Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2003 23:38:05 +0100 From: Michal Pasternak <michal@pasternak.w.lub.pl> To: "Person, Roderick" <personrp@ccbh.com> Cc: advocacy@freebsd.org Subject: Re: a road to nowhere Message-ID: <20031113223805.GE16971@pasternak.w.lub.pl> In-Reply-To: <4BA256918ACE7449BD7896E65711C88B41E842@1UPMC-MSX8.isdip.upmc.edu> References: <4BA256918ACE7449BD7896E65711C88B41E842@1UPMC-MSX8.isdip.upmc.edu>
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Person, Roderick [Thu, Nov 13, 2003 at 10:13:36AM -0500]: > I keep reading how you dislike KDE 3.x, but one thing I missed was what you > really don't like about it. > It seems you just don't like the look. Is that all? Neither the look of KDE, nor the look of GNOME make them "Desktop Environments". What really makes a "Desktop Environment" is it's infrastructure. MS Windows - the most widely used desktop OS, no matter if you like it or not - supports many different mechanisms, which allow applications talk to each other and exchange data. ActiveX, COM+, DAO. Just to name a few. KDE, Mozilla and Star/OpenOffice are so big packages just because they try to patch the things, that have always been a problem on Unix systems. X11 has GUI toolkits, X11 has window managers. The problem becomes visible when you've written a spreadsheet, your friend did a vector drawing program, and someone else did a simple utility, that displays thumbnails of the files on the desktop. How can you share your data formats between applications? Well, someone might say, that with enough work it will be possible. In this case, please multiply the numbers by 5 or 10. Does it still looks easy? Okay, let's say the spreadsheet uses CSV and the vector program uses SVG - nice, readable formats - so... how do I embed a HTML displaying widget in both of them? Doesn't matter, what for - I just want to do that. How? The power of KDE doesn't lie in it's ability to change the look of the desktop. The power of KDE is KParts - a framework for sharing application components. Yes, that's the part of KDE, that allows you to have different menu in Konqueror when you're viewing PDF file; that's also the thing, that makes embedding of KSpread spreadsheets in KWord possible. What about GNOME, you might ask. Well, GNOME also has similar mechanisms. So, why do I say "go for KDE" ? KDE has already released many great applications. Not to mention the WWW browser (which, in turn, was adopted by Apple - and Apple knows, what's good, they already based Darwin/MacOS X on the best OS available), they have their printing system, networking utilities and a quite nice office package (which, as I belive, could grow to a really big and advanced suite, it only needs work - but well, the basics are _already_ done). Hey, you might say, GNOME has Galeon and Ximian.com do bundle OpenOffice with it! Okay. Galeon is based on Mozilla. This means: memory footprint == GNOME libraries + Mozilla libraries. OpenOffice? That's a whole different framework. Running OpenOffice on GNOME means loading 2 different toolkits (and I suppose, that noone can admin OO.org is small). KDE _is_ single. You might say it's libraries are bloat and it takes way too much to start-up. Well, that's the price you pay for patching the desktop-software-interoperability-hole, that existed in Unix for a long, long time (please note the word "desktop" at the beginning). So, I'd rather see already written software - which has proven it is well written - extended ad infinitum - (eg. KOffice patched in such manner it will become better than OpenOffice.org) - than create something worse or something incomplete. I don't want to hold many different toolkits on my hard drive, I don't want to wait each time I load an application using different set of libraries. Sorry, GNOME fans - I'm not saying, that GNOME is worse or better, than KDE - I'm just saying, that KDE has a bundled WWW browser and a basic office suite. Those components are very important in each everyday's desktop. That's why I think, that KDE just seems to be good point to start creating a production-quality desktop. It's easier to extend some already written applications, not to mention they're good, because they work. Anyway, as someone said: "GNOME developers focus on creating something perfect, while KDE developers focus on creating something, that just works" :) Another strange thing I've noticed: some people are trying to compare WindowMaker or any other window manager to desktop environments. That's a no-go, gentlemen. Window manager is _only_ a window manager. It doesn't make a real desktop environment, it only looks this way. Regards, -- Michal Pasternak :: http://pasternak.w.lub.pl
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