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KDE GUI

Harmony Rides Again 103

Posted by CmdrTaco from the back-from-beyond dept.
MarkX writes "This morning Adam Richter announced a new CVS repository for the GNU Harmony Project. The Harmony project is an effort to creat a Qt source compatible library under the LGPL. This project was started some time ago and was disbanded when Qt went open source, but has recently been revived. The web page is back up also. The project is looking for programmers and various other help. "
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Harmony Rides Again More

Harmony Rides Again

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  • Didn't troll-tech already meet the definition of open source? I thought the "patching issue" was the only one left that the developers had any concern about. And as far as I know, KDE is the only set of linux utilities that uses Qt at all.

    --
  • Some people will never be happy. That's primarily what that is.

    KDE's obviously the biggest project using Qt. There are a few other applications that use it as well though.
  • The open source community insists on recasting tools and libraries while avoiding at all costs the task of building applications people want and need.

    How many times can you rewrite a windowing toolkit? Stop right now and work with what you have. Its the trade off most businesses deal with to get some product, any product, off the ground.

    Linux has plenty of great options without having to squander resources like this - I expect developer interest to be about zilch anyway, but thats my 2 cents.
  • it may just be me but i dont feel secure when one copmany really controls whats going on with something as imortant as a lib, thats why i never wrote any qt apps even though i been told time and time again its a very nice widget set. I say good luck to them... with all this widget sets around now though i wish there was someway of making them all look the same, like the gtk themes but through all the widget sets.. a common interface would be a nice thing to *dream*

  • oopss (Score:1)

    by vpp ( 14878 )
    i ment a common interface as in the interface to program... i think i`m gonna go learn how to use that preview button now (:

  • Remember that QT2.0 - although officially "Free Software" according to RMS, also has the disadvantage of not being free for commercial software (this wouldn't bug RMS too much though). Harmony, being LGPLed, dosen't suffer from this.

    Harmony (once finished) would also end the GNOME/KDE war for good... or would it? :)

  • I have seen a few other QT programs:

    Linux-explorer, Xgmod, and even a Qtscape (based on the Netscape source)
  • Some folks can never stop bitching and pissing and moaning about "free/not-free/blah". If the Harmony project gets off the ground and, maybe with the help of RedHat's code-money, catches the Qt toolset as far as interface goes, KDE can use that to finally be "free" enough for all the crack-heads who like to complain about it.

    If KDE is termed "free" by _everyone_, there will be no reason not to use it. It will get more exposure to all developers, and an open base for the toolkit may allow an eventual merging with the GNOME project (for things like a common ORB, common themeability, etc.).

    IMNSHO, a "free" Qt toolkit is the only way to solve all these problems and stop people's whinging and griping and get some real work done.

    --Corey

  • Stupid (Score:1)

    by mattc ( 12417 )
    Couldn't this effort be better spent elsewhere? It seems like a waste of time to me. If a business wants to make money by selling a program that uses Qt, they should have to pay Troll Tech! The Troll Tech programmers need to eat!
  • Also has the disadvantage of not being free for commercial software

    Why is this a disadvantage? People pay significant amounts of money to MS and other providers of commercial development tools anyway.



    Would you rather have large corporations just leach off free software

  • From a purely technical point-of-view, the Qt preprocessor sucks. Preprocessors never seem to catch up to the underlying language definition, and in C++, doubly so. I took one look at it, saw that it bungled templates and other things, and decided to pass.
  • people are doing? They are giving the effort of their free time away. Why is this a problem? Why can't they do what they want?

    As far as rewriting a windowing toolkit, I guess it needs to be rewritten as many times as necessary to get it right. Why is that a problem? Since "right" means different things to different people, hopefully there will multiple, differently designed, technically excellent windowing toolkits. Why is this a problem?
  • Some people will never be happy. That's primarily what that is.

    Sounds like a few people from clan RMS broke away from the FSF and are going after anything that isn't completely free.

