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GUI Software GNOME KDE

GNOME/KDE Integration Gets A Few Boosts 339

Posted by timothy from the so-happy-together dept.
Balinares writes "Great bunch of news on the Linux desktop unification front. After the unification of GTK and Qt themes that Slashdot already reported on, it is OpenOffice's turn to get the unified look treatment (screenshot 1, screenshot 2, screenshot 3). In related news, the recently released QtGTK library allows to merge the Qt event loop with that of GTK. In other words, this means you can now easily use KDE's DCOP, IOslaves, and, last but not least, file dialogs, from inside your GTK apps. (Screenshot of this feature used in XMMS2: 1 2). It comes with a tutorial that explains the basics. Finally, the new fuse_kio tool now makes it possible to use KDE's IOslaves directly at the filesystem level, from any Linux app. 2004 is really beginning well for all those of us who use Linux as their primary desktop!"
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GNOME/KDE Integration Gets A Few Boosts More

GNOME/KDE Integration Gets A Few Boosts

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  • Sweet First Post! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by iLL_L0gic ( 607165 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @02:44PM (#7938572)
    I can't wait for this to happen, I'm tired of there being so many desktops in linux. You can argue all you want about "it offers better choices for people." But the truth is, people don't want to choose, they want you to choose for them. Once they learn your system, then they can go in and tweak it for themselves.....I've always seen this as a drawback for Desktop Linux, some programs work in one window maker, others work in another. It's too hard for the average user.

    • Re:Sweet First Post! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by FooBarWidget ( 556006 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @02:47PM (#7938599)
      That reasoning makes no sense.

      "But the truth is, people don't want to choose, they want you to choose for them."

      Well, just because there IS choice doesn't mean you HAVE to choose. If those people don't want to choose then why don't they just let their distributor/geek friend/vendor/whatever choose for them?

      And you forgot why there is choice in the first place: one size does not fit all! The only way to satisfy as many people as possible is to provide choice. The people who don't like that their distributor/vendor/whatever chose for them will choose, and the people who don't want to choose will let their distributor/vendor/whatever chooce for them. What's wrong with that?

      • Re:Sweet First Post! (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Vann_v2 ( 213760 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @02:53PM (#7938658) Homepage
        Or better yet, provide sane defaults and then they will neither have to nor want to change. Those people who want to do so still can, and everyone wins.

      • Re:Sweet First Post! (Score:5, Interesting)

        by alakon ( 657771 ) <spam@paradoxpoetry.com> on Saturday January 10, 2004 @03:07PM (#7938759)
        When I first installed Linux I flipped a coin to decide between the two :) Yes, I didn't want to make a choice, as Redhat gave no background to base my decision.
      • That reasoning makes no sense.

        It makes perfect sense. And decades of research by Apple and Microsoft labs proves it.

        "But the truth is, people don't want to choose, they want you to choose for them."

        Well, just because there IS choice doesn't mean you HAVE to choose. If those people don't want to choose then why don't they just let their distributor/geek friend/vendor/whatever choose for them?

        I thought that's what he was arguing.

        And you forgot why there is choice in the first place: one size does n


        • There's a reason we've been hearing since 1998 that Linux will "overtake Windows on the desktop," but it's never happened and never will with its current mindset.

          I'm sure the number of compatible software titles has nothing to do with it. Its all because the average user doesn't know what to do when they find "GNOME, KDE, WindowMaker, FluxBox" in a pulldown menu.
          • Re:Sweet First Post!
            by _Sprocket_ (42527) on Saturday January 10, @02:31PM (#7938902)




            There's a reason we've been hearing since 1998 that Linux
            will "overtake Windows on the desktop," but it's never
            happened and never will with its current mindset.



            I'm sure the number of compatible software titles has
            nothing to do with it. Its all because the average user
            doesn't know what to do when they find "GNOME, KDE,
            WindowMaker, FluxBox" in a pulldown menu.


            Damn straight, the first poster was correct
        • [quote]There's a reason we've been hearing since 1998 that Linux will "overtake Windows on the desktop," but it's never happened and never will with its current mindset.[/quote]

          Oh sure it's always easy to put all the blame on the attitude and oversimplifying the situation. The o-so-friendly-and-fast BeOS didn't succeed either. And the o-so-friendly MacOS X still doesn't have more than a few percent market share. Heck, *no* non-MS operating system has succeeded into getting more than a few percent market sh

        • Contrary to what you believe, providing a bunch of choices doesn't please everybody, it just confuses and spreads energy across various, conflicting projects.

