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KDE GUI

First KDE 4 App ('Kind of') Running 74

Posted by timothy from the this-is-the-building-back-up-phase dept.
An anonymous reader writes "It looks like the first KDE 4 application is running. Click the link for screenshots." In short, "Kate now kind of works."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

First KDE 4 App ('Kind of') Running More

First KDE 4 App ('Kind of') Running

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  • KDE4? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Cthefuture ( 665326 ) on Sunday May 22, 2005 @06:19PM (#12607428)
    Is there a list of what is planned for KDE 4? Like what will be new and updated, new functionality, etc. ?

    Trolltech just pisses me off so much. I mean Qt is OK but damn if the price doesn't keep going up, and up, and up... It's already insanely expensive and it just keeps going higher. Who the hell are they trying to target with that thing anyway?! If they sold it for $1000 I can guarantee they would sell 3 or 4 times the number of licenses. They would lose nothing moneywise but gain massive market dominance (snowball effect). Then regular folk like myself could purchase and use Qt to do great things because it really is the best cross-platform toolkit out there (free or not).

    • Re:KDE4? (Score:5, Informative)

      by twener ( 603089 ) on Sunday May 22, 2005 @06:23PM (#12607459)
      Some stuff is listed in the Wiki: http://wiki.kde.org/KDE+4+Goals [kde.org]
    • I would have to agree. Just because I don't want to place things I write under the GPL (I want to use a different Open Source Certified License) I would have to pay outrageous amounts to use it. Not only that, if I want to use it for non-open-source-but-free-as-in-beer projects I also have to pay the ludicrous amounts. No small company in their right mind is going to pay the amounts they ask for unless they know well before hand that they're going to make a profit still. It's silly to me to have a toolkit t

      • Re:KDE4? (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Just because I don't want to place things I write under the GPL (I want to use a different Open Source Certified License) I would have to pay outrageous amounts to use it.

        No you don't -- that's what the QPL is for. You don't need to go with the GPL if you're not writing a GPL app.

    • Is Qt too expensive? Not according to the market! People *ARE* buying it at that price, because sure as heck it ain't the free edition downloads that are paying their way. Trolltech is hiring, by the way. So they must be doing something right. The reason the Qt price keeps creeping upwards is because the market keeps bidding the price higher and higher.

      If you're a proprietary shareware/crapware author, then look elsewhere. Trolltech has already said you're not their market. So get over it. If you are a pro

      • Re:KDE4? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Cthefuture ( 665326 ) on Sunday May 22, 2005 @07:46PM (#12608112)
        I am a small business owner. The price for 50 developers is a quarter million dollars.

        Look at it this way, the cross-platform market is small. There just isn't much money to be made there so the cross-platform toolkits should be cheap. Most of the time I would like to support other platforms but the cost can't be justified due to Qt's huge price and the relatively small cross-platform market. The only people it hurts are the users.

        If it weren't for the one or two cash-cows Trolltech has they would already be out of business. They're like a government contractor sucking the teet of wasteful spending (I wonder if one of their cash cows is some government).

        The reason I want Qt to be cheap is specifically so it does become massively widespread. This will make platform dependance a thing of the past. This helps us all.
        • The cross-platform element really isn't that important to Trolltech. BTW, don't those 50 developers cost you $4 million a year in wages? Doesn't the office they work in cost you more. $250k is chump change to you.

          • Re:KDE4? (Score:3, Informative)

            by Cthefuture ( 665326 )
            It's not chump change. If you think it is then you'll never be a successful business owner.

            That money would pay for MSDN subscriptions for those same developers for 5 years.

            • Re:KDE4? (Score:3, Insightful)

              by bluGill ( 862 )

              Sure it is. IF it saves just one week worth of work it is well worth it. Where I work we have our own custom tool kit, that contains much less than QT. Way back when (early 90's - before STL did things better, but in a different way) we paid someone to spend months making the tool kit. Just this year I personally spent several weeks tracking down bugs in it (And I know of some I was unable to fix). I also have to re-do things that QT includes already.

              A successful business owner needs to consider

            • Re:KDE4? (Score:2, Informative)

              by Brandybuck ( 704397 )
              With Qt, I don't even NEED a MSDN subscription! Nyah! Besides, the price of Qt is a one-time payment, so it lasts me five years anyway.
          • Talk about ridiculous prices... we'll develop and debug your very own Qt-like libs in Argentina for a mere $125k.,,

            --

            Yes, I'm stealing your jobs! Don't you just hate me?

        • Re:KDE4? (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Brandybuck ( 704397 ) on Sunday May 22, 2005 @09:35PM (#12608901) Homepage Journal
          First of all, 50 software developers kicks you out of the realm of "small business owner". But regardless whether you are small or medium, the price of Qt is per developer. So treat it as a per developer cost. This isn't a monthly, or even yearly cost, it's a one time cost.

          If you think $2500 is too expensive for tools of the trade, then talk to an automechanic, or someone in the building trades. I knew a tile setter who had his van stolen, and it cost him a heck of a lot more than $2500 to replace his tools of the trade. And that's not counting the van!

        • Re:KDE4? (Score:3, Informative)

          by natmsincome.com ( 528791 )
          Ask and you shall receive.

          wxWidgets [wxwidgets.org] has binding for numerous languages and is under a license like the LGPL (see the home page). Anyway if you want to support multiple platforms try it out. There lots of applications use it already.

          It doesn't quite have the scope of QT which from my understanding includes ALOT of extra functionality that isn't just GUI based.

