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Redhat to support KDE developement
belbo writes "According to
a notice on KDE's news page Redhat is now funding two
KDE developers in their efforts to port KDE to the upcoming
open-sourced QT 2.0." Indeed KDE 1.1 is apparently in
Red Hat 5.9. Furthermore, Moritz Moeller - Herrmann
tells us that our ubiquitous friend Kalle Dalheimer announced
to the KDE-dev list that
" KDE was awarded "Innovation of the Year 1998/99" in the category software at a Ziff-Davis event in relation to the CeBIT fair. The other finalists
were Lotus eSuite and Microtest Visual CD. This award is a great achievement of the whole KDE team! Congratulations to all of you! We will provide scanned pictures of the award
and other items we got (like posters and stickers) as soon as possible on the KDE web site."
Finally, Linux Today has a
brand new look and is sporting interviews with people of the
Linux community. In one of them, Corel CEO Micheal Cowpland
reveals that
Corel's open-source GUI will be based on KDE. Please folks,
don't let this good news bring on a flame-war. Many people want
to choose which desktop suits them best: GNOME, GNUStep, KDE
are all worthy contenders.
KDE is great, but... what innovation?
Yes it is, and it's very nice of them. It still remains GPL incompatible tho. And, no, claiming essential system component about Qt does not hold water, which means you cant get around it that way (or anyone would be able to throw together a linux dist, claim essetial system component about a proprietary library and take whatever GPL code they want).
So, KDE still has to obtain permission to link GPL software to Qt or remove any third party GPL code. I, for one, would take appropriate measures if code under my copyright was linked without permission against a non-GPL compatible library (wether Qt or mfc32 for Linux).
KDE may be further along, i think GNOME has an ace up its sleeve, Netscape 5.0. Netscape 5.0 should be out pretty soon, and it is written in GTK. I would go so far to say that Redhat incurged this since Netscape anncounced that they were using GTK after they made a minor investment into Redhat. If Netscape 5.0 kicks ass I wouldn't be suprised if IBM, and other announce desktop programs in GTK. Another reason GTK is required to run GIMP which a hell of a lot of Linux users have. There is no such killer app in QT. And even if they don't most will when Netscape 5.0 comes out most will get because it will require GTK to run making it even more of a reason to choose GTK, and GNOME.
On a side note, I believe the main reason that Redhat is including KDE is to stop the Redhat spin offs, because they loose money in possible sales and support.
You are correct. There are those who would argue that Qt can be an 'essential system component' and thus be exempt from the requirement. I most certainly do not agree, for a number of reasons, and would pursue any such violation against any of my copyright, if it had been linked without asking permission.
There are only two possibilities, one is Qt becoming GPL compliant (which seems to be impossible, for some reason), or KDE using a modified GPL/other license and asking permission for any third party GPL code.
Over the last 3 days, I have compiled and installed gnome 1.0.3 on my slackware linux box.
/etc/ld.so.conf
/sbin/ldconfig -v after installing
(Yes, contrary to rumor, you can get it to
work with libc5). But
this is the first time I have been able to
compile any gnome release, and on Slackware,
it required extensive interaction on my part.
(Not to mention 3 sleepless nights). For the
compile to work, I had to do the following:
1) `hide' my gimp and gtk1.0.x directories.
(remove these directories from
and remove the path to the binaries. This
was easy for me since I had a separate directory
devoted to gtk and gimp. )
2) Configure each gnome package with
--disable-nls --disable-threads. Use the
package order given on the gnome web page.
3) Run
each package.
Anyway, last night, I finally compiled the
last of the 42 *.tar.gz packs and fired up gnome.
I tested it for what remained of the night.
The following are my observations.
1) Gnome is not as unstable as it is made out
to be. In fact, I could not get it to crash
even once in 3 hours. (Of course, it is possible
that I did not get to the unstable parts.)
2) Gnome reputation for "good looks" is, unfortunately, completely undeserved.
This is not a troll, people. I am serious.
