KDE's core library - Qt - included in new LSB desktop standard
| From: | Tom Chance <tom.chance-AT-kdemail.net> | |
| To: | tom.chance-AT-kdemail.net | |
| Subject: | KDE's core library - Qt - included in new LSB desktop standard | |
| Date: | Tue, 25 Apr 2006 16:58:24 +0100 |
KDE's core library - Qt - included in new LSB desktop standard "ISO standard for Linux extended with desktop specifications" FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 25 April, 2006 April 25, 2006 (The Internet) - KDE®, the open source project that creates user-friendly desktop software, announced today that its core library Qt® from Trolltech® is part of the Linux Standard Base (LSB) Final Release 3.1 standards specification document. The new LSB desktop standard includes the Qt 3.3 libraries and the tools required to create Qt-based applications, both of which are the foundation of KDE. An additional standard includes Qt 4, the next generation technology which will be used in the upcoming KDE 4 release. The LSB, a workgroup of the Free Standards Group organization, works to develop through consensus a standard operating environment for the Linux platform. This allows third-party application developers to ship a single version of their application that works on all LSB-compliant systems, regardless of the Linux distribution. With the inclusion of Qt in the LSB desktop specifications many desktop applications will now benefit. "KDE wants to prevent fragmentation of the Linux Desktop market," stated Olaf Schmidt, a KDE representative in the LSB Workgroup. "Collaboration is currently one of the hot topics in the KDE community, and this is why our participation in the LSB makes a lot of sense." Other efforts supported by KDE include the OSDL Portland project, which aims to make it easier for applications to integrate well into all Linux distributions and desktops, and freedesktop.org, where KDE cooperates with other open source projects on common, open interfaces. "KDE has always been a strong supporter of open standards", Schmidt added. "Our KOffice developers have made key contributions to the OpenDocument standard. Code from Konqueror, our standards compliant web browser, has been adopted by Apple and Nokia. We are also active in the Accessibility Workgroup of the Free Standards Group, where we make Linux more accessible to users both with and without disabilities." The LSB Desktop standard ensures that KDE is supported through the inclusion of its foundation library Qt in the specification. Trolltech and KDE are both represented in the LSB Workgroup and will continue to work with the Workgroup to ensure that future products including, but not limited to, KDE itself will meet the requirements for inclusion in subsequent LSB specifications. "The LSB workgroup is pleased to see the participation in and support for LSB 3.1 from the KDE project," said Ian Murdock, chief technology officer of the Free Standards Group. "Since our new standard now includes support for desktop libraries, it's crucial that KDE and other desktop projects participate in the process. We are all working toward the same goal: expansion of applications on the Linux desktop and continued success for Linux. This release is testament that we are well on our way of achieving that goal." Ends For more information see press contacts listed at the bottom of this release. Supporting KDE KDE is an open source project that exists and grows only because of the help of many volunteers that donate their time and effort. KDE is always looking for new volunteers and contributions, whether its help with coding, bug fixing or reporting, writing documentation, translations, promotion, money, etc. All contributions are gratefully appreciated and eagerly accepted. Please read through the Supporting KDE page for further information. About The KDE Project The KDE® project consists of hundreds of developers, translators, artists and other contributors worldwide collaborating over the Internet. The community creates and freely distributes a stable, integrated and free desktop and office environment. KDE provides a flexible, component-based, network-transparent architecture and powerful development tools, offering an outstanding development platform. Reflecting its international team and focus, KDE 3.5 is currently available in over 80 different languages. KDE, which is based on Qt technology from Trolltech, is working proof that the Open Source "Bazaar-style" software development model can yield first-rate technologies on par with and superior to even the most complex commercial software. Trademark Notices. KDE, K Desktop Environment and the KDE Logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of KDE e.V. in the European Union, the United States and other countries. Trolltech and Qt are registered trademarks of Trolltech AS. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Press Contacts Africa Uwe Thiem P.P.Box 30955 Windhoek Namibia Phone: +264 - 61 - 24 92 49 info-africa kde.org Asia Sirtaj S. Kang C-324 Defence Colony New Delhi India 110024 Phone: +91-981807-8372 info-asia kde.org Europe Matthias Kalle Dalheimer Rysktorp S-683 92 Hagfors Sweden Phone: +46-563-540023 Fax: +46-563-540028 info-europe kde.org North America George Staikos 889 Bay St. #205 Toronto, ON, M5S 3K5 Canada Phone: (416)-925-4030 info-northamerica kde.org Oceania Hamish Rodda 11 Eucalyptus Road Eltham VIC 3095 Australia Phone: (+61)402 346684 info-oceania kde.org South America Helio Chissini de Castro R. José de Alencar 120, apto 1906 Curitiba, PR 80050-240 Brazil Phone: +55(41)262-0782 / +55(41)360-2670 info-southamerica kde.org
Posted Apr 25, 2006 22:30 UTC (Tue)
by bdw (guest, #16047)
[Link] (5 responses)
Posted Apr 25, 2006 22:33 UTC (Tue)
by jeld (guest, #22397)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Apr 25, 2006 22:58 UTC (Tue)
by jpetso (subscriber, #36230)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Apr 27, 2006 15:42 UTC (Thu)
by jeld (guest, #22397)
[Link]
Posted Apr 25, 2006 23:06 UTC (Tue)
by newren (subscriber, #5160)
[Link] (1 responses)
http://www.freestandards.org/en/LSB_Roadmap:
"LSB 3.1 incorporates the recently approved ISO standard LSB Core (ISO/IEC 23360), and, for the first time, adds desktop functionality to the Core in the form of the new LSB Desktop specification, which standardizes the Gtk and Qt GUI toolkits."
Why wouldn't this sit well with the Gnome folk?
Posted Apr 26, 2006 15:46 UTC (Wed)
by bdw (guest, #16047)
[Link]
Posted Apr 25, 2006 22:34 UTC (Tue)
by xtifr (guest, #143)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Apr 28, 2006 14:57 UTC (Fri)
by liljencrantz (guest, #28458)
[Link]
Posted Apr 25, 2006 23:01 UTC (Tue)
by dwheeler (guest, #1216)
[Link] (8 responses)
Note that this is only the DESKTOP specification.
The LSB spec actually has several parts, and it's my understanding that not all LSB systems need to implement this part. You only need to implement this if you're claiming that your system complies with the "Linux Standard Base - Desktop system" spec. Headless dedicated servers might comply with the LSB (base) and have a C library, kernel interface, etc., without having a GUI library. At least, that's how I read
this requirements text.
So, you can now relax.
Posted Apr 26, 2006 7:45 UTC (Wed)
by xtifr (guest, #143)
[Link] (7 responses)
Posted Apr 26, 2006 9:05 UTC (Wed)
by koriordan (guest, #3490)
[Link] (6 responses)
I would love to see Motif and Tk obsoleted in favour of Gtk+
Posted Apr 26, 2006 14:08 UTC (Wed)
by tjc (guest, #137)
[Link] (4 responses)
Posted Apr 26, 2006 15:59 UTC (Wed)
by NapalmLlama (guest, #26327)
[Link] (3 responses)
Maybe keep it as a fallback, like twm, but I don't think tk is really suitable as the default toolkit for any modern GUI application...
Posted Apr 26, 2006 16:31 UTC (Wed)
by tjc (guest, #137)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Apr 27, 2006 19:04 UTC (Thu)
by grouch (guest, #27289)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Apr 28, 2006 14:24 UTC (Fri)
by tjc (guest, #137)
[Link]
I don't mean to "beat up" on tk, I just think that the appearance could be improved a bit, especially the Motif-style scrollbars. I fact, I rather like tk. And I even like tcl. It has enough lisp-like qualites to be useful and interesting.
Posted Apr 26, 2006 19:23 UTC (Wed)
by xtifr (guest, #143)
[Link]
And frankly, I don't see what's so "ugly" about Tk. It's simple, clean, elegant and functional, and doesn't waste space or processor cycles on ornate, baroque fripperies and distracting eyecandy. To me, that's beautiful!
Posted Apr 26, 2006 3:30 UTC (Wed)
by sbishop (guest, #33061)
[Link] (8 responses)
http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:PrP4Pu1T6PEJ:www.linu...
It's an LSB FAQ explaining that libqt will never be included in its spec as long as you needed to pay a fee to develop proprietary software. Am I mixed up? It looks like someone had a change of heart--which I'm happy about. Does someone reading this know what happened?
