"From the very beginning of the UserLinux project, Bruce Perens has been consistent."
No, he has not. Bruce has jumped all over the place with his reasoning/rationale. He'll back off when one psuedo-rationale is shown to be dubious only to latch onto another one and then flip back to the first. Anyone who has monitored the actual UL list can see this for themselves.
"And I should believe you when you say these things... why? Bruce Perens has given his reasons, but you say he wants to cater to anti-Qt trolls. Why should I believe you instead of him?"
God, why are people so lazy! Don't freakin believe me, that is your choice. But, if you care about the truth, if you care about the subject, care about finding out for yourself... then do so. Go read the lists. Go read the archives. They are all their for your perusal. You don't have to 'believe' anyone. Find out for yourself. Sheesh.
I'm not bent out of shape. I've been off the UL list for a long time. Bruce can do whatever he likes. I just saw this come across/. today and noted that Bruce is changing his tune once again. The rest of my comments have mostly been responses to wrong headed or down right misinformed claptrap about what has been said VS what is being said now.
OOOOHHHH? Jrexilius do you know the post you linked to... the one detailing the so-called 'Qt licensing issues'... the guy is arguing that RMS is a, and I quote, "pragmatist" not interested in forcing the licensing issue. the guy also said that MS can embrace and extend GPL'd softwrare. ROTFLMAO.
And you are going to link to this guy as supporting your own argument? Man, talk about the quality of company you keep.
Narcissus, it seems you are communicating in good faith. Thanks.
Bruce has used the expense/impossibility of supporting both desktops interchangably with his other psuedo-rationales. He has used the support argument lately, not just at the beginning. Now, we find that he has done a complete 180 degree turn and will be supporting KDE with the original service providing company. The idea that every service provider must offer demanding support for every piece of default UL base is a red herring. They do not need to do this otherwise you severely limit the size and scope of companies able to participate in UL's cottage industry of support providers.
Finally, addressing your question about KDE developers ability to commercially support a UL KDE desktop... the answer is yes. This has been communicated many times most notably with the proposal the KDE developers sent to Bruce wherein several KDE related commercial organizations expressed interest in just such an arrangement.
Dude, bow out. Seriously. You claim that MS can embrace and extend GPL'd software. You call RMS a 'pragmatist' and not interested in forcing the license issue. I mean, can you possibly be a bigger f*#@ing clown. ROTFLMAO.
No, I do get it Mr. Ramsey. Perens LLC is Bruce Perens company. The founder of UL. He now has the resources to support KDE, but a little while ago he claimed he didn't. When other UL service providers come along, if they ever do, they can support KDE or not. I see no reason to assume that all future service providers must support all of base UL. In fact, what if a future service provider decides he doesn't have the resources to support the default UL desktop when all his customers are clamoring for KDE? Does this mean he can't be a UL service provider? There is no guarantee that future service providers can support all of base UL.
"Is QT so much better that all companies are willing to pay for QT for the next decade rather than assist GNU with improving GTK+?"
Well, they've been doing it for a ~decade now. But no, not all companies. Just a vast majority of the proprietary ones. Is this really so shocking for you? We're talking about proprietary companies... why on earth would you think they'd think twice about using a proprietary license. Reality friend, reality.
"Or was Adobe prototyping a new program they needed because every digital camera comes with one and they might lose marketshare, some developer used QT for the prototype, and it shipped before they got around to replacing the toolkit?"
Come on now man. Tou are posting a reply to a link you didn't know about, but you fail to read the link, still?? Unbelievable.
"Trolltech has provided us with an intuitive, powerful tool. Qt simplified our task of developing Photoshop Album by providing high-level tools that we could customize to meet our needs," said Mike DePaoli, Photoshop Album Engineering Manager. "The product is excellent, the support was outstanding and we are extremely pleased with our decision to go with Qt."
"Can I sell programs based on QT without giving Trolltech money?"
Dude, don't post if you don't know such basic things. Of course, you can. Free Software does not rule out monetary gain. You begin to sound like a SCO/MS shill with questions like this. Did you believe Darl when he said that you can't make money with Linux?
As Perens LLC pretty much *is* the UL project at this point, I'd say it is a significant change. At the very least, it is a big change in blowing holes all over Bruce's previous rationales for excluding KDE.
Perens LLC *is* UL at this point. And no where has Bruce said that all UL service providers would be required to support the entire UL base system in toto. As such, artificial deflation of the base system does not make sense especially when potential and realized customers are clamoring for KDE/Qt.
