🚀 go-pugleaf

conrad@hive.me.gu.edu.au (Conrad Sanderson) writes:

>KDE is the K desktop environment - it is more than just a window manager.
. . .
>I was reading about some complaints that it uses the Qt toolkit instead of GTK.
. . .
  In the end that's what really matters, not the "totally free" vs
>"semi-free" squabble.  To me they're both "free".

  You have already had 2 replies arguing that the GNU (or FSF) "free" is
important. I also think it is important - in fact I think that the
financialy free part is not as important as the availability of source
code or the the right to modify or port the code. And I think a lot of
linux'ers (and BSD'ers) would hold the same opinion.

>I also had a look at the GNOME web page. It seems to be basically KDE with GTK.
>What is the real reason behind 2 seperate efforts to provide intergration other
>than the choice of the toolkits ?
  . . .
> This parallel effort is
>pathetic: the relatively limited number of Linux (and UNIX) users should stick
>with one or the other and put all of the development behind one if you wish
>UNIX to succeed  - the _real battle_ is between WindowsNT and UNIX, not between
>GNOME and KDE.

  I take exception to this paragraph for a lot of reasons: The reason that
there are parallel efforts is again freedom for 2 groups of people to do
develope for and hack linux how they like and quite likely for what they
consider to be good. This may not be quite the same thing as GNU free
but is similar in spirit.
  I think part of the strength of linux and the GPL is that people can
try and improve anything they feel like - even when people are saying it
has already been done or it is not what is needed or doesn't conform to
a standard. These sort of reasons can ignore significance of what
someone is doing or for that matter that someone is doing something to
advanced for most of us to know the benefits beforehand. Such reasons
could even be used to argue that we shouldn't develope a replacement for
DOS. It may true that 99.9% of all people developing an application
equivalent to something that already exists or not conforming to
standards will produce nothing of any value, but I beleive that
remaining 0.1% will probably be responsible for the major improvements
in linux (or other application or OS).
  I also don't know how one would get these 2 desktop camps to stop
competing with each other when there is no single person in charge of
things. How do you get one camp to decide it will give up? For that
matter we don't know that all that work hadn't already been done before
they became aware of each other. And they are probably too busy to
evaluate the other's product to decide if they should indeed stop.
  I also don't see that the main point of Linux is to kill NT - or any
other OS. Whilst the dominance of NT and win 95 does affect Linux, the
main thing I want out of Linux is to provide the features I want. Again
I think many Linux'er will hold the same opinion.

  Some of these arguments get quite religious in other newsgroups so let
me point out (though I shouldn't need to) that I don't have anything
against the makers of Qt or KDE and may quite likely use them if I like
them. In fact I think the makers of Qt are quite sensible in what they
have done.

  Also thank you for the description of KDE, it was quite informative.