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Debian

KDE 2 To Be Included In Debian 91

Posted by Hemos from the apt-get-is-the-schiznat dept.
jhughes wrote to us with the report that Debian will be including KDE2 within Woody, and according to the article, backtracking it into Potato. Of course, you've been able to get the packages by editing your sources.list [?] , but apparently this will mean including it in the "official" list.
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KDE 2 To Be Included in Debian More

KDE 2 To Be Included in Debian

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  • Re:Yea, but... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Just installed the phase 2 ones, which ARE apt-gettable, gdm stopped working correctly but xf4 fixed the corrupted problems i was having with this S3 virge, althought i wont upgrade my machine with the Voodoo3 becuase the 3d (3dfx) drivers for xf4 are SLOW.

  • Re:Ah but... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    *sigh*

    Obviously some lame ass moderator has NO sense of humor.

  • Re:Debian should be careful... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Listen, you ALL READ THAT WRONG. What Stallman was suggesting was that KDE seek explicit permission (forgiveness) for the fact that they have been implicitly reccomending linking to a non free library. The fact that it links to Qt in the headers *suggests* that there was permission granted, however someone could be a cock and say "Well I never gave anyone explicit permission..." and somehow fuck up the whole deal.

    The part that I found funny or maybe even over-the-top was where RMS graciously decided to set the example and "forgive" them on behalf of the FSF. Apparently there is no FSF code to forgive :)

  • So, let me get this straight... (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    You avoid "desktop environments" because of bloat...

    Then you run Emacs?

    Isn't that similar to refusing to eat pork because it's cruel to pigs... and eating veal instead?

  • common courtesy causes you to lose karma? only on Slashdot..
  • Really? ARGH! I just installed X4 remotely (haven't gone home to test it yet) in the hopes that it'd fix my v3 - 3500 problems in debian unstable.

    Bah.

  • You haven't checked recently. (Score:3)

    by knghtbrd ( 593 ) on Thursday September 07, 2000 @11:48PM (#796918)
    Qt 1.x was non-free and anything using it could at best be in contrib. It had compatibility issues with the GPL. When it was clear these issues would not be resolvable, KDE was pulled from Debian.

    Qt 2.0/2.1 was free, but still wasn't compatible with the GPL. KDE remained available outside of Debian (which so far as anyone could tell was acceptable if you considered Qt a system library (we didn't, but the argument could be made...))

    Qt 2.2 is available under the GPL. Problem resolved in a way nobody really expected was even possible. Anyone for a ski trip in hell? heh

  • As far as I can tell, the issues that Stallman brought up deal with 1) the GPL rights of those who had copies of KDE made before Qt 2.2 was dual licensed under the QPL and GPL, and 2) the GPL rights of KDE developers who incorporated third-party GPL'd code into software linked with Qt. Neither of those issues affects the current KDE2 codebase, so Debian is in the clear.

  • Sweet! (Score:1)

    by mholve ( 1101 )
    Will it include XFree86 v4.x also?
  • Thx
  • (unless, of course, it was using the source code . . .)

    :)

  • Lawyer: no, that's a read herring (Score:3)

    by hawk ( 1151 ) <hawk@eyry.org> on Friday September 08, 2000 @05:00AM (#796923) Journal
    I am a lwyer, but this is not legal advice. If you need legal advice, contact an attorney licensed in your jurisdiction.

    The illegal distribution argument is now, always was, and always will be a red herring. Although it has been repeated over and over again, it is not even arugable as a legal issue, and any half-way capable judge would impose sanctions on the party raising the claim to pay the other party's fees and costs in defending it.

    KDE *was not* GPL software, despite the claims of the authors. By distributing and publishing it they altered the terms of the putative license. That is, their actions override the boilerplate.

    RMS has hinted in this direction with his "I supose there's an imp[licit permission," but that's far to soft. Distributing binaries never violated the KDE licesne.

    However, this does not get aropund the use of *third party* GPL'd code--as KDE was not GPL, it could not use GPL code in a manner that violates the GPL, which is apparently done in two pieces (kghostview and one other, iirc).

