OSDL to Bridge GNOME and KDE

Trax88 writes "Open Source Development Labs is previewing work that will attempt to make life easier for software companies by bridging GNOME and KDE. The effort, called Portland Project, began showing its first software tools on in conjunction with this week's LinuxWorld Conference & Expo. Using them, a software company can write a single software package that works using either of the prevailing graphical interfaces. Working with Freedesktop.org on unifying interface issues, they plan to release a beta version of the software in May and version 1.0 in June. Ultimately, advocates hope that it will be part of a larger but separate effort called Linux Standard Base, which is designed to make the operating system easier for software companies to use."

But...

[tetabiate]

The benevolent dictator said:

"I personally just encourage people to switch to KDE.

This "users are idiots, and are confused by functionality" mentality of
Gnome is a disease. If you think your users are idiots, only idiots will
use it. I don't use Gnome, because in striving to be simple, it has long
since reached the point where it simply doesn't do what I need it to do.

Please, just tell people to use KDE."

Let's not get off track.

[jforest1]

This is not a new desktop. This is a layer of separation between developers and the underlying graphics libraries Qt (KDE) and GTK (Gnome). This is so I can code an app using this new API and it will run and look good on both KDE and GTK systems.

Gnome Logo on Slashdot

[anandpur]

Hi all,

Please consider this email a formal request from the GNOME Foundation.

We, being the GNOME Foundation, as well as many GNOME Foundation members and
contributors to the project, have contacted you numerous times over the last
four years regarding the use of the old GNOME logo on Slashdot. We've posted
comments on Slashdot stories covering GNOME. We've been very nice about it.

Please update the icon used for GNOME stories on Slashdot. We have used this
logo since 2002, when GNOME 2.0 was released. It has been a *very long* time
since the marble foot logo represented our project. We're now at GNOME 2.14,
so we've shipped seven releases since the new logo was adopted. In that time
you have posted over 120 articles in the GNOME category on Slashdot.

We'd really appreciate it if you updated the icon. It may not be a big deal
to you guys, but our logo is a mark of pride for our project. We'd like to
see it used.

Thanks,

- Jeff

From: http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-list/200 6-March/msg00002.html [gnome.org]
http://blogs.gnome.org/view/jamesh/2006/03/20/0 [gnome.org]
http://www.gnome.org/~jdub/random/logo/ [gnome.org]

Re:Will they be able to deal with KDE sound apps?

[Billly Gates]

I am waiting for kde4 myself. I used to be a kde fanatic but switched to gnome.

The UI and speed is horrendous and gnome is improving with every release. Kde4 is going to have a much cleaner and better interface with huge architectural changes. I look forward to it so I can try kde again.

Gnome user Converted to KDE Here

[phoenix.bam!]

I'll tell you why I saw the light.. I was using Ubuntu with it's Gnome desktop.
Gnome was doing me well until I wanted to change something and couldn't. (Window manager metacity blows) So i switched to KDE's window manager, kwin.

Then one day I realized I liked Amarok and digiKam so I installed Kubuntu Desktop via apt-get while using Ubuntu. Figured I'd give KDE a try.

Within an hour I had KDE configured to look exactly like my gnome desktop, to every last button and taskbar. Then I realized, I didn't have to make it like gnome at all!

So in summary. KDE Is better than GNOME because KDE can look like GNOME but GNOME cannot look like KDE. Same as all squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares. Gnome is a square.

Also, i had a preconcieved notion that KDE was a Windows desktop clone, which it might be at first glance, but you can quickly and easily make it your own.

Gnome is just inferior in comparison, but I still run it on my laptop.

Re:Merge ?

[Kjella]

After all, Firefox is now the main F/OSS web browser with a large dominance among the F/OSS community. And it's not that bad. Why would it be so bad with desktop managers ?

Well, I'd say fairly different design philosophies. Using two completely different toolkits, written in two different lanuages. Actually, I think it's more the latter than the former. If you could incorporate both Gnome and KDE as a set of "preferences" of the same desktop manager, there'd at least be a lot less reason to argue about it. But in reality it's just as much a Gtk/Qt competition underneath. Since the C/C++ standard library is tiny compared to many languages, both sides know a whole lot about their own toolkit and little about the other. Not to mention C and C++ aren't actually the same, despite C++ once branched off from C. It's like trying to get a Java and C# programmer to talk together (ok, not quite as bad). That and that Gtk is LGPL, while Qt is GPL + commercial license. Naturally some people will fall into each camp.

