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List:       kde-core-devel
Subject:    Re: Why we have created the KDE League
From:       Andreas Pour <pour () mieterra ! com>
Date:       2000-11-23 5:29:38
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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.

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