Five Years of KDE

Jacek Fedorynski writes: "Looks like KDE is five years old. Five years seems like a lot of time but just look how much they've achieved in this time." I think the hard part is just beginning - KDE has got all the basics down, and now they have to resist adding too much more crap.

A great example of open-source at work.

In 5 years, Microsoft went from Windows 1.0 to 2.1, all of which were essentially poor-to-mediocre DOS shells.

In 5 years, KDE has gone from nothing to KDE 2.2, which is an almost enterprise-quality desktop suite, with sophisticated development tools, an included office suite, and hundreds of other tools.

Imagine where we'll be in another five years.

Re:A great example of open-source at work.

Or, rather, to use the same 5 year timespan, in 5 years, Microsoft went from Windows 95 to WindowsXP. That is a huge leap in terms of stability and security (both up) and boot time (down).

Re:A great example of open-source at work.

And after 5 years I'll bet most KDE users are using pretty much the latest version. Nearly 7 years after its release it is not odd to find Windows 95 still in use (about 100 of the 500 boxes I support are running 95), enough so software and peripheral companies still benifit from supporting it. Why is it still in use? For one, the price of upgrading all the software, secondly, the value of not replacing old systems for many orginizations. Comparing KDE and its five years of development and any five years of development in Windows history demonstrates the strenth of free software.

A company should have a focus - instead of trying to be all things to all people (MS == content provider/os maker/game station maker/you name it). KDE is a great example of what is possible when a project is not non-competitive, and focuses on providing one thing, in this case a desktop environment. Some might argue that KDE's focus is too broad. I don't use it that much, so I couldn't say.

Anyway, good work KDE people! Keep it up!

Re:A great example of open-source at work.

A) There are way less users of KDE than of windows

B) Users of KDE tend to be the admins of their own machine
C) Installs of KDE tend to be highly isolated compared to the mass installs you will find of windows at a corporation

Anyone who does custom work on their own (especially when there is OSD dogma pushing them forward) will of course upgrade as soon as possible. Corporations always move slower.

Re:A great example of open-source at work.

I agree that these five years worth of progress is very impressive. However comparing them to Microsoft's work isn't entirely fair. Microsoft was developing an Operating System, not just a GUI for it. KDE has the advantage of using somone else's GUI library to work with as a basis. Plus they don't have to worry about the complexities of Operating System's.

Don't get me wrong, i don't mean to not give KDE credit where credit is due...but we gotta be fair, comparing KDE to Windows is hardly an equal comparison.

A great example of an RMS witch-hunt

This is not a flame, not a troll, just the sad truth.

A point that needs to be raised is that all this was achieved in the face of possibly the nastiest episode in the history of free software; the FUD spread by GPL fanatics about the QT licence.

Gnome was founded by said fanatics for one reason and one reason only - to squash KDE, the best thing that had ever happened to desktop Linux. Microsoft must have been laughing their heads off...

And let's not forget that when Trolltech finally GPL'd the QT library RMS in one of the most arrogant pieces I've ever seen graciously granted "forgiveness" to the KDE team for unspecified breaches of the GPL that *may* have happened and then ended with "Go Gnome!.

Five years on KDE continues to bring out with almost military precision new releases. Despite vastly greater resources thrown at, Gnome 2.0x is as far off as ever, and Gnome remains a pretty but unstable desktop with some poorly-integrated GTK apps that have been retrospectively given the Gnome imprimateur.

Ironic, innit, that the only reason Gnome is still going is because the US suits who back it prefer LGPL to GPL - ie our noble FSF clacque who dumped on KDE using the GPL are quite happy to use a less free licence.

Anyway, as a usable desktop KDE is way out of front. Gnome is there for wannabe hackers who can't stomach the discipline of C++ and ideological fanatics. And those who want to stay in the perfection of eternal beta-land.

KDE shows what can be done with limited resources and a proper design and project plan

GNOME shows what happens when large amounts of resources are pissed up against the wall to make up for lack of said design and project planning.

KDE = Konqueror
GNOME = Mozilla

KDE = results
GNOME = vapourware

Crap?

One person's crap is another's fertilizer!

Kde

I'd say congrats. I mean, they stuck through. They even got packaged with some major selling packages, i.e. red hat 7.1. (I don't know what else, if someone could tell me) They've gone far, and should be an example of what other projects should follow.

Oh, and what's with all the spammers on here tonight?

Crap?

KDE has got all the basics down, and now they have to resist adding too much more crap.

I think KDE team is doing their good job. What do you mean by "adding more crap"? Do you mean adding more apps into the window manager? Well, you can always only download kde-base and other necessary ones if you don't like KOffice, KDevelop, and other stuffs...

Meanwhile, I like the idea to integrating their office suite with KDE. That way, you can get consistencies in user interface so that Windoze users don't get too much shock on migration.

Moreover, they're getting better every release. More stable, speedier, and more usable to users. Five years to develop this brilliant stuff is just unbelievably short. Not even Microsoft can build their lousy Win3.1 to another lousy Win2K, that took them more than 5 years...

Framework, check. Applications, next.

KDE 1.x was okay, but it's the 2.x series which delivered a nice framework with (IMHO) great technologies (DCOP, KParts, KIO). While none of these are revolutionary by themselves, they have definitely matured a lot. While the framework can use continuous improvements, it's ready.

Next step: applications. A lot of development focus of some of the core developers is shifting from kdelibs to KOffice which indeed needs more work, but the differences between 1.0 and 1.1 are a positive sign for 1.2/2.0. With a stable API (porting from Qt2/KDE 2.x to Qt3/KDE 3.x is very little work) KDE 3 should do for applications within KDE what the 2.x series did for the framework.

I doubt much more new features will be added to the core technology of the desktop. I don't get such an impression on the mailinglists or IRC either, so I wouldn't worry too much about that. :)

Kool?

Kool Desktop Environment ??? wow you learn something new everday! I take it they droped that. It would be intresting to see some screen shots of some of the first releases of KDE

Inspirational

Isn't it quite amazing to read over that newsgroup post by Matthias Ettrich? It is probably the most ambitious post about a software project (that came true!) I've ever read. I wonder how people took it at first? Most probably laughed. Now look where it has gone. He wanted something to happen, and so he (and all those who joined him) worked towards the goal to _make_ it happen. Kind of like Torvalds and Linux. Truly inspirational!

LyX

Well this wasn't Matthias Ettrich's first and only accomplishment. He also gave us the first and only usable frontend to latex [lyx.org].

I (and many other people!) swear by lyx [lyx.org] for their scientific papers. It is absolutely great. Only after this did Matthias Ettrich start KDE.

First he created a GUI for the best OS text processing system, then he went on to create the best GUI for the entire unix OS!

Unlike some other guys (Miguel, Bruce, ...) he did not become a poster child of slashdot kids, but he deserves our gratitude for his great work towards a linux (and BSD) for the end user and on many desktops.

THANK YOU!

what the KDE team should work on...

is drag-and-drop between KDE and Gnome apps. I'd like to be able to drag and drop a text document, for example, to my KDE printer icon and have it work. Or, say, a text file or spreadsheet from Nautilus to KOffice, or create a link by dragging a KDE desktop icon to a Nautilus window.

Matthias knew KDE was a big thing...

The announcement [kde.org] that Matthias made that seemed to have sparked off the KDE (and I knew only now that K stood for Kool!) gives the impression that Matthias was onto something big. He was cocksure of KDE's success, confident that it was going to be a big hit (though even Matthias mightn't have expected it to catch on like it has done). Well, thats something that's lacking in the Open Source World 5 years thence. The conviction, that what one is doing is big, and the faith in one's abilities. Guess, there are just too many bloated carcasses floating around with little support/management, and moreover no cohesive force that rallies coders around, whips up their passion into doing something new.

Way to go, Matthias. Now, if only that announcement could motivate me to getting round to completing my assignment in time.. :(

Congrats and thanks to KDE

KDE is an amazing set of products. I am using KDE 2.2 right now and compared to a product like OSX, it is competitive in terms of features and applications.

The QT libraries continue to evolve nicely, and thanks to Troll for GPL'ing the code.

Konqueror is an excellent browser product, and I consider it to be on par with the excellent Mozilla product.

KOffice is a competitve, well integrated product for people with moderate needs. I haven't had any problems yet I could not solve with KOffice.

KDevelop is the closest thing the Visual Studio on linux.

Other lesser-known product like Qunata, Kate and KXML are starting to show real promise. I would like Kate in particular to really catch fire like Emacs has over the years - its time for an editor that it totally integrated with its visual environment.

Its the integration that keeps me using KDE over GNOME, which I admit may have some stronger individual programs but just isn't stitched together like KDE is. Its amazing that this entire system is free and has source code available. I look forward to the next five years of this fantastic set of products.

Re:Congrats and thanks to KDE

2) integrated voice activation

This is a lame feature and thank god KDE does not attempt it. There is nothing more moronic than a bunch of people talking to their computers (no offense to Star Trekkers).

If the only thing I can do with this is launch programs, its just a joke.

3) An easy way to script out application action (like AppleScript)

There are about a thousand ways to do this on linux that are better than anything Apple has come up with itself. Perl. Python. Bourne Shell for christs sake. Apple has caught up to linux with scripting, but only on the basis of porting the GNU tools through BSD support.

7) A proper user interface

Well, supposedly Apple had the ultimate UI before OSX, yet they felt the need to scrap it. You can find numerous articles where UI folks and Apple greybeards shit all over OSX's interface.

Personally I like the OSX UI, but its more or less eye candy. Functionally almost nothing has changed that isn't purely cosmetic (and resource hungry).

8) Lots of properly integrated apps

No. KDE has plenty of apps well integrated through KParts. Apple has Classic and Cocoa, and will have these two environments for a VERY VERY VERY VERY LONG TIME. Since few people are working on any Mac code these days, Apple is going to be supporting MacOS9 apps until doomsday. Already Apple users are being humilliated on the shelves at retailers by Windows 98 and soon XP will finish the job.

Sure, there is a lot of distance for KDE to go, but as cool as OSX is, Apple has killed itself on strategy. When your userbase is as low as Apple, doing a total presto changeo on the OS, development tools, and even thr fricking monitor connection is just more motivation for Apple users to buy a PC next time around. I commend the for the Apple store concept, but it won't help at this point.

Re:Congrats and thanks to KDE

1)proper Drag-n-Drop everywhere.

true

2) integrated voice activation

true

3) An easy way to script out application action (like AppleScript)

Uh, it's called dcop.

4) XML for everything, and a VERY organized file structure (This is more of a linux thing).

Why exactly would you want XML for everything? XML is just a buzzword for apple to capitalize on, imho. XML isn't the fastest thing to parse either. Kconfig's key=value is much faster.

5) display pdf (or postscript) which makes making PDFs trvially easy

i heard kprint would have this soon (if it doesn't already). any app that can print could make a pdf (like adobe pdfmaker).

6) for that matter, a 4th generation display engine

sorta, all widgets in qt _are_ objects.

7) A proper user interface (workflow reads like a page, except for tools that you "pick up" from teh bottom/dock)

Not sure what you mean.. but "proper" is a very subjective term.

8) Lots of properly integrated apps

KDE is very integrated. I'd say OSX is much less (Classic).

9) A proper application structure that reduces clutter yet is more powerful than any current structure.

KDE or GNOME's .desktop files?

9) A lot of other little things that OSX has in plentitude (miscellaneous coolnesses).

Uhm, with the logic used in your post, I could argue that OSX doesn't have a proper Windows-like taskbar, and MANY other features.

don't add, just tighten

I agree that KDE should resist the urge to add too much nonsense. Tighten up what is there. Keep it fast and sexy. Gnome is still slow and bloated. Don't give in to feature creep.

Otherwise, all you've got is winblows on Linux.

Re:don't add, just tighten

Thanks to the modular design of KDE, adding new features doesn't bloat it in any way unless you actually use those features. If you use those features, then of course you have to allocate resources too them.

KDE doesn't start up features unless you actually want to use them, and this is definitely a good thing.

What do you mean add too much more crap?

The standard install from the two distributions I have used (RedHat and SuSE) cram all kinds of unusable crap on my boxes. Each new release just adds more. That stupid globe/time zone thing is the worst - I still can't figure it out - I have to kill the process just to rid it from my desktop.

Fond Memories

I remeber the first time I used KDE, way back in 1999 when Y2K was big and I was installing phat linux. I booted into X and boom, there was KDE V1.1. I fell in love with the speed, the un cluttered desktop, the themes, the games, and all of the crapps (useless apps that are cool).