          This is true if all you're trying to reach is consistency with limited development resources. When something needs to be done in the free software world it gets done. Sometimes at a staggering pace. (I have a long opinion on this if you're interested) Because of this I don't think resources is the problem. I agree consistency can and does help for wi

        • Re:Sweet First Post! (Score:4, Insightful)

          by mickwd ( 196449 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @05:45PM (#7939923)
          "Contrary to what you believe, providing a bunch of choices doesn't please everybody, it just confuses and spreads energy across various, conflicting projects."

          So much for capitalism and competition, then.

          Why don't we get rid of political parties, too ? Surely it just confuses and spreads energy across various different parties ?

          Why don't we just have one single government that tells us what to do ? Because choice is a bad thing, right ?

    • "I'm tired of there being so many desktops in linux."

      I use WindowMaker. It starts in under a second, compared with 15 seconds for KDE.

      You probably don't want WindowMaker. You'd prefer something with a Start menu and lots of stuff on it. KDE is good.

      Howabout we don't care which is the default desktop? You only need to choose it once, and after that, it's, well... a default. It's not like the multi-gigabyte disks that family computers come with are having problems installing both systems at once.

      And
    • "But the truth is, people don't want to choose, they want you to choose for them."

      Then why are they choosing Linux ?

      Or MacOS X ?

    • But the truth is, people don't want to choose, they want you to choose for them.

      In other words, because you don't want to make choices, the rest of should be offered choices either. You speak only for yourself, please stop pretending that you know what "people" want. Many of us do want to be able to explore alternative ways of doing things and are very appreciative of those who provide the alternatives.

    • Re:Sweet First Post! (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Joe Tie. ( 567096 )
      It's too hard for the average user.

      While I don't agree that it's too hard for the average user, I have to say, so what if it is? Is it so terrible to have an operating system that's not dumbed down to the lowest common denominator?

    • Re:Sweet First Post! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by nathanh ( 1214 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @08:59PM (#7941404) Homepage
      But the truth is, people don't want to choose, they want you to choose for them.

      I partially agree. For desktops, some people do want to have many options to choose from and other people want to have the choice made for them. But even when that choice is made for them, almost everybody wants some level of control over certain aspects of the desktop (eg, the backgrounds, the colours).

      I agree with you that there are many desktops in Linux, but only KDE and GNOME seem to have any significant mindshare. I see it as very similar to the early days of GUIs on MS-DOS. We had options that included GEM, GeOS, Desqview and Windows (of course). It was a mess. Eventually the market made a decision and Windows now dominates.

      But even when Windows became hugely successful (with version 3.0) there were multiple competing widget sets. I don't know what your experience is like, but I still recall the big battle between Borland and Microsoft. Some applications used the (IMO ugly) Borland widget set with the Big Green Tick for the OK button and the nasty 3D border effects. Other applications used the Microsoft widgets. Over time, Borland lost marketshare, and Microsoft improved at a faster rate than Borland, and now we have "consistency" on Windows. Though I think if you look hard enough you can still find some applications aren't consistent (eg, recently I installed an ASUS motherboard and the AsusProbe software looks nothing like the rest of Windows).

      I see something similar eventually happening in the KDE/GNOME war. Right now we have two strong desktops and that causes confusion to some users (admittedly the users who can least deal with the confusion). I expect over the next five years we'll see more "integration stories" like this. Eventually the superficial differences will disappear - the user experience will at last be consistent - and all that will be left will be the programming models. That's no different to any of the existing platforms; they all offer multiple programming models that have superficially similar appearance. We're already seeing improved levels of integration in drag and drop, Desktop folders, metadata formats, etc. This story now says we're soon going to see improvements in integration in widgets, themes, event loops, etc. It's all slowly getting better.

      Ok, I've rambled. My point is that Linux on the desktop is immature. What we're seeing now has been replayed on every other platform as it "grew up". Eventually the inconsistency is all settled from the users point of view, though I don't think it's ever consistent from the programmer's point of view. These "integration stories" are (IMO) normal and expected. It might be confusing now but it is going to get better if history repeats (and I think it will).

  • License? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by DAldredge ( 2353 ) <SlashdotEmail@GMail.Com> on Saturday January 10, 2004 @02:45PM (#7938579) Journal
    What effect will the QT/GTK event loop intergration tech have on licensing? In other words, does your app have to be GPL to use this tech?

