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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!"

232 of 339 comments (clear)

  1. Sweet First Post! by iLL_L0gic · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I can't wait for this to happen, I'm tired of there being so many desktops in linux. You can argue all you want about "it offers better choices for people." But the truth is, people don't want to choose, they want you to choose for them. Once they learn your system, then they can go in and tweak it for themselves.....I've always seen this as a drawback for Desktop Linux, some programs work in one window maker, others work in another. It's too hard for the average user.

    1. Re:Sweet First Post! by FooBarWidget · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That reasoning makes no sense.

      "But the truth is, people don't want to choose, they want you to choose for them."

      Well, just because there IS choice doesn't mean you HAVE to choose. If those people don't want to choose then why don't they just let their distributor/geek friend/vendor/whatever choose for them?

      And you forgot why there is choice in the first place: one size does not fit all! The only way to satisfy as many people as possible is to provide choice. The people who don't like that their distributor/vendor/whatever chose for them will choose, and the people who don't want to choose will let their distributor/vendor/whatever chooce for them. What's wrong with that?

    2. Re:Sweet First Post! by Vann_v2 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Or better yet, provide sane defaults and then they will neither have to nor want to change. Those people who want to do so still can, and everyone wins.

    3. Re:Sweet First Post! by alakon · · Score: 5, Interesting

      When I first installed Linux I flipped a coin to decide between the two :) Yes, I didn't want to make a choice, as Redhat gave no background to base my decision.

    4. Re:Sweet First Post! by Overly+Critical+Guy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      That reasoning makes no sense.

      It makes perfect sense. And decades of research by Apple and Microsoft labs proves it.

      "But the truth is, people don't want to choose, they want you to choose for them."

      Well, just because there IS choice doesn't mean you HAVE to choose. If those people don't want to choose then why don't they just let their distributor/geek friend/vendor/whatever choose for them?


      I thought that's what he was arguing.

      And you forgot why there is choice in the first place: one size does not fit all! The only way to satisfy as many people as possible is to provide choice. The people who don't like that their distributor/vendor/whatever chose for them will choose, and the people who don't want to choose will let their distributor/vendor/whatever chooce for them. What's wrong with that?

      But his reasoning works--provide something that people can get used to, and then they can tweak that. Contrary to what you believe, providing a bunch of choices doesn't please everybody, it just confuses and spreads energy across various, conflicting projects. There's a reason we've been hearing since 1998 that Linux will "overtake Windows on the desktop," but it's never happened and never will with its current mindset.

      --
      "Sufferin' succotash."
    5. Re:Sweet First Post! by _Sprocket_ · · Score: 1


      There's a reason we've been hearing since 1998 that Linux will "overtake Windows on the desktop," but it's never happened and never will with its current mindset.


      I'm sure the number of compatible software titles has nothing to do with it. Its all because the average user doesn't know what to do when they find "GNOME, KDE, WindowMaker, FluxBox" in a pulldown menu.
    6. Re:Sweet First Post! by hitmark · · Score: 1

      maybe the config tools should have 2 modes, user hadn hardcore:) so that when you want to tweak the ehll out of something you go into hardcore mode and if not then stay in user mode. the one does not exclude the other, it becomes a win/win situation.

      just look at all the desktop tweakers in windows that have to user nasty hacks and undocumented features. lets make theyre life easyer but stil let it be easy for the avarage user:)

      --
      comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
    7. Re:Sweet First Post! by FooBarWidget · · Score: 1

      [quote]There's a reason we've been hearing since 1998 that Linux will "overtake Windows on the desktop," but it's never happened and never will with its current mindset.[/quote]

      Oh sure it's always easy to put all the blame on the attitude and oversimplifying the situation. The o-so-friendly-and-fast BeOS didn't succeed either. And the o-so-friendly MacOS X still doesn't have more than a few percent market share. Heck, *no* non-MS operating system has succeeded into getting more than a few percent market share!

    8. Re:Sweet First Post! by aldoman · · Score: 1
      I agree with most of your points, apart from:

      "There's a reason we've been hearing since 1998 that Linux will "overtake Windows on the desktop," but it's never happened and never will with its current mindset."

      The reason is that in 1998 the linux desktop sucked. Look at it.

      Now, only 5-6 years on, we have much much nicer desktop solution. When we have KDE4 and Gnome3 I think most people's problems with Linux will have gone.

      I mean in 1998 there wasn't a usable office suite (StarOffice or a buggy, buggy version of KOffice) and things like audio and video players and even web browsers were lacking (netscape 4.7 was a bad browser for the time, and Mozilla had only started). Again, now we have OpenOffice, KOffice and Gnumeric/Abiword (my favourite) and Mozilla Firebird.

      Things are starting to change and hopefully KDE and Gnome will continue to work together even more...

    9. Re:Sweet First Post! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      "Well, just because there IS choice doesn't mean you HAVE to choose. If those people don't want to choose then why don't they just let their distributor/geek friend/vendor/whatever choose for them?"

      With modern distros like Mandrake its a non-issue. The new user installs, boots, and voila, they're in KDE. They've also installed gnome, but they don't know that. If someone tells them to try some standard gnome app that Mandrake's installed, they can and it will probably work in kde and they still don't even need to know what gnome is.

      Later if they want to get into the choice thing, it's all there. I run windowmaker with Mandrake. Just for fun I tried starting kde's kicker. No problem, runs fine, a key component of kde.

      The whole 'choice is confusing' thing is such bullshit. If you wanted to argue that so much potential choice being installed by default with no guarantee that the majority of it will ever be used is inefficient, fine, there's a point to be argued, but I think default installs these days favour the potential for choice, while having defaults that make all the choices for the newbie, so no fear of being overwhelmed.

    10. Re:Sweet First Post! by 1155 · · Score: 2, Funny

      Re:Sweet First Post!
      by _Sprocket_ (42527) on Saturday January 10, @02:31PM (#7938902)




      There's a reason we've been hearing since 1998 that Linux
      will "overtake Windows on the desktop," but it's never
      happened and never will with its current mindset.



      I'm sure the number of compatible software titles has
      nothing to do with it. Its all because the average user
      doesn't know what to do when they find "GNOME, KDE,
      WindowMaker, FluxBox" in a pulldown menu.



      Damn straight, the first poster was correct. Let me tell you my tale:


      So there I was, I was a windows user, and I was hearing all these great things about this thing called "leenux". And I was like, woah, I must have it, so I went to the local walmart, and there it was, a nice shiny mandrake box. And oh look, it says it is compatible with sooooo many things on the side of the box, this is going to be so easy!.


      So I took the box home, I put the shiny new mandrake linux cds into my shiny computer, and then I started installing. And then I did really, really well until I got to this one point. Now I am not quite sure wtf mandrake was smoking, but whatever this thing called kde is, I sure did not want to check that. It sounded like windows xp, but without the windows. And gnome, I'm going to have a lawn gnome? WTF is a window manager anyhow? How the hell am I to know this. OMG GIVE ME WINDOWS!!!




      This is why I use a mac.

    11. Re:Sweet First Post! by gnu-generation-one · · Score: 1

      "I'm tired of there being so many desktops in linux."

      I use WindowMaker. It starts in under a second, compared with 15 seconds for KDE.

      You probably don't want WindowMaker. You'd prefer something with a Start menu and lots of stuff on it. KDE is good.

      Howabout we don't care which is the default desktop? You only need to choose it once, and after that, it's, well... a default. It's not like the multi-gigabyte disks that family computers come with are having problems installing both systems at once.

      And yes, you can run GNUStep applications. And I can run KDE applications. And we can all run Mac-like applications in Gnome if we want to be posey and cool. In fact, we can both run Windows applications too... awful thing this choice, isn't it?

    12. Re:Sweet First Post! by FooBarWidget · · Score: 1

      Exactly. Yet people keep telling that kind of things. If you can make them stop, go ahead.

    13. Re:Sweet First Post! by iLL_L0gic · · Score: 1

      look, it's not me that doesn't like choice, personally, I love all the choices. But Linux needs to steer away from being "the nerd OS" to being something my grandma can use. She gets confused with the two buttons on the front of her machine, who knows what 9 choices of desktop would do to her.

    14. Re:Sweet First Post! by moocat2 · · Score: 1

      But the truth is, people don't want to choose, they want you to choose for them.

      I partially agree with you here in that people don't want to have to choose desktops/OSs/whatever underlying technology. I would say the average user simply wants to choose what application she wants/needs. But they don't want to have their choice dictate that they need to change their whole environment. And they don't want to hear that they shouldn't choose app A and app B because app A doesn't run well on Gnome and app B doesn't run well on KDE.

    15. Re:Sweet First Post! by mickwd · · Score: 1

      "But the truth is, people don't want to choose, they want you to choose for them."

      Then why are they choosing Linux ?

      Or MacOS X ?

    16. Re:Sweet First Post! by iLL_L0gic · · Score: 1

      Perhaps they were looking for a cheap computer at walmart.com and found a lindows machine? Remember, there ARE computers that come with linux pre-installed. ;)

    17. Re:Sweet First Post! by Sigl · · Score: 2

      Contrary to what you believe, providing a bunch of choices doesn't please everybody, it just confuses and spreads energy across various, conflicting projects.

      This is true if all you're trying to reach is consistency with limited development resources. When something needs to be done in the free software world it gets done. Sometimes at a staggering pace. (I have a long opinion on this if you're interested) Because of this I don't think resources is the problem. I agree consistency can and does help for wide acceptance but to argue that this is all we need or even most important is nonsense to me because I would argue that there are distributions that have achieved a solid level of consistency with a low to mid level success. Just not a high level of success.

    18. Re:Sweet First Post! by mickwd · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "Contrary to what you believe, providing a bunch of choices doesn't please everybody, it just confuses and spreads energy across various, conflicting projects."

      So much for capitalism and competition, then.

      Why don't we get rid of political parties, too ? Surely it just confuses and spreads energy across various different parties ?

      Why don't we just have one single government that tells us what to do ? Because choice is a bad thing, right ?

    19. Re:Sweet First Post! by IANAAC · · Score: 2, Interesting
      But Linux needs to steer away from being "the nerd OS" to being something my grandma can use.

      Tell you what. Sit one of your relatives in from of a properly configured Linux desktop (either KDE or Gnome will do). Let them click around for awhile and answer any questions they have. People get the hang of Linux on the desktop pretty quickly. The reason your grandma probably doesn't want to deal with Linux on the desktop is because you're making it seem more difficult for her than it really is.

      It's up to us to teach people how to use a Linux desktop, not the desktop itself.

    20. Re:Sweet First Post! by Skjellifetti · · Score: 1

      But the truth is, people don't want to choose, they want you to choose for them.

      In other words, because you don't want to make choices, the rest of should be offered choices either. You speak only for yourself, please stop pretending that you know what "people" want. Many of us do want to be able to explore alternative ways of doing things and are very appreciative of those who provide the alternatives.

    21. Re:Sweet First Post! by Enahs · · Score: 1

      Your grandma doesn't need a computer if she can't handle the two buttons on the front of her computer. No amount of work and research will make Linux ready for drooling morons, I'm sorry to say.

      --
      Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
    22. Re:Sweet First Post! by ax3lb · · Score: 1

      Would it be so bad if Linux had some day only one dominating desktop environment? The choice would be still there, if you wanted to look for it, and for the rest of us... we would just have something nice and polished to get our daily work done.

      When the big boys (Novell, IBM, etc.) get things rolling, it's going to happen afterall. And why? Because of capitalism and competition.

      From the moment someone wants to make serious money by providing services on top of Linux, the desktop and tools will have to follow. There are still parts in Linux that are substandard, whether one likes to hear it or not!

    23. Re:Sweet First Post! by sketerpot · · Score: 1

      Not to sound condescending, but when the average user encounterts a mysterious pulldown menu, I think that the average user should just assume that it's set to a reasonable default and ignore it.

    24. Re:Sweet First Post! by gnu-generation-one · · Score: 1

      "Linux needs to be... something my grandma can use.""

      So install KDE for her! It's not like anybody's grandmother will be answering questions from the installation disk!

      Me? I've got a grandmothers' installation. 3 programs (Mozilla, KPPP, KMail), and can't remember ever running a 4th program on this computer...

    25. Re:Sweet First Post! by Joe+Tie. · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's too hard for the average user.

      While I don't agree that it's too hard for the average user, I have to say, so what if it is? Is it so terrible to have an operating system that's not dumbed down to the lowest common denominator?

      --
      Everything will be taken away from you.
    26. Re:Sweet First Post! by Joe+Tie. · · Score: 1

      But Linux needs to steer away from being "the nerd OS" to being something my grandma can use.

      Why, isn't there allready a very popular non-nerd OS out there? It seems easier to just fit the square peg into the square hole, than to try whittling away the star to get a square.

      --
      Everything will be taken away from you.
    27. Re:Sweet First Post! by fireman+sam · · Score: 1

      In that case, they wouldn't be choosing what desktop is to be installed, because the system is installed, and configured by the time they purchased it.

      Personally, I use KDE because Metacity (Default WM for RH9 Gnome) would not give me the option of how I want the window/mouse interaction to be. There was a rather large flamewar about the feature (Users wanted an option, maintainers wanted a "clever automatic way").

      The only desktop I like is the one that I can configure to the exact way I like. No body tells me how my computer should act/look like/run or not run. If we all rolled over and accepted that, we all would be using Windows XP.

      --
      it is only after a long journey that you know the strength of the horse.
    28. Re:Sweet First Post! by be-fan · · Score: 1

      It depends on which the dominating desktop environment ends up being. If its GNOME (without a radical shift in design), then yes, it will be bad. Because it will be yet another example of superior technology being killed by a market that prefers mediocre technologies that preserve the status quo.

      --
      A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
    29. Re:Sweet First Post! by _Sprocket_ · · Score: 1

      Maybe I should use an emoticon or a [SARCASM] tag.

    30. Re:Sweet First Post! by nathanh · · Score: 3, Insightful
      But the truth is, people don't want to choose, they want you to choose for them.

      I partially agree. For desktops, some people do want to have many options to choose from and other people want to have the choice made for them. But even when that choice is made for them, almost everybody wants some level of control over certain aspects of the desktop (eg, the backgrounds, the colours).

