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Deep Inside the K Desktop Environment
Lemmingue writes "Ars Technica published a very good article about the KDE architecture. It's a essential read for anyone wondering how Konqueror can open documents in the same window or just understand the license issues regarding the Qt use.
The article describes most of the technologies behind the KDE (Qt, KParts) and how the project is organized.
The article is full of links, screenshots and diagrams."
Regarding the subject: probably because someone among the KDE people thinks s/he can do better than the author of the original app. As far as apps like kopete and kontact go, they actually did do better. Konqueror is still primarily a file manager (excellent browser too, but I guess the "standard" browser will be Firefox in the near future), and significantly better than nautilus as far ergonomics and features go. It also preceded nautilus chronologically.
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
Has it occurred to anyone that supporting non-l337 g33kz using KDE as a primary desktop will be made more difficult just because it's impossible to keep track of all the dopey names for things?
How does 'kopete' relate to 'chat' or 'instant messaging'? How does 'Konqueror' relate to 'browsing the web'? How does 'Apollon' apply to p2p? How does 'K3b' apply to CD burning/ripping? KMail works. KControlCenter works. Easy for someone to figure out what it does by its name. That is what A NAME IS FOR. We're not dealing with hungarian notation here: The whole idea of a UI is that it needs to be completely descriptive at a glance, and anything that is counterintuitive or obscurantist needs to be fixed or replaced. Normals expect this, they don't think it a crutch, and they're not expected to know better (as developers who take issue with HN may argue other developers _are_ expected to).
At least Apple (and even M$ to a lesser extent) uses prosaic names like iPhoto, iChat, Mail, DVD Player, iCal, Address Book, which makes it easier for mortals to understand their metaphor (Safari being the most egregious exception). KDE ware names seem purposefully opaque, and if you want to make a dent in the GUI you either have to hope for great icons and forget the names, or you have to do more work than you should have to do.
I love KDE, I think anyone from 3 to 103 could use it comfortably, but I shudder to think about all the help calls I'd get from people just trying to find shit in the interface.. It took me an hour of googling to figure out what the hell Apollon was! Anything that can or should be in a base KDE release (or a bundle, like kdemultimedia or kdenetwork) should have a simple, descriptive name, even if it means stepping on the toes of obsolete projects or capricious developers.
(OTOH, maybe you don't give a damn about condemning your less technical friends and/or family to a life of M$ hell. Oh well.)
I'm not particularly a KDE fanatic, and frankly Firefox is normally better than konqueror. However I tend to use konqueror when I can just because it integrates so well with everything else. The same is a million times more applicable to kopete and kontact. If you don't think of them as separate programs, but as part of a unified desktop then I think it makes more sense.
You are using hyperbole -- the Qt licensing problems are real, serious, not likely to go away, and brushed off by the Ars Technica article. I've mentioned a few of the problems that I have with Qt further down. It is wildly different from using a GPLed kernel (the GPL largely does not enforce issues between the kernel and userspace apps, and Linus has taken an interpretation that the GPL is not forced upon kernel modules). BSD software does not force software using it to take a particular license, and the library at issue is not one of the most fundamental to Linux's future use.
May we never see th
If they're doing closed source non-GPLed development then they should have to pay this. I don't see why this is a problem.
Sweet, thanks for offering to buy me a $3000 cross-platform developer license.
The licensing issue is the one reason why I'm avoiding Qt. I dump Microsoft because they charge me lots of money for things I don't want.. and Trolltech turns around and tries to do the same thing. Qt/KDE offers me less choice and pads the pockets of Trolltech if I wish to go closed source. Saying that GNOME sucks donkey balls does not change a thing, not is it an effective argument.
It's about control. I currently control my code on all platforms that I choose to release on. I am not about to change the licence that I use because some whiny snot-nosed hippie on Slashdot told me to.
Until KDE allows LGPL'd use of their libraries - free use through dynamic linking, just like every other major GUI system including Windows, Os X and Gnome - KDE will not have the support of the commercial software industry. Unless Gnome wins the desktop war, the Linux desktop will remain a fragmented mess that nobody can sell commercial applications for.
Thank you, Gnome developers, for predicting the licensing issues and creating your competing windowing system that allows developers freedom to create applications on their own terms.
You know, I really like seeing Ars-Slashdot ties. I don't see the two as competing much -- Ars has lots of good, original content, whereas Slashdot just links to content, but Slashcode is (IMHO) a more pleasant-to-use forum engine. They complement each other very nicely.
May we never see th
You're running an operating system that is "state of the art" and comparing it to an OS which is over four years old.
Not that this is an excuse, but that's the way it is. A current distro (like Mandrake 10) is going to first cater to those with current hardware. With a recent AthlonXP or P4 you are less inconvenienced by the difference in speed.
The fact is, Linux distros like Fedora, SuSE, and Mandrake are resource hogs, particularly running a big desktop environment like KDE or GNOME. So, you've got the following options: 1) upgrade your hardware, 2) use a slimmer window manager, 3) try Gentoo (compiled specifically for your HW), or 4) live with it.
Sorry!
Look at the tomato! Isn't it sad? He can't dance! Poor tomato!
I am a long time Gnome user and only recently have been using (and really liking) KDE. While it may seem to be reinventing the wheel, there is not much choie for a KDE developer. They cannot reuse GTK/Gnome stuff, since that would add more dependencies to a KDE desktop. Why would a KDE desktop user want Gnome/GTK dependencies? Just as why would a Gnome/GTK desktop user want QT/KDE dependencies? The two toolkits and desktops are very different and use different languages (C and C++) so the hope of reusing GTK/Gnome and QT/KDE is slim to none. They could reuse ideas, but not code. Just as it would be hard to reuse code between MS Windows and Mac OSX.
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison