Richard Stallman On KDE/GNOME Cooperation 411
Karma Sucks writes: "For the first time that I remember, RMS is encouraging collaboration between the GNOME and KDE projects. He offers a concrete idea: Unifying the themes between KDE and GNOME. Matthias Ettrich once went far enough to propose a default unified 'Linux' theme that both Qt and GTK+ could support."
kde-look.org (Score:4, Informative)
Re:kde-look.org (Score:3, Informative)
Hoping (Score:2, Insightful)
Plus, it always seems KDE looks better than Gnome, though I don't know why. Just my opinion.
Re:Hoping (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Hoping (Score:2)
Did you... ever try Mandrake? I think your dream has been a reality for a while.
This happened a long time ago. (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.kde.org/announcements/k3c-announce.h
In addition to native KDE2 themes, we are pleased to announce that KDE now supports pixmap GTK themes. For importing a GTK theme into KDE, you just need to use the 'klegacyimport' wizard, available as a little standalone GUI application. However, while GTK themes are displayed faster and more efficiently than even native GTK itself, we do not recommend using this format for creating new themes. Theme developers should prefer KDE2's native widget theming which yields superior results both in terms of quality and speed. A nice HowTo and some documentation on KDE2 theming is available here.
Woah (Score:3, Funny)
Oh wait, my bad, this idea is so obvious it's rediculous. Does anybody have a valid reason why it hasn't happened already?
Re:Woah (Score:2, Troll)
Yes ego. It's not just for the criminally monopolists =)
Re:Woah (Score:2)
Sounds like a good idea (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Sounds like a good idea (Score:3, Interesting)
Wow (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Wow (Score:2, Informative)
Yes, the whole "my desktop is liquid" look is trendy at the moment, but I think there definitely needs to be a super-sexy not-found-elsewhere none-ripoff default theme for both KDE and Gnome.
Just take a brose through something like the GUG galleries ( This for example [sunsite.dk]) and imagine these works as entire themes.
In the same way that flashy graphics make people buy video games, KDE and Gnome need to attract the masses with sex appeal.
Re:Wow (Score:4, Interesting)
Personally, I agree with you and think a standard would be a good idea. Taking a step away from rapid developement and making a single stable interface would do wonders for acceptance. Besides, you can always have easily accessible information on configuring your interface how you like it. Still though, the arguement against this is pretty obvious.
I'd probably say that the best idea would be for some group to go and dedictate a year or so to making the be-all-end-all of interfaces. Not some wierd hybrid of previous interfaces like most distros ship now, but something that is simple, elegent, etc. Other people have said it, and I'll repeat - like the OSX interface. I'm not saying it's the most efficient, but it consistently does what you intuitively expect it to do. That's what a defacto Linux "theme" would need to do. The only other option, I suppose, is just to copy Windows or OSX or another highly developed/researched interface. There simply exists nothing right now that would make sense to call the default desktop.
Re:Wow (Score:2)
Somebody doesn't remember Program Manager.
Re:Wow (Score:2)
Re:Wow (Score:2)
He was not talking about a standard look, he was talking about a standard for writing themes. So that a theme written for gtk+ would work fine with qt, and vice versa.
This would fix the problem of some programs looking different then others. Well, most programs.
Re:Wow (Score:2)
"Matthias Ettrich once went far enough to propose a default unified 'Linux' theme that both Qt and GTK+ could support."
There wasn't any link provided to back that up, so I took it as is.
And no, I didn't read the RMS post. That's why I didn't comment on it.
Mac UI (Score:2)
Really? Actually there were many changes into the Mac UI. There were watershed events like the introduction of the Platinum look but along the way many tweaks were rolled out also:
(apologies if I don't know the proper terms)
Re:Mac UI (Score:2)
I suppose that my comments on the Windows and Mac UIs could easily be seen as saying that they are horribly outdated, but that's not what I intended. I meant that if you decide on a standard now, you'd better be willing to stick with it for five or more years. It should have the extensibility that the win95 and original macOS UIs had as well so that it could evolve over time yet still retain the same basic methods for achieving different things - the same metaphores if you want to follow Stephanson...
unrealistic (Score:2)
Yeh, designing the be-all, end-all interface would only take about a year for a group of hobbyists, wouldn't it? Because basically, all that UI-design stuff is just art fag stuff which is no problem for "hackers" who are "often highly creative artistically" ([c] Eric Raymond). Those psychologists, ergonomists and designers can't be contributing anything interesting, because they don't have computer science degrees. Hell, "psychology" even sounds like it might be a liberal art! All that's needed is for some "engineers" to set up a mailing list and swap ideas and soon we'll have something much better than the Mac. I mean, c'mon people, this isn't exactly kernel hacking.
Bill Gates must love hopelessly overambitious, ill-thought-out "conquer the desktop" efforts like these.
Re:Wow (Score:2)
Besides, if you want to standardize icons that means either the foot or the K will have to go - you know that'll never happen
Re:Wow (Score:2, Funny)
Or, uh, who's willing to copy Aqua pixel-for-pixel and take advantage of apple's existing interface design?
