The answer is: Standards! Esp. freedesktop.org.

Posted Dec 16, 2005 2:50 UTC (Fri) by bk (guest, #25617)
In reply to: The answer is: Standards! Esp. freedesktop.org. by dwheeler
Parent article: GNOME v. KDE, December 2005 edition

I also worry somewhat about control over Qt by a single organization if there are many proprietary programs that use it (making forking impractical).

I agree, a Qt fork would be extremely difficult and would probably stagnate and set back the KDE project by *years*. The reason, though, is that Qt is designed poorly, from a free software perspective.

It's obese, monolithic and very un-Unix like. I can nearly guarantee that, in the event of a fork, you will have several factions of hackers determined to correct these design deficiencies in their own way. What might emerge is an orthodox KDE based on the official proprietary Qt (freedom be damned!) and then several "KDE lite" projects based on the various forks (at least one as part of the GNU project). KDE will cease to be relevant and GNOME will become the undisputed default free desktop.