO Unix port of QT and KDE, and use KDE as their premiere Desktop Environment? Affordable for commercial use only on SCO Unix?
My point is NOT the particulars, only that such commercial control over a free environment is possible.
Also think about it from a practical perspective: Many apps are small twiddly hacks. If somebody wants to write a hack in KDE, and use any company time or intellectual property, then they have to jump through hoops to get corporate legal to give it the o.k., or they have to explain to their employer why they need a $2k purchase approval to be able to write a hack.
On the other hand, they could just not use KDE.
Knowing this, why should anyone in a commercial world bother learning how to develop for KDE? They know they won't get approval to do anything with it. And if QT is tough to bring in through the corporate back door, then why bother bringing in KDE?
(Silly arguments of using a non-native toolkit aside)
GNUStep is an effort to duplicate the Next environment. WindowMaker uses GNUStep libs so you can say GNUStep is a desktop environment were WindowMaker is it's window manager.
BSD licensed software can't be stolen....
How many times has KDE crashed on me in the past three years you might ask? ZERO
Trolltech doesn't understand the GPL. They claim that you can't use their GPL'd libraries in a commercial application. Try reading the license, they're wrong. You CAN, you just have to release the source code under the GPL. Legally, there's nothing Trolltech can do to stop you selling your work. Stallman himself says that selling GPL'd software is perfectly okay and indeed he encourages it.
Yes, KDE's file dialog is superior to GNOME's. This is the one thing that I find annoying.
2) More apps! KDE comes with over 150 Apps in the full install, with applications for all fields, plus its sleak integration with non kde apps (eg gimp, openoffice) make things more consistant.
KDE comes with over 150 apps that are mostly worthless, really. GNOME comes with most of the same functionality, a nice terminal, web browser, pdf viewer, calculator, etc. GNOME also has the best OS spreadsheet in existence.
As for integration, KDE's "make other apps use KDE colors" hack is disgusting. If you want "integration," -- if by integration you mean widgets that look the same -- use Geramik, Bluecurve, or Mandrake's whatever-it's-called.
3) Configureable as hell. The KDE control center has loads of knobs/dials/sliders and boxes to fiddle with, yet keeps things elegent. In gnome, half the options don't exisit and you are rudley told "use gconf-editor n00b by gnome zealots" (not joking about this, telling the truth gets you a -1, troll and footnotes).
Yes, KDE is pretty configurable -- if by configurable you mean you can change colors, fonts, and keybindings. You can do the same with GNOME, without touching GConf. For some more advanced tweakage, you will need to use GConf, which is pretty easy(not near as painful as windows's regedit).
5) Its development framework rocks. Take a good look at kioslaves, kparts, dcop, arts and qt and see why KDE is a programmer's dream. Modern c++, wonderful IDE, powerful command line scripting. Gnome gives you obsolete c, with a bunch of kludge libraries such as glib, Orbit, bonobo to hack together a application.
GNOME has C++ bindings for everything you need.
6)The defacto choice on Linux. All major Distributions support it by default.
Yeah, and Windows is the defacto OS on x86, what's your point? However, several of those distros also support GNOME, and RH is pretty nice on desktops too.
<snipped the rest of your trolling>
Please stop this nonsense, just stop it.
Fucking kids...
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Canopy has about a 5% stake in TrollTech. That's nothing. Sun exerts a large amount of influence on the GNOME project, and they aren't exactly big supporters of Linux. The point is that both projects are L/GPL'ed. They're free forever. No company can change that.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Not only that, but most of the goodness in OS X is much older. Say, 1986, the beginning of Next...
No, try again. FREE SOFTWARE development in KDE is free forever and can never be closed; but what the poster you're replying to was pointing out was that COMMERCIAL, closed-source applications using KDE stand a risk of being burned if TrollTech is taken over by someone greedy.
You're welcome not to give a damn about closed-source applications. It's still a valid concern.