Oh wait...
Forget Themes: Make the Clipboards compatible (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Forget Themes: Make the Clipboards compatible (Score:2)
Yea, verily.
Sure, let KDE and Gnome start on the surface with themes that provide a common lool `n feek.
But then, start digging down to the lower level inter object communications layers to get exchange of data at that level, even if it's something that's slower than molasses between KCOP and Bonobo. As long as it works!
Re:Forget Themes: Make the Clipboards compatible (Score:3, Interesting)
You have pinpointed the absolutely biggest strength with Windows. You will always have the same controls, things will be where you assume them to be, the clipboard will work, COM works, DirectX works, there is one win32(64) etc etc etc.
So how come diversity is bad in this case? Because it's confusing and counterproductive. It uses a lot of development time that could have been better spent on one better solution that is taken to a mature state.
If KDE/Gnome wants to make certain protocols etc comming, that's nice as long as nobody is left out. But I would never accept two desktopsystems on my computer. I'd rather see more work on KDE/QT.
If you want Linux to be sold with home computers, this is what you need:
There you go, there you have a list. A lot of the ground work is done, and some of the work is being done as I sit here and wriet. But now it just requires more work, people disagreeing, people agreeing and much much more work (see why we don't want five more GUI systems etc etc).
See it as a MacOS X killer if you want to ^_^ Heck, I wished I had time to do this myself. Guess you should mail me if you can muster a 1,000 coders, including the kernel and KDE people. Should sell it (and support people) to Compaq, HP, Dell, etc to include in their new spiffy computers. Including a DVD with all the binaries and source (eat that M$!).
Re:Forget Themes: Make the Clipboards compatible (Score:2, Insightful)
2. Uhm... It's coming?
3. You *are* seriously joking, right? Red Hat. Linuxcare. There are *lots* of others, including SUSE, Mandrake, and IBM.
4. What do you mean? Do you mean the CDs should have purty holograms on them? Or should the installer tell you how much better global warming will be once you've got everything installed? If you mean an easily-installed product that works right out of the box, I suggest SUSE. It installs better, easier, and faster than MS-Windows.
5. Rrrriiiiggghhht. Which release procedures should the kernel follow? And *who* has ever forced you to upgrade your kernel? I'm not even sure what you are getting at here.
6. apt-get update && apt-get upgrade (this assumes you use Debian, which negates SUSE, as suggested in 4. But SUSE has its own upgrade system. I use Debian.)
7. Yeah! And let's kill off support for alternative processors, too! All those subdirectories under
8. man, info,
The only problem that exists in your list is #2, and it's a doozy. Abiword, Gnumeric, Koffice, and Open Office are coming along, but they still have some ways to go. They are good enough for me, but I don't use many office apps. Personally, I think office apps tend to suck slime, in concept and execution. But that's just me.
Now, please explain: you don't have time, but if someone can get 1k programmers together, they should call *you*? Whatever for?
There is an old chinese saying (Score:3, Insightful)
Just look at his username. What good can one get discussing anything with such people?
On the other hand, as a Linux desktop user (Mandrake 8.1 but seriously considering Suse), I would say that you are going a bit too far when you say Linux is easier to use than Windows.
For a very special kind of user, the kind you have to baby-sit be them on Windows, Linux or Mac, maybe. But I would really love to have everything working from the start.
Installation should tell me "Look pal, we don't support your funny soundcard, go buy something usable". Which I eventually did, but I shouldn't have to cope with a system that thinks some sound is being played when it isn't.
Apart from StarOffice, and I hate 5.2, all other pseudo-Word software couldn't cope with lightly formatted Word files.
But then there is development, and Linux is a far superior, controllable platform if you know what you after. And of course, Mozilla gets better each night.
I guess what I am trying to say is that Linux today is not always the best solution for the desktop, but it is amazing how far it came in, say, two years (if memory serves, two years ago it was still quite easy to burn a monitor misconfiguring X during installation - today distros will configure it automatically). I believe that Microsoft is even lending a hand, by changing its licensing policy. The corporate world will be looking very hard at Linux for their millions of desktops.
But there is still a long way to go before Linux desktops can show the maturity one sees in MacOS X, for instance.
Re:Forget Themes: Make the Clipboards compatible (Score:3, Insightful)
I take it you don't do alot of Windows development. COM most certainly does not always work, and when it fails it isn't terribly helpful at finding the problem. DirectX is extremely dependent upon independent hardware developers to provide high quality drivers, a task they're not all up to. As for the Win32 API, there are multiple versions with many incompatibilities. You might find Microsoft's list of incompatibilities between versions of Windows [microsoft.com] interesting reading.
Re:Forget Themes: Make the Clipboards compatible (Score:5, Interesting)
model, maybe a little bit too sophisticated. Hence it has traditionally been poorly understood and badly implemented in apps and toolkit.
