KDE Developers Discuss Merging Libraries With Qt

An anonymous reader writes "A proposal has been brought up with KDE developers by Cornelius Schumacher to merge the KDE libraries with the upstream Qt project. This could potentially lead to KDE5 coming about sooner than anticipated, but there's very mixed views on whether merging kdelibs with Qt would actually be beneficial to the KDE project, which has already led to two lengthy mailing list talks (the first and second threads). What do you think?"

Comments

Focus on the now.

[Tamran]

Keep the specifications as they are. Fix all the current issues and make a SOLID product. It's good, but could be a LOT more stable and tight. When that's done, then go for the big merge and add new features.

Tamran

Re:Focus on the now.

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. More is only occasionally better. For example, my current install of KDE requires MySQL. This is absurd.

Re:Focus on the now.

[dudpixel]

KDE SC 4.5+ is a lot more stable than earlier releases. It was good enough for me to switch back from gnome (I switched to gnome a year or 2 ago due to KDE's instability).

To all those who think gnome is great and kde is unusable...well, gnome is great, I'll admit that...but with KDE so many apps have tabbed interfaces and for my work that means a lot less windows open and I can group similar tasks together. It makes a world of difference to productivity. Also mulit-monitor support is much nicer - I can have panels on any screen I want, exactly where I put them.

GNOME isn't bad, but it lacks features. KDE SC 4.5 is pretty darn stable for me...using kubuntu 10.10 right now.

Re:Focus on the now.

[EsbenMoseHansen]

It doesn't, actually. I've run it with postgresql underneath instead :) sqlite is also offered.

Re:Focus on the now.

[GooberToo]

When you desktop environment requires a RDBMS, you know something is broken.

For what possible reason do they require a true RDBMS rather than something like bdb or even sqlite if you want to get crazy? But frankly, why wouldn't you simply use xml (bottom of the list), flat files, csvs, or some such thing behind a configuration server?

Also, for what reason does one application and/or desktop need to relate to another application and/or desktop? This smells of a classic example of what happens when developers have absolutely no clue what the hell they are doing and needlessly complicate things.

Seriously, why do they need a relational anything?

Re:Focus on the now.

[EsbenMoseHansen]

When you desktop environment requires a RDBMS, you know something is broken.

Depends on what you need. If you want a crossreferenced, searchable desktop environment with all your files and links in... RDBMS sounds like just the find you need.

For what possible reason do they require a true RDBMS rather than something like bdb or even sqlite if you want to get crazy?

You know, I did write above that sqlite is offered as an option?

But frankly, why wouldn't you simply use xml (bottom of the list), flat files, csvs, or some such thing behind a configuration server?

Is that even simpler? It's not configuration that is stored, it is mail and stuff like that. Configuration is still in .kde/share/config in a bunch of text files + the places mandated by freedesktop.org.

Also, for what reason does one application and/or desktop need to relate to another application and/or desktop? This smells of a classic example of what happens when developers have absolutely no clue what the hell they are doing and needlessly complicate things.

Seriously, why do they need a relational anything?

I am not a developer on these things. But I can find plenty of reasons for apps to collaborate. E.g, my mail client could submit the patches I just got to my git repository. Then, when I looked at the change set, I could click a link and get the email back. But I do not want my email client needlessly complicated by having to know about git (or git to grow a nice GUI to view emails). Thus, collaboration would be nice in at least 1 case.

Re:Focus on the now.

[GooberToo]

Depends on what you need. If you want a crossreferenced, searchable desktop environment with all your files and links in... RDBMS sounds like just the find you need.

There are plenty of solutions in this space which do not require something anywhere near as heavy as MySQL. Which is, after all, the entirely the basis for my rant. Even then, chances are extremely high, even sqlite is needlessly over the top.

Is that even simpler? It's not configuration that is stored, it is mail and stuff like that. Configuration is still in .kde/share/config in a bunch of text files + the places mandated by freedesktop.org.

We're talking application, not desktop environment. If the desktop environment is now mandating application core functionality, again we have absolutely confirmation that someone making important decisions have absolutely not idea what they are doing.

I am not a developer on these things. But I can find plenty of reasons for apps to collaborate.

Collaboration has absolutely nothing to do with relational requisites.

E.g, my mail client could submit the patches I just got to my git repository. Then, when I looked at the change set, I could click a link and get the email back. But I do not want my email client needlessly complicated by having to know about git (or git to grow a nice GUI to view emails). Thus, collaboration would be nice in at least 1 case.

Fine, but none of that has anything to do with the topic at hand.

Re:Focus on the now.

[JesseMcDonald]

For what possible reason do they require a true RDBMS rather than something like bdb or even sqlite if you want to get crazy?

KDE uses embedded MySQL by default, which is basically like SQLite. There is no dedicated server, and the databases themselves are stored in files of the applications' choosing. The advantage of this approach is that it makes it is completely compatible with the full MySQL server, so applications like Amarok and services like Nepomuk can support both lightweight embedded databases and external MySQL databases without changing any code (beyond actually opening the database).

But frankly, why wouldn't you simply use xml (bottom of the list), flat files, csvs, or some such thing behind a configuration server?

Perhaps because that would actually be more work than simply using an existing library designed for storing relational data? Just a thought.

Re:Focus on the now.

[GooberToo]

Perhaps because that would actually be more work than simply using an existing library designed for storing relational data? Just a thought.

Nope. I've yet to hear what is relational that they need a full database for. And secondly, I've yet to hear why the almost endless list of options they could have taken were passed up. Generally there are some very specific criteria which require SQL, let alone a RDBMS.

Obviously I can be wrong here, but it sure smells like someone with a hard on MySQL simply decided to add it simply because they could rather than because it made any real sense to do so. But, speculation is speculation...

Re:Focus on the now.

[JesseMcDonald]

You seem to be under the mistaken impression that KDE uses relational databases for configuration files. Actually, most KDE configuration files use a simple, standardized INI-like syntax supported by the KDE libraries, just like in KDE3. Some applications use XML for their own application-specific data. Relational databases are used for the Nepomuk repository (Virtuoso), the Akonadi cache (embedded MySQL), and Amarok's media database (embedded MySQL), all of which hold real relational data and require support for efficient updates.

Obviously I can be wrong here, but it sure smells like someone with an irrational dislike for SQL simply decided to complain about it simply because they could rather than because it made any real sense to do so. But, speculation is speculation...

Re:Focus on the now.

[EsbenMoseHansen]

Depends on what you need. If you want a crossreferenced, searchable desktop environment with all your files and links in... RDBMS sounds like just the find you need.

There are plenty of solutions in this space which do not require something anywhere near as heavy as MySQL. Which is, after all, the entirely the basis for my rant. Even then, chances are extremely high, even sqlite is needlessly over the top.

Really? Could you name a system where you could say ask for all emails by a GooberToo that have an attachment which is somewhere in my filesystem? Or perhaps give me all chats with people that have sent me patches? Whether you need this is hardly the point, it is not like it is mandatory. Depending on how your distribution packages it. As for sqlite being over the top: You clearly do not know just how lightweight that is. You propose xml for this? Even plain expat has a comparable footprint to sqlite (154K vs. 553K), and then you need to add the code to write an appropriate schema, debug it, performance tune it.. it's not worth it. Do you know how firefox stores its bookmarks?

We're talking application, not desktop environment.

Interesting, given that the desktop environment runs fine without mysql or any other rdbm.

If the desktop environment is now mandating application core functionality, again we have absolutely confirmation that someone making important decisions have absolutely not idea what they are doing.

Take a breath a *think*. How would the environment even dictate something like that?

Collaboration has absolutely nothing to do with relational requisites.

I just gave you an example of just that. Unless you want every app to code specifically to integrate with every other app? That just does not scale. It should (ideally) be email and versioning system that collaborates, not (just) kmail and git.

Re:Focus on the now.

[GooberToo]

You seem to be under the mistaken impression that KDE

Nope. Re-read the thread.

You seem to be under the completely wrong impress that a relational database engine is the only and/or preferred means to store date. Unless there are very specific reasons to justify doing so, it completely smells on incompetence - or pushing a pet project to the detriment of the project.

Re:Focus on the now.

[JesseMcDonald]

I understood the thread just fine the first time, thanks.

I happen to agree with the KDE developers that an RDBMS is the right solution for the areas in which they are using one, or at least no worse than any of the alternatives. They are not "pushing a pet project"; on the contrary, they have quite competently selected the tools which best address the needs of their project. This is particularly true in comparison to the ad-hoc "solutions" you have advocated, such as CSV files (seriously?), flat files, XML, and unstructured key-value stores, which would without doubt require more work than adopting a "true" RDBMS even if one never uses the latter to its fullest capabilities.

As for SQLite, there is absolutely no advantage, from a complexity standpoint in, using SQLite rather than embedded MySQL for any non-trivial database. Moreover, the MySQL databases have a number of useful features not found in SQLite, including a real type system, better sharing/locking, and API compatibility with the full MySQL server. Of course, for Nepomuk, which primarily deals with RDF-formatted data, the Virtuoso database system is a much better fit than either SQLite or MySQL, having been specifically designed for such data.

Re:Focus on the now.

[GooberToo]

Time and time again the actual use has been dodged. Care to explain what it is that they require a SQL database? Needless to say, I'm extremely doubtful.

The entire point, when seemingly you missed, especially since you seem to directing snide comments, is it isn't likely a desktop environment requires SQL when there are already so many, faster, smaller, lighter solutions.