    • Re:License? (Score:5, Informative)

      by JimDabell ( 42870 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @02:59PM (#7938704) Homepage

      That depends on what license you pick for Qt. Qt is available under a number of different licenses [trolltech.com]. For Free Software, you need to follow either the GPL or the QPL.

    • Re:License? (Score:5, Informative)

      by loucura! ( 247834 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @03:03PM (#7938730)
      No, your application could be BSD, but the entire distribution of your application plus this technology would be GPL. Or, you could distribute your application as a proprietary application and require the USER to link them together, which while not completely kosher, doesn't appear to violate the letter of the GPL license.

      Why do you insist on trolling every single KDE topic with this complaint though? Trolltech has every right to restrict you to the GPL (or compatible licenses) if you choose to use their software. If you don't like it, don't use it--no one is forcing you to. Or, if you absolutely have to use QT, and you absolutely cannot use the GPL, buy a commercial license.

      So, in conclusion, no your application needn't be GPL, but when you distribute your application with the GPL software, you have to abide by the terms of the license.

      • Re:License? (Score:2, Insightful)

        by damiam ( 409504 )
        Why do you insist on trolling every single KDE topic with this complaint though?

        He wasn't trolling, he was asking a simple question. I wondered the same thing, and I'm sure many others did too. No one has implied here that the QT licensing scheme is in any way bad. Stop overreacting.

        • It might be simple, but its a really stupid question. This library links to the KDE libs. The KDE libs link to the Qt libs. Thus, your app links to the Qt libs. If you link to the Qt libs, then you have to follow the Qt license. We've been over this many times before.

          Just because Qt forms a small piece of the used code doesn't change the licensing requirements.

      • Re:License? (Score:2, Interesting)

        by DAldredge ( 2353 )
        All I did is ask a license question about this tech.

        Since the GTK license allows keeping the source closed and the QT doesn't I desired to know if this could be used in closed source apps. How is that a troll?

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

          by fidget42 ( 538823 )

          Since the GTK license allows keeping the source closed and the QT doesn't I desired to know if this could be used in closed source apps. How is that a troll?

          I would guess that it is considered a troll because Qt does allow you to keep your source closed. All you have to do is purchase [trolltech.com] a Qt license from Trolltech. Considering the quality of the toolset, and its reasonable price, most people don't think this is a problem.

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

            by rking ( 32070 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @03:53PM (#7939079)
            I would guess that it is considered a troll because Qt does allow you to keep your source closed.

            Okay, step by step:

            1. You can't normally link proprietary software to QT without paying licensing fees, agreed? No criticism here, no condemnation, just those are the rules, agreed?

            2. GTK normally does allow you to link with proprietary software without requiring licensing fees, agreed?

            3. The system this article is about apparently allows you to use some QT functionality with your GTK apps.

            So the question if I understood it correctly was, can you legally use this system in conjunction with a proprietary GTK-using app? If I understand correctly this would be the user making this choice not the developer, but maybe I've misunderstood how this system works.

            That question seems to me to be a valid and reasonable one. I don't think you have answered or even addressed it, but either way it does not appear to be a troll.
        • I mis-recalled your complaining about QT not allowing closed-source programs in previous QT threads. Sorry for misrepresenting you as a troll, as I wasn't able to find the posts I recalled.

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

        by IamTheRealMike ( 537420 ) *
        Or, you could distribute your application as a proprietary application and require the USER to link them together, which while not completely kosher, doesn't appear to violate the letter of the GPL license.

        Well, you are pretty clearly violating the wishes of the respective owners of the software involved if you do that - guys, please, let's encourage people to act with honour ok?

        The legalities of it are somewhat more involved I guess. I'd definately not advise anybody to do that, as it probably just sh

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

      by be-fan ( 61476 )
      Your app doesn't have to be GPL to use Qt. The GPL allows it to be BSD, MIT, etc, while the QPL just requires that it be open source.

    • Re:License? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by dossen ( 306388 )

      Since the license for gtk+ is LGPL there should be no problems linking a closed source app against gtk+ and QT (under whatever license Trolltech wants to sell you), provided that you can license the integration library under compatible terms (LGPL or license from author). If you can't, you can go and do your own integration library, I don't think anybody will stop you.

      DAldredge: I'm not assuming one way or the other about your personal views, but these kinds of questions often carries a kind of unspoken

  • Theme THIS! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Mr. Darl McBride ( 704524 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @02:45PM (#7938581)
    and, last but not least, file dialogs, from inside your GTK apps. (Screenshot of this feature used in XMMS

    This is not wanted, because XMMS has always been the bastion of UI consistency. Also, while I am telling the truth, Mozilla makes any desktop look professional with its native menus and widgets. While I am still telling the truth, I am not always looking for functional replacements for Mozilla and XMMS that don't scream UGLY and awkward every time you see them.

