Novell, RedHat and Sun Commit to a Linux Desktop 542
DeckerEgo writes "InfoWorld reports on the Linux desktop and how Novell, Sun and RedHat (wha?) are working on making 2004 the year corporations start adopting open desktops. But which desktop? Most interesting to note is how Novell is planning to beef up the number of Ximian, Gnome, Mozilla and OpenOffice developers after its SuSE aquisition is complete. Does this mean that SuSE will stop being one of the best KDE distros out there and follow the way of the Gnome?"
SUSE to GNOME? (Score:5, Informative)
Your wrong! (Score:0, Informative)
My 2 cents...(that's 2.6 cents US) (Score:1, Informative)
Plus, with everyone working on ONE desktop - watch it take off...(can I have my cancel button on the RIGHT please?)
Re:Why the will pick Gnome. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Here come the mercenaries? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:My 2 cents...(that's 2.6 cents US) (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Redhat to work on desktops? Makes sense to me.. (Score:5, Informative)
who wrote Orbit with very significant controbutions to gnome-terminal, gconf, freedesktop.org and maintaining Gtk+. Mike Harris is a huge contributor to X itself.
I know this is slashdot but please don't open your mouth unless you have a clue.
Re:Why the will pick Gnome. (Score:4, Informative)
Use the Qt Commercial License to:
Build commercial software.
Build software that is not sold, but that advances the business goals of a commercial enterprise.
Re:Why the will pick Gnome. (Score:5, Informative)
Doesn't matter. The Mac and and X11 versions are released under the GPL, so commercial/non-commercial is irrelevant. The Windows version is not released under the GPL, so free software on Windows can't use QT.
The problem is that Trolltech is being sloppy in their FAQ mixing up "commercial" with "non-free". As long as they distribute QT under the GPL (and not a modified GPL-like license) then you can make QT software for any use whatsoever as long as you comply with the GPL. Their FAQ just assumes that if you want to make a commercial product, you won't make it free software (which is probably a reasonable assumption in general).
Re:Why the will pick Gnome. (Score:3, Informative)
Hmm, there's no GTK+ [dropline.net] for Windows [gimp.org]? Or for Macintosh [sourceforge.net]? I guess these pages are just jokes then.
Qt may indeed be a more mature development environment than Gnome, but now that there are native GTK+ ports to both Windows and MacOS, it should be relatively trivial to get any gnome app working on either - More so MacOSX than Windows, which is already known to run all that stuff; the only new piece is the native GTK+.
Re:Why the will pick Gnome. (Score:5, Informative)
It's the principle that worries most outfits. Sure, $2000 for a widget toolkit perhaps isn't much on its own, but now assume you're paying for the OS, the compiler, the IDE ... it all adds up. Just imagine if there was not one but many libraries that followed this policy - quickly the cost of support code and tools would cause serious problems.
Furthermore, Qt is such an easy-to-use, high quality toolkit compared with anything GNOME has to offer that you are bound to be ahead on the development costs in time savings alone.
This is a fairly common troll, yet it's never been adequately backed up as far as I know. In fact I know a few developers who have used both GTK and Qt enough to know the differences, and don't think Qt is all it's hyped up to be (for instance, the qpe-gaim developer). The Qt API contains its fair share of wierdness, for instance, why does QVBox inherit from QHBox? Where is the equivalent to gdk-pixbuf?
Qt also works on the Mac and Windows - GNOME toolkits don't - this is very important for most commercial developers.
Qt works on Mac and Windows if you pay the fees, which are hefty. The problem is, so does GTK+ - there is a port which tracks the native XP theme in use, and as MacOS X has X11 support built in, they work there too. In most commercial developments cross platform portability is sadly not a concern anyway.
Re:SUSE to GNOME? (Score:5, Informative)
Has anyone followed his link ? SuSE is not abandoning KDE to favor GNOME. And this comes from SuSE's CEO:
It's all about giving their costumers what they ask for, and some customers prefer GNOME. This is it. He is actually stating that most of the European deployment of desktop Linux is due to KDE. He uses KDE and he will keep using it.
In fact, Mandrake has been offering both KDE and GNOME almost at the same level of support (though KDE is the default, but then of course you have to pick a default).
Re:Why the will pick Gnome. (Score:3, Informative)
Because there is no obstacle. All KDE libs* are LGPL, you have no obligation to GPL a KDE application. Of course it'd be nice if you did. Anyway I though theKompany developed GPL software and they then sold it.
