GNOME-steaders

Gulthek writes " An interesting, if short, article about Gnome and its connection with Red Hat, its potential future, and the future of Linux in general. "

Comments

Research a thing of the past???

[Anonymous Coward]

Geeze -- the guy who wrote this article just didn't do the research. There was a link just yesterday on /. exposing the falsehoods of the claim that GNU software makes up most of the linux distributions. Bah -- nonsense -- try 9.8%. And what ever happened to KDE? I don't like or use it, but it was there way before GNOME. And deadlines? I actually talked to some of the gnome developers personally, and apparently (and if you use GNOME you'll see this) GNOME wasn't even close to being ready to ship as a stable desktop when it was "1.0'd". Just look at how the pre-release versions jumped. I mean, how do you create a desktop environment without a windowmanager? Even the file manager sucks, segfaulting every 5 minutes. Don't get me wrong, I think GNOME has lots of potential, but it's not even close to being completely functional yet -- it shouldn't be 1.0 yet. From what I've been told, GNOME did have a shipping deadline, and that's why it was so rushed. RedHat is governing the GNOME agenda. RedHat needs a desktop to maintain that edge. IT's staking it's bets on GNOME, and they needed something "1.x" to ship with RedHat 6.0 which is forthcoming.

We have to watch this political agenda and not let it govern how OpenSource software is developed. When you add politics to software, you get crappy software (and I don't just mean what MS does, others do it too). It's way too buggy, immature, and unreliable.

When you put deadlines, release dates, and other political commitments into the development cycle of any software product, you get the exact same thing as a commercial software product -- buggy software that, in most cases SUCKS.

In the words of the now infamous Linus Torvalds, "World Domination is inevitable" so why rush it to meet some political agenda? We'll only be screwing ourselves in the end.

-phear capitalism, not the penguin

First GUI?!?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Two weeks ago, GNOME developers gathered at LinuxWorld to announce the launch of GNOME 1.0, the first fully open source graphical user interface for the Linux operating system."

Presumably he meant this as a dig towards KDE in that GNOME is fully open source, whereas KDE is not. :)

GNOME "1.0" is junk - wait for 2.0 (or use KDE)

[Anonymous Coward]

... that's assuming that 2.0 doesn't also get rushed out in the next couple of months :(

I was excited about trying GNOME until they pulled this "1.0" stunt, now I'm totally turned off.

I seems that the reasons to wait for a useable GNOME are disappearing anyways:

- Qt now has a decent licence (& the docs are SUPERB!!)
- KDE is now themeable (www.kde.org.kscreenshots.html)
- KDE now suports WindowMaker, BlackBox etc

GNOME blew it.

Misinformation propagation

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you actually read the latest QPL??

Even Richard Stallman and Alan Cox say it's cool.

An issue of trust and freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

The KDE developers have been telling us Qt is
just fine ever since the beginning. That includes
the time before the new license and even the time
before the Qt foundation thing. Why should I be
expected to trust such people?

Now they have a license that would, at best,
force me to use CVS for development. Note that
all of the CVS-based free projects produce
snapshots in .tar.gz format. This is an important
right that a free Qt project would be denied.

The proper license is that of libstdc++.
Real free software is given freely, without
hesitation. Troll Tech has made a few minimal
concessions, designed to satisfy people who
are willing to overlook critical details.
These people are not likely to be interested
in starting a Qt-based Free Software project
anyway. We shouldn't even have to worry about
the license. The license should be obviously
free, not something that needs to be picked
apart.

wmaker

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed, but the guy that runs it was drunk one day and decided that he didn't want a single click. Ever since then he has had to defend his decision even though there is no logical reason.

Your misinformation propagation

[Anonymous Coward]

Richard Stallman did not say Qt was cool.
He grudgingly accepted it as free software.

In fact, he tells us that Qt is undesireable
because of the unequitable license. The license
gives Troll Tech special rights to our code
(they can use it in a proprietary product) and
denies us the right to distribute modified source.

Note that every CVS-based free software project
distributes tarball-based releases and most of
them distribute tarball-based snapshots. Any
project based on Qt would not have this right.

Your misinformation propagation - not

[Anonymous Coward]

The QPL just says that your mods have to be kept separate - not that you can't distribute them. Keeping Troll release plus changes in CVS would be OK, as would a tarball that includes patches that are applied via an install script.

You've gotta admit the QPL has come a long way.

Horse crap.

[Anonymous Coward]

KDE is so open source. You Gnome fanatics really like spreading misinformation and FUD, don't you...kind of explains your connection with FUD Hat.

Why.

[Anonymous Coward]

Once upon a time everyone in the community looked and worked towards a common goal..

No, that isn't true at all. XEmacs, egcs, and OpenBSD are evidence of that. If a common goal is desireable, the KDE people should start working on GNOME. They already accept the terms of the GNOME license. (well actually no, they like to link GPL source against Qt -- only the original author is allowed grant a Qt exception)

All of the developers believe in what their doing as much as the GNOME developers do.. ALL are working towards the common goal of making linux better for the USER

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. The KDE developers are diverting attention away from true Free Software. The code they write is tied to Qt -- they might as well write Win32 code.

Hey, why do we argue with Microsoft fanatics? Windows comes free with every PC. There are reasons why we don't accept that, and those same reasons require that Qt be left to rot.

Trust indeed?

[Anonymous Coward]

You KDE critics are always insinuating that there is something underhanded going on amongst the KDE developers. Do you have proof? KDE and Troll have been daemonized continually by Slashdot readers, and I have yet to see one shred of evidence to back it all up. Shrill cries of "Troll will take over Linux! KDE is evil! Qt is evil!" have never been backed up with any credible evidence so far..but why should it, when Slashdot is tied so closely to Redhat and Gnome?

Certainly, the KDE developers had no problem with the Qt license. I'd be willing to bet that 99.9% of KDE users felt the exact same way. The original license didn't have any real problems for me, as far as I'm concerned...sure in the light of recent open source developments, I'm glad Troll has reevaluated their licensing, but the original license was just fine for me...even Linus agreed on that.