    The whole bit on "legal concerns" for the rest of KDE, though, was a matter of willful ignorance of the law on an issue that isn't even debatable.

    hawk, esq.
  • As someone who *strongly* prefers Debian to all other distros, and even more strongly prefers KDE to GNOME, and who has jumped through numerous hoops (builds from source and unofficial packages) to keep KDE up to date - while everything else is updated *apt-get*automatically*, I have just one other thing to say:

    It's about @#$%^! time!!!
  • Neither Nautilus nor Galeon can ever become an "official" part of GNOME, since Mozilla is currently released under an incompatible license.

    What goes for one, goes for everything else.

  • Hell, aparently there's a line in the GPL about not adding any further restrictions to the GPL (I don't know where it is, sorry) which the QPL did. The only restriction the QPL added is that you couldn't charge for distributing software (which the GPL, surprisingly enough, allows.)

    It's the one thing that you'll never get out of an FSF zealot: just what the hell is wrong with the QPL?

    You bring up an interesting point: apparently, it's OK for Nautilus to use Mozilla as a rendering engine, since it (Nautilus) calls Mozilla through Bonobo, which is LGPL. Ugh. Truthfully, the KDE team should have seen this...except that zealots always argue against this strategy (except when it works to their advantage.) I'm not sure about using the LGPL to circumvent licensing problems--to my way of thinking, this is *more* of a problem than KDE not being fully GPL ever was.

    BTW Thanks to whoever pointed out how wrong I originally was about the Mozilla/Nautilus debate--sorry, I was sleepy when I came up with the idea, and ran with it. :^) It wasn't the first time I went on a stupid rant, and I'm sure it won't be the last. :^)
  • Erm,

    /*
    The main sticking point is/was here:

    6. c. If the items are not available to the general public, and the initial developer of the Software requests a copy of the items,
    then you must supply one.

    ...which is an "additional restriction".
    */

    OK, so if for some reason the source isn't available to the general public, and if for some reason the original author wants a copy, you have to supply it.

    I can only think of a couple of reasons why it *wouldn't* be available: One is if this was part of an in-house project, in which case you wouldn't have to give the code to the entire world. Another reason is if you chose to use the BSD license for your software (I think that's OK...isn't it?). Any other reason and you'd be in violation of the QPL (IIRC.)

    So...the GPL requires the source to be open on a public project. The QPL requires the source to be open on a public project. There's no disagreement, as I see it...it seems to me that the QPL wishes to put further regulations on those who choose to use a license other than the GPL, and this should have never been used as an argument against the folks at KDE.

    As far as the jurisdiction is concerned, I have to agree with what others have voiced here, which is that I feel that there should be some control over where licensing agreement disputes are handled...I don't want to be dragged to Khazakstan(sp) if I release some GPLed code and some company there chooses to steal my code. I'd like some say, especially since their country might permit such usage and claim the GPL has no power there.

    The GPL and LGPL are broken. Let's fix them.
  • Hasn't happened yet, has it?
  • >Mozilla will have a dual license.

    As in, "It hasn't happened yet, but may someday, but until then, it's still not dual-licensed and still only MPL." You'd know that if you bothered to think.

    >As someone mention in another post, it's beeing
    >*embedded* as a bonobo component.

    This is one of those things that's been debated a lot: is CORBA a link, or is it not? Clearly, you need the MPLed Mozilla code to display the HTML in this case, but it's not linking in a traditional sense. This is one of those things that'll be covered (I hope) in a future revision of the GPL (but isn't yet.)

  • My apologies to Eazel (Score:3)

    by Enahs ( 1606 ) on Thursday September 07, 2000 @03:13PM (#796930) Journal
    The former statement was written in ignorance of how exactly Mozilla was embedded.

    However, it brings up an intriguing possibility-the KDE license dispute could have been settled long ago! The Harmony project could have simply had someone write up a spec (which I believe was in the works at one time) and could have written an LGPL wrapper lib to cover up the licensing issue. No fuss, no muss.

    Now, the former paragraph is clearly wrong--that wouldn't solve the problem. Or would it? Apparently, it does for Nautilus--the interface between Mozilla and Nautilus has been Bonoboized. What does that mean? Mozilla is called through Bonobo, which is LGPLed, which in turn uses CORBA to communicate--and, as it has been explained to me, this means that there is *no linking* of Mozilla to Nautilus.

