An Interview with Jeff Waugh

An anonymous reader writes "LinuxWorld has published a nice interview with Jeff Waugh, one of the core members of the GNOME community. In the interview Waugh talks about the upcoming GNOME 2.6, his views on software patents and on the involvement of the big vendors in the GNOME development process. Waugh is the current chair of the GNOME release team."

Comments

Waugh

[Anonymous Coward]

"Well well well, what is he good for?" [Only the aussies here will get this. Nothing on *this* (Jeff) Waugh)]

Speaking of GTK 2.4

[$calar]

Wasn't it supposed to be released on the 2nd?

http://gtk.org/plan/2.4/

New file selector, yum.

I'd love to Gnome out!

[Basehart]

After a few lackluster attempts at installing Gnome on my OSX box I have to say that a nice easy step by step instruction would be most helpful.

For many users, all the untarring, compiling and whatnot is a major headache -- akin to grasping the concept of depth of field in photography for me. Once I finally got it, it was super easy, but getting it in the first place was a big struggle.

I guess there's something about the whole process that I either just don't get, or maybe I think it's a lot harder than it really is.

So anyone know an easy way to get Gnome on an OSX box?

Here is the roadmap

[Srin Tuar]

Here is the unification roadmap:

KDE: ----------X
GNOME: ------------------->

</biased_gnome_user>

But, seriously, it doesnt make sense to talk about unifying them, as they are built around fundamentally different toolkits. ( Qt uses a modified subset of C++, GTK+ uses C as a base but has a nice C++ wrapper)

So they cant really be unified, though they can be made quite compatible.

I'm personally biased towards GNOME, because as a C++ programmer I love the stl, and thus hate Qt and the moc. But that doesnt mean I really think that KDE will die off: Free code is, after all, immortal.

Re:Here is the roadmap

[be-fan]

Qt and the STL are not at odds. They are two different approaches for two different problems. The STL is a general-purpose container library. Its not at all object-oriented, and aggressively static.

Meanwhile, Qt is specialized for GUI programming, and moc and the Qt container library fit that very well. Both allow for much more dynamic code, and in my experience, GUIs are extremely well-suited to dynamism in the language. After all, two of the best GUI languages ever (Smalltalk and Objective C) were of the dynamic/object-oriented variety.

I'm a C++ coder too, and also love the STL. However, I've spent a bit of time doing Qt programming, and really do agree that a more dynamic approach is better suited for GUIs.

Re:Here is the roadmap

[claes]

There is more to convergence than just toolkits. It is unfortunate that every comparison between Gnome and KDE always involves comparing toolkits and the differences between them. A desktop is so much more than just the stuff that builds the GUI. Actually, I think we should stop talking about desktop at this point, since the "desktop problem" is more or less solved. I would say both Gnome and KDE have accomplished what was envisioned at the point when the KDE project was started. I say there is a need for a new vision now, something that goes beyond just the simple toolkits on the desktop.

Convergence can take place in a number of areas. The configuration problem needs to be dealt with. Ideally, all programs should have a common configuration mechanism. Apache, Samba, mail servers, X, drivers etc should be easier to configure. There is a need for a common approach to these problems. This is a major problem to solve, since it needs cooperation and a common vision between all developers, not just the desktop developers.

Better hardware handling. There is work in progress here, and it is more important than most other things going on in KDE or Gnome.

Documentation and help systems. Every program should deliver documentation in a way so that can be integrated in a common help system. It should contain relevant metadata, be easily translatable, viewable in different environments. The information about available programs in the system today is scattered: there is information in the package management database, in the man pages, in the doc directory, in the menu hierarchy, but it is loosly coupled and it is not easy to find the documenation given the .desktop entry in the menu directory. I believe the free software community should define a metadata format like the one that freshmeat uses. Every tarball should include descriptions in a common format, and it should be usable in a number of contexts. There is a need for a distributed web of metadata. Today it seems the metadata is centralized in the package repositories and on freshmeat. There is a gap between description of packages and descriptions of the programs they install. Every available application needs good descriptions. Not just "Mozilla" "Web browser". "Konqueror" "Web browser".

Re:This has to be asked...

[nzkoz]

A fundamental API like you're describing would be the 'lowest common denominator' between the two systems. No KIOSlaves for KDE and no Nautilus integration & panel applets on GNOME. Kinda like AWT from old java, and we all know how much that sucked.

A much saner approach is to ensure that the basic stuff is compatible. Window manager hints, preferences etc. Let application authors write with their preferred toolkit, but ensure it doesn't affect users.

Almost all linux users have both toolkits installed anyway. Yes, I realise some KDE users won't have gnome (Gentoo hackophiles etc.) however if they want to use CoolGnomeApp1.0 they'll just install some librarys and they're away.

Desktop Apps

[petabyte]

In terms of the technology, we've basically got all of the desktop applications solved. Between OpenOffice.org, GNOME, Mozilla and a number of other projects, the stack of stuff people generally use on the desktop is pretty much there.

