GNOME and KDE Join Forces To Co-Host Linux App Summit

GNOME and KDE are co-hosting this year's Linux App Summit (LAS) in Barcelona from November 12th to 15th.

An anonymous reader shared the big announcement: LAS is the first collaborative event co-hosted by the two organizations since the Desktop Summit in 2009. Both organizations are eager to bring their communities together in building an application ecosystem that transcends individual distros and broadens the market for everyone involved.

KDE and GNOME will no longer be taking a passive role in the free desktop sector. With the joint influence of the two desktop projects, LAS will shepherd the growth of the FOSS desktop by encouraging the creation of quality applications, seeking opportunities for compensation for FOSS developers, and fostering a vibrant market for the Linux operating system.

• "I am excited to see GNOME and KDE working together on LAS, and I believe that the event will help lay down strong foundations for collaborative cross-project development that would benefit Linux users across all distributions and on any compatible device." -- Christel Dahlskjaer, Private Internet Access and freenode Project Lead.

• "Together with GNOME, counting with the collaboration of many distributions and application developers, we'll have the opportunity to work side by side, share our perspectives and offer the platform that the next generation of solutions will be built on." -- Aleix Pol Gonzalez, KDE e.V Vice-President says about the inaugural effort about LAS.

• "By partnering with KDE we show the desire to build the kind of application ecosystem that demonstrates that Open Source and Free Software are important; the technology and organization we build to achieve this is valuable and necessary." -- GNOME executive director, Neil McGovern

• "The desktop wars is not really a thing any more. It makes more sense to work together and pool resources." -- Paul Brown, a KDE Communications Specialist (quoted by ZDNet)

ZDNet called the collaboration "a major step forward," giving their story the headline "GNOME and KDE work together on the Linux desktop." But the Twitter feed for the KDE community quickly clarified that KDE "is working with GNOME to create a common, fair, sustainable and open app ecosystem, not a desktop."

"The GNOME and KDE communities want to provide users with free and open applications that will respect their privacy and rights. That is what Linux App Summit is about."

Perhaps ...

[nospam007]

...they should co-host de Linux desktop?

Re:Perhaps they should co-host de Linux desktop?

[williamyf]

Perhaps... they should co-host de Linux desktop?

Good Idea. But just give them time. Is still too early for that. Just let things run its course.

don't cross the streams!

[Joe_Dragon]

don't cross the streams!

What a waste

[Anonymous Coward]

so much duplication of effort just to satisfy these developers' egos

pick a graphical frontend and be done with it

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Google "download linux"

https://www.linux.org/pages/download/

Download Linux

Links to popular distribution download pages

Below you'll find links that lead directly to the download page of 25 popular Linux distributions.

Ubuntu CentOS Debian Fedora Slackware
Mint Xubuntu Arch OpenSUSE Red Hat
Slackel PureOS Mageia PCLinuxOS Puppy
Zorin BunsenLabs Kubuntu Manjaro Bodhi
Netrunner Neptune Kali Black Lab Solus

This is where most semi-technica

Re:

[guruevi]

And the market is dominated by Apple iPod's. Not nearly fully capable, but does what it says it will do, has a simple interface and hits all the 'important' features (semi-water resistant, long battery life etc). Sure it won't play your 512-bit 1024 kHz FLAC over a DTS optical digital line but it will play your MP3's in a car without having to fiddle with it.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

Android and Chrome OS is the closest Linux will ever get to "The Desktop".

Probably true.

GNOME and KDE have had over 20 years to get it right. They didn't.

GNOME 2 was pretty great. Then they went off at a right angle to try to compete with Android. That was a mistake. Android has, for what it's worth, the best interface in touch already. GNOME should have doubled down on what made it good already, which was configurability and functionality.