    Is this true? Is this all that is required? We just use the LGPL library to do as we see fit? Wow...you know, this doesn't seem right, somehow. It wasn't OK for the QPL to give permission to link not-for-charge GPL programs to GPLed programs, but it's OK to write an LGPL wrapper for anything--and link to GPLed software with not legal problems.

    Yet another reason I would never consider the GPL/LGPL...
  • Everyone is entitled to their own views. I have been using KDE since KDE BETA 3 and just yesterday looked at KDE2 which btw is a magnificent piece of work (love the command line under the filemanager, truly sensible idea).

    The only point I wish to take issue with in the above post is the "speed" of Gnome development. When you consider that the web browser was someone elses app (though now is a port of KDE's khtml lib), the window manager was someone elses app, the file manager was mostly someone elses app etc etc etc. The office suite will be some elses app, I think I'm right in saying that even the spreadsheet was around before Gnome and is therefore someone elses app and this is the reason for Gnomes stability issues and also why it feels less consistant. The point being, KDE got to where it is on it's own, raw code whereas Gnome has integrated the major components into itself. KDE DID have qt and Gnome had a fair bit of work to do on gtk to get it usable but in my view, the speed of Gnome development has been really slow by comparison to KDE.

    It might have been faster for Gnome to start from scratch rather than shoe horn all these different apps together. On the other hand Gnomes' panel was always better than KDE's though the new KDE kicker looks nice.

    Regards
  • I avoid all "desktop environments" since they're too bloated and enforce too much of a system-wide look for me. (A WM, an Emacs, and 20 terminals, and I'm happy...)

    This is of course based on a serious mis-understanding. If you look at emacs, this monstrosity could never pass for being an editor. It's huge and bloated, it's got built-in email and web browser support and you besically never have to leave it in a days work. Ergo, emacs is a desktop environment. Why the GNU dudes needed to write *another* desktop environment when they've had emacs for decades is beyond me.

    PS The editor component in emacs is great, it's very similar to jed, but ties in better with the rest of the desktop environment and uses the system-wide lisp scripting engine.

  • I was going to post a question to debian-devel but
    figured I would be asking for trouble.
  • I run a Private mirror, so thats not an option realy.

  • Re:This is great! (Score:5)

    by Angst Badger ( 8636 ) on Thursday September 07, 2000 @09:07PM (#796935)
    KDE 2.0s interface is more contemporary than GNOME's

    Only if by "contemporary" you mean "more like Windows". I can't really think of much in the way of older user interfaces that GNOME resembles.

    KDE takes a less timid approach to making use of others interface design philosiphies than GNOME does.

    KDE is certainly more eager to imitate Windows. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's a dead end strategy when it comes to winning hearts and minds. "Chase the dream, not the competition." It also presumes you like the Windows-style interface. If I did, I wouldn't be using Linux. Windows does come "free" with new computers. (Okay, but you have to pay for it either way.) ;)

    KDE has more mature app integration than GNOME

    I can't really argue that point. But GNOME is newer, and it is plainly advancing faster than KDE, which is to be expected for a system attempting to blaze new territory rather than to simply achieve parity with a competitor. Still, I'll be glad when I can cut and paste more often.

    The KDE UI is centered around implementing what works best for the user, where GNOME appears to do what is best for the developer.

    Huh? I think you can make a case that GNOME is friendlier to C programmers than KDE's C++ API -- which is part of why I like it, being a C programmer -- but I can't really say that either system is better for developers than end users. Except for the actual task of GUI design, character-based commandline systems are a lot more developer-friendly than GUIs in general.

    What's really disturbing to me about these pointless advocacy debates is the hidden presumption that everybody must be forced into one standard interface despite their personal preferences. That's a BS viewpoint fostered by commercial software. What we need are solid interoperability standards so you can use KWrite, I can use AbiWord, and the next guy can use Word, and we can all use each other's data without respect to each other's software. Killing the competition is only good if you're selling software; if you're giving it away, the competition ought to be more friendly and cooperative.

