KDE and Ubuntu

[Tsuroerusu]

for example, say you have an NVIDIA card and Ubuntu decides to enable the driver by default (And you have not installed it already)

According to some photos on flickr, the next release of ubuntu will have a non-free repositary with a warning so maybe the drivers will go in there..

http://www.flickr.com/photos/28313023%4 ... 466867001/

Yes, I saw that, that was what I was basing my example upon.

So say for whatever reason you don't have the proprietary NVIDIA X libraries installed on your machine, despite you having an NVIDIA card, my guess is that they won't be installed if you try to upgrade to Feisty if you don't have the Ubuntu desktop package.

Yeah, removing *ubuntu-desktop seems like more trouble than it's worth. If they change the name of a package, or the package is suddenly split or combined, I can see that causing headaches I'd just as soon avoid. If it's important to you to get rid of something, though, then you can obviously handle any sort of problems as they come, but I'd just as soon not track them down, myself.

Well, before doing an upgrade you could just reinstall ubuntu-desktop.

i tend to stay clear of gnome

Don't feed the GNOMEs!

I wish KDE would become the main linux desktop for businesses. But I suppose the fact that it's not under the LGPL will keep it from getting there. Aside from some issues with Kmail—though I was running the testing packages on Gentoo—I've thought KDE more stable, integrated, and customizable than Gnome. It does have a bit of clutter, and the aesthetics are a bit too "shiny" for my tastes, but I'd take customizable clutter and easily changeable "Fisher Price" looks over confusing, practically unchangeable options any day of the week.

I wish KDE would become the main linux desktop for businesses. But I suppose the fact that it's not under the LGPL will keep it from getting there.

KDE has been released under the GPL for many years now. They have a dual license similar to what MySQL has. If you commercially develop using Qt you have to pay for a developer license.

Right, but I thought the LGPL allowed you to develop proprietary apps without paying for the right to use GTK, which—assuming this is correct—would make developing Gnome and GTK apps more appealing for businesses.

Please allow me to elaborate on the whole KDE licensing saga (I'm good at this stuff!).

Qt was originally not under a free software license, it was more like a freeware/"gratis-to-use-for-non-money-making-schemes" license that covered it. That however didn't stop Matthias Ettrich from starting a desktop project to build a UNIX desktop using Qt. KDE's applications has been, and still is, under the GPL, it's underlying libraries are covered by either the LGPL, new BSD license (The one without the advertising clause) or the X11 license.
What sparked the creation of GNOME was the fact that to use KDE, a free software desktop, you had to install a non-free GUI toolkit, and remember the GNU project's ultimate goal was to create a completely free operating system (GNOME is a part of the GNU project, so watch out Novell! GPLv3 is coming to get you!!). GNOME settled on using the GIMP ToolKit, a free toolkit, to create their desktop, which for a while just duplicated everything KDE was doing.
Like with any controversy in the free software world, this one lingered around for many many years. I think it was in 1998 that Trolltech released Qt under the Q Public License (This is officially an open source license), QPL, however this license was still incompatible with the GPL. It was not until September 2000, when Trolltech released released the X11 version of Qt under both QPL and GPL (The Windows and Mac version remained under a proprietary/commercial license), that this whole saga had a spear pierced through it's heart and came to an end.
So what is the state today? Well, there's no point in me doing redundant writing all the time, so I'm just gonna quote the KDE website:

KDE Licensing Policy

All source code in KDE SVN must meet the following requirements:


1. All source files must contain a copyright header which identifies the copyright holder(s) together with a e-mail address that can be used to reach the copyright holder.


2. Each source file must contain a license or a reference to a license which states under which terms the software may be used, modified and redistributed.


3. Source files that are part of a library in kdelibs must be licensed under the terms of any of the following licenses:
* LGPL as listed in kdelibs/COPYING.LIB

* BSD license as listed in kdelibs/COPYING.BSD and below.
Note that the BSD license does not contain the so called 'advertisement clause'.

* X11 license as listed below.


4. Any other source files must be licensed under the terms of one of the licenses listed under 3) or any of the following licenses:
* GPL as listed in kdelibs/COPYING

* QPL as listed below.

* MIT license as listed below.

* Artistic license as listed below.

So in relation to what Vogateer is saying:

I wish KDE would become the main linux desktop for businesses. But I suppose the fact that it's not under the LGPL will keep it from getting there.

I assume you're referring to Qt and not KDE here.

If I want to develop a KDE application that is going to be released under a free software license, I have a few ways to go about doing that.
* Use Qt under the GPL, develop my app, and release it under the GPL (Remember that by linking to Qt, my app is considered a derivative work).
* Use Qt under the QPL, develop my app, and release it under another open source license (I don't understand the QPL 100%, as it is written in semi-lawyer speak and not English, although I think I have a pretty firm grasp of it).

If I want to develop a KDE application that is going to be released under a proprietary software license, I have one way to do that:
* Pay Trolltech for a "commercial license" for Qt, because neither the GPL or QPL allows for proprietary linking, Trolltech's "commercial license" does allow for that.