Then I got KDE 1.97 just for artsd in 2000. I thought thatf it was the coolest thing ever, and now I have KDE 2.2.1. Running nonstop for a week on my box, and serving two or three X sessions on other boxes around the dorm.

Of course there are some things that I wouldn't mind added/fixed in KDE. I would like to be able to have seamless windows (ask me for a screen shot and I will email the pseudo theme to ya). Also, noatun needs to be cut down, it is too slow! mplayer won't work with artsdsp and divx plugins for mpeglib still don't work right, but I am trying to hack those in now.

All in all, KDE ROCKS!

Summers

-Wait, I can circumvent the DMCA if I am restricting internet access to minors.

My favorite KDE app to watch :) -- Scribus

It may not be central to KDE the way konqueror is, but I like to see how frequently Scribus is being updated.

DTP was the killer app for the Macintosh / LaserWriter combination in the mid-80s, and while I know that's a long time back, there still isn't a great Free software replacement for PageMaker / Quark, and Scribus looks promishing that direction. (KWord does too, I must admit, but I like the Scribus look, a lot like the PageMaker I used to like a lot.)

I didn't know it when I began drafting this response, but Scribus now also has a nice new logo and home page design:

http://web2.altmuehlnet.de/fschmid/index.html

and has added more screenshots than were previously available to the KDE Apps page:

http://apps.kde.com/na/2/show/id/1064/ss

With a GPL'd DTP program, many school newspapers could save money by teaching generic, transferable skills that would apply to the Big Name Big Money applications as well, but which they ought not be spending tax dollars on on the basis that "kids need to be ready for the workplace" because the argument just doesn't hold up as a reason to buy proprietary software, at least when anything even plausibly similar exists under a decent license.

timothy

5 Years?

I love KDE. I use it all the time. But I have one small Beef with it. It takes too much time to load any kde app. like konqueror, kdesktop, etc...

--

Resist adding more crap?

Unfortunately it's inevitable. Tomorrow's software will always require more resources than today's. New features means more code and why upgrade from software package A to A.1 (or B) unless its got more features. Each year processors, storage and RAM get faster and cheaper. Without borders (like limited storage or processing cycles) there is nothing to keep feature creep and code bloat in check. Developers have no incentive to write slimmer code since the market doesn't demand it.

And no, open source isn't going to change these facts. Open source creates piles of spaghetti code just like microsloth.

KDE has also come a long way in 5 years but honestly, how much of the GUI has been "appropriated" from Windows? It's really easy to progress quickly if you have something from which to copy.

Lyx

I learned something neat from reading this announcement. LyX existed already at the time of the announcement, which means LyX is now at least five years old as well. Dang, I didn't know that. LyX is my most-used X application and I think it belongs on every X desktop. The timing explains why LyX uses XForms instead of GTK or QT.

Behind every good GUI...

.. is a woman!

From Matthius' original newsgroup post:

"..The idea is to create a GUI for an ENDUSER. Somebody who wants to browse the web with Linux, write some letters and play some nice games.
I really believed that is even yet possible with Linux until I configured my girlfriend's box.

Yes indeed, I would like to thank Matthius and the rest of the KDE team for their enormous contributions to the future of Open Source. But most of all, I'd like to thank the nameless girlfriend who wasn't afraid to complain! (-:

The international touch

Since KDE is out of Germany and QT from Norway I was just thinking how much international connection Linux has compared to Windows or Macintosh which are completely US centric.

Linux - Finland
GNU - US
KDE - Germany
QT - Norway
GNOME - Mexico ( Miguel )
OpenOffice - Germany ( Stardivision )
Mozilla - US
SAMBA - Australia

The Original 1996 USENET Post by Matthias Ettrich

KDE Desktop Environment New Project: Kool Desktop Environment (KDE) Programmers wanted! Motivation Unix popularity grows thanks to the free variants, mostly Linux. But still a consistant, nice looking free desktop-environment is missing. There are several nice either free or low-priced applications available, so that Linux/X11 would almost fit everybody needs if we could offer a real GUI.

Of course there are GUI's. There is the Commond Desktop Environment (much too exensive), Looking Glas (not too expensive but not really the solution), and several free X-Filemanagers that are almost GUI's. Moxfm for example is very well done, but unfortunately it is based on Motif. Anyway, the question is: What is a GUI? What should a GUI be?

First of all, since there are a lot of missunderstandings on this topic, what is NOT a GUI:

• the X-Window-System is NOT a GUI. It's what its name says: A Window system
• Motif is NOT a GUI. They tried to create a GUI when they made Motif, but unfortunately they couldn't really agree, so they released Motif as Widget-Library with a Window-Manager. Much later they completed Motif with the CDE, but too late, since Windows already runs on the majority of desktops.
• Window-managers are NOT GUI's. They are (better: should be) small programs that handle the windows. It's not really the idea to hack a lot of stuff into them.

IMHO a GUI should offer a complete, graphical environment. It should allow a users to do his everyday tasks with it, like starting applications, reading mail, configuring his desktop, editing some files, delete some files, look at some pictures, etc. All parts must fit together and work together. A nice button with a nice "Editor"-icon is not at all a graphical user environment if it invokes "xterm -e vi". Maybe you have been disappointed long time ago too, when you installed X with a nice window manager, clicked on that beautiful "Help"-Icon ... chrk chrk (the hard disk)...an ugly, unsuable, weird xman appeared on the desktop :-( A GUI for endusers The idea is NOT to create a GUI for the complete UNIX-system or the System-Administrator. For that purpose the UNIX-CLI with thousands of tools and scripting languages is much better. The idea is to create a GUI for an ENDUSER. Somebody who wants to browse the web with Linux, write some letters and play some nice games.

I really believed that is even yet possible with Linux until I configured my girlfriends Box. Well, I didn't notice anymore that I work with lots of different kind of menues, scrollbars and textwidgets. I already know that some widgets need to be under the mouse when they should get the keyevents, some sliders wants the middle mouse for dragging and some textwidgets only want emacs-bindings and don't understand keys like "pos1" or "end". And selecting some text is different everywere, too. Even the menues and buttons (for exampel Xaw, Fvwm, XForms, Motif) behave completely different.