      I agree with you that there are many desktops in Linux, but only KDE and GNOME seem to have any significant mindshare. I see it as very similar to the early days of GUIs on MS-DOS. We had options that included GEM, GeOS, Desqview and Windows (of course). It was a mess. Eventually the market made a decision and Windows now dominates.

      But even when Windows became hugely successful (with version 3.0) there were multiple competing widget sets. I don't know what your experience is like, but I still recall the big battle between Borland and Microsoft. Some applications used the (IMO ugly) Borland widget set with the Big Green Tick for the OK button and the nasty 3D border effects. Other applications used the Microsoft widgets. Over time, Borland lost marketshare, and Microsoft improved at a faster rate than Borland, and now we have "consistency" on Windows. Though I think if you look hard enough you can still find some applications aren't consistent (eg, recently I installed an ASUS motherboard and the AsusProbe software looks nothing like the rest of Windows).

      I see something similar eventually happening in the KDE/GNOME war. Right now we have two strong desktops and that causes confusion to some users (admittedly the users who can least deal with the confusion). I expect over the next five years we'll see more "integration stories" like this. Eventually the superficial differences will disappear - the user experience will at last be consistent - and all that will be left will be the programming models. That's no different to any of the existing platforms; they all offer multiple programming models that have superficially similar appearance. We're already seeing improved levels of integration in drag and drop, Desktop folders, metadata formats, etc. This story now says we're soon going to see improvements in integration in widgets, themes, event loops, etc. It's all slowly getting better.

      Ok, I've rambled. My point is that Linux on the desktop is immature. What we're seeing now has been replayed on every other platform as it "grew up". Eventually the inconsistency is all settled from the users point of view, though I don't think it's ever consistent from the programmer's point of view. These "integration stories" are (IMO) normal and expected. It might be confusing now but it is going to get better if history repeats (and I think it will).

    31. Re:Sweet First Post! by ax3lb · · Score: 1

      It doesn't have to happen purely for technical reasons. When the choice is made (or someone powerful enough makes) between Gnome and KDE, the licensing and allready available applications might be the equally important reasons with existing architectural features.

      For Novell the choice is allready made with their ownership of Ximian and Evolution. They want the whole package and KDE will always be the secondary option for them. But complementary (as described in the article), I don't think so.

      And for the end user the technical differences between environments don't really matter. If the general feeling with the environment you are first provided with is good enough, you're pretty much stuck with that. You don't really want to know about your options (not if you're normal anyway :).

    32. Re:Sweet First Post! by be-fan · · Score: 1

      For Novell the choice is allready made with their ownership of Ximian and Evolution.
      ---------
      They also own SuSE. SuSE is a larger company than Ximian, and have a much larger market presence (many of the big desktop rollouts so far have been KDE on SuSE). There is no reason to believe Novell will go with GNOME at this point.

      And for the end user the technical differences between environments don't really matter. If the general feeling with the environment you are first provided with is good enough, you're pretty much stuck with that.
      --------
      I don't disagree with you, but that doesn't make it a good thing. My original point was that if GNOME wins (in its current form), it would be another example of better technology being beat by more marketable marketable technology.

      You don't really want to know about your options (not if you're normal anyway :).
      ---------
      Then we might as well rethink this whole capitalism thing, because capitalism is all about thinking about your options and picking the best one.

      --
      A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
    33. Re:Sweet First Post! by MadChicken · · Score: 1

      I think there should be a whole bunch of choices -- for the *developers*. The developers need the choices, and eventually it all filters down to the user, even if they all end up using the same desktop. This way the choice provides variety and innovation in software, with a consistent and predictable user environment.

      If you don't think that last point is important, try walking through a support call with some Windows users. You practically have to know the exact coordinates of the elements on the Windows screen (i.e. where's this "tray" you keep talking about?).

      --
      SYS 64738 NO CARRIER
    34. Re:Sweet First Post! by Sabalon · · Score: 1

      Well, just because there IS choice doesn't mean you HAVE to choose

      If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. :)

    35. Re:Sweet First Post! by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      Yes they want a system that just works and is chosen for them, but that does not apply to Linux/Unix users.

      Also in the same way, I do not want a choice for my cars frame, engine, the many parts underneath.

      I want something that works. I trust my mechanic to buy high quality components and tell me how to take care of it but thats it! I am not an auto enthuisasts and look at it as a tool. That is how the vast majority of computers users should look at their systems. At least they use them for something practical then to just goof around with them

      We use Linux/BSD because Windows is not powerfull enough and not as flexible for our specialized needs.

      To be honest it was the gui's was why I tried Linux in 98. Yes, outrageous costs for development tools while gcc was free was the other reason. But I wantes a system that felt like mine and not Bill's.

      BUt I liked the cd's worth of gigs of apps. Windows does not come with anything and your SOL if you do not have a broadband connection to download Freerip, Gvim, xemacs, cygwin, bloodshed, perl, apache, etc.

      Infact its now available but a few years ago it was not, and you needed a real Unix for that. I believe in 98 not even perl had a win32 port, but it didn't matter since no one has ever heard of it and it was an unmarketable langauge to learn before 99.

      It varies by user.

      But if a distro makes it a GNome or kde only it will fail. We like choice and if you take away power, make Windows look better. After all at least I can run MS-Office and my games on it.

      Corporate users who might run Linux will have their IT department decide and be the dictator for setting up a common desktop for all their employee's. So its not a problem.

    36. Re:Sweet First Post! by be-fan · · Score: 1

      First, that's not true. You can use any program in any window manager. Second, with these integration efforts, users probably won't even notice the difference. Certainly, most users don't notice a difference between all the Windows toolkits, even though basic applications like Office use their own toolkit.

      --
      A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
    37. Re:Sweet First Post! by vericgar · · Score: 1

      Dead On!

      I have friends that come over to my place all the time. I run fluxbox on my desktop... for those of you that don't know, it can be quite different for those used to windows... but once I've shown my friends the basics of how to start a program (right click) and how my multiple desktops work (scroll mouse wheel or click buttons on bar to switch between them) then they are fine doing whatever they want.

      The hardest part of Linux is getting it all tweaked and installed just right. Once it's running how you want it, there's more or less no reason to change (unless you drastically change what you use your computer for... and even then it's neglible).

    38. Re:Sweet First Post! by shaitand · · Score: 1

      "Why don't we get rid of political parties, too ? Surely it just confuses and spreads energy across various different parties?"

      That's true, but since all the political parties have the same agenda (to fsck the citizens for own personal gain) I don't see where it benefits us to help them accomplish it by pooling their resources. We want them divided.

      "Why don't we just have one single government that tells us what to do ? Because choice is a bad thing, right?"

      We have one, the US government. It certainly tells everyone in the US what to do of course, and it has been shown time and time again that it tells the rest of the world what to do or else. At bombpoint if needbe.

    39. Re:Sweet First Post! by fault0 · · Score: 1

      > to being something my grandma can use.

      Uhm, so install a modern desktop environment like KDE or GNOME. My family uses a Debian with KDE solution, and they actually find it easier to use than their old OS (Win98). If you don't want to work in properly configuring KDE or GNOME, just install a Home-oriented Linux distro like Xandros/Lindows/Lycoris.. they are incredibly easy to use!

    40. Re:Sweet First Post! by be-fan · · Score: 1

      That's true, but since all the political parties have the same agenda (to fsck the citizens for own personal gain) I don't see where it benefits us to help them accomplish it by pooling their resources. We want them divided.
      ------------
      The beautiful thing about democracy, however, is that it assumes that politicans care only about its personal gain, and still manages to work, in a fashion, taking that into account.

      --
      A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
    41. Re:Sweet First Post! by shaitand · · Score: 1

      Yes that's true it does work, they've been successfully fscking us since before the ink dried on the Constitution!

    42. Re:Sweet First Post! by ross+axe · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Um, how is GPL "more free" than LGPL, it imposes additional restrictions. Granted, RMS would probably rather see everything under the GPL just so that no proprietry code could ever be distributed, but that doesn't make the LGPL any less free.

      Also, didn't notice a GPL Windows version of QT (cygwin doesn't count)...

    43. Re:Sweet First Post! by sketerpot · · Score: 1

      I propose that the W3C solves the problem once and for all by making an XML based standard for every emotion and inflection imaginable, with namespacing, long tag names, several levels of the standard (one of which is so large that nobody can even lkearn it, let alone implement it), and then let it languish in all of its majesty, alone, friendless, and ignored by everyone except people desperate to add another "X" to their product description.

    44. Re:Sweet First Post! by penguinstorm · · Score: 1

      Gotta love those sweeping generalizations.

      Never ever forget the good old 80/20 rule: the numbers are probably much higher here, but it's fair to say that in the mass computer market 80% of the people don't really care and will use whatever they learn how to use.

      20% will care, and the product for the other 80% may not do what they need. If this 20% can sustain one, or two, or three hundred alternatives then so be it. Leave them in peace.

      If this 20% needs to pay a little more to make themselves happy, call them Mac users.

      --
      Skot Nelson music is my saviour / i was maimed by rock and roll
    45. Re:Sweet First Post! by the_womble · · Score: 1
      The biggest problem is that a lot of the people who currently use Linux tend to sue cammand line rather than GUI for things such as configuration. This confuses everyone else.

      LInux gives you a choice, but most of the people who currently use Linux try to teach new users to wrong choice for non-geeks.

    46. Re:Sweet First Post! by Tukla · · Score: 1

      That's why he said, "Qt is now more Free according to FSF defiitions than GTK".

  2. License? by DAldredge · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What effect will the QT/GTK event loop intergration tech have on licensing? In other words, does your app have to be GPL to use this tech?

    1. Re:License? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Flamebait

      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.

    2. Re:License? by JimDabell · · Score: 5, Informative

      That depends on what license you pick for Qt. Qt is available under a number of different licenses. For Free Software, you need to follow either the GPL or the QPL.

    3. Re:License? by loucura! · · Score: 4, Informative

      No, your application could be BSD, but the entire distribution of your application plus this technology would be GPL. Or, you could distribute your application as a proprietary application and require the USER to link them together, which while not completely kosher, doesn't appear to violate the letter of the GPL license.

      Why do you insist on trolling every single KDE topic with this complaint though? Trolltech has every right to restrict you to the GPL (or compatible licenses) if you choose to use their software. If you don't like it, don't use it--no one is forcing you to. Or, if you absolutely have to use QT, and you absolutely cannot use the GPL, buy a commercial license.

      So, in conclusion, no your application needn't be GPL, but when you distribute your application with the GPL software, you have to abide by the terms of the license.

      --
      Black and grey are both shades of white.
    4. Re:License? by DAldredge · · Score: 1

      I am talking about taking a closed source GTK app and adding this into it.

      What happens? It is allowed?

    5. Re:License? by damiam · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Why do you insist on trolling every single KDE topic with this complaint though?

      He wasn't trolling, he was asking a simple question. I wondered the same thing, and I'm sure many others did too. No one has implied here that the QT licensing scheme is in any way bad. Stop overreacting.

      --
      It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
    6. Re:License? by DAldredge · · Score: 2, Interesting

      All I did is ask a license question about this tech.

      Since the GTK license allows keeping the source closed and the QT doesn't I desired to know if this could be used in closed source apps. How is that a troll?

    7. Re:License? by Brandybuck · · Score: 1

      Which closed source GTK+ applications do you have in mind? There aren't too many out there, you know.

      --
      Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
    8. Re:License? by DAldredge · · Score: 1

      Custom developed apps.

    9. Re:License? by fidget42 · · Score: 3, Informative
      Since the GTK license allows keeping the source closed and the QT doesn't I desired to know if this could be used in closed source apps. How is that a troll?
      I would guess that it is considered a troll because Qt does allow you to keep your source closed. All you have to do is purchase a Qt license from Trolltech. Considering the quality of the toolset, and its reasonable price, most people don't think this is a problem.
      --
      The dogcow says "Moof!"
    10. Re:License? by Roberto · · Score: 1

      If its not distribute, just use Qt under the GPL.

    11. Re:License? by loucura! · · Score: 1

      I mis-recalled your complaining about QT not allowing closed-source programs in previous QT threads. Sorry for misrepresenting you as a troll, as I wasn't able to find the posts I recalled.

      --
      Black and grey are both shades of white.
    12. Re:License? by twener · · Score: 1

      How do you want to change a closed sourced GTK app? :-)

    13. Re:License? by rking · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I would guess that it is considered a troll because Qt does allow you to keep your source closed.

      Okay, step by step:

      1. You can't normally link proprietary software to QT without paying licensing fees, agreed? No criticism here, no condemnation, just those are the rules, agreed?

      2. GTK normally does allow you to link with proprietary software without requiring licensing fees, agreed?

      3. The system this article is about apparently allows you to use some QT functionality with your GTK apps.

      So the question if I understood it correctly was, can you legally use this system in conjunction with a proprietary GTK-using app? If I understand correctly this would be the user making this choice not the developer, but maybe I've misunderstood how this system works.

      That question seems to me to be a valid and reasonable one. I don't think you have answered or even addressed it, but either way it does not appear to be a troll.

    14. Re:License? by twener · · Score: 1

      KDE falling behind? KDE abusing GNOME? Are you on crack?
      And about lies, there are more about KDE even requiring an own site to disprove them.

    15. Re:License? by jtshaw · · Score: 1

      I would say from a legal point of view that if you are using the free qt license then you would not be able to distribute your program closed source.

      If you could it would mean this tech gets ride of TrollTech's entire license scheme, which would be rediculous.

      I personally love the qt API and I am glad they can do things like this with licensing that allow me to use such a great commercial product for free.

    16. Re:License? by Malcontent · · Score: 1

      " I am talking about taking a closed source GTK app and adding this into it."

      Just buy the commercial license from troll tech. That way you know you are safe. No different then buying any other toolkit from any other vendor.

      --

      War is necrophilia.

    17. Re:License? by DAldredge · · Score: 1

      How to change it?

      Easy, I check it out of my CVS tree, make/test the changes and then distribute it.

    18. Re:License? by be-fan · · Score: 2, Informative

      Your app doesn't have to be GPL to use Qt. The GPL allows it to be BSD, MIT, etc, while the QPL just requires that it be open source.

      --
      A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
    19. Re:License? by be-fan · · Score: 1

      That's wrong. If you license your copy of Qt under GPL, you can use it with any GPL-compatible license (BSD, MIT, etc).