Thanks.
Posted Apr 26, 2006 4:37 UTC (Wed)
by Sho (subscriber, #8956)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Apr 26, 2006 8:19 UTC (Wed)
by jjstwerff (subscriber, #4082)
[Link] (1 responses)
I hope that with the LSB-desktop specs people will realise that to make a functional program they don't need to depend on 20+ other programs.
Posted Apr 26, 2006 9:52 UTC (Wed)
by nix (subscriber, #2304)
[Link]
I'd rather have GUI-related gunge occupying RAM and disk space only once, rather than over and over again, and having only *one* set of bugs, and with no maintenance skew...
... are you really arguing in favour of massive code duplication? Because it sounds like it to me.
Posted Apr 26, 2006 8:20 UTC (Wed)
by rsidd (subscriber, #2582)
[Link] (1 responses)
LSB has always been a farce anyway... Perhaps they've realised that now.
Posted Apr 26, 2006 9:54 UTC (Wed)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link]
It's not a farce at all. It's merely trying to do a very difficult job - the phrase "herding cats" comes to mind :-)
Cheers,
Posted Apr 26, 2006 10:14 UTC (Wed)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link] (2 responses)
Various people wanted to get GTK in. The Qt people went rather mad over this, and forcibly pointed out that Qt is "more Free" than GTK because it's GPL. In the middle of this stand-off, somebody pointed out that even the LGPL didn't actually meet the requirements as stated. About the only acceptable licences were BSD, artistic and similar.
So the result was a major row on the mailing list (I blotted my copybook, about the only actual flame was mine :-(
Anyways. They must have changed the criteria. I suspect it was done in the teleconference, which I don't attend, so I don't know exactly what happened. I did, however, suggest that the criteria should be "if the licencing regime supports the Four Freedoms for ALL users, then the licencing is okay". If you think about it, "GPL + proprietary" DOES meet that requirement, given a suitable proprietary licence, and I think Qt falls well within that. Note that the "commercially friendly" criteria has almost certainly not been dropped (after all, that is the whole point of the LSB), so "GPL only" probably doesn't cut it.
That "all users" bit is important :-) somebody with a commercial licence still needs to be protected.
I need to hunt up the criteria web page. I didn't bookmark it, and last time I searched I couldn't find it.
Cheers,
Posted Apr 26, 2006 18:29 UTC (Wed)
by olafjanschmidt (guest, #37373)
[Link] (1 responses)
Yes, that was me. :-) When we were unable to find a clear consensus within the LSB workgroup,
the FSG decided to simply remove the license criterion. The reasons
were: Olaf
Posted Apr 27, 2006 11:43 UTC (Thu)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link]
That "some lawyers" being Larry Rosen in particular, who was the target of the aforementioned flame.
I would suggest going to his web-site, reading his book (Chapter 6 especially, iirc), and then carefully comparing his analysis with the actual wording of the GPL. The result should be revealing :-)
Cheers,
Posted Apr 26, 2006 16:58 UTC (Wed)
by paulpach (guest, #20903)
[Link]
Congratulations to Trolltech. Their flag ship product has been
This is not going to go over well with the GNOME userbase, alas. I do hope that the GNOME system is taken into consideration as well.KDE's core library - Qt - included in new LSB desktop standard
This is all a bit strange. First Qt is preferred over GTK (I would understand if they were both in LSB or none, but not one over the other). And what is a GUI toolkit doing in LSB spec anyway?KDE's core library - Qt - included in new LSB desktop standard
This is the ("new") LSB Desktop spec. Obviously they felt that KDE's core library - Qt - included in new LSB desktop standard
standardizing the base system wasn't sufficient, so they went for the
logical extension, the desktop libraries. I'm quite sure GTK will also be
contained in that spec (or is already), and other libs as well...
