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GNOME/KDE Integration Gets A Few Boosts
Balinares writes "Great bunch of news on the Linux desktop unification front. After the unification of GTK and Qt themes that Slashdot already reported on, it is OpenOffice's turn to get the unified look treatment (screenshot 1, screenshot 2, screenshot 3).
In related news, the recently released QtGTK library allows to merge the Qt event loop with that of GTK. In other words, this means you can now easily use KDE's DCOP, IOslaves, and, last but not least, file dialogs, from inside your GTK apps. (Screenshot of this feature used in XMMS2: 1 2). It comes with a tutorial that explains the basics.
Finally, the new fuse_kio tool now makes it possible to use KDE's IOslaves directly at the filesystem level, from any Linux app. 2004 is really beginning well for all those of us who use Linux as their primary desktop!"
It falls under the same GPL as anything written against the Qt library. You GPL it, or you pay several thousand dollars per developer working on your app.
Keep Qt out of your apps, unless you want to be stung for a lot of money.
Call it a troll if you must but the way trolltech is handling their user licensing is clearly a setup for a "SCO-like" legal fiasco at some point in the future.
And the way all the TrollTech apologists keep claiming "TrollTech has the right to..." (blah,blah,blah)...yes, they have these "rights", but let's not forget the central issue--their shit is running on truly free software, unambiguously free software, whether for commerical, public or private use. TrollTech is the one playing games, playing fast and loose with everyone else's work. It's not the other way around.
Then there's always the usual posts about $1550 per developer, per year of support, per platform...is such a great deal for such a product! Sorry, I've used it, and it's not really that earth shattering, and those prices are a great deal for...TrollTech, and TrollTech alone.
Sure it's easy to get copies of everything you need on Linux. Now try and do it on windows--it's all screwy, you need Windows development software, you need to get a license from TrollTech, etc.--same for the other platforms...OSX,Solaris,IRIX...this is "free, GPL software"? What a pathetic claim.
Cheap for commercial use? $1550 per year, per developer, per platform, is cheap? And if they're developing under windows Visual Studio is recommended, as well? Doesn't sound so cheap.
Great toolkit? The integration between Qt and KDE is actually kind of weak. Try importing private includes and libraries...it's actually possible to create aliased objects and completely confuse the debugger. Qt and Kde projects overlap on a lot of functionality, duplicated objects...it's a mess. What exactly should we use? Now, under Linux, we mix in GTK...that really simplifies things. Under windows, there is probably a horrendous mix of functionality as well. Some toolkit.
The spread of the Qt libs, the continued mixing of this ambiguously licensed product with truly free software, is going to come back and haunt Linux developers at some point in the future. TrollTech is just sitting back and biding their time, claiming it's cheap for commercial use (not really) claiming it's free for GPL use (not really) claiming it's a great toolkit (not really).
Once all this crap is mixed in with truly free code, and entrenched in several major US corporations, you can just about guarantee the ghost or Daryl McBride with be sending out letters from the TrollTech legal department, all the same pumping and dumping, all the same FUD, etc.
As for "integration," well, I can't open an X session over SSH via UDP through the file-selection dialog, but my office suite can work with MS Office documents and I can click "aim:" protocol links in my browser and have my IM client handle them. Stick that in your crack pipe and smoke it.
from your kick-ass apps: i admit k3b is kick-ass except interface, which could use a little more polish
kdevelop i don't use so it wouldn't be fair of me to judge, but others just aren't so kick-ass as you would wish, just mostly unprofessional
GNOME-apps rule, KDE-apps suck!
nope, i never claimed that. scribus is a qt app and it rocks. dcgui-qt is still the best dc client. k3b is still the best app for linux burning, except that I find my self using burn:// in nautilus more and more, it just works (at least for files, for audio I'm still waiting for coaster architect)
problem with kde is that still aims to geeks, meaning zillion buttons with preferences bloated with tabs having option to configure anything but still do very little. kwrite is a nice sample of that. simple editor, which looks confusing. and never mind how geekish i am, i'm finding my self more and more in time shortage, so i just wan't clean interface from start. i won't say that kde couldn't be cleaned up with setting preferences, IT CAN BE (AND EVEN VERY NICE), but i just don't wanna bother, DE either works from start or not. second thing is that i find my self setting up more and more linux desktops, while in gnome everything is set up for every average joe, kde shows too much. so, did i said that kde is pain in the ass: YES.
try comparing similiar products
kmail - evolution
kwrite - abiword
kspread - gnumeric
konqueror - epiphany
kcontrol - gnome control center
karbon14 - inkscape
kde menu layout - gnome menu layout
i would say kdevelop - anjuta but as i said i don't use kdevelop so it wouldn't be right
in every case gnome or gtk software was more polished in interface, more directed to its usage and simpler to use
gimp is gtk+ yes, but still gtk+ is heart of gnome
difference is just the engine dependancy just as qt is for kde
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The only reason gnome exists was because Qt was not free software. Don't be fooled by those who claim there were other reasons. Technically KDE was always ahead of GNOME. There were no technical reasons for building GNOME, it's purely political. That doesn't mean it's not about choice, just license choice and not feature choice.
Ironically, Qt is now more Free according to FSF definitions than GTK (it's GPL'd, whereas GTK is LGPL'd). Still, there is so much KDE hatred out there due to the license history that people (*cough* userlinux *cough) still bash the Qt license as not being free enough.