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freshmeat has presented a number of editorials this summer about both sides of the conflict over Qt, KDE, and Debian. At the recent Linuxworld Conference and Expo, news about desktop environments went beyond the community and into the mainstream press when several commercial vendors said they would adopt GNOME as the standard GUI for UNIX systems. Today, Gaël Duval explains the problems he sees with this and why Mandrakesoft will not commit to a single standard environment. Copyright notice: All reader-contributed material on freshmeat.net is the property and responsibility of its author; for reprint rights, please contact the author directly. Two years ago, the KDE versus GNOME war was at its apogee. GNOME supporters criticized KDE over the Qt License (Qt is a graphical toolkit made by TrollTech used as a programming basis to KDE) which was not a true free license, and KDE supporters bashed GNOME because of their (seemingly) extreme devotion to Free Software "purity" and because, at the time, GNOME had not yet released anything "significant". In March 1999, TrollTech created the QPL (Q Public License) which was recognized to fit the Open-Source criteria if not "pure" Free Software in the eyes of the Free Software Foundation. GNOME developers were hard at work and released a desktop environment which is now a very complete and easy-to-use environment for many users. KDE and GNOME even spoke about cooperating for a time, especially about common communication protocols between the two environments; we were all hopeful that soon we would have the capability to "drag and drop" a GNOME object into the KDE file-manager. The debate heated up again recently due to an announcement at the LinuxWorld Expo that GNOME, Sun, Compaq, Red Hat, Turbo Linux and others would support GNOME as the standard desktop for Linux. It launched a rain of articles featuring the arguments from pros and cons from within the Linux community and even from the mainstream computer press. It was indeed quite "funny" because much energy was expanded but nothing was resolved. It was just a good opportunity to relaunch the debate on this theme, which has advantages (the mainstream press talks about Linux) and many disadvantages (supporters of GNOME and KDE may not speak to each other for a while). So what's the reality behind the flamewars? The reality is that users and developers are being overlooked. The different actors in this debate tend to see their own interests first, but what do the users think? The truth is that some users prefer KDE, others prefer GNOME, others enjoy WindowMaker, others love IceWM, others are used to CDE, others like AfterStep, others FVWM... Others just launch X and an XTerm, and others prefer to use the console only. It's the same thing for Free Software developers; some of them will prefer to program with the LessTiff toolkit (a Free Software equivalent to Motif), others with GTK, others with Qt. With Free Software, we are each provided the opportunity to work in an environment that is as diverse as the world in which we live. This is a unique and special opportunity, especially when something becomes this big. GNU/Linux is growing by leaps and bounds, bigger than ever. But GNU/Linux is not Unix. GNU/Linux is not Windows. GNU/Linux (and more generally Free Software) is something that never happened before on this scale. Free Software is an enormous project that involves thousands of developers, designers, and writers, and also hundreds of companies that believe in Free Software and that don't necessarily need uniformity. Proprietary software is uniform because it's easier for companies to manage one tool than several identical tools. The reality in the Free Software world is that numerous development and user environments exist because they fit different needs of different people. If the evolution of the human species was stunted and homogenized 50,000 years ago, we wouldn't have had many of the benefits of evolution. The diversity, over time, in an evolving ecology, creates higher states of order. So why would we start to imitate the traditional software makers? People are different; they have special needs. Let's proclaim that the standard is KDE and GNOME and any other high-level free desktop environment that is good enough to make Linux more attractive to ALL users. I recently proposed to the Free Standards Group/Linux Standard Base that we consider adopting both KDE and GNOME as the GNU/Linux standard for graphical environments. Although the answer I received was that the LSB was not yet covering this area (specifically: no way to have this included in the next version of the LSB), I was pleased that several participants considered it possible. I would see this (at least) dual adoption as a real improvement and a chance to stop all those tiring wars. Furthermore, I see this as a more practical solution than the current one which is to put the so-called "problem" into the hands of the largest software companies, several of which are not born of the open culture that gave birth to GNU/Linux. Here at Mandrakesoft, there was a time when we wondered what might be the "standard" graphical environment for Linux. At the time, KDE seemed to be on its way to becoming a standard, but GNOME was already showing its great potential. After several days of pondering this question, we all concluded that Free Software equals Diversity and it is critical to keep this advantage! That's the reason we provide KDE, GNOME, and six other graphical environments with Linux-Mandrake. This is also why we provide the many tools that are needed for programming and developing graphical applications for Linux -- both the GTK devel libs AND the Qt libs. We've never been told by a user that there are too many choices in Mandrake. In fact, users seem extremely happy with this diversity and how we provide an easy way for these tools to work together. For example: Users are provided easy access to GNOME applications from within the KDE environment, and all the other graphical interfaces are directly accessible from the desktop-manager login prompt. Maybe this situation has a connection with the fact that Linux-Mandrake is the most sold Linux distribution on retail in the USA and the fastest growing Linux distribution in the world today. Thanks to Free Software, for the first time in the software industry, and maybe for the first time in history, PEOPLE are empowered with the opportunity to get tools that match their specific needs, tools that look like them in particular. This world would be quite boring if we each bore the same face. We will never want KDE to extinguish GNOME, or the opposite to happen. We want all the advantages of BOTH of those wonderful environments, and to keep alive the potential for even more. And we want this for all free major components. With this spirit, let's all take Free Software even further and higher without being distracted by yesterday's money makers who don't understand what freedom is about.