Besides, it wouldn't be that bad if projects like this means Gnome and KDE projects would actually mix in a good way. Why should it really matter to the end-user what it was programmed in? For all he cares it could be written in ruby on rails. Then he can pick on its merits and not just which "side" an application is on. Now, I could get started on packaging formats but then I'd just work up some frustration. Download sites have one build for every Windows version, and one build for every version of every Linux distro. Which may not even look well unless you're on the "right" side.

Re:Let's not get off track.

[eyegone]

This is not a new desktop. This is a layer of separation between developers and the underlying graphics libraries Qt (KDE) and GTK (Gnome).

No it isn't. It is a set of tools that will allow applications (including installers) to do things like add menu items, add icons to the desktop, enable/disable the screensaver, etc. in a desktop-independent way.

What it does

[Kelson]

I've been running KDE apps on GNOME and vice-versa for years, largely thanks to the work of Freedesktop.org at getting them to use common drag-n-drop, system menus, and notification area. So based on the incredible lack of information in the article, I had to wonder... WTF does this do that isn't already possible?

The Portland project page isn't particularly informative either -- the description is too low-level: "we're going to create two interfaces." OK, two interfaces to do what?

The Integration Tasks [freedesktop.org] page actually provides information about what kinds of things they want to do: make sure apps built for both desktops will talk to the screen saver in the same way, deal with power management, share preferences like default apps, etc.

Sounds like a logical continuation of FreeDesktop.org's efforts so far, and something that will improve matters for people like me who like some apps from one desktop and some from the other.

Re:Merge ?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're nonsensical, smarty.

On Linux, Firefox uses GTK widgets and the GTK file browser to choose files (during Save as... etc).

Re:Merge ?

[tylers]

His comment actually makes perfect sense. He speaks of the Firefox "File -> Save Page As..." and "File -> Open File..." dialogs, which are _really_ ugly and nonfunctional. Especially the Save Page As dialog. There is no way, for example, to see a list of files which includes sizes. The GIMP has the same ugly and nonfunctional save/open interfaces.

If I didn't like Firefox so much more than Konqueror, I'd switch myself. I hate the dialogs. The KDE versions are _much_ better, and I say this as a Fluxbox user who has spent a lot of time in both gnome and KDE.

--Tyler

no, it won't

[penguin-collective]

Vendors like Sun will continue to choose Gnome over KDE, for the simple reason that KDE costs money for non-GPL development.

Re:Let's not get off track.

[g2devi]

It's actually a bit broader than that.

One thing that looks as if it will happen is that Gtk+, Qt, and any widget set wishing to be a part of the family will have a common event loop:
http://lists.osdl.org/pipermail/desktop_architects /2005-December/000229.html [osdl.org]

One of the cool things that results from this is that it'll be possible to embed Gtk+ applications into Qt and vise versa. That will eventually allow you to write a KPart (in KDE) or GPart (in GNOME) that can be embedded transparently in the other:
http://www.scheinwelt.at/~norbertf/common_main_loo p/ [scheinwelt.at]

There also appears to be some work in unifying the GNOMEVFS and KIOSLAVES:
http://www.scheinwelt.at/~norbertf/common-vfs/ [scheinwelt.at]

Re:GTK File completion broken in all versions trie

[Knuckles]

I just tried it serveral times in Firefox 1.5.0.1 on Ubuntu Dapper, and it works there. Not only do I have tab completion, the text field even pops up a chooser list to help resolve ambiguities.

Re:But...

[abigor]

No, it's not the same in Gnome, trust me. Read his comment again. What he's doing is all from within the file dialogue, and is thus available to any KDE app by default. There is no need to "connect to a server" explicitly, and then manually move the file. I can pop open a file in Kate via fish:// (in fact, I'm doing that right now), edit it, and periodically hit ctrl-s to save. It transparently uploads it to the server via ssh, and I just keep on editing as if it were a local file. There is no need to manually move the file back up to the server, create a local copy, or whatever.

The KDEPrint framework is the same: every app that can print can print to PDF, by default. The dialogue is always the same; everything is very consistent across apps. In KDE, if you've seen one print dialogue, you've literally seen them all. Gnome feels unintegrated by comparison.