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UserLinux May Go Without KDE
Anonymous BillyGoat writes "For the past few days, there has been considerable debate at the UserLinux mailing list about the (proposed) non-inclusion of KDE in the distro. The KDE developers have written a proposal opposing the decision to go with GNOME as the sole UserLinux GUI, while Bruce Perens has posted a response."
Having used both, I have likes and dislikes about both of them - Gnome does look better, and "feels", whatever that means, like a more complete and professional product.
That said, KDE is faster. Much, much faster; On older hardware, this is a pronounced difference. Every time my old P2/233 goes bobbing for objects in the Corba barrel, it takes an awfully long time to come up for air.
If the UserLinux project is only meant to run on hardware made from this day forward, that's cool, I'd go with Gnome. But if not, I'd definitely include KDE - It's cruel to say so, but the choice between Gnome and KDE is, in my house, very much dependent on the choice between new or old hardware.
Mike Hoye
Why hasn't anyone made an OSS implementation of Qt? I don't see why it would be to hard to come up with a drop-in replacement, maybe even based on GTK, (though hopefully more low level).
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
If Bruce Perens honestly wants this to be a Linux for business people (instead of the unwashed masses of normal users), he should not call it UserLinux but BusinessLinux or whatever.
I'm a user and I want KDE. Most people agree that KDE is more mature and robust than GNOME anyway, so from a business point of view it is obviously better suited. KDE also has more stability from other points of view, for example it doesn't change the default window manager for each major release, the groupware and the kiosk mode are very important as well. I'm not talking down on GNOME here, but KDE is more mature and all the major business wins Linux has had so far were with (and because of) KDE.
I think the maintainability argument is a fallacy. Admins already are completely unable to contain the complexities of different applications. Each major application and framework calls for its own class of admins. In large companies you have a Cisco admin for the networking infrastructure, you have an Oracle DBA, you have the Apache guy, you have the SuSE/RedHat/whatever admin, and the 5000 Windows reboot monkeys. Nobody expects all of this to go away if they switch to Linux. There will still be complexity. Deciding to standardize on GNOME will not make OpenOffice any less daunting to install and maintain in a multi-user environment. Or Mozilla. Or Apache.
And if we accept the argument, we would clearly choose the platform with the more robust administration interface, which clearly is KDE. kcontrol is integrated and pretty much all-encompassing, while GNOME is constantly shifting from CORBA over XML to a binary registry and back. GNOME has become so bad that they actually added a regedit style "config editor" and apparently really expect users to use it to configure applications. Hint: This is the kind of nightmare people want to get rid of when they switch from Windows to Linux.
Anyway, I don't see why we need to standardize on a GUI, and if we do, we standardize on KDE, of course, as it fulfils more of the requirements businesses have, hands down.
Free-as-in-beer doesn't impress big business. I don't think it's as critical an issue as you make out.
Yes it is. It may not matter for 1-4 licenses, but free scales a lot better for hundreds of licenses.
Plus, there is no license management. With free beer, there is no hassle.
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
Bruce says: "UserLinux is intended to be a system for business people."
OK, that's great, but why on earth call it UserLinux then? Shouldn't it be BusinessLinux?
Names are important. UserLinux sounds like a Linux distro intended for end users. Someone like my Mom, not someone like HP. Bruce may be right about GNOME being a better solution for business. I will, however, bet nickels to dollars that much of the controversy is because people assume that a distro called UserLinux should be about, well, users, and that's KDE's main focus.
I have assumed ever since the initial announcement that UserLinux might end up being my distro of choice, and I was upset when I heard about KDE's exclusion. Now that I read further, I see I have no reason to be upset, because UserLinux isn't intended for me.
It wouldn't surprise me to see the whole project fail because of this fundamental naming problem. Is a distro called UserLinux even going to register on a CIO's radar?
BusinessLinux might have. I don't think UserLinux will.
As a geek, I'm frankly pretty sick of going to the geek next door to help with some debugging only to discover that their desktop is configured so differently from mine that I have to ask their help to get a friggin' terminal window.
I'm thankful every day that the rest of the world isn't like this--I appreciate being able to use someone else's car, or stove, or whatever, without having to read the user's manual.
Yup.
--Bruce Fields
Why would you ever consider that a bad thing? MDI-style interfaces are the worst thing ever.
I don't really like GNOME either though. KDE provides a great framework and is structured well. KDE may have a few usabilty problems vs. GNOME at this point for the inexperienced user. But KDE should win out on technical merit, the rest can follow later.
A few days ago, when I read Bruce Perens response (or rather defence) on his choice of GUI, there was one part of his response that caught my eye: He said that individual support companies can add KDE and support it if they want. "It's not that we are removing KDE from Debian" he said.
... so you see it isn't so much a "KDE passion", but a realism."
