KDE vs GNOME

Posted Nov 5, 2003 7:53 UTC (Wed) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link]

Also, isn't Gnome written in standard C, while KDE is C++? That's a whole
language/programming culture difference, there!

One other difference of interest.. While I use KDE on my desktop, I'm involved in
PAN, the GTK based news client (not as a developer, yet.. but certainly as a
regular on the PAN lists). PAN recently made use of the MSWormOS GTK
libraries port to extend itself to the MSWormOS platform. That's something a
KDE app could never do without serious costs involved, due to the license for Qt
that's only free on the Linux/Unix side, but NOT on the MSWormOS side. I left
MSWormOS behind when I switched, but there are potentially a lot of folks that
could start their switch with apps such as Mozilla, OOo, and PAN, available on both
platforms. That's a potentially large mind-share that gives Gnome a boost, over the
apparently more popular in the *ix desktop world KDE. That too will provide an
interesting catalyst if thrown into the mix with Novell perhaps helping to encourage
a bit more liberalization of the Trolltech Qt license. As well, one can see where
Novell would be wise to encourage it, as it could be a rather unpleasant pain in the
side for them otherwise, given their MSWormOS platform mix at least presently. It
could certainly prevent or discourage a lot of platform agnostic porting they might
otherwise sponsor or at least encourage, if it weren't for the license issues.

Duncan