Since MATE exists, and Emerald works again, and Compiz still [mostly] works, all I need back is AWN and I'll have my favorite Linux desktop again. That'd be nice, since Windows 7 is about to turn into a pumpk

Re:

[guruevi]

If you think Android is good for touch, you definitely never used iOS. I think Android is okay at best but it's not intuitive at all. You have to know exactly where to swipe (left, right, up or down on the edge gives you each a different experience). And then each major vendor has a slightly different GUI - Microsoft, Samsung, HTC, Huawei, pick a phone and your Android experience is completely different.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

None of my phones have ever had stupid vendor UI, because I buy them outright, and/or I reflash them. They all behave more or less the same. The interface has been recognizable (with ongoing improvement, albeit sometimes slower than I would have liked) from the 1.x days (my first Android device ran 1.6) through today. The swipes and touches are all discoverable.

Re:

[DeVilla]

If you think either Android or iToys are more intuitive than the other, you are probably just no realizing you've gotten to know or like one of them better. I've had to help my kids with both their iToys and android things. Both have obscure behavior that you only find out by searching the internet. Both have arbitrarily altered behavior over the years in ways you's only figure out after an internet search. Both are fine enough for a mobile toy.

Getting back to the prior post, neither is good for a des

Re:

[drinkypoo]

I think we actually benefit from competition most of the time.

With that said, GNOME decided to compete with a pocket calculator, and KDE competed with a spacecraft cockpit. I can't actually decide which is worse. Neither one makes it terribly difficult to pin the terminal to the tool bar, though.

Re:

[doom]

I think we actually benefit from competition most of the time.

I think they tend to chase after similar fads around the same time. It'd be better if there was a clear philosophical difference between the two, so they didn't end up blowing in the same wind.

Myself, I avoid using both of them.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

I have repeatedly compared KDE to an explosion in a widget factory, but I think they have to be given credit for not following GNOME down the Unity hole.

Carrier eye openning!

[DrYak]

wait a minute...

I am a doctor, and...

and KDE competed with a spacecraft cockpit.

...I use the spacecraft KDE on my machines.

Does this make me
a rocket surgeon
?!?

Thank you, you made my day.

Re:

[kbrannen]

so much duplication of effort just to satisfy these developers' egos

pick a graphical frontend and be done with it

I came here to say just that. While competition can be good at times, in some instances it's very counter-productive and I think this is a case. Imagine what great desktop we could have, and a lot less fragmentation, if Gnome and KDE combined to give us a single desktop.

Yes, I know know why the Gnome folks split off over the QT license way back in time; but as AC says, can we please put the egos aside and reduce the fragmentation in the Linux world. I think it would help towards making Linux appear more v

EXCITED!

[war4peace]

"I am excited", "we are excited", so much excitement everywhere!
That expression is my recent pet peeve.

Just copy Windows 7's desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

It's "good enough", and non-Linux users would actually be able to use it.

Re:

[mcswell]

FWIW, when I run Microsoft Office on Microsoft Windows, Office looks foreign and weird. No title bar, whereas nearly everyone else has a title bar. No way to tell by looking whether an Office app has keyboard focus, unlike virtually every other app. And of course no menu. Which are several of the reasons I use Libre Office on computers I control.

Recent Adobe apps also have a weird look to them, which is one reason I don't use them when I can avoid them.

Re:

[Gavagai80]

Personally, I couldn't care less about making the color schemes match. Having to endure Gnome's file open/save dialogs when using Gnome apps in KDE is the only thing that bothers me.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the Gnomes does not have any point. At all. And you seem kind of confused too. First you tell us that the systray doesn't make any sense, and then you proceed to tell us that it's a place where you can put applications which are running long term in the background.

I'd argue that you're making a second big mistake when you're arguing that all apps should be in the app panel, because you're failing to recognize that all apps are not equal. Some are user applications which you want front row and center, be

Translation

[RightwingNutjob]

GNOME is unusable and KDE was unusable before it was cool. Now that they've lost all their user base, they're teaming up to fuck it all up for everyone else.

Re:

[AntisocialNetworker]

Indeed. Has anyone written a new KDE app in the last 5 years? As far as I can tell, all the development effort is spent polishing various invisible features. While the new visible features (baloo, akonadi etc.) are still broken.

My guess is a new interoperability layer, to slot below KDE plasma, so there will now be about six layers of crud for any request to dig through before something actually happens.