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- geminitojanus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3This has been happening for quite awhile, but it's still nowhere near where it needs to be to take on Apple or Windows. I admit we're getting closer to a point in which it simply won't matter and apps will run everywhere, but we still need something that makes the toolkit you code in not matter.
But, every step they make together is a step they're not making apart, and that alone is diggable. - thecwin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Hmm I'm not convinced that true toolkit-independence will ever happen. All the toolkits/DEs seem to have their own style guidelines. For example, if you make Qt look like GTK, you still know when you're on a Qt app and when you're on a GTK app because of the HIG. WxWidgets or Java apps tend to not look perfect in any DE.
I think it's time people start thinking less along the line of toolkit unification, but rather making all toolkits/apps use reusable components (pdf libraries, graphing libraries, etc.).. this way, there is minimal code duplication and it's easier to implement apps with two interfaces.
Not only that, if theming becomes properly standardised, you will be able to make other toolkits use your theme anyway, so it at least won't stand out as much. - jbno, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"If you want to write a commerical app with Qt, your options are either buy a license or GPL your app and sell support."
Are you sure you don't mean proprietary when you say "commercial"? The two don't mean the same thing but are often confused. Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Commercial for a brief description of what "commercial" actually refers to.
Distributed GPL derivative works (where you're not the copyright holder of the underlying GPL-covered work) must be distributed under the GPL. There are many commercial GPL programs. There are no proprietary GPL programs.
It is a risk to distribute a program under the LGPL, and the debate should center on what freedoms are preserved for those who will help the Free Software community, not around what proprietors want to get in exchange for nothing while treating our community like a market. Check out http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-not-lgpl.html for an insightful look into the risks of licensing under the LGPL. Increased popularity, more users, should not be the goal. Preserving software freedom is a far better goal. - dukeinlondon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1You would have thought the distros would do that but yet again, they leave it to the movement to show them the way..... Good news anyway.
- geminitojanus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"For example, if you make Qt look like GTK, you still know when you're on a Qt app and when you're on a GTK app because of the HIG. WxWidgets or Java apps tend to not look perfect in any DE."
Well for one WxWidgets is native on whatever platform it uses (Wx is a "passthrough" environment, meaning that it's not responsible for drawing, just translating the instructions from your program to whatever's native on that platform and comparable). Java's SWING is similar; the widgets of SWING have to be implemented in the platform's native toolkit, and Java simply places the widgets. So these "should" look perfect in any platform, though there are circumstances granted in which they don't.
However, Qt and GTK could easily look exactly alike if at a lower level they handed everything off to a library that drew everything the same. In fact, there has been significant work towards this ideal, but in the form of a GTK engine for Qt, and some GTK users are non-responsive to this (because thanks to the platform wars and such, they think their drawing engine is better and that Qt should be rendering its widgets through their platform instead of visa versa). Redhat's BlueCurve theme also attempted to set this right (albeit at a much higher level) just by making the themes look as close as possible.
Yes, your apps will always be identifiable, but I still believe that in a singular platform, the method of coding should be the least important factor to how the program looks. Mac OS X took significant strides to make this happen with Carbon and Cocoa, Windows took just as significant strides to make this work between Win32 and all of its individual coding schema (Win32/CAPI, MFC, .NET, etc). Why can't we do the same thing for Linux?
*sigh*. At least we get baby steps like Poppler. - Gargot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Good news. Cooperation can actually compound the benefits of competition in cases like this.
- psylence, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1geminitojanus: "Well for one WxWidgets is native on whatever platform it uses (Wx is a "passthrough" environment, meaning that it's not responsible for drawing, just translating the instructions from your program to whatever's native on that platform and comparable). Java's SWING is similar; the widgets of SWING have to be implemented in the platform's native toolkit, and Java simply places the widgets. So these "should" look perfect in any platform, though there are circumstances granted in which they don't."
Yeah, umm, Swing is definitely not a native toolkit. AWT was. SWT is. Swing is not.
"But free software isn't made alike; the LGPL and GPL, while being compatible licenses, means that the code written on top of them is magic."
What the hell does that even mean? Are you smoking the drugs? - lego, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0From the article: "The media loves to pretend there's a desktop war and that the two projects are in fierce competition. It's a way of making a non-story much more interesting..."
Yup. There's no war. There shouldn't be one. - J_Omega, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"The media loves to pretend there's a desktop war and that the two projects are in fierce competition. "
Well, even if the two project groups aren't "at war" with fierce competition, many of the users of each most certainly are. It isn't hard to find both anti-other-DE quips wherever you look at the linux landscape. As such, because each project is, in the end, built by the real users, there IS (or was) some animosity between the two camps.
Whatever the case, I like both KDE and Gnome. They each have their own strengths and weaknesses. It'd be great if there really is a kind of merger between them, even if that might mean that KDE and Gnome need to halt the development cycles so that all attention could be focused on a single, all-powerful, DE.
Knome, GnDE, ... QTK? Get this in motion, folks! And good luck. - jbno, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1KDE and GNOME are both Free Software.
What they depend on are all Free Software programs.
I love that I can pick between them or use both without losing my software freedom.
The recently announced Xgl enhancements will apply to both desktops (and others, not to leave out other Free Software desktop software).
I also love that I'll have to revisit my Gedit and Kate evaluations for which text editor I use on a daily basis, now that the latest Gedit can edit (not just read) remote files.
I continue to find reasons to introduce these desktop systems to friends and colleagues. They like what they see, I can hand them a working copy (with source, of course), and show them that sharing isn't wrong or something we should do in secret. - Fly1m1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0i agree with geminitojanus.....digg
- grayson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0good to hear. dugg.
- ramsinks.com, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0The only way to greatness, is to come together for one good.
good to hear. - mesostinky, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1The funny thing Gnome was started for one reason, to "protect" users from Trolltech.
Now Gnome is the one treading on dangerous grounds with Mono and is the project overwhelmingly controlled by big business. Funny how things changed.
I'd give anything to see either one of those projects fail just so the linux desktop would go forward with one single universal full featured desktop instead of two. Oh well, not like it any of this matters anyway. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0the licensing models of both are opposed, thats the core difference. KDE married the devil in the form of QT, where gnome made it's own unrestricted GTK. all the heated debates center around QT having a dual license. there are many good arguments on both sides, at the end of the day trolltech have the right to license their work how they see fit.
for my part, i see these 2 things.
kde is a great desktop, but i find it too cluttered and full of crap i don't want
gnome is great to, however for all their huff and buff about HIS their desktop is far worse to work with. basic functionality such as file managment and copy pasting is cumbersome to work with. gnome is also a dependency NIGHTMARE.
personally i use xfce4 for my DE. it's uncluttered and has everything i need and runs extremely fast. - geminitojanus, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0"KDE and GNOME are both Free Software. What they depend on are all Free Software programs."
But free software isn't made alike; the LGPL and GPL, while being compatible licenses, means that the code written on top of them is magic. If you want to write a commerical app with Qt, your options are either buy a license or GPL your app and sell support. If you want to write a commercial app on GTK, build away, the library's license doesn't inheirit to your project in any fashion unless you change the library.
While both sides of the equation are great, they've both got points that frustrate, and sadly, the products of both DEs would *almost* be complementary if they put them together and dropped out the crappiest app on both sides. But that'd be quite the mess to work out.... yeah I won't go any further with that idea.
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