Shuttleworth Sees Possibility For a QT-based GNOME

An anonymous reader writes "derStandard.at has an extensive interview with Ubuntu-founder Mark Shuttleworth, in which he seems to be pushing for a switch to QT in the GNOME-project: 'I think it would be perfectly possible to deliver the values of GNOME on top of QT.' He goes on to talk about Apple as an 'innovation leader' and problems with Hardy Heron."

Comments

No, GNOME-like values on QT

[paroneayea]

That's a pretty misleading summary. Actual quote:

derStandard.at: So you would favor GNOME to switch over to QT?

Shuttleworth: Well, I think it would be perfectly possible to deliver the values of GNOME on top of QT. There are licensing issues, GNOME is very much built on the LGPL, allowing companies to build their own products on a free software system, giving them some freedom and flexibility in their choice of licensing. That's very frankly been a huge drive for the adoption of GNOME by corporate ISVs.

He says in this article that GNOME was chosen for how easy to use it is. He's saying that the widget set doesn't dictate that, so the same thing could be done with QT, not that GNOME should be rewritten with QT.

Re:No, GNOME-like values on QT

[Darkness404]

The lack of UI standardization is really making life unnecessarily hard.

Oh yah, because they are so standarized in Windows. Let see if they all use the Windows toolkit and have the same UI for some common Windows Apps.

1. Office, nope
2. Firefox nope
3. Games nope

And many more. Just about every Linux application uses either QT or GTK. Both are good, and in just about 75% of common applications you can get either a QT version or a GTK version.

Re:No, GNOME-like values on QT

[paroneayea]

Oh yah, because they are so standarized in Windows. Let see if they all use the Windows toolkit and have the same UI for some common Windows Apps.

1. Office, nope
2. Firefox nope
3. Games nope

Let's be fair about number three, that's a problem with the gaming industry in general. Almost every game reinvents its own UI, on pretty much all platforms, anywhere. Yes, even on Linux.

Re:No, GNOME-like values on QT

[Anonymous Coward]

> Yeah, I thought that conclusion seemed suspect too. "It's possible" is different from advocating it.

That must be why the headline reads 'Shuttleworth Sees Possibility' instead of 'Shuttleworth Advocates'

Re:No, GNOME-like values on QT

[zootm]

Issue isn't with headline, it's with the summary:

...he seems to be pushing for a switch to QT in the GNOME-project...

I realise misleading summaries are far from rare on Slashdot, but still.

Re:No, GNOME-like values on QT

[recoiledsnake]

DirectX is not a user-interface API. It's a graphic programming API.

Re:No, GNOME-like values on QT

[Jerry]

You do know that the GNOME and KDE dev crews are meeting this summer in a joint conference, don't you?

Some sort of merging would be nice but there are a lot of hurdles to leap over, the first being that GNOME is built using C and KDE is built using C++.

The second is that GNOME requires at least 6 separate additional apps be installed in order to do development, while KDE supplies everything that is needed in one download file.

The third is that GTK+ is a UI toolkit only, while QT4 includes both the GUI designer AND an API for database connectivity, threading, console app development, and many, many more features.

The fourth is that GNOME offers an LGPL license to facilitate the inclusion of proprietary binary files and QT requires that developers purchase a commercial developer's license in order to include proprietary binary files in a distro. That license could cost as much as $3K apiece and $1.5K/year for support. This is, no doubt, the BIG reason why ISVs prefer GNOME over KDE.

However, GNOME already includes KDE components which enable GNOME users to run KDE applications, and KDE include GNOME components that allow it run GNOME apps, so a lot of progress has been made already. I will wager that even more progress will be made at this summer's conference.

Re:No, GNOME-like values on QT

[dbcad7]

Baloney.. You could say that life is unnecessarily hard to have more than one OS.. There is nothing about having both KDE and Gnome as options that is stopping or slowing down anything. You can have Gnome as your primary desktop and run KDE only apps no problem, and vice-versa... You can install both (and more) window managers if you want, and run a different one each day.. no problem.

eh?

