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Shuttleworth Sees Possibility For a QT-based GNOME

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the left-some-neurons-in-space dept.

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."

8 of 296 comments (clear)

  1. No, GNOME-like values on QT by paroneayea · · Score: 5, Informative
    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.

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    http://mediagoblin.org/
    1. Re:No, GNOME-like values on QT by Darkness404 · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

      --
      Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
    2. Re:No, GNOME-like values on QT by paroneayea · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

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      http://mediagoblin.org/
    3. Re:No, GNOME-like values on QT by Jerry · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

      --

      Running with Linux for over 20 years!

  2. eh? by jabjoe · · Score: 4, Informative

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

  3. RFTA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:RFTA by mhall119 · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

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      http://www.mhall119.com
  4. Qt nitpicking by cronius · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

    --
    Life is Reality