A major red flag is if users don't require the ability to adhoc query the database, its a really good sign a SQL database is not needed. So please tell me, what is it desktop users need to adhoc directly query from their desktop environment, via SQL and/or ODBC?

Quanta?

[JoeCommodore]

Why don't we finish some unfinished projects (Quanta) that many people are waiting for before changing things again.

Re:Quanta?

[La Gris]

Good question! I was quite upset by Quanta lagging behind in kde-webdev kde3 and Kubuntu messing further with a kde-webdev kde4 missing quanta and mentioning it in content from the readme. How one can consider Kde seriously with such inconsistencies. By the way, I still enjoy Quanta as it is, despite some of its shortcomings of performance issue when you enter href or load project with thousands of files.

Re:Quanta?

[billcopc]

Because if you've paid any attention to the KDE project since 4.0 betas, you'd have realized they don't give a rat's ass about completeness, performance, stability and usability. They just want to change everything all the fucking time until all the users flock to something less flashy and more productive, and then the KDE devs will be free to play Starcraft all day long.

At least that's how it looks like from my perspective, as a developer who has been royally pissed ever since KDE 3.5 was deprecated. I lose gobs of time to bugs and crashes, but am also terrified to update for fear of breakage, as has been the tendency with every minor release of 4.x. I still can't make reliable use of something as fundamental as FTP and SSH kioslaves. You think Quanta's fucked ? I've reverted to a Kate + kioslave workflow and I still run into issues - screw debugging, I can't even tell if my file is going to save properly.

I think the KDE devs need to call for a feature freeze, get what's already in there into a usable and stable condition, long before contemplating superficial topics like merging libs. Necessity trumps vanity.

Re:Quanta?

[GumphMaster]

They just want to change everything all the fucking time until all the users flock to something less flashy and more productive, and then the KDE devs will be free to play Starcraft all day long.

So why haven't you moved to something less flashy and more productive? I certainly have and I suspect a large number of others have too. The straws that broke this camel's back were the ridiculous weight of the "semantic desktop" and the seemingly endless supply of visual fluff that adds nothing to utility.

Re:Quanta?

[KugelKurt]

Why don't we finish some unfinished projects (Quanta)

Since you wrote "we" I assume that you could help finish it but didn't do it yet. As for the "why": Ask yourself why you didn't do it.
KDE is a volunteer effort. No one there owes you anything.

Re:Quanta?

[cynyr]

XFCE for the last few years now... before that was IceWM, and before that was GNOME 1 or at least GTK1 based GNOME.

Re:Quanta?

[JoeCommodore]

I wish I had such talent, I was using we in the figurative sense.

Trying to find an "in" (or just some good status updates) into the Quanta project is currently an effort of reading through multiple outdated development sites. Those that I had found more resent babble on about it being included as plug-ins or something in the new KDE development tools but does not seem to be approachable yet for a web developer like me.

Re:Quanta?

[oiron]

You do realise that the guys writing kdelibs aren't the same ones who'll be working on Quanta, right? Quanta should be the domain of the kdevelop/kdewebdev guys, not the kdelibs/kdebase guys.

Re:Quanta?

[elronxenu]

I changed to xfce recently after trying KDE 4.x for the 2nd time after 12 months (debian lenny to squeeze). The first time, I backed out of my upgrade. The second time, I took a friend's advice and switched to xfce. It's more stable than KDE (kdm locked up my screen twice in a day), much faster, and things mostly work the way I expect.

Re:Quanta?

[billcopc]

I have: XFCE. I still use Kate and kio though. A few times a day, I have to run a few killalls to reap zombie kio processes, but at least the WM doesn't get in my way anymore.

Re:Quanta?

[KugelKurt]

Feel free to hire a C++ developer to fix the tools you apparently need for your web development job.

Re:Quanta?

[IrquiM]

I still don't understand where all this comes from. I've been using KDE4 since one of the later 4.2, and haven't had a single problem related to KDE itself. Could it actually be related to the distro guys, and not KDE itself?

Re:Quanta?

[Risen888]

That's fine, go live in the fucking past. Some of us think the desktop's not done.

Re:Quanta?

[mebrahim]

Because not enough money was donated to Quanta developers to show that "people are waiting...".

Re:Quanta?

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree!!!

KDE 4.@#$%^&^%$#@!!! is NOKIA FREE DEMO polygon!!!

For NOKIA, 4" screen is much more profitable then 24" screen!!!

For us, who think that KDE 3.5x is OK,
problem is that something on 4" IS NOT for 24" screen,
and that widgets are rubbish, because of nature of PC,
and not because of our personal opinion.

P.S. Try to wash yourself with a cop of water instead of in a bath.

Hmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a cute idea, but how much does QT benefit from it? QT has grown a lot over the past few years and feels rather bloated already.

Re:Hmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

It seams that you don't have a clue of what you're talking about.

What about Qt?

[bieber]

I'm sure it would be convenient for the KDE folks, but wouldn't this be a little superfluous for everyone using Qt on non-KDE platforms? Qt is a pretty massive runtime as-is...piling in the KDE libraries seems to me like it would be adding a lot of weight for relatively little benefit to anyone other than KDE. I don't use KDE myself, but I have been developing for Qt for a while...anyone who knows more about the KDE libs feel free to correct me if there's actually some great benefit I'd yield from having the KDE libs included in Qt...

Re:What about Qt?

[KugelKurt]

I'm sure it would be convenient for the KDE folks

If you read the mailing list threads, you'll see that many KDE people don't find that proposal convenient at all because it has the consequences of massive restructuring, different release cycles that don't match SC's, Nokia's currently lacking code submission process, etc.

Maybe and just maybe some select KDE components may end up in Qt but that can legally only happen if Nokia moves away from the currently mandatory "right to relicense" (not the same as copyright assignment but similar in practical terms).

Re:What about Qt?

[Carewolf]

The idea was to merge the parts that would be usefull in Qt, so that answers the questions: Yes, for the parts that makes sense it would be a benefit: Better datetime classes, better config system, asynchronous IO, MIME parsing etc.

It is also obvious that some parts of kdelibs (especially runtime parts, such as ), really wouldn't make sense in Qt anyway.

Re:What about Qt?

[vbraga]

It would be nice to have SMOKE and Ruby/Python/... bindings officially supported by Nokia.

Re:What about Qt?

[kinema]

If you're interested in using Qt with Python you should take a look at PySide which is being developed by Nokia.

Re:What about Qt?

[Pseudonym]

If you read the mailing list threads, you'll see that many KDE people don't find that proposal convenient at all because it has the consequences of massive restructuring, different release cycles that don't match SC's, Nokia's currently lacking code submission process, etc.

It would also be extremely inconvenient for the KDE folks to have to make their code work with standard C++. Exception safe KDE will not happen any time soon.

Re:What about Qt?

[Anonymous Coward]

The thing I'd worry about here is not so much bloating Qt as diminishing Qt's code quality. Qt's code base is one of the best C++ libraries I've seen. Whether you're a fan of KDE or not, I hope you will admit that it's a bit arcane. Cause and effect are often difficult to connect, and complexity is rampant. Whenever I've tried to debug KDE apps, I've felt like the learning curve was more of a wall. It would be a shame to take something clean like Qt and push KDE into it wholesale.

Now, if it were possible to take KDE as a feature spec, rather than a code base, and carefully add features to Qt so that those features could be removed from KDE, while still maintaining the high level of quality in the Qt library, *that* might be worth doing.

Re:What about Qt?

[gl4ss]

they should wait for the smoke to clear in qt, so postpone this by 6 months or so.

Re:What about Qt?

[jenningsthecat]

I'm not much of a programmer, but as a Debian user I agree whole-heartedly. I use Gnome, and I really don't like the seemingly superfluous K-bloat I get stuck with when installing some packages. If this proposal is adopted, then anything Qt-related will bring in still more unnecessary bloat.

BTW, this kind of bloat seems to be on the increase throughout Linux.

Re:What about Qt?

[Tacvek]

The hope would be that some QT apps that pull in chunks of KDE may be able to get away with just pulling in QT instead, making it less likely you will need the KDE libraries, unless you install KDE itself, or one of KDE's core apps.

license, vendor contracts, patents, copyright, IP

[Anonymous Coward]

Everything else is trivial by comparison.

What do I think?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think I don't want to read anything posted on Phoronix.

No!

[Jorl17]

No! No! No! I enjoy having Qt free from other stuff! It's big enough already! If you want, just make a system better of find a way to communicate better, but DO NOT FUCK MY PRECIOUS Qt!

I'll fork it if I have too!

Re:No!

[Anonymous Coward]

Qt is working on modularizing itself. So you could just not compile the bits you don't want.

Re:No!

[da cog]

Qt is working on modularizing itself. So you could just not compile the bits you don't want.

Dear lord, it has already become alive and self-modifying? Someone shut it down before it's too late!

GPL vs. assignment?

[ArneBab]

I don’t really see how they should be able to merge as long as Nokia requires copyright assignment.

KDE is GPL. Qt is unfree OR LGPL OR GPLv3, as the developer wishes. Qt with KDE could only be GPL.

And I don’t see a reason to deprive free software developers of the advantage which KDE offers them over developers of unfree software.

Re:GPL vs. assignment?

[Carewolf]

KDElibs is LGPL and has always been LGPL, common libraries in KDE have always been required to be LGPL so that they could be used by "unfree software" (as you write). Only KDE applications are usually GPL to protect themselves better.