Gnome does the Right Thing with respect to clipboards, while QT2/KDE2 uses a more limited clipboard model. The good news is that QT3 and thereby KDE3 will do the Right Think and therefore interoperate a lot better with Gnome (as well as properly written X apps such as XEmacs)
These comments are somewhat enlighening: http://dot.kde.org/1013076354/
Also read this for a backgrounder about clipboard and X: http://www.jwz.org/doc/x-cut-and-paste.html
Not quite. (Score:2, Funny)
Gee, that's nice. Care to explain how to make that "sophisticated [catalog.com]" clipboard model work with something other than plain text?
Re:Not quite. (Score:2, Informative)
It's explained (high-level) right there in that same article [jwz.org] that you didn't bother to read.
Better luck next time.
Re:Forget Themes: Make the Clipboards compatible (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Forget Themes: Make the Clipboards compatible (Score:2)
Huh? It's totally bogus to think that only ISO can create a standard. There is a written standard for X, and that does explain what the "right thing" is.
Re:Forget Themes: Make the Clipboards compatible (Score:2)
And that's where the problems start. Thee is nothing about storing smallish pieces of data temporarily that needs to be part of any gui or windowing toolkit - it's not a visual thing in any way. It should be a system service that can be used by any gui. That way X, gnome and KDE program would all do the same right thing.
No thanks, I'll just use OSX. (Or Win2k) (Score:3, Funny)
Getting rid of the inconsistency and incompatabilty in X is hardly a one man job.
It's hardly a 1000 man job.
Hell, removing inconsistency from X is like removing religion from church - it just can't be done.
C-X C-S
Re:No thanks, I'll just use OSX. (Or Win2k) (Score:2)
Which are? Network transparency[1], and...what?
Jamming graphics calls through sockets? W00t indeed.
But the GNU system will have every option you could ask for,
All using different toolkits, with different key bindings, different quirks and different looks, and each requiring 30 megs of widget libraries that duplicate the functionality of each other.
No thanks.
Until X starts *enforcing* a single toolkit[2], like Mac, Windows, and virtually every other decent GUI has done, it's going to be discordant and annoying.
To hell with KDE and GNOME, they don't fix the underlying problem of nonexistant standards or policy, they just cover it up with more bloat.
Which is good, I guess, if you like having 100+ meg of widget libraries on your system, and being able to watch the widgets flicker as they redraw themselves.
C-X C-S
[1] Which isn't even all that special any more, though it was really cool in 1987.
[2] Which seems extraordinarily unlikely, given the "community"'s steadfast resistance to change.
This thread is getting old. (Score:3, Insightful)
Too many APIs, yes, I would agree.
Standards? No. I think the last attempt at standardizing X toolkits was Motif/CDE.
it would be hypocritical for communities founded on freedom and openness to embrace the principles of oppression and design by fiat which underlie your suggestions.
So standards and guidelines are fascist now?
Whatever. If oppressive standards build things like global networks, I'll be happily oppressed.
If a system has a dozen redundant modules, then any bloat is the administator's fault - he or she did not remove the extra ones
How is having at least 4 ways[1] to create a pushbutton object "the administrator's fault"?
It's not like I can take gtk_create_pushbutton()[2] from the GTK library and replace it with Qt::Button or somesuch and expect the GTK program to run.
Perhaps you are thinking of the associated pixmap libraries or desktop environment libraries.
Well, they're kinda, like, required for most every app, so of course I included them.
That you can run them alongside one another is only meant to be a charming illustration of the community spirit and excellent engineering at work.
Excellent engineering.
That's why programs crash when you try to do complex things like "paste".
This isn't engineering, engineering implies well thought out design.
C-X C-S
[1] Gtk, Qt, Motif, Athena... (Fltk, FOX, OpenLook, Tk, XForms, WxWindows...)
[2] If that were a real GTK call, it'd be about 35 characters longer.
Indeed a good idea but (Score:2, Interesting)
Heck even e copy from a galeon the copy paste menu way would never generate a paste in kedit!
I'm sure a user would care less about a common L&F than about a precise and normed app interoperability, which should be possible!
I want a single desktop anyway (Score:3, Interesting)
KDE is so much nicer to develop for than GNOME imho but I prefer to use GNOME, I'm sure that others have differing opinions about what they like and hate about each environment, but working together to provide maybe the ultimate desktop experiance would be brilliant!
I know this opinion is a little radical and not likely to happen, but if I had my eutopia, that would be it!
Does this mean... (Score:3, Funny)
More descriptive name for a combined project... (Score:2)
Gnoked?
Gnodek?
Kdome?
Kgdneome?
or my favorite:
Gnuked.
-Russ
GDE (Score:4, Insightful)
Think about it. Compare to 'windows' in its simplicity if you like. We want to create a unified GNU/Linux desktop operating system and not play around with fancy names. (Designed for X Windows, anyone? :-)
Re:GDE (Score:4, Funny)
The only question is, if Craig Mundie falls into a pit of fire, does ESR disappear, or is it RMS?