If service providers are smaller, less experienced, etc., than Perens LLC, they can choose to support a subset of the UL base. As I'm sure many of them will do even with the current minimal base.
You are right on some points and grossly misinformed on others.
Bruce did say that Qt wasn't 100% free. He did say that Qt couldn't support a cottage industry for commercial developers. Check up-thread for links to Bruce saying these *very* things.
If pointing out the facts about Bruce's ill-considered choice to exclude KDE is 'flaming'... and Bruce has come around as a result of bumping head first into reality, not as a result of listening to a critique of his erroneous reasoning and then abandoning that reasoning.
1. Is a blown excuse because the 'licensing issue' you speak of has been demonstrated to be false by Bruce's own customer.
2. Is a blown excuse because... come one did you even look at the article? Bruce's company *is* going to be supporting KDE on UL so that kinda deflates the whole, "too hard to support both..." argument... don't you think? Sheesh.
"When I read the line about it being too hard to support both, I read that as a distribution management problem. ie. it is too much effort to try and keep track of both projects and keep them up to date for UserLinux, when it didn't really meet the goals of the distribution."
Uhm, no. First, Bruce explicitly said he was talking about his support company and its unacceptable difficulty in supporting KDE/Qt. Second, what are you talking about the difficulty of keeping up with the distro?! UL's current 'distro support' for GNOME involves one meta-package.
And then you have all of the KDE developers on the list who were *more* than willing to provide all the effort required. No, I'm sorry, this explanation doesn't wash with the factual record nor is it plausible.
Bruce was replying to my email where I pointed out that Qt would help prevent the very problems the UL manifesto was written for. Bruce replied stating that, sorry, he was interested in '100% free software'.
Several times Bruce chose to obfuscate the old 'Free VS free' canard and as a result he has a bunch of ill-informed anti-Qt trolls roaming his list. Check the list.
Yes, that is what he has said in this particular email. But, if you'd monitor UL list you'll note that several commercial entities have asked or argued for KDE's inclusion into UL. One of them has formally approached Bruce and convinced him to change his mind. Still, others have been clamoring for KDE/Qt's inclusion into UL.
Bullshit. Bruce has said that he excluded KDE because of the vast difficulty of supporting both. He's also said that Qt can't support a cottage industry of commercial development. Now, his own customers are clamoring for KDE/Qt which nullifies both of these.
... because that's what his customers are asking for.
It was stupid not to in the first place.
Bruce's decisions about UL and the exclusion of anything Qt has undergone numerous transformations. First, it was because Qt couldn't produce a 'cottage industry' of commercial support. When this was pointed out to be demonstrably false, Bruce retreated into the, 'but Qt isn't free' argument... knowingly choosing to obfuscate the old 'Free (libre) VS free (gratis) canard of the community. When Free Software developers called him on this reprehensible tactic, Bruce retreated into the, 'but we just can't possibly support everything' argument.
Now, Bruce is learning from real commercial companies that KDE/Qt support is mandatory and he's having to distance himself from the craving anti-Qt trolls on his own list. The sad thing? Bruce missed a valuable opportunity to really work with KDE developers and the broader community by choosing instead to cater to his own bias and that of his sympathetic community of anti-Qt trolls. Now, he has lost a lot of his credibility in the eyes of many.
"You're conveniently listing large corporate and government users for which the QT license fee is peanuts."
Oh? Would you like me to list the number of small/independent ISV's that have chosen Qt? That list is larger than the one above.
BTW, I pointed out the FSF argument to preempt the inevitable erstwhile FSF developer crying, "... but what about freedom for the poor proprietary developers?" which is inevitably issued when so-called 'license issue' supporters fail with all the other arguments.
"It's a different thing to voluntarily choose a commercial toolkit, and be forced to pick one because it is the only way to get the LAF right for the desktop platform."
That is why the KDE proposal specifically includes GTK+ support;)
"Community wouldn't benefit. Trolltech would."
Both the community *and* Trolltech benefit. We all benefit. And that is the point. Trolltech makes Free Software which the community benefits from. Get it?
"I think it's simply better to use some of the money that the companies will save by Peren's choice of GTK and use it to improve GTK. This money will be well spent and the fruits will benefit the companies and the developer community as a whole, instead of paying for development of something they have to purchase again and again."
This is dumb. Trolltech uses the money to pay for improvements to Qt which the community benefits from. That money is well spent and the fruits benefit the companies and the developer community as a whole. Oh, and the developers don't have to pay TT 'again & again'.
You are reduced to an anti-TT rant which makes no sense. TT supports the community.
