Let me add: If you really want a native office suite then I think that KDE + KOffice is the most integrated, complete and promising for the future. Although I think it's not there yet, especially the MS format filters of OOo are still more usable in the real world (and no, using the OOo filters in KOffice is not an option, that has been discussed over and over again).
Yes, only about twenty people have posted the answer in the above comments, so no need to speculate. Both are included, with none being "the" default. Wise decision, if you ask me. Avoids flamewars and doesn't drive away any customers from either camp.
You have a point there, it would be potentially dangerous.
That's why it is _not_ handled the same way as if the user had typed it in. If a web page contains a link to your local file system, to the audiocd:/ IO slave,... you get a warning popup. Try with the trash:/ link in one of the earlier comments.
> I think you just summed up KDE's usability problems !!
Nonsense. If you don't enter any of the special protocols (for example because you don't know about it) then this is completely hidden and doesn't come in anyone's way. No button, no config option that takes up space or grabs attention.
This is really _no_ usability problem.
OTOH if I choose to use some of the protocols (which I do, most often fish:/) then it's a great boon for me.
> Whereas taxes on Linux? Wait... what taxes; Linux is free. > I think the main idea is not to give more money to the USA.
Do you think that IBM who is involved in this project (NB: Also a company from the US) will provide the software and the services for free?
And I think that the *taxes* on the profit made in this project would go to the German government anyway (because it would have been about MicroSoft Germany). Where the *profit* would go is probably a different matter, though.
> There can be a really nice framework within KDE but as a user I could not care less.
But the user (me, for example) does care about the feature-richness and consistence this framework made possible.
> As for Quanta -- this is just an 'extended' copy of tons of other apps, e.g. HomeSite.
I don't think you can use Homesite or Dreamweaver to write and debug PHP apps. If you're still saying it's just an extended copy I'd say they extended it into an interesting direction.
> I once had a Gentoo Linux UT2003 Demo LiveCD, > which worked like a breeze (and in fact > introduced me to gentoo:-).
That one came to my mind, too. It booted on my machine but didn't find my soundcard due to lacking support in the kernel...
This may be ok for a Demo CD but I don't think distributing commercial games like that will work. You'd need to distribute a live CD construction kit that created custom game CDs with tailored kernel and drivers / config.
But even if that was *possible* Joe User cannot be expected to create his own boot CD.
> But thirty years in Germany would not suffice, > because outsider blood is not hereditarily > German... that, in a nutshell, is elitism.
That, in a nutshell, is just not true. Where did you get that from?
Normally, after eight years of (legal) residence in Germany one has the *right* to get the full German citizenship. Besides there are other circumstances where the authorities *may* grant it earlier.
One thing that may prevent it even after eight years is if you have committed any serious crimes but I think that's not surprising, and isn't the case for the majority of people.
Source: http://www.einbuergerung.de/47_44.htm (Site in German)
> One of my theories is that Germans, having > learnt English rather effortlessly during > childhood, simply find it difficult to believe > that foreigners can find German difficult, and > therefore consider poor German to be a sign of > laziness and stupidity...
I can only speak for myself, but let me assure you that I don't think that way. I realise that the German grammar is not easy compared to the English one. And that makes me appreciate the effort of trying it anyway even more.
> Unlike you and the rest of the slashdot pundits, > they have a responsibility to their European neighbours and the international community to do > so. They are trying to avoid a repeat of the Hamburg Cell.
It's actually pressure *from the US* that is one of the main arguments in the current discussion about biometry in future European passports: "We should have two biometric features in our passports or the US won't let EU citizens in without special visa"
My guess is that Otto Schily (the German Secretary of the Interior) would have gone for it anyway but political pressure from the US (*and* the fact of 2001-09-11) serves as a welcome backing.
> It's not exactly slavery (and far from genocide), > but those refugees > had invested years of their lives > hoping to become german citizens one day > and germany just kicked them out > (got a few years of cheap labor out of them > and out the door they went)
Can you back that up with any proof?
- AFAIK it's been clear from the start that they'd get a permission to stay during the war and were to return after the war.
- AFAIK they (always read: most of them) did not want to become german citizens in the first place. They were -- as you said -- refugees, not immigrants.
- AFAIK they were not "cheap labor" but were supported by the german social security, i.e. german taxpayers' taxes. Ever heard of the unemployment rate in Germany? And whenever there is a citizen from the EU who is able to fill a position then the refugee won't be allowed to work (But social security will pay.). Don't tell me the US don't have different types of visas, some of them without work permit.
