Non-iflamatory reply to the author of the article (Score 2)

Please, before I continue, let me assure you, that I'm not trying to
flame/convince/icmp attack you.

Ok, now that we got that straight, let me introduce myself:
I've been using linux for 4 years (since slackware 3.1, kernel 2.0.0),
pretty much exclusively for the past 2. So although I'm not really an old
timer, I'm not a newbie either. I'm also a final year undergraduate
computer science student at University College London. I have run various
versions of slackware, tried debian & mandrake, and I've settled down now
with my own tweaked version of redhat. Through my university course, I
have been exposed to various unices, running from IRIX to sunos (from
openlook to CDE).

I used to be running KDE, being very enthousiastic about it, since the
first stable version (1.0.0) came out. I was (still am really) very
impressed about it (didn't really care about the licensing issues), as I
was with all the updates as they happened. It was pretty much the best
unix desktop I had ever seen (although too windows-like//let's not kid
ourselves (this is not a bad thing per se)). When I switched over to
redhat (version 6.0), I tried gnome for the first time (version
1.0.something) and found it appauling (didn't really try too hard to learn
it). It was much too slow, enlightenment and gnome didn't really cooperate
to such an extent, seemed bloated, and was far less stable than KDE.
However 2 things I did take notice: DragNDrop worked both with xmms (or
was it x11amp then?) and with Netscape. I wondered: Netscape was out for
SO long (much older than KDE). Why the hell didn't motif dnd work with
kde? (let alone xmms). But I switched to KDE anyway, and kept recommending
it to anyone who wanted to use linux. However, after upgrading to redhat
6.1, I tried gnome again, played with it some more and updated all the
packages through redhat rawhide. I also installed sawmill (now sawfish) as
a window manager, which cooperated to a much better degree. I was stunned!
Although a bit slower than KDE (and less stable, but certainly more stable
than the shell of an OS of a certain large Redmond-Based company), it
totally blew KDE away at my opinion. DnD worked! Mouse-wheel worked. It
looked far better than KDE and was certainly more customisable. Or so I
found it. And I've been using Gnome since (I've also installled some kde2
betas). (I've on to your article. (btw I seriously recommend (out of
open-mindness at least to try the latest version of helix-gnome))

Everyone deserves an opinion, so please do hear mine:

"Every six months or so, hostilities once again erupt between the KDE and
Gnome communities. These battles are usually sparkedwhen the king of the Gnomes, Miguel de Icaza, grants an
interview and just can't seem to resist saying something gratuitously
nasty about KDE."

True, but you must admit that KDE is pretty arrogant too! At every
occasion it keeps boasting that it is the "Leading desktop for Unix" or
Linux, at every occasion. If you want to be exact, CDE or TWM is the
leading desktop for Unix and it is debatable if KDE is for Linux. Redhat
and Debian have a huge linux market share. Plus, the Gnome Foundation
really (whether we want it or not) makes gnome the "leading Unix
desktop" simply because Solaris is the most popular Unix OS. Please note
also how TrollTech a company bashed gnome in the recent QT-Designer app.

"(The argument is that because the QT toolkit used by
KDE is proprietary, KDE is tainted. But QT has a
foundation, too, and it has pledged to keep QT free for noncommercial
use. And as a practical matter, withdrawal of free use of QT would
make as much sense as Adobe withdrawing Acrobat Reader.) Gnome's stated
purpose, its whole reason for existence, is to kill KDE. Nice, huh? "

The argument is that it's illegal to tie GPL (under which KDE is released)
with the QPL. This might not make much sense to the users, but it is
important to the free software movement in general. The GPL has not ever
been legally enforced. What if some large unknown corporation, took out
say the best parts of the linux kernel and incoporated them into their os,
without giving any source back. How will the GPL be legally enforced, if
projects as popular as KDE also violate it? Plus Gnome sole perpose isn't
destroying KDE. Not at all. Even collaboration efforts have been made This
is simply the third attempt of the GNU project to create a GNU desktop
enviroment.

"(Does anyone else see the irony of a project headed by a guy who's in it
for the money, backed by companies who are in it for the money, getting
the official Glorious October Revolution seal of approval, while a
volunteer effort driven by sheer love of the project does not? Yes, there
are people from distributions who work on KDE, but they have not set up
little companies for themselves to capitalize on it.)"

I really doubt that Icazza and the rest of the gnome team is only in it
for the money. Two years ago, when gnome started and KDE was light years
ahead, you cannot argue that people were in it for the money! You should
also note that many people have set up companies to capitalise on another
free software project: the GNU/Linux OS. They're called Linux
Distributions, and they have offered a great deal to the Linux movement
and operating system, just as Helix-Code have done to gnome (if you were
using gnome, you would have seen the great progress that gnome has had
since the introduction of helix-code).

"Gnome is written, mostly, in C. KDE is written in C++."[...]"Goodbye,
easy portability to other platforms. KDE, on the other hand, has reuse of
code as a goal, which is why KDE2, though far more powerful, often has
less memory footprint than does earlier versions."

If you want to code an application for KDE you can only do it in C++. Even
if additional code has to be loaded (but certainly gnome-apps are not as
slow/inefficient as statically linked apps), it is still a great advantage
for gnome that you can code gnome apps even in pascal, or Lisp or python
(or C++ of cource). (though I think there is a PyQT module which allows
apps to be written using Python). Gnome is also Very much portable. Look
at all the binary distro's that helix is offering (not only Linux). Plus,
you cannot argue that Gnome has not reuse of code as a goal! Look at
gnome-print as an example. And also, if KDE/QT has reuse of code as paramount, why do KDE1 apps need to be PORTED to KDE2?

"But even sticking to C, I'm told by programmers fluent in both, Gnome
faces a world of technical issues to overcome before it is on par with a
project, just starting out, in C++."

