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Novell, RedHat and Sun Commit to a Linux Desktop
DeckerEgo writes "InfoWorld reports on the Linux desktop and how Novell, Sun and RedHat (wha?) are working on making 2004 the year corporations start adopting open desktops. But which desktop? Most interesting to note is how Novell is planning to beef up the number of Ximian, Gnome, Mozilla and OpenOffice developers after its SuSE aquisition is complete. Does this mean that SuSE will stop being one of the best KDE distros out there and follow the way of the Gnome?"
Perhaps not, the CEO of SUSE recently said that they are sticking with KDE, but also making Ximian desktop better for SUSE.
Sure wish someone large company w/ deep coffers would buy Mandrake and support the *best* KDE distro IMHO.
This guy is way out there
I suppose this means that one desktop environment (probably Gnome, at this point) will get enough support to bring Linux to the desktop, something that alot of people have been denying Linux is ready for in the past few weeks.
The only thing that really bothers me is that Random Corperate Giant is making the decision, not the users. When it comes down to it KDE and Gnome are both on top because they are both Really Good, and that fuels competition, etc. They've stayed "euqally" as popular because their respective user bases like them so much. So the most well known, in my opinion, Linux, Network OS, and Unix providers get to pick what they like and back it... Frightening.
I am wondering if they are going to put alot into user interface design like Apple did with OS X, and if they will be selling it preinstalled on computers like Windows does, that should deffinately bring up the market for it, also a unified desktop would be great for it too, people seem to think different on the subject though.
Sig: I stole this sig.
The reason KDE and GNOME have come so far so quickly (within 5 years) is that they've had each other to feed off of and compete with. If there is any considerable swing in one that the other dies off, it'll mean suckage for the "winning" desktop.
Just look what happened with CDE and OpenLook in the previous UNIX desktop war. After people standardized on CDE, it started stagnating until KDE was founded and eventually GNOME killed it off.
I've been a GNOME user since GNOME 1.0, and I would hate to see Suse switch to GNOME, since they've been a driving force behind KDE, and thus a driving force behind GNOME.
Yes, God forbid that a company that produces classy software like Qt should ever make any money whatsoever from it. However, when you compare Gnome to Qt you realise just how bloody awful free software can be. Gnome is the best advert for Qt there is. I`ve used both but would always choose Qt over Gnome if I had to develop an application. Kicking Trolltech in the teeth casts a bad light on some of the companies involved with Linux.
You can write commercial software with the free Qt, but it has to be GPL licensed. What you can't write is closed-source or unfree software.
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
Actually I think the vocal minority wanted "consolidation".
The rest of us wanted healthy competition. I'd hate for corporate America to standardise Linux distributions like Microsoft have standardised the intel personal computer.
Maybe I'm just nervous because I hack on KDE.
It's the principle that worries most outfits. Sure, $2000 for a widget toolkit perhaps isn't much on its own, but now assume you're paying for the OS, the compiler, the IDE ... it all adds up. Just imagine if there was not one but many libraries that followed this policy - quickly the cost of support code and tools would cause serious problems.
Furthermore, Qt is such an easy-to-use, high quality toolkit compared with anything GNOME has to offer that you are bound to be ahead on the development costs in time savings alone.
This is a fairly common troll, yet it's never been adequately backed up as far as I know. In fact I know a few developers who have used both GTK and Qt enough to know the differences, and don't think Qt is all it's hyped up to be (for instance, the qpe-gaim developer). The Qt API contains its fair share of wierdness, for instance, why does QVBox inherit from QHBox? Where is the equivalent to gdk-pixbuf?
Qt also works on the Mac and Windows - GNOME toolkits don't - this is very important for most commercial developers.
Qt works on Mac and Windows if you pay the fees, which are hefty. The problem is, so does GTK+ - there is a port which tracks the native XP theme in use, and as MacOS X has X11 support built in, they work there too. In most commercial developments cross platform portability is sadly not a concern anyway.
I'd be inclined to agree with you, however look at the names up there. Every last one of those businesses has something to gain by having the Windows hegeonomy fall. As well, they actually have the weaponry needed to put up a pretty good battle this time.
I'm not sure about 2004 being the "Year of the Linux Desktop", but the battle for the desktop is definately on again. With a vengance.
Me, I'm smiling. This is almost certainly going to be fun to watch. For the first time in quite a while, I'm really interested in desktop technology again.
Soko
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
This is a negative impact on KDE and the tone of the article suggests that Gnome will become the defacto standard for Novell/Suse.. this makes a lot of sense, not only because Novell owns Ximian but because.. as the article states, they want to give a 'single target to ISV's'.
Since RedHat is already Gnome centered..this target is and will be GTK+, which allows for third party linking without them having to pay licensing fees.. this is where the choice of QT finally comes and bites KDE... sad but true, a little ironic though... that KDE loses out because it is not friendly enough to corporate types vis-a-vis QT* while Gnome will win(at least it looks like it will) because it is.
*For those in need of a li'l background QT is licensed under the GPL while GTK+ is dual licensed under the GPL and LGPL. So, QT free(as in speech & beer) for GPL apps but not as in beer for non-GPL apps and while this is fine and dandy for community projects corporations will never pay a 'gatekeeper' if they want to release applications for the 'standard' desktop(even Mickeysoft doesn't charge that.. let's ignore MSDN for now).