Hmm, I'm starting to sense a pattern here. Now, go find the list of ISV's or commercial companies developing with GTK+. And no, RedHat and Sun don't count. Why you ask? Because they are distributions silly. You didn't see me listing all the distributions that support or prefer KDE/Qt.
And yet another reason the so-called licensing issue is bogus? The FSF prefers GPL'd libraries as a matter of principle. Not LGPL. That is why they changed the name to 'Lesser' and put up the why-not-lgpl paper. So, the FSF would rather Qt and GTK+ were both GPL with *no* ability to support proprietary developers... gratis or otherwise. Besides, shouldn't the community benefit from some form of recompense from proprietary developers using our Free systems? Yes, we should and with Qt, we do.
Some community names went around spreading this ridiculous 'licensing problem' with Qt as deliberate FUD. And now we all have to clean up after their mess.
Yes, it will be in there and Nicholas is working on VPL support. That is the WYSIWYG functionality that we're all awaiting. Both Quanta AND KDevelop have _drastically_ improved in 3.2.
Also, keep an eye out for Juk (KDE's answer to ITunes) in this new release. It is an incredibly cool jukebox program that has automatic tagging and vFolder playlists.
"Slashdot is just trying to start another flamewar. This whole story could be considered a troll just because it mentions that single comment."
There is no "Slashdot". There are only individuals. This was the post of one submission to Slashdot, not the entire website. You are just trying to make Slashdot look bad. Quit trying to start flamewars about Slashdot.
Slashdot Mirror
Uhm, the *authors* of the spam are 100% accurate in identifying their messages as *spam*. Likewise for the authors of legitimate messages.
"From the very beginning of the UserLinux project, Bruce Perens has been consistent."
No, he has not. Bruce has jumped all over the place with his reasoning/rationale. He'll back off when one psuedo-rationale is shown to be dubious only to latch onto another one and then flip back to the first. Anyone who has monitored the actual UL list can see this for themselves.
"And I should believe you when you say these things... why? Bruce Perens has given his reasons, but you say he wants to cater to anti-Qt trolls. Why should I believe you instead of him?"
God, why are people so lazy! Don't freakin believe me, that is your choice. But, if you care about the truth, if you care about the subject, care about finding out for yourself... then do so. Go read the lists. Go read the archives. They are all their for your perusal. You don't have to 'believe' anyone. Find out for yourself. Sheesh.
I'm not bent out of shape. I've been off the UL list for a long time. Bruce can do whatever he likes. I just saw this come across /. today and noted that Bruce is changing his tune once again. The rest of my comments have mostly been responses to wrong headed or down right misinformed claptrap about what has been said VS what is being said now.
OOOOHHHH? Jrexilius do you know the post you linked to... the one detailing the so-called 'Qt licensing issues'... the guy is arguing that RMS is a, and I quote, "pragmatist" not interested in forcing the licensing issue. the guy also said that MS can embrace and extend GPL'd softwrare. ROTFLMAO.
And you are going to link to this guy as supporting your own argument? Man, talk about the quality of company you keep.
Narcissus, it seems you are communicating in good faith. Thanks.
Bruce has used the expense/impossibility of supporting both desktops interchangably with his other psuedo-rationales. He has used the support argument lately, not just at the beginning. Now, we find that he has done a complete 180 degree turn and will be supporting KDE with the original service providing company. The idea that every service provider must offer demanding support for every piece of default UL base is a red herring. They do not need to do this otherwise you severely limit the size and scope of companies able to participate in UL's cottage industry of support providers.
Finally, addressing your question about KDE developers ability to commercially support a UL KDE desktop... the answer is yes. This has been communicated many times most notably with the proposal the KDE developers sent to Bruce wherein several KDE related commercial organizations expressed interest in just such an arrangement.
Dude, bow out. Seriously. You claim that MS can embrace and extend GPL'd software. You call RMS a 'pragmatist' and not interested in forcing the license issue. I mean, can you possibly be a bigger f*#@ing clown. ROTFLMAO.
No, I do get it Mr. Ramsey. Perens LLC is Bruce Perens company. The founder of UL. He now has the resources to support KDE, but a little while ago he claimed he didn't. When other UL service providers come along, if they ever do, they can support KDE or not. I see no reason to assume that all future service providers must support all of base UL. In fact, what if a future service provider decides he doesn't have the resources to support the default UL desktop when all his customers are clamoring for KDE? Does this mean he can't be a UL service provider? There is no guarantee that future service providers can support all of base UL.