    --

  • Apparently Nautilus could call Mozilla because it used inter-process communication, which is basically a "loophole" in the GPL. But it really isn't one you can close in my opinion, since the same mechanism can be used for local and remote communication

  • You can have Sawfish/Gnome/X or KDE/WindowMaker/X.

    Yep, the only bit we can't change right now is X.

  • They were able to get QT under the GPL. So why not. Can someone elplain what hte problem with the QPL was that made this whole issue? Other than it was not the GPL. Does this mean that a MPL version of mozilla will not be able to be included with debian? Good thing they are dual licensing it. I am amazed at how many companies are now bowing to the GPL and Linux. Don't get me wrong I love Linux and think it is great, but I am kind of suprised.
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    I don't want a lot, I just want it all ;-)
    Flame away, I have a hose!
  • DFSG? What does that stand for? What was the conflict between KDE and QT?
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    I don't want a lot, I just want it all ;-)
    Flame away, I have a hose!
  • Figures... I wait a month for apt-able packages to show up so I can download them with my cable modem. Within a week of moving to my University's 28.8 service, BOOM, 56megs of debian updates. Ah well. :)

  • Re:Sweet! (Score:3)

    by gehrehmee ( 16338 ) on Thursday September 07, 2000 @12:42PM (#796941) Homepage
    http://www.debian.org/~branden/

    Here, the official X debian package maintainer has some pre-beta debs of X4 waiting for you, if you're feeling adventurous. Apt-able packages are due to follow soon.
  • You're incorrect on the naming.

    2.2, AKA Potato is the Joel 'Espy' Klecker (sp?) release.

    Note, it is NOT called 'Espy', it is just dedicated to him. There's a big difference...

    If I write a book and call it 'Foobar', and dedicate it to Bob Smith, it is not called 'Bob Smith', but rather Foobar.
  • There never was any suspense, it was just a matter of time. The author of the article made it sound like they were going to avoid it for some reason, and sounded surprised when the responses came quickly and succinctly stated it would be included ASAP. Get over it people, Debian had some issues with the old license but that's in the past. Move on, nothing to see here but progress as usual.

    F.O. Dobbs
    Portal-Potty [portal-potty.com] contributor and Mr. Brown Drinker.
  • But what happens if the KDE developers don't/b? beg for forgiveness? Will Debian use this as an excuse not to include KDE? Under any interpretation they can still include KDE regardless of "forgiveness", since it is not Debian that needs forgiveness (in this instance). But I suspect there's at least one or two Debian diehards who will go down kicking and screaming all the way, possibly even forking the distro.
  • I forgot a single "". Sue me.
  • You can still use WM with KDE - I have on occasion. WM is just replacing kwm - you can still use kicker and the other KDE stuff at the same time.

    I'd imagine that this would be the case for KDE2 as well...

  • Bah, this always happens to me.
  • In the unstable distribution, of course.
    If you want to apt-get the official packages, you need to point apt to the Woody archive.

  • KDE2 Officially in Potato? (Score:5)

    by Oskuro ( 26466 ) on Thursday September 07, 2000 @01:41PM (#796949) Homepage
    KDE2 won't be in the official Debian archive for Potato. Potato is closed now, updates are normally due to security fixes and some others to fix some outstanding bugs that really shouldn't be in later point releases. Debian KDE maintainer, Ivan E. Moore II, will probably continue to maintain his unofficial Debian packages for Potato.
    More info in:
    <a href="http://kde.tdyc.com/Debian/">RevKrusty's Site</a>.
  • This is actually quite funny:

    http://www.ubersoft.net/d/20000906.html
  • So, it's Potato, and Woody.

    Not Espy then.

    Shows how much the community cares.
  • Utter bull. RMS told the story as he saw it, then went on to encourage the use of KDE and Qt. In no way did he ever slam the KDE programmers or the desktop environment. And this is as far as he got in praising Gnome:

    But GNOME is here, and is not going to disappear. GNOME and KDE will remain two rival desktops, unless some day they can be merged in some way. Until then, the GNU Project is going to support its own team vigorously. Go get 'em, gnomes!