You mention trust...well, why the hell should I throw my trust behind RedHat and Gnome? Redhat has a disturbing recent history of rushing out releases without doing any testing, and the so-called 1.0 release of Gnome shows the exact same kind of mentality....rush it out with as many bells and whistles as possible, even though the code is very pre-beta. Why should I trust them? They say Gnome is 1.0, when obviously it is not. They made the HUGE jump from 0.33 to 0.99 (what happened to all the revisions in between?). Why trust RedHat? They complained loudly about Qt's license and yet continued to bundle Netscape and other programs with even worse licenses...hypocracy?

Further, why should I trust Miguel at all, when he is recorded IN THE PRESS saying bullshit about KDE ("KDE has many technical problems...it lacks features developers want...it is memory hungry (yeah, and Gnome isn't??)..."

Trust, indeed. Gnome is giving Linux a black-eye claiming to be something it isn't..we have a rock-stable OS, and yet the self-proclaimed 'standard' UI on top crashes at the drop of a hat...it won't be long before the press starts yelling "where's the beef?"

FUD Hat?

[Anonymous Coward]

What does that mean? Red Hat spreads FUD? Red Hat is FUD?

that is one of the lamest name "mangalations" i have ever seen.

Oh, that's good!

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish you weren't serious!

So I can distribute a bloated tarball containing original source and a "patch" that converts it to my modified version. Let's say I run the source through the indent program to get my favorite indentation style. The tarball just increased by about 110%.

This is absurd. Why should I have to come up with some kind of install script hack to apply changes? Why should I have to do the reverse when I want to create a tarball? Those operations would be very annoying. They are, in fact, explicitly designed to make it difficult to work with modified source.

The QPL has indeed come a long way. We dragged its sorry ass, and we have a long way to go still.

Why.

[Anonymous Coward]

You are on of this "we will never die off" guys?!

You cannot flame KDE supporters for the fact that KDE is reliable and functional and at the same time argue for an unreliable and unfunctional piece of code. Stallman is happy about the new QPL, so follow your leader. I don't think he likes that GNOME is driven by marketing. You should dislike that also.

Did we ever hear of an unstable KDE? No. I myself used the CVS version for some months before the pre-phase began.

GNOME bigot

[Anonymous Coward]

If I would check the User-agent header from the posting, I probably would find: Mozilla/incompatible (this user; sucks; ban me; Win16)

I prefer rock solid code (namely KDE) over such crap (GNOME) which is driven by marketing hype. RedHat+GENOME - the new M$ of the free world.

/sarcasm end

KDE will work for you

[Anonymous Coward]

For the record: Engineer, senior admin and programmer.

I'm using KDE 1.1 mostly. Guess what I use of it: my TODO is in this small yellow KNOTE, kbiff checks my email regularly and kview shows me sometimes some images. Beside that, kterm sucks (because I was too lazy to set it up), so I still prefer the original xterm.

But the main point: It has never crashed on me! Never. And I don't restart X/KDE every morning.

FUD, FUD, FUD...

[Anonymous Coward]

You KDE critics are always insinuating that there is something underhanded going on amongst the KDE developers. Do you have proof? KDE and Troll have been daemonized continually by Slashdot readers, and I have yet to see one shred of evidence to back it all up. Shrill cries of "Troll will take over Linux! KDE is evil! Qt is evil!" have never been backed up with any credible evidence so far..but why should it, when Slashdot is tied so closely to Redhat and Gnome?

You GNOME critics are always insinuating that there is something underhanded going on amongst the GNOME developers. Do you have proof? GNOME and Red Hat have been daemonized continually by Slashdot readers, and I have yet to see one shred of evidence to back it all up. Shrill cries of "Red Hat will take over Linux! GNOME is evil!" have never been backed up with any credible evidence so far..but why should it, when Slashdot is tied so closely to Troll Tech and KDE?

Really, it works better in the second version

Different licenses...

[Anonymous Coward]

i am so confused....

does anybody have a site where it does a side by side comparsion between GPL,LGPL,QPL,NPL,APL,etc?????

thanks

bloodsucker

[Anonymous Coward]

Man, go to your mummy and whine there about "I am not allowed to indent code I did not write, I don't own and which other people gave me for free."

I hope you are not serious. You can distribute the changed source. With or without patch - it does not make any difference.

versioning (you idiot)

[Anonymous Coward]

> They say Gnome is 1.0, when obviously it
> is not. They made the HUGE jump from 0.33
> to 0.99 (what happened to all the revisions
> in between?).

Hmmm, the same thing that happened to all the
Linux versions from around 0.2 to around 0.95
maybe? Could it be tradition to make a version
number jump when software becomes usable?
Oh my, it looks like this conspiracy is hot air.

Then again, maybe Linux is at fault too. We should
ignore such crap and run NT instead.

company backing

[Anonymous Coward]

"The freeness issue is definitely what attracted us," said Mike Fullbright--aka "Dr.Mike"--director of Red Hat Advanced Development Labs and the project's co-leader along with de Icaza. "We respect how the kernel was developed. With the other Linux desktops [KDE, etc.], there always was some company involved. We didn't want that."

And in the next paragraph they point out that he
is paid by RedHat. Is this supposed to be irony?

Anyway, another article that points out GNOME's
quasi-dependence on RedHat the distro is

http://linux.miningco.com/library/weekly/aa03149a. htm

where the author shows that compiling the source
on a non-Redhat system can be daunting.

evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

You KDE critics are always insinuating that there is something underhanded going on amongst the KDE developers.

Only that they brush aside license problems. Their continued dismissal of serious problems could be considered underhanded. Certainly there is no reason to trust people that brush aside such issues with a &quotlook at the pretty software" distraction.

Do you have proof?

Do you? Hey, the above is obvious: KDE people do brush aside serious licence issues. If you have any doubt... hell, look at your own post.

KDE and Troll have been daemonized continually by Slashdot readers, and I have yet to see one shred of evidence to back it all up.

Nor evidence to refute it... but there is plenty of evidence to support the fact that Red Hat has done far more for Linux than any other distribution.

