farnz's Journal: KDE or GNOME at Novell; my speculation

Since man and dog seem to have an opinion on whether Novell plans to go for KDE or GNOME as the base of its Linux desktop, I thought I'd join in with a few of my views.

First, a disclaimer; I use KDE, and have done for seven years. I've tried GNOME on and off in those seven years, and I've continually come away with a feeling that there's good ideas there that just haven't quite come through in the implementation. Therefore, I prefer KDE; the implementation works well for me, and doesn't seem to have a sort of almost-there "feel".

The question that needs to be answered (and I believe we've got 6-12 months before we get an official response) is why Novell bought both Ximian and SuSE. I can see three possibilities:

1. Ximian for the desktop, SuSE for the server or as a distro to run Ximian on top of. For obvious reasons, this is the version that the Ximian guys would like us to believe.
2. Ximian bought as a Linux company. When it didn't seem to have everything Novell wanted, SuSE bought too. In this version, management have no clue what they're doing with both companies, and it's going to take some time for things to settle down; once things have settled, then we'll see Novell making choices.
3. Ximian bought as a complete, ready to run Linux desktop system. Nothing else needed, just stick in the Ximian CD, install to a fresh PC, and run. When this turned out to be wrong, SuSE bought to fill in the gaps, and if SuSE's desktop offering is "as good" as Ximian's, and already integrated, find a way to drop Ximian nicely. This is the Ximian people's nightmare scenario; I doubt that they actively misled Novell during the purchase, but I could see Novell assuming one thing, and Ximian not realising they had to correct that mistake.

In my view, #2 is the most likely; there are other targets for the base distro who would have been cheaper than SuSE. There are also cheaper ways to get good Linux people involved that wouldn't have brought so many KDE people into Novell.

#1 is unlikely since I'd have expected Novell to find someone DE-neutral, or GNOME focused if they were looking for something to integrate with Ximian. #3 is also unlikely, since it implies both a lack of due diligence on Novell's part, and a degree of dishonesty on Ximian's part.

So, given that Novell hasn't really worked out this Linux thing yet, and is just buying interesting looking companies until it has the product range it's after, which DE do I think will become Novell's choice?

At the moment, it's looking more and more like KDE. In the early stages of this sort of integration, most managers are looking to see who's ready to work with whom, and who's noisy and potential trouble. So far, I've seen independent journalists create trouble by saying that Novell is going all QT; SuSE and Novell insiders have stayed quiet on this, while Ximian guys have run around on forums like Slashdot telling us that Novell hasn't chosen yet. I'd have expected any response to the Heise article to have been done via a press release, or a request to Heise to correct themselves, and I'd also have expected that the usual company confidential stuff would prevent insiders from speaking without a press release or other official document to point at.

I do believe that the Ximian guys are being truthful; I just suspect that management are going to look at them acting outside of standard PR channels with suspicion, and when you're trying to work out which teams in the companies you've bought will tow the party line, and which will stand up and shout when you don't want them to, poking your head above the parapet like that is unwise.

I also doubt strongly that anything is permanent yet; I could be completely wrong, and Ximian guys could be commenting after seeing an internal memo that involves retraining every KDE person in SuSE to use GNOME instead. However, my gut feeling is that SuSE and Novell people are staying quiet because they've got nothing to fear. Ximian guys are being noisy because they're under threat.

Edit: One last reason why Ximian is more under threat than SuSE's KDE; Ximian is already a separate, easy to sell business unit, with two potential buyers out there (Sun and Red Hat). SuSE's KDE people are going to be harder to deal with.