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List:       kde
Subject:    Re: GNOME Desktop Project
From:       weis () stud ! uni-frankfurt ! de
Date:       1997-08-19 0:51:45
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Hi,

On Mon, 18 Aug 1997 weis@stud.uni-frankfurt.de wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I am another "core developer and representative of the KDE project"
> and want to speak out what I personally think about the
> "KDE vs GNOME" stuff.
> 
> First of all I dislike the "vs". I would love to see a "together with"
> instead.
> 
> Well, I think that Bernd is perfectly right. I personally
> agree with his mail 100%.
> 
> I would be happy if someone could give me a GPL replacement for Qt.
> I had a close look at Gtk and thought about writing a wrapper
> around your C-code that enables me to port the KDE project to
> Gtk with a simple perl script.
> 
> But much stuff is missing. Qt has mich functionality that
> is needed to run KDE. Lets give some examples:
> 
> a) Printing
> b) Window handling. For example the KFM RootWindow Icons are shaped
>    und undecorated. I could not figure out how to do this
>    with Gtk. This leads to
> c) The missing and bad docus about GDK and GTK.
> d) Pixmaps. Qt has some IO mechanism to load/save
>    pictures in various formats. And Qt features scaling and
>    rotating etc of pixmaps. This is needed for the HTML widget.
> 
> If Gtk could catch up in those important points, then I would be happy
> to help you, porting KDE to a free toolkit. But since Qt is "almost"
> free, I think that the better toolkit is more useful for us then
> the better license. 
> 
> So, why dont you concentrate your strength in improving Gtk. Those
> who are not interested in Gtk/Gdk can write their stuff for the
> KDE project now and we merge both later on.
> 
> I think that 2 competing desktop environments are no good. We only
> have a limited amount of developers. So dont split them.
> Especially since KDE has already lost of them :-)

The smiley says it all: It should be: "Especially since KDE has
already LOTS of them"!!!!

Bye
Torben

> Just my 0,02 cent.
> 
> Bye
> Torben
> 
> On Mon, 18 Aug 1997, Bernd Johannes Wuebben wrote:
> 
> > 
> > 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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