Does a grand evil conspiracy lie behind specific Desktop Environments?

[BlackStar]

Given the sudden increase in number and intensity of DE-wars on phoronix, I feel obliged to create a focal point for calm, well-reasoned flames.

The question is simple: do you believe that there is a political agenda behind the growth and adoption of your least favorite DE, to the detriment of you favored DE? To get the discussion rolling, I've taken the liberty of crystallizing this question into a poll.

Lay your accusations! Present the well-hidden truth to the world! Who have skeletons hidden in their closet? Who are the Microsoft apologists that mean nothing but harm to linux, open-standards and the world?

Facts and solid arguments only, please.

[DoDoENT]

As far as I know, only SuSe promotes KDE, and majority of other distros promote GNOME.

I would like to mention Ubuntu - this distro strongly promotes GNOME, although Mark Shuttleworth said he preferes KDE. Tell me, why is this the case?

In my opinion, it's easier for developers to create KDE (or Qt-base) applications, because Qt framework is object-oriented and similar to .net or java. This makes a lot easier to new developers to create applications in Qt.
On the other hand, creating gtk applications is real pain in the ass. First of all, gtk is only pseudo-object-oriented, and awkward long function names (think gtk_tree_path_new_from_string) repel all new developers away, especially if they are used to easy-to-use frameworks for GUI creation, such as .NET or Java Swing.

Personally, I think that promoting GNOME is Microsoft's secret agenda of promoting Windows as really easy to use your computer. Notice the similarities between Windows7 and KDE4. They look almost the same. Why? Because Microsoft found out that KDE4 has some very nice features that would be nice to have in Windows. What did Windows "import" from GNOME? Nothing.
So, the plan is simple:

1. use your pal Novell to finance the KDE project and use their ideas for windows, but make sure KDE is never stable enough for average end users
2. make sure Red Hat, Canonical and other Linux vendors promote GNOME, so all new users will give up linux when they found out that they can't add new keyboard shortcuts, change desktop effects or configure sound server without installing additional software

[yotambien]

DoDoENT, that was absolutely genius!

[panda84]

As far as I know, only SuSe promotes KDE, and majority of other distros promote GNOME.

Well, I would tell that Gnome has more "distribution paid" developers, but KDE is quite well regarded among distros.

Moreover KDE is getting new blood by the support Nokia is giving to the project (search Google for "Marco Martin" or "KOffice Maemo").

Let's take a look at the first ten distros in distrowatch.com list (excluding Mint which is not really different from Ubuntu).

1. Ubuntu: GNOME is the first class citizen;
2. Fedora: Red Hat puts a lot of effort in integrating GNOME with its new technologies, which most of the times are the ones which get to the other distros (PolicyKit, PackageKit, DeviceKit, NetworkManager, Pulseaudio, Plymouth, and so on...)
3. Opensuse: supports KDE, but has started only recently to put some more efforts in KDE Community (KNetworkMananger, Firefox integration, Qt4 YAST);
4. Mint: see Ubuntu;
5. Mandriva: not as big as the other but does a good job with KDE (search for "Laurent Montel", "Sebastian Trueg", "Colin Guthrie");
6. Debian: a little bit more Gnomeish rather than KDeish, but it stays pretty much close to upstream, so KDE is not really a second class citizen at all;
7. Puppy: neither Gnome nor KDE;
8. Sabayon: started with KDE only, now has a Gnome version, but it is still KDE focused;
9. PCLinuxOS: KDE is the preferred desktop;
10. Arch: not really oriented, stays close to upstream. The variant Chakra and KDEMod are famous for being good at KDE;
11. Slackware: it's almost KDE only.

So I think that the real difference is made with innovations brought in Fedora... But I think this is not going to last forever. Almost all frameworks are being integrated in KDE too:

• PolicyKit → Dario Freddi and Nicola Gigante - KAuth (polkit-qt backend)
• PackageKit → Adrien Bustany and Daniel Nicoletti - KPackageKit
• NetworkManager → Will Stephenson and others - KNetworkManager
• DeviceKit → Solid DeviceKit Backend
• Pulseaudio → Colin Guthrie integrated it in Mandriva 2010.0 and KDE 4.4

So, KDE integration is generally more "volunteer oriented", and genereally gets out later.
But think about these tecnologies: they're here to stay so I think there will not be so much big revolutions in the Linux ecosystem in the coming years.

[DoDoENT]

..., but KDE is quite well regarded among distros.

I can't say that for Fedora. After upgrading from F11 to F12, I couldn't log on to KDE anymore. Moreover, KDM didn't start up. And all that only because someone didn't do the packaging right and messed up the dependencies to some libraries. So, I had to run GDM and log in to GNOME () in order to save my KDE (creating symbolic links from libcrypto.so.8 to libcrypto.so.10 and libssl.so.8 to libssl.so.10) - actually I could do that even from tty, but I like graphical terminal emulators with transparent background .

But nevertheless, after switching from Kubuntu to Fedora KDE, I have a better KDE experience - so much of Kubuntu's good support for KDE.

If only SuSe supported latest KMS technology and latest open source ati drivers...

[kraftman]

It seems even XFCE is more advanced then Gnome when comes to some things - windows manager which supports composition, there are more options to configure (if I remember corectly), so it's strange so many distros just choose Gnome. Even in Win98 you were able to configure a screen saver...

[BlackStar]

It seems even XFCE is more advanced then Gnome when comes to some things - windows manager which supports composition, there are more options to configure (if I remember corectly), so it's strange so many distros just choose Gnome. Even in Win98 you were able to configure a screen saver...

That's the spirit!

Why the hell would any self-respecting distro use Gnome if it didn't support composition, screensavers and was less configurable than Win98? (Uglier, too!)

I mean, that wouldn't make any sense to anyone who isn't batshit crazy or blinded by a political agenda. Myself, I think it's the former - but I need more evidence.

[kraftman]

First of all, SuSE has always defaulted to KDE until it was bought by Novell. Novell also bought Ximian. Right, that company was founded and owned by the guy who wrote both Gnome and Mono, Miguel de Icaza. It is safe to say that this choice was made for political and not technical reasons.

http://thebeezspeaks.blogspot.com/20...use-gnome.html

[kraftman]

I identify at least a couple of gnome developers ( incl. Owen Taylor of RH) that have 'taken over' linuxformat- constantly beating gnome's drum and debasing KDE. They are writing articles in magazines, posting messages in forums and newsgroups, often glorifying gnome and running down KDE.

http://fr.linuxtoday.org/news_story....-OP-DT-KE-0008

[BlackStar]

Thanks, interesting reads - they seem to support my "batshit crazy" theory.

Do you have any links to articles written by Owen Taylor of RH (or similar) that debase KDE? This should be eye-opening.