      --
      A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
    20. Re:License? by be-fan · · Score: 1

      It might be simple, but its a really stupid question. This library links to the KDE libs. The KDE libs link to the Qt libs. Thus, your app links to the Qt libs. If you link to the Qt libs, then you have to follow the Qt license. We've been over this many times before.

      Just because Qt forms a small piece of the used code doesn't change the licensing requirements.

      --
      A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
    21. Re:License? by dossen · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Since the license for gtk+ is LGPL there should be no problems linking a closed source app against gtk+ and QT (under whatever license Trolltech wants to sell you), provided that you can license the integration library under compatible terms (LGPL or license from author). If you can't, you can go and do your own integration library, I don't think anybody will stop you.

      DAldredge: I'm not assuming one way or the other about your personal views, but these kinds of questions often carries a kind of unspoken assumsion that licensing your library under the GPL takes away the rights of others. My view is that it does not, it just does not grant as many privileges as for instance the LGPL, but whether to grant them must be left up to the author of the library.

    22. Re:License? by IamTheRealMike · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Or, you could distribute your application as a proprietary application and require the USER to link them together, which while not completely kosher, doesn't appear to violate the letter of the GPL license.

      Well, you are pretty clearly violating the wishes of the respective owners of the software involved if you do that - guys, please, let's encourage people to act with honour ok?

      The legalities of it are somewhat more involved I guess. I'd definately not advise anybody to do that, as it probably just shifts the copyright infringement from the software developer to the users. GNU software has been around for decades, if it was that trivial to work around it somebody would have tried by now.

    23. Re:License? by loucura! · · Score: 1

      As a USER I am perfectly within my rights to link proprietary software that I have the right to use, with GPL software that I have the right to use. So long as I do not distribute the respective product, there is no copyright infringement.

      Distributing a proprietary product that is sufficiently seperate from any possible GPL software dependencies that you can leave it up to the USER to link, is not a derived work. Because if it's that seperate, you can use something else.

      Like I said, though, it sufficiently meets the letter of the license, not the spirit.

      --
      Black and grey are both shades of white.
    24. Re:License? by shaitand · · Score: 1

      As an end user, of a CLOSED SOURCE application which is linked to gtk. How exactly are you going to recompile your application linking it with qt?

      It's not something the end user of a closed source application can do, you need the source to do it. This question could only be relevant if you are the producing the closed source app.

    25. Re:License? by parksie · · Score: 1

      Unless it's somehow possible to not require recompilation of any source, in which case it should be possible to just relink the object files differently.

      Disclaimer: I don't know how the integrator works, but if a relink is the only thing needed, it should be possible without sources.

    26. Re:License? by j7953 · · Score: 1

      Well, I think that depends on whether the proprietary application actually requires the user to link it to the GPLed software (this as you said clearly violates the wishes of the GPLed software's author), or if the users just do that on their own, without the application vendor even planning for that.

      In the second case, the vendor of the proprietary application obviously isn't doing anything wrong, and I also don't think that the user is. The GPL allows the user to modify the GPLed software and keep those modifications private anyway (provided the modified software isn't distributed at all), and I don't think doing such private modifications suddenly become wrong or even illegal if they contain not only code written by that user himself, but also code licensed from third parties (in this case, the proprietary application).

      --
      Sig (appended to the end of comments I post, 54 chars)
  3. Theme THIS! by Mr.+Darl+McBride · · Score: 4, Insightful
    and, last but not least, file dialogs, from inside your GTK apps. (Screenshot of this feature used in XMMS

    This is not wanted, because XMMS has always been the bastion of UI consistency. Also, while I am telling the truth, Mozilla makes any desktop look professional with its native menus and widgets. While I am still telling the truth, I am not always looking for functional replacements for Mozilla and XMMS that don't scream UGLY and awkward every time you see them.

    ~Darl

    1. Re:Theme THIS! by RoLi · · Score: 3, Informative
      Konqueror is integrated and has some nice features other browsers can only dream about:

      • When you log out and back in, all your Webpages are restored. On the right desktop and with the right geometry - no more temporary bookmarks!
      • Bookmark handling is great because you can add bookmarks and bookmark-directories at the same place you select them. "Manage bookmarks" is seldom needed anymore.
    2. Re:Theme THIS! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Plus the kioslaves are glorious.

      The other day, I was copying stuff out of a .tar.gz which was open in Konqueror straight into an FTP site, also open in Konqueror. A bit later, I was copying Ogg Vorbis files off an audio CD.

      There's loads of other kioslaves, like smb:, fish:, lan:, kamera:, floppy: and sftp: - they can make tasks which previously required entirely separate applications utterly seamless instead.

      I'd love the opportunity to be able to use them on the command line, and to use them with other, non-KDE software, which it sounds like fuse_kio thing will offer...

    3. Re:Theme THIS! by damiam · · Score: 1
      Konqueror is integrated and has some nice features other browsers can only dream about

      Epiphany, the official GNOME browser, also supports session management and has a very well-done bookmark system.

      --
      It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
    4. Re:Theme THIS! by OmniVector · · Score: 1, Offtopic

      my replacements for those two ugly citizens has been Rhythmbox and Galeon.

      --
      - tristan
    5. Re:Theme THIS! by Ender+Ryan · · Score: 1
      Me too, wonderful apps they are as well. Rhythmbox sucked for a while, but the latest versions have been pretty stable and usable.

      And Galeon... Best. Browser. Ever. Period.

      I highly recommend both of them.

      There is also Firebird, BTW, which uses native widgets for some things, and while not perfectly integrated, it doesn't stick out like a sore thumb.

      Cheers!

      --
      Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
    6. Re:Theme THIS! by Malcontent · · Score: 1

      Can you bookmark a whole set of tabs in shot yet? It's the main reason I don't use safari on my laptop. Safari looks much better but Mozilla still has more features.

      --

      War is necrophilia.

    7. Re:Theme THIS! by RoLi · · Score: 1
      I looked at some KDE3.2 alpha build some time ago and IIRC mass-bookmarking tabs was implemented. Not in KDE3.1 though.

      Of course stuff like that has nothing to do with Safari which uses a different UI.

    8. Re:Theme THIS! by RoLi · · Score: 1
      I hate to be the bringer of inconvenient reality here, but pretty much every browser I've ever used has had "restore Webpages," to use your terminology. Most of them call it "save session on exit" though.

      Yes, but (at least every browser I tried) is only able to restore just one window and ignores on which desktop it was and which geometry that window had.

      So basically it's useless.

      And I've never encountered "aim:" protocol links so far. I'd rather have "fish:" (aka scp), "man:" and "info:" :-)

    9. Re:Theme THIS! by iantri · · Score: 1

      Sorry, but Opera beat Konqueror ages ago on this. Opera was the first to do that (years ago), it was the first to do tabbed browsing as well (from the beginning).

    10. Re:Theme THIS! by ubernostrum · · Score: 1
      Yes, but (at least every browser I tried) is only able to restore just one window and ignores on which desktop it was and which geometry that window had.

      Galeon restored multiple windows for me earlier today. Perhaps you should try it, it also has a fine rendering engine.

      And I've never encountered "aim:" protocol links so far. I'd rather have "fish:" (aka scp), "man:" and "info:" :-)

      I see. Me, I like once in a while to use separate applications for separate things, but I'm pretty sure I can make my browser handle help files of all sorts if I want. SCP in the browser is something I don't want to do (command-line, always the command-line).

      And if you've never seen an "aim:" link before, well... /. won't let me post one, but they generally look like "aim:goim?screenname=blahblah&message=blah+blah+bl ah"

      They're kind of handy sometimes.

    11. Re:Theme THIS! by RoLi · · Score: 1
      No, Opera can't restore multiple windows, it doesn't remember on which desktops they were and it also can't remember the window geometries.

      It just reloads the tabs for *ONE* window and on the desktop you happen to start it.

    12. Re:Theme THIS! by Uerige · · Score: 1

      I second that. Btw, ever found out why rhythmbox wouldn't start if you used esound and had sound events enabled? Because it worked fine if you enabled them after starting rb...

    13. Re:Theme THIS! by be-fan · · Score: 1

      Dude! I didn't know KDE did man and info! Konqueror might be the best GUI info browser out there :)

      You learn something new every day!

      --
      A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
    14. Re:Theme THIS! by be-fan · · Score: 1

      SCP in the browser is something I don't want to do (command-line, always the command-line)
      ----------
      I'm a CLI-whore too, but I don't use the CLI when I'd lose time by doing so. Having SCP supported in the file dialog is tremendously useful when you're already working in a GUI app. That way, you can save right to the remote dir, instead of saving locally, switching to a terminal, and then using scp.

      --
      A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
    15. Re:Theme THIS! by a1291762 · · Score: 1
      "Manage bookmarks" is seldom needed anymore.

      I disagree for one simple reason... Konqueror does not prompt for the name of a bookmark. All the browsers I use besides konq have a hotkey for this (or it's the default). I don't like saving bookmarks with names like "site name - the best site that talks about foo keyword keyword keyword - article name".

      While I'm whinging about bookmarks, why can't you setup a hotkey for "managing bookmarks"? Again, every other browser I use has this.

      Link

    16. Re:Theme THIS! by Tukla · · Score: 1

      I use KDE, and my office suite (OpenOffice) can also handle MS Office documents. Not that OpenOffice has anything to do with KDE or Gnome.

  4. KNOME by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    So what are we going to call this, KNOME? Or maybe GDE...

    1. Re:KNOME by SWPadnos · · Score: 1
      So what are we going to call this, KNOME? Or maybe GDE...

      GDE: Gnome Desktop Environment

      --
      - The Sigless Wonder
    2. Re:KNOME by minusthink · · Score: 1

      thanks for clearing that up.

      --
      "when life gets complicated, I like to take a nap in a tree and wait for dinner" - Hobbes.
    3. Re:KNOME by axxackall · · Score: 2, Funny

      KDOME - Kommon Desktop Object-Mixed Environment

      --

      Less is more !
    4. Re:KNOME by borg · · Score: 1, Funny

      KUM ShOT: the Kommon Unified Model Shared Object Thingey.

      --
      Fermat's other theorem: "I have a simple proof, but I can't write it down as I fear it's a DMCA violation to discuss it"
  5. A print dialog box... by netsharc · · Score: 3, Interesting

    One of the screenshots look like a print dialog box. I wonder what the state of that is. Or is this a moot point, when cups has it all solved?

    --
    What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
    1. Re:A print dialog box... by bflong · · Score: 4, Interesting

      There's no reason to worry about the KDE print dialog. Any app can be programed to output postscript and then pipe it to kprinter. KDE has the printing thing licked, and has for a long time. I can use KDE's print dialog with mozilla, openoffice, and just about any other program that lets me chose what program to use for the print que.

      --
      Why is it so hot? Where am I going? What am I doing in this handbasket?
  6. This is great by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is exactly what should be happening I think. We've seen some pretty good strides as far as interopability goes between KDE and GNOME. This brings us the unified desktop without having to sacrifice either one of these projects. It's good that KDE and GNOME can both go their own directions while still increasing interoperability.

    This should satisfy the people who just want a consistent look on the desktop and then people who want choice.

    1. Re:This is great by eille-la · · Score: 1

      We need the same standards. But lets make these standards to be the best. Thats it

  7. unification by potpie · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's projects like these that show how much more productive Open Source is.

    Proprietary companies may try to run other company's formats, but probably wouldn't be willing to say "oh here's how we do it, let's make it easier for people and merge the two for greater compatibility." Open Source companies can't (and I'd like to think wouldn't if they could) restrict compatibility for their own benefit.

    For example: Microsoft comes out with special new features like "plug n' play" or some new way to install programs "faster" and "more easily," but RedHat releases an open source program, RPM, and allows anyone who will to use it.

    Hooray for Open Source!

    --
    Esoteric reference.
    1. Re:unification by Malcontent · · Score: 1

      "Proprietary companies have the reasons and resources to fix up their one product and make it the best it can be that can do all."

      Yes but miltiple proprietary companies make the same product and waste manhours trying to compete with each other. It's the same thing. It's not like we live in a world with just one car company or just one company that makes software.

      "so that we get the mess of conflicting window libraries, extensions, and code forks that we have now."

      Well I still have a few windows 98 boxes at work because the software won't run on windows 2000 and my VPN client which works in windows 2000 will not work on windows XP.

      You let me know when any company has a product that does not suffer from conflicting extensions and code forks. It's never going to happen.

      --

      War is necrophilia.

    2. Re:unification by HiThere · · Score: 1

      Proprietary companies may try to run other company's formats, but probably wouldn't be willing to say "oh here's how we do it, let's make it easier for people and merge the two for greater compatibility." Open Source companies can't (and I'd like to think wouldn't if they could) restrict compatibility for their own benefit.

      You may like to think that they wouldn't, but human nature is a universal. What's different is the sturcture of the system that it's working under. If the system is structured to encourage competition, people compete. If it's structured to encourage cooperation, they cooperate. If it's structured to encourage both, they do both.

      Actually, that was a simplistic analysis as everything is a mixed state, but some systems favor certain actions over others, and most people working within those systems adapt their ideas of what is right to conform to those of the system in which they are operating.

      The genius of the GPL is that it creates a system which favors cooperative development, and allows competitive development. (Note: A weakness might be that it doesn't sufficiently encourage competitive development, but people, at least within this culture, are so intrinsically competitive that this probably doesn't matter.

      The genius of the capitalist system is that it encourages competitive behavior. Unfortunately, this tends to degenerate into monopoly capitalism, which has more of a tendency to encourage destructive and syncopantic behavior. (Competition, as I am using it, generally takes place among near equals who are each vying to achieve some particular goal first. It would not include actions such as that of Tonya Harding. I place that on the clearly destructive side, which I consider quite a separate thing. In competition, winnning is A goal, not THE goal. And normal moral considerations are definitely NOT to be set aside.)

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
    3. Re:unification by jsebrech · · Score: 1

      Proprietary companies have the reasons and resources to fix up their one product and make it the best it can be that can do all.

      Proprietary companies only need to improve their product as much as will sell copies. When there is no viable competition however (like with internet explorer, ms office and adobe photoshop), products stagnate, to the detriment of the user. This is especially obvious in photoshop, which has a lot of flaws still and yet has seen no real improvement since about version 5 or 6 (depending on where you stand on this issue).

      Closed source builds what will sell, open source builds what people ask for. The two generally align, but not always.