Shrill cries of "Troll will take over Linux! KDE is evil! Qt is evil!"

That is a nice hollow attack. Why &shrill cries" rather than "well-reasoned arguments"? Could it be that you just want to brush away the truth with an attack against the people who defend it?

have never been backed up with any credible evidence so far..

This is a bad judgement call. Any evidence that disagrees with your erroneous opinion is just not credible of course...

but why should it, when Slashdot is tied so closely to Redhat and Gnome?

This is total bullshit. I see far too much KDE crap around here. Red Hat gets abused in the worst way -- you can see the disgusting evidence in the Slashdot archives.

judging GNOME vs KDE

[Anonymous Coward]

let us judge GNOME vs KDE *only* on a basis of
their own merits, and not based on the facts
that Troll Tech has developed QT on one hand,
and the GNOME is subsidized by Red Hat - on
the other. So far it appears that this is
GNOME (and Red Hat) folks who do most of the
whining.

contradiction

[Anonymous Coward]

1. I am not allowed to indent code
2. other people gave me for free

Hmmm? This isn't really free.

> I hope you are not serious. You can distribute
> the changed source. With or without patch - it
> does not make any difference.

Read the QPL yourself. In particular, note the
section that refers to a 'form distinct from'.
The license even suggests the use of patches
to overcome this problem -- but that is a crappy
restriction on projects.

If QPL isn't free (it isn't), hey, no problem.
The problem is that people claim otherwise and
attempt to convince people that free software
should be based on such a non-free foundation.
(oh, I suppose it is half-assed free)

Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems to me that de Icaza is reacting to perceived earlier snobbery on the part of some of the KDE developers and now the KDE developers are bending over backwards to show that they are appreciative of the GNOME work and going so far as to suggest mutual cooperation rather than competition which makes de Icaza now look bad when earlier it was KDE looking bad and now everyone is starting to dump on the GNOME team for releasing version 1 too early when earlier they were dumping on KDE for accepting QT even though it was tainted by the Trolls' (original) license and on and ON and ON it goes and I just can't take it anymore (sobb) :-( :-( :-(......(whew --- takes a deep breath).

Re: Why?

[RealUlli]

What is you problem?

It seems you didn't do your homework! Even in the Linux kernel, there were quite often large chunks of code cut out and thrown away! Look at the TCP/IP stack along with the rest of the networking code in 2.0 versus 2.2, look at the memory management subsystem (since 0.5 ist was completely exchanged at least three times!)

I'm sure there are lots of other instances of that, but i don't know them for I'm no kernel hacker.

And that KDE GNOME issue... they're both here to stay and cause holy flamewars, just like emacs and vi... so what?

company backing

[Anonymous Coward]

Check GNOME: it uses the LGPL.
Check the LGPL. Do you see Red Hat in it? No?

The QPL gives special rights to Troll Tech.
The LGPL gives equal rights to everyone.

Got it now?

Fork Gnome, get it away from Red Hat

[Anonymous Coward]

I use KDE because it works.

Gnome on the other hand is still alpha.

I suggest someone out there should fork the Gnome tree. Rename the head to .5 as it should be and set up a reasonable committee or consitutional like structure like Debian has to develop the thing.

MS like marketing tactics (release buggy shit early) should not be allowed in the open source community.

Why.

[Anonymous Coward]

> You cannot flame KDE supporters for the fact
> that KDE is reliable and functional

I could, but I won't. There are plenty of
important issues to flame about.

> and at the same time argue for an unreliable
> and unfunctional piece of code.

First of all, GNOME is not an unreliable and
unfunctional piece of code. Take your FUD elsewhere.

Second of all, yes I can! If you really want a
reliable and functional desktop, get an iMac.

> Stallman is happy about the new QPL

Then why did he tell us not to use Qt?
Hmmm, he said something about an unequitable
and burdensome license. In other words, you lie.
He grudgingly agreed that the QPL met the
bare minimum requirements for free software.
That does not mean that he is happy with it!

> I don't think he likes that GNOME is driven
> by marketing.

Where did you get those fucked up ideas?

Richard Stallman likes free software, no
matter what the motivation is. Duh.

GNOME is no more driven by marketing than
Qt and KDE are. Why do you think the Trolls
severely upgraded their themes support?
Could it be marketing? Hell yes, there isn't
any other good reason to have themes.

judging GNOME vs KDE

[Anonymous Coward]

> let us judge GNOME vs KDE *only* on a basis
> of their own merits, and not based on the
> facts that Troll Tech has developed QT

This is where you got lost. Nobody really gives
a damn who wrote Qt. It is the QPL that is a
problem, since it gives the original author more
rights than other contributing authors. Not only
that, but the rights denied/granted are far more
important than the MPL (Netscape) ones and the
software of interest is a _library_, not an app.

Anyway, judging on software merits alone:
MacOS X is the winner, followed by Windows NT.
Both have beautiful (consistant!) GUIs on top
of modern operating systems. Of course, I happen
to like a nice free GPL/LGPL system, but that
has nothing to do with software merits.

Oh pulease

[Anonymous Coward]

win32 is a garbage api. This is a widely known fact. One of its worst points is that it is *inconsistent*. This is not my opinion alone... I have 1400 pages of Rector and Newcomer that say the same thing repeatedly.

What can GNOME or KDE do?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have tried neither of these programs. What type of usefulness can they provide that is not already available with X windows and a standard window manager? Before I decrease the reliability and performance of my machine, I would like to know what utility I am gaining. Yes, I'm too lazy to figure it out for myself unless I hear some rumors of great utility. :)

A troll peeing on Qt? How odd!

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently AFAYK isn't very far.

GNOME is really at about 0.5. The extra 0.5 is the bullshit factor.

KDE is at 1.1, and totally deserves to be.

Qt is at 1.44. Have you ever tried it, or seen the brilliant documentation? It's an incredible piece of work. I tried it, and went from ground zero to writing a small app with a custom widget in about 2 hours. Try doing that with gdk+!!!

KDE will work for you

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly!

KDE is for people with work to do.

GNOME is for greasy stinkin' long hair socially inept girlfriendless losers!