    As far as I'm concerned, if it meets The Debian Free Software Guidelines in every respect, it's OSS, and I'll consider using it and developing for it. If it doesn't meet that criterion, I simply won't develop it, and I won't use it unless absolutely necessary.



    --
  • They were at 1.0 about two weeks ago, when did this happen?
  • This is an honest question: in what way does the QPL fall short of GPL such that a GPL version of Qt is necessary?

    -Eric
  • The ideological rivalry between KDE and GNOME
    has spurred on both projects, and thus helped
    the community. Of course a freer qt library
    would be useful, so, if these guys want to do
    that, let them.
  • ... if gmc still segfaults continuously at Gnome 2.0, I think I'll give it a miss... :)
  • AFAIK it's the patch issue. People complain that changes to QT must be distributed as patches.

    In practice this is how open source works anyway. If somebody fixes a bug in the kernel, do the redistribute the whole kernel? NO! They send a patch to Linus and maybe others who need it right away.

    I suspect the real reason is that there is still a lot of bitterness left over from the QT flamewars.
  • Differences:

    1. When you release a patch to a QPL piece of software, you must release in patch form, GPL you can release either a patch or a who new ball-o-source. Distribution of binaries are identical.

    2. If you want to link a commercial app against a QPLed library you own TT some money. If you want to do the same with the GPL, you're out of luck. That's why the LGPL exists.

    3. With the QPL if you make a patch you need to send it to TT. In the GPL, GNU has to download it from your ftp archive.

    Other than that, there are no differences. I prefer the QPL in some ways to the GPL. It seems a reasonable way for TT to make moeny, and help free software. I think if TT fails future libraries of its type will be released in with commercial licenses like Motif, which would suck a lot (hopefull I can expunge all Motif from my system by the time I graduate and thus don't have that whole university license thing going on). If people want to make a QT clone, that's fine. I for one won't be running to use it. It seems rather silly, but if some GPL Nazis refuse to expirience the bliss of QT without it, I guess it is necessary silliness.
  • Posted by FascDot Killed My Previous Use:

    There is no communist-style centralized resource allocation department. Everyone just does what they want.

    And if a bunch of people want to do something that you think is re-inventing the wheel, why not let them? After all: "Linux? We already have Unixen that work fine. Why re-invent the wheel?"

  • I don't see a lot of positive comments here :-( (Score:3)

    by Eg0r ( 704 ) on Friday March 26, 1999 @12:29PM (#1961564)
    Gee, KDE, like it or not is going BIG! People don't like it for whatever reason ranging from it looks to much like windows to I hate it because it uses QT and QT ain't free...

    Fair enuf... you don't like it don't use it.

    Now... some people are working to make it completely free and settle down all the fuss about it, and that's the answer they get??? You can't tell people what to program or not, it's THEIR choice... pay them, and they may program something for you... otherwise, it's called a challange. Maybe like linux was... and I'm sure people were saying stuff like what a waste of resources, we already have windows, DOS and mimix, what's the need for yet another operating system?

    The challange here is to make KDE free because it has the potential of becoming the desktop for less *nix litterate administrators...

    I don't use it, but I keep an eye or two on it... And harmony's definitely the way to get KDE to become a free window manager like the rest of linux is...aren't you tickled when you hear that one of the main parts (to some people) of Linux isn't free when all the other major components of Linux are?

    And just think about another thing... it doesn't really matter what you're coding, it's still a good way to attract attention on you when you're looking for a job... and surely effective!

    So then again, you don't like it? don't use it.

    ---

  • Posted by FascDot Killed My Previous Use:

    And yet THEY are programming for free. What's the diff?
  • There are no resources to be allocated, you either want to do something or you don't. If people want to work on it then great, if not then that is also great.
  • Don't forget, Harmony is adding the other thing that Qt (and thus, KDE) lacks, real (widget-level) theme support. You can dismiss themes as silly and unneeded, but it is important for these new desktop environments to not only make computing easier, but to make it more fun.