  8. Even more importantly by d99-sbr · · Score: 4, Funny

    OO.org has apparently been translated to Bork!

    1. Re:Even more importantly by szo · · Score: 1

      At first glance it appeared to me as finnish, but it's not. I guess its estonian.

      br

      Szo

      --
      Red Leader Standing By!
  9. Very Impressive! by nycsubway · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Great job to all those who worked on the integration! I have been worried that Gnome might overtake KDE as the popular desktop and KDE might then be subject to a smaller niche for the desktop. I'm glad that all the work that the KDE teams have done will continue to be used alongside Gnome.

  10. These are a sign of Gnome success by Nicopa · · Score: 1, Interesting

    That KDE people are creating technologies to be able to make Gnome apps compatible with them is a sign of Gnome's success. The same thing do BSD/SCO/etc when they trie to run Linux apps and the same thing did IBM when trying to run Windows apps in OS/2. Is the reaction of a platform to the growth and success of the competition.

    Besides..
    Someday one of Gnome and KDE will be obsolete. The remaining licence issues around Qt makes Gnome the obvious winner, as one cannot create commercial apps for Qt without paying fees.

    1. Re:These are a sign of Gnome success by JimDabell · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That KDE people are creating technologies to be able to make Gnome apps compatible with them is a sign of Gnome's success.

      I don't see it that way. I use about 95% KDE applications on my desktop, and about 5% GTK/GNOME applications. The GTK/GNOME applications always bug me because of things like the file selector (which, for example, can't load files using the KDE IOSlaves).

      Given that I find this kind of thing useful, and that I use 95% KDE applications, I can't agree that it's a sign of GNOME's success. It's just dragging the GTK/GNOME applications along where the original developers have failed to take them.

      The remaining licence issues around Qt makes Gnome the obvious winner, as one cannot create commercial apps for Qt without paying fees.

      That argument's been done to death. The basic points:

      • Commercial vendors have already overwhelmingly opted to use Qt instead of GTK.
      • Qt is a much nicer toolkit.
      • The fees are miniscule compared with the other costs involved in bringing a commercial product to market; it's more than made up by the increase in productivity.
      • The community were on Trolltech's back about making it GPL - they did so and now they are being criticised for listening.
      • The Linux desktop is ruled primarily by Free Software, not commercial applications.
    2. Re:These are a sign of Gnome success by cpu_fusion · · Score: 2, Insightful

      > Someday one of Gnome and KDE will be obsolete.

      You had some good points, but I strongly disagree with that statement, unless by "someday" you mean far, far in the future.

      Open Source is not a monoculture. There does not have to, nor should there be, "one true path". Should we have one file system type as well? Make "more" and "less" battle to the death?

      People use the desktop they do because they WANT TO and can MAKE THE CHOICE. Why should we think that choice and preference will go away? Do we want to be like Microsoft as a community and force people to conform? Sorry, that's just not possible. Give the penguin a hug for that.

      While I see the united themes and integration as a step forward to a somewhat consistant Linux desktop expierence, God (tm) help us if we limit the diversity that brings true innovation.

    3. Re:These are a sign of Gnome success by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Hence, Wine is a sign of MS Windows (version irrelevant) success over Linux?

    4. Re:These are a sign of Gnome success by justsomebody · · Score: 1, Troll

      Commercial vendors have already overwhelmingly opted to use Qt instead of GTK

      Not true. It was sometimes, but that were the times when Gnome1 was dying(and it couldn't compete with KDE) and Gnome2 was still in the design (and bugs) more than in work. It was the time when Lycoris, Knoppix, (other distros of small vendors that started at the same time)... But look at the real vendors who are commiting to Linux now. Sun-Gnome, IBM-Gnome(at least based on assumption that Suse and RH are it's distros), RH-Gnome, Novell-Gnome, Suse_the_major_KDE_player-Gnome

      KDE is loosing ground in this field. Not gaining.

      Given that I find this kind of thing useful, and that I use 95% KDE applications, I can't agree that it's a sign of GNOME's success. It's just dragging the GTK/GNOME applications along where the original developers have failed to take them.

      Given that I don't find this kind of thing useful, and that I use 0% KDE applications, I can agree that it's a sign of GNOME's success. It's just KDE filling the gaps that KDE is lacking. Let's see:
      Phoenix and Thunderbird - GTK
      OpenOffice.org - Now native GTK planned for next release, KDE release, well project is open but no one want's to do it
      Evolution - I can't remember any serious KDE mail client sorry (please no kmail)
      Gimp - not Gnome but GTK it is
      Inkscape - Gnome, and I really don't know any KDE vector software (please no karbon14)
      xmms - GTK

      Qt is a much nicer toolkit

      Based on your likes and dislikes not mine

      The Linux desktop is ruled primarily by Free Software, not commercial applications

      Time to smell the future, distro maybe but commercial apps are poping up

      btw. all this **look** hacks KDE producess, GTK look, OpenOffice look, KDE dialogs in GTK are just dust in your eyes. This are hacks which avoid dealing with the problem that this apps still aren't Qt. I would rather see complete GTK-API solved trough Qt calls (assuming on fact that Qt provides non OO function callbacks for objects) and complete Qt object hierarchy based on GTK, This would be the only real case until then it's still better for one DE only

      --
      Signature Pro version 1.13.2-3 release 83.5 beta3try7 after-breakfast edition
    5. Re:These are a sign of Gnome success by Xtifr · · Score: 1

      I, on the other hand, have about 5% GTK/Gnome (probably the same apps), and exactly 0% KDE. And I'm just hoping this thing doesn't mean that I'm going to have to end up installing both! It's bad enough that I have dozens of gnomish libraries that I almost never use. It'll be even worse if I have to end up dragging in all the KDE libs too, just to support the same handful of apps.

      Commercial vendors have already overwhelmingly opted to use Qt instead of GTK.

      Commercial vendors have overwhelmingly opted to use Windows, not Qt or GTK. :p ;)

      Qt is a much nicer toolkit.

      Highly subjective. If you're working in Lisp or Python or Eiffel or Ada or Scheme or Smalltalk or Ruby or Haskell, there's not a lot of difference either way. If you're working in C, you're screwed no matter what you do. And if you're working in C++ -- you have my sympathy. :)

      Your other three points are reasonably valid, however, so I'm not gonna give you too much flack. But none of them is strong enough to make me want to install any KDE libs at present.

    6. Re:These are a sign of Gnome success by 10Ghz · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Not true.


      There seems to be ALOT more commercial Qt-apps than there are commercial GTK+-apps. I honestly can't remember even one commercial GTK+-app, but I can remember lots of commercial Qt-apps.

      Evolution - I can't remember any serious KDE mail client sorry (please no kmail)


      What makes email-client "serious"? What makes Evolution "serious", whereas Kmail is not? And of course, there is Kontact.

      OpenOffice.org - Now native GTK planned for next release, KDE release, well project is open but no one want's to do it


      To my knowledge, serious progress has already been made there. I saw an announcement about it in dot.kde.org.
      --
      Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
    7. Re:These are a sign of Gnome success by be-fan · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "Not true. It was sometimes,"

      It still is. We're talkling about people writing applications. Trolltech has a large list of customers, which includes many major companies. More importantly, not a single company has come forth and said they used GNOME for licensing reasons. Sun's choice of GNOME had much more to do with the fact that:
      a) Since GNOME 2.x was a total rewrite, they got to play a huge role in shaping it. Much of the HIG and the usability and accessibility work on GNOME was thanks to Sun.
      b) KDE wouldn't compile with Forte C++ (Sun's C++ compiler), which meant that no KDE apps would be developed with Forte C++, and Sun's engineers were much more comfortable with C.
      c) Sun's engineers were much more comfortable with existing standard technologies like CORBA, as opposed to KDE's new ones like DCOP. CORBA turned out to be more or less a failure on GNOME, but Sun didn't know that at the time.

      "Sun-Gnome, IBM-Gnome(at least based on assumption that Suse and RH are it's distros), RH-Gnome, Novell-Gnome, Suse the major KDE player - Gnome"

      Whoa. Neither SuSE nor Novell have comitted to GNOME. And neither has IBM. Its just Sun and RedHat. IBM is a mix of GNOME and KDE (because of RH and SuSE). And to this day, most of the major Linux desktop rollouts that have actually happend (the China rollout hasn't, yet) have been KDE.

      "KDE is loosing ground in this field. Not gaining."

      This is probably true. But its *very* early in the game, and it is these sorts of initiatives that could stem the tide.

      "Phoenix and Thunderbird - GTK"

      Neither are GTK+ apps. They use GDK to handle drawing and do fonts. They don't use any GTK+ dialogs, widgets, or any GNOME technologies.

      "OpenOffice.org - Now native GTK planned for next release"

      No, a GUI-independent framework is planned for next release.

      "KDE release, well project is open but no one want's to do it"

      I have yet to see any indication that "no one want's to do it." Hell, KDE's already ahead on this front. There is already a release that adopts OpenOffice to the native KDE theme. That's one step, anyway, ahead of OpenOffice's GTK+ support.

      "Evolution - I can't remember any serious KDE mail client sorry (please no kmail)"

      Kontact? KMail is a very seriousl mail client, and you provide no evidence to the contrary.

      "Gimp - not Gnome but GTK it is"

      This is probably the standard one. However, 2.0 has the GUI and core seperated, and a Kimp would not be out of the question.

      "xmms - GTK"

      XMMS is a GTK-1 app! It looks and feels nothing like a GNOME app! And KDE has many excellent media players, notably JuK and AmaroK.

      "Time to smell the future, distro maybe but commercial apps are poping up"

      And so far, very few of them have been based on either GTK+ *or* Qt. Most are Motif ports. And of the commercial apps that do use a modern toolkit, most of them have chosen Qt.

      "btw. all this **look** hacks KDE producess, GTK look, OpenOffice look, KDE dialogs in GTK are just dust in your eyes."

      Well, apparently dust works. Because GNOME has managed to convience a whole bunch of people that Mozilla and OpenOffice are GNOME apps! KDE should have done these hacks a long time ago. And note, Windows is entirely based on such **look** hacks, to make the many Windows toolkits look cohesive. Its a crappy solution, technically, but the market doesn't seem to care.

      --
      A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
    8. Re:These are a sign of Gnome success by TarpaKungs · · Score: 1, Insightful
      The GTK/GNOME applications always bug me because of things like the file selector (which, for example, can't load files using the KDE IOSlave

      This is one of my worries. The KIOSlaves are nice in the extra functionality they offer within KDE (accessing remote filesystems over SCP or FTP for example).

      However the more logical place for this would be in the kernel so that all applications can access the remote filesystem uniformly. The bulk of the implementation does not have to always be in the kernel, but this functionality should be available from the kernel's open, close, read, write, readdir and stat syscalls.

      Hard mounting such filesystems probably isn't the way to go because the access is transitory and generally per user. Possibly time to consider supporting transient filesystems with a URL namespace (ie outside of the / namespace - or mapped onto it somehow).

      It would then be possible for any application from konqueror to gimp to emacs could just ask for a directory listing of:

      ftp://randomhost/somewhere/someplace/
      or
      smb://winserver.domain/share/junk/

      and then be able to access files with open, read, write and close

      What is wrong IMO in the long term is putting such esoteric url namespace access in higher libraries so only aware applications can benefit. I applaud the KDE bods for trying new ideas, however it would be better if those proven ideas were implemented properly in the most generic way possible.

      --
      Why can't women be like Hedy Lamarr - beautiful, talented and inventors of frequency-hopping spread-spectrum techn
    9. Re:These are a sign of Gnome success by be-fan · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Its not a sign of GNOME's success, but an indication that GNOME has some great apps that KDE doesn't. Its actually an indication of GNOME's weaknesses as a platform. If GNOME was really comparable to KDE, the GNOME application base would have pulled them over long ago. But the sheer technical advantages of KDE make it worth it to build projects like these, to access GNOME's apps from within KDE.

      --
      A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
    10. Re:These are a sign of Gnome success by bucky0 · · Score: 1

      However the more logical place for this would be in the kernel so that all applications can access the remote filesystem uniformly. The bulk of the implementation does not have to always be in the kernel, but this functionality should be available from the kernel's open, close, read, write, readdir and stat syscalls.
      I may be interpreting this post http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-core-devel&m=107359899 930412&w=2
      but, it seems like fuse_kio does just that.

      Correct me if i'm wrong though.

      --

      -Bucky
    11. Re:These are a sign of Gnome success by Captain+Rotundo · · Score: 1

      I could easily say a very similar thing. except I use 100% gnome apps and don't even have QT installed on my system.

    12. Re:These are a sign of Gnome success by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      > Commercial vendors have already overwhelmingly opted to use Qt instead of GTK.

      Really, my commercial app vendor can beat your commercial app vendor. Let's see (copied from LinuxToday):
      * Websphere (based on Eclipse which is based on a Gtk backend)
      * Netscape 7 (based on Gtk)
      * Real-time and embedded system vendors such as Cogent (www.cogent.ca) provide GTK integration.
      * commercial apps generated from wxWindows for Unix (including use in consultancy)
      * RealPlayer (via the HelixPlayer which is based on GTK)
      * Several Sun tools are based on Gtk
      * (other stuff omitted)

      Gtk+ is more than viable in the commercial space. You just have to open your eyes.

    13. Re:These are a sign of Gnome success by vegetasaiyajin · · Score: 1

      Someday one of Gnome and KDE will be obsolete. The remaining licence issues around Qt makes Gnome the obvious winner, as one cannot create commercial apps for Qt without paying fees.

      That is questionable. There are more commercial apps based on Qt that on GTK.
      If you think I'm wrong, can you give me a list of commercial GTK apps?
      Many people think that you need to pay for QT licenses for in-house development and that is false because you can create GPL apps without releasing the code to the public. You are only required to give the source under GPL restrictions to the people you distribute binaries to.

      --

      My heart is pure, but make no mistake, it's pure evil
    14. Re:These are a sign of Gnome success by TarpaKungs · · Score: 1
      but, it seems like fuse_kio does just that.

      That looks interesting. The only downside to that approach is that it's bolting the kernel to binary after the fact with (on my system) dynamic linkage to 36 libs (ie a bit fat).

      At least half those dynamic libs aren't relevant to the job AFAICS. I suspect they are there due to kioslave being a standard KDE app.

