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Red Hat Software Businesses

KDE Gets The Hat 590

Posted by michael from the kat-in-the-hat dept.
minkwe writes "Tension is currently rising between the KDE and GNOME followers, following the release of the new beta to Red Hat's upcoming distribution. Neither group appears to be satisfied with the fact that Red Hat has null-ified the difference between the two desktop environments."
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KDE Gets The Hat More

KDE Gets The Hat

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  • About that hat (Score:4, Funny)

    by DotComVictim ( 454236 ) on Saturday August 24, 2002 @07:00PM (#4134653)
    So does it support transparency, anti-aliased logos and gradient shading now... that's a pretty fancy hat.
    • Ok, the GNOME link collapsed long before I got a chance to look at any of the discussion points, but I have looked at the screenshots. Besides the fact that RH has done a good job of making both G and K look boring and uninteresting (although the Keramic window border still manages to look good, despite their best efforts), I don't see what the problem is.

      Actually, I would like to see more visual and functional integration of the two. If I could just find a non-Aqua theme that is similar for both KDE and GNOME, I would be truly delighted. While the discontinuity of having two separate themes doesn't bother me much, the neat freak in me wishes for something more...complementary.

      :Peter

    • Someone finally makes Linux apps look consistent (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Nailer ( 69468 ) on Saturday August 24, 2002 @09:40PM (#4135081)
      And you're complaining?

      I'm usign the Red Hat beta Null right now. I *like* the fact that all my apps - GTK1, GTK2, QT, XUL, and XMMS skins - look consistent. Other people I know have been asking for this for years.

      Did people complain when people made their KDE and GNOME menus consistent? Not if I remeber correctly. Because nobody ever says `today, I feel like launching a GTK app .... and maybe it should be a web browser, Instead, they just want the best web browser avaliable and expect it to be in their goddamned internet menu.

      Likewise, nobody says `today I wish half my app would look like X, and the other half Y'. The lack onconsistent theming between these two desktops is retarded (If you find that offensive, becausee it implies mentally retarded people are stupid, they are).

      Red Hat have done some excellent work on Null and done a lot of useability improvements to their desktops. Consistent looking menus and widgets and comparable panel apps is just the start of what should hopefully become a linux desktop where people pick apps based on quality rather than toolkit, and the desktop reflects this.

      • Re:Someone finally makes Linux apps look consisten (Score:4, Interesting)

        by slamb ( 119285 ) on Sunday August 25, 2002 @03:21AM (#4135856) Homepage
        Likewise, nobody says `today I wish half my app would look like X, and the other half Y'. The lack onconsistent theming between these two desktops is retarded (If you find that offensive, becausee it implies mentally retarded people are stupid, they are).

        Actually, I feel that way.

        My ideal situation would be for all applications to look and behave in the same way. It might be themeable, but there's only one theme - all applications use it.

        But Qt-based, gtk-based, and XUL-based applications do not behave in the same way. So I would rather they be visually distinct. The consistency of appearance is a foolish one IMHO because it falsely implies a consistency of behavior.

        (Obligatory quote: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds." It's not really appropriate - I respect the RedHat developers even if I disagree with this decision. I just like the quote. ;)

        Fortunately, much of it can be turned off fairly easily, at least in the KDE area. I installed (null) tonight and have done this already. What I don't see any way to get rid of is their bad iconset.

      • Actually, I think that the choice between the two desktops is good, and that (healthy) competition between them helps both of them improve.

        Red Hat's idea sounds good in practise, but what I would like to see is the following:

        a) A set of themes which make KDE and Gnome look and behave similarly (as similarly as possible, anyway);

        AND

        b) Some sort of unified control panel application which applies settings, themes, etc, to BOTH KDE and Gnome environments.

        It should be possible to have a control panel application which detects which environment it's running under and uses the appropriate GUI toolkit - separation of program logic from GUI code and all that - even to detect at run-time whether both KDE and Gnome are installed.

        Of course, both environments will not be identical. But the differences between them could be minimised in this way.

  • This is the way it should be... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Butthead ( 523905 ) <gerrynjr&netscape,net> on Saturday August 24, 2002 @07:00PM (#4134654) Homepage
    No distro should take preference over which is the default windowmanager... nor promote one more than the other, it is for the end user to decide which enviroment to use. This is what the open source movement is about.... choices!

    • Re:This is the way it should be... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by laserjet ( 170008 ) on Saturday August 24, 2002 @07:04PM (#4134673) Homepage
      Hmm. I thought the open source movement was about... open source.

    • Re:This is the way it should be... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ksheff ( 2406 ) on Saturday August 24, 2002 @07:10PM (#4134687) Homepage

      So RedHat wants a consistent look for both environments? Big deal. The user can still rip it out and use something totally different and/or configure it they want with the desired apps. Some of the KDE ppl were pissed that they didn't include Konq and Kmail. If they wanted iron fist control over how their precious desktop environment is set up and what apps must be included, they should work for another company. [microsoft.com]

      • Well now wait a doggone minute... (Score:5, Funny)

        by quiklilo71 ( 557049 ) on Saturday August 24, 2002 @08:45PM (#4134967) Homepage
        Who really cares? The desktop wars are always fun, it pushes all products to "Excel" or change thier "Outlook." Heck I'm not making a "Powerpoint", I'm just stating the facts. Competition is good for linux, it pushes us to open new "windows" and grow. This is evident in the way open source coverage has grown "XP"ediately in media coverage lately. You mark my "Word", it does not matter; KDE or Gnome, which ever product continues to "Project" themselves forward with quality features, smooth intergration and stable ease of use; that will dominate the desktop.
    • I fully agree... this is why I use opensource in the first place. In fact, I only know of one or two power users that *don't* customize the daylights out of their work environment anyway. I like my distros to do what they were intended to do -- give me an easy way to install the latest goodies in a semi-stable state. I want the distro to leave out the politics and as much preconfiguration as possible --- I want to make the choices, not some committee.