- AFAIK quite a few of them actually wanted to return to their homes (or what was left of them) to rebuild their home country.
What does that have to do with anything? We're comparing GUI toolkits w.r.t. the amount of code the *user of the toolkit* (== the app developer) has to maintain. At least that's what the grandfather of my first post was talking about.
The page I had replied to was a) Written by a zealot b) Quoting out of context c) Making (IMHO) wrong assertions without the slightest hint of data to back that up.
You think that's ok?
Talking about zealots: I got to know George Staikos as a very competent developer and I appreciate his opinion. But you may believe what you want.
>> which is three times as large,
> GTk/GNOME is a hell of a lot less bloated than KDE/Qt.
Oh come on, please don't quote out of context.
He was referring to the source code *the developer* needs to write:
>> It even scales better for small companies as they can't afford wasting salary on their GUI-person just to produce source code which is three times as large...
You're not seriously suggesting that you need more code when programming for KDE than for GNOME, are you? If you do please back that up with some numbers.
George Staikos knows both:
"Based on my experience porting GTK applications to Qt, the resulting code is typically 30%-60% smaller than the GTK equivalent (in terms of lines of code)."
I won't comment on the general bloat level of GNOME vs. KDE but I've yet to see any real comparison between the two that's beyond mere prejudice.
Yes, KDE has always been free software.
But no, KDE has been under the GPL/LGPL right from the start. It's never been under the QPL
QT hasn't been under the GPL at that time though,
and RMS "threw a fit" because he claimed the two licenses were incompatible.
Slashdot Mirror
You have to lower the shields first for a straight shot, or the phase fluctuations will make you miss horribly.
Interesting. Do you have a link?
But amazingly it's a workable solution. I've tried it with the gq LDAP client.
Let me add:
If you really want a native office suite then I think that KDE + KOffice is the most integrated, complete and promising for the future. Although I think it's not there yet, especially the MS format filters of OOo are still more usable in the real world (and no, using the OOo filters in KOffice is not an option, that has been discussed over and over again).
I take it you're volunteering to *rewrite* OOo *twice*, using GNOME and KDE technologies? Let me know when you've finished.
> Just better software and better software engineering.
Now here's where it gets ridiculous.
Well. A GNOME fanboy complaining about alleged fanboys.
> Has anyone gleaned the answer
Yes, only about twenty people have posted the answer in the above comments, so no need to speculate. Both are included, with none being "the" default. Wise decision, if you ask me. Avoids flamewars and doesn't drive away any customers from either camp.
There's also no such thing as THE kernel. KDE runs on many UN*Xoid systems, some of which you cannot patch (proprietary stuff).
If a naming scheme is your reason to decide which desktop to use I envy you... you don't seem to have any real problems. Or real work to do...
Oops, said link is in the comments to TFA itself...
You have a point there, it would be potentially dangerous.
... you get a warning popup. Try with the trash:/ link in one of the earlier comments.
That's why it is _not_ handled the same way as if the user had typed it in. If a web page contains a link to your local file system, to the audiocd:/ IO slave,
> I think you just summed up KDE's usability problems !!
Nonsense. If you don't enter any of the special protocols (for example because you don't know about it) then this is completely hidden and doesn't come in anyone's way. No button, no config option that takes up space or grabs attention.
This is really _no_ usability problem.
OTOH if I choose to use some of the protocols (which I do, most often fish:/) then it's a great boon for me.
It's Konqi Konqueror
I'd say in real life their legal department and their deep pockets make a difference.
> Whereas taxes on Linux? Wait... what taxes; Linux is free.
> I think the main idea is not to give more money to the USA.
Do you think that IBM who is involved in this project (NB: Also a company from the US) will provide the software and the services for free?
And I think that the *taxes* on the profit made in this project would go to the German government anyway (because it would have been about MicroSoft Germany). Where the *profit* would go is probably a different matter, though.
See http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/08/03/141221 1
> There can be a really nice framework within KDE but as a user I could not care less.
But the user (me, for example) does care about the feature-richness and consistence this framework made possible.
> As for Quanta -- this is just an 'extended' copy of tons of other apps, e.g. HomeSite.
I don't think you can use Homesite or Dreamweaver to write and debug PHP apps.
If you're still saying it's just an extended copy I'd say they extended it into an interesting direction.
> I once had a Gentoo Linux UT2003 Demo LiveCD, :-).
