Shuttleworth Sees Possibility For a QT-based GNOME 296
An anonymous reader writes "derStandard.at has an extensive interview with Ubuntu-founder Mark Shuttleworth, in which he seems to be pushing for a switch to QT in the GNOME-project: 'I think it would be perfectly possible to deliver the values of GNOME on top of QT.' He goes on to talk about Apple as an 'innovation leader' and problems with Hardy Heron."
Re:No, GNOME-like values on QT (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No, GNOME-like values on QT (Score:1, Insightful)
not to start a flame war here, but to get KDE and Gnome somehow merged would seem to be the biggest priority for OSS in getting linux deployed to the desktop en masse. The lack of UI standardization is really making life unnecessarily hard. Getting Gnome somehow running on top of QT would be a big step in this direction.
Re:No, GNOME-like values on QT (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's be fair about number three, that's a problem with the gaming industry in general. Almost every game reinvents its own UI, on pretty much all platforms, anywhere.
That's not a bug, it's a feature. Part of the fun of playing a game is mastering its interface, and a unique interface can encourage unique new kinds of fun. Anyway, how would it work if every game had to use the same interface -- if you had to be able to play Halo, SimCity 4, Command & Conquer, Tetris, Line Rider, bridge, backgammon, and parcheesi on a standard chessboard?
Re:In other news, hell freezes over (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:No, GNOME-like values on QT (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think so. ./configure;make;make install just fine but not everyone can.
I have no problem moving between Gnome and KDE. I have gotten to the point that I like Gnome better because it actually feels simpler to use.
I have not used KDE4 at all so things may change.
That being said I can think of a LOT more pressing needs in OSS than merging KDE and GNOME.
1. Audio. It is still a mess. Make up your minds and create a standard for that.
2. An Installer. Repositories are great if they have what you want. Yes I can deal with
Re:No, GNOME-like values on QT (Score:2, Insightful)
Why the hell shouldn't KDE swith to Gtk then? I don't like KDE and I've **NEVER** liked KDE. Ever. And its not for lack of trying or wanting to like KDE. I just can't use it for longer than 20 minutes before I get incredibly frustrated and give up. Its been that way for me for 10 years.
I'm quite content with GNOME right now, but if they switched to Qt, or tried to merge with KDE, I'd go full-time to e17 and say a pox on both their houses. But that is just me.
s/KDE/blabs/g;
s/GNOME/KDE/g;
s/blabs/GNOME/g;
s/Qt/blabs/g;
s/Gtk/Qt/g;
s/blabs/Gtk/g;
So, it's really a matter of taste. And choice.
Re:great idea (Score:3, Insightful)
Personally, I like the idea of a Qt port of GNOME, since I feel that Qt is somewhat superior to GTK, both in terms of development and in terms of use. Others will undoubtedly disagree with that.
Re:RFTA (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't that supposed to be, y'know, his job?
Re:Apple innovation? (Score:5, Insightful)
being innovation leader for restriction maybe?
you cant (normally) install a custom program or use an ipod for data storage out of the box.
maybe design leader but not innovation leader oh no!
This is just not true.
The first thing I do with any macs I lay hands on is drop mplayer SVN builds onto them, and the first thing I do after plugging in an ipod is to "enable disk use". I've had ipods since the second generation (the 10 gb brick), and still have the latest 2. 60% of both of these are occupied by normal everyday data.
Do I agree with itunes music store? no! Luckily I can go into parental controls in itunes and turn every hint of it off.
Do I wish they would remove the horrid bloat from itunes? Yes. Do I think they're moving in the wrong direction? Yes.
They're not quite where you are asserting they are yet though.
Re:eh? (Score:3, Insightful)
I think Trolltech is doing a great job. Qt4 is awesome, and now GPL under Windows too.
Of course, if you want to liberate it, FORK IT AND SHUT UP. (You know, GPL and all that.)
Re:No, GNOME-like values on QT (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:No, GNOME-like values on QT (Score:1, Insightful)
Actually, most Windows games have standardized on a single user-interface API: DirectX.
Re:Wow! (Score:3, Insightful)
Does that seem backwards to anyone? I mean, the people who are using an LTS want stability and software that's proven and that will get the job done, even if it is a little older.
I don't think that's an accurate characterization of the reason to use an LTS release. You use LTS because you want a platform that doesn't change (except for security fixes and bug fixes) for a long time. That means that towards the end of the LTS release's lifecycle you accept that you're using pretty outdated stuff, it doesn't mean that you necessarily want that at the beginning.