    Promoting his own team! The shamelessness of it all! How dare he?
  • I dunno. KDE and Debian are both as slow as molasses. It's hard to say who'll get there first.

    -----------

    "You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."

  • As for the new X4.0.1 debian packages [debian.org] they are apt-able, though not in Debian "proper." However, Branden, the X package maintainer, says these packages are still somewhat experimental, and any bug reports filed against them will be closed without comment.
  • QT has always been in Debian. QT 1.x is in non-free, and QT 2.1 was in the main section of the recent Potato release. The QPL is a DFSG license.

    It is KDE that is now being included, as there is no longer a license conflict.

  • Re:Good News (Score:3)

    by joeytsai ( 49613 ) on Thursday September 07, 2000 @02:18PM (#796956) Homepage
    It should be noted that it is KDE that is being included, and not QT.

    QT has always been in Debian; the QPL is a DFSG-license, and QT2.1 is in Potato (the stable branch) right now (I think the qt1.x is in Debian as well, though in non-free). However, now that QT2.2 will be GPLed, KDE's licensing conflict is over and that's why it's being included.
  • Not having KDE built in has been one of the bigger reasons I haven't moved to Debian from Red Hat yet.

    Not trying to start any flame wars here, but I think the KDE interface is a lot cleaner and more professional than the Gnome interface, even if I still neet GTK to run gnucash et al.

    Besides which, choice is always a good thing. I'm glad the licensing was resolved. Gook work, guys!
  • Geez, they broke the GPL with their own code! It's not that much of a sin you know!
  • Then why the hell is everyone so hostile to KDE! The person I was replying to acts as if KDE linking to Qt violated on of the 10 commandments or something.
  • They are free to do whatever they want with their own code, even if it is GPL. They could give you binaries and refuse the source if they want. The problem is that other people don't have that luxury. The issue for Debian was that it might have been illegal for them to redistribute Debian.
    treke
  • I don't know why other people are hostile to KDE. Only thing I have against KDE ist that I don't like using it. I don't even think the licensing issue is a real problem. RedHat probably has some decent lawyers and would be shipping KDE if they thought it was a violation of the GPL.
    treke
  • Ok, your post assumes two things which are incorrect. The first assumption is that KDE and GNOME are the only two Desktop Environment/Window Manager/Et Cetera. Second, people do have a tendency to make better products whether there is competition or not. The people writing X application probably use X application, so they are going to want it to be better regardless of whether there is competition or not.

  • In Potato or Woody (Score:4)

    by dale@shiraz ( 70141 ) on Thursday September 07, 2000 @03:04PM (#796963)
    Well the KDE 2 stuff (deb packages) are currently for Woody only.
    With the Debian release schedule change to around 6 months you could safely assume that Woody will contain KDE 2 which will give Debain enough testing time - which is one of their trademarks. I am also guessing that any KDE 2 packages will be add on packages to potato. I would not expect to see them added to the offical version since its already released.
    Hopefully woody will have a nice installer too:

    Debian + Gnome + KDE2 = :-)

    For Debian users wanting to get an easy install or introduce friends to Linux try Storm Linux 2000 which is based on Potato.

    The idea that some had of Debian being anti-KDE seems to have been smashed - it was always a pure legal issue. Ok, thats more boring than the gossip but true.

    It amazes me how many people still confuse the desktop with the window manager, and the window manager with the graphics (X) server.
    • Graphics (X) Server - draws stuff
    • Window Manager - handles the windows on the display
    • Desktop - Is the users tools/interface
    You can have Sawfish/Gnome/X or KDE/WindowMaker/X. KDE just happens to come with its own window manager KWM.
    So a desktop is mostly for the average user not so much the techie, for this reason I think KDE2 looks more suitable for the average Windows user to make the leap over to Linux. Isn't this what we want?
    I wonder if Qt was GPL what the outcome for the "standard" desktop would have been?
  • What is it with these trolls??? Could we *not* start these stupid flame fests??? What is it with these people.

    Even if don't intend on a flame fest( doubtful with that statement ), using KDE or GNOME is a personal choice, so you're gonna spark yet more tiresome dribble.