      It may be a second phase in the experiment, but I would applaud the KDE people if they took this excellent idea, pruned all the generic KDE-ness out of kioslave leaving something lean, mean and generic that could be used equally well by KDE and evrything else.

      I say the same thing about gconf, another very good idea - strip it out of Gnome and make it a bit more generic.

      In both cases I think that doing so would promote more universal adoption.

      --
      Why can't women be like Hedy Lamarr - beautiful, talented and inventors of frequency-hopping spread-spectrum techn
    15. Re:These are a sign of Gnome success by Nicopa · · Score: 1

      Hence, Wine is a sign of MS Windows (version irrelevant) success over Linux?

      Yes! It's a sign of MS Windows market dominance. With more and more gnome market share expect less and less relevance for the WinE project.

      Note how at first Linux emulated SCO through iBCS. Back then SCO was strong. Later, SCO was trying to run Linux apps =).

      Expect the appearance of more and more Gnome compatibility KDE features.

    16. Re:These are a sign of Gnome success by jgardn · · Score: 1

      That KDE people are creating technologies to be able to make Gnome apps compatible with them is a sign of Gnome's success.

      "Success" in the Open Source world is measured by user base and available resources. People tend to use the better software, and they tend to contribute to projects they use. Compare this with success in the commercial software world, where success is measured in stock price, profits, and company size.

      Because it is KDE contributing the code, this is a bad sign for Gnome. Gnome can't seem to muster the resources to get it done on their end, while KDE can and does.

      This means that either there are more developers contributing to KDE than Gnome, or the developers are just that much more productive.

      If there are more developers in KDE than in Gnome, this hints that the actual user base of KDE is larger than Gnome. More people are using KDE because they like it more than Gnome (or hate it less). This is not a good sign for Gnome.

      If the developers are just more productive in KDE than in Gnome, this is another bad sign for Gnome. Either the codebase in KDE is so much easier to work with than in Gnome, or the political structure of the project tends to encourage contribution better than Gnome.

      Either way, KDE is developing faster than Gnome. Eventually, Gnome will become the BSD of the desktop environments as KDE progresses, gaining more users, more developers, and gaining momentum.

      I can't predict for sure of course, and Gnome's usability gamble may pay off in a big way down the road. But claiming that because KDE was able to get their end of the deal done first is a win for Gnome is illogical.

      I am of course biased. I have investigated both the codebase and user interfaces of Gnome and KDE extensively. I found KDE much easier to work with in both ways. Gnome has come a long way in the past few years, but in my eyes, KDE has come a lot farther.

      --
      The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
    17. Re:These are a sign of Gnome success by treke · · Score: 1

      Whoa. Neither SuSE nor Novell have comitted to GNOME. And neither has IBM. Its just Sun and RedHat. IBM is a mix of GNOME and KDE (because of RH and SuSE). And to this day, most of the major Linux desktop rollouts that have actually happend (the China rollout hasn't, yet) have been KDE.

      Well Novel did buy Ximian, so it isn't out of this world to suggest they are going to be using GNOME :)

  11. Almost a Good Thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Merging event loops so GTK and KDE components can interoperate is great. Now the wide variety of commercial applications for Linux et al can play nice with KDE!.

    Oh, wait... doesn't KDE require a license for commercial applications... oh, never mind...they can't play nice together.

    1. Re:Almost a Good Thing by bogie · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Oh well. To quote someone here (Sorry I don't remember your name)

      "Why are we so worried about the fact that publishers of closed source proprietary software who are used to paying for software development tools are going to have to continue that exact same practice in the OSS wordl?"

      On the topic at hand, all I can say is sweet. Gimp, Evolution, Beep etc all fitting in KDE and where possible even getting to use the excellant KDE fileselector.

      --
      If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
    2. Re:Almost a Good Thing by armando_wall · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Now the wide variety of commercial applications for Linux et al can play nice with KDE!.

      That remains true. Commercial applications written in other developement platforms will work inside KDE (they will behave differently, though). Oh, wait... doesn't KDE require a license for commercial applications... oh, never mind...they can't play nice together.

      Well, now that integration is possible, instead of coding in QT you can write Gnome/GTK commercial applications and run them inside KDE, with the looks and behavior of KDE. As far as I can tell, you are not violating any license by doing this.

      I really like that idea. I'm a C coder rather than a C++ coder, so coding in GTK feels more natural to me. But... I prefer KDE over Gnome for my desktop (*), and I'd like the programs I create to have the behavior of KDE. So I was in a point of desperation trying to decide whether to use C-based GTK or C++ KDE/Qt.

      Now, I can happily code in C/GTK, knowing that my apps will look great in both Gnome and KDE!

      (*) No trolling or flamebait intended. If you prefer Gnome and say KDE sucks, that's fine by me, it's a free world.

  12. Nitpick by damiam · · Score: 4, Informative

    That's not xmms in the screenshot, it's beep, an XMMS fork ported to GTK2 and Pango/Freetype font rendering.

    --
    It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
  13. The Future by dave+at+hostwerks · · Score: 1

    Things should get even more interesting in the Free software arena with this news. Let's revisit this in July and see where we've gotten to.

    Everyone click this link.

    --
    d a v e
    "Hmmm...upgrades."
  14. The integration I'd like to see by Mr.+Darl+McBride · · Score: 3, Interesting
    The integration I think I'd most like to see right now would be a Metacity or MicroGUI theme for Mozilla. Considering how many tens of thousands of people are using Sawfish and Gnome, can you believe something like this doesn't already exist?

    For you KDE users who aren't on Konqueror 24/7: don't forget to say thank-you.

    1. Re:The integration I'd like to see by Mongoose · · Score: 1

      Use the Mozilla Firebird gtk+2, xft builds -- they use your gtk+ 2 themed widgets.

      Now you owe me a cookie. =)

    2. Re:The integration I'd like to see by gnugnugnu · · Score: 1

      Are there gtk+2 builds of Mozilla Seamonkey?

      Native themeing of Mozilla is something I have wanted for a long time, it it is just a pity that it didn't happen sooner before so much work went into Gecko+GTK browsers.

      I actually liked the whole Mozilla Suite and I like that there was have been two major stable release (1.0 and 1.4 hopefuly 1.6 soon too).

      I wont be ready to switcht Firebird for long time and I wish they could have folded the improvments back in and made things into proper official plugins if they felt the need to take things out. it would take far too much messing if I tried to use Firebird and find and install all the plugins for things I miss (and pray that they are actually usable).
      It also causes me big problems to recommend unstable software because if anything goes wrong in any way it will be my problem to fix.

    3. Re:The integration I'd like to see by jimbrewer · · Score: 1
      Are there gtk+2 builds of Mozilla Seamonkey?

      It appears so. I got mine with Dropline Gnome for Slackware 9.0, but several of my coworkers use Fedora (which I believe also uses GTk'd Moz).

    4. Re:The integration I'd like to see by juhaz · · Score: 1

      Are there gtk+2 builds of Mozilla Seamonkey?

      Yes, but they aren't natively themed.

  15. On Integration by SpunkyWabbit · · Score: 1

    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.

    Won't this create some undesired mess? I'd rather like to have at least some visual diversity between them. After all, concurrent development inspires progress.

    1. Re:On Integration by Bart+Coppens · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Won't this create some undesired mess? I'd rather like to have at least some visual diversity between them. After all, concurrent development inspires progress.
      Visual diversity may indeed inspire progress because there would be more competition, but it's not very desirable. Developpers may like it, but if you want to show a desktop with 2 different themes, people who are used to see a consistent interface will be scared (or at least not be impressed) by it.
      Not only will most people think it's ugly, but also requires extra configuration: with two independant themes, changing the KDE theme doesn't change the theme for GTK applications, resulting in confusion. And confusion isn't good when trying to impress people with Linux.

    2. Re:On Integration by justsomebody · · Score: 1

      Yep, I would agree but Gnome2 will have it's FileDialogs solved in this release, as I read printing interface from Ximian was commited to standard Gnome which means there's no need for KDE interferring with Gnome. They should be separate and if someone doesn't install KDE he doesn't install KDE and just the same thing for Gnome.

      Gnome and KDE should unify vfs and other low level interfaces not create a MIXED edition where Gnome is no Gnome and KDE is no KDE

      --
      Signature Pro version 1.13.2-3 release 83.5 beta3try7 after-breakfast edition
  16. IOSlaves? by kc3lai · · Score: 4, Funny

    I thought we can't use such intrusive naming anymore??

    1. Re:IOSlaves? by I+confirm+I'm+not+a · · Score: 1

      No, no, no! "IO" is fine. You're thinking of "win". "winSlaves" would be totally unacceptable. ;-)

      --
      This is where the serious fun begins.
  17. Re:Microsoft Job! by norculf · · Score: 1, Informative

    That document is "Introduction to IP Version 6" by Joseph Davies. You can download it here: http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/techinfo/howi tworks/communications/nameadrmgmt/introipv6.asp

  18. Re:4 little indians... by Bart+Coppens · · Score: 1

    This doesn't make the UI look inconsistent at all: the 'plastik theme' is not a GUI for OOo, but rather an example of how OOo looks like when themed like KDE can be themed. This makes your desktop look nice and integrated, whereas with a 'united' OOo theme, your perfectly skinned desktop would look inconsistent and out of balance while running OOo: every application you run looks the same, except OOo. Also, it's not like OOo has different UIs. There is just one UI, but it can be themed differently (as shown).

  19. So does this mean... by bflong · · Score: 2, Interesting

    that now companys who don't want to fork over a licence fee to trolltech can build apps that integrate with KDE using gtk and no one would have to know or care? Or is there some kind of GPL conflict that I'm not seeing?

    --
    Why is it so hot? Where am I going? What am I doing in this handbasket?
    1. Re:So does this mean... by IamTheRealMike · · Score: 1
      In order for this to work you have to link against kdelibs and Qt, which means your software must be made available under a GPL compatible license. Therefore this isn't an option for proprietary software, unless you buy licensing from TrollTech.

      Yeah yeah, I know the standard argument ..."but Qt is so great it justifies the license fees and we all get paid so much anyway it doesn't really matter", but the fact is that it does discourage people - only a few days ago I was reading somebody on the GTKmm mailing list saying that he simply couldn't justify the cost of Qt for his development team (ah here it is - edit). My father runs a cottage software business. He can't justify the cost of Qt either. So, this is still problematic.

      However, that doesn't matter for free software, which is like 99.9% of most Linux desktops anyway. A slightly more practical problem is that apps have to be ported to use this stuff, ie you can't just install QtGtk and have all your apps use the KDE dialogs overnight (nice though that'd be).

      Still, I expect it will help in the short term.

      Long term I'm really not sure how to solve this one - QtGTK is a nice hack but ultimately dialogs are currently a part of a widget toolkit, and especially considering things like customization etc it's really not trivial to abstract it.

      Worse, it's really not easy to dlopen/dlsym C++ stuff like this, so you will end up with multiple builds of programs - one that depends on kdelibs and uses the dialogs, and another virtually identical one that doesn't. Having multiple builds of software for features like this is exactly what we are trying to get away from now - it only complicates the already overcomplex software installation process on Linux.

      If we go down this route then we'll end up with loads of software with lots of duplicated dialog code. It's not so bad for just common file dialogs etc, especially considering that KDE offers more types of dialog than GTK does anyway (though i'd note not gnome libs et al), but it sets a worrying precedent.

      A better solution IMHO would be to do the following:

      • Sort out the VFS mess. The problem with KIO (and to a lesser extent gnome-vfs) is that it's so easy to write VFS plugins that people do it lots. This is bad. Rarely have I seen a program that is implemented better as a VFS plugin than a normal app. VFS systems are useful for some things, like network transparent file access - though you have to be careful about breaking POSIX filing system semantics in, for instance, httpfs - but they are a disaster when people start writing things like kamera:/ or audiocd:/

        The solution here is probably either to work on a shared desktop VFS system, or (politically somewhat harder) deprecate KIO and gnome-vfs in favour of lower-level systems. I've already been advocating doing the same for sound servers for some time now - this problem is simply not the desktops to solve.

        Yes, that will mean that people on HPUX or whatever probably can't get network transparent file access. Boo hoo. Use a better OS if this really bugs you. Duplicating this functionality at a higher level simply causes fragmentation and people re-inventing the wheel.

      • I think the new GTK file picker is pluggable. The KDE one could probably be made so without too much disruption. Do what Red Hat did for bluecurve and design a commonly designed set of common dialogs which Qt and GTK can both use. They don't actually have to be the same, as long as they look the same. Combined with unified theming and having the VFS at the kernel level, this would provide "good enough" consistancy without having to maintain dual builds of every single app out there.

        This situation is complicated by the fact that KDE and GTK/Gnome don't share a HIG. Realistically speaking, this is a problem that needs to be solved on KDEs end - the current HIG is entirely non-descript and apps that comply with it simply resemble your average Windows app. It might not be a big issue, I don't know....

    2. Re:So does this mean... by Roberto · · Score: 1

      You are saying that because something is easy, it causes people to do it, thus producing obviously useful stuff like audiocd: and kamera:, and thats bad?

      No, thats good. It may be bad in some twisted world where you dont want to rip your CDs and see your pictures, though.

    3. Re:So does this mean... by IamTheRealMike · · Score: 1

      I think you should compare the UI of Sound Juicer (an application dedicated to CD ripping) to the UI of audiocd:/ and then perhaps you will see what I mean. The file manager is not a generic catch-all UI for programs, it's for managing files. Abusing that to turn it into a CD ripper is just asking for sub-par UIs

    4. Re:So does this mean... by Roberto · · Score: 1

      a) I want to rip a track.
      b) I click on the nice "audio cd" icon
      c) I drag it
      d) Its ripped

      Sounds like ideal UI to me.

  20. When will they integrate the windows event loop? by OrangAsm · · Score: 4, Funny

    I'm dying to have my gnome/kde apps respond to WM_PAINT. Really. I want them to paint and paint and paint, all day long, then I will WM_DESTROY them!!!

  21. Re:Nuts! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    How the hell do they hope to sell any of this stuff if it's all encrypted in some Baltic lingo?!? ;)

    That's EXACTLY why OpenSource is free :)

  22. The fuse_kio stuff... by koali · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Why Gnome/KDE insist in non-fs integrated virtual filesystems? Although their solution is platform independent, it is too 'opaque'. LUFS and similar stuff is the win :-b

    1. Re:The fuse_kio stuff... by Roberto · · Score: 1

      Uh... fuse_kio is integrated with the fs.