    ~Darl

    • Re:Theme THIS! (Score:4, Informative)

      by RoLi ( 141856 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @03:01PM (#7938721)
      Konqueror is integrated and has some nice features other browsers can only dream about:

      • When you log out and back in, all your Webpages are restored. On the right desktop and with the right geometry - no more temporary bookmarks!
      • Bookmark handling is great because you can add bookmarks and bookmark-directories at the same place you select them. "Manage bookmarks" is seldom needed anymore.

      • Re:Theme THIS! (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 10, 2004 @03:15PM (#7938810)
        Plus the kioslaves are glorious.

        The other day, I was copying stuff out of a .tar.gz which was open in Konqueror straight into an FTP site, also open in Konqueror. A bit later, I was copying Ogg Vorbis files off an audio CD.

        There's loads of other kioslaves, like smb:, fish:, lan:, kamera:, floppy: and sftp: - they can make tasks which previously required entirely separate applications utterly seamless instead.

        I'd love the opportunity to be able to use them on the command line, and to use them with other, non-KDE software, which it sounds like fuse_kio thing will offer...

      • Can you bookmark a whole set of tabs in shot yet? It's the main reason I don't use safari on my laptop. Safari looks much better but Mozilla still has more features.
        • I looked at some KDE3.2 alpha build some time ago and IIRC mass-bookmarking tabs was implemented. Not in KDE3.1 though.

          Of course stuff like that has nothing to do with Safari which uses a different UI.

    • Re:Theme THIS! (Score:2, Offtopic)

      by OmniVector ( 569062 )
      my replacements for those two ugly citizens has been Rhythmbox [rhythmbox.org] and Galeon [sf.net].
      • Me too, wonderful apps they are as well. Rhythmbox sucked for a while, but the latest versions have been pretty stable and usable.

        And Galeon... Best. Browser. Ever. Period.

        I highly recommend both of them.

        There is also Firebird, BTW, which uses native widgets for some things, and while not perfectly integrated, it doesn't stick out like a sore thumb.

        Cheers!

    • hmmmm, a consistent GTK app with a useless fileselector or an 'inconsistent' one with the KDE one? hard choice, isn't it? ;)

      Still, I wish there would be drop-in fileselector replacements available for Gnome/KDE: both of their fileselectors could be so much more useful, heck, even my old Atari ST had replaceable ones (and some of them were awesome, they were basically mini-filemanagers).

      If the gimp had a nice fileselector (with one-button-shortcuts to my pic directories, for example) how much nicer it woul

  • KNOME (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 10, 2004 @02:45PM (#7938582)
    So what are we going to call this, KNOME? Or maybe GDE...

  • A print dialog box... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by netsharc ( 195805 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @02:46PM (#7938589)
    One of the screenshots look like a print dialog box. I wonder what the state of that is. Or is this a moot point, when cups has it all solved?

    • Re:A print dialog box... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by bflong ( 107195 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @03:18PM (#7938831)
      There's no reason to worry about the KDE print dialog. Any app can be programed to output postscript and then pipe it to kprinter. KDE has the printing thing licked, and has for a long time. I can use KDE's print dialog with mozilla, openoffice, and just about any other program that lets me chose what program to use for the print que.

  • This is great (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 10, 2004 @02:46PM (#7938591)
    This is exactly what should be happening I think. We've seen some pretty good strides as far as interopability goes between KDE and GNOME. This brings us the unified desktop without having to sacrifice either one of these projects. It's good that KDE and GNOME can both go their own directions while still increasing interoperability.

    This should satisfy the people who just want a consistent look on the desktop and then people who want choice.

  • unification (Score:5, Insightful)

    by potpie ( 706881 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @02:50PM (#7938622) Journal
    It's projects like these that show how much more productive Open Source is.

    Proprietary companies may try to run other company's formats, but probably wouldn't be willing to say "oh here's how we do it, let's make it easier for people and merge the two for greater compatibility." Open Source companies can't (and I'd like to think wouldn't if they could) restrict compatibility for their own benefit.

    For example: Microsoft comes out with special new features like "plug n' play" or some new way to install programs "faster" and "more easily," but RedHat releases an open source program, RPM, and allows anyone who will to use it.

    Hooray for Open Source!
    • So now it will look like the Windows XP Olive Green theme twice as fast?