I had great expectations of Gnome, as the one
thing that I kept hearing consistently on the
newsgroups is how good it looks. And the screenshots on the gnome web site
The reality is that Gnome looks and feels far
worse than KDE does. For instance, the icons are big and blocky and look amateurish. The whole thing has a clunky feel.
Surprised, I went back to the gnome site to
check out the snapshots. And lo and behold,
I noticed several things I had not seen before.
Strip the screenshots of the background images
and color schemes and my observations still hold.
Clunky icons and poor placements of the same.
People who love windowmaker won't
have any problems with this, since big blocky
icons are a feature of that famous desktop.
Anyway, this is quite disappointing... I don't
know if these icons are a temporary thing or are
going to be a permanent fixture of gnome. I hope
not.
If there are any slackware users out there who
need help with any stage of compiling and installing gnome, drop me a line.
Hari.
gharikumar@iname.com.
I admin a network which has GNOME, KDE and WM+xterm users. I don't care which one they use - as long as I can set up mime types and new applications in a uniform manner.
Currently, I can't - I've set up a KDE Application link, and MimeType links, for Applixware, but GNOME doesn't use them. Until there's a uniform way of doing things like this, we can't expect commercial software to use it, and hence we can't expect things to 'just work' when we click on them.
Hopefully, with RedHat (or indeed anyone) taking an active part in development of both, this will be fixed quite quickly.
Has anyone done QT-emulating C++ bindings for GTK, and a QT-like theme? :)
I understand that the new QPL is indeed a Free Software license, but is it GPL compatible? Since KDE is licensed under the GPL, if the QPL is not GPL compatible, linking KDE with Qt would be illegal, would it not? IIRC, a license requiring patches is incompatible with the GPL, so this remains the case.
The easiest solution I can see is that KDE could either change the license to LGPL, or provide an exemption for Qt. However, this would require the acquiescence of all the copyright holders of all the GPL'd code they've used.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
The thing is, KDE and GNOME are not window managers. The even better news for you is that WindowMaker supports both KDE and GNOME. So all you need to do to run KDE or GNOME applications is to install the libraries, you can keep using WindowMaker as your window manager.
So even though KDE's default window manager is kwm, and GNOME's defaul is enlightenment, neither forces you to use that particular window manager to use that desktop environment.
So having Red Hat back KDE as well as GNOME is really a win/win thing.
"Now watch what you say or they'll be calling you a radical, liberal, fanatical, criminal." - Supertramp, The Logical So
So, it's time for the KDE-haters to stop.
Like the GPL, Qt is free for use with free software only. Proprietary software needs a different license.
Gnome has its libraries LGPL-ed, and is thus OK for both free and proprietary software.
I still like Gnome and run it at home, but there is nothing wrong with Qt's license now.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Ok, now all we need is a nice XDM-based desktop chooser system, so you can easily choose between window managers/user environments, using the Xsession system. I had the KDM setup for a while to do something like this, and it was very nice. If that came with redhat by default, it would make beginners able to use the system right off, as easily as win95. The system boots right into KDM or whatever and the user is off.
For the longest time, I used FVWM. Not pretty, not easy to configure (I prefer immediate visual feedback), but perfectly usable. I recently decided I wanted something prettier, and something that would display a nice clock and battery meter off to one side. Because of some questions surrounding the licensing underlying KDE, I decided to go with WindowMaker. I'm happy.
However, when looking over KDE, I noticed that some apps are "enhanced" for special features KDE has. Forgive my naivate, but I thought the whole point of Xwindows was to allow apps to run under any window manager, and they would all look and work (more or less) the same.
So. With a major contributor like Red Hat backing KDE, will people like me currently using WindowMaker find themselves needing to switch to KDE because of all the apps tailored to it? I don't really have anything against KDE at this point, but WindowMaker works fine, and if, in the grand scheme of things, I shouldn't have to use a particular window manager, I'd prefer not to switch.
Are my concerns unfounded?
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
I'm all in favor of this. It's good for Red Hat -- they get a mature, functional desktop now (KDE) and later (GNOME). They don't pick sides, they just produce a good distribution.
Anyway, I'd really love to see GNOME and KDE come together over a few solid issues. One of these is CORBA. Hot damn that stuff gives me wood.
