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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.

10 of 372 comments (clear)

  1. Interoperability. by dwmw2 · · Score: 3

    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? :)

  2. Very much unfounded by Thandor · · Score: 3

    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
  3. RedHat -- the first step to KNOME? by bgarrett · · Score: 4

    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.
  4. Internal Windows - min/max buttons by AraQniD · · Score: 3

    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
  5. All licenses aside... by Grell · · Score: 5

    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
  6. who cares? what about enhancing.... by 8Complex · · Score: 4

    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.

  7. Interoptibility? by Twigg · · Score: 5

    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.

  8. KDE is too similar to Winbloze by micsaund · · Score: 3

    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?

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    Pinball, arcade video, tech and more: www.micsaund.com
  9. Voluntary my ass! by miscellaneous · · Score: 3

    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
  10. in a word - productivity by bnf · · Score: 3
    You would probably consider me a newbie to Linux at four months. The past three of them have been with KDE.

    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

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    this space intentionally left blank (oops)