What can GNOME or KDE do?

[Anonymous Coward]

Both KDE and GNOME provide:

Session management
CORBA based component programming
High level application print services
High level application dialogs
Additional application services/libraries
Desktop productivity applications
Panel based application menus and virtual workspaces
Desktop themability (goes beyond UI toolkit themability)
Consistent look-and-feel for native applications

Read the acticle before you post

[Anonymous Coward]

It says Gnome is the first fully OPEN SOURCE gui.
KDE was the first GUI for linux but not the first fully open source gui. Qt 2.0 hasn't been officially realeased yet and the OFFICIAL current stable release of KDE still uses QT 1.42 which isn't bound by the QPL. KDE has been in developement for a little over 2 years and Gnome has been in developemnet a little over a year. Personally I think we should all applaud the KDE and Gnome people. Although not complete and bug free after 2 years thier showing us some pretty awesome stuff. And if you're having problems with bugs or whatever why not report them to the Gnome and KDE people instead of using immatuer words and phrases like sucks,piece of shit, or gay. Cause ultimately these words with do nothing for the cause of free software and Linux. Some people take the discussions here on slashdot seriously. We come here for information and substantiated opinions. People that come here just to start flame wars inevitably are ruining the professional image that Linux is building. Think before you post.

BOLLOCKS!

[Anonymous Coward]

Qt wins hands down as the easiest way to program a good-looking GUI.

You may not like the licence, but the software and documentation are both ABSOLUTELY FUCKING BRILLIANT!!!

First GUI?!?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

"open source" is a meaning-less term whereas "free software" means something. KDE and GNOME are both "free software".

Please stop spreading FUD.

Red Hat's supporting KDE; whats left of Gnome?

[Anonymous Coward]

Read http://www.kde.org/news_dyn.html#nwst_head1

stripped down?

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, as I remember it, when NT 4.0 was first released, there wasn't squat that would run on it. Yet many were willing to give up their old their old OS and programs that they had become accustom to just on the knowledge that things were being written for NT, and that NT was more powerful then 3.1/DOS. What he doesn't realize is that many NT power users are switching over to Linux for the same reasons that they originally switched to NT, a powerful OS and knowledge that many of the everyday "joe shmo" programs, like WordPerfect and Quattro Pro, have been, or are in the process of being ported over. And now with WMWare then term "Windows NT" has a whole new meaning.

wmaker

[Anonymous Coward]

Eh? There's no logical reason for single click either. It's just a matter of personal preference.

Horse crap.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't particularly like GNOME either. So it's not like I'm playing favorites. I just don't want someone's personal property and potential essential facility imbedded in an otherwise completely liberated (and thus immune from market effects) OS.

Mind you, I don't dislike QT. When people build on IT they know exactly what they're getting into. The licencing issues are clear. Whereas KDE muddies the issues by mangling the different licences together.

I don't fault the Trolls, I fault the KDE team.

Although, I do think the Trolls would be better off (as businessmen) freeing QT and selling a kickass dev enviroment instead.

First GUI?!?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

NO they aren't. GNOME is free software whereas KDE is not. It's tied to someone's personal property.

That is one thing that rather distinguishes the GNU project (the paragon of free software) from KDE. It's use is not dependent on someone's private IP. It can be layered on top of it but it's not dependent on it.

What can GNOME or KDE do?

[Anonymous Coward]

Both a still just window dressing. Maybe someday that will change, but for the moment - nothing.

BOLLOCKS!

[Anonymous Coward]

As a user of a desktop system that doesn't mean shit to me. I've seen good desktops written in GEM VDI/AES. However, as someone who runs an OS potentially based on it's freeness, licences DO matter.

Otherwise, many of us GUI fancying types should be out buying G3's with MacOS 10 on them if the credo: get what desktop is technically best is to be followed.

grand unifier?

[Anonymous Coward]

NO, it is a poor choice of libraries in terms of licences on the part of the KDE team that causes division. GNOME is only an aspect of that division. It is a symptom only, as opposed to the disease.

Red Hat's supporting KDE; whats left of Gnome?

[Anonymous Coward]

The really big, functional issues of a desktop really aren't addressed by either desktop but by third party components: namely Corba and Xdnd.

THAT is what you really want out of a desktop standard: Netscape talking to Word Perfect or any other diversely developed standard compliant with the REALLY important standards.

The core widgetset is really the least important thing. That the KDE team would make a licence compromise over THAT shows exceedingly poor judgement and a poor understanding of the real problem of a 'desktop'.

yes!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that's exciting news. =)

poll

[Anonymous Coward]

I would just like to say that I found this poll to be quite interesting. I never saw the link to this posted on here. maybe I over-looked it. Or maybe there's more to it. what do you think?


http://www.linuxworld.com/linuxworld/cgi-bin/pol lresults.cgi?pollfile=linuxgui.dat

evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh huh. And sure, you've seen the KDE developers
hang shit on GNOME in their press releases too.

KDE writes code, and GNOME writes press releases.

Horse crap.

[Anonymous Coward]

Its ironic you call him a fanatic.

KDE 1.0/1.1 not Open Source?

[Anonymous Coward]

the word is "FULLY" look it up.

Most of the shit I've seen, seems to be flying from the KDE side of the fense. "Nitpicking" from there also.

GNOME bigot

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean you are a bigot against gnome.

People like you fucked up the emulation scene, everything has to be perfect for the "free loaders", they can't be satified. I thought this was a community were if you have a problem you fix it, but its turning into a bunch free loading winers, and cry babies.

FUD, FUD, FUD...

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree.

evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

gnome had been in coding for ~2 years, I have only seen press releases this month, before that I only read a blurb about RedHat wanting to move Linux into offices but no mention of gnome, and none of the ones I have read directly from RedHat and gnome say anything directly against KDE, my guess is some people read what they want to read, believing what they want to believe.

evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

BTW is it wrong to want attention for your work?

I stopped reading when...