*bar some libs for inessential applications like amaroK, but that's because I only just realised we probably blanket licensed that GPLv2. Ooops.
Re:Everyone Wanted Consolidation (Score:3, Informative)
Most KDE hackers are, funnily enough, keen on KDE. Most OSS developers devote themselves to their chosen projects. Of course a good paycheck is something to covet in these trying times, but I have faith in the near-religious devotion us hackers have to our tasks.
Still I feel all uncertain.
QT bites KDE in the end? (Score:5, Informative)
Since RedHat is already Gnome centered..this target is and will be GTK+, which allows for third party linking without them having to pay licensing fees.. this is where the choice of QT finally comes and bites KDE... sad but true, a little ironic though... that KDE loses out because it is not friendly enough to corporate types vis-a-vis QT* while Gnome will win(at least it looks like it will) because it is.
*For those in need of a li'l background QT is licensed under the GPL while GTK+ is dual licensed under the GPL and LGPL. So, QT free(as in speech & beer) for GPL apps but not as in beer for non-GPL apps and while this is fine and dandy for community projects corporations will never pay a 'gatekeeper' if they want to release applications for the 'standard' desktop(even Mickeysoft doesn't charge that.. let's ignore MSDN for now).
--
Re:Why the will pick Gnome. (Score:4, Informative)
--
Evan
Redhat set free (Score:1, Informative)
RedHat has set their desktop free with Fedora, and now developers are maintaining their own projects, rather than stupidly making RH employess keep track of 100's of dependencies.
As a result, development is skyrocketing, and package management, installation and upgrade is taking quantum leaps foreward with yum & apt, and up2date can utilize the same repositories.
Addtionally, far from abandoning the desktop, RH has given substantial support to it via package repositories, bandwidth, and maintaining a multitude of mailing lists as well as hosting search interfaces for them.
The 2.6.10-test linux kernel is available in rpm format for any who want to try it, and I'd expect the Fedora Core 2 to be released once the stable kernel is released by LT.
From my perspective, I'm gonna trust a Linux desktop with RedHat backing eons before I'm going to trust anything SUN puts together as a desktop release. (I've now installed 2 dozen servers and 18 desktops with Fedora on Dell and Compaq with no problems.) Novell/Suse is an interesting idea, but I've just tried the latest Suse distro, and package repositories are far too slow ( 50 kb/sec? ick) for me to consider them a serious contender yet.
WTF Mods? (Score:1, Informative)
ok if thats your game I can play it
In my opinion, Linux should be used. It is good. Linux is different than windows. I wish everyone would use it.
Re:Why the will pick Gnome. (Score:5, Informative)
I wrote an app in PHP-GTK. I found it stable, cross-platform, and most of all, usable. But there sure were alot of weirds.
For example, Clist rows aren't "widgets" in the full sense of the word. Thus, you can't use tooltips (descriptive little popup boxes) on them, even though they act in every other way like a widget.
The combo (dropdown list) widget won't let you set data specific to a particular entry. Instead, you have to store the entry-specific data in an array and load via a special call to set_data().
The entry (write stuff in a box) widget is clearly broken, especially on Windows, (it draws little boxes whenever you have a line break) and I can't get scintilla, (which replaces entry) to scroll the text up to follow you when you type.
The documentation is weak. Many functions are not well documented, and there is no mention of others. Sometimes I had to use the function "Get_Class_Methods()" just so I knew what my options were!
Nothing was insurmountable, and I was able to produce a functional application that's had positive acclaim in its marketplace, so I'm not too horribly upset. But it could be *alot* better.
Re:Why the will pick Gnome. (Score:3, Informative)
But in the home-OpenSource-contributor/hobbyist world, $2000 is a buttload of money. And if the goal is to provide software under the GPL, it might as well be an infinite amount of money.
Qt for X and Qt-embedded are licensed under the GPL, meaning it's free for GPL app developers.
Only Qt for Windows is unavailable under the GPL, but that doesn't have much direct impact on desktop Linux. Personally, I think Trolltech would be wise to release Qt for Windows under GPL as well, but it's their code and they get to call the shots...
Novell will not go the way of theGnome.. (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Mandrake (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Why the will pick Gnome. (Score:2, Informative)
Pretty confusing, but this was the consensus opinion among KDE developers when I brought up your very question at www.kdedevelopers.org.