[jabjoe]

Wouldn't that get rid of the original point of GNOME? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOME#History

Re:eh?

[msuarezalvarez]

In the name of $SOMETHING, just let the `reversed OK and Cancel buttons' meme die.

Of course, you are free to define `usability' as `whatever is closest to Windows' if yu want. I, for one, prefer having the most frequently used button always be put in the same place relative to the bottom right corner.

RFTA

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously. This is going to be one of the biggest misquoted articles of the year because some Slashdot nobody editor decided to take Shuttleworth's words out of question's context.

He quite clearly says that it is possible to deliver GNOME's qualities on Qt. He didn't say that he wants to do it. He didn't say he was going to do it. He even pointed out a problem in doing it (GPL vs LGPL).

Of course, it would also be possible to deliver GNOME's qualities on Enlightenment or Tcl/Tk if you could find enough hackers to do it. There's nothing unique about GNOME's qualities that only GNOME could do it. They simply picked a different path, and it happens to be one that works incredibly well for Ubuntu. So well that they can share schedules with GNOME, that they can build a base for ISVs on GNOME, and on and on.

So please, PLEASE read the fine article before jumping to conclusions from the terrible Slashdot header.

Re:RFTA

[mhall119]

It read more of a "Gnome does not have to be GTK only", more than "Lets move Gnome over to QT". He also specifically mentioned things like HAL and D-Bus as examples of "common infrastructure", so he's not just talking about the UI toolkit.

Re:RFTA

[Anonymous Coward]

Because he also says that he would like to see standardization in infrastructure

There's this association called "FreeDesktop.Org", I wonder if you've ever heard about them? They've been working for years and years now trying to bring all Linux desktop environments to the same table, instead of reimplementing 100 proprietary components and somehow trying to mash them together. We've already seen enormous successes come out of the project, D-Bus being one of the biggest of them.

He'd also be a moron not to have thought about it. Nobody's closing their eyes to KDE, and it's hard not to acknowledge their improvements nor any other environment's progress. The important part to take away from G'Op's post is that Shuttleworth is not planning to rewrite GNOME in Qt.

Re:RFTA

[Anonymous Coward]

KDELibs is LGPL. People without a clue should just STFU.

Re:RFTA

[SomeKDEUser]

Actually, they are LGPL...

Re:RFTA

[Knuckles]

But it isn't factually correct. Shuttleworth does not seem to push for a Qt-based Gnome at all.

Qt nitpicking

[cronius]

For those that don't know: It's Qt, not QT. It's not an acronym, it's pronounced "cute."

One of the guys from trolltech once told me that when they created the library(-ies) they needed a prefix for all the functions. The letter 'Q' was chosen as it was the most appealing / best looking letter in emacs at the time (which was the head developers favourite editor).

Thus Qt became the name.

What on earth is he getting at?

[argent]

Shuttleworth says: "And you can't run an old Windows application on a recent Windows version."

There are some applications, particularly ones that are pushing the limits of what you can do on a PC, that can't run on the most recent versions of Windows, but in general that's not true. I've got programs that I've carried around for decades that still work as far as I've been willing to take Windows.

Mind you, Vista might be an exception, but Microsoft has... up to Vista... bent over backwards to ludicrous levels to maintain backwards compatibility. The phrase "the exception that proves the rule" is a cliche, but this is a perfect example of an exception that DOES prove the rule... there's an enormous push-back against Vista simply because it's perceived as being incompatible. It's NOT a model to follow.

Re:Will the real Mark Shuttleworth stand up?

[dedazo]

You shouldn't be modded up after the crapflood you organized yesterday. In fact, anyone who operates 12 accounts and does things like these should be banned from Slashdot altogether.

Thankfully there are people who keep track of what you do.

I expect you'll be replying to this with the name troll account you created for me, just like you troll other legitimate Slashdot users people that way.