This opinion article has been written by Gaël Duval <gduval@mandrakesoft.com>, Cofounder of Mandrakesoft, with contributions from Henri Poole, Denis Havlik, and Phil Lavigna.
T-Shirts and Fame!We're eager to find people interested in writing editorials on software-related topics. We're flexible on length, style, and topic, so long as you know what you're talking about and back up your opinions with facts. Anyone who writes an editorial gets a freshmeat t-shirt from ThinkGeek in addition to 15 minutes of fame. If you think you'd like to try your hand at it, let jeff.covey@freshmeat.net know what you'd like to write about. [Comments are disabled]
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GNOME + KDE What is it about people that they simply have to believe that the software
they're using is the best. Neither KDE or GNOME are particularly wonderful
GUIs, I find KDE more bearable than GNOME, once I've removed the ridiculous
looking Windows style round radio buttons and checkboxes with ticks inside
them. But I couldn't live without KDE and GNOME being installed, there are
KDE applications that I love (because I know how to work with them mostly),
and there are GNOME applications that I love (the GNOME panel CD applet,
volume control, xmms control, and CPU usage applet absolutely walk all
over their KDE counterparts) and of course there's the host of GTK
applications that work so much better with the GNOME libs installed, like
cheops and ethereal. My desktop experience wouldn't be the same without
both GNOME and KDE installed, and anyone who excludes an application from
their repertoire because it's written for a desktop they don't like is
cheating themselves out of the chance to fairly and evenly appraise
applications on their individual merits, and probably robbing themselves
of a more enjoyable and productive experience with X.
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Re: GNOME + KDE I concur. There are certaian aspects of each environment that surpase the other. In my experience I have found that while I prefer to use KDE as the actual working environment, I often times turn to GNOME/Gtk for specific applications. The most common are GnoRPM, GIMP and Gkrellm. I love each of these programs and would be put out without them. What does concern me is the eventual posibility of one, or both, making the other(s) excluded from interoperability.
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Duplication of effort If duplication of effort in any area can be kept down to KDE plus GNOME
plus one-or-two others, then we are on to a good thing. The thing that
must be paid attention to, is that it should be almost accepted that both
projects approach things in their own way, but will happily assimilate
(with credit) an invention of the other party once it has shown its
usefulness (if not before).
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Re: An Observation > Anyone who claims that neither KDE nor GNOME have any useful apps has
most assuredly used neither.
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Re: Choice in component models needed too This response is mainly directed at J.J. Ramsey who maintains that choice is fine for desktops but that we need uniformity in underlying component models so that applications created with any toolkit can be embedded in any other. Further, Gnome's bonobo using CORBA is the way to go because CORBA is an "industry standard" which is neutral regarding implementation language. I never said that GNOME's bonobo was the way to go. While I suspect that it may very well be the better component model, my point was simply that having two competing component models was not ultimately beneficial, since it would hamstring the goal of building up apps out of smaller, specialized components. (What good is having components if there is no common way of putting them all together?)
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Reminder: The REAL reason behind the GNOME vs. KDE war Three major points: 1. KDE is older and more mature than GNOME. 2. QT is available on MS-Windows. 3. QT's license is NOT free! As a Unix AND Linux developer having a desktop that can be ported to ANY machine I use with a truely FREE license is the deciding factor. Therefore, in the spirit of FREE software, GNOME MUST WIN. The issue of CORBA compliance and the architecture of the GNOME component architecture is also important since it facilitates a standards based way of interfacing with non-GNOME systems. Incidentally diversity of options is very valuable in terms of ongoing innovations, but interactivity and integration of a common world view for a given environment. GNU-Step another truely FREE environment which deserves mention. Let us hope that it will work well with others better than KDE does. I truely wish that the KDE developers would port their applications to GNOME so that the GREAT work they have done could be leveraged in a FREE environment!