(posted anonymously becaue I have already moderated posts in this story)
Re:Why the will pick Gnome. (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Everyone Wanted Consolidation (Score:3, Informative)
- You may not like the lack of preferences, but corporations (and inexperienced users) do. MSN is the default home page on millions of systems because users are too lazy to change it. You may like a control center with 40 pages (and multiple tabs per page), but such a thing flies in the face of usability. Users are so overwhelmed by options that they don't find the ones that really matter.
- GNOME has a decent HIG, and developers are actually making an effort to follow it. I have found that the HIG-compliant GNOME apps (e.g. Epiphany) are as easy if not easier to use than their Windows and Mac counterparts. Konqueror has button after buuton, and menu after menu. There are pages of preferences. There are so many things to click and choose from that many users are overwhelmed. Many people I know have switched from Windows to GNOME with positive results. I cannot say the same about KDE.
- You don't have to use Mono to use GNOME. You don't even have to like Mono to use GNOME.
- The "look and feel" of GNOME, in my opinion, is far superior to KDE. There are many GTK themes, most of which are attractive. KDE is butt ugly in my opinion, especially the defualt theme. In its default configuration, KDE looks like a bad OSX ripoff. Remember, "look and feel" is a subjective evaluation.
- The goal of GNOME is not to make a desktop for Linux users. That was conceded to KDE long ago. Linux users like choices - that's why they are running an OS that gives them so many. GNOME's goal is to design a desktop for all of those who are *not* using Linux. GNOME is making Linux usable and accessable. It has an accesibility framework and applications that take advantage of it. It has a core set of applications that continues to improve (as does KDE). And, perhaps most importantly, it has a human interface guide that developers actually follow. And it has cross-distro administration tools to help administrators configure their system. GNOME is providing a desktop that goes above and beyond Windows - not in features, but in polish and usability.
Re:[OT] Americanisms (Score:2, Informative)
Even in 1913 ( dict.org ), "spat" was marked archaic, and "spit" was suggested.
Qt vs GTK Comparison (Score:5, Informative)
* Qt has good C++ bindings. Better than GTK, though GTK does have gtkmm.
* I'm not sure whether it's possible to do Qt in C. If so, it would be quite ugly. If you are otherwise entirely neutral as to choice of toolkit and desktop, C fans (traditional UNIX folk) are probably going to prefer GTK, and C++ fans (generally Windows folk) are going to prefer Qt.
* GTK is more widely used and supports more languages outside of C and C++. There are no Qt ocaml bindings, for instance.
* GTK uses less memory and is faster.
* Currently (and according to Qt/KDE developers, due to linker deficiencies), Qt apps launch more slowly than do GTK apps (both toolkits do too damn much init-time processing IMHO).
* There are tearable panes in either KDE or Qt...not sure which. This is a very nice feature that GTK does not do.
* GTK allows (though with GTK 2, a config file option must be enabled) the user to easily rebind key combinations associated with a menu choice. Qt does not do this.
* Qt currently has good support for small framebuffer-based devices. I do not believe that there is as much work on GTK for this (though GTK can go through the framebuffer instead of X).
* Qt is "commercially supported", FWIW.
* GTK is currently more widely used.
* Qt provides more *things* than GTK does (Note: this is based on my experiences, which are biased towards GTK 1 instead of 2). I suspect that you could write an app entirely within Qt -- GTK is designed to supplement the existing UNIX APIs.
* If you're into the ideology, the FSF/GNU people have tended towards supporting GNOME rather than KDE.
* Qt has been around for longer than GTK has.
* Qt widget engines support fading menus. I do not believe that this is currently the case for GTK.
* You may prefer using various apps associated with either GTK or Qt. Features aside, I find that Konqueror feels more like a "native" app to its widget set than does Galeon, but on the other hand, GTK has GIMP and a number of other programs that I use.
* No matter which you use, either API is modern, and light years ahead of Win32 or the Macintosh Toolbox. Programmers who have worked with these in the past are in for a big, big treat. It's *much* easier and faster to write code for common cases, and a lot of neat debugging code is present.
* Qt is better documented. The core GTK functionality is well documented, but some more esoteric GTK or GNOME related libraries have very little documentation.
* GTK's license is LGPL -- frankly, this license is much more generous and gives a good deal mroe freedom than Qt's license, which is GPL at best and commercial (and costs $$$) at worst. Since the core widget set for a platform is a pretty crucial element from a licensing perspective, it's awfully rough to try to force every GUI developer to use a particular license or pay a license fee.
