Maybe a hint?

Posted Jan 17, 2026 19:21 UTC (Sat) by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
In reply to: Maybe a hint? by pizza
Parent article: Debian discusses removing GTK 2 for forky

Re-reading your comment, I think it's better to say "GTK isn't community-led because there isn't a GTK community".

Cheers,
Wol

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Maybe a hint?

Posted Jan 17, 2026 19:50 UTC (Sat) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (7 responses)

> Re-reading your comment, I think it's better to say "GTK isn't community-led because there isn't a GTK community".

That's better, but still succumbs to the No True Scotsman fallacy.

What is "the gtk community" if not the folks that actually develop and use it? Should GNOME not take an interest in its upstreams?

GTK,is a "community project" as opposed to a "commercial/corporate project" ala QT. Or a "personal project", for that matter. The fact that GTK development has been being driven mostly by GNOME (which is itself another "community project") doesn't invalidate that basic fact.w\

Maybe a hint?

Posted Jan 17, 2026 20:33 UTC (Sat) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (6 responses)

> Should GNOME not take an interest in its upstreams?

IS GTK a Gnome upstream? Or is it just a Gnome component?

It started out as a Gimp component. Then it got taken over as a Gnome component (as evidenced by the fact that Gimp stayed on "legacy" GTK long after GTK had moved on with Gnome). Has it now struck out on its own?

Cheers,
Wol

Maybe a hint?

Posted Jan 18, 2026 13:24 UTC (Sun) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (5 responses)

> IS GTK a Gnome upstream? Or is it just a Gnome component?

That's a distinction without a difference, as GTK is indisputably maintained by "its community"

Maybe a hint?

Posted Jan 18, 2026 19:19 UTC (Sun) by mirabilos (subscriber, #84359) [Link] (4 responses)

It very much is NOT maintained by the Gtk+ community, it’s maintained by GNOME, who have hostile-taken-over Gtk+.

Maybe a hint?

Posted Jan 18, 2026 19:36 UTC (Sun) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

> who have hostile-taken-over Gtk+.

I think you mean they've forked it (which is perfectly okay). But yes, they have also hijacked the name, which is less okay ...

Cheers,
Wol

Maybe a hint?

Posted Jan 18, 2026 22:28 UTC (Sun) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (2 responses)

> It very much is NOT maintained by the Gtk+ community, it’s maintained by GNOME, who have hostile-taken-over Gtk+.

Please, provide *any* citation that GTK was subject to a hostile takeover -- ie against the wishes of the folks that were nominally in charge and maintaining it at the time. Even if what you say is true, and GTK was hostile-forked 2.5 decades ago (because that's the timeframe we're talking about here) what effing difference does it make in practical terms, when the alternative is... being effectively (if not actually) unmaintained? (Let's not pretend that GIMP has been swimming in developers all these years)

Because all you're doing is maligning the folks that have been maintaining one of the most commonly used (*nix) UI toolkits, for reasons that appear to be nothing more than "everything GNOME does is automatically doubleplus BAD".

Maybe a hint?

Posted Jan 18, 2026 22:44 UTC (Sun) by mirabilos (subscriber, #84359) [Link] (1 responses)

Lack of active maintenance is neither an indicator of obsolescence nor a reason to do a hostile takeover.

Maybe a hint?

Posted Jan 19, 2026 0:12 UTC (Mon) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link]

Again, I repeat myself:

Please, provide *any* citation that GTK was subject to a hostile takeover.