Re:GPL vs. assignment?

[ArneBab]

Ah, OK. Thanks for the clarification!

So the only license which would be incompatible is the Qt Commercial Developer License.

http://qt.nokia.com/products/licensing/

If Nokia wanted to merge KDElibs into Qt, they’d have to drop that.

Re:GPL vs. assignment?

[RichiH]

LGPL != right to relicense.

Obvious? Yes.

Re:GPL vs. assignment?

[Kjella]

And they'd lose the freedom to modify the license, like for example when they decided to make it LGPL as well as GPL. That is pretty big. And for what it's worth, many companies still reject any form of open source so dropping the commercial license would be rather huge loss of income for Nokia. In short, it's not going to happen just to please KDE.

Re:GPL vs. assignment?

[Carewolf]

Qt is already LGPL, they have essentially already accepted that income "loss" in order to promote wider use of Qt.

Re:GPL vs. assignment?

[Carewolf]

Yes, I know that. I didn't adress that part on purpose. That is a political discussion, something that Nokia may or may not decide to change.

/opt

[Anonymous Coward]

... maybe the mystery of why both payloads continue to bloat /opt can finally be resolved.

Hint: Hey, fellas! There are these fancy, new fangled dirs called /usr , /lib , and /bin ! Try 'em out!

Re:/opt

[KugelKurt]

My KDE SC and Qt are installed in /usr.

Re:/opt

[hedwards]

New fangled? Weren't those there since way before /opt was added? Besides, it's not appropriate to add add on userland stuff to /bin. That belongs somewhere like /usr/local/bin. Why Linux opted to go that /opt way at all is beyond me.

Re:/opt

[Compaqt]

I don't understand what you're saying. /bin on Linux doesn't contain all the user programs (like konqueror, gedit, and so on). Those are at /usr/bin . /usr/local/bin is designated as the receptacle for non-package managed programs (manually compiled). I think that works well because all of them are kept at one place.

And /opt is supposed (also) be a place for software packages. Chrome uses this, and that's good for software that has a lot of stuff in sub-directories.

Re:/opt

[Anonymous Coward]

... maybe the mystery of why both payloads continue to bloat /opt can finally be resolved.

Hint: Hey, fellas! There are these fancy, new fangled dirs called /usr , /lib , and /bin ! Try 'em out!

New fangled? Weren't those there since way before /opt was added?

sarcasm recognition fail.

Re:What do I think?

[Anonymous Coward]

Qt is a cross platform toolkit, it's not just for Linux.

God no

[Kjella]

After seeing the last attempt at cooperation over Phonon - which was half-implemented in Qt, then Nokia went with Qt Multimedia while KDE continued evolving Phonon but all the new things aren't in Qt I wouldn't want them to try. Some of the functionality that exists on the KDE layer should be pushed down into Qt, but most should stay out otherwise there will be far too much platform in the toolkit.

Re:God no

[Carewolf]

Phonon is one example. Another brought up in the discussion was QPrinter vs KPrinter, though that has an entirely different background. With QPrinter, KDE was forced to make a suboptimal decision because KPrinter had no maintainer and it seemed unlikely to be even get ported to Qt4, let alone well integrated, before KDE4 was to be released.

Re:God no

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of the functionality that exists on the KDE layer should be pushed down into Qt

This pattern is inevitable anyhow. QT must necessarily be more conservative than KDE if only because QT must maintain parity on multiple platforms. KDE won't limit itself to whatever QT chooses to absorb. Thus, QT will always be incapable of providing everything required by KDE, no matter how much someone might wish otherwise, and despite any attempts to force the matter.

Many things in KDE are clearly improvements to or extensions of QT that can, should and are being be flushed back to QT. That is a reasonable, pragmatic and productive approach that has little to no risk. It occurs incrementally and is not disruptive. Why, precisely, must this be "fixed"?

Oh, hey, look --

[aussersterne]

KDE considers yet another massive reorganization and new version! Certainly this won't affect usability or the long term future of the project at all, just like the transition from KDE3 to KDE4 didn't!

Re:Oh, hey, look --

[KugelKurt]

"KDE" considers nothing. A few people from within the KDE community play mind games but nothing is an official consideration by the whole KDE community.

Re:Oh, hey, look --

[diegocg]

A reorganization wouldn't harm KDE too much. KDE 4.0 wasn't unusable because of the reorganization, but because of the new and unfinished desktop shell. The KDE apps that were ported worked quite well and their interface was pretty much the same.

Re:Oh, hey, look --

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't?? I "still" run KDE3 and have no intentions to "upgrade" anytime soon.

Re:Oh, hey, look --

[DougReed]

It won't change usability at all. KDE is already unusable.

Re:Oh, hey, look --

[KugelKurt]

It won't change usability at all. KDE is already unusable.

KDE is an organization. It can't have usability.
If you want to troll against KDE and/or its software, at least check Wikipedia at least once per year to get terminology right:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KDE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KDE_Plasma_Workspaces

Re:Oh, hey, look --

[Anonymous Coward]

Please continue correcting everyone who uses "KDE" to refer to the desktop environment. It's a useful contribution to society and we all respect you for it.

Re:Oh, hey, look --

[hbush]

KDE considers yet another massive reorganization and new version! Certainly this won't affect usability or the long term future of the project at all, just like the transition from KDE3 to KDE4 didn't!

Yep. Time to leave these growing rolling buggy monsters and return to xfce.

Or maybe somebody might fork old good KDE 3.5 and keep it in the nice "maintenance mode" without spasmodic revolutions each year or so? I could easily live (in fact would prefer) without plasmoids and semantic desktop pipe dreams.

Re:Oh, hey, look --

[Anonymous Coward]

KDE3 has been forked, have a look at http://trinity.pearsoncomputing.net/

Re:Oh, hey, look --

[visualight]

Somebody wants to change their brand, it's on them to make it known to me. I'm not checking *pedia 'just in case'.

Re:What do I think?

[KugelKurt]

If you ignore Phoronix's stupid benchmarks and trolls in the forums, the site is quite good. Where else do you get info regarding exotic stuff like Wayland?

I take Phoronix (and ArsTechnica's Open Ended) any day over badly researched sites with moronic troll admins like OSNews.

Probably a non-starter due to copyright assignment

[starseeker]

Currently Qt requires copyright assignment (as I understand it) for code to become part of Qt proper. This is going to be a non-starter for a lot of open source folk. As I understand it,this was one of the biggest issues with the OpenOffice.org project in terms of community health, and one of the main drivers for LibreOffice. Qt has gotten away with it better because most of the things people want to do with Qt USE the toolkit instead of CHANGING the toolkit, but it remains a concern. As long as that restriction is in place Qt remains extremely dependent on Nokia continuing development. To date they've done an awesome job - Qt is arguably the best option for cross platform open source graphical application development out there - but longevity for open source is measured (at a minimum) in decades. Corporate good will is thin ice on those time scales - what if Oracle bought Nokia? Could "LibreQt" succeed as a community project without the considerable resources being funneled in by Nokia, if it ever came to that pass? (OK, the other side of this coin is that Qt is ALREADY essential to open source - that concern exists regardless, but it's something to think about in a move like this. Would putting the relevant kdelibs functionality in Qt result in less community familiarity with the code over time?)

Anyway, the KDE devs who wrote the code in question would have to sign on, and to me that sounds like a long shot. The other option - Qt devs implementing Qt versions of features currently in KDE and then KDE moving to the new stuff - sounds slightly more practical but would require a serious manpower commitment.

Re:KDE4 = Windows Vista

[Fri13]

You do not know what you are talking about.

First of all, Windows Vista and KDE SC 4.0 has lots of differencies. KDE SC 4.0 was first release of the fourth generation of the KDE Software Compilation (KDE Plasma Desktop, KDE Platform, KDE Applications, KDE Development Platform. Does not include OS, System libraries, application libraries and most of the KDE or Non-KDE Apps) and in other corner, Windows Vista was a software system with NT operating system, Desktop, Application programs, Application libraries, System programs etc.

It is like comparing a motorcycle and bicycle which one is faster!

Secondly, Amarok does not belong to the KDE SC. It does not neither follow the KDE's own release schedule or release numbering. KDE and Amarok developers are two different communities, where Amarok developers just use what KDE developes itself and release in KDE SC.

You should drop down that stupid "KDE 4.0" whining and about Amarok 2.3 whining as well.

KDE idea to mimic a Windows Vista or Windows 7 is as saying that Leonardo Da Vinci was copying a 2000 century modern artists when doing a Mona Lisa painting. Both use(d) paint and canvas and thats it.

Re:KDE4 = Windows Vista

[glwtta]

What does Winamp have to do with Windows Vista?

KDE desperate ?

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems like the KDE folks are desperate.

Nokia loves Qt, but they don't like KDE. If you look at the Meego platform, it has plenty of parts from the Gnome world (GStreamer, GLib, GConf, Tracker, GUPnP, GeoClue etc), but nothing, zero, nada from KDE. The only KDE related thing they use is Qt (because they own it).

The reason for that is simple, the KDE folks are not so good as building infrastructure. Look at Phonon, it's so bad that the Nokians are forced to write QtMobility Multimedia and now finally they're doing QtGStreamer (so you can just use GStreamer directly with a Qt-ish API).

It's also interesting to note that Meego IVI and Netbook as still Clutter based, not Qt..

Re:KDE desperate ?