      The way I do things: pick the right tool for the right job and after some use, customize (interface, menus, scripts, modules, filesystem layout, etc) to best fit my needs. Linux works great for most of my needs, though I also use SGI, Sun, Mac, and Wintel systems for specific tasks.

      • Re:choice / customization is a *GOOD* thing (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Sancho ( 17056 ) on Saturday August 24, 2002 @07:30PM (#4134762) Homepage
        That's fine, if that's what you want to do. Don't use Redhat, then.
        Everyone who said "Open source is about choice" is right. Redhat chooses to make these changes to the source, something they have every right to do. You can choose to reverse these changes, if you want to use Redhat. You can choose to use Suse if you want a more "default install" distribution. You can choose to use Debian if you want even more control, or you can Roll your own [zdnetindia.com] Linux.

        What you must realize, though, is that if you want Linux to be widely accepted, supported, and user friendly, a common user interface is a must. Red Hat is taking a step in that direction, and this probably also cuts support costs (as someone in the article mentioned). Red Hat isn't taking away your right to customize, they're just providing a different default customization. You can still make the choice, rather than some committee. Remember, some committee made the original Gnome/KDE default choices.

        • Re:choice / customization is a *GOOD* thing (Score:5, Funny)

          by DaveAtFraud ( 460127 ) on Saturday August 24, 2002 @08:26PM (#4134922) Homepage Journal
          This is far too reasonable of a response. Who are you and what are you doing posting on slashdot?

        • usability and Linux for sissies (Score:5, Insightful)

          by feldsteins ( 313201 ) <scott@s c o t t f e l d s t ein.net> on Saturday August 24, 2002 @10:34PM (#4135250) Homepage

          I admit I am absolutely fascinated by the whole Linux phenomenon and this debate gets right to one of the core issues. Open source may indeed be "about choice" but until someone chooses to make a usable, consumer-ized distribution the world will choose to use another operating system on the desktop.

          Linux will never be more than a geek toy and a server OS until and unless someone takes seriously the idea that its general usablity has a long way to go. I predict that when/if this happens, that consumerized distro will be universally hated and soundly thrashed in these forums for "taking away choice," and using "too much eye candy," etc.

          There are, naturally, other hurdles for Linux making inroads on the desktop. But its consumer-friendliness is certainly one of the biggies. Perhaps Redhat is making more moves in that direction than I realized. I guess the signs are there...it's already been branded as the "Linux for sissies" in these forums.

          • You make some very good points. But I don't think it has to involve removing choice, so much as it should make some of them less obvious. This is kind of how Apple handled it with OSX. Very pretty and functional interface, but if you really want to get your hands dirty, you can easily go for it.
          • I admit I am absolutely fascinated by the whole Linux phenomenon and this debate gets right to one of the core issues. Open source may indeed be "about choice" but until someone chooses to make a usable, consumer-ized distribution the world will choose to use another operating system on the desktop.

            Well, this is perhaps true (and perhaps not? there are plenty of odd looking cars about), but this is exactly what's happening with companies like Lycoris and Lindows. For instance, Lindows have wrapped "Click'n'Run" around apt-get. I'd hate that name, but then again, Lindows isn't meant for me. So open source really is about choice. The people here on Slashdot may not like Lindows overly much (being mainly developers), but the customer will be able to choose the Windowsified versions of Linux if they so wish.

            Linux will never be more than a geek toy and a server OS until and unless someone takes seriously the idea that its general usablity has a long way to go.

            People are taking it seriously. Perhaps you missed the announcement that the GNOME Human Interface Guide has been released. It's modelled after the Apple docs of the same name, but having never seen the Apple version I don't know whether the advice contained within is similar or not. I've flicked over it, and it seems to have a lot of good information. The GNOME people also subject virtually all their work to an UI review process now, and it really does show. I'm using GNOME 2 now, and although it's still primitive in terms of features (and still too many bugs!) usability is not one of my complaints with it. KDE have something similar, though their usability effort is not yet quite ramped up as much as the GNOME team is. GNOME2 also shows how to make a usable interface that doesn't simply copy Windows or the Mac.

            I predict that when/if this happens, that consumerized distro will be universally hated and soundly thrashed in these forums for "taking away choice," and using "too much eye candy," etc.

            Well when Lindows/Lycoris etc were annouced, some people did trash them, but really most were pretty reasonable. Although these distros may take away choice by default, you don't have to choose these distros, so there's not less choice than before, but more choice!

            There are, naturally, other hurdles for Linux making inroads on the desktop.