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Make love, not war Sure, competition is what good software is all about. Sure, it's great that users have a choice in what desktop environment (DE) they want to use. But look at things from a developer's perspective. As long as a developer has to choose for which DE his/her application is going to be written, things go wrong. The developer then forces the application user to use a specific DE. What if a user needs to use a GTK based application, and uses KDE, and doesn't want any GTK libraries on his system ? Or vice-versa ? This problem should be fixed, and should be fixed fast, or Linux will always stay behind with developer's support. Integration is the keyword. Gnome and KDE developers should co-operate, not fight eachother. 2 DE's to choose from is fine, but give application developers a strong tool to develop applications that run flawlessly on KDE & GNOME. Make sure the 2 DE's are able to interact, with drag and drop, mime-stuff, etc. KDE has done some good stuff in this area by being able to use GTK themes in KDE2 btw.
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Cease fire? Never! I really can't understand anyone calling for a "cease fire" in
the D.E. wars. Why? Because the ammunition in this battle is innovation -
and not in Microsoft's distorted sense of the word. The two desktops are
competing with each other over features. If there was one environment,
this sense of competition wouldn't exist - and if we tried to value each
environment for what it is now, without continuing the active exploration
of new concepts in UI design, the same would certainly happen.
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Acceptance must come before domination a I'm sorry, I usually stay out of these arguments, and perhaps I should this one, but: I've been using Unix for fifteen years. Not as long as some people, but long enough that I have SunOS (not Solaris, SunOS) 1.1 manuals in my office and have done serious Unix development on a hard-wired VT220 terminal (actually, I go back to punch cards and 360 assembler, but we won't go into that). On the Sun platform, I've suffered through SunWindows, SunView, NeWS, OpenWindows, raw mwm and CDE. Generally, post 1989 or so, I did this by ignoring them and using something in the twm family -- twm, tvtwm, ctwm. Sometimes I fooled with things like generic olwm, olvwm and gwm. But still, I had to use the various Sun products for some things. I've also been using Linux since about the second SLS release or so. At various times, I've used most members of the feeble family (fvwm and myriad derivatives thereof), and have tried piles of the other stuff that people have put together, including icewm, afterstep, windowmaker, e, sawmill/sawfish, blackbox, and wm2. I've also used KDE since about three betas prior to KDE 1.0, and Gnome since those early releases for RH 5.2. Thus, I don't think that anyone can say that I have any blinders on. I am utterly ecumenic when it comes to this stuff. I really did try, with every one of those things, to make them work for me. Not just for fifteen minutes or so, but for at least a couple of weeks, as long as they worked at all. Usually I'd try to work with these things for a month or so, tweaking this and that, applying patches, and so on. And if one didn't work I'd usually try it again a few months later. After all that, I really have to say that the only two windowing environments that ever really worked for me -- worked in the sense that, long term, out of the box, they did their job and stayed out of my way so that I could do *my* job (which most of the time doesn't involve programming, BTW), were twm and KDE. Twm, for its time, kicked ass. It is probably hard for many readers of this to imagine this, but, going by what preceded it, it was utterly awesome. I still haven't seen anything else that manages icons as effectively -- twm can make the icons little, unadorned rectangles like you get on many taskbars these days, only you could group them into little clusters, organized by application -- xterm icons go here, emacs icons go there, etc. Today, on any Linux machine where I have to get work done, (mostly reading, writing and some EDA stuff -- I use Cadsoft's Eagle PCB design program under Linux a lot) I run KDE. This isn't a religious thing. I do it because KDE works. It's rock stable and it stays out of my way. It never assaults me with it's own brilliance. Generally, I can tweak it to be well-behaved in about two minutes out of the box. On the other hand, on other machines where I'm just exploring, I try all those other things. I have repeatedly tried to get Gnome to work for me. I tried the early alphas, I tried the 1.0 release and the releases that have come with all the RedHat releases since 6.0. I've even loaded up the recent Helixcode version on one machine. What I've noticed is that, while Gnome keeps getting prettier, fancier and more feature-laden, I just can't get the damned thing to do what I want. Why, for example, when I click on an icon in the panel taskbar, does it take over a second for the window to be exposed? (we're talking dual PII-333 w/256MB SDRAM and 7200 rpm UltraSCSI disk here, so I sure as hell don't believe that it's my machine...) Once I get more than one or two dozen windows in Gnome, I go through hell trying to find things. Why, when an application throws up a child dialog window, does that window not receive the focus and why isn't clicking in the text entry box sufficient to give focus to the dialog -- why do I have to click on the title bar? Why does the panel still get in the way of application windows and vice versa? Yes, I'm sure all these have good answers, and that if I just spent a little more time reading the documentation I could make many of these problems go away. But why should I have to? "It works for me", "it shouldn't do that", "that's because you're using xxx as your window manager, try yyy", "you just need to understand how it works", or -- my favorite -- "why don't you file bug reports" (I'm too busy trying to catch up on the real work that I couldn't get done using Gnome, that's why), are all totally irrelevant. The point is that when I install and run Gnome, it gets in my way, while when I install run KDE, it doesn't. I will accept "it's all a matter of personal preference", "Gnome probably