    I've heard rumors of QtThemes, (more than just the window border decorations) does anyone know about this?
  • Posted by OGL:

    I really don't see either Gmc or Kfm as being useful...they're too much like windows explorer. If you want a really useful file manager which has easy to use associations and a good keyboard interface, try SFM [linuxbox.com].

    The rest of KDE and GNOME are very useful however...I just wish they'd think a bit more about people with multi-head setups.

    -W.W.
  • The Linux|Apache|BSD programmers are doing at as a hobby, not as their sole source of income.
  • Whenever KDE reaches 2.0 :P
  • It's the patch issue that bugs me, actually. Let's just say I want to set up an integrated OS build tree (something like (O|F)BSD), wherein all that is included in the system is available in snapshot form from a central CVS repository. These sources include the latest and greatest version of the Qt library, since KDE is the desktop of choice in my hypothetical world. This is easy to manage, as it gives the Qt source tree adapted to my particular scheme of doing things a common base, and maintainers of that part of the tree a common place from which to work.

    I don't mind submitting patches to Troll Tech, as I feel it is my duty, and makes the whole thing go much more smoothly in the long run. However, I want as many people to be able to download or upgrade, in one shot, the sources to my whizbang OS (including the Qt libs), compile it, install it, run it, debug it, live it, love it, learn it, and have children with it (okay, maybe not that extreme).

    Making the patches available as an add-on to the Qt libraries wouldn't be a big deal, and the application of said patches could be handled by a makefile, but that's an extra bunch of stuff for developers to have to do when working on my neat-o keen spanking new OS-thingy.

    I don't have a problem with Troll's license. It's a good one. I don't see myself using Qt in my shiny new OS for the reasons listed above. It's a pain in the rear to deal with from that standpoint.

    --C
  • There are a number of things. Most significantly, if you change QT 2.0 you can't redistribute your changed code, you have to redistribute patches. If TT is a good owner and changes come in they will role them in to a release in a timely manner, if they aren't then you may need to accumulate bunches of fixes to get your QT up to speed. This won't matter in general but as functional changes are introduced, TT may not be willing to go with it.

    Now if QT was GPLed and there was a rift like that, somebody else could just take the library, change the name a little and start a different project that rolled in the patches quicker or something. You can't do that with QT, if you don't like the direction TT is moving in then you are out of luck. I'm not entirely sure how liberal the QPL is on code borrowing either, if it was GPLed you could definitely take components from QT and put them in your own library or GTK+ or something else.

    Most of these issues aren't that important to most people but they are still important. I think the complaints about "resource allocation" and what have you are mostly from non-developers. I can't see how this can be seen as anything other than good for the community as a whole. Not to instigate any type of flame fest but if TT decides to stop developing QT or to focus on other platforms or something like that QT could eventually become a poor tool for KDE, instead of letting the community dictate the course of QT, TT is controlling it. TT seems to be a good dictator but a lot of people aren't comfortable with any dictator or with any one company wielding that kind of control over linux.

  • LGPL is not "infectious" like the pure GPL. For instance, people can write proprietary code that works with GTK. The reason that people want a LGPL Qt is so that the community can control patches and fixes that may be necessary as time goes on.

    --Lenny
  • The Harmony project is an effort to creat a Qt source compatible library under the LGPL.

    It's nice to know that I'm not the only one mangling my language with badly constructed function names :)

  • An LGPL'd QT clone would allow proprietary software writers to leach off of Free software efforts. QT doesn't, they want something in return.
  • Harmony is NOT GPL. It is LGPL. The crucial
    difference between LGPL and QPL is that under
    LGPL a developer can use the library for *comercial* software without paying money to TrollTech. As such the LGPL encourages a broader spectrum of software to be made available on Linux.
  • People who create commercial software are accustomed to paying for development tools anyway, so the cost of QT isn't much of an issue.