"OK. I picked a REALLY bad example."
heh
"Is QT so much better that all companies are willing to pay for QT for the next decade rather than assist GNU with improving GTK+?"
Well, they've been doing it for a ~decade now. But no, not all companies. Just a vast majority of the proprietary ones. Is this really so shocking for you? We're talking about proprietary companies... why on earth would you think they'd think twice about using a proprietary license. Reality friend, reality.
"Or was Adobe prototyping a new program they needed because every digital camera comes with one and they might lose marketshare, some developer used QT for the prototype, and it shipped before they got around to replacing the toolkit?"
Come on now man. Tou are posting a reply to a link you didn't know about, but you fail to read the link, still?? Unbelievable.
"Trolltech has provided us with an intuitive, powerful tool. Qt simplified our task of developing Photoshop Album by providing high-level tools that we could customize to meet our needs," said Mike DePaoli, Photoshop Album Engineering Manager. "The product is excellent, the support was outstanding and we are extremely pleased with our decision to go with Qt."
"Can I sell programs based on QT without giving Trolltech money?"
Dude, don't post if you don't know such basic things. Of course, you can. Free Software does not rule out monetary gain. You begin to sound like a SCO/MS shill with questions like this. Did you believe Darl when he said that you can't make money with Linux?
As Perens LLC pretty much *is* the UL project at this point, I'd say it is a significant change. At the very least, it is a big change in blowing holes all over Bruce's previous rationales for excluding KDE.
Perens LLC *is* UL at this point. And no where has Bruce said that all UL service providers would be required to support the entire UL base system in toto. As such, artificial deflation of the base system does not make sense especially when potential and realized customers are clamoring for KDE/Qt.
If service providers are smaller, less experienced, etc., than Perens LLC, they can choose to support a subset of the UL base. As I'm sure many of them will do even with the current minimal base.
You are right on some points and grossly misinformed on others.
Bruce did say that Qt wasn't 100% free. He did say that Qt couldn't support a cottage industry for commercial developers. Check up-thread for links to Bruce saying these *very* things.
If pointing out the facts about Bruce's ill-considered choice to exclude KDE is 'flaming'... and Bruce has come around as a result of bumping head first into reality, not as a result of listening to a critique of his erroneous reasoning and then abandoning that reasoning.
1. Is a blown excuse because the 'licensing issue' you speak of has been demonstrated to be false by Bruce's own customer.
2. Is a blown excuse because... come one did you even look at the article? Bruce's company *is* going to be supporting KDE on UL so that kinda deflates the whole, "too hard to support both..." argument... don't you think? Sheesh.
"When I read the line about it being too hard to support both, I read that as a distribution management problem. ie. it is too much effort to try and keep track of both projects and keep them up to date for UserLinux, when it didn't really meet the goals of the distribution."
Uhm, no. First, Bruce explicitly said he was talking about his support company and its unacceptable difficulty in supporting KDE/Qt. Second, what are you talking about the difficulty of keeping up with the distro?! UL's current 'distro support' for GNOME involves one meta-package.
And then you have all of the KDE developers on the list who were *more* than willing to provide all the effort required. No, I'm sorry, this explanation doesn't wash with the factual record nor is it plausible.
When has he ever said Qt isn't free?
Try here for one.
Bruce was replying to my email where I pointed out that Qt would help prevent the very problems the UL manifesto was written for. Bruce replied stating that, sorry, he was interested in '100% free software'.
Several times Bruce chose to obfuscate the old 'Free VS free' canard and as a result he has a bunch of ill-informed anti-Qt trolls roaming his list. Check the list.
Yes, that is what he has said in this particular email. But, if you'd monitor UL list you'll note that several commercial entities have asked or argued for KDE's inclusion into UL. One of them has formally approached Bruce and convinced him to change his mind. Still, others have been clamoring for KDE/Qt's inclusion into UL.
Bullshit. Bruce has said that he excluded KDE because of the vast difficulty of supporting both. He's also said that Qt can't support a cottage industry of commercial development. Now, his own customers are clamoring for KDE/Qt which nullifies both of these.
... which completely breaks Bruce's latest rationale for excluding KDE in the first place:
... inertia"
"it's just too hard to support both..."
also throws some cold water on the other ridiculous rationales he uses from time to time, depending upon if the mood suits him:
"Qt can't support a coveted cottage industry of proprietary developers..."
yah, well, except for the current 'cottage industry' that overwhelmingly has chosen Qt for commercial development...
so Bruce's is left with one rationale for his decision to exclude KDE from the default of UL:
"I've already made the choice
... because that's what his customers are asking for.