just isn't suited to the way that you work", or possibly even -- if I'm feeling charitable -- "give it time, it's getting better." But I think that one can only say this but so many times to but so many people before one really should be wondering if there aren't some actual shortcomings in this thing. I think that this is what people keep missing in all the arguments over KDE vs Gnome (and I've read a lot of them): Gnome may have some real technical superiority in a number of dimensions, but none of it will mean a damned thing unless it works, out of the box, such a way that the user doesn't particularly notice that he or she has something called a window manager or a desktop environment. For normal, non-development customers, this is going to be vastly more important than the nature of the Qt license. Let's make a list of all the cases in the history of computers where technical superiority won over quality, usability and just plain being there -- and ready -- first. "Now and good enough" wins just about every time -- look at Microsoft Windows if you don't believe me. Too often I sense the attitude from the Gnome community that the window manager -- the single most important part of the user interface -- is just, if you will excuse the pun, "window dressing". The lack of dependance of Gnome on a single wm is both a blessing and a curse. Sure, if you don't like the one it comes with, you can patch in a different one. But what if they all are buggy? What if their Gnome interfaces prove to be incomplete and inconsistant? What if the conflict between wm-based menus and Gnome-based menus cause confusion for people who don't have the slightest idea what is going on? I fully understand why some people want and in many cases need this kind of flexibility, but the vast majority of computer users are going to be annoyed with the simple fact that they need to make any choice at all. I guess that KDE has some wm-independance, but that hasn't stopped them from developing a fast, solid window manager that is so well-integrated that you can't even tell that where the WM leves off and the rest of KDE starts. Puke if you want, but believe me, it's what most people are going to want. Like it or not, things have reached the point that people besides developers are using Linux (and Unix) in large numbers. Most of these people have Things To Do. If the OS or the windowing environment get in the way of them doing their jobs, they are going to use another OS or another windowing system. Corba vs KParts is utterly besides the point, at least until people's jobs actually *depend* on Corba or KParts in the way that their jobs now depend on Microsoft's object model. Acceptance must come before domination. But even when it comes to developers, and especially the developers' bosses, before they start working on a Linux version of their product they are going to be looking at a number of things beyond the object model, including:
I'm afraid that, besides the object model question, Gnome is going to continue to get poor marks in this area for some time. For example, I make extensive use, as I mentioned, of an EDA project called Eagle, from Cadsoft (http://www.cadsoft.de). Once upon a time, Eagle was available for DOS, OS/2 and Windows. Then it was available only for DOS and Windows. But Cadsoft saw that there was a market waiting to be tapped in Linux, and the portable toolset they used to be able to develop simultaneously for the three operating systems was available in a Linux version. So they did the port, and eventually Linux became their primary development platform. Unfortunately, when they started working on a major upgrade of their product, their toolset vendor decided to drop the product. At that point, they were kind of in a bind because they absolutely had to have a toolset that worked both in Linux and in Windows (DOS and OS/2 were already off the list by this point). I have no idea to what extent they may ever had considered GTK+ and Gnome, but I simply can't imagine that they thought about it for very long -- GTK+ is not known for its excellent Microsoft Windows support. Qt, however, is. So they had to do pretty much a complete rewrite of all of their GUI code, in a portable manner, while adding a number of new features. A preview release of the result is now available for download, and I have to say that it is already quite stable and usable, and it appears that it will be a huge improvement over the previous version. I don't know that they have had any particular regrets over using Qt, they certainly haven't voiced any in their support forums. In order to succeed in the long run, the developers of Gnome and GTK+ have a huge task in front of them. They have to convince Linux and Unix users that the desktop environment will work well and unobtrusively, and they have to convince the commercial applications developers that they can switch to Gnome and GTK+ without either (a) maintaining two completely separate GUI source trees, or (b) completely abandoning a huge potential Windows customer base. And they have to do this before KDE and Qt get there. I wish the Gnome developers all the luck in the world. I take no sides in this except as a user. My only reason for writing this is to give one user's point of view that may or may not be useful. I will continue to try out new Gnome releases as time goes on, and I do hope they get better. Competition is healthy. Lack of Competition is a major reason why Microsoft's products are so bad, and the existance of competition is a major reason why KDE and Gnome are as good as they are. I think that Linus has shown by a powerful example that if you keep your nose to the grindstone, and just keep working on making your stuff better, sooner or later it will become accepted. Linux didn't get where it is today becuse Linus tried to make a better operating system than Microsoft Windows. Linux got where it is because Linus tried to make the best operating system he knew how to make. --Bob Drzyzgula
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Kde team is jelous about big companies support to Gnome It seems that this so called "Kde vs Gnome" challenge is just a
conflict started by some on-line magazines and info sites about free
software. In my opinion, this sites are tryng to show that the Kde team
is jellous about the major companies support to Gnome.