    Besides, isn't it proprietary code development what the anti-QT are trying to discourage anyway?
  • >Harmony (once finished) would also end the GNOME/KDE war for good... or would it? :)

    Of course not, there's still the inane C vs. C++ issue to argue about...
  • I noticed that the Harmony page is being hosted by yggdrasil (Creators of the "Plug & Play Linux Distribution", which has faded away for you newbies)

    I wonder if maybe yggdrasil is trying to make themselves relevant again by emulating what Red Hat did with GNOME?

    What does Yggdrasil do these days anyway? From their web page, it doesn't appear they've produced a distribution since 1997.
  • > Don't forget, Harmony is adding the other thing that Qt (and thus, KDE) lacks, real (widget-level) theme support

    That's old. Qt 2.0 has great support for widget-level styles (or themes.. whatever). KDE 2.0 will have "plug-n-play" widget styling.

    Just for kicks, I did a screenshot with my KBiff app with Qt 2.0. This is what it looks like with a MacOS (Platinum) theme:

    http://home.sprintmail.com/~gran roth/kbiff-mac.jpg [sprintmail.com]
  • Isn't using templates in code to be compiled by gcc still a little questionable? I mean, I heard that they worked a lot better now with egcs, but I get the impression they must still be slow (even flaky?). I'm not a C++ guru, so I could be wrong.

    Anyway, I figure that may be one reason that Troll Tech never worried too much about template support.
  • "The open source community" doesn't insist on doing anything, because it has no single spokesperson, it's a bunch of individuals.

    With a handful of noted exceptions who are paid for their time, open source software is developed by those who feel like it. Volunteers. Anyone who's ever had anything to do with managing volunteers knows that it's near impossible to get them to do something they don't want to do, and almost has hard to keep them from doing something they do want to do.

    If software development were all centrally directed, then yes, it might make more sense to assign the folks who want to work on Harmony to working on something else. In the real world, that isn't going to happen - for them it may be Harmony or nothing, and so the most efficient allocation of resources is for them to work on whatever the hell they want to. They'll learn something from it, they'll generate code that may be useful in ways that Qt can't be, and the universe of free code will be that much larger than if they'd been "ordered" to, say, go work on a Microsoft Project clone for Linux (because they probably wouldn't have listened to those orders).

    The folks who ran the former Soviet Union were no doubt convinced that a command economy was a far more efficient way to allocate resources than the chaos of free market capitalism, and at first glance it certainly appears so. But they were clearly wrong, as Adam Smith could have told them.
    Maybe Harmony is a "waste" of resources, but those resources belong only to those who volunteer to be involved.
  • Templates. Bah.

    C++ peaked out somewhere around 1988, and has been suffering creeping featurism ever since.

    (I prefer C++ over C, so long as the style is "C with classes". Call me neanderthal, see if I care.)
  • Isn't using templates in code to be compiled by gcc still a little questionable?

    I've used STL under gcc 2.7.2.3, and it seems to work fine, with a few exceptions. I never noticed any performance problems, although the binary can get pretty big. I think gcc might not be very smart about reusing template code.

    TedC

  • It's nice to know that I'm not the only one mangling my language with badly constructed function names :)

    I don't gets it. :-)

    TedC

  • Last time I checked, Red Hat employed a large number of full-time employees that worked only on the Linux Kernel, GNU tools, and other Free Software projects.

    It is possible to make Free Software and make a living at the same time.

  • One of my fears is that work on free software projects with a decent licence would stop when a good enough product is made available from a commercial group. This just shows that there is hope of an entire system of free software software in the future. I'm hoping for the free software desktop to arrive soon with a fully functional office suite and browser. Getting the libraries right is the first and very important step.

    Don't get me wrong, I'm not against commercial software. I do believe that commercial software should be specialty software or really big improvements on free software. Granted, this will get harder as the free software movement gets stronger and larger with a huge code base. Right now, their contributions are providing a nice boost to help the movement get everything together. Yes, programmers need to eat and yes, this seems like stabing the commercial companies in the back. But, it's also nice to see the information flow freely, which should produce better programmers. Also software in the end and commercial companies will be sure to make a profit before they are replaced. If they don't, it's a sign to make better software.

