From kde-core-devel Thu Nov 23 05:29:38 2000 From: Andreas Pour Date: Thu, 23 Nov 2000 05:29:38 +0000 To: kde-core-devel Subject: Re: Why we have created the KDE League X-MARC-Message: https://marc.info/?l=kde-core-devel&m=97495728701294 Chris Schlaeger wrote: [ ... ] Thanks for the great explanation, Chris! Unfortunately it seems that regarless of what we say about the League the media is determined to "spin" the League into a confrontation with GNOME. Take, as a fairly typical example, this recent ZDNet article (http://www.zdnet.com/enterprise/stories/main/0,10228,2657287,00.html). I posted a talk-back to it which has not yet appeared, so I will repost it here. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The KDE League has made it abundantly clear that our intent is not to harm GNOME. We have repeated this consistently in interviews, in press releases, in our Mission Statement, in answering questions and in other public statements. Instead, the KDE League exists so that all users and developers -- and not just those in the Linux community -- will know about a great choice in the desktop market. The backers of the KDE League are quite simply supporting an Open Source project. The fact that many, if not most, KDE League members are also members of the GNOME Foundation emphasizes that these members are not trying to have one project dominate the other. What most are trying to do is support Open Source projects that offer their customers a choice. Yes, it's all about choice. So the media is getting it backwards -- these organizations were not formed to destroy one project or the other; quite to the contrary, they were formed to help provide all developers and users with choice. Not to pick on this article in particular, but the second paragraph states that "(Red Hat, VA Linux and Sun are behind GNOME, while SuSE, Caldera, MandrakeSoft, Corel, Siemens and Fujitsu are behind KDE.)". If you compare the founding member lists of the KDE League and the GNOME Foundation, except for companies that focus specifically on one of the desktops (like Trolltech and KDE.com for KDE and Helix Code and Eazel for GNOME), the membership largely overlaps: Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, IBM and TurboLinux (as well as Borland and Mandrakesoft) are members of both organizations. In observing this, the author writes, "Such a play makes no sense; each camp seeks to make its project the definitive Linux desktop" and then goes on to write of the supposed "war" between KDE and GNOME. In case, as it seems, he is writing about the League, the statement is not correct. It is the League's mission to make KDE *a*, not *the*, desktop standard. Moreover, KDE is not limited to Linux systems. Maybe it takes some out-of-the-box thinking, but isn't it imaginable that users can actually have a choice over a desktop, much as they do over virtually all other products they use? Of course there is room for multiple desktop standards, just like there are different standards for computer hard drives. The KDE League exists to promote KDE so it can compete on its merits with other desktops, particularly proprietary ones. It is fundamental precept of Western (and at this juncture most of the world's) economic systems that choice -- and hence competition -- is good. For some reason, due to the recent domination of the PC software industry by one company, this truism seems to have been lost on many people. With respect to desktops they can think only in terms of the Highlanders: "There can be only one". But quite to the contrary, no one desktop can or should satisfy all users. There is no intent to make KDE "defeat" GNOME; the League simply wants a level playing field with other desktops -- particularly Windows variations -- so that developers and users can make an informed choice rather than having to settle on some default imposed by a mega-corporation. So it is not the existence of the KDE League and the GNOME Foundation which "intensif[y] the confrontation and makes coexistence that much harder to achieve". It is the fact that the media fixates on a non-existent "war" between KDE and GNOME that ferments these unfortunate consequences. Members of the KDE League understand that no one desktop is right for everyone, just like no one hard drive is right for everyone. Hardware vendors do not start a "war" by advertising and offering their customers the choice of SCSI and IDE hard drives and software vendors do not start a "war" by advertising and offering their customers the choice of Linux and Windows; similarly, nothing about supporting both KDE and GNOME is inconsistent, confrontational or counterproductive. In short, the members of the League and the Foundation are supporting two Open Source projects that offer users excellent and free (as in speech) choices. And that, my friends, is a very great thing.