One word to the Athena-Widgets: Although there are a few nice applications available that uses these "widgets" we should really get rid of them. Thinking that "Athena is a widget-library" is a similar missunderstanding like "X is a GUI". Athena is an very old example how widget libraries could be implemented with Xlib and Xt. It's more or less a online-documentation for Widget-Set-Programmers, but not a tool for application-programmers. Unfortunately, the old Unix problem, a so good online-documentation that people used it for applications.

So one of the major goals is to provide a modern and common look&feel for all the applications. And this is exactly the reason, why this project is different from elder attempts.

Since a few weeks a really great new widget library is available free in source and price for free software development. Check out http://www.troll.no [troll.no]

The stuff is called "Qt" and is really a revolution in programming X. It's an almost complete, fully C++ Widget-library that implementes a slightly improved Motif look and feel, or, switchable during startup, Window95.

The fact that it is done by a company (Troll Tech) is IMO a great advantage. We have the sources and a superb library, they have beta testers. But they also spend their WHOLE TIME in improving the library. They also give great support. That means, Qt is also interesting for commercial applications. A real alternative to the terrible Motif :) But the greatest pro for Qt is the way how it is programmed. It's really a very easy-to-use powerfull C++-library.

Qt is also portable, yet to Windows95/NT, but you do not have to worry about that. It's very easy to use UNIX/X specific things in programming, so that porting to NT is hardly possible :-)

I really recommend looking at this library. It has IMO the power to become the leading library for free software development. And it's a way to escape the TCL/TK monsters that try to slow down all our processors and eat up our memory...

It's really time yet to standarize the desktop somewhat. It's nonsense to load 10 different widgets into memory for the same task. Imagine this desktop:

• fvwm (own widgets)
• rxvt (own widgets)
• tgif (own widgets)
• xv (own widgets)
• ghostview (athena widgets)
• lyx (xforms widgets)
• xftp (motif widgets)
• textedit (xview widgets)
• arena (own widgets)

One may argue that a usual UNIX-Box has enough memory to handle all these different kind of widgets. Even if this might be correct, the really annoying thing is, that all these widgets (menus, buttons, scrollbars, etc.) behave slightly different. And this isn't only an academic example, I've really seen such desktops :-}

I know we couldn't get rid of this chaos at once, but my dream is a coexistance between Motif and Qt. The Kool Desktop Environment (KDE) I don't have the time to do this all alone (also since LyX is my main project). But a thing like a Desktop Environment can easily be cut into lots of parts. There is very probably a part for you, too! If you want to learn some X-programming, why not doing a small, neat project for the KDE? If you know others who like to programm something, please prevend them from writing the 1004th tetris games or the 768th minesweeper clone ;-) Think we also have enough XBiffs yet...

So here is my project list so far. Probably there are even more things to do that would fit great into the KDE. It's a very open project. Panel: The basic application. Run's as FvwmModule (at the beginning). Offers a combination between Windows95 and CDE. I think about a small taskbar at the bottom and a kind of CDE-panel on the top of the screen. The panel has graphical icon menus on the left (similar to GoodStuff) to launch applications, 4 buttons in the middle to switch to other virtual desktops and few icons for often needed applications on the right. There is for example a mail-icon that also indicates new mail, a wastebasket to open the delete-folder (that also indicates when it isn't empty and is capable of drag'n'drop). Maybe a analog clock with date at the very right. Also a nice special icon for exiting the environment or locking the screen. All the stuff is completly configurable via GUI. I'm also thinking about solutions, that only available applications can be installed on the desktop and that new applications appear on the desktop automatically.

I started to work on this panel, but would of course love some help. There are also lot of smaller things to do, like a tool to chose a background pixmap (for each virtual desktop) etc.

Also nice icons are needed!

Filemanager Another major application inside the KDE. The idea is not to create a powerful high-end graphical bash-replacement (like tkdesk tries to be), but a nice looking easy-to-use filemanager for simple tasks. Simple tasks are mainly deleting some files, copying some files, copying some files to floppy disk, starting applications by clicking on a file (for example ghostview for postscript files or xli for gifs, etc).

I'm thinking about nice windows, one for each directory, that shows icons for every file. It should be possible to drag files around (either copy or move), even between different windows. Another important point is the support of the floppy-disk, so that mounting/umounting is done user-transparent.

Dragging of icons should be done in a nice way, that means moving around a special window (see Qt's xshape example), NOT like xfm or xfilemanager by setting another monochrome bitmap for the cursor.

So it will also be possible to put files as icons on the desktop. This is IMO a very nice feature. Since applications are launched by the panel, it's even clear that icons are real data-objects. With fvwm-1 and the FvwmFileMgr it wasn't really clear wether an icon is yet a file or an iconified window.

Drag'n'drop inside a Qt application isn't really difficult. The filemanager is IMO a very nice and not too time consuming project. Who wants?

mail client A really comfortable mailclient. IMO the most comfortable mailclient for X is yet XF-Mail. And the author is willing to port it to Qt when the KDE-project will start! But he asks for some assitance (for example for coding the small popups, etc.)

easy texteditor Very small but important project. An editor that fits the needs of those who have to edit a textfile once in a month and didn't find the time yet to learn vi (and don't have the time to wait for x-emacs to start, and don't have the memory to use a motif-static-nedit, and don't have the cpu-power and memory to use a tk-monster like tkedit,...)

Unfortunatly the Qt multiline-textwidget isn't available in Qt-1.0, but Troll-Tech already announced the beta-testing. So the texteditor can be started in a few weeks, too.

Terminal Similar to the CDE terminal program. A kind of xterm with nice menu bar to set the font, exit, etc. Nice project, get the xterm sources and add a GUI with Qt!

Image viewer The application that will be launced as default from the filemanager for gifs, jpegs and all this. Well, xv is shareware and really needs quite a long time for startup. But there is a plain Xlib programm without any menues or buttons called "xli". Get the sources and make it userfriendly with Qt!

Lots of small other tools:

• xdvi with Qt-Gui
• ghostview with Qt-Gui
• xmag with Qt-Gui
• whatever you want

Hypertext Help System A complete desktop environment needs a nice hypertext online help. I think the best choice would be HTML (>= 2.0). So a free Qt-based html-viewer would be a great idea. It might be possible to use the Arena-sources, but arena needs very long for startup. Maybe it would be best to start from scratch. Qt offers excellent functions for dealing with different fonts. For a help system HTML 2.0 is more than enough, some nice search function added and that's it. Since it is also possible to convert the obsolete troff man-pages to HTML, we can also integrate the original UNIX help system.