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I'm a died-in-the-wool Windows sysadmin (7+ years), just new to Linux (Libranet 2.8.1, Debian + extras) and in the middle of the learning curve (so take my comments for what they are worth -- probably not much), but already I think the great virtue of Linux/desktop is the organic, user-driven nature of development. It's not corporate-driven (that is, tied to quarterly project planned) milestones, but rather user-determined utility. This requires TIME. Linux is on a different schedule and that's fine. It will win the race against Redmond in the long run. The current drive toward the desktop stinks of corporate expediency. I can't fully articulate my concerns, but it's something like "wolf in sheep's clothing"...
C'mon, you've been here for ages. Remember all those Eazel/Ximian [Helix Code]/Red Hat press releases we used to get? Ximian is partnering with Compaq! Eazel is partnering with Compaq! What struck me was precisely seeing the same list of companies making the same proclamation for the first time in a while.
Not that I wouldn't welcome it, but it's clear by now that the HP guys aren't rushing back to Palo Alto to start cranking out consumer Linux preloads.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Sun just scored a 1M+ desktop agreement with China, which wants Gnome/Linux, not Windows or Solaris/CDE. Novell's got Ximian's Evolution, which offers a low retraining barrier-to-exit for Windows/Outlook users. Gnome's got the initiative right now. It's in RedHat's interest to make the Gnome/KDE interoperation barriers disappear, bringing together a unified desktop strategy for the growing Linux platform. Therefore, it's in Sun's interest to work on that convergence; likewise Novell. In fact, everybody is best served by converging to one basic desktop, perhaps with addon features specific to KDE, Gnome or others. Sun would be the last holdout, but that China contract might have finally convinced them that people prefer Linux on their desktop to Solaris, at least for now. By going along, Sun gets to sell them on Solaris for the server, which much better supports enterprises, especially distributed ones.
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make install -not war
You know, when we're talking on Slashdot, it's easy to be evenhanded. That may sound absurd, what with Slashdot trolls and flamebait everywhere you look, but the point is, it usually doesn't have an impact (much to the disappointment of the more political among us). So I can love KDE but say I see merit to Gnome, and it's no skin off my back.
Having said that, I can't be so balanced here. If the Gnome crowd is calling the shots, then in my opinion, this is an unmitigated travesty. I want to be courteous, but seriously, if my desktop is at risk, I need to speak plainly: I think the goals of Gnome, the look & feel of Gnome, even some of the people behind Gnome, are completely at odds with everything I like. I dislike Miguel's MS cheerleading, and I love at least one of the KDE developers for saying bluntly in a Slashdot comment 2 years ago that he/she wants KDE to stay the hell away from that kind of thinking. I think Gnome's widgets are still terribly legacy-driven, and the ideas they have behind uber-simplified preferences flies in the face of everything I ever wanted.
In summary, I've always wanted to be a diplomat with the Gnome/KDE issue, because you catch more flies with honey and all that. But if KDE is going to get quietly redirected, my only response can be "do not go gently." I'm showing my cards. I don't think Gnome has any merit beyond their choice of licensing. KDE is superior in my opinion, and if KDE developers will not be leading Gnome, then at the very least I hope they retain autonomy.
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This is indeed good news.
:-)
However, in my opinion, if these coporporations want to really start working on making 2004 the year corporations start adopting open desktops, they need to consider heavily sponsoring and help develop the freedesktop.org projects.
After all, KDE and Gnome need a base. That base is an X server. Improvements have to be made there as well.
Again, this is only my opinion
I would personally love 2004 to be the year of the open source desktop, but I fear the CIO et al management of many large companies is totally closed minded on the subject.
I work for a Fortune 10 company and let me tell you how depressing it is... Their approved standards list has nothing but Microsoft products wherever possible. It would be not be an exageration to say the criteria for building this list was "Does Microsoft have a key product in this area? If so, that's our standard. Otherwise, we'll just choose whatever is most popular."
In many cases the products these IT desicion makers are choosing are unproven and unpopular even, but hey they're from Microsoft so they'll win eventually anyway. This includes...
- Microsoft Sharepoint (instead of industry leading Documentum)
- Microsoft Passport for authentication
- IIS (They catagorize Apache as "contain", meaning no new deployements should be done)
When asked about all this during a meeting at a local site, one of the IT corporate leaders said...
"Anyone here ever deal with Microsoft on corporate licensing"
[Silence]
"Well, let me tell you those guys play hardball. Unless you can convince them your heart and soul is behind them and their vision, they won't give you a good deal on the licenses you need like Windows and Office."
He then went on to describe how Microsoft was unhappy that our company was using certain competing products such as Lotus Notes. And that they told us they wanted us to get rid of those products as switch to Sharepoint etc or they would screw us on the Windows/Office licensing.
So I can't see us switching to Linux/open source desktops anytime soon, regardless of their quality or other compatibility issues.
The only good news is that Microsoft's actions in strong arming some of these big companies is likely polarizing: Either the company will embrace Microsoft or reject them. Let's hope they manage to piss enough big companies off with their actions.