Interview with Chris Schlaeger from Novell/SUSE

Fabrice Mous writes "At aKademy I had the chance to talk to Chris Schlaeger about SUSE and their relationship with the KDE community, his view of a Linux enterprise desktop and the speed of development of several key features in KDE. Read the interview at the KDE news website."

Comments

Novell/SuSE?

[gatesh8r]

No no no no! You got it all wrong! It's GNU/Novell/GNU/SUSE. Sheesh. RMS will be here shortly...

Re:Novell/SuSE?

[pete-classic]

This joke is getting awfully tired.

RMS only wants "Linux" systems that use the GNU tools to be called GNU/Linux. He doesn't want, for example, embedded systems that don't use GNU to be called GNU/Linux. He doesn't want the Linux kernel to be called GNU/Linux. He just wants systems that are constructed predominantly from GNU code to be called GNU/Linux.

Linux is great, but we wouldn't get very far without GCC, the binutils, bash, the coreutils (which include chmod, cat, su, ls, tail, and on and on), etc.

Just a little credit where credit is due. This seems reasonable to me.

-Peter

Groupwise Integration

[grunt107]

One of the nicest features in Groupwise was the message tracking. Without setting up back notifications, I could see if the message was received, opened, and/or removed. Then, when someone told their superiors they did not receive a message, I could grab the history and show if it was received and just ingored or removed.

Adding this to Linux is a good improvement.

Too Many Toolkits

[Dante Shamest]

Linux is plagued by too many toolkits. We've got Tcl/TK, Java, Motif, Athena Widgets or the old X toolkit, GTK, and Qt, and all of them look and feel totally different. Applications written in those toolkits do not follow the same standards and guidelines and are a mess to use. Especially if you have them side by side or you need to use them frequently. - Chris Schlaeger from Novell/SUSE

This has been said many times before, but I have to agree because there hasn't been much improvement in this area.

To an experienced Linux user, multiple applications using different toolkits doesn't pose much of a problem. But for Average-Joe, who is used to most applications having the same look-n-feel on Mac OS or Windows, this is a BIG deal.

We really need some simple standards, e.g. standard shortcuts. But alot of people think this would kill the flexibility of Linux.

Re:Too Many Toolkits

[be-fan]

applications having the same look-n-feel on Mac OS or Windows,
In what alternate reality? Windows, in particular, is completely schizo. You've got so many toolkits:

Office XP toolkit. Note the lack of Luna-style buttons.
The Visio toolkit. Note the freaky blue gradient toolbars.
The .NET toolkit. Note the flat buttons and .NET combobox.
Windows Media Player 10 theme.
And here's Luna. Note the distinctive Luna-style buttons and tabbar.

Now, this doesn't count any non-Microsoft apps! Yes, all this schizo-osity is from a single company! Throw iTunes in there, or ephpod, or musicmatch, or AOL (all common apps), and you get even more schizo-osity. Just having GTK+ and Qt is looking pretty good right now, isn't it?

Re:Too Many Toolkits

[Brandybuck]

One of the more insistant and vocal themes heard in the desktop debate
is that that Unix desktop needs to be like Windows. It is said that
multiple widget toolkits, inconsistant dialogs, and other evidences of
a decentralized development model must be removed before the masses
will accept a Unix destkop. This cry for uniformity can be especially
shrill, almost as if the very survival of a certain free operating
system depended upon it. But is the underlying premise true? Is
Windows really a consistant and uniform desktop?

The answer is resoundingly negative.

While conducting a quick survey of configuration dialogs under
Windows, in an attempt to understand what a newbie user of my software
would be familiar with, I discovered that there was no standard
procedure for these dialogs. Even configuration dialogs from the same
manufacturer varied wildly. By all Slashdot accounts, Windows users
must certainly be mentally damaged from their constant exposure to
such inconsistant interfaces.

Where is the configuration dialog located for a Windows application?
Using the Windows system I use every day at work, I discovered that
even this simple item was highly variable. Microsoft Word had two
configuration dialogs, "Tools->Customize" and "Tools->Options",
while Microsoft Outlook added an additional
"Tools->Services". Microsoft WordPad had only one under a completely
different menu "View->Options". Moving on to non-Microsoft products, I
see that Adobe Reader and Quicktime Player have
"Edit->Preferences". But lest you think those are consistant, Adobe Reader
has a single dialog, while Quicktime Player has a submenu of three
dialogs. Firefox and Roxio Creator Classic follow the WordPad model of
placement.

What about the dialog contents themselves? Microsoft Word has modal
tabbed dialogs, while Microsoft Outlook has a modeless tabbed dialog without
a help button. Adobe Reader and Firefox have modal dialogs using a listbox
instead of tabs to separate the pages. Quicktime Player is similar,
but uses a combobox instead of a listbox. Some of these dialogs had
help buttons while the rest lacked them.

Okay, what about the look and feel? Certainly the Windows platform has
a consistant widget set? Sadly, no. Adobe Reader has an
almost-but-not-quite Win2K look, that matches neither the Windows
Classic nor Luna themes that comes with Windows XP. Roxio Creator
Classic has a "brushed plastic" look with odd splitter
controls. Quicktime player has, of course, a look and feel straight
out of another operating system! Comparing native Microsoft
applications only improves matters slightly. Microsoft Word has a
completely different toolbar style than Microsoft WordPad! I could
continue on to some truly egregious examples of inconsistancy, but
I'll leave that as an exercise to the reader.