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree, the best parts were the quotes and the information about gnomes, the only part I felt was incomplete was that he only said that it depends on users, but IMO it also depends on programmers moving over, that has been MSs claim to fame, the users use windows because of the software, the programmers program for windows because of the users, and it keeps feeding itself, if gnome can manage to balance this they could do very well. On the other hand it is free, and I don't know if will die off since it doesn't depend on much, Linux had started off as a niche OS but is starting to gain momentum.

Overall though I liked the article.

Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure where you are coming from, I see some pretty hard headed KDE users, attacking everything that gnome does, and talking crap to any one who hints around that they are going to support it. But I hardly see gnome users doing the same thing, only rebutting some of the more slanderous things the KDE users are saying.

I really don't see a reason for people to argue what should be used and what should not.

"Can't we all just get along?" :)

Another reason to use themes.

[Anonymous Coward]

You are coming from another OS and feel comfortable in their graphics user interface. :)

Sigh ....

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree here, he did slip in this case because the release was essentially for linux world, but that is not a big deal to a normal human being, but the few mental cases going around are the ones coming down on them for this. Personly I think they need more developers helping them with the bugs, that would increase the speed.

Oh pulease

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree, MS is inconsistent in their code design (its like a philosophy with them), MFC, directX are other examples. Compare OpenGL to DirectDraw/3D, just saying OpenGL for graphics and then saying DirectDraw and Direct3D for graphics, 2 seperate sections of an API, that alone is inconsistent. And MFC, just step through trying to use their document view architecture and you will step on a few other inconsistencies.

judging GNOME vs KDE

[Anonymous Coward]

It depends on what you mean by software merits. Their are many factors, quality doesn't necesarily mean stability, Macs are definetly not a good network computers, Windows NT is second to Unix run networks. A friend of mine must use Macs at his work and any time something goes wrong, he jokenly yells that he wants to be in windows, he says he likes the control windows gives him, while if something goes wrong on a mac there is less he can do about it, this isn't my opinion BTW, although I don't doubt my friend because he works on macs for a living, and uses windows at home. NT also has a ton of software and covers things from Imaging, AV, computer graphics and more, the bugs can be bad (the worst ones are caused by hw & driver problems) but it has MS standing behind it, and that is one of its biggest problems!!!! Apple has always done things the closed way, any time they open up (the mac clones) they realize they can't compete this way and they close up again.

Of course, I happen
to like a nice free GPL/LGPL system, but that
has nothing to do with software merits.

maybe not a "software merit", but merits yes. If there is right and wrong, a choice between a monoplies product or to support the free version, there is merits in that.

You crack me up

[Anonymous Coward]

"By making a compromise over what you say is the least important thing, we show exceedingly poor judgement? "

you "kde" people are too "lazy" and need a quick solutions, why not at the start write a full LGPL C++ library ?

What can GNOME or KDE do?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who wants window dressing at the expense of an environment that is more unstable? Oh yeah, that's what windows users like. :) Why pay for a crappy OS when we will make ours just as crappy for free?

Miguel de Icaza

[Anonymous Coward]

It is nice to see de Icaza take a little of the spot light for an article for once. I find it too bad that the Linux media hype allows clever minds like this just hide in Linus' media hype shadow.

At an Atlanta Linux Showcase that I made it to a couple years ago, de Icaza had to be the most fun speaker to see. This is one of the few people that I have ever met that could keep a mixed crowd of people awake and entertained while discussing the details of software RAID support. While Linus was also there and did attempt to give an interesting open-talk on SMP, his hype and the hype of the "all powerful kernel" killed the discussion with such questions as "why isn't voice recogination built into the Linux kernel?" (The person who asked also seemed offended to hear that it was a "user-space" issue.)

Anyways, I was disappointed by the fact that the article seemed to be asserting that the existence of KDE and GNOME means a de-centralization. This seems as silly to me as someone declairing the Internet will fail due to it's de-centralized TCP vs. UDP protocols. Another disappointing statement in the article was that GNOME's success depends on users abandoning WinNT. While GNOME is being developed on the Linux platform, it seems clear that it isn't nessarily strongly tied to that platform. One of the foundations of the GNOME project, Gtk, has already been ported to NT along with GIMP. The success of LiteStep has also shown that some NT users are willing to abandon the NT explorer.exe in favor of a different window manager. The article does very little to back-up it's statement that GNOME depends on abandoning NT. :(

Not there yet.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually single-clicking is a question in the FAQ, and the
author is really adamant about not supporting it.

But, since I just installed WM last week, I still have the source,
and am starting to look at it. There is definitely nothing
there now to support single-clicking. But, the code is fairly
easy to follow, and I'm going to fiddle with it in my spare
time.

-- jsf@hevanet.com

But maybe soon!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, it seems like I've got it working! It's just a small change
to the handleIconMove() routine in dock.c. When the button is
released, I check to see if there had been any motion. If not,
it means it was just a click, so I launch the application.

Of course, this should probably be controlled by a user-
configuration option. When I get that done, I'll try submitting
the changes.

wmaker

[Yarn]

Uh, I dont know why this is *here*, but if you want you can make the dock single click, its only a bit of code...

I'll wait 'til 3.0

[pingouin]

For KDE or GNOME. And then I'll still probably not care. May I remind you of those Famous Words? And poor GNUstep doesn't even get more than the token namecheck amidst these silly turf wars.

J Pingouin Braithwaite-Guevara, proud mwm user. I don't need no steenkin' "environment" :)

--

Sigh ....

[Craig]

> "In the free [software] world, we've been able to do things the right way, because we've been able to take the time," de Icaza says. "We haven't had to worry about deadlines or release dates, and that's given us a chance to create better things...."

I have great respect for Miguel, and wish GNOME the best, but I have to say that the Linux World announcement of GNOME 1.0 was clearly a marketing-driven release date; that's the only possible explanation of its official release with so many instabilities. It's sad to see this happen with free software, but that's life in the big city.

(Linus' release of 2.2.0 with the brown-bag bug -- ldd core -- was, OTOH, not motivated by any marketing concern but simply because Linus was getting a little burned out after two years of 2.1....)

Craig

I stopped reading when...

