Distributors and application configuration [LWN.net]

The competing Linux desktop projects have been a favorite source of flamewars for years. Criticism of Red Hat, the largest Linux distributor has also been good for large amounts of inflammatory content. So it's not surprising that those who like to argue have gotten even more mileage than usual out of the combination of the two topics.

The problem? Red Hat, it seems, has gone out of its way to configure the GNOME and KDE environments in its "null" beta to look (and act) alike. Red Hat's reasoning is fairly straightforward: they want to improve their desktop by minimizing incompatibilities and making use of the best of what each desktop environment has to offer. Critics complain that features have been configured out, the default behavior of the desktop has been changed, and that desktop "branding" suffers as a result of the configuration changes and mixing of applications.

The problem with these complaints, of course, is that both projects have released their desktops as free software. Red Hat may have applied a heavy hand with some of its changes, but the software involved was released under a license which allows far worse. When you make software free, you explicitly give up a great deal of control over what others can do with that software. Microsoft is able to dictate the appearance of its desktop to resellers; GNOME and KDE have given up that power.

The fact that the software is free means that any distributor can make whatever changes it wants in order to provide (what it sees as) the best desktop for its customers. Red Hat's exercise of this right is a good thing, even if the resulting desktop is a mess. If enough distributors put effort into improving the desktop they ship, the quality of Linux desktops as a whole can only improve. Any good ideas from Red Hat's work should spread; the rest can be ignored. Red Hat is functioning as part of the development process for both desktops.

And, in general, it is the right and responsibility of Linux distributors to make the changes they see fit (within the licensing requirements) to improve their products. The diversity of distributions is one of the great strengths of Linux. Why would we want to change that?

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Distributors and application configuration

Posted Sep 20, 2002 3:23 UTC (Fri) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link]

This days both GNOME and KDE can be programed in C, C++, C#,..., and are compiled from GCC, that can do it so for almost every CPU architecture on the planet!!!

What the hell is wrong if we have a METAPLATFORM, that is a common, must logicaly the same code, way of doing diferent COLORS, WiDGETS, WINDOWS BORDERS, TASKBARS, APPLETS, ICONS, FONTS, BACKGROUNDS, MENUS, RENDERING(3D) AND LAYING OUT THE DESKTOP, STARTING AND PLAYING SOUND SERVERS!!!

Contrary to first looks, this could very easily be a SUBSET of a any KDE, GNOME or GNUStep desktop, since most of the core and toolkits of the individual platforms are EXTENSIONS to the common ground, compatibility could easily be achived trough librarys if they follow the same set of rules!!!...

I can think of LSB, Freedesktop.org "standards", corba, X11,....

WE CAN HAVE A GNOME PANEL WITH APPLETS RUNNING INSIDE KDE, AND EVERY APPLICATION NO MATER WHAT CODE HAS IN CORE WILL HAVE ALWAYS "THE SAME LOOK AND FEEL"...

RED HAT inicitive is a shy attempt in the rigth direction, but not bad for a first time!!!

Some further clearification

Posted Sep 20, 2002 17:34 UTC (Fri) by X-Nc (guest, #1661) [Link]

Havoc posted a very good reply to this topic in the Valhalla list recently. He stated than none of either GNOME or KDE's API's had been touched and the changes were all in configuration so there would be no serious problems upgrading to newer versions.

My feeling is that it is about time SOMEONE did this. GNOME and KDE are good (not great, but good) desktop environment projects but it's now getting to the point where there's no reason they should not be 100% interchangable. We in the *NIX and Software Libre worlds like having choices for everything on or systems but if Linux is going to make a dent in the desktop market it will have to have One True Way<tm> and all the distros and projects and companies are going to have to accept that this will need to be one of the many options they will have to support.

The underlying problem

Posted Sep 20, 2002 17:50 UTC (Fri) by Baylink (subscriber, #755) [Link]

...here is one I was just discussing with a cohort the other day.

It's the reason, among other things, for the Artistic License:

What package developers have, and in fact, the *only* thing many of them have, is *the reputation of their brand*. Both GNOME and KDE are in the desktop business -- the arrangement of that desktop (and panel, and menus) is part of what they're selling.

Since they've chosen the GPL, alas, they aren't in a position to say "you're changing the essence of my 'thing' -- you can't use my name anymore". This is why Larry Wall created the Artistic License in the first place.

All of this is to say that, if you change it that much -- then it *isn't KDE (resp GNOME) anymore, and you shouldn't call it that*. I suspect it's this point that is the thing which will have many people most up in arms, whether they realize it or not...

But hell, maybe it's just me.

So many things are just me.