Are Open-Source Desktops Losing Competitiveness?

An anonymous reader writes "Peter Penz has been a user of KDE since version 1.2, and he led the development of the Dolphin file manager for the past six years. Now, he's quitting KDE development and handing off Dolphin. His reasons for quitting KDE development are described in a blog post. Penz speaks of KDE losing competitiveness to Apple and Microsoft due to increased complexity and other reasons. 'Working on the non-user-interface parts of applications can be challenging, and this is not something that most freetime-contributors are striving for. But if there are not enough contributors for the complex stuff behind the scenes and if no company is willing to invest fulltime-developers to work on this... well then we are losing ground.' Are open-source desktops losing?"

Comments

Partially a lack of interest by users

[Anonymous Coward]

*nix users have been moving to OS X on the desktop for a long time. If you defend the X desktop in a lot of circles where it would have been popular in another time, prepare to be mocked, ridiculed and told to just "buy a Mac".

Under these conditions it doesn't surprise me that KDE is stagnant. Fewer people are interested in it these days.

- Still an X11 user when I have the choice.

Re:Partially a lack of interest by users

[shutdown -p now]

It made sense on 15" monitor fifteen years ago. Today, not so much, because after you slam your mouse all the way up and make a selection, you then need to bring it back to the document window you were working with, and it's suddenly that much further away.

Re:Partially a lack of interest by users

[countach]

I can tell you why I gave up on Linux. I used it for a really long time, starting from kernel 1.0.

1. Breakage. I got sick of every software update from Redhat or Debian or whatever arbitrarily breaking a bunch of stuff. You might have spent a whole day figuring out how to get printing to work with your printer etc, then they'd swap to a new version of lpd or something and you'd have to start again. Even for a tinkerer, this eventually gets old. The big vendors do better in smoothing things over with upgrade paths.

2. Hardware support. Shopping for hardware is exhausting when you've got to spend days of research trying to figure out what hardware works, and even then you make mistakes, and/or are disappointed when it doesn't really work right. This problem is even more acute with the general trend towards laptops.

3. Speed of change. Often free software just evolves too quickly in directions that are questionable. I haven't followed KDE for a long time, but I'm hearing voices that this happened with KDE. Just when you learn some software and come to deal with it, the whole thing changes completely from under you. Yes of course, the big vendors do this too, but nowhere near as often, and not as arbitrarily.

4. KDE vs Gnome. I've never bought the "choice is good" mantra. Linux is too small to support 2 different environments. Any enthusiasm I had for developing for Linux was squashed by the continual doubt in my mind about which environment I should develop for, or which one would survive. I'm surprised one or the other hasn't died by now. Having an overlord to make tough decisions in this area would be good IMHO.

I think free software ws always at its strongest when it is copying an already existing design, like the kernel itself. When it goes its own way, with hundreds of developers, it can lose its cohesiveness. I think without a corporate benefactor to pay for a lot of development, it would be better off copying OSX. Not because OSX is the last word in OS but because at least it is well thought out, and lots of people know how to use it.

Re:Partially a lack of interest by users

[MasaMuneCyrus]

Things I very much do not like about OSX.

• - There is no address bar in Finder, so I can't type where I want to go.
• - No move command in Finder (at least up to Snow Leopard, which is what my research institute uses because Apple basically said "we don't care about long-term support" when it moved to Lion). I have to copy files, move deep into some other directory, paste, and then go all the way back to where I came from (which I can't use the "back" button for because I've gone up and down in directory trees) and delete the files from their old folder. Or I have to open up yet another window and drag the files over. The fact that I can't type a path into an address bar makes this even worse.
• - You can't navigate via dragging. Sometimes I just want to move files up a directory. Sometimes I want to drag files into a second Finder window, but I forgot that the other Finder window is minimized. I can't just hover my mouse over the Finder icon and then over the minimized window.. I have to let go of all of my files, unminimize the second Finder window, and then select them all again and drag them over. (I heard that a long time ago some OS had a shelf where you could temporarily drag files to and from. That sounds like a good idea.)
• - If you drag a folder into another folder with an equal name, it doesn't merge, it just deletes the old folder and totally replaces it with the new one. OK, it's a fairly logical behavior, but that means that I can't merge directory trees without the commandline. Worse, if I accidentally screw up and replace a folder I didn't want to, it permanently deletes it. And Command-Z or Undo doesn't work in this case. It should at least ask you twice or mention "WARNING: This will replace the previous folder and remove all files permanently."
• - As others have said, the single menu bar behavior is stupid. If you like it on a single window, that's your opinion, but the whole concept goes to hell when you have multiple monitors. There should be a way to either duplicate the menu onto all monitors or make the menu appear on whichever monitor currently has an active program.

Re:Partially a lack of interest by users

[dudpixel]

You could've just shortened it to this:

I've never bought the "choice is good" mantra.

and that is why a mac is what you need.

Great for people who don't want choices, but it sucks for those who do.

Re:Partially a lack of interest by users

[walshy007]

When the choice is between open and better, the latter will always win.

#define "better", to me, kde is far more functional than os x, I recognize others don't think the same but they likely aren't using it in a similar fashion as to what I am. Without criteria defined there is no such thing as "better".

