I can't see how you can claim that KDE e.V. is unimportant.
KDE e.V. is a registered non-profit organisation set up to represent the KDE Project in legal and financial matters, by supporting the developers. Furthermore, it collaborates with Trolltech through the FreeQt Foundation and sends Officers to the KDE League... KDE e.V. has a majority in the League so that its members will always have full control over the League... KDE e.V. holds the trademark and the copyright for KDE the core brands.[sic]
Both projects and others, are run using mailing lists, maintainers, release dude type people etc. Both, also, have organizations in place to make those decisions that can't be made this way. In GNOME's case it's elected by all the hackers and in KDE's case it's a self appointed clique. There's no getting away from this fact.
The first time the average KDE hacker usually knows about these decisions is when they're announced to the public. Saying things such as we don't have elections so we can avoid red tape, is a rather chilling thing to say.
The KDE developers seem to work on KDE purely for the fun of developing it. As for GNOME, in addition to this aspect, there seems to be a sense of idealism, - of making the world a better place. This idealism is also reflected in GNOME's open and democratic organizational structures. Every GNOME hacker gets an equal vote when electing the GNOME Foundation.
Compare this with KDE e.V, which, unfortunately, is run more like a private club, by a group of mostly German hackers, trying to ensure they retain the reins of control. For example, this is from their 'Policy for becoming a member of KDE e.V.'
The KDE e.V. bylaws will be changed to say that the applicant must be invited to become a member, and that the applicant must be supported by two active members of KDE e.V.
This raises the image of those stuffy old Victorian clubs where a member brings along a friend he wants to join, and the old members gather around the table and get the opportunity to blackball him first.
Attitudes like this have lead to all the problems that the KDE League has suffered from, in terms of lack of accountability, openness and the nonprofit status controversy.
GNOME, on the other hand, has shown in the past that it can be trusted "to do the right thing". It hasn't taken the easy path of including a non-free library simply because it was convenient. It may sound corny, but GNOME has a real sense of social responsibility about it, and of helping the disadvantaged in the world.
Even when Harmony was being worked on, KDE refused to say that they would adopt it when it was finished. Considering that so many of the leading KDE developers worked for Trolltech, this didn't look like it would ever happen. Under these circumstances it would have been foolish for the GNOME developers to do a lot of work on Harmony, and then find that it wouldn't be adopted when done.
Not everyone likes C++. With GNOME you have much greater choice. Just compare the language bindings available for each. The number available for GNOME absolutely dwarfs those for KDE. See for yourself at:
My understanding is that the Windows version of QT doesn't have a GPL licence (QPL only). Why Trolltech doesn't want to release a GPLed version, I don't understand, since you can't do Windows versions of GPLed software, like you can with GTK (eg The Gimp). Can anyone enlighten me?
Of course KDE allows proprietary programs to be developed - look at all the proprietary software that theKompany produces. The only difference is that these developers must pay the Trolltech tax to do so.
When RMS said that it was sometimes better to make a library GPL instead of LGPL, it was because this gave other free software, which used this library, an advantage if it had something that similar proprietary software didn't have or couldn't use. Naturally if you dual licence the original library under the GPL and a commercial licence (eg. as in QT's case) then you lose this ability. In addition, he only recommended using the GPL instead of the LGPL where there wasn't a proprietary library in competition. In those cases (eg. Ogg vs mp3/etc ) it is better to use an LGPL or even Xfree style licence.
Off the top of my head, here's other things where KDE is ahead:...
API - both projects would argue about which has the better API, all we can really go on is the quality of the apps.
Kontour - I'd definitely give GNOME the edge here with Sodipodi/Sketch.
KPresenter - is it better than Impress from OpenOffice? KChart - I don't know if you'd call this a major app. These functions are subsumed by Gnumeric. Guppi offers sophisticated graphing abilities.
Kivio - this is only semi-free/open source software. If you want anything more than the basic shapes you have to buy theKompany's proprietary stencils. Of course, the KDE project could produce their own stencils, but this would step on theKompany's toes and destroy their business model, so I can't see it ever happening. In accepting Kivio, KDE has also accepted that they'll never have a fully free diagramming program to rival the commercial offerings. Therefore, Dia is the winner here. aRts - it's certainly better than esound, but is it better than ASD? We'll know when they're both finished. Gstreamer, and the GTK apps like XMMS give GNOME a clear edge in multimedia.
