KDE Strikes Back 361
Nerds writes: "The fourth beta release of KDE has been announced. Also, you might want to check out this editorial at LinuxPlanet. It is a bit biased, but the author makes good points." Its an enjoyable piece that everyone ought to read: it takes some pot shots, and points out some very real truths (and does both with a reasonable sense of humor).
Desktop Religeon (Score:3)
I personally use KDE, I like it, It works for me, etc... That's not to say that Gnome is bad (M$ Windows is bad) Pick the window manager you like and get over it!
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Interesting but biased (Score:2)
If only Qt was LGPLed...
License wars are a waste of energy (Score:3)
As someone who has worked with Microsoft's products almost exclusively over the last ten years but has recently come to appreciate the benefits of open source the sort of ideological arguments that occur in the open source community truly amaze me. I mean, there seems to be little difference between "free software" and "open source" and yet each concept has rabid followers which decry the opposition at every step.
Thanks to my handy Corel Linux distro I'm well on my way to becoming a Linux "guru". After installing it I tried each desktop and came to the conclusion that KDE is a lot smoother and efficient than Gnome was, and have since been using that. But I constantly hear people bewailing the fact that it's somehow "tainted" by the fact that a couple of words in the license don't match their Beloved Leader's psuedo-communistic writings. And then they go and try and create an entirely new product! So much for the idea of having the source encouraging "code reuse"!
As a consultant I can tell you that these issues seem rediculous and petty to outsiders. And they certainly add nothing to either the image or the quality of Linux, but instead cause resources to be squandered in duplicate efforts. As long as it works, why should the license matter so much? It's only software, it's not a matter of life and death.
To be perfectly honest, some of the rabid fanaticism that I see here just strikes me as childish. There's a real need to grow up in some people and get on with improving the code rather than slating the "opposition".
Re:Desktop Religeon (Score:2)
--
The world is divided in two categories:
those with a loaded gun and those who dig. You dig.
GNOME vs KDE Episode 18: Pointlessness (Score:5)
From a economic perspective: You can't win in the marketplace by being "just as good as" the existing Goliath. What features specific to GNOME or KDE are offered that surpass what you can do in Windows?
From a usability perspective: Why is there all this harping about a "consistent UI"? Check my sig for a soundbite on this, but then come back for an explanation. Sure, it makes sense for a word processor and a spreadsheet to have "File" menus with "Save, Save As, New, Close, etc" all in the same place. But does it make sense for all apps? Think about it this way: My car has a certain UI. My telephone also has a UI. They have absolutely nothing in common but I can use them both very effectively. What if LifeKDE sprang into being and created a phone with a steering wheel? Would I be better off?
How does this apply to computers? Because a computer isn't just one tool. It is a generalized tool simulator. Every "application" is a tool. If two applications serve radically different purposes, I would expect them to have radically different UIs. For instance, people often mention that Blender has a difficult to learn UI--irrelevant! The purpose of a UI is not to be easy to learn. The purpose of a UI is to afford access to a tool. (if the UI is difficult to remember that is a different issue--internal consistency is a valid goal) To go back to the Blender example, people often go on to say that once they learned the UI quirks it turned out to be very powerful. Exactly!
What does this have to do with KDE/GNOME? I think each of these projects has a certain amount of validity. For instance a lot of apps need to have file selection dialog boxes. That should probably be a system service. But "standardization" beyond that level is, IMHO, a very big mistake.
So what do I recommend? I recommend two projects:
1) The Common GUI Services Project for things like file selection dialog boxes.
2) The Advanced UI Research Project to do research on what kinds of UI elements work best with what kind of tool and then making that research available to the tool makers.
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FUD, FUD, FUD... (Score:5)
- license wars (QPL/GPL mess)
- language wars (C vs/ C++)
- toolkit wars (QT vs GTK)
- "commercial wars" (which compagny is good (QT), which is not (Helix)
At last, when has anybody (relatively important) working on gnome said "Gnome's goal is to kill KDE". This is the worse piece of FUD I've seen in the OSS community.
(Note: For those who want to know, I use mostly gnome, but use KDE and KDE apps regularly and enjoy them)
a Bit Biased (Score:3)
Anyone paying attention to XFCE Lately
I don't get it...is this a real problem? (Score:3)
Under X, it's different. KDE and Gnome -- let alone other wms and apps -- are very compatable, and running programs from one on the other is usually a no brainer. Sure, there are incompatable pieces, but none that prevent you from switching between different desktops/wms.
The only thing people are griping about are the last few inches of compatability; libs used, file formats, and the main language used to create the reusable parts (C vs. C++) -- *not* that you can't use any of your favorite tools if you switch between them.
With the exception of licencing, it's a bad idea to even acknowledge this as a any kind of squabble...and I'm not even convinced the licence issues that get dragged up are reasonable after Trol Tech's changes.
I'm sure there will be plenty of people who think I'm just not getting it. That the issues raised are important in a practical, moral, and cosmic sense.
Well, I don't see smoke, I see a description of smoke. There's definately no fire. You can't even warm a marshmellow with this.
Perhaps this is paranoia talking, but... (Score:3)
I say this because, well, typically KDE beta announcements are posted by HeUnique. They are typically short and sweet: "KDE Beta x is out. Go have fun."
Taco, otoh, seems to be posting material that's pretty inflamatory towards Gnome...trying to make KDE look bad. I know people can say stupid things sometimes, but I don't think its _just_ the KDE camp doing it
Am I crazy? Ok, well, I know I am, but am I just reading into this too much?
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A *bit* biased? (Score:5)
It's more than a bit biased. It's utterly, completely and unfairly biased. It has numerous digs at GNOME, all conveniently attributed to anonymous sources. It's low on facts, and its only purpose can be flamebait. And at that, I'm sure it will succeed. I have never before criticised /. for posting a story,
but there has to be a first tiem for everything. This story crossed the line.
Flame wars don't achieve anything, other than lots of page view. Maybe the conspirancy theorists are right about /. trying to get more ad revenue...
Re:License wars are a waste of energy (Score:2)
This has little to do with ideology. KDE could fix their problems by removing all outside GPL code and changing their license to one that would permit distribution. Troll Tech could fix the problem by making QT available under a GPL-compatible license. Why they don't do this I don't know, but I doubt there is any ideology involved.
Re:QString ? (Score:2)
a) Qt existed before a majority of compilers even supported templates, let alone the std::-library.
b) QString uses UniCode, std::string doesn't. QString also provides reference counting and copy-on-write (yeah, I know that this can be bad in certain situations in multi-threaded environments etc., but it's also much more efficient in the normal case)
Re:Celeberty Deathmatch anyone? (Score:2)
There's a small Gnome waiting in the middle of the ring. He's getting really cocky because his opponenet hasn't shown up yet.
The bell rings.
A gigantic gear falls on and squishes the small gnome.
Idunno, it seems even shorter than Bigfoot vs. the Loch Ness Monster to me. :)
Spoken like a true blinkered pragmatist (Score:2)
If it weren't for people like RMS and his "psuedo-communistic" ideas there would be no code to improve. It's licenses like the GPL that ensure that code freed remains free.
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Re:License wars are a waste of energy (Score:2)
I agree with you about the religious issues and flames surrounding licenses. But I found one point you made curious: "They...cause resources to be squandered in duplicate efforts" Are you suggesting that duplicate efforts like gnustep [gnustep.org], gnome, and the host of other desktop projects wouldn't exist without the debates? Don't you think that the hackers behind these projects have better motivation than that? And what, exactly, is wrong with the choice afforded by the diversity that this "duplicate effort" brings?
Re:License wars are a waste of energy (Score:2)
Trolltech has probably done as much as they can given their commercial interests to help get as near to the GPL as possible. This only affects how Linux distro CDs are burned or what might be at the offical distro site; you can easily get QT and KDE and whatever else extends from that from third parties for whatever distro you're running. Sure, it's an extra step, but I would think that the distros could explain what KDE is and sites they might be able to obtain it from without too much question.
Re:QString ? (Score:2)
Besides, Qt was started before many OSes had a
useful STL implementation.
free as in ... (Score:3)
Poverty does not a saint make.
What he means... (Score:5)
It's been a while since the last gnome/KDE flamewar, so I need to start one. Gnomers are always gratuitously nasty about KDE and that's why Gnome sucks. It's also bad because it's controlled by big nasty companies like Helix and RedHat. Fortunatly TrollTech are nice guys and don't count as a big bad company.
