GNOME 4.0, GNOME OS Coming In 2014 & Other Crazy Plans

[schmidtbag]

KDE is a huge community. People mostly work on their freetime on project they like. It doesn't take away resources from developement of Plasma when people work on Calligra and so on. I would say that KDE Telepathy is the best instant messager available on any platform and its future looks very bright. Krita is the best open source drawing application available and it's part of Calligra Suite. digiKam is the best phono organizer for Linux. Kdenlive is the best open source non-linear video editor for Linux. KDE offers excellent libaries so why not use them?

I have no problem with people creating programs for KDE or GNOME, what I have a problem with is (if) core DE developers are dividing their attention to work on those programs when there are bugs to fix and performance hits to improve. For example, the kwin dev should not be working on something completely optional and irrelevant such as krita. Also I'm not sure about all of those programs you mentioned but kdenlive is just a frontend, and as stated before frontends are nice since it isn't a 100% new project.

Creating a frontend to an existing project is much better than starting an entirely new one because all other frontends will benefit. For example with CD burning you have Brasero, xfburn, and K3B which are all just frontends to things like cdraro and growisofs. When the developers of one of those frontends needs a new feature or needs to fix something, ALL of them benefit, so no matter which GUI you prefer, they all win. Starting a brand new project that competes against something much grander (such as koffice vs libreoffice) is really just selfish in an open source perspective.

If linux and open source wants to be the best, we need to work as a community. When you make something DE centric and start from scratch, nobody wins.

[Teho]

I have no problem with people creating programs for KDE or GNOME, what I have a problem with is (if) core DE developers are dividing their attention to work on those programs when there are bugs to fix and performance hits to improve. For example, the kwin dev should not be working on something completely optional and irrelevant such as krita.

They will work on the projects they like in any case. If KWin developer doesn't want to work on KWin he won't unless someone is paying him to do so. Krita is also the most actively developed drawing application for Linux and it's used and developed commercially so it's far from being "irrelevant". KOffice (now Calligra) is over 11 years old project and it's structurally years ahead of LibreOffice. It has modular and simple architechture and it uses mostly already existing solutions instead of reinventing the wheel on just about everything like OpenOffice has done before.

I would say that if something is selfish and rude in "open source perspective" it's demanding people to work on projects they do not like on their freetime. You can't create communities by forcing people. Also these projects are not "DE centric" and you can easily use Calligra on Gnome, OS X or even Windows. Just because they use existing solutions (kdelibs) doesn't mean they can't be used elsewhere.

[liam]

Phoronix: GNOME 4.0, GNOME OS Coming In 2014 & Other Crazy Plans

While some GNOME developers and users see the once fledging desktop environment fading into abyss, other GNOME developers see nothing but GNOME getting better with the best yet to come. It's been called for this week from GUADEC that GNOME 4.0 to be released in March of 2014 along with GNOME OS. That's not all of their ambitious plans but they think they can gain a 20% market-share by 2020 and they also have some other plans on their agenda...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTE0ODg

That picture is in extremely poor taste.

[liam]

Really wish some developers would rally around Qt 5 and make an alternative to KDE. I'm tired of Gnome 3 and I dislike all the other GTK attempts to go back in time like Mate.
Despite the rocky start I think KDE and Unity are the best bets moving forward. However, now that Qt is LGPL(has been for a long time) and has an open governance model, I really would like to see a desktop environment take it seriously other than KDE.

Give up the Qt dream. Despite thousands of man years it still isn't making much money. Interest doesn't seem that high outside of the KDE community. I have to say I was surprised how few high profile applications have made use of Qt (from the Qt site). You'd think cross platform apps like the Adobe Suite or Firefox/Chrome would use it.
More than converging on a toolkit (keeping in mind gtk on its own does only small fraction of what Qt does) I'd like to see the two big desktop.projects work together more often. Basically make fdo a much more active and far ranging project.

[johnc]

I nearly cried when I heard about the new Nautilus. They're removing the Extra Pane feature (and some other features) because it's not "touch friendly". And they removed the menu bar and replaced it with a "gear icon".

God I love the Extra Pane.

I don't know WTF is wrong with those people, but they are completely ignorant.

[Teho]

Give up the Qt dream. Despite thousands of man years it still isn't making much money. Interest doesn't seem that high outside of the KDE community. I have to say I was surprised how few high profile applications have made use of Qt (from the Qt site). You'd think cross platform apps like the Adobe Suite or Firefox/Chrome would use it.

Eh... there are 450000 Qt developers around the world and it's used very widely in the industry. From Wikipedia:

Qt is most notably used in Autodesk Maya, The Foundry's Nuke, Adobe Photoshop Elements, OPIE, Skype, VLC media player, VirtualBox, and Mathematica, and by the European Space Agency, DreamWorks, Google, HP, KDE, Lucasfilm, Panasonic, Philips, Samsung, Siemens, Volvo, Walt Disney Animation Studios and Research In Motion.

It's also base of the GENIVI Alliances (BMW Group, Delphi, GM, Intel, Magneti-Marelli, PSA Peugeot Citroen, Visteon, and Wind River Systems) automotive in-vehicle infotainment systems and all of this is just scratching the surface. Projects like Chrome and Firefox both have their own toolkits and only use GTK+ on Linux for better integration.

[Anthony]

So there you have it -- Gnome3, a DE which suddenly is designed for Tablets but doesn't run on any Tablet that exists on Earth.

Why couldn't they make a Gnome tablet spin-off and just left the desktop alone? Why did they have to kill Gnome2 in favor of this rubbish? Do they really have big enough balls to create a new desktop environment and kill a very popular and functional one and then tell us it's not designed for desktop use? Seriously? SERIOUSLY?