[Narishma]

You got that completely wrong. The reason there's Gnome stuff in Meego and not KDE stuff is because Meego is a merge of 2 older distributions that used Gnome stuff by default. They only added Qt because Nokia bought it in the mean time.

Re:KDE desperate ?

[KugelKurt]

Stop spreading lies. Nokia takes lots of KDE to MeeGo and helps KDE a lot. KDE also uses GLib in many places.
MeeGo IVI is not based on Clutter. It uses Qt. See http://meego.gitorious.com/meego-ivi-ux/ivihome/blobs/master/launcher.cpp
MeeGo Netbook uses Clutter because it's just the continuation of the older Moblin GUI which was based on Clutter and Intel found it pointless to rewrite it.

Nokia is probably the biggest (at least one of the biggest) corporate sponsor of KDE -- for example Aaron Seigo in employed by Nokia just to work on KDE. Nokia brought KOffice to Maemo/MeeGo, sponsoring a smartphone GUI, improve file format converters, etc.
MeeGo Handset will also use KCal for example.

Nobody at KDE is getting desperate. The "merger" is just an idea by a single guy and nothing KDE as a whole is actively pursuing. Considering how many of KDE are against that idea, I don't see how it could become reality.
KDE is one of the healthiest FOSS projects of all. According to Wikipedia KDE is the 2nd largest FOSS project after the Linux kernel.
KDE has no reason to be desperate. Even if MeeGo was only using Qt and no KDE code at all, GNOME still got the boot while a KDE-related technology (Qt) got in. Some back-end services remain but everything related to GUIs was deprecated. Even MeeGo Netbook uses "Mx" as its toolkit, not GTK (though some applications still use GTK). And now GNOME is in the middle of the Shell vs. Unity battle with the weird result that now even Canonical is a bigger contributor to KDE than GNOME even though their "GNOME distribution" is the premier one.

No, KDE is healthy and not at all desperate.

(PS: My post may seem anti-GNOME but it's not meant that way. GNOME is a large community that will survive current events and probably become even stronger after their platform was renovated with their 3.0 release.)

Re:KDE desperate ?

[Anonymous Coward]

My post may seem anti-GNOME but it's not meant that way.

The problem is that when you apparently have little knowledge of what you speak of (much like the grandparent with KDE), it easily looks like an attack.

You claim the MeeGo Netbook UX is built without GTK+. This isn't even remotely true. You also say "some applications still use GTK+". The reality is that almost all applications in MeeGo Netbook use GTK+, let's say 90% to leave some room for error.

It's nice that you stand up for KDE. Doing that by dismissing others with false or misleading information isn't cool though.

Re:KDE desperate ?

[KugelKurt]

You confuse the Netbook UX itself with applications.
Yes, Chromium is written with GTK. Yes, same with Banshee and Evolution Express.

MeeGo Netbook UX itself is written using the Mx toolkit and not GTK.

It's a bit confusing because you have to tell the difference between the MeeGo project and the code that resides in its git repo (which in this case is the UX and almost nothing else) and MeeGo as Linux distribution that ships with GTK apps.
I meant the former and I'm sorry that I didn't make myself clear.

It depends

[prefec2]

It depends on which functionality they really want to move to QT. If I understand it correctly they want to move the plasma stuff, which is GUI code, to QT. That makes sense. Just like moving GUI stuff from GNOME to GTK and GDK. However, it makes no sense if they want to move other parts of the application model to QT. It would not hurt, but there would be no benefit.

Re:It depends

[abigor]

1. It's Qt, not QT.

2. Qt contains far more than just gui code, and many of the underlying KDE libs would fit in well. I've seen MIME handling mentioned as just one example.

3 phases of software

[MrEricSir]

Basically, there's three phases of software:

1. Software that's in development. Sure, there's bad decisions made, but at least things are changing. After a decade of neglect, Windows seems to be back in development mode. KDE is definitely in development mode. Developers love this, because nothing has to be "finished" or "bug free." Everything can be a quickly hacked-together proof of concept.

2. Software that's in support mode. Almost nothing happens, except for a few patches. Mac OS X seems to be in support mode these days, same with Gnome. Support mode is actually a good thing for users who are used to the product, but developers will get bored.

3. Software that's dead. No patches, the developers abandoned the project. Eventually the users will disappear as well.

Re:3 phases of software

[kestasjk]

So software in development never has to be finished or bug free, OS X isn't currently being developed, and Windows until recently wasn't being developed.. Fascinating..

Re:3 phases of software

[Jesus_666]

Actually, they keep messing with OS X. 10.6 just saw few user-facing changes; most of the new stuff was only of interest to developers. Of course Apple has announced virtually nothing new for 10.7 but then again that's SOP for them until shortly before the launch. I expect new features to be announced later.

As with any sufficiently large project, some parts of OS X are in developent mode, some are in support mode and some are only in support mode becuse they aren't quite old enough yet to drop outright. I don't doubt that KDE is similar in that regard.

Re:3 phases of software

[Anonymous Coward]

Regarding above phases:
1. developers may like phase 1 until some change in a core library breaks entire application for the n-th time in a row,
not really production-quality environment, wouldn't you agree?

2. "support mode" sounds like "stable, may be used in production" where fixes for security holes and bugs can be made without breaking all applications using it

3. industrial quality, definitely (i'm not joking): cases where software is only used when most bugs have been ironed out and can be deployed to be used for the next 5-15 years

Re:3 phases of software

[MrEricSir]

That seems about right.

An example of #1 being frustrating is PHP. New releases frequently break applications, and the only solution for a big app is to code around those changes so that you can still be as backwards compatible as possible.

#3 is what you hope train switching systems, banks, air traffic control, etc. are using. If there was a bug, someone would have discovered it back when you were still in college. And if they didn't, too bad because the people who program it forgot how it worked long ago.

Re:3 phases of software

[Anonymous Coward]

gnome is not only in support mode but very active development mode, did you got a chance to see gnome-shell yet? do see it once, it is available from F13 onwards, and even in development stage but in very nice shape presently.

Re:KDE needs some competition.

[RocketRabbit]

GNUstep has a lot of potential. However, there is a paucity of applications actually written for GNUstep in Objective-c and it is really going nowhere.

They should freeze the main libraries and infrastructure, and contrite on getting a nice web browser made. This is one thing that does not really exist yet. Yeah, you can run FireFox under Windowmaker, but it's ugly and bad. What they need is a lean, mean, webkit-based browser that is like a lite version of Safari.

Then we can bootstrap a few other necessary apps.

Wrong way around

[Anonymous Coward]

Qt (Nokia) doesn't care about KDE. However, KDE cares about Qt.

So they shouldn't merge kdelibs into Qt. They should merge Qt into kdelibs.

Re:Wrong way around

[KugelKurt]

Qt (Nokia) doesn't care about KDE.

So why is Nokia KDE's biggest sponsor?

Re:KDE4 = Windows Vista

[pinkeen]

Amarok is nothing like Winamp.

And KDE is way more powerful, customizable than vista. It also has a lot of new, cutting-edge, semi-experimental features which won't be introducted to windows soon.

For example kio_slaves or gnome's vfs which are great features (for sftp, ftp, etc...) They have been introduced years ago and windows didn't even try to catch up.

Kickbacks for Debian?

[gringer]

Will this mean Debian will break less due to KDE updates? If so, I'm all for it. If not, I probably won't care either way.

Re:What do I think?

[Kjella]

Phoronix can turn half a sentence on a blog or a mailing list into an article. Then they do half a year of "still no sign of..." follow ups. The forums are good, so are some of the more obscure news but it feels like a RSS of a couple mailing lists (wine releases, linux kernel releases etc.) at times.

Re:Probably a non-starter due to copyright assignm

[koiransuklaa]

Currently Qt requires copyright assignment (as I understand it) for code to become part of Qt proper. This is going to be a non-starter for a lot of open source folk. As I understand it,this was one of the biggest issues with the OpenOffice.org project in terms of community health, and one of the main drivers for LibreOffice

It's not just the copyright assignment: it's also the fact that Qt is now controlled by a huge organization (much like OO.o is). Nokias goals for Qt may already be quite different to KDEs goals for kdelibs, and if something is certain it's that corporate interests change. We cannot tell what Nokia wants to do with Qt next year, or in in five years.

I say "No"

[multipartmixed]

I don't know about you, but I had a REALLY hard time getting used to running tshark instead of tethereal.

Can you imagine the havok if we suddenly have KQtDE, KQtonqueror, KQtXSLDbg, KQtBibTeX, KQtSVN, KQtDiff3, KQt9Copy, KQtb3, and so on?

Madness! Re-tooling this many brains is NOT worth it!!

Re:I say "No"

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, it is not madness enough. That is GNUKQtDEDebianLinux you are talking about, thank you very much.

Re:I say "No"

[caluml]

echo alias tethereal='tshark' >> ~/.bashrc

There, that wasn't so bad, was it?

Re:Probably a non-starter due to copyright assignm

[Anonymous Coward]

Nokia no longer requires copyright assignment for Qt.

Bugfixes please!

[Anonymous Coward]

Whatever they do regarding this issue, I just want to implore the KDE devs to please focus on stability and performance improvements for the next few point releases, rather than adding any more new features.

KDE4 has the potential to be an awesome IDE; the improvement from 4.0 -> 4.5 has been excellent. The problem at the moment is that it's a resource hog and the apps (e.g. Okular) still crash from time to time. The file manager Dolphin is particularly slow. Despite this, I still prefer KDE4 to the competition, but it could be so much better if the issues I (and many others) have outlined are addressed.