:)
Obligatory Remark (Score:2)
The change in RMS's voice was astounding. Suddenly it became menacing, powerful, harsh as stone. A shadow seemed to pass over the high Sun, and the porch for a moment grew dark. All trembled, and the Gnomes stopped their ears.
Re:Does this mean... (Score:3, Funny)
Competition and Cooperation (Score:5, Insightful)
In fact, this makes a great deal of sense. The benefit of competition in capitalistic based development comes from the fact that things are thrown together to a schedule, things are sold based on delivering the result at a certain date. This leads to rapid development, but also compromise. The competition between products is meant to compensate for that fact, and largely does (if a monopoly doesn't form).
In the case of open software, programmers tend to do things the way they would like them. Bad designs made this way (as in, you wanted the wrong thing) die out under their own weight. But if you have two products competing that both have coherent designs (empirically speaking: they survive to provide their initial versions and are actually used significantly), and they are open source, you might just be wasting effort by no cooperating. The reason: since the source is available, if the product is missing something, and it's design is strong enough to support expansion, you don't have to "defeat" it just to add the feature you feel is missing, instead you simply add the feature.
The story is simply based on the common knowledge of RMS emnity toward KDE. But suprise!, RMS really did mean it when he said he didn't like KDE because of Qt's license. That's been fixed. RMS thus wants to see the stuff made in common. He's a very consistent fellow.
People with strong principles can be difficult, because their principles can not be exactly the same as yours. But they are also very valuable. And if they are CONISTENT, and their values don't change (for example, when it's time to line their pocket or get recognition), they are invaluable.
Re:Competition and Cooperation (Score:2)
Here's another question I have. Now that we can all be happy about KDE's license, we can merge the code and philosophies to have a grand unified desktop. We don't want to duplicate any effort, after all. So maybe we should also merge the hurd and linux kernel projects. I say this tongue in cheek. Does anyone expect support for this idea? No. They are premised on different ideas. As are Gnome and KDE. Just for starters, the choice of language comes to mind.
I think there's a little more to all of this than a prosaic desire to eliminate redundant effort. This is nothing more than a hunch, but I think perhaps RMS is turning a corner. No, he's certainly not abdicating his principles. He wants software to be free. And he want free software to be available for *everyone*. From the GNU Manifesto:
Once GNU is written, everyone will be able to obtain good system software free, just like air.
I.E., I'm thinking we're seeing an honest to god concern about free software's popularity. Multiple different desktops, with their myriad ways of doing things, confuse people.
Moreover, I'm not so sure the thought of Gnome getting in bed with Microsoft doesn't play into this. There are other ways to affect the direction of software projects than by being elected to the board of directors. But that's really just rampant speculation on my part.
Rampant speculation is fun.
Personally, I think the competition between these projects has contributed enormously to their rapid evolution. In general, I'm a much bigger fan of code forks than merges. Don't think of it as wasted effort. Think of it as putting your money where your mouth is. The proof is in the putting. Or is it pudding?
To conclude my rant, why do you think the competition between KDE and Gnome is not "capitalistic"?
Might be a good idea (Score:5, Insightful)
But I'm not quite sure if a compatible theme engine is the way to go... Many people still consider themed desktops as a waste of time and space, and sometimes you can find really awful things on themes.org
Another direction may be the component object model itself. There has been, IIRC, at least one attempt to start an uniform interface between ORBIT and the KDE object model, and others may be under way.
IMHO, this would be a much better challenge for Gnome/KDE integrators, and provide a broader signal to the GUI community.
Microsoft has made COM first, then made XP skinnable. Of course, the Linux themes.org effect was not present then (IIRC), and maybe it was sheer luck. It worked for them anyway.
But I'll sure fancy some skinnable icons while drag/dropping objects between Gnome and KDE apps
Re:Might be a good idea (Score:2)
So disagreeing can be very good (as long as personal feelings aren't involved. That is never good), but getting two products might not...
Re:Might be a good idea (Score:2)
Yay! (Score:3, Interesting)
This is VERY IMPORTANT.... (Score:2)
YEAH RIGHT !
Ok, Im suprised RMS said something without demanding, frothing, or berating. But in the whole scheme of things is this really worth the bits its typed with ?
Some architechtural changes in the next version of each twoard additional compatility would be nice. But aside from that they are different systems, written by different people, with different needs and different goals, as well as different philosiphys on how to achieve what they want. To this end I dont really see what good compatible themes are gonna do for the rest of the projects...
Theme is just the very first step (Score:2, Insightful)
But, in the longer term, they really need to enable the basic components to talk to each other. Clipboard is an obvious target. Linux won't boom on desktop before something equivalent to OLE has been fully implemented and *widely* accepted by all the different camps involved.
Progress (Score:2, Insightful)
"...The ill feelings that linger between GNOME developers and KDE developers are not good for the community, and it is very useful to help calm the antagonism."
Let's here from a few who are (accepted to be) wiser than ourselves:
"Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people." -George Bernard Shaw (emphasis, mine!)
"Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress." -Mahatma Gandhi
Well... (Score:4, Interesting)
Now that license issues are cleared up, RMS has a chance and he's gonna take it. Eliminate two, create one. This isn't a bad thing, since you STILL have the source.
We have options for customization, and a lot of freedom, but what we lack is any real consolidation (IE eliminating redundant standards), thus creating a plethora of pitfalls for software developers.
This is one thing I think the Linux Standards Base should cover. More than just one boring, rather useless "base," it should cover MANY bases, and specify standard APIs, installations, and specifications for systems/software. Hell make Linux Standard Base certification like that damn Made for Windows XX logo.
Theory:
LSB defines a desktop base, a server base, and an embedded base.
On the desktop base you have modules (not necessarily compatible), say Gaming Module which includes all necessary packages and auto-detection and config info, a Network client module that automatically loads remote config utilities and any necessary client software, and a workstation module that adds it's required things.
Same for server and embedded.
Also have the LSB supply standard definitions for the GUI APIs. Standard Themes, fonts, what have you.
If you can build a solid foundation for your system and get it under control (community control, it's still ours), then you'll attract users. I think that's a bit of what RMS is trying to do here.
Re:Well... (Score:3, Funny)
More than just one boring, rather useless "base," it should cover MANY bases
All our bases? (Sorry)
Why RMS applied to GNOME board (Score:4, Interesting)
Just a couple days before, he had said during a conference in Paris that his primary reason to apply to the board was to support cooperation between GNOME and KDE (see my post [slashdot.org]), eventhough it wasn't clearly stated in his answers [newsforge.com] to the GNOME board candidacy questionnaire.
I'm really happy to see that it was not only electoral bulls**t.
Maybe he is the last person you could have think of for such a task (especially knowing his position toward the KDE team in the old days of the QPL), but here he comes with this simple (as in not heavily political) practical (as in usefull) first step... so let's try !
Auto-magically scaling titlebars (Score:2)
Can one (or both) of these two desktops allow me to scale the title bar on the windows? I can change all of the other fonts to a bigger size, but when I change the title bar font it just gets cut off vertically. Sorry, but some of us try to run high resolutions on smaller monitors.
By the way, here's cool theme from KDE-Look.org (one of the few ones that didn't rip off some pre-existing OS (majority were XP/MacOS X)):
Gorilla @ KDE-Look.org [kde-look.org] (preview [kde-look.org])
Notice how small the title bar font is... just think the joy you could bring to small children if that scaled with the font size! It would be perfect on this theme...
Re:Auto-magically scaling titlebars (Score:2)
Not necessarily a rip off though....its named the same. I guess just a port.
Re:Auto-magically scaling titlebars (Score:2)
That screenshot was posted to kde-look.org [kde-look.org] by a Gnome troller, along with the comment "no, sorry this is not KDE and i doubt that KDE will ever gonna look like this. well i bet a couple of you people gonna move to GNOME now.".
I'm not sure what the guy thought was unimplementable in KDE. SVG icons will be in KDE 3.1 (the patch already exists [kde.org], but came too late to be included in KDE 3.0 -- it will be in 3.1, however). The rest seems to be just window/background themes.
Re:Auto-magically scaling titlebars (Score:2)
That KDE will have them later is no surprise -- the KDE team works hard and has a polished desktop.
That it is available for a version of KDE beyond a release that hasn't occured is stretching the word 'exists' beyond it's practical application. Yes, it exists. No, it is not recommended for anyone at this point. In a few months, after KDE 3.0 is out, a back port will probably show up but nothing in the main release till later.
OMG! Hell did freeze over! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:OMG! Hell did freeze over! (Score:2, Funny)
Better C++! (Score:5, Interesting)
(Poor guy -- he's like Alan Greenspan, where every public utterance is turned into a grand policy question.)
STL. (Score:2)
G++'s STL blows. It's so substandard that it borders on the unusable. Take the vector<> as an example. One of the big wins with vector<> is that it can be used as a bounds-checked array. All you have to do is use the appropriate method--or derive a class off of vector<> and override operator[] appropriately--and stack smashes are a thing of the past.
Whoops. G++'s STL doesn't support the vector.at() method, which is necessary for bounds-checking.
There are all sorts of substandard crap in the standard G++ STL. It's gotten to the point where I've flat-out given up on G++'s STL, and am using STLport 4.5.3 instead.
If you want to improve my C++ experience, pay attention to the STL.
Re:Better C++! (Score:2, Informative)
I don't claim to be qualified to speak on this myself, but Waldo Bastian's paper [www.suse.de] on this subject would be a good start. (Note that it concerns linking, not g++, although there are plenty of wishes out there for g++ too.) Write Waldo or post to the kde-devel mailing list and I'm sure plenty of detailed suggestions will be forthcoming.
Re:Better C++! (Score:2)
Yes! (Score:2)
Some better interoperation (cut-n-paste, default browser & mail clients, themes) would really make our lives a whole lot easier. In the meantime we will hobble by.
I suppose that both desktops are shooting to someday have enough apps that it is not necessary to mix-and-match quite so much. But in the meantime...