      The faster these two can work together the better off the community will be. Each one will have more software to choose from, and choice is good
    • Proprietary companies may try to run other company's formats, but probably wouldn't be willing to say "oh here's how we do it, let's make it easier for people and merge the two for greater compatibility." Open Source companies can't (and I'd like to think wouldn't if they could) restrict compatibility for their own benefit.

      You may like to think that they wouldn't, but human nature is a universal. What's different is the sturcture of the system that it's working under. If the system is structured to enco

  • Even more importantly (Score:4, Funny)

    by d99-sbr ( 568719 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @02:50PM (#7938627) Journal
    OO.org has apparently been translated to Bork!

  • Very Impressive! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by nycsubway ( 79012 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @02:51PM (#7938629) Homepage
    Great job to all those who worked on the integration! I have been worried that Gnome might overtake KDE as the popular desktop and KDE might then be subject to a smaller niche for the desktop. I'm glad that all the work that the KDE teams have done will continue to be used alongside Gnome.

  • Nitpick (Score:5, Informative)

    by damiam ( 409504 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @02:55PM (#7938667)
    That's not xmms in the screenshot, it's beep [sourceforge.net], an XMMS fork ported to GTK2 and Pango/Freetype font rendering.

  • The integration I'd like to see (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Mr. Darl McBride ( 704524 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @02:58PM (#7938691)
    The integration I think I'd most like to see right now would be a Metacity or MicroGUI theme for Mozilla. Considering how many tens of thousands of people are using Sawfish and Gnome, can you believe something like this doesn't already exist?

    For you KDE users who aren't on Konqueror 24/7: don't forget to say thank-you [mozdev.org].

  • IOSlaves? (Score:4, Funny)

    by kc3lai ( 558303 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @03:06PM (#7938751)
    I thought we can't use such intrusive naming anymore??

  • So does this mean... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by bflong ( 107195 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @03:15PM (#7938808)
    that now companys who don't want to fork over a licence fee to trolltech can build apps that integrate with KDE using gtk and no one would have to know or care? Or is there some kind of GPL conflict that I'm not seeing?
    • In order for this to work you have to link against kdelibs and Qt, which means your software must be made available under a GPL compatible license. Therefore this isn't an option for proprietary software, unless you buy licensing from TrollTech.

      Yeah yeah, I know the standard argument ..."but Qt is so great it justifies the license fees and we all get paid so much anyway it doesn't really matter", but the fact is that it does discourage people - only a few days ago I was reading somebody on the GTKmm mail

  • When will they integrate the windows event loop? (Score:4, Funny)

    by OrangAsm ( 678078 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @03:20PM (#7938842)
    I'm dying to have my gnome/kde apps respond to WM_PAINT. Really. I want them to paint and paint and paint, all day long, then I will WM_DESTROY them!!!

  • The fuse_kio stuff... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by koali ( 175176 )
    Why Gnome/KDE insist in non-fs integrated virtual filesystems? Although their solution is platform independent, it is too 'opaque'. LUFS and similar stuff is the win :-b
    • Uh... fuse_kio is integrated with the fs.

      You just mount it and use it.

    • Re:The fuse_kio stuff... (Score:4, Informative)

      by Spy Hunter ( 317220 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @10:37PM (#7941912) Journal
      Because mounting things is inconvenient and not user-friendly, and URLs are an extremely nice, compact way to represent a file's location. Much easier to just be able to use a URL at any time in any application and not worry about where you're going to mount stuff or if it's still mounted or whatever. The Unix filesystem model hasn't changed in years and years, and is not capable enough to handle all the things a modern desktop environment needs. For things like http, it doesn't even make sense; how would you mount a web server? Even if you could, you wouldn't be able to use standard Unix tools because you can't get a directory listing using HTTP (well sometimes you can, but not often). A new system based around URLs is the way to go, and that's the way KDE has gone.

      The ability for every application to handle every possible protocol using URLs is so nice that it outweighs any disadvantage. Using the fish protocol, you can use KWord or KEdit or any KDE app to edit any file stored on any server where you have a simple ssh account. You don't have to worry about whether the server has ftp access, or down/uploading the file, or mounting any remote directories, or junk like that. You just type the URL into the save dialog, and it works. Every KDE program gets support for this protocol along with FTP, HTTP, SMB, and webdav support, plus expandability for future protocols, for free. It's a big part of what makes KDE so great.