*) Details on the "commercial license" itself can be found here: http://www.trolltech.com/products/qt/licenses/licensing
The pricing can be found here: http://www.trolltech.com/products/qt/licenses/pricing


The LGPL, which GTK is covered by, does allow me to write an application that links to GTK, and release it under a license that is not the LGPL, such as the X11 license (In the case of Mono) or a proprietary license in the case of RealPlayer.

It's not KDE's licensing that prevents people from making proprietary applications without paying Trolltech, it's Trolltech's licensing of Qt that does that. This, by the way, is the reason why I *think* Trolltech won't mind releasing Qt 4.x under GPLv3 when the license is finished.

I sent an email to Aaron Seigo, who kindly responded back in just hours, asking about GPLv3 and KDE:

Code: Select all

> I have yet to see anyone kind of use KDE or GNOME as the example, and
> discuss how suitable the license is for them. So I wanna ask you, what do
> you, and the KDE community on a general basis, think of the GPLv3 so far?
> I am aware that it's not a finished license yet, but I think it's pretty
> clear what the license is basically gonna look like, it adds stuff such
> as internationalisation, more flexibility and compatibility with other
> licenses, the hotly debated "anti-DRM" section etc. etc.
>
there hasn't been much discussion about it in the KDE community yet. we've had people go to the GPLv3 drafting meetings but not much beyond that, really.

personally i think v3 will be a nice evolution of the license.

> When I look at the license for the KDE apps by looking at the Help -->
> About <AppX> --> License Agreement section of the menus, it pretty much
> always says "GPLv2" and not "GPLv2 or later", I could imagine this
> being because Qt is under GPL, so the apps have to be GPLed as well if
> you choose to use Qt under GPL.
> With this in mind, I'd assume that KDE doesn't automatically get
> upgraded to a new version of the GPL.
>
that's correct.

> So say you guys were to move to GPLv3, wouldn't Trolltech have to release
> Qt under GPLv3 for you guys to be able to do that?
>
i'm not sure yet what the exact interaction and compatibility between v3 and 
v2 licensed code will be, particularly when linking to libraries. if it turns 
out that linking v3 code to a library under the v2, then we may start to see 
apps moving to v3. i haven't read any direction on this yet from the FSF or 
others but assume that as v3 nears completion there will be such 
recommendations made.

GTK can be used for proprietary applications without paying anyone, so out of the box that would be an incentive for say Adobe to use it for Photoshop if they were to port Photoshop to Linux.
However, what Trolltech's "commercial license" gives the licensor that the LGPL does not, are these, and I am quoting Trolltech's website here:

* Maintenance: One year of upgrades to all new releases of Qt.
* Support: One year of email-based support for the registered developer. Find out more about Trolltech support.
* A subscription to our technical magazine Qt Quarterly, bringing high quality technical content from Trolltech and partner developers, documentation and support people.

I know that the suits like to have that "support", so that might be an incentive to use Qt over GTK.

When we talk about Qt 4.x, it offers far superior cross-platform abilities than GTK does as far as I know. If you write an app using Qt 4.x on Windows, it's merely a recompile away from running on Linux, BSD, Solaris etc., or Mac OS X. The interesting thing about Qt for Mac OS X is that your app will look like a native OS X app. These cross-platform abilities of couse depends on you not tying your app to a given platform using something that's only available on that platform, which could be things such as DirectX.

(Please notice that the above is my understanding of Qt 4, since I am not a developer in any sense, I can't confirm this).

[allix]

When we talk about Qt 4.x, it offers far superior cross-platform abilities than GTK does as far as I know. If you write an app using Qt 4.x on Windows, it's merely a recompile away from running on Linux, BSD, Solaris etc., or Mac OS X. The interesting thing about Qt for Mac OS X is that your app will look like a native OS X app. These cross-platform abilities of couse depends on you not tying your app to a given platform using something that's only available on that platform, which could be things such as DirectX.

(Please notice that the above is my understanding of Qt 4, since I am not a developer in any sense, I can't confirm this).

I get the same idea too , opera the web browser uses Qt, it has a similar look and feel and browser speed to konqueror IMO. Google earth is in Qt, They are the main commercial apps i can think of.

[dann]

Dann if you are having so many issues with Gnome, Why don't you install the Kubuntu desktop?

David

My problems with Gnome center around me not knowing Gnome to begin with and approaching Gnome from the perspective of using another Desktop Environment or Window Manager like XFCE, Fluxbox or KDE. The bugger is unlearning what you have already learned. This is one of the main reasons people have problems moving from one OS to another. They have to unlearn what they previously learned, or more to the point, they have to relinquish their habits.

Perhaps KDE's popularity is not so much that it is a fantastic Desktop Enviroment, but when you get down to it, there are a lot of similarities in the the layout, appearance, and functionality with windows. Now I am not saying KDE is exactly like Windows, but when you get down to it; there are more parallels than differences when compared to say XFCE or Gnome.

Anyway, I probably would run Xubuntu before Kubuntu.