...no need to continue.
FUD! (Score:5)
You should read with a critical eye though. It's *always* suspicious to base major points you have on a source who just happens to be anonymous and untracable. For all we know, this may be a cheap trick Dennis pulls to hide his incompetance when it comes to technical aspects like APIs.
I also question his saying that Gnome was founded with the one goal of killing off KDE. He uses cheap semantics such as "Gnome is written to the venerable and venerated GTK+, while KDE is written to the technically excellent but politically reviled QT."
He goes on to say "I've tried for years to find out who the king of KDE is, and have concluded that there isn't one." Of course, KDE has a founder and über-developer. Mathias Ettrich is for KDE what Miguel de Icaza is for Gnome, and I've heard him bashing Gnome in interviews lately so I don't see the fairness of that not being mentioned is Denis' article.
I hate to see all this FUD within the Linux camp, when we despise the traditional FUD. I guess with big things like Evolution, Nautilus and the Gnome Foundation going on in the Gnome camp and the long-anticipated release of KDE 2.0 along with KOffice in the KDE camp, this is bound to happen as a result of natural human pride. I hope we can all see through the FUDding and the bashing and just look forward to getting some great software RSN!
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One good point -- too much C in open software (Score:5)
* writing array structures, and functions to operate on them (pseudo-objects)
* writing standardized error handling
* synchronizing related structures
* fixing memory bugs
* avoiding that oh-so-tempting copy/paste by generalizing function arguments
all of which would have been alleviated by using some flavor of object-oriented language (or even C++!
If you look at the code for open-source projects, you can see them inventing the wheel, over and over. I suppose you could argue that things are going slowly in the Java direction, which is fine. But that just means that Gnome is in retrograde motion.
- Brian K Boonstra (who can't wait to start using Mac OS X)
Re:QString ? (Score:2)
typedef basic_strig string;
You can define
typedef basic_strig unicode_string;
or something similar.
Re:Interesting but biased (Score:2)
C++ is further a lot less portable, even between unix platforms (or even compilers!). Every experience I've had with building C++ projects on various forms of unix results in either the compiler being the 'wrong' compiler, the libs being wrong or whatever. Add to that the linking problems (nope, cant link a object file compiled with this C++ compiler to one compiled with that, etc).
Its interesting to see Mr Powell refer to GTK as venerable. He must have some entirely new meaning of the word, since I cannot think of one that in any way would be appropriate.
Anyway, it's sort of fun from a flameflinging point of view (and flamewars are always fun), but the author is obviously biased to the extreme and has no idea what he's talking about (read some of Mr Powells other articles for other fun opinion pieces).
Re:GNOME vs KDE Episode 18: Pointlessness (Score:2)
- double-clicking a taskbar icon will iconify that application. great for getting stuff out of your way.
- right-clicking a taskbar icon gives you a menu which includes 'iconify other windows', which is really handy since I usually have like 14 Konsoles, 11 Netscapes, GAIM, XMMS, Quanta+ and StarOffice open simultaneously.
- Alt-F2 brings up a little input field which I can use to start an app quicker than using the menus. It keeps a history too, so I can cycle through previous commands.
- Rotating desktop wallpapers. I have a directory of about 450 hi-color psychedelic 1024x768 wallpapers, and I have KDE set to switch to a random one every 30 seconds. Keeps things interesting.
- Right click on desktop gives you a menu which includes 'Logout'. I find that much easier to deal with than windows, which requires you to hit Ctrl-Alt-Del or click on the Start button.
So, I guess it's subtle things like that, that make me like KDE so much.
I like GNOME in concept, but it just doesn't feel right to me. I installed Helix GNOME the other day... It has a very slick, professional installer, but the underlying GNOME still seems cumbersome and sort of clunky.
I'll keep an eye on GNOME, and I will definitely check out Nautilus at some point, but for now I'm sticking with KDE.
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Re:QString ? (Score:2)
Re:where are RPMs for Mandrake? (Score:2)
Because we didn't finish building the packages in time.
We're currently building the packages, and they'll appear on ftp either later today or early tomorrow.
And yet more (Score:2)
There are some things the open source movement could do with learning from the Cathedral...
I wish to hell both bloody groups would stop their bickering and get on with producing a viable, desktop alternative to MS...
As a person who uses both desktops (And MS - due to the fact that I cannot use KDE or Gnome for all my tasks) - I'd really like to have one proper environment.
More to the point, as a Systems designer (In my daytime incarnation), I really, really wish I didn't have to recommend NT 4 on the desktop (With Linux/UNIX in the back room)
So, if any of the Gnome or KDE developers are listening:
GET YOUR F***ING ACTS TOGETHER
Bloody stupid idiots take all the credit and kudos that goes with the JOB of being an open source programmer, but can't actually buckle down to produce what the users want.
If the Kudos was money, they'd be fired.
Re:The differences (Score:2)
KDE
Is about stucture and order you have one way to do something and only one way. Everything looks the same, feels the same, works the same. You get on with it.
Gnome
It is about having lots of diferent bits and peices that don't quiet seem to fit toegther, you use GTK,Gnome,Bonobo, perl,scheme,tcl,python... You wonder why your Gnome desktop doesn't work like your friends Gnome desktop. You scream at it when something fails to work that should well damn work.
Only one is an advantage
If you don't believe me, why is Helix Gnome so popular? It couldn't be that it introduces some standards to Gnome could it?
This isn't intended as flamebait, just my opinion.
Re:GNOME vs KDE Episode 18: Pointlessness (Score:3)
Learning the system. Sure, average /. reader knows how to find things, but the average joe *expects* "File/Save", "Edit/Cut", OK and Cancel buttons, etc. By sticking to basic conventions for all apps, it makes GNOME or KDE more user friendly to all computer users and makes Linux look better and better.
Scripting. Sure, most of the time Linux people will be scripting using /bin/bash or other shells,
or perl or tk or whatever other language. However, GUI scripting can be quite useful. From my understanding of the gtk and kde basics, the concept of scripting is there, it's more a matter of apps using it. It would be nice if, in the end, we had something similar to AppleScript, where each app has it's own mini-API for script calls, so that if I wanted to save a file during a script operation, I can call the app's 'save' function. However, until that's implemented across GUI apps, one will have to rely on the GUI's underlying toolkit to provide said calls, so that instead, I could call "menu file -> item save". Standardizing on names and orders can help very much here as well.
Of course, it should be possible for advanced users to customize the gtk/kde app, like it was possible for X Toolkit apps to use resources and change every aspect of the design. XML makes for a powerful tool here.
Re:Desktop Religeon (Score:2)
___________________
Re:Celeberty Deathmatch anyone? (Score:2)
Which just proves the cluelessness of the articles' author. GNOME was started to offer a totally free (in the FSF sense) alternative to KDE. It was also an attempt to coalesce various projects based around the Gimp Toolkit.
Chris
Re:License wars are a waste of energy (Score:4)
and get on with improving the code rather than slating the "opposition".
Ah, but hard core hacking is a young man's game. Why deny them the pleasures of the young, including passionately naive (or naively passionate?) political activism? Especially when it's so useful.
Companies play motivational gurus real bucks to light a fire under their employees. The respective Gnome and KDE teams helf self organized into groups whose motivational levels compare favorably to a rutting bull-moose.
Go Gnome! Go KDE!
Hey -- motivation is motivation. You can't fault their productivity levels.
KDE *is* tainted, at least for me. (Score:2)
But *I* choose not to use KDE, specifically because the underlying toolkit is not Free. Period. Be as "technically superior" as you want, but I am not going to rely on any software built on a proprietary foundation. Been there, done that, got seriously burnt.
Until such time as the QT toolkit is properly released under a true Free Software licence, then any software that depends on QT will not be installed on my system.
Yes, it's THAT important.
Heck I've already written the video game. (Score:2)
GNOME vs. KDE: Battle of the Desktops [8m.com] runs on a computer called NES. NES emulators [zophar.net] are available for GNU/Linux, BSD, DOS, and Windows.
Have fun!<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game! [8m.com]
Re:I find it a shame... (Score:2)
It proves open-source nay-sayers correct. Those people who say that open-source projects only lead toward fragmentation and dissent: they are absolutely right.