Re:Bugfixes please!

[KugelKurt]

Whatever they do regarding this issue, I just want to implore the KDE devs to please focus on stability and performance improvements for the next few point releases, rather than adding any more new features.

http://blog.martin-graesslin.com/blog/2010/10/optimization-in-kwin-4-6/

Re:KDE4 = Windows Vista

[Anonymous Coward]

If you'd used both Winamp3 and Vista then you'd know.

Wait, I take that back: no you wouldn't. People who had used either one have rightfully purged them from their memory by now.

Re:Probably a non-starter due to copyright assignm

[Kjella]

It's not just the copyright assignment: it's also the fact that Qt is now controlled by a huge organization (much like OO.o is). Nokias goals for Qt may already be quite different to KDEs goals for kdelibs, and if something is certain it's that corporate interests change. We cannot tell what Nokia wants to do with Qt next year, or in in five years.

Everybody is in agreement on where Nokia is. Mobile is tier one, everything else is tier two, the question is really if KDE should keep making thin convenience classes like KIcon on top of Qt's QIcon or just hand that stuff to Nokia. By being in kdelibs it should already be LGPL, so really the question is can Nokia do something useful with a little desktop-oriented code they could put in a fully proprietary app instead of a proprietary app using LGPL libraries. I suppose it's possible, but I think it's more principles than practice that is the problem here.

P.S. Technically it's not a copyright assignment, but they demand full relicensing rights so in practice they can do whatever they want.

Qt: Bringing code from home can corrupt a project.

[Futurepower(R)]

Quote from the parent comment: '... that can legally only happen if Nokia moves away from the currently mandatory "right to relicense..." '

Could you explain the "right to relicense" and provide a link? I don't see a reference to that on the Qt web site.

This paragraph illustrates two issues with Qt: 1) a possibly impossible licensing provision, and 2) managerial sloppiness. Quoting exactly:

"You must purchase a Qt Commercial Developer License from us or from one of our authorized resellers before you start developing commercial software as you are not permitted to begin your development with an open source licensed Qt version and convert to the commercially license version at a later ."

License provision: If someone develops some code using a free version of Qt at home, and re-implements that at work, an entire commercial project can be corrupted, apparently. It seems that license provision is impossible for Nokia to enforce, and also impossible for a company to defend against, if Nokia brings a case against a particular project. It's common that commercial programmers consider programming issues at home. How would a company show that there was no contribution to a commercial product from the free version of Qt?

Why should open-source developers care about close-source licensing provisions? Because, historically, technological development moves away from undesirable conditions. That makes the long-term prospects uncertain.

Sloppiness: At present, 2010-10-31, 16:34 PDT, the last word of the quoted paragraph is missing. What will happen now that Nokia bought Qt? Will there be internal politics at Nokia that prevents sensible management? There is a lot of sloppiness; that's only one example.

Don't Nokia managers look at their own web site? My company does that kind of work, and we've found that, perhaps surprisingly, sloppiness in communication generally indicates serious problems with management.

Re:KDE needs some competition.

[clang_jangle]

What they need is a lean, mean, webkit-based browser that is like a lite version of Safari.

Why? You can run any browser you want in windowmaker. I recently went back to using windowmaker myself, and have to say it's really nice to use a wm that doesn't keep changing all the time, plus it's got to be *the* most configurable wm there is. Stays out of my way, everything works like it should. Install wmaker, wmakerconf, gmrun, terminal emulator and web browser of your choice, mc or worker, and that's your whole desktop right there. I think the only real reason people want a full-bloat DE is so they can clutter their desktops with silly doodads and not have to learn how to use the CLI tools.

Re:KDE needs some competition.

[MrHanky]

I wouldn't say GNUstep's "it doesn't quite work" beats Apple's "it just works", even though the latter doesn't actually hold true all the time.

Re:What do I think?

[MrHanky]

It's a great source for following the development of Mesa and X.org.

Re:KDE4 = Windows Vista

[Shulai]

Windows have its equivalent vfs thing. You can see My Computers Devices, Printers, Control Panel Applets, Windows Neighborhood, network shares and FTP sites and PocketPC filesystem in Explorer.

The main KDE 2 Desktop concepts (I mean Konqueror with kioslaves and kparts) was mostly embracing Win95/98 concepts, just doing them right, I mean, KDE devs did it because it could be cool and useful, not just because they were trying to steal Netscape's market share.

So, no, a number of features of KDE comes from Windows and KDE 4 is no exception, they just are there but most users don't notice about them.

Of course, KDE makes a better choice for me because their feature are usually better implemented, did at library level so the experience is more consistent, and of course there is the integration with the unix fundation.

Not yet...

[Lord Kano]

How about they fix the steaming bloat-fest that is KDE4 before thinking about KDE5?

LK

Re:Not yet...

[KugelKurt]

How about they fix the steaming bloat-fest that is KDE4

There is no "KDE4".
What do you mean by "KDE4"? Platform 4(.5)? Plasma Workspaces 4(.5)? The whole Software Compilation 4(.5)?

Re:Not yet...

[QCompson]

There is no "KDE4". What do you mean by "KDE4"? Platform 4(.5)? Plasma Workspaces 4(.5)? The whole Software Compilation 4(.5)?

Uh yeah, that's part of the problem. Enough with the silly names. Did you really not know what he meant?

Re:Not yet...

[SanityInAnarchy]

Pretty much.

It really doesn't matter how you slice it up, the result is that my KDE4-powered desktop and my KDE4-enabled apps are at once a big step forward and a big step back. This was true well after the official 4.0 release of any of the above, and even 4.5 is still missing much of the functionality that made 3.5 great.

Re:Not yet...

[richlv]

as a longtime kde user, i don't really know what "software compilation" is. and i don't want to know. that brand-splitting was a bad decision - imho, of course.

Re:Not yet...

[KugelKurt]

Did you really not know what he meant?

No. What part is supposedly bloated? The applications? Is Marble bloated? Is Gwenview bloated? I don't think so. Therefore the applications part of the SC can't be the problem.

So the Plasma Workspaces. Plasma Desktop is meant to be used similar to classic GUIs like K Desktop Environment 3.5, GNOME 2.x, or Windows. The libraries that serve the foundation are small. libplasma is a mere 3MB in size. Since on top of libplasma KDE produces also a netbook shell as well as a smartphone shell and both run well on those low-performance devices, it can't be the code that's supposedly bloated.
Maybe it's the GUI part of Plasma Desktop? Considering that the supporters of K Desktop Environment 3.5, incl. the people who work on the Trinity project, feel that Plasma Desktop is "dumped down" and offers too few options, that explanation can't be the one either.

That leaves the Platform libraries that are supposedly bloated. As I've written in the previous paragraph, libplasma is small. The rest of the Platform is not put in one giant library. Instead it's split in many small libraries. No KDE application I'm aware of loads everything into memory.
KDE gives application developers a set of Platform libraries to toy with. Nobody is forced to use complete set.
With Qt adopting some of KDE Platform's features (eg. web rendering), app developers are free to switch from the older KDE solution to the pure Qt one. KDE guaranties binary compatibility in kdelibs, so KDE can't just drop them before a Platform 5.0 release.
When you write a KDE application with QtWebKit instead of KHTML, nothing forces KHTML upon you.
It's the same approach GNOME takes since years. If guarantied binary compatibility equals bloat, GNOME 2.x is just as bloated and to get rid of the deprecated parts, GNOME will release 3.0 in spring.
But Lord Kano doesn't mean that because he doesn't want a "KDE5".

As I wrote:
Are KDE Applications bloated? No.
Are the Workspaces bloated? No.
Is the Platform bloated? No.

So what the heck is supposedly bloated? Is Kano's problem that to simplify the release process, all three pillars are released at the same time?
Does he think that to use the Plasma Workspaces one has to install all applications?
KDE releases all individual components at the same time but they remain individual.

He makes a lump-sum statement withaout backing anything up and gets an "Insightful" rating. I merely ask what exactly he means and get "Troll"??? WTF??
At time of writing this, no one, not even you, was able to clarify what he means.

Re:Not yet...

[KugelKurt]

It's a compilation of software. It's not that hard to understand that over time the KDE project grew from a mere Desktop Environment into a supplier of many different kinds of software of which most is non-essential for a DE.

Re:Not yet...

[segedunum]

Ahhhh, it's amusing to hear weenies talking about bloat and arguing for software that does less, which is what is behind that word. Sadly, that isn't going to get free desktops competing with Windows and OS X.

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000020.html

Re:Not yet...

[visualight]

KDE4 is KDE4 and you can spam all the discussions you want, this will not change.

Re:Not yet...

[visualight]

From your link: What is bloatware, exactly? The Jargon File snidely defines it as "software that provides minimal functionality while requiring a disproportionate amount of diskspace and memory.

No one is arguing for software that does less. People are arguing for efficiency and stability.

Re:Not yet...

[richlv]

sorry about the delay, gmail decided to filter this notification as spam...

anyway - it doesn't matter. users DON'T CARE. even if they are longtime more or less advanced users :)

it's a dilution of brand, and that sc is hard to understand unless one follows really closely and constantly. it still confuses me for a second every time i see it.

Re:Not yet...

[Lord Kano]

He makes a lump-sum statement withaout backing anything up and gets an "Insightful" rating. I merely ask what exactly he means and get "Troll"??? WTF??
At time of writing this, no one, not even you, was able to clarify what he means.