    Let's make sure not to forget about the free software as companies dilute our software base with their contributions. Bravo to the Harmony group, best of luck to them.
  • Contrary to the prevailing opinion (Microsoft are big, Red Hat are big
    in Linux, therefore Red Hat are trying to become the Microsoft of
    Linux), Red Hat were not on course to be the Microsoft of Linux.
    Troll Tech were.

    Microsoft got where they are by making sure that it was very difficult
    not to be Microsoft compatible and once you start defining things in
    terms of Microsoft compatibility you might as well just go
    Microsoft. It started with the OS (your program had to run under
    MS-DOS/Windows) and then rapidly moved up to the application level
    once casual electronic document exchange got going. E-mail sealed it.

    Linux will not succeed as a mass OS without a single GUI, or at the
    very least a single API to the GUI. Whilst the short sighted talk
    "tools not rules", people who *use* computers just want something that
    works, that runs all of their programs and is easy to use.

    Assuming that KDE takes off, Troll Tech were looking to be in the very
    nice position where anybody wanting to produce commercial software for
    Unix/Linux were going to have to buy Qt. The Microsoft of Linux but at
    the developer end of the business. And they had every hope that the
    free software people wouldn't bother to develop free s/w whose primary
    purpose was to let other people make money out of it. Qt would then
    have been the only part of the Linux distribution that wasn't free. I
    hope that Harmony can prove them wrong.

    It will be interesting to see if Troll Tech try to bleed away support
    for Harmony by relaxing every restriction on Qt *except* the right to
    sell commercial products without paying for it.

    Of course, it is perfectly possible that Troll Tech were genuinely
    just trying to let people develop free s/w and the commercial
    advantages were just a by product. That would be a fortunate
    coincidence.

    John
  • >Unfortunately, this will not be sufficient to >ensure the success of KDE. The prohibitive
    >cost of licensing Qt for commercial development >ensures that most shareware and
    >small proprietary software developers will write >for the Gnome desktop
    This is pure (if unintentional) FUD. You do not need Qt to write KDE-compliant applications. One possible reason why FUD like this is continually spread (note that I am not saying that the author of the above post is to blame) is that there are commercial interests that want to have a QT-quality and relatively easy-to-use toolkit without having to pay for it. So they claim that Harmony is needed in order to write KDE-compliant applications.

    >Hackers who prefer KDE to Gnome should strongly support the continuation of Harmony

    In other words, work hard to give commercial interests a free ride. I really hope noone buys this. The interests of the free software movement are much better served by a GPL'd Harmony.
  • >people are doing?

    These folks are trying to encourage people to work on Harmony. This other fellow is suggesting that other projects are more important. Each side is just trying to use the power of persuasion.
  • Man, I have no idea! :) I've been wondering the same thing for quite some time, asked around a bit, and never got any answers.

    I just hope that Harmony doesn't end up being sucked into what looks like a project black hole at Yggdrasil. Back about two years ago, Yggdrasil "took over" the development of the Arena web browser (anyone remember that?), and nothing's come of that. Over a year ago (Feb 1998), they opened their "Ground Zero" software repository. It sounded like a cool idea, but I never heard anything about it again. (I found something dated from June 1998 after poking around a little bit.) In their Products/ subdirectory, we can see this somewhat dubious message: "Coming Soon!!! Linux Internet Archives - Winter 1995".

    I think they still sell the Linux Bible, but AFAIK, it's just a collection of HOWTO documents culled from the LDP -- back in 1996 or so!

    So, yeah, I'm pretty mystified. Anyone else know anything?
  • Yes, and Red Hat makes most of their money on CD sales, not support. (and now Certification Programs, which aren't GPL, btw) If Red Hat linux distribution wasn't so huge they wouldn't be making a cent! Troll Tech's QT library is small enough that it can be downloaded via modem and so they won't be able to make money on CD sales. They have to make money somehow! Charging non-free customers to use QT seems reasonable to me.