    I completely disagree with you and think GNOME is better, and we can argue until we are blue in the face. It won't help because its a personal decision. And yes I used KDE2, just yesterday in fact. So let's agree to disagree, and be done with it.

    Could Moderators mark this parent at -1(Flamebait, Redundant, and just plain Dumb).

    Thank You!
  • Debian has dedicated "potato" to Espy. They never said that they will change the name of the release.

    Hari.
  • I appologize, but thanks for bringing this up. I should have been more clear to say GNOME developers; instead of developers, in general. It makes more sense :-)

  • Re:This is great! (Score:4)

    by Andrew Dvorak ( 95538 ) on Thursday September 07, 2000 @01:41PM (#796967)

    yes, I have found the kde2.0 interfaces to be more contemporary than GNOME's current toolkit interface.

    ..the KDE developers have a good grip on what others want based on feedback from *other*, more proprietary interfaces. Where KDE makes a great effort to blend in, Gtk and GNOME are unique aside from what one might consider a "standard" interface.

    I have found that KDE has more mature app integration than GNOME, *CURRENTLY*; more specifically, KOffice. It's amazing what KDE has been able to accomplish as far as developing the various KOffice apps to the point at which they are at now.

    KDE was made to bridge the gap between the average computer user and the power of Linux. GNOME was created with this same goal; presumably, from a developer's point of view.

    To summarize:

    • KDE 2.0s interface is more contemporary than GNOME's
    • KDE takes a less timid approach to making use of others interface design philosiphies than GNOME does.
    • KDE has more mature app integration than GNOME
    • The KDE UI is centered around implementing what works best for the user, where GNOME appears to do what is best for the developer.
    Thanks!
  • I know all the GNOME vs. KDE arguments, and trust me I've been a big GNOME supporter, but as of later, KDE has definitely been coming into it's own (open-sourcing Qt).

    Plus, I'm looking forward to getting ahold of Magellan! :)

    Hey guys, keep in mind that part of what we love about Linux is the fact that we have a CHOICE. That choice should definitely extend to the GUI we use, whether you agree with their politics or not.
  • ...you'd be editing your sources list by hand all along, using woody and packages that have yet to make it into the official mirrors, plus exclusive personal releases and that one package that's only available in Tanzania due to export restrictions.

    I think the big change is that now you don't have to feel bad about liking kde on your Debian box because your family likes it better.
  • True however RMS went to ends of the earth to praise Gnome and condem KDE. Read:

    http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2000- 09-05-001-21-OP-LF-KE

  • I wonder who will release first.....Debian, Storm, Corel????
    Wonder how much they will co-operate like Linux people should??
    End Result, Debian is THE "Free" OS, by the people for the people and soon it will have two interfaces that dummies can be let loose on (in terms of damaging them not them damaging the machine :-).
  • i'm in the same opinion as yours. it's about time that all distro's will include kde, the very useful and good desktop environment. and a word to all open source gnome zealots : if you dont admit kde is better than gnome, so just stop using gnome because it "kills" kde.
  • That's why there are the mirrors. I usually keep to mirrors in my sources.list just in case something goes wrong with one of them.
  • The real idiot is the guy wasted a point moderating that one down... sigh...
  • If this trend continues, they're going to have to beg for Stallman's forgiveness too...
  • DFSG stands for Debian Free Software Guidelines [debian.org]. It's what the Open Source Definition was based on.

    As for the conflict, see a previous post by me here [slashdot.org].

    --

  • Put this in your sources.list ('though you won't have to for long):

    deb http://kde.tdyc.com/debian/ potato kde contrib

    Pardon the pun, but then it's automatic... for the people!

    /me ducks

    --

  • Re:of course (Score:3)

    by locutus074 ( 137331 ) on Thursday September 07, 2000 @03:52PM (#796978)
    The only restriction the QPL added is that you couldn't charge for distributing software (which the GPL, surprisingly enough, allows.)

    It's the one thing that you'll never get out of an FSF zealot: just what the hell is wrong with the QPL?