Open source means that people have the freedom of choice. If they want to work together on the same thing, fine and well. If they don't for any reason (personalities, technical, ideology, etc,) they are free to try on their own and the world judges them on their results. I believe that's the entire idea of capitalism too, right?
Now what would happen if everyone were forced to work on the same project? Sooner or later, egos and personalities would clash. I'd bet good money that before too long, the infighting among them would destroy the project. The current system gives people elbow room to move if problems show up.
Besides, next time the nay-sayers come around, point out the Linux/BSD fragmentation. Did it produce two crappy OSes? No, it produced two very good OSes which have their own niches. Did the MySQL/Postgres competition produce two crappy databases? Nope, once again, we've got two great products which are excellent in their respective domains.
Re:License wars are a waste of energy (Score:2)
The patch clause doesnt make a windows port unfeasable, and the 'give us your internal code' clause is rather unenforcable.
As far as I've seen the only reason they dont just GPL Qt free edition is because they feel it doesnt protect their library against *proprietary* use. Legal opinions differ (which is funny, since their free license is regarded as compatible with the GPL in all but the patch clause and internal use clause, neither of which would affect the ability for proprietary software to link to Qt, which pretty much seems like they replace the GPL with a license that make no difference for the one reason they do not use the GPL).
Re:License wars are a waste of energy (Score:2)
I don't think that this was meant as a troll, but let's count the signs:
These are some of the phrases you should definitely use the next time you wish to start a /. flamefest.
But seriously, I can see how if you came from a Microsoft background the size, lack of direct organization, argumentativeness, and general confusion on the issues that this community sometimes displays would be very daunting. But there are good reasons for many of these traits - they've developed in step with the community and are as much a part of it as vaporware announcements are in the MS world. Let's look at some examples:
Sure, resources (mainly hacker time) aren't used in the most efficient manner, but on the other hand you can't complain too hard about work that people want to do for free. The free software/open source community is not and will never be a command economy - it really is a wide-open marketplace, where the number one commodity is developer interest and user mindshare. Open markets are rarely as efficient in the short term at sorting out where resources should be applied, but in the long term such a system will be more resilient than the most carefully planned central organization. (I'm tempted to make a comment that commercial development models are closer to being run in the communist system, at least as communism was practiced in the USSR and the PRC, but this is already a huge post, so oh well.)
Re:GNOME vs KDE Episode 18: Pointlessness (Score:4)
Trolls like this are only going to add fuel to the fears of people outside the open source community that Linux is fragmentating, which is totally untrue, and a myth we don't want to see happening for real or have people believe in.
Sure the competition can be intense, and probably beneficial to both sides, but the way it is being publicised is much more damaging to the community as a whole.
On another point Powell loses all journalistic integrity when writes the following:
The motives of the Gnome community with the formation of Helixcode have been take totally out of proportion in my opinion. Dennis E. Powell might as well attack commercial Linux distributions at the same time if he wishes to take this viewpoint. In his view, commercial Linux-focused corporations would also be hypocritical for "pretending" to support open source for the benefit of society, but at the same time earning a profit from it! This attack is very unjustified.
Any organization or corporation has the right to sell their open-sourced products at any price they choose fit as long as the purchaser has the same right to do so, and Helixcode is no exception. It's a fundamental cornerstone of the GNU Public License that Powell seems to totally ignore in blatantly attacking Gnome while sidestepping the issue of Troll Tech's QT licensing.
Gnome and KDE was originally about bringing about standards to the Linux desktop, but unfortunately it seems destined to become mere cannon fodder for endless flame wars and giving the false impression that Linux will suffer the same failures of fragmentation as Unix did.
MashPotato - Mobile Array of Support Helpers for Potato
Re:A problem (Score:2)
It's about what you can do with it.
Currently, you can use Qt to write open source applications for X11 only and write bugfixes.
You can not port it (according to readme that comes with sources) to another platform, be it win32, beos, mac, or future systems like berlin. You have to rely that Trolltech will allow you to port your (GPLed) application to these systems.
Yes, I understand that Trolls want to make money. I don't object. But I want to run my applications on any platform in my sight. Qt may be technically superior (or may not, we will not discuss it here), but it does not allow run my programs on platforms other that *nix/X11 that I routinely use (e.g. at work).
Re:GNOME vs KDE Episode 18: Pointlessness (Score:2)
- Open Photoshop/Photopaint/GIMP/etc.
- Apply a noise-creation filter (clouds, etc.)
- Apply filters.
- Repeat applying filters until you are satisfied.
Good enough?Note I sent to LWN (Score:5)
Although most responses have been positive, some articles and comments about our recent GNOME Foundation announcement have been disappointingly inaccurate.
In particular, two mistakes are common. The first is referring to the Foundation as "consortium"; the Foundation is not a consortium, but an organization of individual contributors to the GNOME Project. The companies joining the Foundation join an advisory board which has no decision-making function; decisions are made by a board of GNOME contributors elected by the membership. At this time, around two-thirds of the members of the Foundation are independent volunteers not employed by one of the advisory board companies. The Foundation is simply a legal entity that can act on behalf of the preexisting GNOME Project. The GNOME Foundation is comparable to the SPI/Debian and the Apache Software Foundation. For more details, see the press release: http://www.gnome.org/pr-foundation.html
The second mistake is that this represents some kind of flareup or resurgence of a "war" with KDE. At our press conference, we took pains to discourage this interpretation of the announcement when members of the press asked about it. We are interested in healthy and friendly cooperation with the KDE project and other free software projects. Interoperability efforts such as http://www.freedesktop.org continue and will not be affected by the GNOME Foundation.
Both GNOME and KDE have valuable contributions to make. We're creating a foundation to help us run GNOME well, and we're excited about the recent commercial acceptance of GNOME, but these things are advances for GNOME, not attacks on anyone else. Our primary focus is to expand the userbase of free software; competing with other free software is not the point.
GLib (Score:2)
Re:License wars are a waste of energy (Score:3)
that is irrelevant. the KDE people are putting a GPL on a product that depends on Qt, and that's a perfectly clear indication that they intend to allow you to redistribute it. If they suddenly turned around and tried to sue you for redistributing KDE, no judge would listen to them for half a second.
the REAL licensing problem with KDE, is that you cna't write commercial (non open-source) apps for it, without paying Troll Tech. now, we free software hackers don't care much about this, but companies do. that's why you won't see Sun or IBM telling its ISVs that they should code for KDE, which is probably one of the big reasons why GNOME was picked over KDE for the onslaught of big-corp support. The only way Troll Tech could fix this would be LGPLing (not GPLing) Qt, but that would be quite squarely against their interests, so they won't do it.
other than that, this article didn't seem very convincing. Lots of babbling about politics and personal problems. I say, who cares. If you read the Linux Kernel mailing list, you'll see a lot of politics, conspiracy theories, and bitching and flaming even among the biggest developpers (including Linus himself). And you know what? It doesn't hamper kernel development -- it just moves it along. When there are disagreements, it's better to flame, say what you think, then look for common ground, than to pretend the disagreements aren't there. And no big project can exist without disagreements between people; not KDE, not GNOME, and not the linux kernel.
and then there's the technical arguments of KDE's superiority because of its greater consistency, which can be effectively countered by pointing out GNOME's greater openness (with multiple programming languages, its use of CORBA, and a non-toolkit-specific component model). I won't pass any hard judgements here: both consistency and openness are needed for a project to be good, and obivously KDE needs more of one and GNOME more of the other.
Re:A *bit* biased? (Score:2)
Really? I've been programming for nearly 2 decades now, and I've yet to see any proof that C++ leads to quicker development, despite what it's advocates may claim. Certainly, I see more gtk+ apps being developed than Qt apps.
In an object-oriented system, you can reuse menu classes -- i.e., you don't have to reinvent the menu implementation with each library spin off.
Indeed. You seem to be falling into the trap, though, of thinking that gtk+ isn't object oriented, just because it's written in C. In fact, it is. And it has a nice, consistent menu implementation, too. Just call gtk_menu_new(), add the menu items you require, and plonk it into your application. Simple, really. Just like using the QMenuBar class in Qt. Speaking of which, if your wonderful object oriented system lets you reuse code, rather than reimplement it, why does KDE choose to define its own KMenuBar class, rather than just using the default Qt one?
