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Release Team Proposes Gnome 3.0 Plans
benuski writes "Today at GUADEC, the Gnome User and Developer European Conference, the gtk+ team announced their plans for gtk+ 3.0; immediately after, the Gnome release team announced their plans for Gnome 2.30 to be changed into Gnome 3.0. This would mean a release date a year and a half to a year in the future. Details are short at the moment, but the Gnome team seems to be following in KDE's footsteps, but hopefully will avoid the problems that plagued KDE 4.0's release."
Can Gnome 3.0 allow programs to render to the root window? Try running xplanet in gnome - you might catch a glimpse of something when you shut down. Try playing video on root with VLC - no uh uh. There are hacks to get screen savers and things to run on the background. This seems to be a fundamental design "feature" of gnome - the kind of thing you'd want to change in a major version bump. Or are they calling it 3.0 because 2.30 sounds too much like some really old software being patched over and over?
Funny that this is a precise opposite of the position that the GNOME project has held for so long - perhaps the KDE people are beginning to scare them? I sincerely hope not (and doubt it)
In other words, at this stage this is about the development team, not about the technical issues.
The problem with KDE 4 has nothing to do with features of stability, but the transparency of the project.
Many of the nicer features like Solid, Phonon, Sonnet, Akondi, etc. aren't visible. Plasma is extremely visible. It affects the users directly.
Yet no one knows what the long term design plans ffor Plasma are. The users keep getting surprised, and they feel that Plasma over-promised and under-delivered.
On top of that you have Aaron Segio now suggesting that users should have less control over configuration, fewer choices, and saying that end users are dumb. He also has suggested repeatedly lately that if you're not a coder, then you can't comment on UI issues.
Gnome already has a few of those problems (removing choice, treating users like they're dumb) but Gnome users don't seem to mind. For corporate environments, or people who can't be troubled to configure things, they just want working defaults and simplicity. That isn't a flame, but rather the way things are.
I can't expect Gnome users getting upset unless they don't have a good working, default desktop.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Probably clutter (http://clutter-project.org/)
I know people will think I'm crazy, but I have a vision for kGnome.
QT 4 actually has a Clearlooks engine designed to look like Gnome. Dolphin can be configured to operate largely like Natilus (except it works better these days).
If QT 4 actully really does use less memory and runs faster, why not do a test and port a small Gnome app or two over to QT 4?
The app can run with the QT 4 Clearlooks engine, and look largely like Gnome apps, except they can take advantage of many of the KDE features like Phonon, Solid, Sonnet, etc.
As for the people who prefer C to C++, aren't there language bindings for both for QT and GTK?
I'd love to see just a few small apps as a proof of concept. It could demonstrate the feasibility of a Gnome desktop built upon QT, especially considering the annoucement of Gnome 3, and the decision to break API.
If you're going to build anew, shouldn't this concept at least be considered for a moment? Both projects can have their seperate apps, desktops, defaults, window decorations, features, etc. But more common libraries and toolkits are a win for everyone.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
If that isn't enough, Trolltech will also provide QGtkStyle which will draw using native GTK widgets in the same way it uses native Cocoa/Carbon on OS X to make all Qt/KDE 4 applications have a Gnome look and feel, including things like the order of the dialog buttons.
My other account has a 3-digit UID.
KDE3 was bloated to a fault, and had an unhealthy obsession with identical-looking blue toolbar icons. It was also due for an architectural revamp.
GNOME started going down the "less is more" minimalistic path a few years ago, encouraged by Apple's similar philosophy that seemed to go over well with consumers. Unfortunately, many feel that they stripped a bit too much out (still, I prefer this approach, and was a rabid Xfce user for quite some time).
KDE4 on the other hand, doesn't feel like it was designed with a minimalistic philosophy in mind. Granted, there was a clear and commendable goal to cut out most of the cruft from KDE3, but it currently still feels a bit incomplete
Do you think that's a fair assesment?
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
KDE4 is still in development, so yes it is incomplete.
That withstanding, I would say it is a fair assessment. Although I like XFCE more for its small footprint than lack-of-features (simple without being, er, simplified). But to be honest, KDE is my favorite and KDE4 is looking to be very nice (for me) once it's 'done'.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Try Eiffel if you really want a language that learned from Java's mistakes. C# is a simply copycat, with an added set of problems and few small corrections.
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