I hate Unity but I can't blame Ubuntu for distancing themselves from Gnome..

My prediction is in 2020 Gnome still won't run on any tablets and even if they do manage to push a tablet out, it will fade to obscurity in the blink of an eye. KDE released a tablet, which probably 200 people on the planet own but at least they didn't destroy KDE and alienate their user base to make it.

The tablet fad is ridiculous, people will be using desktops and laptops for a very long time. It's sad that open source is suddenly drinking the Apple Kool-Aid.

My only hope is that gnome panel is fully ported to GTK3 and developed further -- I've read some distros are starting to use gnome panel "classic" as the default DE -- GOOD, Gnome Shell and this tablet nonsense is a road to nowhere. I don't know why suddenly every "me too" company is trying to get a slice of the iOS (and to a somewhat less extend, Android) pie.

For what it's worth, I'm replying to this on a tablet running Gnome shell. There are a few issues, the virtual keyboard is not great, but with a bluetooth keyboard for typing it's fine.
I also run gnome shell on my main desktop, and find it great there. Not going to lie, Alt-Tab is a bit awkward, at first, but once you get used to it, it's a lot tidier.

You laugh at the idea of an OS for a desktop and a tablet, but I think Gnome shell works great for this. When I want to, I can sit on the sofa, and use my tablet like an classic tablet; facebook, films etc. Or othertimes, I can stick it on my desk, connect a mouse and keyboard, and I have a desktop.

I can't think of anything off the top of my head, which would be easier or faster in gnome 2, than it is at the moment in gnome shell. There's also quick access to most things, whether you have your mouse or your keyboard in your hand.

[rafirafi]

Best article of the year

By far the more funny new since the beginnig of the year.
Perhaps gnome 5 could run exclusively in the cloud, it could be the perfect OS the only thing to do is to remove the main source of bug reports, you know, the user.

[F i L]

I really like *most* of Gnome Shells design. There are a couple extensions which should be default (Alternative Status Menu, Dash to Dock) and the shell theme and Icon set could be a bit more "airy", but overall it's a great experience. I like the simplified UI, it's clutter free, and ailment KDE suffers from. I like the Activities management, it make it easy to keep track of lots of apps open at once, and customize each one to the task. I think overall, Gnome-Shell is the best DE, with only a very few exceptions in certain areas. (the Double-Click-icon to reveal-all-app-windows on Unity's Dash is I very nice feature I wish Gnome-Shell would copy... after they make Dash-to-Dock default behavior of course :P)

[schmidtbag]

They will work on the projects they like in any case. If KWin developer doesn't want to work on KWin he won't unless someone is paying him to do so.

Right, I'm not disagreeing with that, I'm just stating that if they're going to take on a big project, they ought to finish it and not leave it half-assed for someone else while they take their interests elsewhere. Its more of a personal opinion, where if considered, productivity of DEs would improve. Many people are complaining about GNOME, KDE, and Unity and it is things like developers taking the wrong priorities why this is happening. Defend them all you want, but don't come crying to us when something degrades because of lack of attention.

Krita is also the most actively developed drawing application for Linux and it's used and developed commercially so it's far from being "irrelevant".

Most actively developed doesn't mean its the best. I'm not sure whether its better or worse than gimp but regardless, you're missing the point. If you're developing the core GUI of an OS that thousands of people use, you shouldn't just walk away from it to work on a program that has nothing to do with your main project (hence being irrelevant). Just because Krita has a lot of focus it doesn't mean it has ANYTHING to do with KDE as a desktop environment. With your argument that's like saying "I started an orphanage but I'm going to donate all my time and money toward cancer research, because more people are doing that and its still a good deed". Ok, but who will take care of the orphans?

KOffice (now Calligra) is over 11 years old project and it's structurally years ahead of LibreOffice. It has modular and simple architechture and it uses mostly already existing solutions instead of reinventing the wheel on just about everything like OpenOffice has done before.

Fine, maybe calligra was a bad example, however, if it's as good as you say, I feel like it'd be doing better than libreoffice. Anyways my point is it is counterproductive to the linux community when people decide to start a competing project entirely from scratch just for the sake of slightly improved integration with a DE. Again, create a frontend to an existing program and everyone wins. When there's no backend and all alternatives are insufficient (or unmaintainable), then create something new. Correct me if I'm wrong but I doubt that applied to koffice.

This wouldn't bother me so much if these programs weren't deliberately designed for a specific DE. It's kinda like Windows 8 and the metro interface. I don't like metro, I personally find it inefficient but I can see why some people might like it more than the start menu. HOWEVER, don't force it upon me. Metro, or Win8 for that matter, become much easier to dislike when you are required to use something you don't like. K3B used to be my all time favorite CD burning program on any OS, but once I found that you have to install half of KDE in order to use it, I had to ditch it. GNOME and KDE programs are being more than just GTK vs Qt, they're forcing themselves to become apart of the DE in a way that doesn't matter.

I would say that if something is selfish and rude in "open source perspective" it's demanding people to work on projects they do not like on their freetime. You can't create communities by forcing people. Also these projects are not "DE centric" and you can easily use Calligra on Gnome, OS X or even Windows. Just because they use existing solutions (kdelibs) doesn't mean they can't be used elsewhere.

I'm not demanding it, I'm suggesting it for the well being of the community and its users. And yea obviously you can still use calligra on gnome or other platforms, that isn't my point. I'm not sure if calligra is in the same situation as K3B but if it is, I shouldn't have to download an ADDITONAL 300MB of packages to use an office suite. If it just uses Qt libraries and nothing else then fine, NBD.

You're acting like I want all DE centric programs to be eliminated entirely and that I want to dictate that everyone must develop 1 thing, and that isn't the case.