Universal drag-n-drop plus universal theme support will virtually ensure a seamless blending of the two desktop systems.
Nothing worth doing is worth doing today.
If you mean Windows-style MDI interface, where the "internal" window looks like a normal window, but is embedded in an application frame, then I'd say.... NO! DON'T GO THERE!
;)
IMHO, it's a horrible piece of UI, and anyone advocating it should be short. JMHO
-- i will protect you from ideals to save you from defeat
You don't have to do anything. That's the beauty of it. You don't like it? Don't use it.
This has nothing to do with whether it's free or proprietary, and really all code except public domain code is "proprietary": someone owns it, and they have released (or not released) it under certain terms. Sometimes the terms are more liberal (the BSD license); other times they are stricter (the GPL); and still other times they require patches.
You don't own GPL-ed code. You never have. You never will unless it's code of your own. It's free to use as the author dictates. Same with Qt.
If you don't like it: don't use it. My, that's simple, isn't it? Choice is a beautiful thing. It's a shame the FSF jihad refuses to see that.
DFL
Never send a human to do a machine's job.
Choice is always a good thing.
Thanks Redhat.
~Grell
A child of 5 could understand this. Fetch me a child of 5!
...when it gets down to fundamentals, do what you have to do and shed no tears. Dr. Matson in Tunnel in the Sky
Back to KDE, though? Nope. Too slow for me. Someone said "Yeah... it really wants 64 meg or it thrashes a lot."
I decided I don't want a "desktop environment" for now. So I'm back to Window Maker and some well-configured menus for general use. It's sort of nice. I reclaimed a lot of HD space and my machine acts like the speedy thing it is.
----------
mphall@cstone.nospam.net
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mphall@cstone.nospam.net
"A horse laugh is worth a thousand syllogisms"
what about enhancing things like PnP (I've had redhat 5.2 installed for 3 months now... i STILL can't get my modem to work under it cause it won't assign it correctly - hence i never use linux, a wasted 1.2 gig right now)
:-)
;-)
and how about enhancing the ease of installation of things? anyone try installing enlightenment? its a COMPLETE BITCH.. download these 17 rpm's then go download 7 more that need upgrading before you can install some others... which break dependencies of other things you need to upgrade... its retarded. when did the word UPGRADE lose all its meaning???
and how about configurability? you know, having every little thing in seperate text files isn't so bad... its the whole idea that you can't FIND them and there is no central config panel for everything... control-panel only does so much, linuxconf (linuxconfig?) only does so much (and is buggy as hell) - granted its still all better then the "registry"
so really, who gives a shit that they're backing a desktop environment when what they need to do is a little bit of restructuring of the OS? get with it people... and help me get my god damn modem working while you're at it
8Complex
May you flame to your hearts' content... I will only learn from them.
I'd really like to see Linux get to the point where KDE and Gnome can co-exist. They've both got enough merits and momentum that there's no point trying to kill one of them off. But if you're trying to attract mainstream applications to Linux, you have to attract developers, and if you want to attract developers, you need standards. It's just not worth their time to have to develop an app for KDE and then discover that in order to attract the OTHER half of Linux users, you're going to have to port the whole thing over to Gnome. This is the kind of stuff that people who don't like Linux love to complain about, and frankly they have a point. One of the biggest frustrations for me early on (and even still today, sometimes) was that every dingle X-Windows app seemed to want some different windowing toolkit, or library, or whatnot, that had to be downloaded from this site, except that now that site is giving you an HTTP 404 error and you just give up and end up booting back into NT. Anyway, my point is that it doesn't really matter whether KDE or Gnome or GNUStep or Bob's Little Windowing Toolkit is better, what's important is that we get these guys talking to each other. Hopefully, eventually you could drop a KDE app into your Gnome desktop and have all the bindings work fine, and all the special features working right. Be kind to your developers, and they will be kind to you. I sure as heck don't want to write apps for one environment and then have the other one win out...
Anyway, that's my relatively worthless two cents.