If what you want is something that's well-proven, you don't adopt any new release, LTS or not. You might pick up a year-old LTS release, after all the bugs have been worked out, but I think Debian stable would be a better choice; it's much more thoroughly stabilized after having passed through the long Debian testing phase.
Given that a new LTS release is going to be somewhat buggy, I don't think it's at all unreasonable to go with slightly unready software, expecting that it will stabilize over the first six months or so after release.
I don't know enough about the issues around desktop artwork to know what makes sense there.
Re:No, GNOME-like values on QT (Score:5, Insightful)
I prefer the mac way of installing via just drag and drop the app file into your applications directory (or any other directory).
I personally think that would be a much better default for 3rd party (non-repo) provided applications.
Sure, you waste hard drive space, but right now that is not a concern.
Re:eh? (Score:3, Insightful)
Is that like for real?
I've used Windows since 1994, GNOME/linux UI:s since 1999 and I can't recall a single time when I'd clicked on a wrong button _because_ of their order. Wording has been misleading on all platforms but ordering? I didn't even notice this before people started whining.
Re:No, GNOME-like values on QT (Score:3, Insightful)
So you have never had an issue with an RPM?
You must not install anything that doesn't come with your install CD!
As I said I can manage source installs. The problem is that there isn't a Linux installer.
At best you have to find an RPM or deb for your system at worst you have to find the source tarball.
Add to that the complexity of packaging an install for the developers and you have a real mess.
Re:In other news, hell freezes over (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you're right but this is quite a problem. I recently made the switch from Windows to Ubuntu on my laptop. I still run Windows inside a VM but that's just for my management tools which are Windows only.
In these days you don't know which distro is right for you, they all provide much the same functionality and all have little differences. I tried the major distros, KDE, Gnome, and landed on Ubuntu with Gnome because everyone was ranting and raving about it and I thought it was worth a closer look.
In the end I've found that SUSE is easier for the desktop user while Ubuntu and Fedora are easier to hack out difficult functionality like fingerprint authentication using PAM which is still quite problematic, so much so I had to turn it off but that's largely due to a compatibility problem between VMWare and Ubuntu which results in me losing the ability to use my keyboard. Not all apps will work using fingerprint authentication so you still need to be able to type your elevation password.
Of course for me, I get around the issue by adding a widget to the panel which calls setxkbmap which fixes the issue so that I can type my elevation password after the failure has occurred.
Back to the original issue, it's impossible to tell which audience the major distros are targeting. They all try to cater to pretty much everyone and the result is that some distros are better at some things than others which means you have to try them all before you can pick the best one for you. That's a lot of work as you really need to use your machine to know and any machine you use on a regular basis you don't want to be installing a new distro every week on.
Re:No, GNOME-like values on QT (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What on earth is he getting at? (Score:4, Insightful)
Windows back compatibility? How far back do you want to go?
Wrong - try MS Bookshelf 92. Most of the "technologies" touted for that time period are now broken. Even when implemented by Microsoft. I wonder if "MS Bob" works (I doubt it). Most other shell extensions of that era no longer work.
So we know the window of compatibility is less than 16 years.
Maybe the "era of compatibility" extends back to Windows 95... I don't know (and, really, don't care much). Windows users probably have a much better idea than I do.
Just sayin'
Re:No, GNOME-like values on QT (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:KDE on GTK? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What on earth is he getting at? (Score:5, Insightful)
How far back do you want to go?
I can run MS-DOS software from the '80s on Windows XP SP2. I can run some Windows software from 1992, and I can run just about any well behaved application (which rules out things like shell extensions) from 10-15 years ago.
So we know the window of compatibility is less than 16 years.
What's the window of compatibility for binary executables on Linux? Even if they only depend on glibc, and don't pull in any GUI libraries, is it as long as 10 years? When was the last time they broke glibc? If you want to run a 10 year old GUI binary on a recent Linux, would you even know where to find all the back-rev lib*.so files it needs?
For FreeBSD installing compat3x should take you back to 1998, but I don't know if compat3x (let alone compat22) is still usable on FreeBSD 7.
I don't even think the "window of compatibility" for Mac OS is as long as 15 years.
16 years of binary compatibility is pretty damn good, for a desktop OS. Servers, now, you can probably still run VMS 2.0 binaries from 1980, but that's a whole different world.