Graphics support (Score:2)
And then we get them to work with the Kernel developers, and after that the other peripheral developers... and then we can shrink wrap the whole thing and sell it, lets say, for $99 bucks.
doh!
How ironic... (Score:2)
If anyone ever tells you "Don't shoot me, I'm just the messenger" -- shoot him.
Make the Settings interchangeable! (Score:2)
I advocate an XML-based prefs format that is shared by many WMs, with less-capable ones simply ignoring the features they can't understand.
In
<keyboard>
<focus>
<follow/>
<sloppy/>
</focus>
<repeat>
<speed value=6 scale=10/>
</repeat>
<clicksound value=false/>
</keyboard>
or something like that.
Why not 2 existing instead of 1 vaporware? (Score:2)
IMHO there should be a GNOME/Gtk theme called "KDE" which exactly mimics the most-default KDE theme, and a KDE/Qt theme called "GNOME" which does vice-versa.
Unless of course this is a stpuid idea, in which case, forget I brought it up...
The user perpective / The developer perspective (Score:2, Insightful)
In my opinion, if GNOME and KDE want to cooperate in the future, they need to decide on a single object model, a single RPC/IPC mechanism, and a single clipboard system. Judging by KDE's proven success in this area, it only makes sense to use it as the standard rather than break both and start from scratch. Unfortunately, it seems the GNOME people are extremely stubborn about switching to C++. The reason of course, is historical: the old rule of thumb that C is more efficient than C++.. or more accurately, that C++ compilers are slow. This is beginning to change, and no doubt, g++ would be improving much faster if more people were using it.
Or we can just keep going about re-inventing each others' wheels. Pretty silly if you ask me. One other note, the human aspect, is another advantage KDE has. GNOME needs some better unified leadership and goals. Compare, for instance, kdelibs to the dozens of library packages needed to compile GNOME. Having unified releases is a good thing for everyone.
Re:The user perpective / The developer perspective (Score:2)
I rate all negative moderations as unfair.
Why a common theme (Score:4, Insightful)
Why?
Nobody is suggesting anyone be locked into these. Nobody is suggesting these be graven into stone never to become v.2 as progress marches on.
What this would do would be provide a common basis for new folks, a baseline for support folks, a universal look for screen-shots and documentation. If along the way some solid UI design were applied, usability testing done and minimal esthetics incorporated then so much the better.
Tweak away, replace, bend, fold, spindle, mutilate. But at least folks who are bewildered and lost could go to a common default and see something reasonable and trivially relate it to the documention or support folks. A simple menu option of "Default" would do wonders and all the better that it be consistant across toolkits.
Of course the next question is "What?" Here's where I think a good process of involving folks who are knowledgable in this area along with things like testing and feedback and skills in UI-standards-making would be incredibly valuable. Nothing against the coders but frankly, and many would agree, many desktops today are bad Windows reimplementations, wannabe-MacOS X looks or terrible pistaches of any number of good-ideas-running-into-eachother. A committee of KDE and Gnome AND others working on a timeline with a budget and a set of goals and opportunity for community feedback would be ideal, something with conflict-resolution built in from the beginning.
And if it stinks up the place it gets ignored. Or fixed in v.2. But at least we'll have taken the chance of a basic common UI gtting a shot and possibly accruing the benefits that would accrue from such. As for those looking to use something different, more innovative, more complex, more suited to them - go right ahead.
Other areas where tis will help (Score:3, Insightful)
Good on RMS... (Score:2)
Good job RMS,
Matt
No reason for KDE/GNOME to depend on Qt/Gtk+ (Score:5, Informative)
You *should* be able to use Qt write a complete GNOME application that obeys GNOMEs theming rules, uses Bonobo, GConf and other GNOME technologies.
You *should* be able to use Gtk+ write a complete KDE application that obeys KDE's theming rules, uses KParts, DCOP and other KDE technologies.
Yes, it may be *easier* to write KDE applications with Qt, and GNOME applications with Gtk+, each desktop/platform shouldn't be *tied* to these widget sets.
That's not the way it works now. At the moment, I believe that GNOME's technologies (at least the one's in GNOME 2) are more decoupled from the widget set than KDE's. For instance, it's possible to write a Qt application that uses GConf2, Orbit2, GStreamer, and Bonobo2 without linking in any Gtk+. If you *really* work at it, you should also be able to integrate with GNOME's accessibility framework by hooking Qt components to the appropriate ATK+ options. That's a fair chunk of GNOME already. But there are many other GNOME features that Qt applications can't take advantage of.
Re:No reason for KDE/GNOME to depend on Qt/Gtk+ (Score:2, Informative)
KDE can import GTK/GNOME themes.
And, the other day, launching my favorite GNOME app using KDE, the systray icon/menu went in the right place.
Well, you may smile at such things, but it works, and it's a beginning....
Why do you write code? (Score:2, Interesting)
Uraeus linuxrising org:
> And as the free software saying goes,
> a itch that don't itch a developer,
> doesn't get scratched.