      You just mount it and use it.

    2. Re:The fuse_kio stuff... by Spy+Hunter · · Score: 3, Informative
      Because mounting things is inconvenient and not user-friendly, and URLs are an extremely nice, compact way to represent a file's location. Much easier to just be able to use a URL at any time in any application and not worry about where you're going to mount stuff or if it's still mounted or whatever. The Unix filesystem model hasn't changed in years and years, and is not capable enough to handle all the things a modern desktop environment needs. For things like http, it doesn't even make sense; how would you mount a web server? Even if you could, you wouldn't be able to use standard Unix tools because you can't get a directory listing using HTTP (well sometimes you can, but not often). A new system based around URLs is the way to go, and that's the way KDE has gone.

      The ability for every application to handle every possible protocol using URLs is so nice that it outweighs any disadvantage. Using the fish protocol, you can use KWord or KEdit or any KDE app to edit any file stored on any server where you have a simple ssh account. You don't have to worry about whether the server has ftp access, or down/uploading the file, or mounting any remote directories, or junk like that. You just type the URL into the save dialog, and it works. Every KDE program gets support for this protocol along with FTP, HTTP, SMB, and webdav support, plus expandability for future protocols, for free. It's a big part of what makes KDE so great.

      --
      main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
    3. Re:The fuse_kio stuff... by Roberto · · Score: 1

      Use the fuse_kio gateway mode. Its explained in the page.

    4. Re:The fuse_kio stuff... by be-fan · · Score: 1

      This is a phenomenally useful feature. I used Kate to work on a website for school, and it was phenomenal how much more productive this is than the usual edit/upload cycle. Better yet, if I want to print a document to the central print office, I just save it to the remote ssh folder directly. If I want to save a powerpoint presentation onto my school account, I just save it there, no fussing with an FTP client.

      --
      A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
    5. Re:The fuse_kio stuff... by Spy+Hunter · · Score: 1

      Oh, I know about fuse_kio, and I'm a big fan of it. I'm just explaining why KDE chose to do the ioslave virtual file system layer instead of just using the Unix filesystem directly.

      --
      main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
  23. Also worth noting by damiam · · Score: 3, Informative

    The same OO.o integration work has been done with GTK+.

    --
    It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
  24. Re:Nice but... by hitmark · · Score: 1

    wild guess but i have a feel that is finnish...

    hmm, how long untili can embed a koffice spreadsheet inside a OO text document?

    --
    comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
  25. Re:Excellent by gkatsi · · Score: 1

    http://bofh.be/clusterknoppix/ seems nice. Don't know if it does all you want, though.

  26. Anyone else notice the "direction" of integration? by brunes69 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    GTK apps using KDE file dialogs

    GTK apps using the QT event loop and DCOP, etc.

    All Linux apps able to use KIO Slaves

    How come no KDE apps want to use the GLib event loop or the GTK file dialogs or Gnome VFS I wonder? (*wink wink*)

  27. GnomeVFS also mountable via lufs by mjrauhal · · Score: 1

    Just thought to mention a relevant tidbit: Gnome-VFS filesystems can also be mounted, but via the lufs userspace filesystem project.

  28. more productive? by sporkboy · · Score: 1

    So now it will look like the Windows XP Olive Green theme twice as fast?

    The faster these two can work together the better off the community will be. Each one will have more software to choose from, and choice is good

  29. Error in Article by dpw2atox · · Score: 1, Informative

    The screenshot is of Beep Media Player. Beep is a GTK2 port of xmms and is not xmms2. Xmms2 is being developed seperatly with gtk2 support and also is said to have support for winamp 3 skins and is a completly new piece of software.

  30. Re:Nuts! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Estonian isn't a part of Indo-European, or the so called "Baltic" languages. It's actually a part of the finno-ugric language family, which also includes Finnish.

  31. Re:Anyone else notice the "direction" of integrati by vurian · · Score: 1

    I'd be quite interested in using the GDK event loop for Krita because I could then with no hassle lift the bit of code that enables the Gimp to draw nice lines from the Gimp and import it in Krita. Now I will have to invent something similar myself :-).

  32. Re:Anyone else notice the "direction" of integrati by RPoet · · Score: 4, Insightful

    While I appreciate the humor, all this has a reasonable explanation. This integration work in question is being done by KDE people, as part of a recent initiative to do something about KDE's reputation for only doing their own stuff, seemingly "starting over" (their own office suite, their own browser etc) where GNOME is adapting to existing technology. Basically, KDE is starting to show that it, too, can adapt existing technology.

    This work is NOT being done by people who simply want more integration, but by people who want a more consistent KDE desktop. If the GNOME people want to integrate KDE apps so that they'll feel more like GNOME apps, they're free to do so.

    --
    "Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
  33. more like Redundanting by tepples · · Score: 1

    He wasn't trolling, he was asking a simple question.

    Then perhaps he wasn't Trolling but rather Redundanting, given others' persistent Qt license queries in other threads.

    1. Re:more like Redundanting by damiam · · Score: 1

      This is a different question than the standard "can I use Qt in my closed-source app?", so it's not redundant.

      --
      It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
  34. HURRAY by the_2nd_coming · · Score: 1

    Native-ish Gnome support for KATE!!!

    --



    I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
  35. I know you are joking but... by MarcoAtWork · · Score: 1

    hmmmm, a consistent GTK app with a useless fileselector or an 'inconsistent' one with the KDE one? hard choice, isn't it? ;)

    Still, I wish there would be drop-in fileselector replacements available for Gnome/KDE: both of their fileselectors could be so much more useful, heck, even my old Atari ST had replaceable ones (and some of them were awesome, they were basically mini-filemanagers).

    If the gimp had a nice fileselector (with one-button-shortcuts to my pic directories, for example) how much nicer it would be!

    --
    -- the cake is a lie
    1. Re:I know you are joking but... by kerasineAddict · · Score: 1

      well, currently FooBarWidget has been keeping his own version of the GTK+ Fileselector. It's meant as a replacement for 2.2.4 (and up I think).

      There's a thread on gnomesupport.org for more information. As far as I know, it just replaces that part of the gtk library.

    2. Re:I know you are joking but... by Stween · · Score: 1

      heck, even my old Atari ST had replaceable ones (and some of them were awesome, they were basically mini-filemanagers).

      Selectric was the one I always used. Good to see a picture of the old guy now :)

      :: suddenly tempted to fire up STe again ::

  36. Re:Anyone else notice the "direction" of integrati by standsolid · · Score: 1

    because gnomes haven't developed them yet. As always, they will brush each and every one of the projects off as a "quick and dirty hack" and useless. 6 months later, they'll catch on that it's a good idea and make it the "correct" way (in C) and then will talk about how primitive KDE's innovations are compared to theirs.

    hooray for KDE hooray!

    //standsolid//

    --
    WTPOUAWYHTTOTWPA
    What's the point of using acronyms when you have to type out the whole phrase anyways?
  37. Wow. by InsaneCreator · · Score: 3, Funny

    Look, they have MS Word running natively on Linux. It even has the "Fail" option in the menu! ;)

    Fail > Now
    Fail > When file not saved
    etc.

  38. Xmms2 ... EXCUSES MOI!?!? by Nexu · · Score: 1

    Timothy, you should wipe clean ur geeky glasses and see it wasn't xmms2 you had on your screenshot ... it is beep-media-player (bmp -> http://beepmp.sourceforge.net). If u wanna lie to general public next time. Make sure you dont provide the evidence which people can see you were lying...

    1. Re:Xmms2 ... EXCUSES MOI!?!? by vidarh · · Score: 1

      Before you start accusing people of lying, at least make sure you accuse the right person - text in italics is from the submitter, not the editor.

    2. Re:Xmms2 ... EXCUSES MOI!?!? by Nexu · · Score: 1

      Good point, but it doesn't matter much who i accuse of lying...everyone lies. It's just a matter of when and where.

  39. Re:Nice but... by hkroger · · Score: 2, Informative

    You wild guess was close but not enough. It's Estonian.

  40. Re:7h15 15 gr347!!!11 by Deraj+DeZine · · Score: 1

    Yes, I'm sure that standards will speed up development.

    I mean, just look at all the applications that are springing up around the Atom and FOAF frameworks... oh wait, people are just whining about the standards and no one is developing applications...

    --
    True story.
  41. Re:v3ry 1mpr3551v3!!!1 bu77.... by Deraj+DeZine · · Score: 1

    So at what point would a troll be considered funny? I thought this post was pretty hi-larious...

    --
    True story.
  42. Re:Very Impressive!...But... by mikelima · · Score: 1

    on my keyboard, it is alt-4 1/4, alt-5 1/2 and alt-6 3/4. ae is done with alt A.
    The right alt key is needed, which is labelled alt-gr on some keyboards. The keyboard must be configured to use an 'international' layout, I think it is called "us_intl" or something like that.

  43. Re:n17p1k by Deraj+DeZine · · Score: 1

    Hopefully people will just start using a real GNOME application like Rhythmbox instead. I've found it to be quite handy as long as you tagged your music properly when you ripped it from your legally-acquired CDs. Correct tagging does not seem to be a common practice on file sharing networks (or so I've heard).

    --
    True story.
  44. Re:105l4v35???/ by Deraj+DeZine · · Score: 1

    I don't know why that was modded funny, he's right. I believe the name has already been changed in KDE CVS to IOIndenturedServants, IOBlackmailees or something like that.

    --
    True story.
  45. Re:TrollTech is setting us up just like SCO by loucura! · · Score: 1

    The mere fact that your software runs on "free" operating systems doesn't obligate you to "liberate" your software. Just as software that runs on proprietary operating systems doesn't obligate me to give ownership of my software to the proprietor of the operating system.

    I didn't make any mention of the usefulness of their toolkit. I've used it only sparingly, and am not qualified to pass judgement on it--but if it's so terrible, why do you insist that you be able to proprietarily develop against it? If QT is worth developing against for your application--AND you want to keep your software proprietary, then you have to determine whether you'll recoup the costs of the developers license. If you can't do that, then you have a choice to make. Either you GPL your software (which doesn't prevent you from selling it), or you use another library.

    QT isn't ambiguously licensed though, it is licensed under the GPL/QPL, and they also release a commercially licensed toolkit. The existence of the Commercial (proprietary use) toolkit, doesn't make the GPL toolkit less free, nor does the existence of the GPL toolkit make the commercial toolkit less useful for persons who want to make proprietary software.

    Also, since Trolltech controls the transfer of GPL/QPL QT source into the Proprietary QT codebase, if there was any mixing, it would be their responsibility, not the responsibility of any corporations making use of QT.

    Yes, I know, I have been trolled. I have lost; I'll try to have a nice day. You too.

    --
    Black and grey are both shades of white.
  46. Re:Anyone else notice the "direction" of integrati by 10Ghz · · Score: 2, Insightful

    GIMP isn't really a GNOME-app AFAIK. Yes, it uses GTK+, no that does not make it in to a GNOME-app. And there are LOTS and LOTS of kick-ass KDE-apps (for example Konqueror, Kmail, Kdevelop, Quanta, K3B etc. etc.), so your claim that "GNOME-apps rule, KDE-apps suck!" is just plain ignorant.

    --
    Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
  47. kw33r5 by Deraj+DeZine · · Score: 1

    Oops, I guess some of the moderators use KDE. I guess I'll just have to let the text do a little deconstruction on itself to show how KDE is, in fact, superior.

    --
    True story.
  48. Re:Anyone else notice the "direction" of integrati by Nodatadj · · Score: 1

    Actually, about a year ago there was a project that used gnome-vfs to do the same thing as fuse did. Except no-one really cared about it.

  49. Re:Anyone else notice the "direction" of integrati by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Sven, one of the lead GIMP developers has stated in no uncertain terms that the GIMP is not a Gnome application and that it has nothing to do with Gnome.

  50. Re:4 little indians... by John+Bayko · · Score: 1

    What's worse - now I hear that you can get the same make and model of car, in different colours!

    What's with that?

  51. Re:Anyone else notice the "direction" of integrati by IamTheRealMike · · Score: 1
    Well, this has been theoretically possible for ages, both GTK and Qt have pluggable main loop abstractions. The thing is, somebody has to care enough to want to do it.

    So if nobody cared enough to integrate the KDE dialogs into GTK, doesn't that indicate that the people using GTK/Gnome apps are happy with the way things are (ie... they have a consistant desktop already perhaps?) more than anything else?

  52. Re:Anyone else notice the "direction" of integrati by be-fan · · Score: 1

    Most likely. Several GTK apps (Gimp, Evolution, Inkspace, notably) are better than their KDE counterparts. On the other hand, it also indicates another thing. If GTK+/GNOME apps are better, why do KDE users persist in using KDE? It's not like there is any real barrier to them switching (they run on the same platform, and are free). It most likely indicates that KDE users do not like GNOME as a platform, its lack of advanced technology, and its ultra-simplistic mindset.

    --
    A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
  53. Best integration is to use ONLY ONE by topics · · Score: 1

    I really don't think it's good to have both systems around for several reasons.

    1. They don't use the same Human Interface Guidelines. That's FAR FAR more important that looks.

    2. Excessive waste of HD space.

    3. On a personal level. I like gnome, I don't want my apps behave or look like KDE. If I did I'd be using KDE. Also programming GNOME is easier with all the language bindings.

  54. Another KDE myth by niom · · Score: 3, Interesting

    as part of a recent initiative to do something about KDE's reputation for only doing their own stuff, seemingly "starting over" (their own office suite, their own browser etc)

    KOffice and Konqueror were started long before OpenOffice and Mozilla became open source.

    --
    -- Repeat with me: "There is no right to profits".
  55. Re:Anyone else notice the "direction" of integrati by IamTheRealMike · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Hmm, that reasoning seems circular. Developers are the only ones who care about the underlying platform, users generally do not as it rarely affects them (stuff like kio-slaves being an obvious exception). So if users use KDE, it'd make sense that they use it because they feel it's a better desktop.

    So, why are more apps written using GTK/Gnome? I don't know. FWIW I feel the KDE framework is better too, but ultimately they are both pretty good. In particular GTK stands on its own more than Qt does on the Linux desktop - for apps that wish to remain desktop neutral it seems a more natural choice (and to be honest GTK vs Qt is a pretty even match, you can argue about the corner cases all day but I'd say they're just as good as each other).