            Certainly, there are lots. Package management, application quality, online training - this hasn't even been started yet, but there are far too many people who freeze at the sight of something that's different to what they're used to. The only rememedy for this is for the computer itself to handhold them through the basics, perhaps using online tutorials.

            Perhaps Redhat is making more moves in that direction than I realized. I guess the signs are there...it's already been branded as the "Linux for sissies" in these forums.

            It has? Could you point me to the post that brands RedHat as Linux for sissies? I haven't seen it yet.

      • I fully agree... this is why I use opensource in the first place. In fact, I only know of one or two power users that *don't* customize the daylights out of their work environment anyway. I like my distros to do what they were intended to do -- give me an easy way to install the latest goodies in a semi-stable state. I want the distro to leave out the politics and as much preconfiguration as possible --- I want to make the choices, not some committee.

        OK, but that is not what most *customers* want. I agree that choice and customization is a good thing, but for Linux to reach the masses, I think that the customization will need to be done by the vendor pre-shipment. This is what Red-Hat has done. if you don't like it, you can use a different distro or re-customize it.

        The market is a good thing. It will select for the best solutions in the long run. Maybe this is why MS is so scared about Linux
    • No distro should take preference over which is the default windowmanager

      ***

      Why the heck not!? Of course some distros should. Some people don't want that choice, and therefore they should use a distro that doesn't bother them with such a choice. If you don't like _your_ distros that way, don't use them. THAT's where the choice comes in. If every distro becomes a kitchen-sink distro, what is the point of having many? On the other hand, if each distro builds to their audience, we will have a wonderfully diverse operating-system market. THAT's where the choice available in open-source comes in.

      In addition, if you want to change something, you have the source code. If you like Red Hat's new distro, but would like more choice, build your own based on Red Hat's but with your changes!

    • So RedHat created a KDE Desktop theme using Gnome graphics, and suggested different defaults for the browser and a few other things.

      And...?

      I've done much the same myself, except I like Opera and paid for it on both Linux and Win32. I opted to use Sylpheed for email. I don't have any office tools in my toolbar, use different dialers, etc. The core is SuSE, but I don't work with the default tools anyhow -- I configure the ones I like for developing code.

      More often than not I end up using the Gnome icons for linking those preferred apps. Basically I just look for any icon that seems indicative of the application's function, regardless of what it was originally "designed" for.

      Provided RedHat lets you continue to select the existing KDE themes (should you so choose), I really don't see why this whole episode should be an "issue"!

    • No distro should take preference over which is the default windowmanager ...

      Why not? There aren't any rules here except that you don't violate the GPL. I don't see where actively choosing one desktop over the other as the default does any damage to the end-user. He/she/it still has the option to install any other desktop necessary.

      This is just good business sense - it simplifies the task of supporting the installation. They would actually be better off if they would just choose to ship ONE desktop and let the users install others if they wanted to. Then they could declare a standard for their distribution and work from that point on.

      This is just a lot of sound and fury, signifying that some people need to quit worrying so much.
  • Could someone post a link to another relevant article or the articles content?

    damn slashdot effect.
  • "Warning: Too many connections in /var/www/html/mainfile.php on line 42


    Warning: MySQL Connection Failed: Too many connections in /var/www/html/mainfile.php on line 42
    Unable to select database"


    Oh, that doesn't help...

    Too bad message boards don't make it into the Google cache (quickly).

    But what is the issue? I'm guessing it's that they are making the too seem alike. Oh well, we can always change it later.

    That is the beauty of the open source software.

  • So what? (Score:5, Funny)

    by keesh ( 202812 ) on Saturday August 24, 2002 @07:04PM (#4134672) Homepage
    KDE sucks anyway. Oh, and Vim is better than Emacs, Java is a dead buzzword, PHP is far too slow to use in a production environment, Python is for hippies, Perl 6 is massively outclassed by Ruby, *BSD is dying, OS X is just eyecandy, Mozilla is a buggy piece of shit and spaces are better than tabs.
    • Command-line console utilities and the various shells are still far from perfection... so why are all of the lemmings moving to GUIs? They're just slow and inefficent anyway! NeWS was bad, X11 is worse. Windows and Mac OS are even less flexible.

      If you have to make an X app, please do us all a favor and use "clean" straight xlib, stay away from the bloat of Motif, GTK, and Qt.

    • Re:So what? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Surak ( 18578 ) <surak&mailblocks,com> on Saturday August 24, 2002 @07:41PM (#4134811) Homepage Journal
      And C is better than C++, K&R is the 1TBS, csh is better than bash, Solaris is dead, RISC sucks, Amigas are for wannabes, Radeon kicks GeForce's ass, RMS is 10x the programmer Linus is, Linux sucks because its monolithic, and MySQL isn't viable for a production environment because it doesn't make good use of multithreads.

      Hacker Tourette's Syndrome. :) I love it. :)

    • Vim is not better than Emacs!!!

    • Re:So what? (Score:3, Funny)

      by psicE ( 126646 )
      Everybody knows real geeks use Blackbox, joe, Objective-C, Amaya, and Eiffel on a Debian GNU/Hurd box.
    • Forgot one:

      / is better than \

    • Re:So what? (Score:3, Funny)

      by ajs ( 35943 )
      [...] and spaces are better than tabs.