          Your logic doesn't make sense though. If the market is small they the product should/will be expensive (cost to develop ~ $1000 with 5 custome

        • Re:KDE4? (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Gregg Alan ( 8487 ) * on Sunday May 22, 2005 @11:30PM (#12609480)
          The reason I want Qt to be cheap is specifically so it does become massively widespread. This will make platform dependance a thing of the past. This helps us all.

          No, you want QT to be cheap so you can make more profit through Trolltech making less profit. If, as another poster has mentioned below, it's so easy to offer a cross platform toolkit on par with QT at such a great price and still remain a viable company, why don't you do it? Why doesn't someone else do it? (Remember, Microsoft is not cross platform).

          Do you really believe that Microsoft wouldn't charge more for a cross platform toolkit? Honestly?

          Trolltech has already helped us all. KDE uses QT for free and has produced an excellent environment. Developers that have a grasp on their cash flow buy commercial QT licenses and make money selling their programs. Then there are people like you that can bitch about having to pay Trolltech money by trolling on Slashdot. See? Everybody wins!
          • If, as another poster has mentioned below, it's so easy to offer a cross platform toolkit on par with QT at such a great price and still remain a viable company, why don't you do it? Why doesn't someone else do it? (Remember, Microsoft is not cross platform).

            What you mean like RealBasic [realbasic.com] ?

            I mean come on .. $99 for standard RB license versus $1790 for QT one. I know QT is heaps better, but that sort of price difference is ridiculous.
      • I want to know what genius came up with the name Trolltech. Even outside of forum-speak trolls arn't usually looked upon as a nice creature.
    • Well the reason is this. You are often better off selling a few at a higher price than more at a lower price. You have fewer people to support so your profits are higher. If you do not like it write a better cross platform toolkit and sell it for only $1000 If you are right the world will beat a path to your door.
      Now what I do not like about QT is how it has seemed to pass the FREE test when things like OpenOffice and Safari seem to get people nickers in a knot.

      • Re:KDE4? (Score:4, Informative)

        by be-fan ( 61476 ) on Monday May 23, 2005 @01:48AM (#12609997)
        Qt passes the "free" test because it's GPL. It's as free as the Linux kernel, or GCC or Emacs.

        • Wrong (Score:1, Flamebait)

          by jeti ( 105266 )
          It is true that all the tools you mentioned are under the GPL. However, software you develop with Linux, GCC or Emacs typically do not inherit the GPL (there are special allowances in the Linux license and you don't link against the other tools). If you link against the GPL version of Qt, you inherit the GPL license.

          So the situation is not comparable at all.
          • Guess what? If you use Qt the way you use GCC or emacs--as a part of your build environment--then Qt is free. For example, if you build an internal map editor for your arcade game and use Qt, Qt is free.

            Contrariwise--if you use GCC or emacs the way people tend to use Qt, and link against them, then you fall under the GPL and have to ship source. And people have done just that--made special versions of GCC (Apple), or special versions of emacs.

            So the situations are exactly comparable. Furthermore, the FSF
          • That's nothing special about Qt. That's just the GPL. Qt is as GPL as any other piece of GPL software, and as such its as "free" as any other piece of GPL software.

      • I definitely agree on the benefits of chargine more for something, up to the point the market will sustain.

        I used to feel guilty for asking for money for setting up servers, etc, as favours for friends.

        But I noticed that when I started advertising commercially I got a lot more customers when I said "I'll install Linux and give you a proxy server / filtering NATing gateway for $500" than when I did the same for "$100".

        It makes no sense to me, in both cases I'd take a machine (supplied) install Squid + Deb

    • The price is so high partly because of currency. Remember, the money that would buy you a car in Norway would buy you two cars, a house, and a pretty wife in the US.

  • More Screenshots (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    more screenshots [babylon2k.de] of kcontrol and kate running on kde 4.

  • Optimizations (Score:5, Interesting)

    by molnarcs ( 675885 ) <csabamolnar@gm a i l . com> on Sunday May 22, 2005 @06:43PM (#12607600) Homepage Journal
    One interesting comparison is memory usage of new kate compared to present one. KDE developers do an amazing job when it comes to code optimizations - and it seems they will do it again for KDE 4.

    I began using Linux with RH 7.3 & KDE 3.0 on an old 700Mhz Duron with 256Mb SDRAM. I kept running linux - and later FreeBSD - and KDE on this machine for two years, and every major KDE release seemed like a minor hardware upgrade. That is one of the reasons I kept that old machine for that long - and longer, previously it had win98se installed. First, I thought I will either replace it completely or buy more RAM, better CPU in half a year. Then as I went through each KDE realese - and probably better C++ support in gcc also helped - I felt less and less the need to upgrade the hw. I wonder how long they can keep up producing more efficient code that runs better and better on old hardware. Currently KDE 3.4 has only one 'serious' requirement: memory. If you have 256+, itt will run nicely on a 300Mhz celeron, but of course, you'll have to turn off some eyecandies to reach an agreeable performance.

    Keep up the good work guys and gals!

    • Re:Optimizations (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      One interesting comparison is memory usage of new kate compared to present one. KDE developers do an amazing job when it comes to code optimizations - and it seems they will do it again for KDE 4.

      This may just be down to the new GCC and Qt. KDE developers do do an amazing job, with KDE getting quicker every release since 3.1 for me, but in this case, they are sitting on top of some pretty major optimisations themselves.

  • I think KDE should be a state of the art sort of thing. Keeping memory usage reasonable is important, however, it should not interfere with functionality and capability. There are many other environments that exist for those who are using 486s and who just need a simple text editor and a low memory usage window manager.

    Also, I hope they make sure these desktop environments completely themeable, personally I have distaste of the aqua and brushed metal themes , and would like to be able to completely change

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