    Whenever I read the KDE API docs I can't help thinking what a shame it is - if the original developers had cared more about licensing we'd probably only have one desktop, and everybody would use these great frameworks. There'd be no problems with desktop neutrality, no need to slowly reinvent everything in order to make it desktop neutral and so on.

    A lesson learned hard, and one I hope future developers will respect..... those who don't take community concerns over platforms seriously can seriously damage things.

  56. the voice of linux by chegosaurus · · Score: 3, Insightful

    > 2004 is really beginning well for all those of
    > us who use Linux as their primary desktop!"

    Yes. Because GNOME and KDE only run on Linux, don't they?

    Please, a little credit to the folk who right proper, portable code, and to those who port it.

  57. Now both look as ugly by Eudial · · Score: 1

    Great! Now both can look equally ugly. Why doesent people use Xlib? Much better than those bloated and ugly betmoth toolkits.

    --
    GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
  58. Re:Anyone else notice the "direction" of integrati by justsomebody · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    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

    --
    Signature Pro version 1.13.2-3 release 83.5 beta3try7 after-breakfast edition
  59. Time for a unified translate-o-maitc by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I think that all the Translate-o-matics should be merged. But KDE isn't hated enough to have one, so behold the Gnome-translate-o-matic 2004!

    Gnome is a rival to KDE, the popular collection
    of programs for Linux and freinds. Unfortunatley, ever since Gnome 2.4 (and the BETA 2.5) was released, I have found more and more Zealots who MUST advocate it at every possible moment. Here are some of their most common claims and what they REALLY MEAN.

    Claim : Unlike KDE, Gnome is free
    Translation : GPL is freerer than LGPL. LGPL allows corporations like Novell
    and Sun to have propeitry forks and lock away their changes from the user. Now
    that Novell has taken over Ximian you can expect Gnome to get put under
    corpirate lock. With KDE you have the choice, you either PAY UP or pay with
    your source code. Most companies agree, the majority of commerical software for Linux is written in Motif and Qt, and NOT GTK. Apart from Ximian's desktop, there is no major product using GTK.

    Claim : Nautilus is much better than konqueror.
    Wrong, if your using nautilus for anything more than a simple finder clone you
    can forget it. No split screen, no ioslaves (gnome-vfs can't compare, sorry) and forget about being able to
    have a decent file dialog, not to forget that it is as unstable as hell and is
    STILL slow on >3 Ghz machines. The latest version decided to copy Windows 95, complete with a my computer icon on the desktop.

    Claim : Gnome is easier to use than KDE
    Yep, nothing like using gconf-editor to edit all except the most trivial of
    settings. Want tear off menus? Want a useable file dialog? You won't find it
    here. Gnome was a lot more usable back in the 1.4 series, before sun came along with their usabillity "study".

    Claim : Gnome has eye candy
    Yes, my pirated Win32 fonts with the patent infringing font renderer. Bit
    stream vera sans looks like Tahoma put through a shreadder! Of course I still
    reboot into windows to print using "Comic Sans MS. Gnome themes don't even let you change the colour scheme. Looking at sites like art.gnome.org you will see that the majority of themes are the same one in different colours!

    Claim : Gnome is not ugly like KDE
    I am too stupid to realise that the look of KDE can be changed by going to the Appearence and themes section in KDE, not to mention that KDE has more themes wrote for it. Popular themes such as Keramik, Liquid, dotNET, Plastik and Alloy were wrote for KDE first, but somebody wrote a crappy port of it on art.gnome.org, so Gnome must be good.

    Claim :Gnome has a new web browser
    Yawb! Along with Galeon, mozilla, thunderbird, konqueror, atlantis, lynx,
    netscape and w3m. Yes I need another browser! Not to mention that its got a
    religiously offensive name and it dosen't allow bookmark folders. It also
    crashes like a crazy! Apple chose khtml for a REASON! its stable and light! Epiphany is also a faliure, it has gone through 6 major bug fixes and none of the major distrobutions use it because they stick with decent browsers.

    Claim : Gnome is more popular than KDE
    Despite the fact that the only mainstream Gnome based distro has been EOL'd,
    and all the newbie distros such as Mangadrake, Lindoze, $u$E, Lycoris,
    Xandroze, Gentoo use kde default, bruce perens decided to make a gnome based distro and everybody hated it because KDE wasn't in it.

    Klaim : You KDE guys must be sick of the K
    Our G's and monkeys are SO MUCH better, gedit, glib, gconf, bobono, ghex,
    gless, same-gnome, gstreamer.

    Claim : Gnome has multimedia framework
    Its a kludge of esd combined with broken xine libraries. No wonder it crashes
    all the time and dosen't work on 95% of video files. But we have Rhythmbox, a cheesy Itune clone using it, so it rules!

    Zealot : My Gnome work station.....
    My 2Ghz G5 box my mum bought for me from PC w

    1. Re:Time for a unified translate-o-maitc by chendo · · Score: 1
      Claim : Gnome is more popular than KDE Despite the fact that the only mainstream Gnome based distro has been EOL'd, and all the newbie distros such as Mangadrake, Lindoze, $u$E, Lycoris, Xandroze, Gentoo use kde default, bruce perens decided to make a gnome based distro and everybody hated it because KDE wasn't in it.
      What the hell are you talking about? Gentoo doesn't have any default enviroments. You are free to choose what enviroment you want.

      It's hard to believe someone if they can't even get the details right. And since when did a "GEFORCE RADEON" exist?
      --
      Founder of Mirror Moon - Tsukihime Game Trans
    2. Re:Time for a unified translate-o-maitc by be-fan · · Score: 1

      He's right. You can change the color scheme. You can create a different gtkrc with different colors that uses the same theme engine, but thats a different theme. KDE lets you apply any color scheme to any theme.

      --
      A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
  60. Re:Nice but... by hitmark · · Score: 1

    wrong side of what i belive in english is known as the baltic sea then :)

    --
    comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
  61. Re:n17p1k by damiam · · Score: 1
    Correct tagging does not seem to be a common practice on file sharing networks

    It can be, if you know how to find it. Most higher-class sharing systems (suprnova/bittorrent, directconnect, soulseek, etc.) have files that are almost exclusively well-tagged. Even with lower-class systems like KaZaA, you just have to search for the album you want in the "album" field, and the only results that will show are the well-tagged ones (or so I've heard).

    --
    It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
  62. Whoever posted the above is an AC for a reason... by Slartibartfast · · Score: 2, Insightful

    He's attempting to be even-handed, but, instead, is just stupid. Granted -- I'm not taking the time to actually read his unbalanced whine, but right off the bat, I see one out-and-out lie: "Apart from Ximian's desktop, there is no major product using GTK."

    Ummm... would the GIMP count as a major product? How 'bout GNUCash?

    Let's face it: this guy's a bozo. And, yeah, a coward -- which is the reason he sits there, makes all these amazing, bizarre claims, with nothing to back them up, and posts as an AC. Granted: I think Miguel's ego could drop a notch or two, and I definitely think the KDE developer community is more interested in harmony than... well, Miguel is. [Most of the GTK/Gnome developers are pretty reasonable folk, from what I've seen.]

    Do I like GTK/Gnome more? Slightly -- or, perhaps I should say that I don't like being tied to a WM, and I like a panel, and Gnome's does a fine job. Does either "Suck"? Ummm... no. Stupid people who write stupid, long-winded rants "suck." People who attempt, instead, to inform, in an objective, open manner, OTOH, can actually help the OSS community AS A WHOLE, instead of picking sides, and sniping at those who disagree. Frankly, I'm -glad- there are two main competing libraries/environments: competition is good. Just look at Windows if you don't believe me. If either were the clear winner, stagnation would be the result. As it is, the developers are kept on their toes, and -- welcome to OSS -- can freely pilfer ideas from each other without fear of (say) patent reprisals.

    Well, 'nuff for now: I'd hate to become as long-winded as the schmuck I'm criticizing...

    ------

  63. Legal question by unborn · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Does anyone know if a closed-software maker is violating the GPL if it has originally linked to an LGPL library (legal), which has an independently created GPL analogue?

    If not, then isn't it a matter of a LD_PRELOAD to transfer all or many GTK calls into QT calls, where the preloaded library is fully GPL, and gtk+ software was originally linked to the LGPL original gtk?

  64. Re:Anyone else notice the "direction" of integrati by Findus+Krispy · · Score: 1

    I really don't understand this 'licensing issue' thing. I could say the same about GTK, where they are using the 'Lesser' GPL: if only the GTK people had taken an interest in the licenses, perhaps we wouldn't be in the mess we are in today.

    In my world GPL protects free IP better than LGPL, and proprietary better protects proprietary IP than LGPL. Can you, or any other of your mindset, please explain why LGPL is a better freesoftware license than GPL, and why LGPL is better for proprietary vendors than a 'proprietary' license?

    As for why I choose KDE, it is because it is, IMO, more powerful, easier to use, better integrated, more professional looking, and required no understanding of UNIX while I was still transitioning.

    Overall I prefer the KDE apps, but regularly use two big Gnome apps: Gimp and sodipodi. I used to use Evolution too because it may me feel at home when I first switched from Windows, but I now far prefer KMail, and would use Kontact if I needed the groupware stuff.

    I think Gnome is pretty cool, and I will definitely give it a serious try when it has matured a little more. The Gnome people always talk about it being easier to use, but that is only true in theory. It just isn't insulated well enough from UNIX yet, and requires you to know things like where your home directory is, or where devices might be found, and how you mount and unmount them, how to configure windows file sharing, etc.

  65. corrections by Ender+Ryan · · Score: 1
    It still is.

    That is correct, however, GTK/GNOME is catching up - but really, I don't give a f*ck. I don't use a single proprietary app these days. Proprietary vendors can choose whatever toolkit they please and that will suit me just fine.

    With the exception of games of course. I've bought a bunch of native Linux games, and it's about a 25/25/50 split between GTK/KDE/Neither. As long as they don't depend on either entire DE, I'm happy.

    Kontact?

    KMail is a very seriousl mail client, and you provide no evidence to the contrary.

    KMail is(er.. was) possibly the worst core KDE application, IMO. I have used it pleny of times, and it always does something unexpected(deleting mail, crashes, etc.). I also find the interface to be rather buggy and quirky. The last version I used was much better, and that was several months ago, so I assume it is pretty stable now.

    But what I think the other guy was getting at is that it lacks the huge number of features of most "modern" email clients. Personally, I use mutt these days, with vim as my pager and editor(you just can't beat that).

    Ok, real corrections...

    "Phoenix and Thunderbird - GTK"

    Neither are GTK+ apps

    False. Both use many GTK widgets now. Look at the buttons, text entry boxes, etc. Still not GTK menus though...

    However, there are a number of excellent GTK apps that use the Mozilla rendering engine - and gecko is without a doubt the absolute best rendering engine around today.

    "OpenOffice.org - Now native GTK planned for next release"

    No, a GUI-independent framework is planned for next release.

    No, he was correct. Ximian has been working with OO.o, and they have implemented GTK for nearly the entire app(using the GUI-independent framework? I don't know... but it is there).

    I really wish users of both DEs would STFU sometimes. KDE did this, GNOME did that, bleh - just STFU. Support the interoperability efforts and STFU. Assholes...

    --
    Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
    1. Re:corrections by Ender+Ryan · · Score: 1
      Way to close your <i> tag, f*cking moron... Sheesh, what a dumbass! Err... wait *grin*

      Doh!

      --
      Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
    2. Re:corrections by be-fan · · Score: 2, Interesting

      KMail is(er.. was) possibly the worst core KDE application, IMO. I have used it pleny of times, and it always does something unexpected(deleting mail, crashes, etc.).
      ---------
      I've been using KMail since the 2.x days, and I've never had it lose email.

      I also find the interface to be rather buggy and quirky.
      ----------
      How so? KMail's interface is pretty straightforward. Folders on left, mail on top right, current message on bottom right. Toolbar buttons to compose, save, and print emails, as well as download new emails, reply and forward emails, iterate through unchecked mail, delete email, and search for emails. A lot of KDE apps are cluttered and have overly complex interfaces, but KMail is not one of them.

      But what I think the other guy was getting at is that it lacks the huge number of features of most "modern" email clients.
      -------------
      Like? Kmail has made enormous strides over the past year, because of the Kolab/Kontact work. By the time Kontact is mature (when the Kolab work gets integrated in a few months time), Kontact will most likely be more feature-complete than Evolution.

      Personally, I use mutt these days, with vim as my pager and editor(you just can't beat that).
      -------------
      Heh. Thanks to KParts, you can use vim in KMail too :) Its included in 3.2

      False. Both use many GTK widgets now. Look at the buttons, text entry boxes, etc. Still not GTK menus though...
      ---------
      You're right, I hadn't looked at a recent Firebird release. Although, its really not a GTK app. It still uses XUL as its toolkit. You can get OpenOffice to use Qt to draw its buttons/menus/etc too, but that doesn't really make it a Qt app, does it?

      No, he was correct. Ximian has been working with OO.o, and they have implemented GTK for nearly the entire app(using the GUI-independent framework? I don't know... but it is there).
      --------
      No, I was correct :) The OOo situation is a bit complex. What Ximian is working on is a GTK+ version of OpenOffice's Native Widget Framework (NWF). Contrary to the name, the NWF is not a port of OOo to the native toolkit. Rather, it is a way to use the native toolkit to draw widgets for OOo. Its a cosmetic layer on top of the OOo VCL toolkit. KDE has an NWF implementation that's pretty far along as well. Of course, all of this is completely different from the new toolkit abstraction outlined in the Q Concept, which will have native ports for GTK+, Windows, Qt, and OS X.

      --
      A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
    3. Re:corrections by Ender+Ryan · · Score: 1
      I also find the interface to be rather buggy and quirky.
      ----------
      How so?

      Don't get me wrong, I wasn't saying the interface was bad; it was just quirky when(less so the very last time) I used it. It's been a while, so I don't remember the exact details, but I do remember that it wasn't saving the widths of the folder bar or the email header columns. It also really f*cked up my imap mail - created a bunch of duplicates, and deleted some email. That didn't happen last time I used it, so... But it just pissed me off, because it wasn't marked as unstable at the time. It was like, "hey, we support imap now," and I tried it and was like, "gee, thanks for f*cking up my mail! :P" But I don't hold a grudge, so I tried it again later - heh, one of those days when I was waiting for Evolution to compile(like 3 hours...).