To some users, windows has better usability for them than os x because different is seen as unwanted. Familiarity is weighted into it. I imagine this mostly comes from people adjusting their workflow to that which their present environment allows, once you have it fine-tuned people rarely wish to change.

My usage of UI is quite simple, I want to be able to hit alt-f2 and type a program name to run it, and have a bar at the bottom for quick selection of the various windows I have open. My entire workflow never uses a double click ever even in file managing situations with konqueror. Once you run single click for all double click seems awkward and superfluous. Do others have different needs than I? of course, but I would hardly call my UI preferences "worse" than others.

Long story short, to some people, OS X has a crappy interface, to some, windows has a crappy interface. All depends on your criteria and means of working.

"No"

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_Law_of_Headlines

This is a really bizarre troll-baiting headline, and based on sample size of 1? By an "anonymous reader" nonetheless. Y U NO require a pseudonym, at least?

No problem here

[vlm]

My productivity has never been higher using "awesome" at home and work
http://awesome.naquadah.org/
Installation was quite painless, apt-get install awesome and its all done, pretty much. It is... awesome

Oh wait, were they talking about those gigantic slow clunky things that include a kitchen sink and everything? Yeah, those can just go away... please.

I kind of liked xfce4 also but thats getting a bit too desktoppy. Too much extra junk I'll never use. I want my apps not the desktop environment's selection.

Not a chance

[dyingtolive]

Rest assured anonymous writer, Open-Source Desktops are staying just as competitive in their constant fight to make your favorite GUI just as unusable and obtuse as those produced by Microsoft or Apple. I am confident that, be it KDE or GNOME, you'll have just as frustrating of a time using the latest versions as you would using Metro or OSX.

I was a skeptic on Ubuntu's Unity...

[Anonymous Coward]

But I spent a bit of time delving into this interface, and I have have now given up my Windows unless I absolutely MUST use it. No more hunting through menus looking for files or software functions. One hot key, followed by a few letters in the name, and up it pops. Wonderful!

Re:I was a skeptic on Ubuntu's Unity...

[vlm]

No more hunting through menus looking for files or software functions. One hot key, followed by a few letters in the name, and up it pops.

There's this crazy thing on my Debian box that works the same way, but its even faster and marginally cooler. The UI is a little different though, you type a couple letters THEN hit the "hot key" which happens to be the tab key and then the enter key if the tab guessed right (kind of like Siri, sometimes it gets it wrong). So its like oct-TAB-ENTER and in instants you're running octave. I believe they call this desktop environment "bash" although theres 80 million clones like csh tcsh dash and even this weird operating system called "emacs" or maybe it was "vi" I don't remember.

Speaking of octave, it has a fascinating user interface too, where you use that row of digits on that old fashioned keyboard thingy to enter numbers, instead of clicking colorized, styled, fonted, widgeted "buttons" on the screen.

Its an interesting change of pace, but I do warn that this "CLI" user interface thing is way too new and experimental for all but the newest, most 'leet, early adopter hipsters, like if you only own a iphone 3gs instead of a 4, don't bother with this trendy new fangled CLI fad.

Yes

[geek]

Of course, by "yes" I mean, "never had a prayer."

I love Linux. I have a great life thanks to Linux. But Linux on the desktop is complete shit and always has been. Especially now with Gnome 3, Unity and KDE 4 giving the finger to users and designing craptastic interfaces.

I'm using Cinnamon at the moment just for a semi usable desktop experience. XFCE is also good. But by and large, desktop environments on Linux are a disaster and it's only getting worse with Gnome pushing systemd on us and Fedora fucking everyone by forcing restarts all the damn time.

I'll stick to server OS's with crappy window managers that I can tweak myself from now on and keep a Mac around for anything desktop related I really want to do. I'm tired of fighting with the fucking desktop environment. I have real work to do.

Gnome devs and KDE devs pissed away promising interfaces and aren't even taking community feedback into consideration anymore. The best thing anyone says about these environments these days is "It's not as bad as it used to be." or "It doesn't crash every 15 minutes like it used to"

People like me moved to Linux because we were sick of Windows 95 crashing all the damn time. We laughed at Bill Gates when Windows 98 crashed during a live demo presentation to the world. Now suddenly we have desktop environments that are worse than 95/98 ever were and we're expected to stick around for this shit? Fuck no.

Re:Yes

[igb]

If you've spent any time around amateur theatre or amateur orchestras, you'll know that the real objective is to provide entertainment for the participants, and the interests of the audience come a long way down the list. If you go along to a concert by an amateur orchestra (and you don't, unless it's your wife or your child playing), then you simply don't have the same expectations as if it's professional, because the orchestra wants and audience so long as it doesn't have to compromise its own interests.

And so, Linux desktops...

Re:Yes

[RabidReindeer]

I never thought twice about the desktop until I upgraded recently. It "just worked".

Gnome3 is an insult. It's almost totally useless. Half of the basic functions I require to do my daily work aren't even available at gunpoint.

Cinnamon was better, but the whole screen freezes except for the mouse pointer and the only cure is to kill the desktop and all apps running in it.