      I was with you right up to there, but man! You can't dis the tabs! Only EBCDIC-lovin mainframe-huggers want spaces over tabs. You're not a mainframe-hugger... are you?!

      Kidding asside, this whole article is rather disturbing to me. It seems like we're feeding trolls and whiners because it gets Slashdot riled up. That kind of muckraking isn't really productive for the OSS community as a whole.

  • ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tps12 ( 105590 ) on Saturday August 24, 2002 @07:04PM (#4134675) Homepage Journal
    Now I just can't believe this. People slave away on their open source software "as a hobby" and "for the community." They claim they don't want any recognition in return. Then as soon as someone branches their app, they get all self-righteous.

    Reality check: you are not guaranteed anything beyond what is spelled out in your license. None of this appears to violate the [L]GPL, so you brought in upon yourselves. If you didn't want someone to rebrand your app, then you should have gone with a more restrictive license. Red Hat owes you nothing because you told them they could have your work for free. You can't have it both ways, folks.

    • Re:ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Clue4All ( 580842 ) on Saturday August 24, 2002 @08:54PM (#4134983) Homepage
      I couldn't agree with you more. I've seen this happening a lot lately, with both MusicCity using Gnuecleus's code base for it's new Morpheus client, and NeoNapster using CDex's code. Neither of these companies violated the GPL in any way, but as soon as someone takes your work, improves on it, and begins distributing it, they're suddently stealing your thunder and "ripping off" the original project. That's what can happen when you use the GPL, if you don't like it, use another license and stop bitching.

      • Re:ridiculous (Score:4, Informative)

        by Genyin ( 415163 ) on Saturday August 24, 2002 @09:10PM (#4135023) Homepage Journal
        Neither of these companies violated the GPL in any way
        umm... neonapster DID violate the GPL. They provided source, but did not mention anything about GPL in the binaries, at first at least. (in fact, the license for the binaries flagrantly violated GPL, restricting redistribution. etc)

    • Re:ridiculous (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Dr_LHA ( 30754 ) on Saturday August 24, 2002 @09:30PM (#4135064) Homepage
      The problem that KDE people have is not that Redhat is theming KDE to look like Gnome, but rather that they have also removed the "About KDE" menu item from KDE which displays copyright information and info on KDE from the KDE programs.

      There's a very real possibility that this is against the LGPL that kdelibs uses due to this clause:


      You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Library's complete source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty; and distribute a copy of this License along with the Library.

      • Re:ridiculous (Score:3, Insightful)

        by tps12 ( 105590 )
        Actually, from what I've read, the about box just had a list of the main authors, with no allusions to copyright. They are trying to spin it like a copyright notice was removed, but as far as I can see, that just isn't the case. In fact, it appears to be more like a simple advertisement, and forcing Red Hat to leave such an advertisement intact would directly violate the [L]GPL.

    • Re:ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Error27 ( 100234 ) <.error27. .at. .gmail.com.> on Sunday August 25, 2002 @12:59AM (#4135613) Homepage Journal
      >>They claim they don't want any recognition in return.

      You're absolutely high. Not only is that not true, it is the exact oposite of the truth. For example, the basic idea behind the "Cathedral and the Bazaar" was that open source developers do it for recognition.

      >>Reality check: you are not guaranteed anything beyond what is spelled out in your license.

      Basically if you break the law, then you get sued. If you are impolite you get shunned. Licenses only cover what is legal not what is polite. (Not that I have an opinion on whether Red Hat was polite or not.)

  • I consider any effort made to simplify the computing experience without costing the user capability is a good thing, now the obvious reason for doing this: When a user can go from one environment to another without a massive change in look as far a function, icons, placement, etc. is a good thing due to the fact that the possibility for confusion is drastically reduced. Now the down side of this, when you simplify something by making sure that there are a great deal of similarities between two environments you lose a bit of personality and let's face the facts geeks and nerds like us love to customize and tweak interfaces, it's what we expect. So I really think that there are both obvious advantages and disadvantages, the real problem and issue is weighing the cost of such a decision, and I'm sure that they have carefully weighed the decision, besides if this pisses you off too bad there are what, ten other viable alternatives that you can go to? If enough people jump ship, that will send a message that is loud and clear, namely: We don't like it, bad change, however if because of this it makes it slightly easier to use, and therefore the community gains new users because of this functionality then that is a very good thing. Maybe an option during install to go with a very different KDE and Gnome would be a good idea, while still allowing those who would like the new desktop to have it they way they would prefer.

    • Formatting! (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Next time, try providing your thoughts with some fucking formatting!
  • tensions soon disappeared in favor of furious trollwars where incredible explosions of flamebaits were seen.
    Before trying to enter the troll area, please check your weapons:
    http://www.gamespy.com/comics/nodwick/ga mespyarchi ve/newnodwick.html

  • The Article (Score:2, Informative)

    by unixmaster ( 573907 )
    Here it goes :

    Ian Geiser: It has been whispered in the trees...

    Navindra Umanee: What, what?

    Ian Geiser: RedHat's new beta includes a KDE version that is made to look like GNOME. Icons, widget-style and kicker apps have been replaced...

    Navindra Umanee: Oh dear god, that's horrible.

    Ian Geiser: Whats even cooler is they removed the about KDE, so you dont know you are running KDE...