  • I personally have a strong distaste for the idea of one company charging money for commercially developed applications under Linux.

    It is a sad state of affairs when 99% of the operating system is developed in good faith for the sake of better code, and the last 1% charges 100% of the commercial development fees.

    If KDE became the GUI for Linux, Linux would be the cash cow for Troll Tech. I have nothing against making money from open source, but I do have a problem with making money by dipping into the pockets of everyone else who is trying to make a buck.

    With QT making up a layer of the OS, Linux is no longer a free OS, it is a vehicle for Troll Tech.

    It really bothers me... but it can be a good thing.

    If the desktop fragments into a totally free Linux with Gnome, vs a pay-per-developer KDE, one will have the advantage of being free from influence of corporations, the other will have the advantage of real financial corporate backing.

    For me it is not about a "totally free operating environment and applications", it is about having an uncorruptable development platform.

    Microsoft does not even charge money to develop applications for their environment.

    You cannot develop shareware for KDE. If you want to share a tool, you either have to pay up, or give it away... or write it for windows, where you don't have such restrictions.

    It's just my opinion. KDE is great, but it is taking a very lazy shortcut. These legal limitations do not need to exist.

  • Posted by FascDot Killed My Previous Use:

    Exactly! Now you're getting it!

    If A needs $50K/year to create a program but B needs $0 to create a very similar program, who do you think is working more efficiently and which program do you think will be better?

  • Extra restrictions of QPL over GPL:
    1) All modifications may only be distributed as patches or compiled binaries.
    2) If you compile and distribute your modifications, you must license your code under the QPL which gives TT exclusive rights to use your modification in the propietary version of QT.
    3) You cannot use parts of QPLed programs in other applications, at least not in any sane way.

    These restrictions make it illegal to distribute GPLed programs which rely on QPL unless the QPL is part of the OS.
    They also make it a big pain if you actually want to do anything with QPLed code.
    It's a nonsymmetric license which gives the original creater *far* more power than any modifiers.
  • >Harmony (once finished) would also end the >GNOME/KDE war for good... or would it? :)

    Well, don't forget that there will always be interface and programming language issues to worry about. And don't forget the OpenDesktop (is that what it's called?) project, and its various and sundry supporters.

    Really though, I think what's really needed is a thunking layer to make QT using apps use the gtk+ library without knowing it. That would give the KDE folks the advantages of: studly themability ala Gnome, no more pissy anti-KDE people, programmers being able to use QT or gtk+ at their discretion, etc. And since both projects are largely GPLed, my way would allow the two desktops to be rolled into one ultimate distribution with all the best parts of both. Everyone wins.

    Alas, I don't come close to being able to code this (I know, I bitch about stuff and can't fix it, blah), so it would need people who can. I don't care if I get zero credit for the idea, I just want to see it happen and see everyone win.

    Jack
  • With a BSD license no one else can "own" your code. They can simply add their own additions to your code and "own" those additions as long as they credit you for your code whenever they use your code.
  • Some of what you desire already exists. The KDE has a feature to apply KDE styles to non-KDE apps in its control panel. This slightly modifies the appearance for qt and gtk apps to make them more consistent with your KDE color schemes, and qt look and feel, and massively changes the appearance of Xt and AW apps to make them not look like they suck. As for being able to drop in gmc for kfm, and such this is a bit harder. Kfm offers a set of features accessable from a library and IPC to let the kde app developer interact with kfm. I don't think GNOME does anything like this. However, having GNOME and gmc implent this functionality would be quite possible if they mimiced the interface of this API.
  • I read on the KDE site that 4 people were on the Free QT Foundation, 2 from Troll tech, 2 from KDE.

    In the event of a tie, KDE wins. Can't the KDE developers force QT to be released under BSD whenever they feel like it?