Which really makes me wish that GNUCash was in that group. I do everything (word processing, email, spreadsheets, gaming) on Linux inside Gnome except for managing my finances. I keep a windows box with Quicken around for that. GNUCash could replace that for me but probably not before GNUCash-2 which is supposed to be GTK2. I heard they were short on developers and that was stalling progress on that. I guess personal finance doesn't have much of a place on a business desktop and gets less attention. I've been playing around with SQL-Ledger but thats a bit overkill for my needs.

That aside I love Gnome and am looking forward to 2.6 and Epiphany 1.2. :)

KDE and Gnome *do* run side-by-side

[jonathanbearak]

I don't understand how people keep saying that KDE and Gnome don't work together. They're different environments, but all they're parts are pretty darn interchangeable. A while ago, for the heck of it, I replaced gnome-panel in Session prefs with kicker. Worked perfectly. After reading your post, I called kwin --replace to switch from metacity to kde's wm.

And OO.org ... that's for running across OS's, not KDE/Gnome. Besides, Native Widget Framework is due for the next major release AFAIK.

Mozilla ... it uses gtk+ or gtk2, many of which would consider to be (sort of) Gnome. XUL is not a KDE/Gnome issue. Like OO.o, it's another platform issue.

Gnome and KDE don't need to converge. At this point, they're aiming at different markets. KDE is uber-customizable. Gnome is focusing on KISS usability issues. The important backend stuff is already being taken care of via freedesktop.org.

Re:KDE and Gnome *do* run side-by-side

[theantix]

Bah.

The problem you are complaining about is a problem with Xandros's distribution, not linux. If gnome doesn't run properly in Xandros that just means that they haven't bothered to properly package it. Many distributions have the ability to install GNOME and KDE on the same installation, and applications written for one DE have always run just fine in the other one in every distributions I have tested.

gnome 2.5

[prockcore]

I'm using Gnome 2.5 (Subscribed to the 2.5 channel in Red Carpet, automagically upgraded everything for me). I have to say that Nautilus in the 2.5/2.6 branch is amazing.

How amazing, you ask? It's as fast as gmc used to be. Although it is a little strange to switch back to the old OS9 style Spatial Finder style of file management.

Things are a little buggy, Nautilus crashes every once in a while, and Evolution sometimes doesn't quit correctly. But in general, the whole desktop is great. Gimp1.3 is super sweet, and finally supports re-editable Text layers (ala photoshop)

GNOME is excellent

[Beavis!]

I've recently been introducing my staff at my day job to GNOME since we are moving away from OpenVMS to Unix. Since HP-UX will be coming with GNOME as a default in future releases, I figured it would be good to get the guys used to it by having them use it on a daily basis for basic work stuff. So far they have taken to it pretty well. The most amazing thing is that some of them actually find it EASIER and more FLEXIBLE than Windows. Thank you for a terrific project!

The reverse?

[Gyan]

Waugh: The whole point of the patent system is that they're supposed to be obvious things. But there are a lot of things in computing that are unobvious to a point

Umm, isn't it the opposite? Only those insights and ideas which are "non-obvious".

Re:The reverse?

[jdub!]

Yeah, the interview was done in the middle of the linux.conf.au wireless area, with a tape recorder. It seems a fair few things were lost along the way. ;-)

Re:Software developer talking about patents

[gaijin99]

I used to be excited about computers and sharing ideas, but when the community dedicated to sharing has become a one note wonder, I find myself dulled by such harping on technicalities rather than technologies.

Ahh, another slashdot poster who doesn't bother reading the article. Had you read the article you would have noticed that out of seven questions, one was about software patents. And it was a damn relivant question, too. Other questions focused on interface design, coder community design, etc.

Software patents are important, that's why people talk about them. If software patents are granted universally it won't do much good to talk about the other things, software engineering breakthroughs, etc, because it will be *ILLEGAL* for us to make any such breakthroughs. But, and again I really do have to recommend reading articles before posting like this, the article was hardly an example of FOSS becoming a "one note wonder".

Re:This has to be asked...

[unoengborg]

I certainly agree that fragmentation is a bad thing when it reduces choise. Even Microsoft is starting to use the lack of integration against free desktops in their get the facts campaign. It would be nice if we could prove them wrong.

Even if Gnome/Gtk and KDE/Qt are very different toolkits, that should not prevent users from having a good user experience even if toolkits are mixed. The tookit choise should be a developer only issue.This is possible in windows and on MacOS so why not on free desktops.

E.g. why must each browser have their own bookmark file format and bookmark file lokation? Both Gnome and KDE use a folder as Trash, why not use the same location for that folder by default?

Both Gnome and KDE have a postit applet for small desktop notes, why not use the same file format and file location.

Why not make it possible to do drag&drop between nautilus and konqueror. After all there is a XDND standard that both KDE and Gnome tries to follow in other applications. And if we drag a file from konqueror to the Trash in Nautilus we should get the expected behavior.

Browsers and some other applications have icons that have similar functions in both Gnome and KDE. E.g. Back and Forward icons for browsers. Why not let the icons have the same name in both Gnome and KDE.

Perhaps all such config options and data that is common to both Gnome and KDE could be held in a separate folder named e.g. .freedesktop.org.