All these apps are certainly part of GNOME now and are being worked on by GNOME hackers. In the GIMPs case, GNOME is really an offshoot of that project since it was started by GIMP hackers using the GIMP Tool Kit!
I might also point out that KDE users certainly have no hesitation in bragging about QT even though, of course, it was not originally a KDE project.;)
How is it that KDE is keeping up with them then? (surpassing, even, IMHO)
Certainly in regards to the DE itself, KDE seems quite close. However, IMO it is in apps department where GNOME has forged a large and growing lead. This is where the more numerous GNOME developers are having the most obvious effect. Just to name a few apps where GNOME has a big edge: the office apps (Gnumeric, Abiword, OpenOffice, Evolution, Gnucash) also The Gimp, Nautilus, Gstreamer, Galeon and many more. As for the major apps where KDE has he edge, there's not much more than Kdevelop.
What I like about Galeon is that it has the rendering ability of Mozila, plus it's fast! Konqueror is nice, but there are still too many pages that it renders improperly. One thing I agree with the author is that Mozilla is by far the prettiest bowser out there. I wish Galeon would adopt its toolbar (or at least give the option to use it, similar to the way Mozilla gives a choice between looks.)
"You can't tell my thousands of slashdot losers havent tried to start a "web design" company or some such using pronouns like "we" and "us" to make it sound like a company when it was really just one guy..."
That's crap, it was nothing like that at all. What we had here was the editor was pretending to be a reader and trashing open source people and competitors, as well as not linking to information on competing sites. It's hypocritical to criticise Microsoft for astroturfing but say it's OK for linuxtoday. It's like the truism that people get the government they deserve - well, it applies to media as well. If there is a choice between a media site that acts like that and one that is more honest, than I feel I should support the latter one.
We still haven't heard an apology from Internet.com. No admission that what they did was wrong. No assurance that they won't do it again in the future. In fact, their pronouncements have been to the opposite. They say this behaviour is perfectly normal and OK. I'll still be avoiding their sites in future now that I know where their journalistic standards lie.
54% of responses that were sent directly to the
Commission and were not from explicit "Open Source" respondents, supported software
related patents.
Why exclude responses that were sent indirectly to the Commision? This sounds like a case of 'we'll keep dropping categories opposed to patents until we get a majority of responses in favor of them.' "Hmm - there seems to be a lot of responses against patents. Let's drop the ones from those Open Source nuts... There's still too many. Ok, so now drop all those sent to us indirectly. Yes! Look everyone! A majority of people support patents!"
Another example is in the pie charts showing the proportion of each type of organisation in each group. SME are 16% against and 13% in favor off patents. They say "It is interesting, however, to note that the proportion of SMEs is similar in each case." This gives the impression that SMEs are evenly split. Given that the number of responses against patents dwarfed those in favor, this really means that SMEs were similarly heavily opposed to patents!
There was also the matter of the report categorizing patent opponents as "younger".
This makes it easier for people to dismiss the opinions of those opposed to software patents.
Re:I'm a disappointed GNOME user...
on
KDE 2.2 Tagged
·
· Score: 1
There doesn't seem to be much difference between the two Desktop Environments. It's largely a matter of personal taste as to which one people prefer.
The big difference to me seems to be between the apps. Here GNOME is racing ahead: Gnumeric, Gstreamer, Nautilus, The Gimp, Gnucash, Abiword, Open Office, Evolution, Galeon, Sodipodi etc, etc are all well ahead of their KDE counterparts.
The apps where KDE has the edge are very few. There's Kdevelop, and that's about it
Slashdot Mirror
The first time the average KDE hacker usually knows about these decisions is when they're announced to the public. Saying things such as we don't have elections so we can avoid red tape, is a rather chilling thing to say.
Compare this with KDE e.V, which, unfortunately, is run more like a private club, by a group of mostly German hackers, trying to ensure they retain the reins of control. For example, this is from their 'Policy for becoming a member of KDE e.V.'
This raises the image of those stuffy old Victorian clubs where a member brings along a friend he wants to join, and the old members gather around the table and get the opportunity to blackball him first.Attitudes like this have lead to all the problems that the KDE League has suffered from, in terms of lack of accountability, openness and the nonprofit status controversy.