    I think you are mistaken here. Even RMS says [gnu.org] that it's a free license, but that you can only distribute modifications as patches. According to the QPL itself [trolltech.com]:
    6. You may develop application programs, reusable components and other software items that link with the original or modified versions of the Software. These items, when distributed, are subject to the following requirements:

    b. You must explicitly license all recipients of your items to use and re-distribute original and modified versions of the items in both machine-executable and source code forms. The recipients must be able to do so without any charges whatsoever, and they must be able to re-distribute to anyone they choose. (emphasis mine)
    The main sticking point is/was here:
    6. c. If the items are not available to the general public, and the initial developer of the Software requests a copy of the items, then you must supply one.
    ...which is an "additional restriction".

    Note also:

    Choice of Law This license is governed by the Laws of Norway. Disputes shall be settled by Oslo City Court.
    ...which is the same sort of sticking point that is currently being experienced with Python.

    Not that there's anything wrong with the license (even RMS says it's a free license, so it must be okay, right? <g>), but IIRC, it was these two parts of it that caused all the brouhaha.

    --

  • Ah but... (Score:3)

    by jailbrekr2 ( 139577 ) on Thursday September 07, 2000 @01:23PM (#796979) Homepage
    Have they asked RMS for forgiveness yet?

    ---- Click here to flame
    |
    V

  • Last I checked, anything that depended on qt was in non-free. There's quite a bit in non-free, like non open SSH, and portsentry, and tripwire. And the debian social contract states that non-free software can be included, it just cant be something that the system cant be dependant upon its install. That being said, debian should have had kde a long time ago, and just put it in non-free. But adding kde.tdyc.com to my sources.list wasnt that big of a deal anyways.
  • I have the Caldera Tech Review, which has kde2 and Xfree4.0
    I haven't had time to install it yet, but all the pics look perty perty

  • I'm a FreeBSD user, administrator, and advocate, BUT -

    Mr. Stallman's website (www.stallman.org) is hosted by idiom.com, not his own personal web server. The choice of FreeBSD was made by Idiom Communications. A good choice if you ask me, but nothing to hold agains RMS.
  • Nice... You almost got me... =)
  • Now everyone can make their own choice, instead of worrying about the new "standard"... *cough*GNOME*cough*

    Note: I happen to like GTK better than Qt, but I think the KDE guys have a better attitude than GNOME. And I avoid all "desktop environments" since they're too bloated and enforce too much of a system-wide look for me. (A WM, an Emacs, and 20 terminals, and I'm happy...)

  • I use a variety of WMs (depending on my mood). Mostly its E .. Guess I like having eye candy to show off.

    But anyways ... as for Gnome and KDE. I tried out KDE-1.98 beta and Helix Gnome and they have gotten only better. We have a choice of desktops and now we have a choice of GREAT desktops.
  • Is the KDE Licence thing all worked out now? I mean.. There was a story here yesterday about the QT licences... Whats up?

  • If you check this link [debian.org], you'll understand why. :-/

    Quote:

    Debian GNU/Linux 2.2 is dedicated to the memory of Joel "Espy" Klecker, a Debian developer, unbeknownst to most of the Debian Project, was bedridden and fighting a disease known as Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy during most of his involvement with Debian. Only now is the Debian Project realizing the extent of his dedication, and the friendship he bestowed upon us. So as a show of appreciation, and in memory of his inspirational life, this release of Debian GNU/Linux is dedicated to him.

  • Good News (Score:3)

    by the-banker ( 169258 ) on Thursday September 07, 2000 @12:39PM (#796988)
    Now we can be thankful to have even more choice in the Debian distribution. Regardless of the past, I am quite happpy to see Debian embrace the newly licensed Qt library and subsequently KDE. I find myself switching from Gnome to KDE to XFCE on a regular basis, as I have yet to really decide on the environment I like best.

    This will also give a nice boost to the number of available packages in the Debian archive once all of the KDE based apps are ackaged and placed into main.

    Marc
  • i.e, WindowMaker.

    Seriously, how many people really use KDE/Gnome/Windows (never quite sure of the differences) for their day-to-day work? 100% of all the linux users I know (which is dozens) use WindowMaker, and love it. As do I. I have yet to meet a Linux user that has used either of the windows-clones for more than a day ("just to see what this version's like"). Time for a Slashdot poll, methinks

    TWW

  • I've found WindowMaker slow...