TT being bought out by somebody greedy wouldn't do anything. If the price is too high, people simply won't use Qt and they wouldn't make any money. Capitalism is nice like that. The only thing that could happen is that a company would buy out Trolltech in order to kill commercial development on KDE, at which point the FreeQt foundation would probably intervene.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
The moderator that me offtopic is an idiot and another example of happy censory moderators that may have a bias towards KDE.
You know, GNOME wouldn't be where it now is if people stopped trying to convince themselves that it's as good as KDE, and just freaking *made it happen*, instead.
And this comes from a former GNOME guy. I'm not gonna rant or correct some faulty assumptions in your post, it's just not worth sinking to that level (however, I'll try to point out some of your good points further down, for the sake of fairness). Besides, there are much cleverer people than I with in depth knowledge of both environments that make a much better job of summing up the issues at hand than I could. Interestingly, this guy too used to think that GNOME would become the #1 desktop environment. That was a few years ago.
This being said, you're right about a few things. There's much more to desktop integration than widget appearance. And GConf is indeed not as bad as the Windows registry, mostly thanks to the absence of CLSID and related codes!
As for the rest, this is Slashdot, so I won't bother. Those who care, already know, and those who don't care or don't want to know, won't stop not caring or not wanting to know just because little guy Balinares is busily opening his mouth.
Additionally, your post misses entirely the number one reason why you should be using GNOME:
Because you -like- it.
That's the most valid reason on Earth to be using anything. So please drop the would-be technical comparisons that GNOME can't and won't win because it's just fucking not designed to, dammit. Go back to writing the freaking best code you can, and let people enjoy GNOME if GNOME is what they enjoy. Blind zealotry turns people -away-, you know?
I just wish the GNOME guys would stop phagocyting third-party apps just for the somewhat awkward "this is now a GNOME app so GNOME rules!" bragging rights... People who like to choose based on technical merits have a right not to have GNOME forced into their apps if they don't want GNOME, dammit. We can bitch all we want about the KDE guys, but when they need an app, they code it, they don't go encyst themselves into neutral apps...
-- B.
This sig does in fact not have the property it claims not to have.
That's odd. Nautilus and KDE.
I was in your boat. I was using Konqueror in Gnome and then just went back to KDE. On my box the speed difference isn't noticeable.
Hmm.. a company that's been around for more than 25 years like Apple probably should have more market share (which they do, but barely) compare to the handful of hackers that make up the KDE and GNOME teams.
> their GPL'd libraries in a commercial application
By commercial, they assume that you also mean propeitary. which most commercial software is.
> The licensing of QT sucks ass, and when Microsoft buys Troll Tech, KDE will be stolen from...
If Microsoft buys TrollTech and they change the license, the last GPL'd version of Qt will automatically become BSD-licensed.
For full comic effect your reply should read: "you shouldn't use a preposition to end a sentence with".
Well, I just installed Linux earlier today, and now I'm looking at this page from KDE.
what sig?
You're wrong. Go read 100 pages on the difference between Latin and English on Google.
There are reasons why democracy does not work nearly as well as capitalism.
-- David D. Friedman
Install both, use the panel you like, the apps you like and the window manager you like. I'm happily using applications from both with fluxbox, enlightenment, metacity and even twm - or remotely with CDE, pc-xware or cygwin. One user has the KOffice apps running all the time from the gnome panel, and the bluecurve desktop (and fluxbox on the 8 bit display).
I'm sure commercial companies don't want to pay Microsoft, Borland, RogueWave, etc, either. But they do.
Although I have a few problems with the Qt licensing, I've always found your particular argument to be ludicrous. Is it fair that proprietary commercial companies have to pay for proprietary commercial software? Of course! If you want to argue about the price of Qt, please do so. But don't argue that the Trolltech is wrong for selling their software to people who sell software for a living. Next thing you know you'll be bitching about grocers selling produce to restaurants.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
I want to be able to write applications for the linux desktop and release them under whatever I want, be it a BSD license or properitary, whithout to many strings attached.
Since Qt is not under the GPL, but under a GPL/QPL combination, you can release your application under any Open Source license with no strings attached.