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Total misunderstading The author mentions that some people like GNOME or KDE while others like WindowMaker or FVWM. Just so that everyone understands this, GNOME and KDE are just desktop environments. Just as Microsoft's Windows user-interface did not change when they introduced COM, GNOME and KDE are independant of what set of bells-and-whistles you put around your windows. GNOME's official default window manager is Sawfish, but among the MANY GNOME-compliant window managers are Englightenment, Sawfish, FVWM and many more. The key is that GNOME (and I will cite GNOME here because I know it better and can speak to it more directly) is a framework for developing quality desktop applications that work together. GNOME provides:
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Choice in component models needed too Most of the responses to this piece have been very positive, agreeing with the author that choice is desirable and that we should keep it that way. This response is mainly directed at J.J. Ramsey who maintains that choice is fine for desktops but that we need uniformity in underlying component models so that applications created with any toolkit can be embedded in any other. Further, Gnome's bonobo using CORBA is the way to go because CORBA is an "industry standard" which is neutral regarding implementation language. I am not an expert on component models but I have been using Kde 2 beta 4 for almost a week now. Kde 2 uses components for *everything* now and it works beautifully. That's good enough for me. Gnome's bonobo is a theory which remains to be proven and to date is only used in apps like Nautilus and Evolution which are in pre-alpha stage. I'm sure that bonobo will get there and will actually be used in a current Gnome release sometime and that both ORBit and bonobo are well thought out layers. But I'm also pretty sure that apps which use them will be Gnome apps using gtk only. Applying this technology across networks like the internet using components from a variety of of architectures (the only real purpose of CORBA) is very unlikely. We need choice in component models and object oriented technologies as well as in desktops. Component models evolve like any other technology, and CORBA is not necessarily the final word. Far from it. I'd hate to think that we should be trying to emulate Microsoft's leavings, COM, or OS2's failed SOM, a precursor or CORBA. MS is already abandoning COM for .NET. Likewise CORBA and bonobo and Kparts and dcop can evolve, and will evolve, if we have an environment which allows that. This requires choice and diversity, not uniformity. MS may have 90% of the desktop market right now but not too long ago it didn't. I don't think that Microsoft's "superior" component model is what caused MS to displace Amiga, OS2, Mac and commercial unix on desktops in the early 90's. We all know better about MS. Actually Kde does use CORBA, or a subset of it, in its upcoming 2.0 product. There is something called mcop and aRts for multimedia streaming and synthesis, for which dcop and kparts alone is not well suited. And it doesn't use Qt or require C++. So, Kde programmers can be very flexible and adaptable in applying the needed technology to the situation or even sythesizing new ones. They are concerned with practicality, not buzzwords. There are a number of proven ways to reuse code besides components, which will not bring the users which Linux is looking for. Applications will bring them over. What about WINE and WINElib? What about unix's superior and diverse scripting languages and interpreted OO languages? Kde certainly has the applications users need in its upcoming 2.0 release and in its current beta. This will mean more users for Gnome as well, and I don't think these users will be very concerned about the inability to embed a Gnumeric cell in Kword.
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I had to mention this one Why use KDE?