BTW: There is a Troll Tech Qt-competition (look at their webpages). The best application (not only functionallity, but also design counts. Just porting an existing great application to Qt won't probably be enough :-( ) wins $2000 and a few Qt on NT licenses (worth another $2000). They also mentioned a browser-project as an example. So a nice HTML-browser in Qt, ready in Janurary may be worth $4000 (This includes selling the unneeded NT licenses ;-) )

Window Manager At the beginning, the KDE panel will work as an Fvwm-Module. When this is done, a lot of stuff can be stripped from the bloated fvwm window manager. We don't need anymore fvwm-menus, icon handling and zillions of configurable things. We need a small, realiable windowmanager. So maybe stripping all unncessary stuff from fvwm will make sense in a while. But this may come very last.

System Tools Whatever a user, or you, might need. A graphical passwd comes to my mind. But probably there are a lot more! Maybe this will lead to a small system administration tool someday.

Games We have yet a nice tetris game (an Qt example program). What is needed is a nice set of small games like solitaire (please with nice cards that can be really dragged!). There are several nice card games available for X, for example xpat2. So why not take the cards from them and write a real solitaire games, very similar to MS-Solitaire. I really had to install Wine sometimes just to play solitair, what an overhead! But other games are needed, too. Take xmris, pacman, etc. add a nice GUI. Or write some from scratch. Whatever you want :)

Icons A set of nice icons. 3D-pixmaps are quite a good start (but why should the button be inside a pixmap, if we use a toolkit with buttons???)

Documentation A documentation project is always a good thing to have. But before we should clearify how the hypertext help system should look like. We can then start with documentation pages in the chosen HTML-subset and for example use arean as help browser. Anyway we need some application to document first.

Web-Pages / Ftp Server / Aministration We need a server for the files and webpages that inform about the state of the project. Especially what projects are currently worked on and what projects still wait for somebody to do them. I set up a preliminary homepage on http://www-pu.informatik.uni-tuebingen.de/users/et trich [uni-tuebingen.de] that just contains this posting yet and a few links. I may setup real webpages for the very beginning but I would be very happy if I could concentrate on discussion and coding. So if there is someone out there in the net who likes to design and maintain webpages, here is a job for him :)

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Applications When the KDE gets widely accepted, new (free) applications will hopefully be based on Qt, too, to fit with the comfortable and pleasant look and feel of the desktop.

We may for example port LyX to Qt, so that a comfortable wordprocessor is available. But that is still in discussion in the LyX Team.

A nice vector-orientated drawing tool would also be fine. Well, Xfig is a powerful but ugly monster. But there is "tgif", a very powerful, easy to use but ugly program. The author doesn't like the idea of adding a Qt GUI for the menus, icons and scrollbars, since Qt is C++ and he wants to keep tgif plain C, since on some sites no C++ compiler is available. Well, the KDE doesn't really aim on these old and weird UNIX boxes (also I think a g++ is almost everywhere available). But maybe the tgif-author agrees when somebody else adds a nice GUI to tgif (the sources are free, don't know wether this is GPL). Since tgif yet implements its own GUI this shouldn't be too difficult. It's really easy with Qt to access plain Xlib functionality and functions, so not very much will have to be rewritten. Also C++ makes it very easy to include plain C code.

What about an easy to use, nice newsreader similar to knews? Could also be integrated into the KDE. ... and ... and ... and.

So there is a lot of work (and fun) to do! If you are interested, please join the mailing list. If we get about 20-30 people we could start. And probably before 24th December the net-community will give itself another nice and longtime-needed gift.

The stuff will be distributed under the terms of the GPL.

I admit the whole thing sounds a bit like fantasy. But it is very serious from my side. Everybody I'm talking to in the net would LOVE a somewhat cleaner desktop. Qt is the chance to realize this. So let us join our rare sparetime and just do it!

Hopefully looking foward to lots of followups and replies! Regards,

Matthias Ettrich
([e-mail] [mailto])

BTW: Usually these postings get a lot of answers like "Use a Mac if you want a GUI, CLI rules!", "I like thousands of different widgets-libraries on my desktop, if you are too stupid to learn them, you should use windoze", "RAM prices are so low, I only use static motif programs", "You will never succeed, so better stop before the beginning", "Why Qt? I prefer schnurz-purz-widgets with xyz-lisp-shell. GPL! Check it out!", etc. Thanks for not sending these as followup to this posting :-) I know I'm a dreamer...

BTW2: You might wonder why I'm so against Tk. Well, I don't like the philosophy: Tk's doesn't have a textwidget, for example, but a slow wordprocessor. Same with other widgets. In combination with TCL the programs become slow and ugly (of course there are exceptions). I didn't yet see any application that uses Tk from C++ or C, although an API seems to exist. TCL/TK is very usefull for prototyping. Ideal for example for kernel configuration. And since Tk looks little similar to Motif, the widgets are also quite easy to use. But I really don't like any TCL/Tk application to stay permanantly on the desktop. And Qt is much easier (at least as easy) to program. Check it out!

BTW3: I don't have any connections to Troll Tech, I just like their product (look at the sources: really high quality!) and their kind of marketing: free sourcecode for free software. Original document by Matthias Ettrich [mailto],
HTMLized by Matt McLeod [mailto]

Congrats!

Just adding to the MEE TOO croud I guess, but I think KDE's getting close to surpassing the obvious ENEMY(TM). XP is already getting messy, I can't wait until the real fit hits the shan.

Slashdot = birthday announcement site

E-mail is 30!
KDE is 5!
StarOffice is 1!

praise and criticism

KDE is a great achievement, it works well, and it looks nice. But I'm still not using it, and I'm certainly not developing for it. Why?

• C++ is deeply ingrained in the system; I don't believe that's where the future of application programming is going. I also believe that the use of C++ makes KDE slow and resource intensive.
• A lot of KDE just duplicates existing functionality, but using the Qt toolkit and KDE libraries, all in the name of KDE integration. But often, the KDE equivalents are less functional.
• KDE consumes huge amounts of resources and starts up lots of processes.
• The KDE/Qt licenses (GPL/commercial) restrict my ability to create open source software (say, under BSD or LGPL licenses). I think the licenses are also harmful from the point of view of trying to attract more commercial developers to the Linux platform. Toolkits are a commodity these days, and they shouldn't be the major cost when choosing a platform.
• KDE is replicating an old paradigm--the Windows desktop; I don't think that's where the industry is going.