Now proprietary will be a bit more difficult. GNU/GNOME/GTK may be a better choice for you if you want to do proprietary software development. Ironic huh?
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
At least windows moves the help button 2 clicks away instead of putting it on the launcher giving a false sense of hope ... er, help ... no hope.
No.
Gnome HASN'T focus. Is was created just because some RMS friends didn' t like the QT license. Now its all about UI usability.
Then it passed along three window managers, and two file managers. Started using the ultraconfigurable Enligthenment hog, just to finish with the dead dumb Metacity. Is that focus?
Nautilus was supposed to be the counterpart of Konqueror, and become also the web brower, but for some reason they relegated it and left Mozilla/Galeon as browser... Is that focus?
They used to talk about Abiword+Gnumeric as the Gnome office suite (BTW, Abi people never Abiword as a Gnome app, in fact is a multiplatform app). Later, they claim OO is their office suite. Is that focus.
In the same line, I do not understand how they think external multiplatform developments as Abi or Moz fits in a supposedly usability aware, consistent desktop.
That said, I like some Gtk/Gnome apps, as some KDE apps sucks (Kpresenter y Kivio specially).
But still I think Gnome is well behind and most of its backers use it just because it is a more RMS-politically-correct project.
Got Pike?
Yeah, because *everybody* knows that you judge application development by version numbers.
First of all, forgive me for my lack of knowledge of System development, as I never really had the misfortune opportunity to use it very much.
Second, how does comparing the huge-scale development of an OS to a desktop environment which started out extremely small-scale tell you anything about how much open source sucks or doesn't suck?
Er... pardon my posting while distracted, thus failing to insert appropriate marks of sarcasm around "opportunity."
So, it boils down to this: "I want others to works for free so I could profit from their work! I don't want to give anything back to them! Not money or source! I want it all to myself!"
Why don't you write your own damn toolkit or use Gtk+? And don't forget: Stop your whining!
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
TT is a private company, owned primarily by it's employees. If some corporation took them over (highly unlikely) and tried to screw KDE over, last GPL'ed version of Qt would be relicensed under a BSD-license. Also, what's there to stop hackers from forking the last free version of Qt? Nothing.
I find it really hypocritical that some people whine when Canopy/SCO owns about 5% ot Trolltech, but they turn a blind eye when Sun, one of the biggest (if not the biggest) supporters of Gnome bash Linux and provide SCO with money to harass Linux. Sun has damaged and tried to damage Linux. Trolltech has gone the extra mile to promote Linux. And still people whine about Trolltech!
Hypocrits.
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
I hope you guys aren't being serious. In case you are, I was *joking*. Don't be so pathetic.
Disclaimer: I don't care about purity of licenses. I don't care about C vs C++. I don't care about RMS.
KDE is just the most remarkable piece of free software I've ever seen. It's so big, so slick and advances at such an incredible pace. It works perfectly, and just the same on Linux, Solaris and BSD (though I haven't used and BSDs in a while). It's wonderful.
I used to love GNOME, but now, with the best will in the world. I can't take it seriously as a rival to KDE.
Yes and no. I think you mean "WindowMaker is just a window manager because it doesn't set a comprehensive desktop appearance policy". In that sense, yes, *for the most part* all WindowMaker does is manage windows, but that's not *entirely* all it does.
In fact, you can run Window Maker without using its included window manager; in the default right-click menu you have the option of restarting with IceWM or with BlackBox. Window Maker is a desktop, in that it is a layer of abstraction above a window manager.
All's true that is mistrusted
I have been loving the KDE since I got Mandrake 6-something after running Red Hat 4-something. I knew the folks at Uni Tubingen were totally cool! I've used gnome a bit, but KDE still rules AFAIC.
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
Whereas calling someone an "idiot" is the height of intellectual discourse, I take it?
As for System 7...unlike KDE 3.2, System 7 was a pretty GUI on top of an operating system most generously described as a wobbly pile of accumulated cruft. If that's what you consider progress, you can keep it.
So the "G" in "Gnome" stands for "geezer"?