    Roberto Alsina: It is like Stalin removing his dead enemies from official pictures.

    Ian Geiser: They are destroying KDE...

    Roberto Alsina: It is a violation of section 6 of the LGPL !

    Ian Geiser: It time to take a more agressive stance on packageing so we can keep some control how KDE looks.

    Navindra Umanee: Can you give me full details on the changes? Have you tried this beta?

    Ian Geiser: Mostly off of what I have heard on IRC. I was planning on downloading this weekend...

    Ac: Cripping the KDE DESKTOP is not okay.

    Ian Geiser: It's pretty obvious they are looking to shut down KDE for good here.

    Roberto Alsina: As for the reason... I don't care about the reason all that much, in abstract.

    Ian Geiser: Our liberal packageing policy has allowed them to fork KDE and trash it for the world to see.

    Ac: RedHat has turned KDE into a cheap and broken rip-off of GNOME

    Roberto Alsina: Until they explain, I am pissed.

    Navindra Umanee: This is bad. Why are they doing this? They seem to be actively trying to destroy us by making us look bad. What is the point of all these stupid changes to cripple KDE and make us look like (or worse than) GNOME?

    Roberto Alsina: Red Hat puts Red Hat icons on the desntop, that take you to the Red Hat site, a Red Hat icon from where you start all apps, and generally puts that silly guy with the hat everywhere. Branding.

    Ac: RedHat has replaced Konqueror and KMail by Mozilla and Evolution in the default KDE desktop. Who will *want* to use KDE after this?

    Dr_lha: Hey - I've done that myself. Personally I believe that Mozilla and Evolution are better than Konquerer and KMail for their allotted tasks. I'm still a staunch KDE user - does using the best tools for the job make me a bad person?

    Jordy Potman: So Konquerer does not have an About KDE dialog, KDevelop does have an About KDE dialog.

    Janne: Red Hat has done the same thing to Gnome as it has to KDE, i.e. replaced the default look'n'feel, menu system and so on with their own designs. If you're worried that KDE now looks like Gnome, rest assured that it doesn't. Indeed, the most common complaint among Gnomers is that it makes Gnome look far too much like KDE. :)

    Cheers...

  • screenshots (Score:5, Informative)

    by laserjet ( 170008 ) on Saturday August 24, 2002 @07:14PM (#4134703) Homepage
    Here'w a bunch of screenshots from the article to show what they are talking about:


    Screenshots:
    #1 [ibiblio.org] #2 [ibiblio.org] #3 [ibiblio.org] #4 [ibiblio.org] #5 [ibiblio.org] #6 [ibiblio.org] #7 [ibiblio.org] #8 [ibiblio.org] #9 [ibiblio.org] #10 [ibiblio.org] #11 [ibiblio.org] #12 [ibiblio.org] #13 [ibiblio.org] #14 [ibiblio.org] #15 [ibiblio.org] #16 [ibiblio.org] #17 [ibiblio.org] #18 [ibiblio.org] #19 [ibiblio.org] #20 [ibiblio.org]

    • Re:screenshots (Score:5, Funny)

      by anakog ( 448790 ) <anakog@yahoo.com> on Saturday August 24, 2002 @08:25PM (#4134920) Journal
      From screenshot #7:

      GNOME is a powerfull, graphical user interface which includes a panel, desktop, system icons, and a graphical file manager.

      KDE is a powerfull, graphical user interface which includes a panel, desktop, system icons, and a graphical file manager.

      It seems that Red Hat have indeed gone through a great deal of effort to conceal the differences between KDE and GNOME.

    • Re:screenshots (Score:5, Funny)

      by RickHunter ( 103108 ) on Saturday August 24, 2002 @08:54PM (#4134985)

      Err... I don't see what all the fuss is about. Screenshots 1-16 are GNOME and 17-20 are KDE. Its not like they've mushed the two together, and its not like there's no differences between them. They don't even have the same window decorations! Sure, the panels look a bit similar, and GNOME's been made up to look a bit like KDE. Big deal - they're both themable desktops. You can change how they look.

      Oh, and the RedHat package tool in #7 looks a bit familiar to users of Windows. From the screenshots, this is not a bad thing - the UI looks much better than previous versions of said tool.

      So could someone please explain to me what the issue is here? (The gnomedesktop article seems to be down, so I can't seen the original source.)

      • Re:screenshots (Score:4, Informative)

        by Nailer ( 69468 ) on Saturday August 24, 2002 @09:46PM (#4135097)
        They don't even have the same window decorations!

        Actually, by default, they do. The person that created this screenshots changed the KDE theme from BlueCurve to Keramik.

        BlueCurve is a theme for KDE window decoartions, KDE styles, a GTK1 theme, a GTK2 theme, a Metacity theme, and an XMMS theme.

        Yay consistency. Better yet, yay Gnome without endless unreadable dark grey/brown icons.

    • Now change the name of KPP and KMAIL (Score:4, Insightful)

      by codepunk ( 167897 ) on Sunday August 25, 2002 @02:26AM (#4135778)
      Users have no clue what in the world KPP is. So I suggest redhat change the menu name to Dialup Settings or something to that effect. Please get rid of the KXXX crap it just confuses users...

