KDE vs GNOME [LWN.net]

KDE vs GNOME

Posted Nov 4, 2003 21:17 UTC (Tue) by mdekkers (guest, #85)
In reply to: KDE vs GNOME by dwalters
Parent article: On Novell's acquisition of SUSE

They now own Ximian, and thus some of the key GNOME development force. That means they mainly own the desktop - the connector isn't very good since it does stuff the wrong way around, and the red carpet stuff can't hold a torch to the kind of management environment SUSE brings to the table. For those who not witnessed the awesome powers of SUSE's management framework: it blows anything out of the water. So that leaves only the desktop stuff as the key strategic asset that Novell owns in Ximian.

Their support for KDE is probably going to be lacklustre to say the least, and good management sense (although I don't accuse Novell management to have any of that) would dictate that Ximian would serve the desktop duty, while SUSE would serve core OS duty. GNOME wins, and I am currently in the market for a good, stable, usable, but cutting edge KDE based distro. SUSE was the only one, and will never be the same.

I think that Novell will probably start dropping the vast majority of packages that come with SUSE - SUSE is truly a massive distro, and the hundreds of bundled games (just to point out a particularly mission critical example) will probably be exit stage left soon. I don't think they will kill it off, but rather go for a "petering out" kind of thing.

Finally, my main concern goes to the lack of commitment Novell has shown so far towards Free Software/OSS. Yes, they publish snippets and some bits and bobs on their site, but as far as I can tell, nothing major, and nothing that is not ultimately self-serving for Novell - all API's etc. to their own products. Let them OSS directory, or some other of their core technology, and I'll believe. So far, all the Novell success stories seem to have been how successful Novell has been in utilising FLOSS, rather then how good much they have given to the community.

Novells corporate Mantra has always been "achieving customer lock-in through technology" and a quick but deep look at some of their products will show a tendency to "embrace and extend" rather then implementing truly open standards. Look at the iFolder stuff for example - all the hallmarks of WebDAV, but not really so - it is Novells *alternative* to WebDAV.

I truly hope that I am wrong, but see a bleak future for the distro I love.

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KDE vs GNOME

Posted Nov 4, 2003 21:57 UTC (Tue) by tjc (guest, #137) [Link]

I think that Novell will probably start dropping the vast majority of packages that come with SUSE [snip]

Probably. I expect a lot of stuff will be moved from the main installation discs to a set of "extras" (which is to say, unsupported) discs, or available via FTP only, etc. KDE might end up there too, at least in the US market.

Software support is expensive, and from the point of view of a commercial software vendor the only software worth supporting is that which generates significant revenue. This would tend to work against software packages that duplicate the functionality of other packages.

KDE vs GNOME

Posted Nov 4, 2003 23:28 UTC (Tue) by wolfrider (guest, #3105) [Link]

> I am currently in the market for a good, stable, usable, but cutting edge KDE based distro. SUSE was the only one, and will never be the same.

--You should try KNOPPIX. Debian-based Live-CD, but can be installed to HD if you have 2300Meg free. After that, apt-get to your heart's content.

ftp://ftp.uni-kl.de/pub/linux/knoppix/
http://torrent.unix-ag.uni-kl.de:6969/

KDE vs GNOME

Posted Nov 5, 2003 8:13 UTC (Wed) by hingo (guest, #14792) [Link]

I can almost guarantee you that Novell will go with a merge of Ximian technology (read: GNOME) as opposed to maintaining support for KDE. Think about the events so far, and you will realise that there are few other options.

They now own Ximian, and thus some of the key GNOME development force. That means they mainly own the desktop - the connector isn't very good since it does stuff the wrong way around, and the red carpet stuff can't hold a torch to the kind of management environment SUSE brings to the table. For those who not witnessed the awesome powers of SUSE's management framework: it blows anything out of the water. So that leaves only the desktop stuff as the key strategic asset that Novell owns in Ximian.

The No 1 reason to buy Ximian was certainly Mono. No 2 was Evolution and No 3 Red Carpet, or the other way around.

SUSE on the other hand has just sold *KDE* to Munich for 32 million and will do so again and again when other german cities and the government catch up. They are not going to abandon KDE.

But other than that, you are right. Ximian is *the* company behind GNOME, I doubt they will abandon that either.

Right now the official party line seems to be, that they will actively continue to support all projects they have bought themselves into: "Novell is firmly committed to open standards and maintaining the existing open source kernel development efforts. From advocacy and development resources to events and support of open source efforts like kernel projects, XFree86, ReiserFS, KDE, GNOME and Mono, Novell stands side-by-side with the open source community. " (From the press release).

henrik

Achieving customer lock-in through technology ?

Posted Nov 14, 2003 0:01 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

Hmm... That's what SUSE did all along, you know (YaST). They published sources - so what ? This still is lock-in. So it makes sense Novell who plays lock-in games will buy the only major distribution which played lock-in game.

You got what you asked for, you know: SUSE always was distribution without ability to create proper fork if needed and now Novell using it. Good thinking for Novell! You can not do it with RedHat customers. Not really - that's how Mandrake started. But Novell can and thus will do it with SUSE customers.