KDE has its place in the world--something for people who think Windows is easy to use and want a similar environment for Linux/UNIX. I'm not sure it can compete with Windows, because Windows isn't really about quality, it's about complete, detailed compatibility. But that's for others to decide.

I just hope KDE won't become the predominant Linux/UNIX desktop. In fact, I hope no single desktop will become "predominant" on Linux/UNIX--the strength of Linux/UNIX has been its diversity and flexibility. And I hope the KDE developers are smart enough to realize that they can't produce something that satisfies everybody--that would be the same trap Microsoft has fallen into.

KDE Distro

Why not go all out and just make a KDE Linux distro for everyone out there who wants consistency across the board? I am not much of a KDE user but I do think that this would be the best possible setup for casual users, those new to Linux, and even corporate users. It would also be the end of having multiple apps to do the same thing as KDE seems intent on providing at least a graphical front end to the most commonly used utilities. Seems like a good way to provide a decent system for the less technically inclined out there.

Linux, the great spawner

Imagine KDE without Linux! It seems downright impossible. Coming to think of it, Linux has spawned a large number of new, original open software projects- and helped in the growth of existing ones. KDE was the greatest among them.
The GNU project rose to such a big prominence and fame and an important reason was the popularity of linux! KDE too is the 'reason' for the GNOME desktop environment- the reason officially given was a bad license.
Now all the projects are influencing each other - for eg. KDE being slow has caused thoughts about g++ and GNU linker. In this way all the projects are influencing each other causing better development and this is yet another novel condition created by open software movement.

KDE status

It's good to see the progress that KDE has made, and in such a short amount of time. It seems well designed and has lots of great features. I remember how impressed I was with KDE when I first saw it. It was version 1.1 running on FreeBSD 3.2, a rock solid combination.

The 2.x series is much better in terms of usability than was 1.x, but it lacks one major thing that 1.x had: stability. With 2.x, I get occasional (much too frequent) Konqueror crashes and Noatun crashes. 2.x is also a little on the slow side. I'd really like to see it slimmed down and optimized. Of course, now that they're already planning the release of 3.x, maybe the 2.x series will just end up as the interim between the great debut and the greatness that lies ahead in 3.0.

Anyway, happy birthday KDE, you're the greatest of the Unix desktops!

nostalgia

For pure nostalgia, I was wondering if anyone tried the first ever release of KDE? perhaps got any screenshots to brag about?

Not reall fair

I think this has already been said, but I'm gonna say it anyway because its a fairly important point.

Microsoft were developing an operating system as well as a gui, and a proportion of what they were doing was original work (althogh it could be argued that a lot was lifted from MacOS and OS/2). The KDE team are only developing half a GUI (they are based on X-Windows after all) and most of the ideas are directly lifted from Windows anyway.

On a personal note, I find KDE an awful GUI to use. It has nothing like the responsiveness or stability of Windows and while it is okay for running odd GUI applications, it is no substitiute for a command line as the explorer shell is in Windows. They have some way to go before they reach that level of usability, and as long as they stick to X-Windows, I doubt they will ever achieve the same level of responsiveness.

Congrats to the KDE team!

It's amazing what you have achieved in such a short time!

One thing that is still missing is the possibility to configure "everything". To make it even more useful than it already is, it should be possible to configure basically "everything" from the control center. I know this is what the different distro's deliver and there is also the "little" problem that KDE also runs on FreeBSD among others and the differences between the distros. All this makes it more or less impossible (well that's what I've heard/read earlier) to create something like that.
Still the fact remains, it would be nice to have. Instead of having to use YAST in Suse and *Drake tools in Mandrake, etc. it would be nice if it was simply available from the control center - it's the same stuff I want to configure, whether I run Suse, Mandrake, FreeBSD on the box and IMHO it belongs in the KDE Control Center, not as a separate tool. It would make KDE an even more Integrated Desktop

As this seems to be up to the distro's to create such tools, I have a little idea, which probably will never be a reality and maybe it is not even possible (warning: I'm rambling now :) ):
What about creating something that works with a LSB compliant distro and is easy to tailor for each distro maker and even for *BSD, etc. to fit the way the different *nix'es is configured.

Good but not modular enough (KMail)

I'm not sure if "modular" is the right word, but here is my gripe:

I installed KDE2 for the first time a few weeks ago and I love it. It's a great desktop and everyone who helped in its development deserves thanks. But when I decided that I wanted to upgrade KMail so I could have the new IMAP functionality, I found out that I can't upgrade just KMail. I would have to upgrade my entire KDE2 installation, which is no easy task for those of us who are new to it.

At least I have broadband. Imagine the poor guys on dialup that have to download all of KDE just to upgrade the mail client.

So for now I'm using Balsa [freshmeat.net] which seems to get the job done. But I miss KMail... other than lacking IMAP support, the version I have is great (easy filtering, nice GUI, etc.).

And yes, you could claim that you just need to upgrade the knetwork package. But that requires other ones which require other ones. Following the dependency trail you end up installing the whole KDE system again. Don't you think you should allow upgrades of individual components?

Gripe with Konqueror...

It's too slow, especially on opening new windows, makes explorer on Windows look good. The file manager that *really* shows how it should be done in terms of speed is rox (http://rox.sourceforge.net/). I also love the concept of AppDirs for programs, which would be neat if everyone used it, could solve a lot of problems that we need packages for. It may not translate as well to libraries, but even there it could have uses. And it's not ugly. I don't care if there is a web browser in my file manager, I just want something that looks and feels nice, while being efficient, unlike Konqueror and Nautilus. Though ROX development is less complex (no extensive toolkit stuff), it provides a good file manager and good AppDir philosophy that should be considered more...

Thank you to KDE as well as Gnome, OpenStep, etc.

In the dawn of time (the mid 80s :), X battled a number of compettitors for the seat of UNIX graphical display interface. There was News from Sun, a system I can't remember the name of from Digital, Domain/OS and its unusual networked display technology (from which CORBA is, oddly enough, the only surviving descendent).