* Both have RAD GUI design tools. I'm unfamiliar with Qt's. GTK's is called glade -- it has a rather awkward interface, but works reasonably well, and has plugins to export to a number of the GTK-supported languages.
* (A bit of a digression) GTK uses glib. Glib is really, really, really cool. Any C programmer out there will *drool* at the idea of having glib's functionality available to their programmers, even if they like Qt (as a matter of fact, KDE now uses glib, IIRC). Not a huge deal for C++, but glib provides some functionality that C could really use, when aimed at application development.
I'm going to digress a bit from Qt/GTK to KDE/GNOME, since your choice of widget set also affects your desktop environment.
In general, from a user perspective, I've found that GTK/GNOME apps tend to be a bit more oriented towards the hacker, and Qt/KDE apps tow
Microsoft has large companies by the balls (Score:5, Informative)
I work for a Fortune 10 company and let me tell you how depressing it is... Their approved standards list has nothing but Microsoft products wherever possible. It would be not be an exageration to say the criteria for building this list was "Does Microsoft have a key product in this area? If so, that's our standard. Otherwise, we'll just choose whatever is most popular."
In many cases the products these IT desicion makers are choosing are unproven and unpopular even, but hey they're from Microsoft so they'll win eventually anyway. This includes...
- Microsoft Sharepoint (instead of industry leading Documentum)
- Microsoft Passport for authentication
- IIS (They catagorize Apache as "contain", meaning no new deployements should be done)
When asked about all this during a meeting at a local site, one of the IT corporate leaders said...
"Anyone here ever deal with Microsoft on corporate licensing"
[Silence]
"Well, let me tell you those guys play hardball. Unless you can convince them your heart and soul is behind them and their vision, they won't give you a good deal on the licenses you need like Windows and Office."
He then went on to describe how Microsoft was unhappy that our company was using certain competing products such as Lotus Notes. And that they told us they wanted us to get rid of those products as switch to Sharepoint etc or they would screw us on the Windows/Office licensing.
So I can't see us switching to Linux/open source desktops anytime soon, regardless of their quality or other compatibility issues.
The only good news is that Microsoft's actions in strong arming some of these big companies is likely polarizing: Either the company will embrace Microsoft or reject them. Let's hope they manage to piss enough big companies off with their actions.
Re:Has anyone seen any commercial QT/Windows apps? (Score:5, Informative)
How would you be able to tell a Qt app from any other Windows app? They both use the same visual elements.
Re:Why the will pick Gnome. (Score:3, Informative)
My company used to by five figures each year to Cygnus/Redhat for GNUPro support. Five years later we dumped it when we realized we hadn't used it once.
Having used Qt extensively, I can tell you that it doesn't NEED pay-for support. It's that good.
Re:Everyone Wanted Consolidation (Score:3, Informative)
(KDE has so much cool stuff that it's hard to keep track of.
Ah! One other thing I almost forgot about. In KDE 3.2, we actually have a real MacOS-style menubar for KDE applications. GNOME has a system menubar (at least the Ximian version does) but the application menubars are always in their windows; there's no global menu bar that changes with the active application. KDE has it.
Re:Why the will pick Gnome. (Score:3, Informative)
The combo box has been rewritten for GTK 2.4, which should be coming out in a few minutes.
I can't comment on the entry box.
The documentation is still weak in places, I agree. It is however a lot better than it once was, and no new APIs are added without proper documentation to back them up.
Re:Why the will pick Gnome. (Score:2, Informative)
Overall cost for 3 years, with this scheme: $666 for the professional edition, $1000 for the enterprise edition, per developer per year. Believe me. That's nothing.
Re:Why the will pick Gnome. (Score:3, Informative)
Oh yes, the almighty HIG. "Should "cancel" be on the right or on the left? No, I think it should be two pixels up". KDE does conform to a set of guidelines. Maybe they haven't gone as overboard with this as GNOME has, but they have their guidelines.
Bullshit! Kmail, Korganizer, Kaddressbook, Knotes etc. etc. integrate with each other really well. Kdevelop uses Kate as it's editor (or any other KDE-compliant editor) etc. etc. Clearly, you are clueless on this issue.
Re:SUSE to GNOME? (Score:1, Informative)
> again.
No it was due to the perl bindings for GTK being more complete/functional. All Mandrake's tools are GPL'd.