I contacted the UserLinux mailing list on behalf of a group/company that is considering becoming a support company for UserLinux in Iran. We badly need an Iranian distro with full support for the Farsi language, in Iran and as far as I can see there is a good market here for such a product. For months we have been thinking about wether we should roll out our own Debian-based distro, but haven't yet made our decision. (Well we have made Shabdix, which is a Live CD distro based on Knoppix). As everyone knows, maintaining a Linux distro is not a trivial task, and there is not enough financial incentive in it. UserLinux with it's proposed structure would have made an excellent choice for us.
The problem is, during the past 1.5 year, our small group of Linux enthusiasts translated KDE to Farsi. Currently it has (near) full Farsi support, and right now offers something which Windows does not: a Farsi Graphical User Interface. KDE is the only environment which has been translated to Farsi, and as far as I know no one is planning on translating Gnome to Farsi, anytime soon. The situation here, is that if people are going to use Linux in Iran, the only player here is KDE. Gnome (currently) lacks Farsi support.
Bruce's decision on GUI has made life hard for us. I Contacted UserLinux discussion mailing list to ask a couple of questions and to make things clear for myself (namely to ask how I as a support company will be able to add KDE, and still be considered UserLinux). Unfortunetely I didn't get a single reply on the mailing list. What actualy surprised me was that on UserLinux's only mailing list, most people were just trolls, engaging in endless flame wars. I didn't saw a single developer there, nothing cunstructive, just flame wars. Bruce Perens loudly speaks everywhere of UserLinux' more than 200 posts a day. What he doesn't speak about, is that these are mostly just flame wars.
However Aaron Seigo, a respected KDE developer took the time to address some of my questions, and he made me aware of the other side of the coin: what KDE developers are doing. I am posting some parts of his mails, so that the slashdot community can also use his thoughts.
He Wrote:
"I've cc'd the kde-debian list on this, since doing User Linux but with KDE is what this project is about! there's no need to sacrifice KDE, or deal with putting KDE into User Linux on your own. simply join our efforts and we can all work together on this solution. we have dozens already involved and code is being written.
After congradulating on his work I also wrote:
" However I should note that while I will look with greatinterest to your project, it is a shame that such an old issue (GnomeVs. KDE) has seperated the community in this way.
His responded:
"please note that this old issue was not raised by us (people interested in KDE) but by Bruce Perens and some random GNOME fanatics. my position was and is based on market realities and inclusivity that does not suffer from choice proliferation (e.g. the "10 CD players, 20 text editors" problem) nor from economic drags on support (as Bruce tried to submit).
I don't think GNOME should be excluded from User Linux, and i feel the same way about PostgreSQL vs MySQL as I do about GNOME vs KDE in User Linux, despite note liking MySQL as a RDBMs solution very much
I also wrote:
"UserLinux was/is a great idea, but it's strengh lies in the power of it's core organization,and how much it will be successful in getting IHV and ISV support Having two such projects competeing with each other will only damage both of these projects, as we all know that ISVs (and to so
--
Obviously, you don't get it.
From a software maker's point of view, choosing Qt, you get:
With GTK, you save a week's salary but:
Sorry to break your believes, but for a commercial software vendor to choose GTK over Qt is just plain stupid.
Choosing KDE for UserLinux would have been smart: You could tell corporations: "See, you can develop your in-house apps with Qt and so you can have a slow painless transition - and you can also go back if it doesn't work out."
Some random opinion on GNOME vs KDE that I really ought to shut up about since noone's listening but hey, it's saturday morning:
I'm not really a developer. I've compiled and configured an entire network of free software, but I could not code "hello world" without looking at a "{programing language} for dummys" book to save my life. I've used Gnome 2.4. I used if for a month both at work and at home. At the end, I was *so* happy I could go back to KDE. KDE just works. Now. I couldn't even get printing to be uniform in Gnome. I wish OpenOffice and Mozilla would have the option to use KDE's dialogs, but at least I have a consistant printing system with kprinter. KDE is lightyears ahead of Gnome. Gnome has no consistancy whatsoever. Things don't mesh well at all. It feels like a bunch of parts just thrown together. I have dabbled in programing. I've thrown together little bits and pieces to see how they go together. Never really gotten anywhere simply becouse I don't like programing enough. However, I do know that if I ever wanted to make an app, I would use QT. And it wouldn't matter if I wanted to use the GPL or make it commercial. The fee for a commercial license is pocket change for a commercial project. I would be able to call TrollTech for support. I have easy to read documentation for every single funtion in QT. I have no one to call for gtk support. Also, I have the assurance that if TrollTech ever went under, I would have the QT code since they have agreed to release it under a BSD style licence if that were to happen.
Here's a quick test using google seaches:
QT toolkit Technical Support
GTK toolkit Technical Support
Now, if I were a comercial company, which toolkit would I want to use? One with full technical support, excelent documentation, and a contract that assures I'm never left without the code that costs money?
Or a toolkit with no technical support, inferior documentation, no guarantee that development will continue thats free?
Using Gnome for a distribution geared toward business is a bad idea. Mark my words: This will end badly, even if the distribution is successful.
Why is it so hot? Where am I going? What am I doing in this handbasket?