Toolkits (GNOME, (Free)Qt, Motif/LessTif)

[Erik Walthinsen <omega@omegacs.net>]

>   I cannot for the life of me, see any gain in one more library project,
> not one bit.
Nor can I, which is why I intend to support GNOME (along with everyone 
else).  FreeQt would be nice, but I'm not banking on it.

>   There are a lot of these projects out there, already... instead of the
> GTK library, why not support the LessTif project?
The Motif widget set is IMO fairly lame.  It is driven by a commercial 
entity, which means that any changes the free software world makes are 
likely going to be ignored.  Because of this, it doesn't evolve nearly as 
fast as is required to compete on the desktop (which *is* our target).

> I mean, anyone who is going to use Unix style computers for anything
> (including moi), is going to get themselves motif...
This is news to me.  I have never even *considered* buying Motif, and I 
don't even have LessTif installed anywhere.  The only reason I'll be 
compiling LessTif tomorrow is so I can link Mozilla with it.

> There simply isn't place for all of them...
I agree, but that's no reason to ditch all of them.  There must be a 
free-software driven widget library to support free-software applications.  
LessTif is not in that category, because it does nothing but emulate Motif, 
which is a non-free standard that moves too slowly.  For this reason, I 
intent to support GTK, like everyone else is.

>   And more over, on the subject of GNOME and KDE... the Qt library is free
> enough to use it in any free Linux distribution.  It is free for personal
> use, and I don't see that as a problem.  Unless people are going to make
> *free* Linux distribution, that is going to be used for _commercial_
> porposes, which I find disturbingly inapropriate... because for such
> purposes, people should pay the licencing fee.
Once again, the licensing issues with Qt have very little to do with 
end-users.  Where Qt will hurt us is in commercial application support, 
which Linux *must* *have* in order to succeed.

>   The only thing, that is really worth noticing is the CORBA part.  Which, I
> don't think should be discussed, but rather a small group should get together
> and just create a RFC style document that would be dispersed around the major
> groups and made available on the Internet.  Which would basically state, *this
> is the environment we expect Linux application to comply with*.
This is an extension of the Core/Layers concept into the UI, which I would 
go for 100%, but only if it is done *RIGHT*.  This means that all affected 
parties must have a say in what happens, both in standards and in code.  
Motif and Qt both obliterate this because they are controlled by commercial 
entities, meaning that everyone using the standard (and thus the toolkit) 
is 100% at the mercy of OSF or Troll Tech.

> and please, don't mention GNOME... because gnome isn't it.
If you can provide a reasonable alternative, then it should be considered.  
But I have yet to see anything that can compete with GNOME within the 
limits that this project has on licensing.

I would like to know precisely *why* you are so against GNOME, actually.


     Erik Walthinsen <omega@seul.org> - SEUL Project system architect
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