Thoughts on the Zack Rusin interview and DE's

hellonorman · Post by **hellonorman** » Fri Nov 17, 2006 7:55 pm

Is someone keeping secrets from the KDE and Gnome teams such that we shouldn't blame them for their inability to interoperate?

The problem is that akanodi is a kde thing if only K* programs use the thing. It's far more likely that Gnome comes up with its own system.

My solution is for the community to come up with some standards and stick to it. If developers could build rich gui apps easily in linux that worked everywhere on linux the community would benefit greatly. A visual studio for linux would be a boon. Sure some of the old timers will scoff and tell you how much they hate visual studio but many many others see it for the great tool that it is and also see the lack of such a tool in linux.

Linc · Post by **Linc** » Fri Nov 17, 2006 8:32 pm

Judland wrote: I guess that's where my interests are: in what a computer allows me to do. And when you compare Gnome or KDE to GEOS, things ain't all that bad. Right, Linc?

You Betcha!

Judland · Post by **Judland** » Fri Nov 17, 2006 8:33 pm

hellonorman wrote:My solution is for the community to come up with some standards and stick to it. If developers could build rich gui apps easily in linux that worked everywhere on linux the community would benefit greatly.

I "hear" what you're saying and I understand the point of view. I also agree that this would make some things easier for many people. But now we come to the crux of problem. Who, pray-tell, makes these "community decisions"?

Would it be a committee made up of Gnome and KDE developers? Is it a committee made of up of developers from RedHat, Linspire, Mandriva, and Slackware? How do you get all of the people on the committee to agree on the "right" path forward? How do you get developers outside of this committee to agree to standards that have been decided? How can people innovate if they have to meet standards set up by other people who may not be thinking "out of the box" in the same way? If a developer doesn't agree with the community standard, then he/she will break off and do it their own way. Other people will follow them and then we're right back to the two (or more) camps on how Linux apps should be made. Do we want a Linux community committee to have the power to tell developers, "that's not how to write Linux code... so you are to stop now or change the way you're doing it"?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying this community standard thing is a bad idea. I'm just not sure it would work... for very long anyway.

I think, the only way that you can be sure that you have a Linux system that meets standards, that looks and operates the way you like it is for you personally to choose a distro/desktop and stick to it. If everyone who wants Linux "standardized" would make a commitment to their favorite distro or desktop, then developers will certainly get the message as to which platform would be the one to code for. Hence, they would code to those standards. All the rest of the "rogue" apps. would slowly fade away, as no one would be using them and, therefore, coding for it would not be worth the effort.

In a little while, you would have your Linux desktop standards. Sure, for the short term you may have to do without a particular app. that you personally like. But, if the developer of that app. really wants to keep up with the Jones, he/she would have to convert it for the winning distro/desktop.

This is the only way I see (or would like to see) Linux standards become a reality.

Judland · Post by **Judland** » Fri Nov 17, 2006 8:45 pm

I got myself thinking.... remember back in the '90s (I think), Nintendo came out with some kind of 3D goggle and glove interface for their gaming console? Well, I ask you, why didn't that become the standard interface for gaming consoles, instead of the joypad of today? No one liked it and, therefore, no one used it, right? The community of gamers spoke without the need for the industry to set a standard.

I think the same can be said, and be done, for the Linux desktop. It just takes you to make a decision and say, "I don't like that interface, so I ain't going to use it."

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Fri Nov 17, 2006 9:13 pm

hellonorman wrote:Is someone keeping secrets from the KDE and Gnome teams such that we shouldn't blame them for their inability to interoperate?

What do you mean by "inability to interoperate" ??? Do you mean a common toolkit API that would autodetect what environment you as a user is running, and then use either GTK/GNOME or Qt/KDE to render the app (If such a thing was even possible), or what do you mean?
Right now, KDE and GNOME are cooperating through the Portland project, and the progress so far has been pretty good. Portland 1.0 includes a whole bunch of commandline tools that makes it easier for "ISVs" to add icons, add a menu entry, launch a URL in the right browser, open the right mail client etc. etc.