[Eccles]

>I stopped reading when he said "Granted, Torvalds hasn't shown any signs of handing over his red hat..."

Note that this is a reference to Papa Smurf's red hat (the other smurfs have mostly white ones), not Red Hat the company. I did a double-take when I saw that too...

I stopped reading when...

[Phil Gregory]

A number of people seem to think that the article wasn't very good. I didn't think that it was too bad. The "red hat" line was the worst one. The bit about Papa Smurf and the village smurfberry supply was a bit fluffy, but I thought it drew a nice analogy. It doesn't make any denigrating comments about KDE (notable for a GNOME article). It mentions that GNOME is, in part, commercially funded yet is a free project.

The biggest complaints about the article seem to be about the remark about the "application-rich" Windows NT. That comment is, in many ways, true. Windows in general has been around longer than any major Linux push for the desktop and more people write programs for the Windows platform. The next quote, from IDC, "If they give Linux a complete look and feel, but if the applications aren't there, it still won't grow," is true but misleading. The application base is small when compared to Windows' base, but GNOME's is growing. I think that was the worst of the article, and it wasn't that bad. The article as a whole was pretty good.

--Phil (If only they'd waited a little longer for 1.0...)

Screwdriver

[tjones]

What size?

A troll peeing on Qt? How odd!

[Per Abrahamsen]

Try to read the messages before you reply to them. Tim Moore talked about KDE 2.0, not 1.1. KDE 2.0 is not realesed yet, while KDE 1.1 is not fully Open Source(TM) compliant.

This makes Gnome 1.0 the first fully Open Source(TM) compliant desktop for Linux.

company backing

[Daniel]

I agree, it's tough to compile Gnome on non-RedHat systems. I mean, my automated build script fails to compile one of the packages almost once a week! I mean, c'mon! What are these people thinking??

[ that was a ( possibly shoddy ) attempt at humor for the more trigger-happy members of the audience. No! Don't shoot! ]

Daniel

What can GNOME or KDE do?

[Daniel]

Umm, window dressing is the purpose of a desktop environment. That's not necessarily a bad thing. :-)

Daniel

company backing

[red_dragon]

You bet it's hard to compile GNOME on non-RedHat distributions. I attempted to compile 1.0.1 on my SuSE 5.3 box, and it was all too complicated, and then the result was all too buggy. Anyway, since when do Linux applications put locale data in /usr/lib/locale, instead of /usr/share/locale? That was the most annoying "feature".

You crack me up

[Roberto]

By making a compromise over what you say is the least important thing, we show exceedingly poor judgement?

What's letf to a poor sap that makes a compromise on something that matters? A firing squad at dawn?

You can argue one thing or the other:

Or by making a compromise over something important, we show poor judgement, or by making a compromise over something that doesn't matter we show pragmatism and foresight.

The other combinations make no sense.

Misinformation propagation

[Tim Moore]

It doesn't say the only fully open source desktop, just the first. The GNOME project started before the QPL, and the GNOME project has made a 1.0 release whereas the Qt 2.0 based KDE is still in development, AFAIK.

What if I want to use a piece?

[Paul Carver]

If I want to use piece of their code in my program, say ~100 lines of code, do I have to distribute their entire multimegabyte source and have an install script delete all but the ~100 lines I need to use?

The way I understand it the QPL only lets me enhance their (potentially commercial) product, it does not allow me to reuse their code in an independent and unrelated program that happens to require a small piece of functionallity that they developed.

grand unifier?

[arielb]

If you don't care if linux doesn't have a unifying desktop, I can understand that POV. But to say gnome was established to set a standard desktop is crazy. Say what it is-it's an alternative to kde which came first, more stable and on more linux distros. Gnome causes division which makes things more confusing to the new user. Now if you feel that linux is all about lots of choices and that it's not intended for people who are computer illiterate, then gnome is a great thing.
oh btw, does anyone want AOL on gnome/linux?

I stopped reading when...

[Booker]

I stopped reading when he said "Granted, Torvalds hasn't shown any signs of handing over his red hat..."

Ugh. There's so much drivel and fluff out there, I long for something substantial and informative...

Oh!

[Booker]

Well, in that case, it's more funny than stupid, I guess. :-) I wonder if they had any idea that they were making an allusion to one of the leading Linux distro companies. Was it clever or coincidence?

First GUI?!?!?

[eponymous cohort]

That's like when Internet Explorer for Unix was announced, last year, there was an article or press release that said, "Finally, an alternative to lynx on Solaris!"

Compiling Gnome on Non-Redhat

[Knuckles]

> where the author shows that compiling the source
> on a non-Redhat system can be daunting.

FUD. Of course, compiling beta stuff depending on beta libs can be daunting, RH or not. I compiled every release from GNOME 0.99.3 up to 1.0.1 on a SuSE 6.0.1, along with gtk+, imlib and ORBit. I had not a single problem other than imlib needing another version of libpng (no 1.0.2 IIRC) and occasional troubles with patches, as *.png files wouldn't be updated and you had to get the whole tarball again. Sure, some things went wrong, but these were caused by stupid mistakes of mine. Oh, and with the misguided pre-1.0 I had to change some ifdefines as it didn't expect to be compiled against a gtk 1.2 release. Nothing that anyone with rudimentary knowledge of C can't fix. I must know my C knowledge is growing, but from a low level. In fact, following the GNOME mailing list, there were *at least* as much people with problems on RH 5.2 as with SuSE 6.0, probably simply because SuSE is more up do date

Research a thing of the past???

[reaper]

He didn't say it was the first. In fact, later in the article The author said "Indeed, while GNOME may not earn credit as the first GUI for the Linux system". HE said it's the first fully open source graphical user interface for the Linux operating system. Granted, I thought that title went to twm. Oh well.

stripped down?

[Lbase]

quote from article:

>how many users will be willing to abandon the >application-rich environment of the Windows NT
>desktop for the stripped-down virtues of the >Linux operating system.

Stripped down? You suppose Sam has tried Linux in any form?
Oh, well, someone probably told him so.....
Mean while back at the ranch I just got gnome and e to run on SuSE 6 and I am as happy as a pig in shit! (or whatever) - go to:
http://ifmpc118.ifm.uni-hamburg.de/gnome.html

this is definitly NOT strippped

Why?

