The GNOME Journal, January Edition

Bates writes "The latest issue of The GNOME Journal has just been published. This regularly published online magazine features original content and commentary for and by the GNOME Community. This second issue covers some technical articles, including CD/DVD creation, connecting to remote resources, and how to get help from the GNOME community. Also, will GNOME pass the Liberal Arts major test? Developer topics are also covered, as Seth Nickell takes at look at the 'Experimental Culture' surrounding GNOME development and Christian Hammond sheds light on the concept of desktop presence."

Comments

KDE vs GNOME

[molnarcs]

[RANT=ON] You read the title of my comment :) Now a disclaimer: I'm not a GNOME user. And usually I don't post in GNOME related news b/c most of the time I don't read it. Now I did, and something strikes me as curious.

We all know of the KDE vs GNOME debate. There can't be a KDE announcment posted on OSNEWS without GNOME-fans spamming the thread with "konqueror is sooo cluttered I can't use it" kinda messages. Well, that's why you use GNOME, don't you, so why do you want KDE to be like GNOME if you already have something that satisfies you, and we, KDE users have something that satisfies us. That's what I usually think. I don't know about GNOME announcments for I don't read them. Maybe KDE users - well, lets call them for what they are: zealots - spam GNOME announments as well, I don't know. I don't say a KDE guy shouldn't comment in GNOME threads, or vice versa - it's just beating the same horse over and over again is not quite useful. WE LIKE FEATURES, and I don't feel like I can't use Konqi because there are 4 extra buttons on its toolbar compared to firefox.

Anyway, what prompted me to comment on this is that I thought that this is only a small but vocal minority of the overall user-base of GNOME. Afterall, projects with a significantly large userbase will have its share of zealots. But the very first link I clicked in this announcement begins with this (well, the first comments after the quotes):

I would argue it was already an in accurate caricature when it was written, but was spot on only a year or two before. When I first read that page, on balance, I thought it made it sound better to be a GNOME developer than a KDE developer. At least GNOME developers sounded creative and lively.

Today, I would argue that the caricatures are almost reversed. GNOME is a paragon of usable, restrained, unimaginative, corporate development. KDE is lively, nimble, cluttered, and a little crazy. What happened? How can we get the good aspects of "old GNOME" back without returning to diagramming in puddles of spilt beer, urine and vomit?

This is quite dissappointing. Why does the GNOME JOurnal have to begin with talking about KDE? Who writes GNOME journal? Is it "official"? Because this preoccupation with KDE, the irresistible urge to compare and judge (we the HIG people, they the Clutter people) the rival project is somewhat pathetic. Now I didn't read the rest of the articles - and I may be in the wrong here, but I find it sad that what ruins most of the discussions in KDE vs GNOME debates (because an interesting discussion _is_ possible I believe) is exactly the kind of crap we read in the opening lines of an (at least semi)official journal.

[RANT=OFF]

Re:KDE vs GNOME

[theantix]

Excuse me? "we the HIG people, they the Clutter people" is pretty much a summary of the difference between the two projects. Epiphany vs Konqueror, Nautiuls vs Konqueror, Konsole vs. gnome-terminal, Kedit vs Gedit, koffice vs gnome office, k3b vs nautilus/coaster, Kopete vs gossip/gaim. In each of these applications the KDE app has more features but the Gnome app is more streamlined and simple. Hell, you can even find this pattern in the games each project ships, the dialog boxes, the panel, the configuration settings. Nearly every aspect of the projects, where they differ the important difference is Simplicity vs. Features.

The projects are increasinly moving towards each other in some way, soon will be sharing a gstreamer backend, and are ditching the historical C/C++ divide as non-C projects are able to be included into Gnome (and probably non-C++ into KDE, but I don't know that for sure). They are co-operating in freedesktop.org in many important respects. Increasingly, the difference between Gnome and KDE are the choices required in the balance of Simplicity vs. Features. This observation is not a troll or exaggeration, though it is clearly the basis of what trolls use for material.