  • Google Cache (Score:5, Informative)

    by BoxJockey ( 50760 ) on Saturday August 24, 2002 @07:15PM (#4134707)
    You can find Google's cache of the article HERE [216.239.35.100].

  • Go Redhat! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jonr ( 1130 ) on Saturday August 24, 2002 @07:18PM (#4134721) Homepage Journal
    Linux needs ONE stable, flexible, powerful and good looking GUI. It would make life so much easier for both developers and end users. Look at all the fuss over Aqua, Apple knows that consistent UI is a Good Thing(TM) and we can see the results in MacOS X. Get over this. The choice is not good in this matter. We need consistency if Linux is ever going to make it on the desktop.
    J.
    • >Linux needs ONE stable, flexible, powerful and good looking GUI

      You mean we need a monopoly to make decisions for us?
      • I agree with the grandparent post, but in addition to ONE stable, flexible, powerful and good looking GUI, we need the choice of changing GUIs without sacrificing program functionality or choice. Have a default UI that's easy to use and an advanced UI for the advanced user that's more customizable. No one wants to take away your choice, they just want to make it easier for the novice.
  • *Sigh*
    I really wish Debian was a bit more with it... I think I may try Sarge soon.

  • I think it should be like this (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Billly Gates ( 198444 ) on Saturday August 24, 2002 @07:31PM (#4134765) Journal
    The whole point of using free software is that the users and not the developers or corporations decide what you use and how to use it. If the gnome developers are angry that users prefer kde because of feature x,y, and z, then they should include it. If they do not want the features then don't code it. Plain and simple. I decide and not redhat, the kde development team, or the gnome development on what I use.

    I think including both and having the individual user decide is the best way. Such as I laugh when I see all the clueless windows users wonder why debate and flame each other and which editor to use. In the windows world you only use notepad and purchase VC if you want to do any programming. Microsoft lays out everything for them. If you do not like the way redhat does something you can change it. I downloaded afterstep which redhat no longer supports as an example.

  • Let them be... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by desau ( 539417 )
    As of late, RedHat is pushing hard for Linux on the Desktop. This should make all of us happy. The more Linux desktops proliferate, the less power Microsoft has in this arena.

    This change does not take away from any of the power of either desktop (and as has already been mentioned -- this is not targeting KDE as their version of GNOME also gets a makeover).

    This is allowing users who are a little less computer-savvy to try both KDE and GNOME and see which fits better -- all in the while increasing their Linux experience.

    Have a look at the beta, or at least at the screenshots -- they're not trying to harm either KDE or GNOME, they're trying to reach a larger market.

    And anyway, as many have already pointed out, isn't this what Open Source is all about? Do we change the rules now and say "Well.. we don't like what you're doing, so we're not going to let you change it in that way."

  • The gist of this seems to be that Red Hat wants to offer a standard "Red Hat Desktop" across both KDE and GNOME.

    I think what this should be telling the Open Source/Free Software movement is that we need to do more to integrate these two desktops at a lower level (ie. below the distribution level).

    Having used both KDE and GNOME, my evaluation of the main merits of each (for the end user), is that KDE has better "building blocks" (I find the KDE UI very easy to use, _especially_ the Open/Save File dialog), but GNOME has better apps (Galeon, DevHelp, Evolution) and is better integrated with other OSS/Free projects (ie. OpenOffice being modified to use native GNOME widgets).

    Another "in a nutshell" summary could be: GNOME is a UNIX desktop, KDE is a desktop build on top of UNIX.

    Also, I realize that the GNOME libraries being LGPL instead of GPL is a huge factor for some businesses [sun.com].

    RMS's suggestion that KDE and GNOME share common themes is one good place to start. Another would be a common set of UI guidelines (GNOME recently released their own guidelines [gnome.org], KDE has had theirs [kde.org] for a while now.

    I realize that KDE and GNOME have slightly different goals, and that the technologies on which they are build are different, so the products can't just be merged. But having a consistent desktop environment across all GNU/Linux and *BSD desktops is a necessity, and should be a priority for Free/Open Source developers.

  • I Chose having a choice (Score:5, Insightful)

    by smartin ( 942 ) on Saturday August 24, 2002 @07:43PM (#4134819)
    I'm pretty agnostic on the kde vs gnome issue. I want to pick and choose the applications that I use and don't much care about the underlying libraries and widget set. What i would like is for the set of applications that I choose to work together well which means that they agree on how to talk to each other and thier interaction api's. Beyond that big deal, sure it would be nice if they had a common look and feel, but really it's not that important. What matters to most people is getting tools and apps that work well and do what they want, the platform they are implemented on is less important. Hell some people even use Windows to get access to applications that they like. If RedHat is working to make it easier to pick your favourite apps without having to buy into a full desktop, more power to them.

  • OK.... focusing on just the themes (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Kaypro ( 35263 ) on Saturday August 24, 2002 @07:45PM (#4134828)
    What RedHat did in the beta (null) was to unify Gnome 1, Gnome 2, KDE and xmms themes. Wasn't this precisely what ESR was saying [slashdot.org]? Actually it works quite well. The whole interface is slick and unified. Just swap RedHat's default icons for your favorites and you're golden.
  • The competition between KDE and Gnome is wonderful! To all those who plead "let's all just get along ... let's combine these efforts into one desktop uber alles." ...bullocks. Competition invigorates. Both of these desktops are evolving at a phenomenal pace. Why? Well, duh, to survive.