Re:Desktop Religeon (Score:3)
And now we are faced with two linux desktops. How boring. On one hand we have Gnome: inconsistent hacked together mess of programs (really, gnome office does not exist yet although gnumeric apparently looks nice). Integration is a dirty word in the dictionary of a Gnome developer. It offers a paper thin cover over the decades old UNIX interface.
KDE on the other hand is very promising, and has been so for years. Always nearly done but not quite so. Promises to reinvent everything including office apps, browser and filemanager.
I don't want either. I want mozilla + framemaker + a desktop that lets me use both comfortably. Gnome is too bloated for that, and KDE tries to replace both excellent tools. Perhaps the replacements are good but I don't care. I want a decent filemanager that lets me rename files for instance (bumped my head trying to do that using the latest gmc on a fat drive, doh!). I want copy paste to work with any application, not just Kedit or Kword.
And guess what, I already know that neither KDE nor Gnome will deliver on any of the above any time soon. Gnome will still be a mess in two years and KDE will still be promising but not yet finished in two years. And I'll still be running windows in two years. Not because it is so great but because it fullfills all my needs. It's bloated, it's ugly, sometimes unstable but the apps I need are available for it and work together nicely in a consistent way. I'd buy a mac if they were priced reasonably. But I wouldn't install linux for desktop usage, even though it's free (as in beer, I don't care about the speech). For me linux is a server OS (and a good one too). Did you notice that the companies backing Gnome are in the server business as well? One of them once tried to deliver a desktop and failed miserably.
end rant.
Re:And yet more (Score:2)
Both groups are already doing that. Just because a few developers write articles like these doesn't mean that both developer teams are completely focussed on bashing each other. In fact, they are coding right now.
Re:Helix wants to own Gnome (Score:2)
That doesn't explain why Tetris needs File- Save (Score:2)
And for the Blender example, what does File- Save save? The entire scene? The current object? A texture?
You simply can't have a consistent interface for any and all programs. Even something like "Exit" can have different meanings. Sometimes it means "close this window", sometimes it means "shutdown the app and close a whole slew of windows". It may have a consistent meaning for the programmer, but it can have many for the user.
As for scripting, I personally believe that engine and interface should always be completely seperated for tools (for toys it doesn't matter so much). I'm going to try very hard not to launch into my usual tirade against XML.
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Despite rumors to the contrary, I am not a turnip.
Re:Helix wants to own Gnome (Score:3)
Re:Desktop Religeon (Score:4)
Other operating systems come with an integrated window manager. That works fine for me. So it's not surprising that few people know the difference between a windowmanager and a desktop environment. It's because they should be integrated.
You might argue that being able to swap windowmanagers adds choice. However, it also makes testing more difficult (which is why it is so hard to get Gnome and windowmanagers to work properly, i.e. not just stable). Now we get to choose between Gnome and KDE, yay. 40% of the apps will run optimally under gnome, 40% will run optimally under KDE and the remaining 20% will run lousy on both. Great choice.
Re:One good point -- too much C in open software (Score:2)
writing array structures, and functions to operate on them (pseudo-objects)
You have to do this in an OO lang too. If the lang is sufficiently complex, you could use a template-type object for a generic class, but then again you can do the same type of thing in C.
writing standardized error handling
I've done this before too. It's a matter of a 20-line C source file to implement a fairly complete error handling library. Plus, you could just keep the code around as a personal library type thing.
synchronizing related structures
This can get messy. However, in OO programming you should think about these things anyway -- it's as much work, just less coding.
fixing memory bugs
Don't tell me you can't have memory bugs in an OO language, just because it's OO. C might benefit from stronger type rules, but there are a horde of utilities for debugging memory bugs, and profiling them as well, for speed optimization.
avoiding that oh-so-tempting copy/paste by generalizing function arguments
Um, you can write generic functions in C. It's not even hard.
Now don't get me wrong, developing in C has its drawbacks, and doing OO in another language can have its advantages. I personally have found ways of dealing with these drawbacks, though, and I find myself at least as productive in C as in other languages (C++, LISP, Prolog, VB, etc.). And I hate to see misinformed people blaming the language for the bad design decisions of the relevant programmers.
Finally, open source projects do tend to reinvent wheels, but this is NOT the fault of C. It's the fault of everybody needing something a little different for their projects, and deciding to reimplement the functionality.
FUD! - really ?!? (Score:2)
Is that not the case? That's why Gnome was started! Because KDE was not open source because of QT.
Read on Gnome's web page: "The GNOME project was born as an effort to create an entirely free desktop environment for free systems."
He uses cheap semantics such as "Gnome is written to the venerable and venerated GTK+, while KDE is written to the technically excellent but politically reviled QT."
What's wrong with that? My understanding is that C is excellent for operating system but that GUI are best done with OO languages... No?
As good as the C API can be, it will still take longer to develop a GUI with a C interface than a C++ one (and I know what I am talking about!).
Ok, I am biased toward KDE but so are you about Gnome!
use is not proof of necessity (Score:4)
How many programmers who would have written public domain code decided to use the GPL just because "that's what all free software is written in"? RMS didn't invent free software, he distorted the name Free Software for his own purposes ("it's not really free unless you place restrictions on how you can use it" - good logic, Mr. Stallman).
---
Despite rumors to the contrary, I am not a turnip.
Re:Desktop Religion (Score:2)
You know, I've said many, many times in the past here on slashdot and elsewhere. When you command 90% of the market, YOU are the standard, regardless of what the other 10% agree should be standard. It does not matter that everyone except MS agrees that some format should be common, they are the minority, and the "true standard" is what the majority uses, thus windows.
I have had my arguments with Windows for years, and probably will always have some problems with it, but I have used MacOS, linux, solaris and windows in various combinations for years, and for day to day work, I must honestly say that I am most productive under windows 2000 (which is the first MS release I will call a true operating system, since it actually operates my computer without crashing it ;-) Regardless of what you may think of windows, or regardless of which superiority it may indeed have, it is not the "standard" for desktop computing, it is a fringe operating system for the desktop, and as such, to make it work on the desktop, and therefor to truly SET the standard, it needs to be the dominant player, not just the technically superior product. To do this, it needs to adhere to the standards that people care about, the standards of ease of use and productivitythat they need, and for that, linux is not there. Gnome gets it close, IMHO, KDE gets it even closer, but its still not there yet, the only
company to get UNIX of any flavor "ready for prime-time" as we used to say, is APPLE, with OSX. When the power user can pull up a CLI and get down to serious work, and the average user can do anything they need to on their system and NEVER pull up a CLI, then linux/unix will be ready for the desktop and may become a large enough player to start setting standards.
Once again, I must let out the old battle cry. "If you want linux to dominate the world, you have to make a linux the world can use"
I think....therefore I am
He doesn't know about Troll Tech, either. (Score:2)
But it's a moot point, anyway. Everybody is welcome to make money while making free software.
Bruce
Re:FUD! - really ?!? (Score:2)
----
Re:KDE/GNOME war hurts developers... (Score:2)
Re:License wars are a waste of energy (Score:2)
Sources available in Gnutella (Score:2)
Leave the arguments and grab the funtions.
Where are the RH-6.x rpms for Beta4???? .debs??? (Score:2)
I am not biased. I will support KDE if my users request so. But I won't manually compile the tree just to show it off. I think the KDE folks ought to re-think their attitude toward Redhat users and support RH6/7 as a top-teir platform -- one with the potential to attract huge numbers of users down the road. That is the goal, right???
Re:KDE Team Steps Up Marketing Effort (Score:2)
Re:I find it a shame... (Score:2)
Re:License wars are a waste of energy (Score:3)
The ambiguities with KDE/Qt are twofold:
1. Since a GUI system and toolkit are generally considered parts of a modern OS, it is arguable that the OS exemption applies to Qt, and indeed could apply to KDE itself. The term "operating system" itself is ambiguous: the GPL implies a compiler is part of an OS, whereas MS would usually exclude it, but argue that a web browser is. Its doubly ambiguous in the case of Linux, where the bits are available separately, but are distributed in a wide range of combinations (which generally do include Qt and KDE).