GNOME, on the other hand, has shown in the past that it can be trusted "to do the right thing". It hasn't taken the easy path of including a non-free library simply because it was convenient. It may sound corny, but GNOME has a real sense of social responsibility about it, and of helping the disadvantaged in the world.
Even when Harmony was being worked on, KDE refused to say that they would adopt it when it was finished. Considering that so many of the leading KDE developers worked for Trolltech, this didn't look like it would ever happen. Under these circumstances it would have been foolish for the GNOME developers to do a lot of work on Harmony, and then find that it wouldn't be adopted when done.
No, but unfortunately it's currently the best solution for programming large desktop application.
Really? What about Java and C#? They seem to be capturing all the mind share lately.
When language fashions change, where does that leave QT? It's whole reason for existance is basically C++.
http://erik.bagfors.nu/gnome/languages.html
http://developer.kde.org/language-bindings/
This is why it makes sense to write the Desktop Environment in C. Of course, apps are a different story.
My understanding is that the Windows version of QT doesn't have a GPL licence (QPL only). Why Trolltech doesn't want to release a GPLed version, I don't understand, since you can't do Windows versions of GPLed software, like you can with GTK (eg The Gimp). Can anyone enlighten me?
When RMS said that it was sometimes better to make a library GPL instead of LGPL, it was because this gave other free software, which used this library, an advantage if it had something that similar proprietary software didn't have or couldn't use. Naturally if you dual licence the original library under the GPL and a commercial licence (eg. as in QT's case) then you lose this ability. In addition, he only recommended using the GPL instead of the LGPL where there wasn't a proprietary library in competition. In those cases (eg. Ogg vs mp3/etc ) it is better to use an LGPL or even Xfree style licence.
Kontour - I'd definitely give GNOME the edge here with Sodipodi/Sketch.
KPresenter - is it better than Impress from OpenOffice?
KChart - I don't know if you'd call this a major app. These functions are subsumed by Gnumeric. Guppi offers sophisticated graphing abilities.
Kivio - this is only semi-free/open source software. If you want anything more than the basic shapes you have to buy theKompany's proprietary stencils. Of course, the KDE project could produce their own stencils, but this would step on theKompany's toes and destroy their business model, so I can't see it ever happening. In accepting Kivio, KDE has also accepted that they'll never have a fully free diagramming program to rival the commercial offerings. Therefore, Dia is the winner here.
aRts - it's certainly better than esound, but is it better than ASD? We'll know when they're both finished. Gstreamer, and the GTK apps like XMMS give GNOME a clear edge in multimedia.
I might also point out that KDE users certainly have no hesitation in bragging about QT even though, of course, it was not originally a KDE project. ;)
What I like about Galeon is that it has the rendering ability of Mozila, plus it's fast! Konqueror is nice, but there are still too many pages that it renders improperly. One thing I agree with the author is that Mozilla is by far the prettiest bowser out there. I wish Galeon would adopt its toolbar (or at least give the option to use it, similar to the way Mozilla gives a choice between looks.)
We still haven't heard an apology from Internet.com. No admission that what they did was wrong. No assurance that they won't do it again in the future. In fact, their pronouncements have been to the opposite. They say this behaviour is perfectly normal and OK. I'll still be avoiding their sites in future now that I know where their journalistic standards lie.
"Hmm - there seems to be a lot of responses against patents. Let's drop the ones from those Open Source nuts... There's still too many. Ok, so now drop all those sent to us indirectly. Yes! Look everyone! A majority of people support patents!"
Another example is in the pie charts showing the proportion of each type of organisation in each group. SME are 16% against and 13% in favor off patents. They say "It is interesting, however, to note that the proportion of SMEs is similar in each case." This gives the impression that SMEs are evenly split. Given that the number of responses against patents dwarfed those in favor, this really means that SMEs were similarly heavily opposed to patents!
There was also the matter of the report categorizing patent opponents as "younger". This makes it easier for people to dismiss the opinions of those opposed to software patents.
The big difference to me seems to be between the apps. Here GNOME is racing ahead: Gnumeric, Gstreamer, Nautilus, The Gimp, Gnucash, Abiword, Open Office, Evolution, Galeon, Sodipodi etc, etc are all well ahead of their KDE counterparts. The apps where KDE has the edge are very few. There's Kdevelop, and that's about it