    As long as we don't forget about sportsmanship...

  • A Much To-Do About Nothing! (Score:4, Redundant)

    by zentec ( 204030 ) <zentec@gmail.c3.1415926om minus pi> on Saturday August 24, 2002 @08:11PM (#4134895)

    Jesus H. Jumping Christ! Can we stop this nonsense of which window manager is better? This does nothing productive, and it cements the perception that people who use Linux on the desktop do so because they have nothing better to do between Star Trek/Star Wars conventions.

    KDE and Gnome have their merits, and I use one or the other frequently. The bad news is that I still maintain a Windows2000 partition simply because neither one is "there" yet.

    I'm sure that the energy wasted in this non-issue would be better served creating an environment where my parents could get XF86 working. The damned thing intimidates me, I can't imagine what it's like to someone trying out Linux for the first time.

    It's time the Open Source development teams quit putting up barbed-wire around their little camps and just get on with making their stuff better. These out-bursts remind me of the little cliques you saw in BBS chat rooms in the '90's.

  • Well then... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Neither group appears to be satisfied with th fact that Red Hat has null-ified the difference between the two desktop environments.

    I wonder how they feel about having their server null-ified by shashdot?

  • Comment from a KDE developer. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by digitaltraveller ( 167469 ) on Saturday August 24, 2002 @08:17PM (#4134905) Homepage
    I haven't written Konqueror or anything like that, but I have submitted a few decent sized patches to a couple of KDE apps that have been accepted.
    And I think this is just great. It is exactly what Linux needs to break into mainstream. The people who won't like it will be the Suse and Mandrake's of the world who won't like RedHat raising the usability bar so significantly. This should have been done along time ago IMHO.
    I can't wait for this to be released stable.

    • Agreed: Why did it take Red Hat to do this? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by GroundBounce ( 20126 ) on Sunday August 25, 2002 @12:36AM (#4135566)
      Many people have been calling (and some working on) interoperability between desktops for some time. Both the GNOME and KDE developers have been paying lip service to this for years, and the result has been a little bit of drag-n-drop interoperability and a few minor theme tweaks. Finally, Red Hat is actually doing something significant about it. Why? Because Red Hat actually has a financial stake in listening to their users.

      Unlike KDE developers, who hear primarily from people regarding KDE issues, and GNOME developers, who hear primarily from people regarding GNOME issues, Red Hat hears from everyone, including people who use both GNOME and KDE and have to put up with the highly inconsistent desktop and app interfaces. In addition to my normal tasks, I also support desktop Linux users at work, and regardless of how we geeks think, average users, even otherwise technical people who just aren't computer geeks, are annoyed and confused by the wildly different interfaces between GNOME, KDE, and various other applications (such as OO). It may sound strange to many here, but I've been asked several times why you can't embed a DIA drawing in an OpenOffice document. It's a real-world problem and Red Hat is actually trying to do something about it, at least at the desktop level. Unfortunately, they can't as easily do much about the apps themselves.

      The open source development model has been very good at producing software that is of high functional quality, but it has been much less successful in several areas of consistency, such as user interfaces, printing, and font handling. This is one area where high level integrators like distro vendors can help make a difference. Whether or not you like the icons, it's good that Red Hat is taking this step, knowing full well that it will be controversial among the more hardcore Linux community.

  • Now they know . . . (Score:2, Insightful)

    by npsimons ( 32752 )
    . . . how the Linux kernel developers have felt for years. In other words, this hasn't been the first time RedHat has done this, and they are sure to do it again. It's all a part of Open Source, so get used to it. If RedHat does anything stupid (like they have done in the past with their packaged kernels), it will come back to haunt them. If they do anything good, then great, it will go back to the community.

    • Re:Now they know . . . (Score:3, Informative)

      by Nailer ( 69468 )
      Which Linux kernel developers? When was the lat time they did `this'? How is providing a consistent desktop theme bad? What did Red Hat so with their packacged kernels that was bad?

      I can't believe this load of unsupported tripe gets moderated up. If the author had anythign to say I'm sure he'd have provided some supporting arguments, but he's trolling instead.

    • Re:Now they know . . . (Score:3, Insightful)

      by mz001b ( 122709 )
      . . how the Linux kernel developers have felt for years. In other words, this hasn't been the first time RedHat has done this, and they are sure to do it again.

      Please give a reference to what you are claiming here. Redhat has given a lot back to the Linux community and pays some of the salaries of Linux kernel developers (like Alan Cox). They've also funded developments in gcc.

  • yawn (Score:3, Redundant)

    by RestiffBard ( 110729 ) on Saturday August 24, 2002 @09:05PM (#4135010) Homepage
    who cares? this is just.. dumb. what are we worried about here? anyone else notice that lilo looks different on different distros? who cares?

    add this to the pointless and time-wasting flame wars bin, next to vi vs. emacs and the rest of the dumb things we bitch about.