I think by now that I have thoroughly debunked the notion that the
Windows desktop is uniform and consistant. The question remains
though, is the Unix desktop better? The answer is similarly, "no". But
since Windows isn't consistant, the urgency of the question is clearly
lessoned. Newbies aren't going to be rendered insane by seeing
Evolution running alongside Konqueror. They aren't going to go running
back to Windows when their distro forgot to include Plastik icons with
Mozilla.

Re:Too Many Toolkits

[M. Baranczak]

Mac OS X is a little more consistent, but there are separate Aqua and Brushed Metal styles, with some apps using one style and other apps using the other style.

The differences between Aqua and Brushed Metal are purely cosmetic. The behavior of widgets is the same in both. And the placement of common items is consistent: undo, cut, and paste will always be under the Edit menu, cmd-Q will always quit the application, etc. Which brings me to my next point:

The biggest issue here is not GUI libraries, but application design. For Mac OS, there are well-established standards for interface design, and most developers actually stick to those standards. This is not the case with Linux (Linux is catching up, but it's not quite there.)

Summary of next 100 posts

[Swamii]

1. Kewl I Kan't Wait!
2. Kough Kough Ahem this kough is killing me
3. Stop spelling everying with K's you douche bags
4. What's that green thing in the background?
5. Imagine a beowulf cluster of Chris Schlaegers.
6. Does it run on Linux?
7. Does SUSE run on Linux?
8. Does Chris Schlaeger run on Linux?
9. Is Chris Schlaeger running a beowulf cluster of GNU/Linux boxes in Soviet Russia?

which eventually leads to...

10. Profit!

Re:Too Many Toolkits -- only two that matter

[Anonymous Coward]

This statement is silly, the problem does not really exist any more.

Tcl/TK, Motif, Athena Widgets and plain-X-toolkit are not really in common use anymore, atleast not for recent apps. They're out there, it is not like the can be recalled, but who cares?

Java is not a GUI toolkit, he probably means Swing, but there are not alot of Swing apps. Anyways, QT and GTK+ can both have Java interfaces, so unless Sun opens Java, Swing will die too.

So really there are two GUI toolkits, GTK and QT, and that choice is A GOOD THING.

Dual desktop approach for Novell is silly

[Ars-Fartsica]

New adopters of linux in the business world have likely never heard of KDE and GNOME and certainly are not privy to the endless flame wars on tech gab sites...they just want something that works. For a community distro like Fedora or Debian, choice is key as these distros tend to attract developers as a group...but for a product you are pushing at business, it has to "just work". No, the receptionist at FooBar corp does not have a strong opinion on Gecko v KHTML.

I continue to be confused as to where Novell is going here, and I suspect they are confused too. To simplify, if businesses wanted a vendor-supported "kitchen sink", they would already be using ClubMandrake.

Novell needs to make a choice and go forward with one desktop. Some people will express disappointment in the short term but they are likely already Debian or Fedora users anyway who are not actually in the Novell target market.

Re:Dual desktop approach for Novell is silly

[Anonymous Coward]

Reading the interview I got the impression they simply want to have all the options available until the Linux desktop market consolidates. Keep in mind that we are only beginning to see corporate adoption of Linux on the desktop and it is far from clear what changes that will bring and which desktop will come out on top, or even if one desktop will come out on top eventually.

In this situation keeping your options open does seem like a reasonable idea to me.

KHTML will be obsolete

[Dulimano]

Important quote:

"Customers that do web application development heavily use DHTML and other special features that Konqueror doesn't handle very well and it is a lot of work to implement this. Although I like KHTML and the architecture quite a bit I am sad to say that probably the Gecko rendering engine will be the dominant one used in the enterprise arena, and as KDE developers we've got to make sure that we can integrate Gecko fairly well into KDE.

So Lars Knoll and Zack Rusin started working on this at aKademy and I was delighted when they put me aside and showed me what they have done in just three days. It is amazing! I think it is the right way to go! It is a bit sad for KHTML and I hope that despite this people will still maintain it as it is a nice lightweight browser. If it would be a purely technical decision, KHTML has the better architecture, but sometimes you need to go the shortest way to get to your target."

Re:KHTML will be obsolete

[LMCBoy]

No, KHTML will be used in Safari and it'll mature through Safari.

I wouldn't be too sure about this. Think of Apple's WebCore as a fork of KHTML; they are no longer one and the same.

Once the slashdotting subsides, go to the linked article and search for "So what is happening with Safari Patches?" (can't expand the discussion right now; they've gone static to face the /. horde).

Apple has already changed WebCore enough that backporting changes to KHTML is very non-trivial. As usual, we are starved for developers, especially when the task is simply porting someone else's code, rather than solving problems for yourself. Many devs would much rather do the latter, even if "results" come more slowly.

Re:Too Many Toolkits -- only two that matter

[be-fan]

Then you better recall those thousands of desktops across the organization that are running Windows. Because on your average desktop, you've got a *minimum* of three toolkits (.NET, Office & Luna), and four look & feels (.NET, Office, Luna, Media Player).

Re:Big Green Thing?

[Coryoth]

What linux needs is a window manager thats more scalable. So that 1 guy could have his desktop set up in a *box config and another guy could have his set up in a fully loaded KDE type config, and yet they both use the same toolkits and stuff.

The closest thing to that right now is GNOME and XFCE. GNOME provides your big heavy "provide all the libraries you could need" approach (which is very useful for most people), while XFCE provides a fairly light fast Desktop environment. Both use GTK2, and share a certain amount of configuration.

Yes, XFCE is not as light as a pure *box WM, but then it is actually providing a reasonably rich desktop environment rather than just window management. It is a remarkably fast and light DE all things considered.

Jedidiah.