    Why not just let Troll keep the $1500 for commercial products. When their development starts to suck, make QT under BSD.

    I still don't see what the problem is.
  • If they've never done serious C++ or XWindow programming, then at least they won't be able to read the Qt source and risk tainting their clean-room code.

    Kidding. Kidding.
  • i think Gtk-- does a dang good job at that
  • The foundation has the right to release the software under the BSD license
    in some specific cases, none of which has happened now.

    I suppose me and Matthias could vote for it anyway, lying about our motives,
    but it would be:

    1) Stupid.
    2) Pointless. (We would just go to jail)
    3) Not honourable.
    4) Against the statutes of the foundation we signed.
    5) Evil.
    6) A treacherous action against people we respect (Troll Tech)
    7) Stupid again.
    8) Did I mention stupid?

    PS: yes, I am one of the KDE voters, and if I did that, I couldn't look
    at myself in the mirror in the morning. And I am not that stupid.
  • 8 people to write just the UI?

    If you separate the backend into a library, you would only need to pay
    perhaps one license, $1300 or so.

  • C++ is C with classes. And streams. And templates. And data hiding. And range-checked arrays. And a "string" class rather than those evil char arrays. And programs that are 2x as big as their C equivalents, and run slower.
  • Really, you must be kidding. A company that can put 4-5 programmers on a port to Linux must have the money to pay for Qt.

    I also work for a small company (8 programmers) that creates commercial software. We've recently bought a software that did cost us $18000 and that is just for one developer.

    Our company doesn't consider porting to Linux. And that is mainly because of the development costs of porting applications, not the tools which is nothing compared of the labour cost. I just wished that we had used Qt, then porting to Linux would have been much easier.

    And see it in another way. Since Troll Tech also is a small company, they will certainly listen to your opinions and questions.

  • Except, the good news isnt. Shipping Qt in a distribution does not make it a 'core os exception' component. Core OS components are essential system components like kernel and libc, without which you cannot within reason make a useful program. It's pretty obvious that a Linux system and most programs will work very well without Qt, and it's equally obvious that getting around the GPL by claiming core os component is just license evasion.

    I *would* take appropriate measures in case any of my GPL code was misused by linking to even QPL Qt without prior permission.

    However, if *asked* permission in advance, I would probably grant it. The issue here isn't Qt or Troll Tech, because QPL Qt qualifies as free. The issue is that we cannot allow the GPL to be legally undermined, because other, not so nice, companies will do the same thing in the future, and if they have a large set of precedents showing it is ok to circumvent the GPL in this way, they will be free to proprietarize GPL code at will by building proprietary dependencies on 'core components'.

    Note that the core component issue has nothing to do with wether the software is free or not. Only the practice of the current largest distributions make it seem an easier problem, but if that changes in the future, allowing arbitrary components to qualify as core os would open the way to any form of proprietary library dependence.

    If you need an example, just look at the unfortunate Motif (which could arguably be more core component than Qt, on merit of UNIX standards and system vendor control) problems. There is GPL software using Motif. There are serious limitations to the freeness of that GPL code under linux, since you have to either buy Motif, hope it works with lesstif, or obtain a statically linked copy. Neither alternative is very good, and the software isnt as free as most GPL applications in reality. That's where we'll be going if we allow arbitrary libraries to fall under the core component exception.
  • Although I think the Harmony project is not a bad idea, I must disagree with this:

    Anything that makes proprietary development more expensive for KDE than GNOME will prevent it from competing successfully, so even a GPLed Qt at this point would not be good enough to save KDE from irrelevance.

    Commercial proprietary software developers are not going to sneeze at $5000 or so for a commercial Qt license. Sure, a shareware author might, but I don't see much of a market for Linux/UNIX shareware these days anyhow. The only proprietary apps that really matter anymore are the big ones, and the companies that develop those have plenty of cash for the measly $5000.

    Although I expect both KDE and Gnome to continue no matter what happens, a dominant desktop *will* emerge over time, with the other desktop being marginalised.