It bothers me that KDE looks so much like Win95/Win98 and is getting so much attention. Basically, the only difference in appearance from KDE and WinXX is the little wharf type bar.
Now, admittedly, I'm NOT a KDE expert, and maybe there is a way to get the KDE "extended functionality" from another window manager (sounds like GNOME then), but the default window manager creates a WinXX style clone. All of the buttons, icons, app layouts, etc. look like Bill Gates himself designed everything.
I, for one, enjoy having a unique desktop. I really like the Next type appearance, and thus I choose to run WindowMaker. I never (NEVER) want my Linux machine to look just like Winbloze. Isn't this ability to customize your environment one of the key points in using Linux?
Pinball, arcade video, tech and more: www.micsaund.com
I found Gnome too unstable also, which made me sad because I prefered the feel of it to KDE. I like KDE, and support it, but its just a tad to slow for me....gnome on the other hand is fast and has, IMHO, a nicer interface, but its install is freaking insane and its not stable.
One thing that I found that is kindof nifty, on my system at least, is to run individual gnome components under windowmaker. I have my windowmaker autolaunch panel and gmc on launch, and for some reason this is far more stable than using gnome-session was. had no problems with it, but I have just been using it for acouple days. That way I can still keep the nifty gpager and set up some drawers for common apps, but keep most of the advantages of windowmaker. granted, this strips out alot off the niftyness of gnome..but hey.
It's NOT voluntary! Hackers everywhere are being forced to pay Red Hat to support this software! When are we going to stop the madness and INSIST that the binaries be free, the source be free, the documentation be free, and the SUPPORT be free?
Oh, sure, we COULD write our own documentation, and we COULD look in the support newsgroups, but that IGNORES the fact that someone, somewhere, is PAYING ACTUAL MONEY for these things. It's an anomoly, and it creates an IDEOLOGICAL impurity. Does not compute! *clank* Does not compute! *clank*.
Not only must we insure that these things are free so that ALL computer people can help their fellow women and men achieve the NIRVANA that is the INEVITABLE UTOPIAN RESULT of absolute freeness, but the people who have PERPETRATED these travesties must be made to CORRECT THEIR WRONG THINKING. They must be made to admit their mistakes through self-criticism, and, if they persist in such counter-revolutionary agitation, re-education through labor becomes a real option.
-k. ^-^ ^D
When I found an environment that let me Alt-Tab to other applications by default (not to mention using the keyboard to go to another virtual desktop) and make me feel like I could manipulate and configure my environment from the environment itself I finally felt like I could have faith in world domination. Besides, it's wonderful to be able to have themes and event driven sounds. These little things make going from A to B that much quicker.
bnf
this space intentionally left blank (oops)
The fact of the matter is that KDE is a pretty decent desktop. Yeah, if you're running a server you probably don't need KDE (or GNOME, for that matter). But for workstations, it's not that bad. And Linux needs to move into the workstation arena before it can really take off. Doing that means having a nice GUI.
KDE is easily installed, usable, fairly stable, mostly customizable, has plenty of apps that take advantage of it's semi-unique features, and looks pretty good. And it beats the shit out of Windows. KDE can be used to win the hearts and minds aof Windows/Mac users because of these attributes.
I'm setting up a gateway machine for my mother in about three months, and I convinced her that Linux was the best choice, over much protestation about how Unix is "...all command line stuff, and I gave that up with DOS." She's very computer literate, but not a Unix user, and had this notion in her head that Linux was, at best, curses-based. So I showed her KDE, and she loved it. I also showed her fvwm and WindowMaker (just to let her know that she did, in fact, have a choice and that this was what Linux was all about) and she was not terribly impressed.
Now another business is going to have Linux as an integral part of it's success. And it's primarily because of KDE (I showed her some uptime figures for Linux vs. NT, and that helped as well...). So how can KDE be bad? In this case at least, KDE has converted one more soul. When she sees that her gateway machine never goes down, and the WinNT clients always have to be rebooted, she'll probably deploy Linux more widely.
And that's a Good Thing. It's what we need.
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
It is good that the Open Source Community can afford to develop two desktop environments, so that the best technology for a specific purpose can be picked.