Apologies, a GUI toolkit definitely belongs in the "Desktop" spec and GTK is there as well. I should RTFA before I comment.KDE's core library - Qt - included in new LSB desktop standard
KDE's core library - Qt - included in new LSB desktop standard
Maybe because I didn't know that GTK was included, mayhaps?KDE's core library - Qt - included in new LSB desktop standard
Pretty much guarantees that I'll never have an LSB-compliant system (and I'm not a GNOME user).KDE's core library - Qt - included in new LSB desktop standard
Why? Neither one is huge, on my system, the gtk2 package uses 15 MB, and qt one about 9 MB. Add to this a few megabytes of support libraries, and you've got a system using rougly 30 MB of extra space. Not the end of the world.KDE's core library - Qt - included in new LSB desktop standard
The
Linux Standard Base Desktop Specification 3.1
includes both Qt and GTK+. It includes some other stuff too.
Both core libraries of KDE (Qt) and GNOME (Gtk+) included in LSB desktop standard
Then let me correct my earlier post: this pretty much guarantees that my desktop system will never be LSB-Desktop-Specification compliant -- and I'm still not a GNOME user. :)Both core libraries of KDE (Qt) and GNOME (Gtk+) included in LSB desktop standard
You don't need to be a GNOME user to tuse Gtk+. Xfce is a lightweight desktop that uses Gtk+ as its GUI toolkit. I'm sure others will follow suit now that Gtk+ is more of a standard.Both core libraries of KDE (Qt) and GNOME (Gtk+) included in LSB desktop standard
No, not Tk. There will always be a place for a lightweight toolkit.Both core libraries of KDE (Qt) and GNOME (Gtk+) included in LSB desktop standard
Argh! tk looks horrible!Both core libraries of KDE (Qt) and GNOME (Gtk+) included in LSB desktop standard
Both core libraries of KDE (Qt) and GNOME (Gtk+) included in LSB desktop standard
tk looks horrible!
I agree, but until someone releases a better looking lightweight toolkit it is still useful.
Aw, don't be beating up on tk. tkdesk was an essential part of my transition to GNU/Linux years ago. It helped me figure out where things are and how to maneuver before I learned what 'bash', 'whatis', and 'man' were.
tkdesk pwnz ju!
tkdesk pwnz ju!
Indeed, I do have GTK+ installed, but not Qt (and not GNOME--nor Xfce). And it's not because of any particular hostility on my part towards Qt or Trolltech--in fact, I rather admire Trolltech. It's simply that I haven't seen any software I need or want that uses Qt, and don't see any reason to think this will change. I've got Athena (I love the scrollbars), GTK+, Tk, FLTK--I really don't need another widget set, and am even willing, at this point, to go a little out of my way to ensure I don't have any more widget sets installed.Both core libraries of KDE (Qt) and GNOME (Gtk+) included in LSB desktop standard
I've always been a fan of Qt/KDE, so I was disappointed when I stumbled across this page a few months ago: (pulled from Google's cache)pleasantly surprised
I assume they realized that distributors ship Qt anyway because there's a large amount of capable and viable Linux software using it, and that their standard would be more relevant if it started to reflect reality.pleasantly surprised
I have a problem with the current state of affairs with both Gnome and KDE applications. All the applications under them will not only depend on the basic libraries but on all the basic parts of their system.pleasantly surprised
Er, the *reason* that GNOME and KDE programs depend on the GNOME and KDE libraries is because they *use* things from them, so as to avoid reinventing the wheel themselves.pleasantly surprised
What an atrocious argument. Qt is GPL'd and doesn't have any more strings attached than any other GPL'd library, like, say, the readline library. In fact it's better for proprietary software because you can pay a fee and use it with their commercial licence, which you can't with purely GPL'd libraries like the readline library.pleasantly surprised
Have you actually TAKEN PART in the LSB at all?pleasantly surprised
Wol
As somebody who took part in the debate over this ...pleasantly surprised
Wol
pleasantly surprised
In the middle of this stand-off, somebody pointed out that
even the LGPL didn't actually meet the requirements as
stated.
They must have changed the criteria. I suspect it was done in
the teleconference, which I don't attend, so I don't know exactly what
happened.
"Some lawyers claim that linking does not create a derivative work, and if you believe them, then the license does not matter anyway."pleasantly surprised
Wol
If noone will say it, I'll say it:KDE's core library - Qt - included in new LSB desktop standard
incorporated into a standard. It is well deserved given the high quality
of their work and the fantastic job they do at supporting it. Thanks for
licensing it under the GPL.