    Quite frankly, I think that has already happened. That desktop is KDE. Most major Linux distributions are shipping with it as the default WM/DE. GNOME still has a chance, with the support by RedHat, but it has some catching on to do, as far as momentum goes.

  • I just wanted to mention that I initially read the title of this story as "Harmony Joy Ride."

    If you don't know the meaning of that, you haven't been listening to Wesley Willis CDs...

    :-D

  • Even QPL Qt will not qualify as core component in the GPL sense. It doesnt matter if you distribute it with the OS, it is still not an essential system component of the kind referred to. You cant take out the kernel, libc, etc (which are the kind of components that qualify as essential) and expect the OS to work. You can remove Qt without any serious effect. Unauthorized linking of GPL code even to QPL Qt will remain a violation of the GPL.
  • Hah. C vs C++. Mico vs ORBit. Qt+Harmony vs GTK+. kwm vs wm-agnosticism. koffice vs gnome-office. organization vs ad hoc. and just the overarching need to advocate supremacy of one's particular choice to pump up one's ego.
  • Someone might write such a thunking layer if it weren't certain to be godawful slow, if gtk were decently documented, and gtk provided all the same functionality as qt (not saying qt has more, just different).

    hear me? DOCUMENT THE DAMN TOOLKIT. DYI and WTFM (write the f**ing manual) is not an appropriate answer for someone trying to learn the toolkit in the first place.
  • Here's what shows up at the bottom of their web page:


    If you want to help set KDE and other Qt-based software free of legal problems, please send email to harmony@yggdrasil.com to get involved. Join the rebellion!


    Join the rebellion? Please.

    Now for themes: I have not seen one single new enduser demand themes. Possibly mac users, who are used to kaleidoscope, but every single windows desktop I've seen my users and friends use is using, not surprisingly, standard widget appearances, despite the availablity of third-party theming packs. Usually they are set to some garish neon-shaded color theme like pink or pastel green, while I myself actually stick to the default (so sue me, I like blue).

    Multithreading: Long as an application is responsive, end-users don't care what the architecture is. Moving toward multithreading can be a big disaster though: Java's AWT was threadsafe, and all those synchronized update methods were a big part of the reason it was so ungodly SLOW. Swing actually dropped the threadsafeness for that reason.
  • ... but every single windows desktop I've seen my users and friends use is using, not surprisingly, standard widget appearances, despite the availablity of third-party theming packs. usually they are set to some garish neon-shaded color theme like pink or pastel green ...

    Third party theming packs for Windows are atrocious in terms of system resources or stability. And given that Windows itself ships with only rudimentary widget color and size controls, it's unsurprising that a large number of nontechnical end-users do simple, ugly things for theming.

    Unlike for example WindowBlinds, Kalidescope actually works as advertised. The problem with Windows theming utilities -- at least those which aren't some color-and-wallpaper variation of the Plus! pack -- is that they are badly broken.
  • That is, that you do not need to use Qt at ALL to write a KDE application. There are many other decent libraries available, LGPL or otherwise (Fox, FLTK, gtk+, wxWindows, Notif, Motif, Lesstif, Xforms), many of which have additional benefits such as being cross-platform for Windows (big bonus for commercial developers.)

    As you say, "history has shown that the quality of a GUI is less important for success than the number of apps available for it". Thus the choice of a widget library isn't as important as the fact that an application exists at all. Although there will be slight UI inconsistencies between applications, most of them are slight enough to bother only the most inexperienced of users.

  • Yup, thinking about it the GNOME/KDE war is prolly going to be another one of those never-end distro war type deals.

    Quite a shame, too.

    - Chad (who hasn't loaded KDE yet, but should)

  • Humm... very interesting point. This is actually a _very_ deep subject... it would take a full essay to explore it.

    From a commercial standpoint Troll has done a lot of work on making a license which protects both their commercial interests and the interests of the free software community. Which is something they really didn't have to do.

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