That battle was won by X because its source code was free and because it was so well designed. But, that battle forced the state of the art to improve.

Today there are many desktops for UNIX and UNIX-like systems. KDE really led us out of the dark ages (from systems like CDE, shudder), and GNOME, OpenStep, and others continue to make interesting and innovative progress. One day, one of these systems will probably win out, but until then I'd just like to say thank you to all of them. You are pushing the state of the art further forward than most of us could have imagined 10 years ago!

Many will not remember the days of VT100 terminals and UNIX-as-endurance-test work environments. I do, and I'm very grateful!

My congratulations to KDE team!

My congratulations to KDE developers team and all KDE users!

Just keep it going!

Best Regards,

Vadim Plessky

It still doesn't pass the 'wife' test...

This weekend, I tried Mandrake 8.1 (with KDE 2.2.x) on the wife. And then I ended up re-installing Windows 98 about three hours later.

For the past three years, client-side Linux hasn't passed the 'wife' test. My wife is just a regular schmoe who doesn't know a Linux kernal from a corn kernal.

I know that the predominant thought is that KDE/Gnome isn't out to compete with Windows. But SOMEBODY has to if we want to introduce competition into the market in order to have a viable Microsoft alternative.

And right now, KDE (or Gnome) just isn't there. Frequent crashes. The stock browsers are lame. Hardware support is limited. Voice conferencing is next to none. Webcam support is limited -- my Logitech WebCam is the most popular in history -- yet isn't supported without a kernel recompile and makefile hacking. Browser plugins are very tedious to install and get going -- causing crashes and other niceties.

Forget trying to install new software easily. Gnome does this 'vanilla' sometimes, but KDE is horrid. Both environments need their desktop environments to be more in touch with the layout of the OS. Right now, the end-user really has to be a developer in order to make installed software integrate properly with the desktop. Boo. Hiss.

Needless to say, my wife tried it. She tried to install two popular new pieces of software on it (StarOffice and Opera) and failed. Whereas, in Windows, she is pleased that she can install most software without any headache. For a non-computer person to accomplish things on a computer makes them feel good. In this case, it made her feel dumb.

When we were all done, she said the same thing that she has said for the last three years.

"Linux makes me feel stupid. I don't know how to make it work. Put Windows back."

That isn't to say that I didn't see improvements in KDE. I saw some. I just didn't see anything monumental enough where the end-user/easy-to-use experience is concerned.

I guess KDE and Gnome will crawl before they walk. I just hope they don't crawl for much longer. Nevertheless, I will try it again next year on the wife... and see how it works out.

kde?

i've been using gnome this whole time. but after reading about all the stuff that's suppposed to be good about it, i decided to give it a try... i had it installed but never really used it for my day-to-day tasks...

i'm very interested why after 5 years of development of kde there still arent many themes out there... kde.themes.org seemingly never updates, and kde-look.org has a lot of themes but they all require you to compile from source, which is annoying especially if you lack a few libraries and you need to find the right package and download them. cant they package it into something like sawfish-themes so that i can do an apt-get and everything is installed?

About "more crap"

About "more crap":

I totally agree. What the KDE team needs to do now is rip out the internals and simplify them. There's no reason why something like KDE couldn't run speedily on a P200 with 64MB of RAM if it was properly designed.

I'm not saying KDE sucks any more than anyone would say Linux 2.2's VM sucks. Both were good considerng the experience of the programmers and designers, but they both need(ed) revision. There will probably be wailing and gnashing of teeth, but when it's done, it will be worth it.

Re:The GUI of choice of child molesters

The Linux community needs to ban KDE from spreading.

Ah, but just like Linux itself, KDE is under the GPL and thus a cancer, so it will continue to spread. :)

(for completeness, kdelibs is LGPL)

Re:Achievement is relative

Yes, I'm going to argue with you on this. What the hell are you talking about?

They still don't label toolbar buttons

Sure they do. I don't know what apps you're using, but I just did a spot check on five fairly important apps: konqueror, kdict, kword, kate, and kmail. All of them had their toolbar buttons had tooltips labeling what they did.

They still have the same ridiculously small buttons that have ridiculously slow access times and icons that are so small they don't mean a damn thing.

The icon size can be adjusted. All the icons, such as disk types, folders, printing, etc. all make perfect sense to me. They look much like what they represent. Which icons are you specifically talking about?

You try to tell these people about something like Fitts Law but they really don't want to hear that.

Um... how exactly do you want to apply Fitt's Law? The mac-style option to have a single menu bar that one can easily reach is in KDE. The main menu that you use, the K menu, is in the bottom left corner of the screen by default. And you can set any mouse button you want to pop up your app menu, further minimizing the distance to that option (I love that feature).

All in all though, the KDE team seems to be less interested in providing a desktop that is optimized towards Fitt's Law than in providing one that people are already comfortable with. That's their decision, and if you don't like it, the options I mentioned are there for you, as is the source for you to hack yourself.

Re:Please mod him up!

Why did you mod him as troll? Trolling is senseless bashing, but this guy has some serious points and backs them with proper information.

You're narrowing the definition too much.
From the jargon file:

troll: /v.,n./ [From the Usenet group
alt.folklore.urban] To utter a posting on {Usenet}
designed to attract predictable responses or {flame}s. Derives
from the phrase "trolling for {newbie}s" which in turn comes
from mainstream "trolling", a style of fishing in which one
trails bait through a likely spot hoping for a bite. The
well-constructed troll is a post that induces lots of newbies and
flamers to make themselves look even more clueless than they
already do, while subtly conveying to the more savvy and
experienced that it is in fact a deliberate troll. If you don't
fall for the joke, you get to be in on it.

Some people claim that the troll is properly a narrower category

than {flame bait}, that a troll is categorized by containing
some assertion that is wrong but not overtly controversial.

Re:Achievement is relative

They still don't label toolbar buttons.

Unfortunately not by default, but this can be set on a per-toolbar basis (right-click and the menu is pretty self-explanatory), or globally (I believe) in the control panel.

ridiculously small buttons [...] icons that are so small

This can also be configured in the control panel, although it again is neither default nor exceptionally easy to accomplish.

While I don't think your examples are necessarily the best ones, I totally agree that there are some serious usability issues present in KDE. Some of these are the result of heavily borrowing from the MS Windows interface (the multi-level hierarchical Start/K menu and the task bar come to mind). Many other issues, such as menu and dialog inconsistencies, are the result of either flawed standards documents or developers occasionally ignoring them.