    If that's the case there is something wrong with your setup. WindowMaker is very fast; I used it originally on my old P100 because it's the only manager I could find which ran as fast as I wanted. I still use it today on that P100 and on all my other machines because, speed aside, I think it's the best one out there. But that's subjective; the speed is a simple fact.

    TWW

  • You are free (as in speech) to call it what you like.

  • What's really disturbing to me about these pointless advocacy debates is the hidden presumption that everybody must be forced into one standard interface despite their personal preferences.
    I disagree. I believe the vast majority of people -- consumers who see a computer as a tool, and just want to get work done -- want one standard interface. If they have to sit down at a new computer, or open up a new application, they don't want to have to learn a new interface. And for those that do, with Linux there are plenty of alternatives.

    I suspect you don't want to hear this, but Linux is not going to make it on the desktop if consumers perceive that they must deal with all sorts of confusing, competing, inconsistent desktops.

    And why should you care if Linux makes it on the desktop? So that you can get all of the drivers and hardware support you need. So you get the mass market behind you, instead of in your way.

    Also, to be honest, I'm sure that businesses want to be able to reduce training costs. To the extent that Gnome, KDE, Enlightenment, etc., etc., are dissimilar, they businesses don't want to have people wrestling with different desktops.

  • I wonder if Qt was GPL what the outcome for the "standard" desktop would have been?

    Gnome, because GTK is LGPL, which is friendlier to corporate developers.

  • The GPL camp can play nice, it's especially nice that they're backporting. It sends a good message to non-GPL products that the GPL camp will still accept them warmly if they change their license, even if they do it fairly late.

  • Yea, but... (Score:3)

    by B00yah ( 213676 ) on Thursday September 07, 2000 @12:38PM (#796995) Homepage
    it'll be KDE 3 by then...
  • KDE2 won't be in the official Debian archive for Potato

    "Considering how many people have been asking for KDE packages in Debian I expect that we will have packages within 2 weeks of the Qt/UNIX 2.2 release." - Wicchert Ackerman, Debian project leader, in an article [linuxplanet.com] on Debian's response to Trolltech's GPL announcement.
    So at least a package will be available to anyone who can type apt-get. =)
    - Derwen

  • >people do have a tendency to make better products whether there is competition or not.

    Sometimes, sometimes not. By your reasoning, shouldn't Windows have gotten better over the years? *grin*

  • No matter if you use gnome or KDE, you must admit, without competition, no one would try to make a better product. Kudos to the makers of KDE2.
  • I recently rediscovered the commandline while installing a X-Free-free debian 2.2 on my Linux box. Previously, I had Mandrake 7 installed with KDE, but I had a hard time trying to manage it.
    It makes me wonder what these graphical environments are good for. I'm not an expert admin neither a unix old timer, but I discovered that all the graphical configuration tools really hide the system to the user. If you don't know how to configure your system "by hand" you'll run into trouble sooner or later, and if you know it why would you want to use the graphical tools?
    I think Linux (as any unix) is a complex OS and you _have_ to read a lot of docs to understand it, I'm not sure there will be point-and-click administration any time soon. KDE and Gnome give you the (wrong) feeling that you don't have to understand at least the basic of Linux architecture to use it.
    A lot of people say that KDE or Gnome will put Linux on the end-user's desktop, I would agree as long as these users have a system administrator who knows what he's doing.
    Why is this related to Debian? Because I found Debian to be very command line friendly, I can understand its directory tree (maybe all Linux distribution have the same) and I'm able to use what I learned in a Unix administration book (not Linux specific) I just bought.
    I'm not trying to start a flame war, I'm not comparing Linux with Windows or MacOS. I just realised I didn't understand what I was doing with Mandrake's Drakconf. Now I'm learning what all these /etc/*.conf files are for and one day (hopefully) I'll get Apache running.
  • QT has been open-sourced -all licensing issues are resolved. Even Stallman is happy. (wow!)

    <O O&gt
    ( \/ )
    X X
  • So KDE can be excluded again.
  • But it won't change again unless there's a need to.

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