2. KDE is licensed under the GPL and LGPL by its authors in full knowledge of the licensing terms for Qt. Thus it is only sensible to assume that in granting this particular license they intended to allow binaries of KDE to be distributed, providing source was available for them, without the source for Qt (since this has never been available under compatible terms). Given this, a judge is going to laught hysterically and award costs to the defendant if they were to try to sue someone for distributing their binaries.
Given point 2, I really have to wonder why people keep bringing up this infernal argument.
IANAL. This is legal advice, but comes entirely without warranty
Simon
Re:Desktop Religeon (Score:2)
Questions about Truth are not the same as questions about what your favourite colour is, or what would you like for dinner, or do you like your beer on a thoroughly salted napkin or a coaster? Just to pick one religion, Christianity claims that Jesus Christ is God's son...that he existed in space and time. Given the rest of the Biblical narrative, whether or not this is true has an enormous effect on every person that has ever lived, is living, or will live. I'm not even stating whether it's true or not. I'm just saying that the Truth actually does matter. It's not just a matter of preference.
hope that the day after you die is a nice day.
----
A three way battle? (Score:3)
Maybe I have it all wrong. When Helix really started coming around I remember reading on Redhat Labs [redhat.com] that with Helix working on GNOME usability and how it looked they were going to focus their energy on improving the base toolkits like the GTK. Eazel is making the filemanager thingy(for lack of a better word) to add to the GNOME desktop. This doesn't sound like a battle to me. It sounds like each is working on their own part. Well I don't have anything to add other than that.
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
Re:Its all about choice (Score:2)
Re:Spoken like a true blinkered zealot (Score:2)
Simon
Slackware packages? (Score:2)
Speed? (Score:2)
Re:FUD! - really ?!? (Score:2)
OO concepts can be used also when programming in C if appropriate programming practice are followed. In fact this is how gtk+ works.
True, coding GUIs in an object-oriented language such as c++ can feel more "natural" to those accustomed to it, but in the end it all boils down to use whatever language and toolkit you feel most comfortable and productive with, it's as simple as that.
Re:GNOME vs KDE Episode 18: Pointlessness (Score:2)
- double-clicking a taskbar icon will iconify that application. great for getting stuff out of your way.
Single clicking in GNOME on the current app in the task bar does this (so double-clicking to select the app and then iconify it would do it too.)
- Alt-F2 brings up a little input field which I can use to start an app quicker than using the menus. It keeps a history too, so I can cycle through previous commands.
GNOME Does this too.
- Right click on desktop gives you a menu which includes 'Logout'. I find that much easier to deal with than windows, which requires you to hit
Ctrl-Alt-Del or click on the Start button.
GNOME with GDM or any XDM-like program will do this too.
I like GNOME in concept, but it just doesn't feel right to me. I installed Helix GNOME the other day... It has a very slick, professional installer, but the
underlying GNOME still seems cumbersome and sort of clunky.
I feel the exact smae way about KDE!
Safe Language-Systems vs. KDE, Gnome, Linux (Score:2)
> "If gnome-hackers [a mailing list] was archived, you could have a whole debate
> about a very classical problem of C programming : when a function returns a
> char*, who owns the char*? Does the caller have to free it? This is just about
> the most basic problem you can find with C programming. And they're thinking
> about it just now, after 3 years of development. KDE doesn't have such a
> problem, it has QString.
>
> "This is only an example of a more general trend: their C base puts them in
> front of a lot of problems which KDE doesn't even face. Of course, KDE has
> C++-specific problems, but nothing as fundamental as this."
Well this problem is not solved in c++ as well. This problem stems from a really big architectural problem of general c programming and operating systems. There is no provision for garbage collection and strong typing. I am pretty sure that c++ has - maybe - more refined and precise disposal guidelines for caller/callee then plain-c. Unfortunately, guidelines aren't worth a cent in this case. In a component-oriented, object-oriented environment no-one can keep track of the uses and references to the objects. I mean, no one except the memory manager that could deploy automatic memory reclamation. Of course, reliable memory management (heap-memory, I mean) can be obtained through strong typing: no pointer arithmetic is allowed and each pointer is bound to an object (usually called reference). A language-system can be considered safe with respect to memory, if it support strong typing *and* it doesn't allow for manual disposal of dynamic memory.
All this, in order to say that it is very childish to argue between c and c++, since both aren't safe languages (a.k.a. they suck, excuse my French), thus both sharing the same pitfalls. This is for example one of the problems that require hardware memory protection to be solved (separate address spaces). Actually, it could have been solved earlier with a better language and system design, without the (at this point) avoidable overhead of heavy-weight processes.
Re:use is not proof of necessity (Score:2)
Huh? What has use restrictions to do with RMS' idea of Free Software? Last time I checked, the GPL was all about software distribution.
This is a highly biased article. (Score:3)
This is way worse than I had realized.
The other amazing thing is in the same breath he notes that the KDE GUI is free for NON profit uses then says these commercial companies backed the wrong horse. Why the heck should any commercial entity back a proprietary standard as the desktop for Linux? Does he really expect they are lining up to pay royalties, or to force their customers to pay royalties? They can do that now with Motif et.al. You can get the whole of Windows for less than just the library license fees for the darned Motif GUI on a Unix workstation, in the mean time unix custs are asking why their workstations cost more than wintel systems. The consortium wants to change this and get a standard adopted, not recreate this attrocious situation.
When are these KDE folks going to get it? The license is CRITICAL. It's THE major obstacle for KDE, it's not enough to dismiss these concerns or say "trust us". KDE-Qt is doomed to be marginalized in the long term unless it ditches the QPL.
Re:GNOME vs KDE Episode 18: Pointlessness (Score:2)
And, as always, its the little things that make the interface. BTW, that alt-F2 thing works in GNOME, too. I use HelixGNOME as my UI, and I like it about as much as you like KDE. I'm guessing its just a matter of different tastes, which is why I think having both GNOME and KDE available is a good thing.
-RickHunter
Re:License wars are a waste of energy (Score:2)
Yes, and steep cost of commercial Qt would prevent IBM or Sun from developing software. Give me a break, will you?
I would make a guess: it the commercialy supported Gnome takes off, it would be easier for big corporations to gain control over small commercial company like HelixCode then over a bunch of freelancers from Europe.
That much for the conspiracy theory...
-M-
Re:Desktop Religion [spelling corrected] (Score:2)
I tried KDE as well (hell it comes installed with mandrake). However upgrading seems to painfull to me (you have to download 20 or so packages) so I won't give 2.0 a try.
Q: KDE or GNOME? A: Neither! (Score:2)
I'm sick to the back teeth of watching all these fevered egos in the KDE and GNOME camps whacking off in public like two troops of rabid spider monkeys. Snipe followed by counter-snipe followed by smug insinuation followed by all-out shit-slinging rarely seen outside the monkey house at the Zoo. Where they get the time to code is beyond me.
Point is, I've tried both and they both suck. Why? Because they are shamelessly ripping off a UI paradigm popularised by Microsoft, a paradigm they ripped off in turn from Apple, who designed for a 128K monochrome machine with a 400K floppy drive. If I wanted my machine to work like Windows, why would I have bothered installing Linux in the first place? Both GNOME and KDE actually boast about the extent to which they follow Windows-- "no retraining-- it works just like Windows!" they crow.
This is cowardly bullshit. Any real user you talk to will tell you how much Windows and the MacOS suck. KDE and GNOME are appealing to the same middle-tier IS management types who mandate the use of Windows throughout their organisation; empty-headed MBA jackals with one hand turning the pages of some gushing ZD publication loaded with "handy" product feature matrices and the other hand tugging at their atrophied genitals. These, all you GNOME and KDE advocates, these are the assholes that put Microsoft on the map, and you are lining up, learning to talk their talk and walk their walk so you can kiss their asses. "No retraining-- it works just like Windows!" You fucking whores!
Why does the Open Source community have such an inferiority complex when it comes to original UI design? Is it because we don't really "get" GUIs? Is it because deep down we'd just be happy with a command line if it wasn't for those pesky users wanting their icons and their flat toolbars? So instead of sitting down and thinking through this whole UI thing, we just clone Windows? Are you so desperate for mindshare and flattering media coverage that you'd take over screwing your users where Bill Gates left off? A reaming from the Free Software community is going to feel much the same as a reaming from Microsoft come morning. "Microsoft spend millions on usability! We don't have the resources!" scream the apologists. You idiots. That's a PR exercise if ever I saw one. Microsoft spend that money to impress the middle managers who are their real customers; the rest can go hang. Do you really think Microsoft ever ditched a single line of interface code because it raised a usability issue? The whole thing is a snow-job; it gives Microsoft plausible denial: "What? You say our products are unusable? Well, we spent squillions on usability last year-- you must be a retard or something."