When I try and read your various posts in this thread I get this picture: You wanna be able to say start up Amarok in GNOME and have it look like it was an actual GTK/GNOME app, or be able to launch Evolution in KDE and have it look like an actual Qt/KDE app.
If this is not what you are saying, please correct me, but right now I'm gonna assume that it is so that I at least can say something about it.

First of all, this sounds to me like using both GTK and Qt at the same time, and that just adds a TREMENDOUS amount of complexity to the whole process of developing the app. But not only that, because if you were to make say a version of Amarok that would be like described above, you would need to have it use DCOP under KDE and DBUS under GNOME, and generally, it would just be so hard to do that it's not even worth trying.

With KDE 4.0 this would be somewhat easier because they will be using DBUS in KDE 4.0, which puts KDE and GNOME on the same communication "network" in the system. Also, Trolltech has done that GNOME integration that I mentioned earlier, which you just need to have set as a Qt theme and it would look very GNOMEish.

hellonorman wrote:The problem is that akanodi is a kde thing if only K* programs use the thing. It's far more likely that Gnome comes up with its own system.

This will probably be true in the beginning, probably a year or two after KDE 4.0 is released, I don't expect (Although it could happen) Novell to rewrite MAJOR parts of Evolution, when what they already have is working, and that they focus on GNOME for their business desktop products.

hellonorman wrote:My solution is for the community to come up with some standards and stick to it. If developers could build rich gui apps easily in linux that worked everywhere on linux the community would benefit greatly. A visual studio for linux would be a boon. Sure some of the old timers will scoff and tell you how much they hate visual studio but many many others see it for the great tool that it is and also see the lack of such a tool in linux.

A kind of GTK/Qt hybrid or what? Personally I see that as technically infeasble, particularly because GTK is C and Qt is C++, on top of that you got all the other differences between GTK and Qt which I am not toolkit-wizard enough to be able to tell you about.
And also, like Judland just said:

Judland wrote:How do you get all of the people on the committee to agree on the "right" path forward? How do you get developers outside of this committee to agree to standards that have been decided? How can people innovate if they have to meet standards set up by other people who may not be thinking "out of the box" in the same way? If a developer doesn't agree with the community standard, then he/she will break off and do it their own way. Other people will follow them and then we're right back to the two (or more) camps on how Linux apps should be made. Do we want a Linux community committee to have the power to tell developers, "that's not how to write Linux code... so you are to stop now or change the way you're doing it"?

Personally, I think this kind of thing would stifle free software and open source innovation, because you would pretty much be yelled at for trying something new. And even that, what would these "standards" be? Would it be to ONLY use GTK, even when it may not be the best tool for the job, or to ONLY use DCOP, even when it's not the best tool for the job?

hellonorman · Post by **hellonorman** » Sat Nov 25, 2006 5:22 am

Judland wrote: Would it be a committee made up of Gnome and KDE developers? Is it a committee made of up of developers from RedHat, Linspire, Mandriva, and Slackware? How do you get all of the people on the committee to agree on the "right" path forward? How do you get developers outside of this committee to agree to standards that have been decided? How can people innovate if they have to meet standards set up by other people who may not be thinking "out of the box" in the same way? If a developer doesn't agree with the community standard, then he/she will break off and do it their own way. Other people will follow them and then we're right back to the two (or more) camps on how Linux apps should be made. Do we want a Linux community committee to have the power to tell developers, "that's not how to write Linux code... so you are to stop now or change the way you're doing it"?

No you just have a standard where if adhered to an application will work in "linux" and not just one DE or one distro.

Outside of the 1% of desktop users that use linux how many do you think really care about the DE? I prefer almost all things kde but I've been using ubuntu and gnome for months now because kubuntu isn't quite of the same polish and quality. If linux wants to garner further market share on the desktop it's going to be about applications and polish not about DE's. Having multiple DE's is not automatically bad, having DE specific apps is ridiculous.

In a little while, you would have your Linux desktop standards. Sure, for the short term you may have to do without a particular app. that you personally like. But, if the developer of that app. really wants to keep up with the Jones, he/she would have to convert it for the winning distro/desktop.

The problem with this is that 5 years from now you will still be making the same argument and there will still be no standards, there will still be DE specific apps and linux will still have a whopping 1% market share on the desktop. Very very very very few people that the linux community wants to switch to linux have any interest in DE's. They want applications.[/quote]