RMS:
That was said by Eric Raymond who belongs to another movement, and it reflects the spirit of that movement. The spirit of the free software movement is to do projects because they are important for the community and for our freedom. They don't have to "scratch an itch".
Is this really an accurate portrayal of (one of) the differences between "open source" and FSF sanctioned free software? Open source developers are out to do what's best for themselves (and maybe helping out others as a by-product by releasing their code), while free software developers are motivated only by love of their fellow (hu)man. I'm not really heavily involved in either development community, and didn't realize that there was such a sharp divide (if it actually exists outside of RMS head). Can some free software/open source developer types weigh in on this? Why do you write code?
We Had To (Score:3, Interesting)
The attacks were vehement, nasty and for the most part unwarranted. I never saw KDE as a "threat" and considering it a threat did nothing but waste a lot of energy (IMHO). Especially considering where the software was headed and the fact that EVERYONE KNEW that QT would have an open source license eventually.
While I endorse the idea of some interoperability I tend to take a step back and look for other motives. Members of the KDE team have long tried to get some interoperability between the 2 desktops and were repeatedly rebuffed. It's a nice idea, but considering some of the mudslinging thats gone on over the past few years, I'm with holding judgment.
Hopefully the axe is buried, considering there are some admin's out there running open relays because it was the right thing to do in 1990, I expect to see it dug up a few more times. That's the problem with religious wars where you unfairly vilify the enemy it makes it hard to work with them when they are on your side. I'm glad some people are starting to consider the big picture.
Unified Clipboard (Score:3, Funny)
Give me a unified clipboard, or give me death.
Re:Unified Clipboard (Score:2)
You may find this funny, but I became a Linux coder last years after a long time on windows. To me this clipboad fiasco is both frustrating and symptomatic of what's wrong with windows.
I'm mostly coding using xemacs, but to ward off flamewars I also drop into vi from time to time.
First, what's wrong:
There is no unified clipboard. I can to Ctrl-k ctrl-y to cut and paste in Xemacs, but it doesn't work across different xemacs windows. I can use the Xemacs toolbar buttons labeled "cut", "copy" and "paste". These do work across xemacs instances, but do not interact with the ctrl-k ctrl-y buffers, and if I should close the source window before pasting, the copied text vanishes. Then there is good-old x-windows swip & middle-click. This works in most everything, but is completely unrelated to the other two mechanisms. I use 3 different, incompatible, uninteroperable clipboards on a daily basis. Unix = simple orthogonal tools my arse.
A solution:
Have a service/damon that stores ckips. It doesn't need to be part of any gui. It doesn't need to be linux-specific, it can be generic unix, and run on BSD too. It just needs a simple API (yes, like windows has) that supports multiple clips, perhaps taged by creating app and data type. Give it lots of config options like max size & number of clips to store, if it should persist them on HD when the system shuts down, query functions to find out what's there etc.
This, for me would be great. Apps that guard thier own clipboard jeolously could use thier own space on the clip server. Apps that want to look at other clips could do so. You could cut in KDE, restart and paste in Gnome.Heck, you could cut in emacs and paste in vi. It would be nerdvana. Why is this so hard?
The reason... (Score:2, Troll)
This is NOT flamebait, it's the truth, at least as I see it. When a GPL'd project is unsuccessful or new, RMS dismisses it along the lines of "this will substitute until we finish" whatever. When it becomes successful he's right there trying to claim it. Such as the whole GNU/Linux thing. I hate to break it, but GNU got a boost with Linux, not Linux a boost with GNU. It could have just as been the BSD tools that ended up in the first Linux distros, and there are still people working toward a "low-GPL" linux distro.
What RMS is looking for here is a merge, or a way to give the edge to GNOME.
Don't get me wrong, GNOME is a great project, but so is KDE, and we NEED this competition. It's necessary for innovation, and we should NOT let RMS mangle KDE into one of the FSF's projects.
My question is, when he fails to get control of KDE in this way, will he instead insist on calling it GNU/KDE because it builds on top of GNU tools?
Don't moderate me flamebait because you disagree with my opinion. You'd do better to rebut my argument instead.
Grand Config File Parser??? (Score:2)
Quick example. Let's say I write an application that uses an *.ini style config file. There are a number of generic function calls that I'm going to want to make through the program, one of which might be readconfig(file*,parser*,confdata*). The challenge is coming up with something simple enough to make it easy to use while flexible enough to support structured data trees.
Disclaimer: I haven't put a whole lot of thought into this. Such a level of API may be useful, but in some cases may not be pratical to implement. Regardless, it is a fun problem to stew over.
Could be good (Score:3, Insightful)
TWW
They both need a theme overhaul (Score:2)
There are several exciting theme systems out there now: both PicoGUI [picogui.org]'s theme system and Enlightenment's Ebits [enlightenment.org] are theme systems based on a database, capable of storing data for the windowing system, the widget toolkit, and all the applications. If a system like this were implemented in the major GUI toolkits and window managers on the desktop, it should give a way for all applications, toolkits, and window managers to be consistant and completely under the user's control.