The 15-year old Mac GUI metaphor is creaking badly; it doesn't scale. I have a 6GB hard disk at home (tiny by today's standards); how am I meant to navigate it, to manage? With a GTK+ tree control? Think again, Mr. GNOME Man. Furthermore, we're stuck with Mac UI dogma that made sense on a 128K box but not on a machine with 32MB or more of RAM. A one-shot Clipboard in this day and age? Puh-lease! You want me to click File, Save every five minutes? Give me a break; I could record every damn keystroke in my word processor including ^H and never run short on hard disk space. File Open dialog boxes? They were a hack because the first MacOS was single tasking and you couldn't get at the shell!
Think, you freaks, think! All this sniping about code reuse and re-inventing the wheel. Both camps started re-inventing the wheel before the first line of GNOME or KDE code was written, and you didn't even notice.
Read this [fatbrain.com] and this [fatbrain.com] and then come back to me.
Re:Desktop Religeon (Score:2)
Key words here from QT (Score:2)
IBM and all the other big boys probably want GNOME for Commercial use. Thus they would probably have to pay to QT or Trolltech.
Why pay for milk when you can get the cow for free? GNOME is just that the cow, and you get the whole thing free. NO annoying popup ads no shareware reminders free. No license fee, etc. And they have the source to GNOME, Gtk+ and all the apps as well so they can tweak them as they need. They can't do that with KDE and QT. KDE yes QT NO. KDE is the milk that companies like IBM and et al pay for. Not KDE in and of itself, but QT. Think about it. ;-)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I don't want a lot, I just want it all
Flame away, I have a hose!
His bias blinds him but he does make some points (Score:4)
The whole language issue is similarly silly. You can pretty much program in what you like, which is how Linux has worked all along. And ORBit bindings are either already in place or being worked on for all the big languages (including C++.)
He does have a very good point about documentation though. Thus far I'm not aware of any resource that will tell you everything you need to know about Bonobo programming, for instance. Gtk/Gdk have reasonable resources available, but gtk-- is barely documented. Hanging out on the developer's list will provide insights into various things, but not everyone can afford the time to read the developer's lists every day.
Re:License wars are a waste of energy (Score:2)
Simon
if char* is return.. (Score:2)
I think that should do it. He makes it sound like C is sooo bad. If C++ was so great why is just about every version of UNIX written in C? Obvoiusly if you have C programmer s to write the OS it should not be difficult to find C programmers to work on GNOME either. C++ is not that great, it has its problems too. This author is just bias and this article is really just here to get the KDE vs GNOME war going. Gee maybe KDE developers should help write the C++ interface to gtk+ and then port KDE to that.
On another note has anyone tried gtkmm?? ;-)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I don't want a lot, I just want it all
Flame away, I have a hose!
wrong and wrong (Score:2)
The people over at Open Implementation [xerox.com] would probably disagree with your statement that a "black box" is necessary to be object oriented (or even that it is desirable at all).
Delegation based languages like Self don't have inheritance but achieve reuse all the same.
Typeless languages don't need polymorphism.
I don't think multi-dispatch would be called "messaging", as there is no "recipient" like there is in single-dispatched languages like C++.
Maybe it's just me, but your four points seem very C++ biased. If you want a different bias of what is "required" to be object oriented take a look at what Eiffelites [eiffel.com] might say:
- should have the notion of class as the central concept
- must have assertions to check preconditions, postconditions, and invariants and produce documentation from them as well as check them at runtime
- classes should be the only modules (i.e. no "namespaces" a la C++)
- every type should be based on a class (so long C++ and Java)
- it should be possible to specify which clients can access which features (i.e. finer granularity than "public", "private", and "protected")
- the genericity mechanism should support constrained genericity (i.e. only classes with the method "sort")
This list is no more or less biased than your own.Non-iflamatory reply to the author of the article (Score:2)
flame/convince/icmp attack you.
Ok, now that we got that straight, let me introduce myself:
I've been using linux for 4 years (since slackware 3.1, kernel 2.0.0),
pretty much exclusively for the past 2. So although I'm not really an old
timer, I'm not a newbie either. I'm also a final year undergraduate
computer science student at University College London. I have run various
versions of slackware, tried debian & mandrake, and I've settled down now
with my own tweaked version of redhat. Through my university course, I
have been exposed to various unices, running from IRIX to sunos (from
openlook to CDE).
I used to be running KDE, being very enthousiastic about it, since the
first stable version (1.0.0) came out. I was (still am really) very
impressed about it (didn't really care about the licensing issues), as I
was with all the updates as they happened. It was pretty much the best
unix desktop I had ever seen (although too windows-like//let's not kid
ourselves (this is not a bad thing per se)). When I switched over to
redhat (version 6.0), I tried gnome for the first time (version
1.0.something) and found it appauling (didn't really try too hard to learn
it). It was much too slow, enlightenment and gnome didn't really cooperate
to such an extent, seemed bloated, and was far less stable than KDE.
However 2 things I did take notice: DragNDrop worked both with xmms (or
was it x11amp then?) and with Netscape. I wondered: Netscape was out for
SO long (much older than KDE). Why the hell didn't motif dnd work with
kde? (let alone xmms). But I switched to KDE anyway, and kept recommending
it to anyone who wanted to use linux. However, after upgrading to redhat
6.1, I tried gnome again, played with it some more and updated all the
packages through redhat rawhide. I also installed sawmill (now sawfish) as
a window manager, which cooperated to a much better degree. I was stunned!
Although a bit slower than KDE (and less stable, but certainly more stable
than the shell of an OS of a certain large Redmond-Based company), it
totally blew KDE away at my opinion. DnD worked! Mouse-wheel worked. It
looked far better than KDE and was certainly more customisable. Or so I
found it. And I've been using Gnome since (I've also installled some kde2
betas). (I've on to your article. (btw I seriously recommend (out of
open-mindness at least to try the latest version of helix-gnome))
Everyone deserves an opinion, so please do hear mine:
"Every six months or so, hostilities once again erupt between the KDE and
Gnome communities. These battles are usually sparkedwhen the king of the Gnomes, Miguel de Icaza, grants an
interview and just can't seem to resist saying something gratuitously
nasty about KDE."
True, but you must admit that KDE is pretty arrogant too! At every
occasion it keeps boasting that it is the "Leading desktop for Unix" or
Linux, at every occasion. If you want to be exact, CDE or TWM is the
leading desktop for Unix and it is debatable if KDE is for Linux. Redhat
and Debian have a huge linux market share. Plus, the Gnome Foundation
really (whether we want it or not) makes gnome the "leading Unix
desktop" simply because Solaris is the most popular Unix OS. Please note
also how TrollTech a company bashed gnome in the recent QT-Designer app.
"(The argument is that because the QT toolkit used by
KDE is proprietary, KDE is tainted. But QT has a
foundation, too, and it has pledged to keep QT free for noncommercial
use. And as a practical matter, withdrawal of free use of QT would
make as much sense as Adobe withdrawing Acrobat Reader.) Gnome's stated
purpose, its whole reason for existence, is to kill KDE. Nice, huh? "
The argument is that it's illegal to tie GPL (under which KDE is released)
with the QPL. This might not make much sense to the users, but it is
important to the free software movement in general. The GPL has not ever
been legally enforced. What if some large unknown corporation, took out
say the best parts of the linux kernel and incoporated them into their os,
without giving any source back. How will the GPL be legally enforced, if
projects as popular as KDE also violate it? Plus Gnome sole perpose isn't
destroying KDE. Not at all. Even collaboration efforts have been made This
is simply the third attempt of the GNU project to create a GNU desktop
enviroment.
"(Does anyone else see the irony of a project headed by a guy who's in it
for the money, backed by companies who are in it for the money, getting
the official Glorious October Revolution seal of approval, while a
volunteer effort driven by sheer love of the project does not? Yes, there
are people from distributions who work on KDE, but they have not set up
little companies for themselves to capitalize on it.)"