[N1KO]

Did you type that stuff just now?

A reason to use themes.

[N1KO]

They make your desktop less dull. Its like the stupid colors on the iMac.

Not: GTK, GNOME and E all have themes.

So Gnome has bugs...but why no 1.0.3 RPMs?

[VinceJH]

Those gnome-rpms in starbucks are compiled against glib-2.1 (I guess you knew that). Well, I bet people have them on their redhat systems right now, using rpms they made from the SRPMS on redhat.

I think gnome needs a little system to accept RPMS from other people. I have made gnome 1.0.3 rpms, fixed specs, and all of that, but were to send them. This might be a real solution to most, as they don't have time to recompile stuff on there computer.

de Icaza on Red Hat payroll?

[YeOldeGnurd]

I thought this rumor had recently gotten squashed. Not that it matters to me whether he gets paid or not, but I thought his GNOME work was strictly voluntary.

Bravery, Kindness, Clarity, Honesty, Compassion, Generosity

Why?

[doom]

Look, take it easy...

> Almost every article about GNOME has to put down
> KDE in some way or another. Why?

Because journalists are stupid, sleazy creatures
that need to have an "angle" before they turn
in a story. So first you get the hero worship
stuff about the great Linus Torvalds, the little
hacker that could, and then you get the Linus vs.
RMS wars (even though the differences between
them are about as huge as the People's Front of
Judea and the Judean People's Front), and so now
you're starting to see the KDE vs. Gnome shit
played up, because they think they've *got* to
play *something* up. (And you know what? Now
that we've been through the "Isn't Linux Great?"
cycle, now we can expect the "Oh, that Linux
hype has been overdone" cycle... something to
look forward to, eh?).

Anyway, take a look at the gnome FAQ some time
(http://www.gnome.org/gnomefaq/), under the
question "Why not KDE?". The information is out
of date (this was written when QT was still
proprietary) but even so, it's pretty reasonable:

> The GNOME people like the KDE people. We think
> that this difference between ourselves is
> unfortunate, and we do not like having to dwell
> on these differences.
>
> This matter has been hashed out time and time
> again on the gnome list. Asking this question on
> the gnome list is discouraged behaviour. If you
> want to go somewhere and start a flamewar on
> this topic, then please do it somewhere far far
> away where we don't have to listen to you.
>
> GNOME will probably use components ported from
> the KDE project; conversely, wherever possible
> GNOME components can be freely used by KDE. We
> would like to see as much cooperation as is
> possible between the two projects.

Do these people sound like they're out for blood
or something?

Where is here?

[SeanNi]

Uh, I dont know why this is *here*, but if you want you can make the dock single click, its only a bit of code...

Where is *here*?

Is the code actually available, or is that just an invitation to dive in and change it? I might be willing to, if I can dig up the free time.

(Also, have to get around to grabbing the 0.5 x version, still sitting at 0.20.1 meself.)

But I would definitely like to see that.

Oh, and BTW: your homepage (http://pendragon.ex.ac.uk/~yarn/) is broken; just gives a "Cannot connect to server."
--
- Sean

Suggestion ...

[coreybrenner]

Okay, after having read most of this rant (that which I could reasonably follow), I have a suggestion to make about KDE and GNOME. If everyone's so up in arms about the QPL, and the licensing restrictions of Qt, why not revive the Harmony project? Or, God-forbid, write a Qt wrapper for GTK+/GNOME that would seamlessly integrate all KDE apps into a GNOME desktop without any hassle? I'd not mind working on a project like this, assuming I could get both up and running on my system with no hassle.

All this in-fighting is pointless and stupid. There are two DEs on Linsux (and the rest of Unix, as this code can reasonably be compiled anywhere... well... sorta...). Deal with it, or don't. If you don't like it, change it. But, most importantly, shut the hell up.

--C

First GUI?!?!?

[Beef]

GNOME is the first GUI for the Linux system. Yep. I guess before that all we had was Lynx and Emacs. Thank you Miguel!

First GUI?!?!?

[Beef]

Oops, I missed the "not."

BTW, does anyone have a Phillips screwdriver I could borrow?

So Gnome has bugs...but why no 1.0.3 RPMs?

[King Babar]

gnome-core-1.0.3 and related goodies were released over the weekend, and yet I haven't been able to find any RPMs of this stuff until, today...sort of. Of course, since gnome 1.0.1 is completely bug-free, this shouldn't really be an issue I guess.

I say "sort of" in the last paragraph because the latest pre-release stuff (RedHat 5.9, aka "Starbuck") that just got leaked onto /. includes these updates, but these haven't made their way back to ftp.gnome.org or some place where you have a chance in the firey place of actually getting them.

Hint, hint.

King Babar

Why?

[snoopdave]

Is the next release of your comment "Why?" going to include paragraph separations? I got kind of dizzy about three inches and had to stop reading even tho I enjoy your style of disjointed ranting.

Why?

[Big Ruff]

