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List:       kde
Subject:    Re: GNOME Desktop Project
From:       Bernd Johannes Wuebben <wuebben () math ! cornell ! edu>
Date:       1997-08-18 10:42:12
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Hello,

Being a core developer and representative of the KDE project, I would like to
take this opportunity to give a brief response to Miguel's proposal for the
GNOME Desktop project. Note however, due to the fact that a considerable
portion of core KDE TEAM members are currently on vacation, this letter is
not to be misconstrued as the official position of the KDE project towards the
GNOME project. This letter presents my personal point of view exclusively.

Miguel wrote:

>Why not write a free Qt replacement instead?
>The KDE project -in its current form- has about 89,000 lines of
>code, on the other hand, the source code for the Qt library
>has about 91,000 lines.

The code of my applications alone: http://math.cornell.edu/~wuebben/kde.html
amounts to 112,500 lines. This does not include the autoconf scripts, neither
the extensive documentation.

A quick check showed that we have currently,

kdelibs  with   56000 lines of code
kdebase  with   80000
kdeapps  with  100000 ( the current distribution, a small fraction of all
                        kdeapps )

I don't know what the numbers are for kdesupport and the many sub-projects
such as kmail etc., nor do I know what the number are for the vast number of
applications and experimental code on our ftp site which haven't made it into
the distributions.

I estimate the total number of lines written for KDE at about 500,000
thousand or more. Perhaps someone has the time to checkout the great number of
applications and packages on ftp.kde.org and perform a correct count.

>it also forces the programmer to write his code in C++ or Python.
>Gtk can be used in C, Scheme, Python, C++, Objective-C and Perl. 

You forgot to mention such excellent and MATURE tools as PerlQT which you
interestingly omitted. Please, check out PerlQt and compare it in maturity
and concrete usability to any of the bindings you mentioned for GTK.

Furthermore, you are giving those people, who are not actively writing GUI
programs and who are not experienced enough with GUI programming, the
impression that GTK and its bindings are mature and complete enough to use them
for a project of the size and scope of your proposed GNOME Desktop. While GTK
might develop into a mature and reasonably complete toolkit sometime in the
future, it doesn't exhibit those qualities at the moment. 

Please compare GTK with Qt! Qt is vastly superiour. With GTK you can't even do
such essential things as printing .... Proposing GTK in its current state as
the toolkit for a Desktop project is as if you to ask the kernel people to
program in Assembler as opposed to C.

Lest I be misunderstood, let me state cleary, that I am not opposed to the
GNOME Desktop project. On the contrary, I wish it the best of luck, just like
any other free software project. However, the way things stand right now, the
GNOME project would spend a long period of time developing the basics, before
it could even start writing the enormous code base that the KDE project has
already amassed today. In view of that, I must ask: Does the Linux world really
need yet another project, essentially duplicating what the KDE project has
already done or plans on doing? In my view, focus of forces would be called
for rather than dilution through yet another project. 

Just as Miguel, I recognize the need for a good GPL'ed tookit. It seems to 
me however, that a Qt clone would be the better way to go, in particular in
view of the fact the Richard Stallman will soon call for such a project as I am
told from several sources at MIT. 

Note that a Qt clone stands high on the priority list of the GNU project:

http://www.gnu.org/prep/tasks_2.html#SEC2 
http://www.gnu.org/prep/tasks_8.html#SEC8

> Unfortunately, they selected the non-free Qt toolkit as the foundation for
> the project, which poses legal problems for those desiring to redistribute
> the software.

No, there are no legal problems in distributing Qt. Anyone can put the entire
source code distribution on CD and distribute it. Here is the relevant excerpt
from the file LICENCE in the Qt distribution:

"You may copy this version of the Qt toolkit provided that the entire
 archive is distributed unchanged and as a whole, including this notice."

What is the case, is that RedHat decided that, for the time being, it is in
their own _financial_ interest to not distribute Qt on their main Linux
distribution CD. It is sad to note, to what extend the supposedly "free"
software world has become slave to a commercial venture.

> We plan on reusing code from KDE as well.

Your behaviour is openly predatory. While the GPL licence gives you the legal
right to reuse our code. To do so without asking as at all,  is hostile
behaviour -- especially given the fact that you clearly mean to compete with
the KDE project. Needless to say, that we are currently investigating our
options  as to how we can prevent this looting from taking place. On a
personal level, let me say, that your behaviour hurts very much.


Best Regards,

Bernd Johannes Wuebben
wuebben@kde.org

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