I really doubt that Icazza and the rest of the gnome team is only in it
for the money. Two years ago, when gnome started and KDE was light years
ahead, you cannot argue that people were in it for the money! You should
also note that many people have set up companies to capitalise on another
free software project: the GNU/Linux OS. They're called Linux
Distributions, and they have offered a great deal to the Linux movement
and operating system, just as Helix-Code have done to gnome (if you were
using gnome, you would have seen the great progress that gnome has had
since the introduction of helix-code).
"Gnome is written, mostly, in C. KDE is written in C++."[...]"Goodbye,
easy portability to other platforms. KDE, on the other hand, has reuse of
code as a goal, which is why KDE2, though far more powerful, often has
less memory footprint than does earlier versions."
If you want to code an application for KDE you can only do it in C++. Even
if additional code has to be loaded (but certainly gnome-apps are not as
slow/inefficient as statically linked apps), it is still a great advantage
for gnome that you can code gnome apps even in pascal, or Lisp or python
(or C++ of cource). (though I think there is a PyQT module which allows
apps to be written using Python). Gnome is also Very much portable. Look
at all the binary distro's that helix is offering (not only Linux). Plus,
you cannot argue that Gnome has not reuse of code as a goal! Look at
gnome-print as an example. And also, if KDE/QT has reuse of code as paramount, why do KDE1 apps need to be PORTED to KDE2?
"But even sticking to C, I'm told by programmers fluent in both, Gnome
faces a world of technical issues to overcome before it is on par with a
project, just starting out, in C++."
That is VERY debatable. GTK which is very much OO is written in C.
""If gnome-hackers [a mailing list] was archived, you could a whole debate
about a very classical problem of C programming : when a function returns
a char*, who owns the char*? Does the caller have to free it? This is just
about the most basic problem you can find with C programming. And they're
thinking about it just now, after 3 years of development. KDE doesn't have
such a problem, it has QString."
I don't see any USERS having a problem with either gnome's or KDE's
interpretation of character strings
"Gnome is written to the venerable and venerated GTK +, while KDE is
written to the technically excellent but politically reviled
QT. (Technically excellent? Youbetcha. I still have here a copy of QT
Mozilla, in which Netscape Navigator was ported to QT in one man
month.) Compare the documentation of the two. Look at the new QT Designer
integrated development environment. Look at the documentation and tools in
GTK+. Which would you rather write to? Likewise, the specific
documentation for the developer heavily favors KDE."
If I am not mistaken, QT is older than GTK+. Technically excellent is
again debatable. Even if you do not like gtk+, it has grown much faster
than QT has, introducing more widgets and supporting features like
mouse-wheel faster than QT. QT is also very nice and easy to program
with. GTK+ has also been ported to win32 like QT. You also fail to note
that QT Mozilla, has, well failed. Mozilla uses GTK instead. QT
documentation is indeed very nice. But so is GTK+ / Gnome! Have you
checked out the gtk.org gtk intro? Or the "Gnome/Gtk+ Application
Development" book (http://developer.gnome.org/doc/GGAD) (also in
bookstores). ? They are both very well written. Plus there exist gtk+
/gnome C++ wrappers like gtk-- which making coding much easier for the C++
crowd.
"While we're making comparisons on a developer level, it might be a good
idea to look at kdelibs v. gnome-libs. The KDE libraries are well
understood to the extent that a bug is often fixed almost instantly. Gnome
(and GTK+) are another story, according to a very highly respected Gnome
and GTK+ expert who knows KDE and QT as well."
kdelibs vs gnome-libs is an interesting point. kdelibs have been frozen at
version 1.1.2 for several months (close to a year maby). gnome-libs are
constantly updated and Helix-Update can automatically update
them. End-users do not care if bugs are instantly fixed in CVS or source
pathes. Gnome clearly wins in this one. Plus you cannot quote a "very
highly respected Gnome and GTK+ expert who knows KDE and QT as well.",
without giving his name!
"The KDE project was designed to produce a great desktop for Linux and
related operating systems, while Gnome was given the task of killing KDE
and, on the way, producing a desktop."
That is simply not true. You are unfairly bashing gnome now.
"KDE has an office suite weeks away from release; Gnome has played with
one (and an element of it, the Gnumeric spreadsheet, is by all accounts
quite good)"
You are wrong: Gnome Office has the following elements, out NOW (unlike
KOFFICE, which although VERY good (I use it) is still unstable and in
beta)
Abiword: Good, lightweight worprocessor which can import
(much faster than KWord btw, but has less features).
The Gimp: No intro needed
GnuCash: Quicken like money managing program, very nice
Gnumeric
Gphoto: digital camera manager
DIA: a diagram creation program (supports UML
Also, helix-gnome has written evolution, which by all accounts, is the
greatest linux mail program (maybe in all platforms!)
" but now seems to be counting on the largesse of Sun to cough up a port
of StarOffice (well, speed and memory efficiency weren't a consideration
to begin with, were they?) for a pre-packaged office suite, those who have
worked within the Gnome project be damned, about which more in a
little. There is likely to be a StarOffice for Gnome available for
download within the next year or two."
Competition is never bad. After all, I too wish KDE 2 to succeed, so that Gnome will also advance.Everyone applauded Sun for releasing staroffice. Granted, it is bloated, but it is the best productivity suite out for linux at the moment (sure beats Corel WPO for stability and
speed). Plus OpenOffice (as it is now called) will remove stardesktop, and
will have only single individual apps. Plus you do not KNOW that
Gnome/Staroffice will be available in the "next year or two". For all you
know, it could be available this December.
"Which is another issue with Gnome. No one knows anything about release
schedules. Gnome developers grumble privately about it, and publicly when
events such as the release of Gnome 1.2 surprised developers and led to
some very hard feelings within the project. It's generally thought that
Gnome 1.4 will be released sometime around Halloween, and Gnome 2.0
sometime around -- well, let's be satisfied with sometime. KDE, meanwhile,
publishes a schedule. Yes, it slips, sometimes more than anyone is happy
about, but everyone is kept informed."
True, KDE does keep a more tight schedule. But: KDE-stable is still at
version 1.1.2 for nearly a year now (maybe more than a
year?). Gnome-stable on the other hand, has really advanced on the same
timespan. It has many more features, it is faster etc. Gnome has advanced
MUCH faster than KDE. Also you should note that the Gnome release schedule
is much more like the Linux kernel release schedule. It will be released
"when it is ready". Believe me, you do not use gnome, but if you had used
it, you would have really known what all this time has done to Gnome. The
improvements are countless.
I do agree that gnome should abandon the war, and start pursuing
excellence. But KDE should do that to, staring by stopping calling itself
the leading desktop for Unix. I do not know of any unix cluster that uses
KDE!
Well I undestand that you will not agree with some of my points. Linux is
about choice after all. But I really think that articles such as yours,
can fuel the fire. Do give gnome a shot. Helix-code has created a
wonderful installer for anyone to use. Plus gnome can be customised to
match any personal preference. I really cannot describe the number of
features that the latest helix-gnome has. Do give it a try.
I hope that you will read my letter,
Stefanos
Re:Desktop Religeon (Score:2)
I found my desktop much quieter once I recompiled the kernel with the JIHAD option disabled ;)
I hate to contribute to this but... (Score:2)
- the article had some points, however, it was a little overboard in it's 'gnome sucks, kde rocks' attitude. It's fine to feel that way, but when every sentance is a slam, you (or at least I) get a sick feeling reading it.
- some of the points, like making money from gnome, are kina irrelevant. In the interview posted on
/. the other day (link [slashdot.org]) the way they were going to make money was by keeping the software free and open (beer+speech) but offer a *service* to aid people using it. This is how people can survive economically in an open source world.. this is also a service that I would use.
- KDE vs GNOME is personal preferance. Both have good and bad points, but in the end, you use what you like or are comfortable with. I use gnome becuase I like the way it looks and feels. [random other person] uses kde for the same reasons. Who cares beyond that.
- At the end user level I don't care at all if one is written in C and the other C++. I care if the applications and environment *feel* comfortable to me and the apps do what I need.
- It appears everyone is missing the "use the right tools for the right job" philosophy that comes as the result of most "us vs. them" arguments. Macs have their place, as do windows machines, as do linux machines, as does kde/gnome/fvwm/xfmail/mutt/pine/elm/gimp/photosho
p ....