That is VERY debatable. GTK which is very much OO is written in C.

""If gnome-hackers [a mailing list] was archived, you could a whole debate
about a very classical problem of C programming : when a function returns
a char*, who owns the char*? Does the caller have to free it? This is just
about the most basic problem you can find with C programming. And they're
thinking about it just now, after 3 years of development. KDE doesn't have
such a problem, it has QString."

I don't see any USERS having a problem with either gnome's or KDE's
interpretation of character strings :-)

"Gnome is written to the venerable and venerated GTK +, while KDE is
written to the technically excellent but politically reviled
QT. (Technically excellent? Youbetcha. I still have here a copy of QT
Mozilla, in which Netscape Navigator was ported to QT in one man
month.) Compare the documentation of the two. Look at the new QT Designer
integrated development environment. Look at the documentation and tools in
GTK+. Which would you rather write to? Likewise, the specific
documentation for the developer heavily favors KDE."

If I am not mistaken, QT is older than GTK+. Technically excellent is
again debatable. Even if you do not like gtk+, it has grown much faster
than QT has, introducing more widgets and supporting features like
mouse-wheel faster than QT. QT is also very nice and easy to program
with. GTK+ has also been ported to win32 like QT. You also fail to note
that QT Mozilla, has, well failed. Mozilla uses GTK instead. QT
documentation is indeed very nice. But so is GTK+ / Gnome! Have you
checked out the gtk.org gtk intro? Or the "Gnome/Gtk+ Application
Development" book (http://developer.gnome.org/doc/GGAD) (also in
bookstores). ? They are both very well written. Plus there exist gtk+
/gnome C++ wrappers like gtk-- which making coding much easier for the C++
crowd.

"While we're making comparisons on a developer level, it might be a good
idea to look at kdelibs v. gnome-libs. The KDE libraries are well
understood to the extent that a bug is often fixed almost instantly. Gnome
(and GTK+) are another story, according to a very highly respected Gnome
and GTK+ expert who knows KDE and QT as well."

kdelibs vs gnome-libs is an interesting point. kdelibs have been frozen at
version 1.1.2 for several months (close to a year maby). gnome-libs are
constantly updated and Helix-Update can automatically update
them. End-users do not care if bugs are instantly fixed in CVS or source
pathes. Gnome clearly wins in this one. Plus you cannot quote a "very
highly respected Gnome and GTK+ expert who knows KDE and QT as well.",
without giving his name!

"The KDE project was designed to produce a great desktop for Linux and
related operating systems, while Gnome was given the task of killing KDE
and, on the way, producing a desktop."

That is simply not true. You are unfairly bashing gnome now.

"KDE has an office suite weeks away from release; Gnome has played with
one (and an element of it, the Gnumeric spreadsheet, is by all accounts
quite good)"

You are wrong: Gnome Office has the following elements, out NOW (unlike
KOFFICE, which although VERY good (I use it) is still unstable and in
beta)

Abiword: Good, lightweight worprocessor which can import .doc documents
(much faster than KWord btw, but has less features).
The Gimp: No intro needed :-)
GnuCash: Quicken like money managing program, very nice
Gnumeric
Gphoto: digital camera manager
DIA: a diagram creation program (supports UML :-)

Also, helix-gnome has written evolution, which by all accounts, is the
greatest linux mail program (maybe in all platforms!)

" but now seems to be counting on the largesse of Sun to cough up a port
of StarOffice (well, speed and memory efficiency weren't a consideration
to begin with, were they?) for a pre-packaged office suite, those who have
worked within the Gnome project be damned, about which more in a
little. There is likely to be a StarOffice for Gnome available for
download within the next year or two."

Competition is never bad. After all, I too wish KDE 2 to succeed, so that Gnome will also advance.Everyone applauded Sun for releasing staroffice. Granted, it is bloated, but it is the best productivity suite out for linux at the moment (sure beats Corel WPO for stability and
speed). Plus OpenOffice (as it is now called) will remove stardesktop, and
will have only single individual apps. Plus you do not KNOW that
Gnome/Staroffice will be available in the "next year or two". For all you
know, it could be available this December.

"Which is another issue with Gnome. No one knows anything about release
schedules. Gnome developers grumble privately about it, and publicly when
events such as the release of Gnome 1.2 surprised developers and led to
some very hard feelings within the project. It's generally thought that
Gnome 1.4 will be released sometime around Halloween, and Gnome 2.0
sometime around -- well, let's be satisfied with sometime. KDE, meanwhile,
publishes a schedule. Yes, it slips, sometimes more than anyone is happy
about, but everyone is kept informed."

True, KDE does keep a more tight schedule. But: KDE-stable is still at
version 1.1.2 for nearly a year now (maybe more than a
year?). Gnome-stable on the other hand, has really advanced on the same
timespan. It has many more features, it is faster etc. Gnome has advanced
MUCH faster than KDE. Also you should note that the Gnome release schedule
is much more like the Linux kernel release schedule. It will be released
"when it is ready". Believe me, you do not use gnome, but if you had used
it, you would have really known what all this time has done to Gnome. The
improvements are countless.

I do agree that gnome should abandon the war, and start pursuing
excellence. But KDE should do that to, staring by stopping calling itself
the leading desktop for Unix. I do not know of any unix cluster that uses
KDE!

Well I undestand that you will not agree with some of my points. Linux is
about choice after all. But I really think that articles such as yours,
can fuel the fire. Do give gnome a shot. Helix-code has created a
wonderful installer for anyone to use. Plus gnome can be customised to
match any personal preference. I really cannot describe the number of
features that the latest helix-gnome has. Do give it a try.

I hope that you will read my letter,

Stefanos