While we're at it... (Score:2)
Am I the only person... (Score:2)
I can think of many areas of cooperation between Gnome and KDE -- and themes are pretty low on that list. This isn't a troll, but an honest question: What's so important about themes?
My computers are for programming, writing, and web browsing; why would I waste CPU time and memory on fancy wallpapers and pretty rounded corners and all this "stuff" that fascinates some people so much? If I want pretty pictures, I'll frame'm on the wall, where I can see them when the computer is off!
Can someone explain theme-mania to me, please?
Re:The Best Theme? (Score:2, Insightful)
Not at all (Score:4, Insightful)
People who assume his attack on the license was an attack on the people who chose to use that license are the ones who come off as ideologues.
Re:To Hell with RMS (Score:5, Insightful)
RMS didn't like KDE because it was not "free" -- and in fact, in his opinion, it's position was threatening Free Software in general (it undermined the GPL, it took people away from developing Free alternatives, etc). So he argued against KDE, in favor of GNOME, a truely Free alternative.
KDE is now Free, in part because of serious amounts of lobbying by the Free Software Community, including RMS. KDE is no longer the bad guy, RMS no longer has a beef with KDE.
Now that the "Free KDE" battle is over, RMS is now saying "Um guys... we won -- ALL of us (KDE and GNOME) won, last year. It's time, past time, to stop sabre-rattling at each other". Since Qt became GPL-compatable, I haven't seen RMS stoking the GNOME v. KDE fires. Now he's trying to quench the GNOME v. KDE fires, because leaving them smouldering is bad for Free Software in general.
Re:To Hell with RMS (Score:2)
That's old history now, but people should know that RMS didn't go storming off at the first sign of conflict.
Re:To Hell with RMS (Score:2, Interesting)
Yeah... I was really surprised when I clicked on the link to mail.gnome.org and saw an email.
A lot of times when you read email then there are cool videos and 3-d graphics. One time I found a live goat!
I guess open source email lists just aren't up to the standards Microsoft users are accustomed to. I mean *sheesh* email on an email list??? How old fashioned!
Re:Menus, Drag and Drop and Clipboards as well PLE (Score:2)
Re:Menubar (Score:2)
excessive effort placed on "skinnable interfaces"!
Personally, I despise skinnable interfaces, but like KDE's style and window decoration abilities - because they are actually code, and change the way the interface operates. It's not just the look, it's changing the entire way the UI interacts. That's also why "themes" will never be totally portable between the two DEs - they aim for different areas in terms of speed, flexability and ease of creation.
Incidently, I started a KDE and Gnome meta-theme project a few weeks ago. I currently have a mapping file for icons for Gnome to base, and base to KDE, allowing for conversion of all Gnome iconsets to KDE. That's why all the Gnome icon sets have been popping up on KDE-Look.org under my account.
Right now, things don't map on a 1:1 basis. I'm currently documenting and building a base set of utilities for post 3.0 and 2.0 versions of the DEs, with an eye towards a universal icon theme being achievable shortly as the first step towards artwork interoperability. Jakub's response has been encouraging - it is his artwork that I'm futzing with to test and work with, and his emails to me have been positive. I was nervous about moving Gnome icons to KDE, figuring I'd be slammed by small minds on both sides of the fence, but response has been neigh-universally positive.
If you are interested in this project (which entails lots and lots of painstaking "creating documentation from what exists") then feel free to contact me.
--
Evan
Re:Menubar (Score:3, Insightful)
Possibly moving the focused windows up to the top edge so that they are joined onto the menubar, or some kind of hysteresis so that if you drag fast enough across the gap the focus does not change, or some idea nobody has thought of, would solve this. But until somebody does this I doubt you will see much interest in top-of-screen menubars from either the Linux or Windows advanced programmers.
GNOME and KDE have the same problems (Score:2)
Back to the GNOME and KDE, I seriously doubt that either most GNOME or KDE hackers know what Fitts' Law is, and many would say "bullshit" or "it's a matter of opinion" if you tried to intelligently explain it to them. In the current open source desktop movements, there's an amount of stupidity and unknowledgableness that would never be tolerated with something considered as sacred at "the kernel". It's a double standard, really.
Of course, the beauty of open source is that if something does something really really stupid, you can fork of their project and do your own non-stupid thing.
Re:How I think it should read (Score:3, Insightful)
The way I read it as, not having been under a rock for the last decade is: When Qt didn't use my specific licence, KDE was a danger to the community.
He meant exactly what he said. Part of communication is understanding where the other person is coming from, and not taking potshots at others because they believe in different things than you. RMS believes that it's important that people use all Free software, and a huge project of Free software that depended on non-Free software was a threat to that. He did what he felt he had to; deal.
I'll keep doing it for as long as he wants to be in charge of other peoples projects.
Why, when RMS makes comments on what direction GNOME and KDE should go, "he wants to be in charge", but you can make all the comments you want? He has the right to make his opinion known, as do you, and people can listen or not as they want.