  • Also worth noting (Score:4, Informative)

    by damiam ( 409504 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @03:27PM (#7938885)
    The same OO.o integration work has been done with GTK+ [redhat.com].
  • GTK apps using KDE file dialogs

    GTK apps using the QT event loop and DCOP, etc.

    All Linux apps able to use KIO Slaves

    How come no KDE apps want to use the GLib event loop or the GTK file dialogs or Gnome VFS I wonder? (*wink wink*)

    • Re:Anyone else notice the "direction" of integrati (Score:5, Insightful)

      by RPoet ( 20693 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @04:10PM (#7939241) Journal
      While I appreciate the humor, all this has a reasonable explanation. This integration work in question is being done by KDE people, as part of a recent initiative to do something about KDE's reputation for only doing their own stuff, seemingly "starting over" (their own office suite, their own browser etc) where GNOME is adapting to existing technology. Basically, KDE is starting to show that it, too, can adapt existing technology.

      This work is NOT being done by people who simply want more integration, but by people who want a more consistent KDE desktop. If the GNOME people want to integrate KDE apps so that they'll feel more like GNOME apps, they're free to do so.

      • Another KDE myth (Score:4, Interesting)

        by niom ( 638987 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @06:50PM (#7940526)

        as part of a recent initiative to do something about KDE's reputation for only doing their own stuff, seemingly "starting over" (their own office suite, their own browser etc)

        KOffice and Konqueror were started long before OpenOffice and Mozilla became open source.

    • Well, this has been theoretically possible for ages, both GTK and Qt have pluggable main loop abstractions. The thing is, somebody has to care enough to want to do it.

      So if nobody cared enough to integrate the KDE dialogs into GTK, doesn't that indicate that the people using GTK/Gnome apps are happy with the way things are (ie... they have a consistant desktop already perhaps?) more than anything else?

      • Most likely. Several GTK apps (Gimp, Evolution, Inkspace, notably) are better than their KDE counterparts. On the other hand, it also indicates another thing. If GTK+/GNOME apps are better, why do KDE users persist in using KDE? It's not like there is any real barrier to them switching (they run on the same platform, and are free). It most likely indicates that KDE users do not like GNOME as a platform, its lack of advanced technology, and its ultra-simplistic mindset.

        • Re:Anyone else notice the "direction" of integrati (Score:5, Insightful)

          by IamTheRealMike ( 537420 ) * on Saturday January 10, 2004 @06:51PM (#7940535)
          Hmm, that reasoning seems circular. Developers are the only ones who care about the underlying platform, users generally do not as it rarely affects them (stuff like kio-slaves being an obvious exception). So if users use KDE, it'd make sense that they use it because they feel it's a better desktop.

          So, why are more apps written using GTK/Gnome? I don't know. FWIW I feel the KDE framework is better too, but ultimately they are both pretty good. In particular GTK stands on its own more than Qt does on the Linux desktop - for apps that wish to remain desktop neutral it seems a more natural choice (and to be honest GTK vs Qt is a pretty even match, you can argue about the corner cases all day but I'd say they're just as good as each other).

          Whenever I read the KDE API docs I can't help thinking what a shame it is - if the original developers had cared more about licensing we'd probably only have one desktop, and everybody would use these great frameworks. There'd be no problems with desktop neutrality, no need to slowly reinvent everything in order to make it desktop neutral and so on.

          A lesson learned hard, and one I hope future developers will respect..... those who don't take community concerns over platforms seriously can seriously damage things.

  • Wow. (Score:4, Funny)

    by InsaneCreator ( 209742 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @04:17PM (#7939306)
    Look, they have MS Word running natively on Linux. It even has the "Fail" option [sourceforge.net] in the menu! ;)

    Fail > Now
    Fail > When file not saved
    etc.

  • the voice of linux (Score:4, Insightful)

    by chegosaurus ( 98703 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @06:51PM (#7940536) Homepage
    > 2004 is really beginning well for all those of
    > us who use Linux as their primary desktop!"

    Yes. Because GNOME and KDE only run on Linux, don't they?

    Please, a little credit to the folk who right proper, portable code, and to those who port it.

  • Legal question (Score:4, Interesting)

    by unborn ( 415272 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @08:24PM (#7941190)
    Does anyone know if a closed-software maker is violating the GPL if it has originally linked to an LGPL library (legal), which has an independently created GPL analogue?

    If not, then isn't it a matter of a LD_PRELOAD to transfer all or many GTK calls into QT calls, where the preloaded library is fully GPL, and gtk+ software was originally linked to the LGPL original gtk?

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