I will go ahead and guess that you were modded down because you were being pedantic and playing word games. What everyone except perhaps the core dev team and a few fanboys consider to be KDE4 is a bloat-fest. It requires more memory, is perceptibly slower than KDE3.5.x and is less feature complete. They should be more concerned with fixing their present code than they are with what may or may not happen 5+ years in the future.

LK

Re:Not yet...

[KugelKurt]

Wow, what a troll... you still did not explain anything at all.

What requires more memory? How is that even supposed to be possible at all considering that the very same software stack runs just fine on smartphones whose hardware specs are even lower than of netbooks?

How is supposedly to be technically possible at all that a non-compositing window manager (KWin 3.x) faster than the same window manager that is able to leverage the power of GPUs (KWin 4.x)? The consequence is that the CPU load is lower!
And KWin's main developer is improving KWin's performance even more: http://blog.martin-graesslin.com/blog/2010/10/optimization-in-kwin-4-6/

You could argue that KDE should drop deprecated stuff from the Platform libraries but in order for this to happen, a Platform 5.0 has to be made first! In this case demanding to "fix their code" on one hand and OTOH demanding to not think about 5.0 is a huge contradiction -- one only someone who's either a troll or a clueless person could demand.
And what you completely ignore is that KDE is actually working on further modularizing the Platform via profiles. This work is really happening and not some mind game for some hypothetical event in the future. Platform 4.5 already contains some groundwork.
In the end you may opt-in to use those compile-time profiles but KDE won't support them for their desktop releases because they'll break ABI stability on that platform and features will be sacrificed for them (those which are not needed on smartphones).
As for the desktop platform, KDE is reducing the number of dependencies there as well if those don't lead to binary incompatibility but this is (except a single item on the following list) already done: http://techbase.kde.org/Projects/Mobile/PlatformModifications
Completely dropping deprecated features, btw, only leads to lower disk space consumption and not necessarily lower RAM consumption because application developers are already free to not load those libraries into memory in the first place (IIRC Kontact 1.x and Konqueror are the last two applications that use KHTML by default and Kontact 2.0 is about to be released and Konqueror can use WebKit instead of KHTML -- distributions start to replace Konqueror with the WebKit-based Rekonq anyway...)
And who in the realm of desktop computing actually cares about those few MBs of RAM anyway? My low-end desktop PC has 768MB RAM. The fact alone that I prefer GNOME's nm-applet over KDE's Network Management Plasma applet causes my system to have ridiculous GNOME dependencies (like gvfs-gphoto2-volume-monitor) to be loaded into RAM and it doesn't even matter. 768MB RAM is more than enough to load both KDE's as well as GNOME's base libraries into memory without causing performance lags! Upgrade you PC to have more than 128MB RAM if you feel "bloat".

Whatever your PC's specs are, my point stands: Either you are clueless because you demand contradicting features and omit KDE's actual work. Or you are just a troll.

PS: Linux Journal's Readers' Choice Awards 2010 tie GNOME's and KDE's desktop environments at #1 which wonderfully shows that your claim about "core dev team and a few fanboys" is utterly wrong. As many like KDE's desktop as GNOME's desktop. All other desktops don't have a approval rating of more than 3%.
If your claims were true, LXDE or so would've been far ahead of KDE's desktop...

Re:Not yet...

[Lord Kano]

How is supposedly to be technically possible at all that a non-compositing window manager (KWin 3.x) faster than the same window manager that is able to leverage the power of GPUs (KWin 4.x)?

I'm not an OS/GUI programmer. I can't say how or why. I'm just a user and I see first hand that it is, in fact, like I describe it.

768MB RAM is more than enough to load both KDE's as well as GNOME's base libraries into memory without causing performance lags! Upgrade you PC to have more than 128MB RAM if you feel "bloat".

The slowest system that I run linux on is a dual core with a 1GB of RAM. I push my system and KDE4's sluggishness makes it unacceptable to me. I even switched distros because I will not install that garbage again.

PS: Linux Journal's Readers' Choice Awards 2010 tie GNOME's and KDE's desktop environments at #1 which wonderfully shows that your claim about "core dev team and a few fanboys" is utterly wrong.

Try reading for comprehension. I wasn't saying that only devs and fanboys like KDE4. I was saying that you were being a pedantic cock. Instead of directly addressing the concern, you're nitpicking. 'That's not KDE, that's Plasma!"

Everyone else considers it all to just be "KDE4". It's sluggish and less feature filled than KDE 3.5.x

LK

Re:Not yet...

[KugelKurt]

I'm not a programmer either but I'm also not stupid which is why I can identify the cause for a problem when I see one.
Considering the quality of your posts, I'm convinced that the cause for alleged poor performance are you alone and your inability to have a decently configured OS. My lowest end PC is a single core 32bit Pentium 4 with Radeon 9200LE GPU and 768 MB RAM. That machine is 6 or so years old and it runs Plasma Desktop (FOSS GPU drivers, without composite) and KDE applications just fine under openSUSE. The HDD is slow, so loading times are obviously not the best but that's a hardware problem and exactly the same under any DE.

My other PC is a Core2 Duo laptop with GeForce 9200M and 4GB of RAM and this one runs Plasma Desktop (proprietary GPU drivers, with composite) + KDE apps under openSUSE just fine as well.

And as I already wrote: Smartphones and netbooks can both run the software fine, too.

So STFU and properly configure your OS.

Re:Not yet...

[Lord Kano]

I'm not a programmer either but I'm also not stupid which is why I can identify the cause for a problem when I see one.

Well, I am a programmer. Just not an OS or GUI programmer.

What I am not is a fanboy or a pedantic cock. KDE4 is awful. Long time KDE users have been complaining non-stop since 4.0 was released.

When is the last time you heard of a user community joining together to bring back a previous version of any major software package? Well, I have.

KDE 3.5.x has been adopted and is under active development because a critical mass of people are disgusted with KDE4.

And as I already wrote: Smartphones and netbooks can both run the software fine, too.

It's probably easier to handle a half or quarter vga screen than a 1600x1200x2 desktop.

LK

Re:Qt: Bringing code from home can corrupt a proje

[Anonymous Coward]

Qt is on LGPL for some time now. What you wrote was true few years backwards.

http://qt.nokia.com/about/licensing/

Re:KDE4 = Windows Vista

[QCompson]

I pretty much agree with you, but I can't help but cringe when I see the SC moniker after KDE. The amateur marketing crap has got to go.

Re:KDE4 = Windows Vista

[korgitser]

Sadly I have to agree with parent. Kde 4, Vista, Amarok 2 and Winamp 3 all share the same quality of having taken the wrong turn - a half-baked and pressed update to something that was working mostly fine. Torn apart and given love in all the wrong places.

I have been a Kde user for years, and it kills me to say this, but Kde 3 used to be the poweruser's desktop and Kde 4 seems to be the idle programmer's paper towels.

Re:What do I think?

[KugelKurt]

it feels like a RSS of a couple mailing lists (wine releases, linux kernel releases etc.) at times.

So? It's exactly what I like about Phoronix. Considering that I only follow a few mailing lists and those alone result in roughly 100 mails per day, I'm happy Phoronix filters mailing lists for me and I don't need to get 1000 mails per day.

Re:KDE needs some competition.

[Anonymous Coward]

its 2010 no normal user should ever have to touch a CLI.

Re:What do I think?

[RichiH]

> I take Phoronix (and ArsTechnica's Open Ended) any day over badly researched sites with moronic troll admins like OSNews.

I read neither.

Phoronix is a pest and I would be glad if it died.

Re:KDE needs some competition.

[KugelKurt]

GNUstep has a lot of potential.

Isn't that the status of GNUstep since 15 years?

Re:KDE4 = Windows Vista

[Anonymous Coward]

Winamp 3 was the "piece of shit" version that everyone was embarrassed about.
It was unstable, had a ton of useless features and could bring any (at the time) modern system to its knees.

This was where Winamp 5 came in - it was a fusion of "the best stuff from Winamp 2 and 3 put together" - not a whole lot of WA3 features made it.

Re:Qt: Bringing code from home can corrupt a proje

[Spugglefink]

Qt is on LGPL for some time now. What you wrote was true few years backwards.

http://qt.nokia.com/about/licensing/

It's still true today. You can probably do anything you need to do under the LGPL, but in the event you find some need to have a commercial license, then you still have exactly the same old impossible model. Whoops, we have to rewrite all the code from scratch, since we didn't begin development with a commercial license. Or we can just pretend we started over from scratch, since there's no way to prove anything.

Their commercial licenses are a completely stupid model.

Maybe this will stop the fingerpointing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe merging KDE with QT libraries will stop the finger-pointing when there is a problem between them...which occurs after every KDE release and sometimes with QT updates.

Re:KDE needs some competition.

[dudpixel]

ok then, using your favourite OS, and without using the CLI do the following:

* you have a directory containing 1000 jpeg files with random filenames but with a .jpeg extension.
* rename them all to have a .jpg extension instead (yes, using the GUI)
* first, realise that what you've actually typed during this process is only about 3 keystrokes less than the CLI version (if your OS even lets you do it).
* now explain to someone else how to do it.

The CLI is much easier for some tasks. Sure, we shouldn't require it where possible, but we certainly should accept it as a standard feature of a modern OS.

At the risk of trolling, KDE is already in ....