[Wally Balljacker]

I like GNOME, I find it to be very simple to use, and well laid out, but for some reason it feels sluggish compared to KDE. I like KDE because it seems to have the best combination of eye candy, functionality, and speed. Maybe it's just the machines that I use, but XFCE and Enlightenment don't feel any snappier than KDE, and it would be silly to run something like Fluxbox or WindowMaker on a system with 1GB of RAM.

[allix]

The bugger is unlearning what you have already learned. This is one of the main reasons people have problems moving from one OS to another. They have to unlearn what they previously learned, or more to the point, they have to relinquish their habits.

Thats true, the first thing that confuses a windows user to linux is the filesystem hierarchy, they see no c drive and panic.
They do like the advanced shell scripts on linux compared to the msdos batch scripts are so limited.

Perhaps KDE's popularity is not so much that it is a fantastic Desktop Enviroment, but when you get down to it, there are a lot of similarities in the the layout, appearance, and functionality with windows. Now I am not saying KDE is exactly like Windows, but when you get down to it; there are more parallels than differences when compared to say XFCE or Gnome.

The k-start menu is a blatent windows fork, its much improved with applications by subject instead of the windows way of doing it.
I am glad there is no k-registry
They standard icons on kde are much more eye-appealing than windows ones.

[allix]

I like GNOME, I find it to be very simple to use, and well laid out, but for some reason it feels sluggish compared to KDE. I like KDE because it seems to have the best combination of eye candy, functionality, and speed. Maybe it's just the machines that I use, but XFCE and Enlightenment don't feel any snappier than KDE, and it would be silly to run something like Fluxbox or WindowMaker on a system with 1GB of RAM.

Xfce, englightment, fluxbox,windowmaker,fvwm feel much faster to me than kde tested on the same machine.

I ran for a while fvwm on 2gb ram box it was fun

[Vogateer]

Running Puppy linux all in RAM is pretty damned impressive. Click and Bam! The application is up already. It's almost instantaneous.

The thing that kills me about Gnome is that I'm trying really hard to understand it, and still can't find that damned camera setting, even after hitting forums and IRC channels. Seriously pisses me off.

That's sad, because I really like the rest of Gnome. I prefer the layout of the panels—still love the Applications, Places, System layout—and using all four corners of the screen for something. I have never really have speed problems with it, and my AthlonXP +2600, 512 MB RAM box is hardly a speed demon. The only things that load slowly are Firefox and Thunderbird, and I assume that's because of XUL.

Just give more detailed descriptions in gconf, and I think I'd be happy with it.

[Wally Balljacker]

I like GNOME, I find it to be very simple to use, and well laid out, but for some reason it feels sluggish compared to KDE. I like KDE because it seems to have the best combination of eye candy, functionality, and speed. Maybe it's just the machines that I use, but XFCE and Enlightenment don't feel any snappier than KDE, and it would be silly to run something like Fluxbox or WindowMaker on a system with 1GB of RAM.

Xfce, englightment, fluxbox,windowmaker,fvwm feel much faster to me than kde tested on the same machine.

I ran for a while fvwm on 2gb ram box it was fun

I wasn't comparing KDE to a stripped down window manager. I was talking about XFCE and Enlightenment, which are considered Desktop Environments. Obviously something like Fluxbox is going to be faster since it is so minimalistic, but with a semi-modern system with at least 512MB of RAM it just seems foolish to run such a bare bones desktop. If you have the resources use them, I say. There's no way GIMP or Inkscape is going to.

[allix]

I wasn't comparing KDE to a stripped down window manager. I was talking about XFCE and Enlightenment, which are considered Desktop Environments. Obviously something like Fluxbox is going to be faster since it is so minimalistic, but with a semi-modern system with at least 512MB of RAM it just seems foolish to run such a bare bones desktop. If you have the resources use them, I say. There's no way GIMP or Inkscape is going to.

Englightenment is a skinny DE, it runs on embedded devices , i would like to see kde but its not realistic.
Full featured DE were not designed because computer power is cheaper, but because to scratch a itch .

[spotslayer]

Dann if you are having so many issues with Gnome, Why don't you install the Kubuntu desktop?

David

My problems with Gnome center around me not knowing Gnome to begin with and approaching Gnome from the perspective of using another Desktop Environment or Window Manager like XFCE, Fluxbox or KDE. The bugger is unlearning what you have already learned. This is one of the main reasons people have problems moving from one OS to another. They have to unlearn what they previously learned, or more to the point, they have to relinquish their habits.

Perhaps KDE's popularity is not so much that it is a fantastic Desktop Enviroment, but when you get down to it, there are a lot of similarities in the the layout, appearance, and functionality with windows. Now I am not saying KDE is exactly like Windows, but when you get down to it; there are more parallels than differences when compared to say XFCE or Gnome.

Anyway, I probably would run Xubuntu before Kubuntu.

All this is very cool. I understand about changing things up. I have several vintage laptops and I much prefer fluxbox on those. I only mentioned this as I thought I heard you say you wanted to keep system76 support.

David