Re: KDE vs Gnome

[Chris Tessone <tessone@imsa.edu>]

>>>>> "Steven" == Steven Pritchard <steve@silug.org> writes:

    Steven> There are some issues surrounding the licensing of Qt.
    Steven> When you look at Qt's license, understand that Troll Tech
    Steven> is in the business of selling a *supported* cross-platform
    Steven> toolkit.  They have some *very* large clients who would be
    Steven> upset if there were major bugs in Qt.  Besides that,
    Steven> though, the guys at Troll Tech are *very* big fans of free
    Steven> software.  The guy who wrote most of Qt, Arnt Gulbrandsen,
    Steven> has written quite a bit of Open SourceTM software.  If you
    Steven> grep through the Linux kernel source, you'll notice that
    Steven> his name is in there a few times even.

    Steven> So Troll Tech has this nice product that they *must* have
    Steven> absolute control over in order to keep their large paying
    Steven> clients happy.  That's why they don't allow modifications.
    Steven> They like free software though, so they allow it to be
    Steven> used free of charge for GPL'd software.  Also, they know
    Steven> that Linux (and other Unix) people like to have source for
    Steven> stuff, so they distribute the source code for Qt.

Oh, come on, Steven! Firstly, I can't understand how you people can
sit and take shots at Stallman when you're getting his views
secondhand and not really trying to understand them. _Pragmatic
idealism_, folks.

Anyway, what are you talking about? So the guy's written free
software? So what? Qt is non-free, and that's all that matters in this
instance. I don't see any reason why Troll Tech can't keep "absolute
control" over Qt, even if they were to GPL it. They can just have
their "large paying clients" only buy from them. This allows KDE to be
free software (currently it's breaking the GPL - you seem to ignore
that fact) and still allow these so-called "large paying clients" to
have stable software. Also, I don't get where you're finding your
arguments... You seem not to realise that in test after test free
software ends up being faster and more stable than commercial
software. So I don't think stability is a reason not to GPL Qt.

    Steven> To me, this all makes perfect sense.  (Of course, I'm
    Steven> probably a bit biased, since Arnt is a good friend of
    Steven> mine.)  Unfortunately though, it drives RMS and his bunch
    Steven> insane, because it isn't Free Software, and it isn't
    Steven> normal (evil) proprietary software, it's the Ultra-Evil
    Steven> Semi-Free Software.  (OK, I have to rant a little...)
    Steven> This is a perfect example of RMS's fanaticism...  It
    Steven> drives him absolutely insane that he is neither winning
    Steven> nor losing with Qt.  Qt is in what would be a happy middle
    Steven> ground to everyone else, but to RMS is completely off
    Steven> limits.

No it doesn't drive him crazy! Have you _talked_ with Richard? How do
you *know* it drives him insane. He's not "neither winning nor losing
with Qt", it's quite straightforward. Qt is non-free software. It's
not semi-free. It's free as in beer, not free in terms of the
GPL. Again, KDE is *illegal software*. It violates the GPL.

Everyone sees Richard as some crazed lunatic who won't give
up. However, everyone forgets what he has achieved. His views about
software have not wavered over the last twenty or so years. It was all
okay when the first versions of emacs came out and people began to use
Linux. Now that people are flocking to Linux in masses, people want
Richard to go away. Why were his views brilliant when Linux was a
fledgling OS, but now they're suddenly "RMS's fanaticism"?

Qt is *not* in a happy middle ground. It's in the same no-man's land
as XSuSE, except Troll Tech doesn't give out source code
eventually. Troll Tech as a company has done nothing for free software
(this is distinct from "Open Source" software -- the Open Source
specification is not enough), and making free binaries available is no
better than Microsoft or anyone else.

    Steven> There's a really simple reason for switching to KDE...  It
    Steven> works.  It is stable.  If anyone tells you that Gnome is
    Steven> stable, they are lying.

I'm rather fond of WindowMaker. I must admit that I've never seen KDE,
but WindowMaker is just right for me. Also, it's apparently the window
manager of choice for GNOME now.

Chris

-- 
Chris Tessone         tessone@fnal.gov         tessone@imsa.edu
PH/sendmail SNPC        System Administration        Perl/Shell
All you need is Perl, love. Perl is all you need.
http://www.imsa.edu/~tessone/

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