[scurvyj]

At the risk of trolling, KDE is already in enough trouble and they really shouldnt be worrying about this kind of thing. They should be fixing bugs, removing Dolphin and dumping that stupid pulse audio support. KDE3 is forking and Trinity exists for a reason. Don't be GNOME people, Don't be GNOME. Bugger the features, bugger futureproofing where you don't know whats going to happen, bugger contaminating other libraries, JUST FIX THE BUGS AND MAKE IT PERFECT. Otherwise you are going to wake up and find XFCE has won the war (and it IS winning it).

Re:At the risk of trolling, KDE is already in ....

[Mystra_x64]

removing Dolphin

Why would you do that?

Re:At the risk of trolling, KDE is already in ....

[fnj]

Because it's pointless and Konqueror is far better in every way?

Re:At the risk of trolling, KDE is already in ....

[Mystra_x64]

Subjective. Besides Konqueror now uses Dolphin part for file browsing AFAIK.

Re:At the risk of trolling, KDE is already in ....

[visualight]

Don't think I didn't notice that some crappy behaviors of Dolphin have infected Konqueror. For example, if my cursor is midway through a large directory, enter a sub-directory and then click 'back', my cursor should be where it was, not at the top. I could make a list, but even if it was a mile long I suspect your opinion would not change.

Re:At the risk of trolling, KDE is already in ....

[Mystra_x64]

This works for me as expected for some reason (Debian testing: KDE 4.4.5).

Re:KDE needs some competition.

[vlad30]

there are GUI utilities just for these tasks however most normal people i.e. non slashdot crowd wouldn't know what the extension meant and for them extensions are turned off/not visible as they cause more headaches than they solve. Actually for them the old OS9 creator/type codes were much better. remember for the great majority of humans - ignorance is bliss.

Re:KDE needs some competition.

[RocketRabbit]

The crucial difference is that Windowmaker is not equal to GNUstep. You can run whatever you like in Windowmaker, but it will look all weird.

A GNUstep browser will have the good menu off to the side, instead of it being captive in the window.

Re:KDE needs some competition.

[RocketRabbit]

Ever heard of Apple's Automator?

It's super, super easy to do this with Automator.

Now, let's try this one out:

You have 1000 JPGs that have a Adobe RGB profile. Make a CLI command line that will convert them all to sRGB, and rename them from .jpg to .jpeg.

This is a hell of a lot easier in Automator than on the command line.

Re:KDE needs some competition.

[tyrione]

What they need is a lean, mean, webkit-based browser that is like a lite version of Safari.

Why? You can run any browser you want in windowmaker. I recently went back to using windowmaker myself, and have to say it's really nice to use a wm that doesn't keep changing all the time, plus it's got to be *the* most configurable wm there is. Stays out of my way, everything works like it should. Install wmaker, wmakerconf, gmrun, terminal emulator and web browser of your choice, mc or worker, and that's your whole desktop right there. I think the only real reason people want a full-bloat DE is so they can clutter their desktops with silly doodads and not have to learn how to use the CLI tools.

The person I assume is alluding to the notion of a Native Cocoa WebKit Browser on Linux, within GNUStep, that leverages Services and an Extensions API to just develop for both Safari and say, Quest [Safari-Lite], for the GNUstep platform on FreeBSD and Linux.

Re:Probably a non-starter due to copyright assignm

[Anonymous Coward]

You have a valid point - the most probable scenario is that NOKIA and Microsoft would merge (or in other words that NOKIA would be assimilated) at some point in the future. Look at all the signs - the writing is on the wall.

That would put KDE in a far worse position than anything SUN created, as Oracle is dependent on the success of Java.

Re:KDE needs some competition.

[Nursie]

What's actually wrong with Gnome?

I love it. It's not changed massively in the last few years, true, but I don't really get why it should. It works, it looks fine, it's pretty responsive and light enough for general use....

Re:Qt: Bringing code from home can corrupt a proje

[the_womble]

Not really, Qt is LGPL licensed and you can switch from GPL to LGPL licensing (according to the FAQs) so the worst case is that you have to follow the LGPL as far as the Qt libraries do.

As Qt is licensed per developer, they would presumably be covered when working from home as well.

Re:KDE needs some competition.

[evJeremy]

Using imagemagick:
for f in *.jpg; do mogrify -profile sRGB.icc $f; mv $f `basename $f .jpg`.jpeg; done;

You'll need to supply sRGB.icc, but otherwise it seems to work just fine for me.

Don't have a real opinion...

[Anonymous Coward]

...because I use wxWidgets / wxPython and I believe it's far better than QT.

Easy for a company to make a legal mess?

[Futurepower(R)]

This is a quote from the Qt licensing FAQ:

"Can I switch from using Qt under the LGPL to commercial afterwards?

"No. Users of the LGPL versions of Qt need to comply with the LGPL licensing terms and conditions. Qt's commercial license agreement contains a restriction that prohibits customers from initially beginning development with the LGPL-licensed version of Qt and then transitioning to a commercial version of Qt."

Four sections earlier, the FAQ says this, in part:

"... If you are uncertain as to whether or not you will be able to comply with the LGPL requirements at the time you begin your development, our recommendation is that you purchase a commercial license as it gives you the flexibility to decide licensing (commercial or LGPL) at the time of distribution."

It seems to me that it would be easy for a company to create a legal mess for itself. What a company will do in the future cannot be foreseen.

What would happen if a developer at a company who did not have a commercial license, but was using a free license, contributed to a commercial project? Often there are discussions about architecture, and someone may contribute ideas for an architecture that are later adopted. The sociology of programming is not as clean as Qt licensing apparently considers it to be.

Note that this problem was not created by Nokia. It existed when Qt was owned by Trolltech.

Re:Easy for a company to make a legal mess?

[Toy G]

That clause was a clear shot at people trying to get away from paying for Qt. Without the clause, one could basically develop commercial applications without paying for Qt licenses, then cough up only when caught, claiming previous development followed the open-source license and "just so happens nobody asked us for the source code".

Trolltech used to depend entirely on revenue coming from Qt licenses, so obviously they wanted to minimize this sort of loopholes.

GNOME usabilty fixes

[Compaqt]

Instead of a huge change like Gnome Shell, they should (also) be fixing just a few basic usability issues:

-when you select a file in Nautilus and do Ctrl+c or Ctrl+v, they icons should indicated that they've been copied or cut.

-the "Recently Used" in the File Open dialog saves you from a lot of needless folder hopping. But it should also include recently used folders as well (the folder of a file you just saved, plus folders you created recently). "Recently used" should also be present in Nautilus.

-if you choose "single-click" behavior in Nautilus, the File Open dialog should also be single click. OK, so the latter is from GTK-- just add single click to GTK, then have Nautilus set the option for it.

Re:GNOME usabilty fixes

[arth1]

-the "Recently Used" in the File Open dialog saves you from a lot of needless folder hopping. But it should also include recently used folders as well (the folder of a file you just saved, plus folders you created recently). "Recently used" should also be present in Nautilus.

One word: No

Dynamic menus are the work of {insert malevolent deity}, as they break consistency and prevent any kind of meaningful support. What's on-screen for user A won't be the same as for user B, or for user B half an hour later.

And visible histories is also a privacy concern. If you do a presentation, you have to avoid bringing up any of the favourite menus, or your coworkers will see that your favourite folder is /home/user/Music/Britney Spears.

If you need to keep a folder visible, bookmark it.

Re:GNOME usabilty fixes

[jenningsthecat]

Thanks for providing a stepping-off point for my favourite rant of late. Speaking of Nautilus usability issues, how about fixing the following file browser deficiencies?

- Click-and-drag to select files does not exist
- No integrated file search feature
- The separate file search program provided in Gnome doesn't allow for even viewing, much less editing, a file's properties
- User date format preferences are not honoured in file open/save dialogs
- When a user clicks on a soft-link to open the file browser, Nautilus reports the soft-link path rather than the target path
- The whole mime-types mess that doesn't readily allow the user to assign an icon based on file extension

I hear a lot lately about all of the 'improvements' that are coming for the Gnome UI. Hey guys, how about fixing the kind of basic stuff that Micro$oft got right 12 years ago, before you give us more whizzbang eye candy that has us all re-training ourselves on where to move the mouse cursor in order to minimize, maximize, or close a damned window?

Re:GNOME usabilty fixes

[Compaqt]

I agree with dynamic menus being bad (a la Windows XP and Office).

But this isn't that. It's just like the Recent Files in gedit, jedit, OpenOffice, and just about any other application.

The reason this is handy is because, on average, you're very likely to be wanting to manipulate a file you just saved. Example: I save a screenshot (with standard GNOME screenshot save), but I want to crop it. I go to Gimp, and in the Open File Dialog, click on Recently Used in the left hand list box, and it's the first file (I sort by Modify Date). I don't have to go to /home/me/Documents/screenshots/application-screenshots/blah.png.

That usage is covered under the GNOME current. But sometimes you want to do something else related to a file, but not to that file. Say, I wanted to add a few short notes in a text file in gedit regarding a series of screenshots. I'd like to open up gedit, File Open, Recently Used, then click on the folder where I last did stuff. Easy.

Easier than clicking (or typing, even with tab-completion), through to /home/me/Documents/projects/some-customer/blah-project/screenshot-series5/

You're most often concerned with what you just worked on/used. That's the reason every mail client shows you your most recent email first, not sorting hierarchically (maybe by IP address?).

Which desktop or programs do you usually use?

Re:GNOME usabilty fixes

[Anonymous Coward]

> Instead of a huge change like Gnome Shell, they should (also) be fixing just a few basic usability issues:

It isn't an "either/or" issue. They can do both.