Why is this happening the way it is? Why is linux slashing its own wrists? Once upon a time everyone in the community looked and worked towards a common goal.. to provide an OS that was functional, stable and for the people. Everyone had a hand in it.. developers, even the users that most of you disrespect half the time.. you don't have to be a geek or a coder to help make linux take over that other os.. sure developers provide what is needed for users to want to be here.. but it's more users tellin their pals hey this stuff is cool and its much better than win*. Now things are more a game of cut throat right here inside what was once a 'community' of folks with a common goal... What's going on here? Almost every article about GNOME has to put down KDE in some way or another.. WHY? Is KDE not a DE on linux? does it not provide a comfortable environment for users coming from windows to work in.. heck it's pretty similar to windows in look AND in feel... yah they use a not so GPL'd toolkit.. but does that change the fact that there are tons of developers writing what they feel to be a FREE environment for linux? Are there not tons of folks writing various applications for KDE in the thoughts of providing useful GUI tools for KDE? All of the developers believe in what their doing as much as the GNOME developers do.. ALL are working towards the common goal of making linux better for the USER, but GNOME folks and ole de Icaza have to take cheap shots at KDE. Why? Are KDE developers inhuman? Do any of them deserve this? No. I see on the KDE page they even had in their news the release of GNOME 1.0, and in that post asking Mr. de Icaza to tell them of their 'technical deficiencies', looks to me they're pretty supportive and want to correct things that may or may not be deficient. Now today i read this article.. the first opensource GUI for linux.. implying KDE isnt thus slamming it more.. KDE isnt opensource? Well heck.. what in the world is this stuff i get out of the source directory on kde.org? sure looks like c/c++ code to me.. yes i do believe their source is OPEN. Can i make modifications to KDE? Yes you bet you bottom i can. Maybe i like how they have removeable menubars can i just take that? Yes i can, i can take those widgets right out of there. The claimed problem is with QT, i personally dont see problem with it. Heck most of you should be happy for QT licensing.. they make it so that you HAVE to create opensource (free) applications or you pay their grand fee. So you cant take from the qt library.. but you can submit patches and get stuff included on upcoming releases. KDE still not open source? Granted KDE _not_ linked to QT library would be pretty much useless, but KDE in and of itself IS opensource it is free i can take it and do whatever i want with it. Yes i know im venting.. but heck all i see is GNOME GNOME GNOME, well that is great, deserves every bit of attention as the effort put into making it a wonderful environment, but that doesnt constitute beating KDE into the gutter everytime you get the chance.. i believe 2 DE's can live in the linux world just fine.. who cares who uses one more than the other.. what you should care about is you have the choice to run one or the other.. GNOME is so caught up on 'winning' or something that it must take every 'in the publics face oppertunity' to kick KDE. This is crazy guys/gals KDE is part of the darn effort to make linux more than what it is.. and your ready to cut it off.. think of it like brothers twins even if you want.. 1 is KDE one is GNOME.. and linux community is .. thats right DADDY.. tell me.. if one brother is any more or less successful than the other is DADDY any more or less lifted up.. each brother isnt going to do the exact same thing.. they both do their own thing and do it well (no body is perfect) and both make DADDY proud.. now would it be right for daddy to say hey.. i dont like what you do KDE son... so any time folks ask DADDY or GNOME SON how they're doing DADDY/GNOME take that as an oppertunity to kick and bash the other son... pretty sad if you ask me.. they're isn't any need for it.. sorry i could go on for days i think.. stuff is built up.. it's just sickining to watch you guys destroy yourself... Hey yah.. how many of you have friends? most of you right.. whether real life.. or on the net i dont care.. but folks you call friends... any of you ever have that one 'pal' that no matter what he had to make himself look better by putting you or the rest of the group down.. you didnt like it did you? pissed you off huh? Think about it.. it's the same darn thing going on here..

note: yes i know my grammar sucks, and i know my spelling sucks. thank you for ignoring my mistakes.

Why?

[Big Ruff]

yes i did *shrug*

Why.

[Big Ruff]

'Once upon a time everyone in the community looked and worked towards a common goal'

Well it's nice how you quote me out of context to help you rebuttle. Seeing as you didn't get the whole quote.. here it is:

'Once upon a time everyone in the community looked and worked towards a common goal.. to provide an OS that was functional, stable and for the people'

There we go, see it now.. it's more than just XEmacs, egcs or kde or gnome.. it's the big picture of making this OS succeed and succeed marginally.. to whip the pants of the proprietary os's out there.. now gnome is rockin in the press.. so what if another FREE environment sprung up totally gpl'd and wooped the pants off of gnome.. and was featured in the press all over the place and everytime they were they beat up GNOME.. would that be any more right than gnome beating up KDE because _some_ feel its not 'free' ? no sure wouldnt.. then there would be 3 to choose from..

'If a common goal is desireable, the KDE people should start working on GNOME'

Why? So we can be like other os's with OS's with one unified desktop, taking away our choices once again?

'they might as well write Win32 code'

Would that be non-free? wine is a win32 compatible library.. if i wrote an application based on the opensource, free library of wine, and did it all win32 would that make me bad? come on.

'Hey, why do we argue with Microsoft fanatics? Windows comes free with every PC'

Yes it comes with every PC, but free? That said then you disagree with the MS refund scheme right? since it comes free then there is no refund (according to you) .. but we all know that we are getting charged for the OS because the company putting it on the pc was charged and we incur the charges and want a refund... KDE dont have secret charges as you seem to be classifying it with.. neither does QT. You and some others just dont want accept QT. that is fine, but dont belittle the efforts of the otherside of the 'community' that IS working to make it all better.

Why?

[Big Ruff]

Well like i said im not a writer *shrug*

if i could throw up C code representing my feelings i would.. but i dont think it would be any more readable.

KDE 1.0/1.1 not Open Source?

[Big Ruff]

see you all keep going on and on about this.. KDE v*.* is OPEN SOURCE, as i said before KDE would be usless without QT library, BUT that doesn't make KDE non opensource just because the underlying library isnt. But you all don't care about thet, first its open source, next it's gpl.. because the new qpl fits the OSD fine.. it's even listed on opensource.org.. but hold on.. now we gotta find another nit pick right? some other way to keep KDE from getting the respect/support it deserves? See i for one dont give a flying ... well you know.. heh.. GNOME can prosper as can KDE, and the next DE that comes out... be happy.. all these go towards the benefit of linux do they not? Does all this inhouse bickering, gnome's media fud on kde.. all this crap.. does it help the sucess of linux? no.. sure dont...

poll

[Big Ruff]

Looks like one of a few articles I to have ran across that gines KDE the credit it deserves. No doubt its heavily used, alot of hard work has went into KDE.. as I've stated earlier it's really crappy to be dumping on such a good product.

No this isn't a 'ohh poor lil kde guys' thing.. they deserve a little respect. And I'm not dumping on GNOME it too deserves it's respect.. it just has a bit further to go.. but its looking good so far =)

wmaker

[glub]

If WindowMaker just had single click capability, it would totally rule!

poll

[Friddy]

interesting indeed