I'm not sure what the issues are that are affecting usability improvements in KDE. Hopefully they *are* being resolved, and we'll see some improvements in teh next versions.

Do you really have to post this on every thread?

It's getting old, really. Can't you think of a better troll?

Re:I like gnome more

Prove it yourself. The GPL is designed for situations like this. The KDE source code is available for your eyes. Compare the KDE source code against the RedHat KDE source code.

You may not be a programmer (I'm not), but I'm sure you can do the basics like compare checksum sizes, look at the headers of some files, diff a couple of different files.

To be honest, your crashing problem might be due to bad drivers for your videocard, or some other hardware problem (got enough memory?)

Re:I like gnome more

This is most likely due to a graphics driver problem in X. This was known to be a big problem with a specific NVidia card on SuSE previously.

Re:Achievement is relative

toolbar buttons>

right click on toolbar, then you can chose text aside icon, text only, icon only, or text under icon.

icons>

kde icons are specially developed for usability, unlike other desktop environments and OS's (OSX's "cool" icons come to mind).

Re:Let me get this straight...

Are you just upset you wasted so much time reading through the threads or are you really upset when people take time out of their busy day to stop and reflect on the simple things in life like Cowboy Bebop, jammies and Shreadies (apostrophes are not used to denote plural.. ever..OK) and the tools with which they work. Point me at a page that tells me how to behave please cause it's not real obvious that what you are doing in thought policing /. is helping anyone.

Re:Achievement is relative

I happen to prefer more icons than having gigantic 3/4 inch icons. My screen is running at 1600x1024 (and is 19"), so most icons are aobut 3/8 of an inch. And it doesn't bug me in the least.

Re:KDE has got all the basics down

sure you can... use sawfish+kicker+kdesktop, it works well since sawfish uses the unified WM hints.

kde cvs has those kinds of key binding support tho.. i switch back to kwim+kicker when I use kde3. I'd argue that kde is a lot more customizabity than GNOME as well.

Re:Look at reality

Maybe the answer to your question lies in the simple fact that KDE and GNOME aren't Windows? Weird. I don't think you've ever used CDE before or else you'd realize where Windows got nearly all of its ideas for not only how the interface ought to act and look but also the sort of features that they ought to include. Both GNOME and KDE came from the concepts CDE originally pioneered not Windows. Only recently have KDE and GNOME been developing Windows-like features due to the increased demand for them. As OSS projects they're also under the philosophy that if you want something you can go ahead and build it yourself. If you want a KDE or GNOME docklet that acts like the Windows Start menu you can pretty easily build your own. As an individual user this may seem like a ridiculous concept but for those with the wil land way this is very beneficial. I can write a GNOME docklet that looks just like the new Windows XP Start Panel (which I happen to like, it reminds me of the *Step panel). I think KDE and GNOME are pretty impressive actually. Windows has been in the works for nearly two decades where they both have been in development for just now half a decade and have pretty incredible functionality.

Re:KDE has got all the basics down

>. For example, in KDE, I can't rearrange the key
>mappings to launch a terminal when I press C-A->t.

You've not really used KDE then have you - just messed around with it a little.

You use KMenuEdit to assign keys to applications. It uses KHotkeys - which in 2.2.x is unfortunately buggy - as soon as you use Ctrl and Alt keys, it wipes out other keystrokes of the same keys - ie, assigning alt+F1 will produce the same action as pressing F1.

Your example is false.

I assume you are much more familiar with GNOME than with KDE. So you might think KDE is less configurable, but it isn't.

To start any app (e.g. konsole) with a key, right click on the K button. Choose Personal Preferences. Select the application you want to assign a key to (konsole is in System). Then look at the bottom [Assuming KDE-2.2.1, older verions had a second tab labeled "Advanced"]. Select "change" associated keys. Press your Keys or set the default key (if there is one). Press OK. Done.

About the panel, that used to happen in KDE-2.0 maybe, but not in the KDE-2.2 series. Anyways, just hit ALT+F2 and type "kicker" to regain the panel. Also file a bug report if you can replicate the behaviour.

Typical blinkered slashdot crowd

Well written argument for windows: 1

Gimpy badly formatted irrelevant reply supporting *ix stuff: 2

Q & A short session

Q : Why I can't XXX in KDE? I can in windows.
A: Because :

• Not enough users have asked for it;
• Not enough developers are interested in implementing it.

In general, because KDE developers aren't interested in competing with Windows. Their attitude is just to 'make a better KDE'(to paraphrase Linus about Linux), for themselves and their users.

Q: do the issues you have listed improve 'functionality, asthetics, stability and user-friendliness'?
A: They obviously do, for you. They don't, for me. You see, I'm quite minimalist about my GUI nowadays: I don't even use KDE (or GNOME) anymore. I can figure out how to make title bold. I know how to bind keystrokes to my most used applications (so I don't even have to touch the mouse) and I prefer to personalize the menus myself instead of having the computer to do it ( computers are notoriously bad-asses at doing human-related activities).
Anyway, this is just me. But then, what you said is 'just you'. KDE is a success because it has a large user base, and they do not seem disappointed. Neither you nor me belongs to this user base: so, stick with Windows XP (or whatever), while I will stick with my collection of oddly-assorted (but highly functional for me) GUI mini-tools.

Re:Look at reality

>>Why does KDE crash so often? I thought open source software is supposed to be high quality, emphasizing stability. Windows doesn't crash nearly as often.

>Huh? I think you have this backwards.

No I have it the right way around. My Windows uptime is seconded only by my Linux box which doesn't have any GUI installed. Don't pin obsolete ideas on new software.

Re:Look at reality

This is exactly what I mean. "kamera ioslave"? Who do you expect to guess that that will do what I want? How many non-software guys even know what that means? I've used Linux for the past 7 years and programmed for the past 15 and I don't know what that means. Am I expected to read some stupid HOWTO somewhere to find out how to capture from a camera? It is the complete opposite of user friendliness.

If I wanted a hackers' operating system, I would use Linux console.

Re:things i dont like in kde2.x

You can remap all of the shortcut sequences in the control center. In fact, the kde I use (from debian unstable) came with a category of key bindings that was emacs-ish. Ctrl-s is "search", for instance.