> which worked like a breeze (and in fact
> introduced me to gentoo
That one came to my mind, too.
It booted on my machine but didn't find my soundcard due to lacking support in the kernel...
This may be ok for a Demo CD but I don't think distributing commercial games like that will work. You'd need to distribute a live CD construction kit that created custom game CDs with tailored kernel and drivers / config.
But even if that was *possible* Joe User cannot be expected to create his own boot CD.
> But thirty years in Germany would not suffice,
> because outsider blood is not hereditarily
> German... that, in a nutshell, is elitism.
That, in a nutshell, is just not true.
Where did you get that from?
Normally, after eight years of (legal) residence in Germany one has the *right*
to get the full German citizenship. Besides there are other circumstances where
the authorities *may* grant it earlier.
One thing that may prevent it even after eight years is if you have committed any serious
crimes but I think that's not surprising, and isn't the case for the majority of people.
Source:
http://www.einbuergerung.de/47_44.htm (Site in German)
> One of my theories is that Germans, having
> learnt English rather effortlessly during
> childhood, simply find it difficult to believe
> that foreigners can find German difficult, and
> therefore consider poor German to be a sign of > laziness and stupidity...
I can only speak for myself, but let me assure
you that I don't think that way. I realise that
the German grammar is not easy compared to the English one.
And that makes me appreciate the
effort of trying it anyway even more.
(BTW: I'm from Southern Germany myself)
> Unlike you and the rest of the slashdot pundits,
> they have a responsibility to their European neighbours and the international community to do
> so. They are trying to avoid a repeat of the Hamburg Cell.
It's actually pressure *from the US* that is one of the main arguments
in the current discussion about biometry in future European passports:
"We should have two biometric features in our
passports or the US won't let EU citizens in
without special visa"
My guess is that Otto Schily (the German Secretary of the Interior)
would have gone for it anyway but political pressure from the US
(*and* the fact of 2001-09-11) serves as a welcome backing.
> It's not exactly slavery (and far from genocide),
> but those refugees
> had invested years of their lives
> hoping to become german citizens one day
> and germany just kicked them out
> (got a few years of cheap labor out of them
> and out the door they went)
Can you back that up with any proof?
- AFAIK it's been clear from the start that they'd
get a permission to stay during the war
and were to return after the war.
- AFAIK they (always read: most of them) did not want
to become german citizens in the first place.
They were -- as you said -- refugees, not immigrants.
- AFAIK they were not "cheap labor" but were supported
by the german social security, i.e. german taxpayers' taxes.
Ever heard of the unemployment rate in Germany?
And whenever there is a citizen from the EU who is able to
fill a position then the refugee won't be allowed to work (But social security will pay.).
Don't tell me the US don't have different types of visas,
some of them without work permit.
- AFAIK quite a few of them actually wanted to return to their homes
(or what was left of them) to rebuild their home country.
> the vast majority of code is in the backend
What does that have to do with anything?
We're comparing GUI toolkits w.r.t. the amount of code the *user of the toolkit*
(== the app developer) has to maintain.
At least that's what the grandfather of my first post was talking about.
The page I had replied to was
a) Written by a zealot
b) Quoting out of context
c) Making (IMHO) wrong assertions without the slightest hint of data to back that up.
You think that's ok?
Talking about zealots: I got to know George Staikos as a very competent developer and I appreciate his opinion. But you may believe what you want.
>> which is three times as large,
> GTk/GNOME is a hell of a lot less bloated than KDE/Qt.
Oh come on, please don't quote out of context. He was referring to the source code *the developer* needs to write:
>> It even scales better for small companies as they can't afford wasting salary on their GUI-person just to produce source code which is three times as large...
You're not seriously suggesting that you need more code when programming for KDE than for GNOME, are you? If you do please back that up with some numbers.
George Staikos knows both:
"Based on my experience porting GTK applications to Qt, the resulting code is typically 30%-60% smaller than the GTK equivalent (in terms of lines of code)."
I won't comment on the general bloat level of GNOME vs. KDE but I've yet to see any real comparison between the two that's beyond mere prejudice.
I think this movement already started years ago.
Isn't that exactly what the OpenSource / Free Software communities do?
Yes, KDE has always been free software.
But no, KDE has been under the GPL/LGPL right from the start. It's never been under the QPL
QT hasn't been under the GPL at that time though,
and RMS "threw a fit" because he claimed the two licenses were incompatible.