On Fri, 13 Jul 2001, Bob Tanner wrote:
> As I started to read this, I thought "rant" and "flamebait", but then
> the topic turned to .GNU and to tell your the truth, I read Ximians
> press release, I thought why? Why -follow- microsoft?
Good question -- one I've been asking for the past couple years. Wine
and samba and such are fine, because compatibility is a good thing. On
the other hand, compatibility and following are separate things.
I think it has hindered the usability of both KDE and GNOME that they
are both trying to be Windows (or MacOS, or CDE, at varying times). Mac
OS X has a wonderful interface because they threw out the standard
interface concepts. The original Mac OS did the same thing.
The same thing goes for what's behind the GUIs. Microsoft has spent its
entire existence trying to copycat ("embrace and extend") good, solid
systems, and it has always come up with bastardized, buggy, incompatible
versions. Examples:
o DOS (bastardized CP/M)
o Windows NT (bastardized Unix, somewhere back there)
o Active Directory (bastardized LDAP)
Sorry for the ranting BTW :) (I consider Ximian in league with Satan at
this point, because their entire purpose seems to be to copycat
Microsoft (e.g. Evolution, Mono, GNOME BASIC). To respond to JZ, what we
need is precisely *not* a Windows replacement, but a *Linux*GUI*.)
> I know this is probably flamebait, but I find GNOME -and- KDE both
> very good from a user stand point.
As do I, but I also see a lot of room for improvement. Lots of
inconsistencies are still present in both interfaces.
> Anyone care to comment on GNOME vs KDE from an developer prospective?
I have to say that although the object-oriented system in GTK+/GNOME is
on crack, it's not that difficult to work with. At least, it's no more
difficult than having to run all of your code through a preprocessor
(Qt's moc) just so that the widget set can handle it.
And C is the standard Unix language, for better or for worse. And it's
the language that X is written in (which is unfortunate, but that's a
different discussion).
As always, this is only my opinion.
Pacem in Terris / Mir / Shanti / Salaam / Heiwa
Kevin R. Bullock