XFCE was closer to Gnome 2 and the screen doesn't lock. But it randomly resets the accessibility and power settings so that on the one hand, hibernation doesn't work and on the other, the keyboard effectively quits working right in the middle of typing things.

I haven't even tried KDE. I didn't like KDE all that much before everyone hated it.

HOW can we have so many desktop choices and all of them be BAD???

Re:NO !! NEVER WERE !!

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

Fill in the blanks:

"Don't feed the ________".
Obvious ______ is obvious".

Figured this out in 2003

[Yeechang Lee]

I figured this out on the day in 2003 when I first tried out OS X. I've been using LInux since 1995 and had tried every available desktop: CDE, KDE, Gnome, Enlightenment (The horror .. the horror ...), Window Maker/AfterStep, fvwm, and even older ones like Motif and twm. I'd used Mac OS 7 and 8 in college and hated it, but OS X was a revelation.

I still use Linux as a server, but for a Unixlike desktop that actually works and runs a lot of applications, OS X is it. Period.

Re:Figured this out in 2003

[h4rr4r]

You like the OSX desktop?
I hate it. It is like it was designed for children and gets in the way too often. I want focus follows mouse, I want to get rid of the idiot dock bar thing, I want menus on every screen not just the main monitor.

On top of it, SHIP WITH THE FUCKING GNUTOOLS YOU MORONS. The half baked commercial versions of these tools lack way to many features.

Re:NO !! NEVER WERE !!

[homey of my owney]

I used a linux desktop for 7 years. I dutifully updated when any improvement was made.

Linux desktops were in my experience never competitive because they require too much technical knowledge. That is an obstacle easily overcome by technical types, but *not* the majority of the user population. It just isn't sustainable to say "Here, tinker, it's cool" to everybody - or more accurately ANYbody outside of technical folks who enjoy the work necessary to update one application or another. It's why many have grown tired of Windows. It's why OSX, with its draw backs, is becoming more popular - the user population at large want an experience that doesn't require at lot of work to keep working. imho.

Love KDE

[TheNinjaroach]

Am I the only one who loves KDE? I like the desktop. I like Dolphin. I think kio_slaves (if they are still called that) provide enormous out-of-the-box connectivity to nearly every remote system I need to connect to.

And KWrite rocks.

Re:Maybe its time to consolidate on one of the the

[vlm]

create one new master desktop

That's the mistake. There is no one master desktop. Its like convincing a bunch of book authors instead of writing a bunch of pulp, they should all cooperate to write the one great american novel.

10000 religions all claiming the other 9999 are wrong? Eh, they should give it up and all cooperate on the one master religion. (with our luck, unrestrained crony capitalism?)

Re:NO !! NEVER WERE !!

[causality]

Linux desktops were in my experience never competitive because they require too much technical knowledge. That is an obstacle easily overcome by technical types, but *not* the majority of the user population.

Am I the only one who doesn't see that as a problem?

Average users who don't want to learn new things about their systems are already well represented. They have several good options. What's so wrong with an OS for those who like learning and want to understand how the system works?

As a long-time Linux user, why would I feel a need for the masses to join me? I'm fine with people choosing what suits them best. I don't need them to choose what I choose. I like the choices I made in a way that doesn't depend on what someone else does.

Linux already has what it needs: enough of a userbase that there is active development and the attention of various companies which can contribute. I don't want it to become so thoroughly obscure as to lose that, because that is a good thing. I for one feel no need to "beat Microsoft", as though popularity indicated quality. Anyone who has seriously considered that question has already observed that it frequently indicates the opposite.

Why does Linux need tons of non-technical users who are unlikely to appreciate and understand the Open Source ethic? So that companies will include Linux drivers by default with hardware you buy? I've personally never had problems getting hardware to work, but then the correct way to do this is to match the hardware to the OS. Doing that, I found I had a very wide selection of hardware covering a large range of prices and capabilities. If that's what drives the desire to "go mainstream" more than Linux already has, it seems designed to solve what is not actually a problem. If that's not what drives this urge, then what does?

Re:Are open-source desktops losing?

[BlackCreek]

IMHO Most people could care less about a desktop's work flow. If it works in *some way* you learn that and get over it. The reason people have computers is to run programs in it.

For one, loads of people need MS Word. Not OpenOffice (or whatever is the new name for it). My sister (pro-photograph) needs Photoshop, not the fscking Gimp. You can argue they /truly need/ it. But one way or another, why should they run an OS that lacks they prefered applications, when they run one that has?

If Linux doesn't have the programs you need or programs which are `good enough for your needs`, and Windows7 or OSX have them. Linux has great browsers, but great applications are really far and few in between.

Re:NO !! NEVER WERE !!

[jedidiah]

The GUI's not having all of the options is not a problem limited to Linux. A cursory search of enabling TRIM in Windows and MacOS quickly led me to references for command line tools.

The last time I looked into enabling GPU video decoding in Windows, the instructions weren't for the faint of heart either.

Everyone assumes that there's never any problems with Windows or even MacOS and it's all some idealistic fantasy. It isn't necessarily.