It was stupid not to in the first place.
Bruce's decisions about UL and the exclusion of anything Qt has undergone numerous transformations. First, it was because Qt couldn't produce a 'cottage industry' of commercial support. When this was pointed out to be demonstrably false, Bruce retreated into the, 'but Qt isn't free' argument... knowingly choosing to obfuscate the old 'Free (libre) VS free (gratis) canard of the community. When Free Software developers called him on this reprehensible tactic, Bruce retreated into the, 'but we just can't possibly support everything' argument.
Now, Bruce is learning from real commercial companies that KDE/Qt support is mandatory and he's having to distance himself from the craving anti-Qt trolls on his own list. The sad thing? Bruce missed a valuable opportunity to really work with KDE developers and the broader community by choosing instead to cater to his own bias and that of his sympathetic community of anti-Qt trolls. Now, he has lost a lot of his credibility in the eyes of many.
"You're conveniently listing large corporate and government users for which the QT license fee is peanuts."
Oh? Would you like me to list the number of small/independent ISV's that have chosen Qt? That list is larger than the one above.
BTW, I pointed out the FSF argument to preempt the inevitable erstwhile FSF developer crying, "... but what about freedom for the poor proprietary developers?" which is inevitably issued when so-called 'license issue' supporters fail with all the other arguments.
"It's a different thing to voluntarily choose a commercial toolkit, and be forced to pick one because it is the only way to get the LAF right for the desktop platform."
;)
That is why the KDE proposal specifically includes GTK+ support
"Community wouldn't benefit. Trolltech would."
Both the community *and* Trolltech benefit. We all benefit. And that is the point. Trolltech makes Free Software which the community benefits from. Get it?
"I think it's simply better to use some of the money that the companies will save by Peren's choice of GTK and use it to improve GTK. This money will be well spent and the fruits will benefit the companies and the developer community as a whole, instead of paying for development of something they have to purchase again and again."
This is dumb. Trolltech uses the money to pay for improvements to Qt which the community benefits from. That money is well spent and the fruits benefit the companies and the developer community as a whole. Oh, and the developers don't have to pay TT 'again & again'.
You are reduced to an anti-TT rant which makes no sense. TT supports the community.
More reasons why the licensing argument is bogus:
The emerging Linux cell phone market: choice? Qt
IBM PDA reference implementation: choice? Qt
Adobe? Qt
Samsung? Qt
Sharp? Qt
Boeing? Qt
Daimler? Qt
Chrysler? Qt
Disney? Qt
Fujitsu? Qt
General Electric? Qt
Hitachi? Qt
Honda? Qt
HP? Qt
IBM? Qt
Intel? Qt
Mitsubishi? Qt
NASA? Qt
NEC? Qt
Shell? Qt
Siemens? Qt
Sony? Qt
Toshiba? Qt
Toyota? Qt
Unilever? Qt
Volkswagen? Qt
Hmm, I'm starting to sense a pattern here. Now, go find the list of ISV's or commercial companies developing with GTK+. And no, RedHat and Sun don't count. Why you ask? Because they are distributions silly. You didn't see me listing all the distributions that support or prefer KDE/Qt.
And yet another reason the so-called licensing issue is bogus? The FSF prefers GPL'd libraries as a matter of principle. Not LGPL. That is why they changed the name to 'Lesser' and put up the why-not-lgpl paper. So, the FSF would rather Qt and GTK+ were both GPL with *no* ability to support proprietary developers... gratis or otherwise. Besides, shouldn't the community benefit from some form of recompense from proprietary developers using our Free systems? Yes, we should and with Qt, we do.
Some community names went around spreading this ridiculous 'licensing problem' with Qt as deliberate FUD. And now we all have to clean up after their mess.
Yes, it will be in there and Nicholas is working on VPL support. That is the WYSIWYG functionality that we're all awaiting. Both Quanta AND KDevelop have _drastically_ improved in 3.2.
Also, keep an eye out for Juk (KDE's answer to ITunes) in this new release. It is an incredibly cool jukebox program that has automatic tagging and vFolder playlists.
Wrong... yourself. Its called the KDE/FreeQt foundation. Why don't you educate yourself before you open your mouth.
"Slashdot is just trying to start another flamewar. This whole story could be considered a troll just because it mentions that single comment."
There is no "Slashdot". There are only individuals. This was the post of one submission to Slashdot, not the entire website. You are just trying to make Slashdot look bad. Quit trying to start flamewars about Slashdot.