  • I hate KDE and Gnome (Score:2, Interesting)

    by toki ( 448777 )
    Actually, it's X11 that I despise the most. It's great if you're doing Unix sysadmin tasks or a network engineer, but if you're just a normal user looking to use a regular desktop, X11 just plain stinks. KDE and Gnome are both cumbersome, resource-intensive, and huge bandaids covering the shortcomings of the X11 system. The best both of them can do is cover about 50% of the features that other GUI systems such as MS Windows and Mac OS X give you without an add-on.
  • Yes it is true that KDE is nothing other than a shell. Most applications you use are those of Gnome. I have very mixed feelings over this. Sure, I really like some of the stuff KDE has to offer, but in the end, I like the fact that I can change to KDE or Gnome and the look and feel is still the same. I know people have jumped the gun (like mosfet) by saying that nothing works and how this is the worst thing to ever happen, but eerything is still there. RedHat choose to standardize on Gnome. If you don't like it, DON'T USE IT! No one is sticking a gun to your head making you use it. As for the about box changes, I don't understand what the issue is. If i want to run a standard KDE configuration, then I'll revert back to the KDE defaults. As it is, the system works and looks great.

    • Woops (Score:2, Informative)

      by Critical_ ( 25211 )
      That's what i get for not previewing the subject. I have ran Limbo but now I am running NULL.

  • Want Linux to be successful -- this is good (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mrscott ( 548097 ) on Saturday August 24, 2002 @10:32PM (#4135245)
    I'm mostly a Windows guy by background and have been supporting it for years. I would love to be able to roll Linux out to my users, but I need a clean, easy to use interface. I don't give a damn what it is -- I just want it to work consistently and with ease -- like Windows. Yeah -- like Windows. Every single one of my users, no matter their skill level can very easily do things like change their background, resolution, create Word documents, print files, email said files, etc -- on Windows. Before Linux can truly move ahead, some serious integration issues need to be addressed. All I want is a desktop that does its job -- who cares what it is? A user in an office should never have to care. They should simply be able to use it.

    I see Red Hat's move as a step in this direction and although some folks do not like Red Hat, I think we are going to begin to see them make major inroads at the desktop, which is good for all of us.

    • Re:Want Linux to be successful -- this is good (Score:5, Informative)

      by nagora ( 177841 ) on Sunday August 25, 2002 @06:14AM (#4136086)
      All I want is a desktop that does its job -- who cares what it is? A user in an office should never have to care. They should simply be able to use it.

      This is what I do:

      1. Install WindowMaker
      2. Copy over my standard WM setup and icons from one of the other office machines
      3. Copy over .xmodmap to change CapsLock to Control and the funny menu key to CapsLock
      4. Show desktop to new employee and say "The function keys take you from screen 1 to screen 10, the number's in the top left. Screen 2 has Opera, Netscape and Mozilla [points to icons] so you can use whichever you like. This icon is Pan which lets you read newsgroups. Screen 3 is for graphics: that's Sketch, the Gimp and GQView. Screen 4 has Open Office and Acrobat Reader and screen 5 is music players; that's a cd player and that's an Ogg/mp3 player. The email program is on the right under the calculator. Any questions?"

      Generally speaking that's all anyone needs to be told about the desktop.

      TWW

  • "About KDE" (Score:4, Insightful)

    by xant ( 99438 ) on Saturday August 24, 2002 @11:10PM (#4135344) Homepage
    Anyone want to comment on the fact that the first link claims that "About KDE" has been removed? I think unifying the appearances is a good thing, but I don't see what RedHat hopes to gain by not giving credit where it's due. Even if the licenses don't explicitly say these dialogs need to remain untouched (and for all I know they do) RH is making a bad PR move right there.

    Everything else about the changes looks gravy to me.

  • Cool! Now we Have the KNOME Desktop!... (Score:3, Funny)

    by GroundBounce ( 20126 ) on Sunday August 25, 2002 @01:36AM (#4135683)
    Or should we call it GDE?

    Here's my list of favorite apps:

    Gonqueror
    Gapital
    Kimp
    Knumeric
    Knucash
    Gil lustrator
    Gword
    Kaleon
    Givio

  • Jeez... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Critical_ ( 25211 ) on Sunday August 25, 2002 @01:51AM (#4135711) Homepage
    This is my 2nd or 3rd comment on this article and I'll just cap it off for now. Most of the people who posted comments don't run the new Beta of RedHat. Sure, RedHat choose certain applications as defaults and made both gnome and kde look the same. However, if you want to use KMail, Konqueror, KWord, etc. they are all still there. If you want to use them in KDE, customize the menu in KDE so they point to your preferred apps. At first I thought the moron menus in RedHat were terrible: Browse Internet, Check E-mail, etc. But the more I thought about it, the better it was for *most* newer users. If I want to be a power user, all I gotta do is edit the menu to my liking. Most power users already do this. For all of you that have said that their is no more "About...", well, every KDE app I ran had the About box that mentioned the authors, project name, and license (GPL). Sure, they lost that stupid intro "about" screen that you got when starting the app, but who cares. I like what they've done.

    Also to Mosfet... let me get it off my chest... you are a great programmer and I respect you but you are a sensationalist idiot. I applied you Liquid theme to RedHat's new beta and it worked fine. Your webpage says that it doesn't work in the new beta. Now why is that? You may be a great programmer, but you are no better than 99.99999999% of slashdotters who come on here and make stuff up. Why don't you download the new beta and try it for yourself before bashing it?

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