      As far as features - like I said, whatever people seem to expect from email clients these days, address book connected to an insecure server, appointment junk, kitchen sinks, taking out the garbage, etc - all the bullshit that Lookout has caused people to expect. Heh, I wasn't agreeing with him, just pointing out what I assumed he meant.

      Personally, I use mutt these days, with vim as my pager and editor(you just can't beat that).
      -------------
      Heh. Thanks to KParts, you can use vim in KMail too :) Its included in 3.2

      I've used kvim, and it was unbearably slow. GTK+-2.0-based gvim is *much* faster. I asked on #vim if it was just my system, and it was apparently not... I hope that has improved - other than that, it was looking really nice. BTW, GNOME is getting the same sort of vim component in the near future(it's been working for a while, but was sort of hacked together and non-trivial to setup).

      You're right, I hadn't looked at a recent Firebird release. Although, its really not a GTK app.

      No, but it's close enough that it looks pretty spiffy on a GNOME desktop.

      No, I was correct :)

      Ok, you were both correct :P Just because it uses an abstraction layer, doesn't mean it's not "native." It will still be nicely integrated with GNOME, and...

      KDE has an NWF implementation that's pretty far along as well.

      apparently, on KDE as well :)

      Seriously, that's fantastic. All this interoperability work will allow people to decide on a choice of DE(because neither are perfect for everyone, choice is good, IMO) and still bring along some of the major apps!

      I just wish people would stop the bickering, it helps neither desktop project.

      --
      Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
    4. Re:corrections by be-fan · · Score: 1

      address book connected to an insecure server, appointment junk, kitchen sinks, taking out the garbage, etc - all the bullshit that Lookout has caused people to expect.
      ---------
      The whole point of Kontact and Kolab has been getting these features integrated into the Kontact PIM suite. KMail is just the mail component of that suite.

      I've used kvim, and it was unbearably slow. GTK+-2.0-based gvim is *much* faster.
      ---------
      Seems okay to me. But it might just be my system (2.0 GHz P4).

      No, but it's close enough that it looks pretty spiffy on a GNOME desktop.
      ----------
      That's a different thing entirely. You can skin Firebird to look like a KDE app too, and since it doesn't follow the HIG's of either GNOME or KDE, it fits in about as well.

      Ok, you were both correct :P Just because it uses an abstraction layer, doesn't mean it's not "native." It will still be nicely integrated with GNOME, and...
      ----------
      The current NWF (in 1.x) isn't that kind of abstraction layer. It doesn't abstract GTK+ and Qt like, say, WxWindows does. Rather, it uses GTK+ and Qt to draw VCL widgets that look like GTK+ or Qt widgets. The widgets are still VCL widgets, and behave like VCL widgets. In 2.x, it will be more of a proper abstraction layer, allowing the use of native widgets, both in look and feel. Still, the current solution isn't bad, I mean, MS Office uses a different toolkit too, and not many people notice the difference.

      Seriously, that's fantastic. All this interoperability work will allow people to decide on a choice of DE(because neither are perfect for everyone, choice is good, IMO) and still bring along some of the major apps!
      ----------
      I fully support the integration work. However, the OP was making the claim that GNOME had somehow won because Phoenix, OpenOffice, etc were all becoming GNOME apps, and that Novell, SuSE, RedHat, and IBM had all moved to GNOME. Those things were just factually incorrect.

      --
      A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
    5. Re:corrections by Ender+Ryan · · Score: 1
      Just one point:

      You can skin Firebird to look like a KDE app too

      Right, but skinning isn't the same as actually using the toolkit to draw the widgets - but I get your point, it still doesn't follow the GNOME HIG. That's why I use Galeon(not 100% HIG, but I don't care, it's still better than Epiphany).

      I fully support the integration work. However, the OP was making the claim that GNOME had somehow won because Phoenix, OpenOffice, etc were all becoming GNOME apps, and that Novell, SuSE, RedHat, and IBM had all moved to GNOME. Those things were just factually incorrect.

      I understand what you're saying, and I agree. It seems to me that both desktops are "winning."

      Cheers!

      --
      Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
  66. Waaah! by Findus+Krispy · · Score: 1

    Stop crying and stop using KDE apps. There you are. Is baby okay now?

    > I don't want my apps behave or look like KDE. If I did I'd be using KDE.

    Well. It must be your lucky day! This work is *only* for KDE users who want better integrated non KDE apps. There has been a ton of recent integration announcements for KDE users, but none yet for Gnome people, so you may be safe yet.

    1. Re:Waaah! by topics · · Score: 1

      I'm not using KDE apps. Sounds like you got out the wrong side of the bed. Why is it so upsetting to you that I don't use KDE?

      My point is not that KDE or GNOME is good/bad/perfect/flawed, etc. It's that if you mix the two together, and they look the same but behave differently, then it is confusing to users. If that's fine with you, it's your computer. But, I believe this kind of integration is only cosmetic, making things worse. Better integration would be to create a common set of Human Interface Guidelines.

    2. Re:Waaah! by be-fan · · Score: 1

      Take a hard look at Windows apps like Office, Visual Studio, and Internet Explorer. Not only do they not look the same, but they do not behave the same. And these come from a single company!

      --
      A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
    3. Re:Waaah! by topics · · Score: 1

      They sure do work differently. Microsoft is a long way from being the benchmark of usability.

      This is one of my pet hates about desktop environments ( not saying GNOME is perfect either, but they are addressing the problem ). Probably because of my work as a HMI (Human Machine Interaction) Specialist in submarine combat systems. The last thing you want users thinking is the user interface ( both graphical and physical ). Especially when they are under a bit of stress.

      As far a usability goes, most computer ( graphical ) interfaces are shockingly bad. If you are interested in usability try reading a book called The Design of Everyday Things. Then take another look at desktop environments. There is a lot to be learnt from other disciplines.

      It's amazing how little programmers actually know about humans. Just because they are human doesn't mean they can design for them.

  67. GPL "protects" better than LGPL?? by beakburke · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I really don't understand that logic. In fact, for system facilities, libraries, etc, I think the LGPL makes more sense. If a programmer wants to write a proprietary GTK or QT app it should be able to access all the system level facilities that the respective GNOME and KDE environments offer. Now it shouldn't be able to pull the code of a competing free software project into it with out having to give back. In short, if you are providing an open service/API or other applications to use, I personally dont' think it's right to discriminate as to what apps can use the service. Them actually rolling your code into their package though is a different matter. Kernel = GPL libraries = LGPL apps = GPL (or proprietary if you really want to) The app writer should be able to make that choice.

    --
    ----- Question authority, but not ours. Hate the man, but we're not him.
    1. Re:GPL "protects" better than LGPL?? by Findus+Krispy · · Score: 1

      > I really don't understand that logic.

      That would be because that is not what I said. What I said was:

      GPL better protects free IP (than LGPL)
      Proprietary better protects proprietary IP (than LGPL)

      The LGPL is a middle ground. Adding your free IP to an LGPL product does not give you the same guarantees of continued freedom as does GPL (look at Wine), and building your proprietary IP around LGPL is not as safe (at least perceptively) as building that IP on top of software available under a proprietary license.

      Personally, I would hapilly build a proprietary product around LGPL (and many OSS savy companies do), but traditonal companies almost always feel safer with a proprietary license.

      I was merely making a comeback at Gnome supporters that say their single licensed LGPL product is necesarilly better than a tri licensed product like Qt. The one advantage that Gtk does have in this respect is that it allows proprietary software to be built without making any return contribution (either code or money) to the people that made the software available in the first place. And, IMO, this is not such a great 'advantage' in the first place, at least not for those who did contribute.

  68. Re:Anyone else notice the "direction" of integrati by Roberto · · Score: 1

    Well, you could say kdevelop - anjuta, except you would have to say kdevelop is beter ;-)

    BTW: kwrite is not a word processor.

  69. Re:TrollTech is setting us up just like SCO by Roberto · · Score: 1

    If its not a great deal, dont do it.

  70. Re:Finally GNOME can get a nice file dialog! by Roberto · · Score: 1

    Lets see if I got this right: you want the slashdot readers to explain to you why you dont like KDE?

    I have no answer to that question, but I am guessing its because you lack introspection.

  71. Die Einheit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Mr Torvalds, tear down this wall!

  72. Re:TrollTech is setting us up just like SCO by be-fan · · Score: 1

    Qt is GPL'ed on Linux and Mac OS X, and a GPL'ed Qt port for Windows is about 80% complete.

    --
    A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
  73. Re:TrollTech is setting us up just like SCO by shaitand · · Score: 1

    There is an easier way, simply write a trivial program, link the QT GPL'd lib to it and distribute it under the BSD license (which is gpl compatible, the gpl doesn't require you redistribute under the gpl, only under a license which gives the same rights). Have a friend download the source under this license, have the friend in turn make a small change and redistribute his "fork" under the BSD license back to you. Now you have QT under the BSD license and can close the source.

    Easy as pie. (Believe it or not this just occured to me, I'm going to go back and read the gpl and find out where they've put something in that would prevent this).

  74. Re:TrollTech is setting us up just like SCO by loucura! · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Yes, they did. When you distribute under the BSD license, only your code is under the BSD license. When you combine the two, the GPL supercedes the GPL so the entire distribution (your BSD program + GPL program foo) is distributed under the GPL license.

    That means, if I so choose, I could sever the GPL parts from the BSD parts and close your software, but not the GPL parts, because I wasn't given permission to.

    --
    Black and grey are both shades of white.
  75. Re:Anyone else notice the "direction" of integrati by Bob+Uhl · · Score: 1
    So, why are more apps written using GTK/Gnome?

    My guess is this: gtk+ is pure C while Qt is C++. Sure, there are C bindings available for Qt, but it's Not the Same Thing. I'm not much of a language bigot: I write (poorly) in C, python, Scheme, perl, Common Lisp and shell, but something's just not right about C++.

    I agree, though: it would have been nice had the KDE guys been more practical from the get-go. They've a lot of good ideas (although the pioneer the wm-and-desktop combo, which sucks bigtime IMHO). A lot of their architecture is pretty impressive, but it also just doesn't feel right from a Unix perspective, if that makes sense.

  76. Re:Anyone else notice the "direction" of integrati by MikeBabcock · · Score: 1

    GIMP predates Gnome though; GIMP even predates Gtk+ to some degree as Gtk+ was designed out of GIMP's needs.

    Anyone else remember those days? :-)

    Ahh ... FVWM (not).

    Current versions of The GIMP may or may not use Gnome features at this point beyond the simple Gtk+ reliance, but I'm not sure of that.

    --
    - Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
  77. Re:Anyone else notice the "direction" of integrati by Trepalium · · Score: 1
    Uhg. Do you ever get tired of cheerleading? KDE has nothing but problems, while Gnome is perfect? Please. You say Gnome is better for 'non-geeks', yet has to this day one of the worst usability problems in it's file requestor. Namely, tab completion. It's finally getting attention, and future versions of Gnome won't feature tab completion in that dialog anymore, but that problem has persisted for a very long time. Then there's the object model of Gnome versus KDE. For KDE, most of it's applications are available as KParts that can be embedded in other applications. Gnome's infrastructure has made this almost impossible for Gnome to do, so most applications 'reinvent the wheel'.

    My point is not that KDE is perfect, but rather that both have some rather large problems right now. KDE's Control Center is a mess mostly because it's so poorly organized, but I feel that Gnome's solution to this particular problem is wrong headed (removing the options from the dialogs, and hiding them in a MS Windows registry-style configuration system)

    --
    I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
  78. moderation bias? by k-zed · · Score: 1

    Anyone else noticed that pro-gnome posts tend to get moderated Troll but pro-kde ones always get Insightful? Pray, why does this happen?

    --
    we discovered a new way to think.
  79. Re:Anyone else notice the "direction" of integrati by 10Ghz · · Score: 2, Interesting
    kmail - evolution


    More realistic comparison would be Kontact - Evolution.

    kwrite - abiword


    I guess you mean Kword - Abiword?

    konqueror - epiphany


    I prefer Konqueror. How well does Epiphany handle filemanagament? Now very well eh? That's what I thought...

    kcontrol - gnome control center


    I think Kcontrol is superior. It lets me tweak the desktop EXACTLY the way I want to.

    in every case gnome or gtk software was more polished in interface, more directed to its usage and simpler to use


    Maye GNOME is more gung-ho when it comes to simplicity of use. But they do that at the expense of configurability. Sorry, but I prefer KDE's approach. And I have exactly ZERO problems with KDE and it's ease of use. Just because you can tweak it as much as you want does not mean that it's hard to use.
    --
    Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
  80. Re:Anyone else notice the "direction" of integrati by juhaz · · Score: 1

    Yeah, I notice the "direction". It's same it has always been, and very simple one: KDE people are simply louder.

    All Linux apps able to use KIO Slaves

    GNOME VFS has been usable to all Linux app trough LUFS for over YEAR, now KDE folks finally manage something similar and they start yelling about it like the world is about to end.

    Of course, this was stupid then - and is still stupid with KIO, totally backwards. KIO and GNOME VFS should use the generic LUFS/FUSE, and not otherway around.

    Also, this OO.o unification thing was developed by a RedHat employee for GTK, there is also a win32 version. KDE zealots obviously didn't bother to mention anything about that in the article, nah, they want it to seem like they did it and are only ones to have it.

  81. Wasting time on integration by chegosaurus · · Score: 1

    Wouldn't it be better for everyone if we just sat down and decided which desktop was best, then all used it and just forgot about the other?

    Honestly, why can't everyone just get along?

  82. Re:SIG by Alsee · · Score: 1

    for(int r=0,c=24;24-r;){printf(c--?c>r?" ":~r&c?" '":" #":(c=24,++r,"\n"));}

    78 characters :)

    -

    --
    - - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
  83. People doesn't want responsability! by Nicolay77 · · Score: 1

    So if something is broke because of their decisions they would vastly prefer that no such options are present.

    That's why religions exists. If something is wrong there is someone else to blame.

    And in that sense, yes, sometimes, people don't want to choose, they want you to choose for them.

    Only when options are meaningless, like desktop themes, or colors, they want choice.

    --
    We are Turing O-Machines. The Oracle is out there.