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List:       kde
Subject:    Re: GNOME Desktop Project
From:       Joerg Bakker <jb () pink ! private ! site>
Date:       1997-08-20 1:49:57
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From: Alex Kremer <kresa@cs.huji.ac.il>
Subject: Re: GNOME Desktop Project
Date: Tue, 19 Aug 1997 15:19:20 +0300 (IDT)

[...]
> a desktop environment GUI. So where are we now. World domination? Don't
> make me laugh! We are at the beginning. If we do it wrong now, we'll
> never get there (or even close).

you are 100% right. Unices where condemned to death several times
before, and it never happened. But now it seams, that MS gets into
regions where Unix was before and we have to get Unix there, where MS
was before (the Desktop). We need to have a unique GUI and API, and
this has to be powerfull and free.

[...]
> 
> I used to be proud of using Linux and free software, because I thought it 
> was made by smart people for smart people. I was ready to start investing
> serious part of my time to help the efort. What do you think this flame
> means. It means we are stupid and unable to make one serious decision.   
> 

don't stumble, this effort to make a standard GUI for Linux seams to
me like developing Linux itself, which was surely hard sometimes. And
probably no-one thought of Linux to become a success like it is now, at
the beginning.

> When put into this perspective it is completely imaterial if Qt is
> not GPL or/and gtk is not mature. A free replacement for Qt can be
> written (it was done for Motif and OpenGL), gtk can be improved.
> 

I second that. It is essential to get things done :-) 

> What is STUPID is writing millions of lines incompatible with each other,
> not only because it is a waste of time, but because that is the major
> reason UNIX is losing to NT, and if we go long with this stupid 
> division and flame each other for the rest of the decade we are going
> to lose big time.
>  
> DO NOT make this mistake. It is better to stop further development for
> a month and decide what to do, than divide the Linux developers.
> 
> Linux is ready to take off as a desktop environment, but it will
> never become what we want it to become if we allow this division!!!
> 

Yes, Maybe Linux will be the only alternative for MS-Products, cause
Apple and commercial Unices may silently fade ...

> So, please, PLEASE, we can flame each other for some time, but we
> have to proceed with unified aproach, even it that means rewritting
> large parts of KDE, or setling for (non GPLed) Qt, and writing FreeQt, or
> what ever else solution we come up with.
> 
> BTW this kind of problems are what makes dictators and propriatary
> software possible. They can make this decisions from above
> and no one can argue. The democracy is usually too slow. 
> 
> kreso
> 

But Linux-development is quit fast, and so is that of KDE :-)

Joerg.

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