- having read some articles on UI design I know that both kde and gnome break a huge number of rules... or at least ideas of how a "well designed" GUI should work.
- I really don't think that GNOME is out to kill KDE. It is there as an alternative, though it was started because of the politics of KDE.
- Alternatives are good.
- Choice is good.
- Competition is good. One thing about the gnome/kde debates that people seem to miss is that a huge number of STANDARDS compliant (or at least semi-standards compliant) apps have been written since this whole war started. While the kde coders are trying to outdo the gnome coders they are all creating decent apps and making them better over time. The end result of this is that in the end we have more choice, more apps, and better apps.
Now folks lets come to our senses, realize that we're all on the same team with the same objective... to make linux better.Re:One good point -- too much C in open software (Score:2)
#include
#include
extern struct exc_env_t {
struct exc_env_t *prev_env;
jmp_buf env;
} *cur_env__;
#define try \
do { \
int jvr__; \
struct exc_env_t *ne__; \
\
ne__ = malloc(sizeof *ne__); \
assert(ne__);
\
ne__->prev_env = cur_env__; \
cur_env__ = ne__; \
\
jvr__ = setjmp(cur_env__->env); \
if (jvr__ == 0)
#define catch(e) \
else if (jvr__ == (e) && (cur_env__ = cur_env__->prev_env, \
free(ne__), 1))
#define catchall \
else if (cur_env__ = cur_env__->prev_env, free(ne__), 1)
#define endtry \
} while (0)
#define throw(e) longjmp(cur_env__->env, (e))
And then you would define cur_env__ in a module somewhere. OK it's not exactly 20 lines, and I don't know that you could get something really generic and useful in 20 lines (unless your lines are 100 characters long I guess, hee hee). Preferrably you would carry around something else in the struct exc_env_t, like a string or an object or something that would help describe the exception. There are a few other problems here, but nothing that wouldn't be completely and utterly trivial to implement. BTW a sample usage might be:
try
throw(error_super_cool);
catchall {
try {
some_function();
another_that_might_throw_an_exception();
} catchall
exit(1);
endtry;
} endtry;
I think I saw something like this on Freshmeat once, but wasn't very impressed with it for one reason or another. Anyway, hope this helps.
Hope Slashdot formats it well
QT CAN BE USED for commercial projects, (Score:2)
It's funny how all the advocates of Gnome claim that QT can not be used for commercial projects... Use an Open source license for your comercial project like StarOffice and you are fine with the QPL....
Re:That's it (Score:2)
So beyond garbage collection, I don't think that any languages do anything beyond a simple setjmp()/longjmp() to deal with exceptions. The problem with doing this in C is that you end up with an obsession to make things more and more generic until you have to start coding in an OO approach, so you implement objects and message passing.
And then after a while you realise that you've just reimplemented Objective C.
Oh well.
Re:use is not proof of necessity (Score:2)
Wow, thanks for explaining that your value judgements are universal facts. Now I see clearly through your filter of blind faith.
There will be (and IS) a lot of software written just because the GPL stops companies from taking your work and not communicating the changes back to the public, hopefully eventually to you.
This is the thin justification I hear over and over again. It's garbage.
I say extremely little GPL'd software was written because people were forced to by the GPL, though many companies (who were doing real, innovative work) have undoubtedly been driven out of business by competition from unoriginal GPL'd software, even when they're making better products. But this would happen somewhat with public domain software, too (it's hard to sell when you're competing against free products).
People who make money from selling copies of their software don't just change their mind and decide that they'll write free software because then they can toss in some nifty code they didn't write themselves. They either set out to write free software, or they don't. Nobody gets sucked into it. A few distributor/supporters who do make a profit from your work, "As if you're an unpaid slave." make a token effort of contributing to development, but strictly for PR purposes. Mostly, though, free software is not profitable, it is done by hobbyists, people who consider the cost of development less than the value of the software for their personal use, or people who buy the hype and start unprofitable for-profit free software companies (unless you consider scamming thousands of investors with trading-card stock "profit").
XFree86 and the BSDs are doing just fine without forcing people to give away their own additions. IMHO, Linux is doing better because of the "free software" propaganda, not because it is superior to the BSDs. They are proof that free software would still be around without the GPL or any similar licence.
So there are better X servers than the free one, based on the code. So what? It hasn't hurt the free version any.
---
Despite rumors to the contrary, I am not a turnip.
Re:One good point -- too much C in open software (Score:2)
Re:Desktop Religion [spelling corrected] (Score:2)
If you haven't tried the version of sawfish (ie. sawmill) that comes with HelixGnome you really should take a look at it. I used to be a fan of IceWM, but the GNU (oops I mean new) HelixGnome combination of Gnome + Sawfish is really quite impressive.
Gnome really has come a long way in the last little bit.
Re:Desktop Religeon (Score:2)
The storm and fury that pours out of KDE Krusaders serves to distract from real flaws and questions this recent event has raised. One gets the feeling that that's the whole point behind it. Does it ever occur to these Krusading Knights...
Funny, I have always been amazed by how incredibly laid back the KDE developers are. I've always attributed it to their being (mostly)European, but it may just be chance... KDE developers AND users tend to be very polite, both on their mailing lists and on IRC.
I certainly would take notice if one of them posted the article you wrote, swapping Gnome for KDE, and I would be surprised and disgusted if a developer said anything bad about another windowing environment. KDE is very multi-platform (hence the lack of Tux or BSDemon icons), and people who are religious about computing seldom find compatriots to rant with inside the KDE community.
--
Evan
Re:GNOME users piss me off. (Score:2)
I haven't seen many GNOME users talking this way, but if they do, ignore them, dismiss them, don't even acknowledge their statements. I, along with hundreds of other GNOME developers and users that I'm in contact with, are still saying that Gnome brings freedom to the desktop and that KDE and GNOME can coexist. And yes, I'm very excited about the GNOME Foundation!
----
Re:What Sun should have done... (Score:2)
----
Re:A *bit* biased? (Score:2)
>>thinking that gtk+ isn't object oriented just
>>because it's written in C. In fact, it is.
>I am not falling into a trap, because I know that
>C is not object-oriented!. There are 4 commonly
>accepted tenets required for a language to be
>object-oriented:
You *are* falling into a trap. And you're not paying attention to what you are being told; i.e. GTK+ is object-oriented. Note, GTK+, not C.
The fact of the matter is that an object-oriented language is one that has
>Abstraction - Simply the model in question, i.e.,
>make it more abstract to simply the building of
>the model.
GTK+ does this.
>Encapsulation - Hide the implementation details.
>As the user of a class, you don't have to worry
>about how it works, you just use it
GTK+ does this too.
>Inheritance - The ability to reuse components.
>(collary is 'polymorphism')
GTK+ does this too.
>Messaging - Components use messages to
>communicate. Passing data around to functions
>does not consitute a message, BTW.
GTK+ propogates events and associated data through signals.
>I think you will agree that C only supports
>Abstraction. Thus, it is not object-oriented.
And noone was arguing that is was.
>In addition, your example of 'reuse' of the
>gtk_menu_new() is not actually reuse because I
>cannot (in C) create a derived class
>johanns_gtk_menu_new() and inherit the functions
>from gtk_menu_new().
Wow, amazing that I've been programming things for years that "can't" be done. Of course you can make a derived class of GtkMenu.
In fact, GtkMenu is derived from GtkMenuShell, which is derived from GtkContainter, which is derived from GtkWidget, which is derived fro GtkObject.
Re:KDE/GNOME war hurts developers... (Score:2)
Re:GNOME users piss me off. (Score:2)
Hypothetical TV commercial (Score:2)
Voiceover: Tired of the difficult to use UI of Windows 95?
Jump transition as Windows 95 disappears and KDE appears. Woman begins smiling and becomes obviously productive (much mousing around and so forth).
Voiceover: Discover the power of KDE: Alt-F2! It brings up a little input field which you can use to start an app quicker than using the menus! Finally, a breakthrough in UI technology that will make you 10 times more productive leaving you more time for your family, blah blah blah...
Yes, I understand your point: the difference between a poor UI and good UI is incremental. My point, though, is that the difference between and good UI and a great UI is fundamental. We need to make a jump beyond Windows as far as Windows was beyond DOS.
--