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KDE/GNOME position Personally, I dont care if either one of these dies, becomes the standard, or replaces Windows 2000 in Bill's home. What I do care about that I will never use either, and since there are no useful KDE or GNOME apps, I guess there is no reason for me to ever use either. If an app is useful enough chances are it doesn't need this crap (Gimp, etc). With all the stupidity hovering around Linux lately, it's amazing it haven't turned into the next Windows yet. Recently announced "red carpet" for Helix Gnome (whatever that is) just looks like a GTK app which took about 5 minutes to write and a whole lot of anti-aliased icons which took the rest of the day to make. Big fsckin deal. Icons isnt what Linux is all about anyway.
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re: What About I have always stayed out of this flame war because to me Linux is about
choice. I have to agree with jmd though that GNUStep is often over
looked.
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Desktop GUIs vs. GUI guts Part of the problem I see here is that the desktops and the application
frameworks are considered together rather than separately. I think it
would be a helpful to make a distinction between the desktop shell, which
would be the window manager, file manager, panels, and menus, and the
application framework, which would be the component model and low-level or
middle-level services like printing services and sound services. The reason
for the distinction is that it is, for the most part, no skin off
application developers' noses if different users use different desktop
shells, but problematical for them to support different application
frameworks.
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Views from a newbie Ive just discovered the joys of linux, one of the things that makes it so special is the people involved and the diversity it allows, why would we want to go the Microsoft way? The diversity of the different desktops is a unique feature that makes linux what it is and enable it to be enjoyed by the a wider range of people than any other OS, long may it stay that way :)
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Two or even more desktops are indeed possible Since all you to run KDE or gnome applications is the libraries one can use gnome and use a KDE application without problems. Off course a KDE would have access to more features that come from the integration with the desktop environment. But in time (read when this so called "war" is over) the two enviroments will have more points in common.
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2 dominant, incompatable desktops is imposible. As we know, Windows is currently the dominant desktop. 90% (or so) of all programmers are doing Windows only programming. That is because it is much easier, has a faster developmenet time, and cheeper to do only one version of a program. Since GNOME and KDE are incompatable, when Linux becomes standard, there will be one dominant desktop environment, and the other will either die, or linger around like amega haveing support from only a small group of people. One of the two Linux desktops will eventually gain Defaulthood unless GNOME and KDE become component compatable. IE, you can embed gnumeric in kword. This would only happen if GNOME and KDE could agree on a common component model. I've studied both Bonobo and Kparts, and have come to the conclusion that Bonobo is the way to go. Kparts is nonstandard, it is not langauge independent, it is QT dependent, and doesnt support distributed computing. Bonbobo on the other hand uses CORBA under the hood, so it uses standard technology, it is language independent, it is not any toolkit dependent, and supports distributed computing. If KDE picked up Bonobo for its component model, GNOME and KDE would no longer be competing, but complementery. This is the only way I can see getting around one of GNOME or KDE eventually dieing off.
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Re: 2 dominant, incompatable desktops is imposible.
--
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And this is another reason why I use Linux Mandrake... There shouldn't be a "war" at all over this. In fact, there should be quite a few people out there in both sides of this so-called war that should be deeply ashamed of themselves- beceause they know better.
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no topic :-) I agree with you. I hope that we will not have only one unix desktop environment in the future, which is maybe controlled by some big companies.
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The words of second place I may be out of line here, but after reading all these posts something struck me. Linux users are the reason that Linux will never be able to tackle Windows. The hard and fast Linux user wears the difficulty of the OS as a badge of honor. Someone even said that icons aren't what Linux is about. Well, sorry to break it to you, but if you ever want my mom, or your aunt to use Linux, it's damn sure gonna be about icons. The hobbyist or programmer is willing to learn commandline codes and tinker with things to make them work. The casual user has no patience for this. I agree that competition is good. At some point though, if Linux is going to be a truly viable option for the casual user, some things are going to have to be standardized to make everything work much smoother. If this means that KDE or Gnome is the defacto Linux, so be it. I know that a lot of you are thinking screw the casual user, it will dumb the OS down like Windows. You have to look at the big picture though. If Linux can make the jump onto Ma and Pa's PC a whole new world of options will open up to all Linux users. The hobbyists will still be able to get all manner of things to customize his own Linux, but he'll also have a whole host of other opportunities. I'm not trying to attack Linux. I think it is a great OS and I have a lot of fun with it. But someone needs to ask the question, where is it heading?
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Re: The words of second place [...]
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Linux, Desktops, and Holy Wars It's a good time to be alive, as always!
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