Re: Discussion vs. consideration (of KDE/KIllustrator)

[Erik Walthinsen <omega@omegacs.net>]

(moving to seul-dev-ui)

> That will not happen with 100 Programers working on 5 projects that need 
> 30 Programers each.
I assume you mean 5 projects with competing or overlapping aims?  That's 
why I want to get everyone (everyone!) talking, so overlap is minimized, 
inter-operation is assured, and directly competing projects can either
share code, or merge.

> This can only be done if they have a large and powerful hurd of Hackers
> working on the Code.  It is good the QT already exists so they are
> aiming at a stable target.
Right.  I'm just saying that if FreeQt can eventually be a complete 
replacement for Qt (or threaten to become so), we can then link *all*
Qt-based apps against something free (if FreeQt threatens, Troll Tech might 
open Qt. else we use FreeQt).

> No.  Trying to put FreeQT on GTK seems like a good way to screw up both
> with no real benefit to programers or users.  I.e. This sounds like 
> putting the empire state building on top of the sears tower to make it
> taller.  The end result would be a huge pile of ruble :(
You're probably right.  I guess it doesn't matter at the toolkit level, as 
long as the two look and operate similarly enough.  My only concern is that 
interfaces for two apps based on two toolkits might not be as configurable 
together as they would be if they were based on the same toolkit.  Rephrase:
If we have some configuration wizard, in order to support both Qt and GTK 
programs, it would have to be twice as large in the backend, because the 
two toolkits use different configurations.

> This is basically comparing the theoretical function of a lib with the
> actual capabilities of a robust and large desktop.  Not fare at all.
It's the desktop environment I'm worried about incompatibilities with.  
From what I hear, you must have KFM running in order to use many of the KDE 
apps.  If you run primarily GNOME, but need some function only provided by 
a KDE app, are you going to be forced to start KFM?  Seems a little dumb to 
me.  What I'd like to see is some way for the two to coexist as peacefully 
as possible, without these infrastructures getting in the way.  GNOME only 
provides libs, AFAIK, whereas KDE (so I hear) requires an actual process to 
be running.  Each GNOME app is monolithic in its function, allowing a GNOME 
app to run under KDE with no extra support beyond stuff in /usr/lib.

> The Gimp however fits right in on my KDE Desktop and looks like it was
> written for the project.  This is all end users really care about.
If, at the toolkit level, the two look close enough, then I have no 
problems with using both (assuming FreeQt works).  But if mixing KDE and 
GNOME apps becomes a pain as described above, we're stuck providing full 
environments for both desktops, which means porting KIllustrator to GNOME 
(if KIllustrator, as its name suggests, utilized the KDE infrastructure).

> Actually I don't think switchout Libraries and emulators are important.
If they can coexist otherwise, no, they won't be needed.

> just a little inter app communication and a universal clipboard.
Inter-app is where it gets messy, as stated above.  If they use different 
protocols (IIRC GNOME and KDE are going to use different DnD protocols :( )
then things start to suck badly.  If GNOME and KDE both utilize CORBA 
extensively, that problem all but goes away.  Are there plans to CORBA-ize 
KDE?

> The way to achieve this is for the GNOME people to talk to the KDE 
> people and make sure the apps are similar enough on the back end.  I.e.
I believe something along these lines is already happening.  There is a 
gnome-kde list, and I assume KDE did as suggested and created a kde-gnome 
alias for it.  I don't know if that's active, perhaps I should sign onto it 
and check it out.  If the two end up compatible at the level we need, then 
I say use them both!

> I really like KRN ( the KDE news reader ) but I would prefer if the 
> GNOME news reader were substantially different in appearance and
> function.
> However I would like for them to share a common news cache and file
> format.
> Are the benefits of this clear ?
Yup.  This is where CORBA can help, if both desktops utilize it 
appropriately.

> There is no real problem with running multiple Libs on a single desktop
> in Linux ( thank god for memory protection and true multitasking ).
:-)

> Where can I get info on running GTK ?
www.gnome.org, and www.gimp.org for just GTK.


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