Re:GNOME usabilty fixes

[Anonymous Coward]

not to forget gnome-screensaver-preferences

Gnome VFS

[Compaqt]

>For example kio_slaves or gnome's vfs which are great features (for sftp, ftp, etc...)

This.

For those that don't know what he's talking about: Open up Nautilus. Do File: Connect to Server. You get a dialog asking your for your (S)FTP login info. Connect.

Now you can open up remote files in gedit or whatever. Copy/paste/drag, etc.

Works for WebDAV and Windows shares, too.

Re:KDE needs some competition.

[sperxios10]

Why do so many programmers are still unaware of Bash's string-parsing built-in capabilities,
and prefer to use the 'basename' command instead?

For the above renaming one would suffice to type:

mv $f ${f%.*}.jpg

See: http://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/bashref.html#Shell-Parameter-Expansion

Re:KDE needs some competition.

[NickFortune]

I recently went back to using windowmaker myself, and have to say it's really nice to use a wm that doesn't keep changing all the time, plus it's got to be *the* most configurable wm there is.

Having used both, I think that prize goes to FVWM. WindowMaker is nice, though.

Corporate-phobia

[Compaqt]

There's a bug going around the OSS community that causes some to see corporate monsters where there are none.

Not only that, but it also causes them to brainstorm or take pro-active action against corporate sponsors because their Palantirs say they "might" stop support at some unspecified future date. See LibreOffice. Does nothing other than annoy the corporate sponsor, divide the community, and thus possibly bring up that exact scenario in a self-fulfilling geek-martyrdom prophecy.

Re:Corporate-phobia

[KugelKurt]

LibreOffice was launched by the corporations Red Hat and Novell to hurt their competition (Oracle).
LibreOffice has nothing to do with "corporate-phobia".

But may I ask: What does your "corporate-phobia" post have to do with the previous posts?

Re:Corporate-phobia

[Compaqt]

>But may I ask: What does your "corporate-phobia" post have to do with the previous posts?

I have no beef with your post. Nokia is indeed a KDE patron.

I was just using corporate-phobia to describe the feeling that inspires "Qt (Nokia) doesn't care about KDE".

Which, IMHO, is just FOSS community whining that they don't really love us. I mean, do we need corps to rock RMS to sleep, and then we'll be satisfied?

Corporations use opensource for their own advantages, but that doesn't mean we have to constantly fear what they're going to do before they've actually done it (or said they won't):

The more KDE is used, the more Qt apps there are. And the more Qt devs. And Nokia wants Qt devs to create apps to counter iPhone and Android app stores.

The more OpenOffice is used, the less MS can lock down businesses, and the less of a premium it can charge for its cash cow when there's an alternative. Larry E spent $175 million on the Network Computer just to make Microsoft work sweat. And MS fears OpenOffice.

So, let's all learned relax a little.

Opera

[Compaqt]

The thing about Opera is it takes too much resources, and it's too slow. You can watch it redo a page, whereas Chrome is instantaneous with Ctrl+Page'ing through pages. That was Opera latest on Karmic.

Re:KDE needs some competition.

[Sal Zeta]

The CLI is much easier for some tasks.

Nope, it's just faster, if you have the necessary knowledge background. If you miss that and need to learn everything from scratch, it becomes infinitely slower. Especially if it's something that you need to do just once and not that often.

And yes that kind of GUI tool exists, albeit running only on mac os x. it's called Automator, and I would gladly pay to get something like that under Ubuntu.

By the way, if you are doing that kind of operation on more than thousands jpeg files, you would be more confortable by using something like picasa or Adobe Lightroom

Re:KDE needs some competition.

[arth1]

Why do so many programmers are still unaware of Bash's string-parsing built-in capabilities,
and prefer to use the 'basename' command instead?

Why do so many 2nd generation Linux users presume that everyone uses bash?

Keep script snippets bourne shell and POSIX compatible, especially when posted to the public, so anyone can copy/paste them into the shell they use. Even if they use bash.

For this example, it's far from unthinkable that it would be run on a mediacenter appliance, most of which don't have bash (embedded tends to use busybox), but do have ImageMagick.

offtopic

[Mystra_x64]

(nice offtopic trolling but) Opera works rather fine for me (i.e. instantaneous). I'm using Debian though.

Re:offtopic

[Compaqt]

I realize it's offtopic, but I don't know why it's a troll.

I actually like the fact that there's competition in the browser market, and I usually install Midori, Chrome, Chromium, Epiphany, and Lynx, in addition to the default Firefox. Of those, Chrome+Chromium see the most usage, followed by Firefox, then occasionally Lynx.

I just downloaded Opera 10.63, and it's looking better than before. There are some annoyances, but some cool things, too.

Re:offtopic

[Mystra_x64]

but I don't know why it's a troll

Well, "too much resources and slow" line is usually trolling <troll>unless it's about desktop application written in Java</troll> as browsers nowadays must do many things. Besides Opera resource usage is based on total available/free memory AFAIR.

Re:KDE4 = Windows Vista

[RichiH]

> semi-experimental features
> kio_slaves

They have been around since at least KDE 2, so I would argue they are not experimental any more.

Agreed - but this is /.

[G3ckoG33k]

"He makes a lump-sum statement withaout backing anything up and gets an "Insightful" rating. I merely ask what exactly he means and get "Troll"??? WTF??"

Agreed - but this is /.

Me? I love KDE 4.2 and later. KDE 4.0 was a bit thin, but still stunning. KDE 4.1 a bit better.

As for bloat, KDE 4.x runs well even on an ATI Radeon 9200 SE, which was low-end when it came out, in 2003! KDE is a charm!

Re:KDE needs some competition.

[Ash-Fox]

And yes that kind of GUI tool exists, albeit running only on mac os x. it's called Automator, and I would gladly pay to get something like that under Ubuntu.

Out of curiosity, why didn't sikuli and gnee work for you?

Re:KDE needs some competition.

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Because I use Korn shell. I also have real corn in my poop.

Re:KDE needs some competition.

[Risen888]

It sucks, and its application stack sucks.

Re:KDE4 = Windows Vista

[pinkeen]

Yep, the example was meant to be of more stable features, which despite being great and being there for so long still haven't been adopted. My bad that it sounds a bit like it's not.

Concurrent access to settings

[tepples]

For what possible reason do they require a true RDBMS rather than something like bdb or even sqlite if you want to get crazy? But frankly, why wouldn't you simply use xml (bottom of the list), flat files, csvs, or some such thing behind a configuration server?

Once the configuration server has abstracted concurrent access to your machine's and user account's settings from multiple applications running in multiple sessions, it might as well be using an RDBMS such as SQLite as its storage backend. If I were writing a registry replacement for a desktop OS, I'd probably use SQLite too.

Qt helps stability

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep the specifications as they are. Fix all the current issues and make a SOLID product. It's good, but could be a LOT more stable and tight. When that's done, then go for the big merge and add new features.

one of the reasons KDE apps go down in flames with segfaults is KDElibs' memory management. Qt can remove the memory cleanup work with it's garbage collection. However, it's still possible to manually destroy things, so it's not mandatory. Make it work and then make it efficient.

the root of evil code is premature optimization.

Re:KDE needs some competition.

[ChrisMaple]

rename jpeg jpg *.jpeg

is very easy to learn and remember.

Re:KDE needs some competition.

[turgid]

This is a hell of a lot easier in Automator than on the command line.

Hmmm... that sounds like a challenge! ... And just to be a bit "outside the box", I think WINGs would be a good GUI toolkit to use :-)

License arrangement may cause problems?

[Futurepower(R)]

"That clause was a clear shot at people trying to get away from paying for Qt."

I have a good impression of Qt, Trolltech, and of Nokia. However, the license arrangement seems to cause potential problems.

Re:KDE4 = Windows Vista

[KugelKurt]

KDE and Amarok developers are two different communities

I wouldn't say different. Amarok is a KDE Extragear application (it's always been that way). It's not part of the SC but the Amarok developers are a group within the KDE community.
People like Lydia Pintscher are not only active in the Amarok team but other KDE teams as well (in her case IIRC the Promo team but I'm not entirely sure right now).

Re:KDE4 = Windows Vista

[KugelKurt]

KDE's default music player is Juk, not Amarok. Most distributions just opt to ship Amarok by default and not Juk (personally, I prefer Juk over Amarok). Feel free to file bug reports at the distributors' bug databases to revert to Juk.

Re:I don`t care

[KugelKurt]

Who cares about what developers of a desktop used by 12 or 13 people think ?

Those 12 or 13 care about that.

PS: Your comment makes me proud. Until just now I thought I was an insignificant part of a user group that's tens of millions in size. Now I alone make up ~ 1/12 of the overall user base. *whoo!*

Re:KDE needs some competition.

[Lanteran]

*shouts* THIS. IS. LINUX!!!
Use whatever the hell DE you like, you can change it at any time.

Re:KDE needs some competition.

[sperxios10]

Busybox's shell also supports this expansion, though through build-time config options.

Yet, the couple of linux-devices i have in my home, all contain them.

Re:KDE needs some competition.

[arth1]

That may be, but it shouldn't be expected.

Your example is also a null op when it works (depending on the "mv" command and whether any of the files are symlinks, you may or may not get an error).
Presumably you meant ${f%.*}.jpeg

Personally, I'd let mogrify itself create the new file with -write, or even pass the whole file list to mogrify, which saves time.