On Wed, 2007-02-21 at 23:46 -0500, Ivica Ico Bukvic wrote:
<snip>
> So, now we have incomplete Gnome desktop (at least IMHO), over-customizable
> KDE desktop (again IMHO), bunch of other WMs all of which have their
> advantages and drawbacks, but more importantly most of which are so foreign
> to a common user that their mainstream adoption seems very unlikely, dubious
> future of GTK+ upon which a volume of audio apps depend, and overall a
> fragmented community and resources.
>
> Is it possible to unite the army of volunteers to focus their cumulative
> energy on a unified framework even if that offends some, simply because
> their preferred toolkit was not chosen for this purpose (can you imagine all
> WM developers focusing their energy on one singular WM--now that would be a
> miracle!)? Does the community have the courage to make that decision within
> our community and take the plunge (of course many lingering questions
> remain, i.e. who will be granted the jurisdiction to make such a decision on
> behalf of the community, as well as many other logistical and/or
> authority-based nightmares)? Can the community learn from the successes of
> the companies and/or non-profit organizations who have ventured in the world
> of open source and turned profitable, or if not profitable, then at least
> leaders in their respective domains? IMHO all of those entities have shown a
> strong sense of focus and direction which ultimately empowered them to
> maintain the course and brave the narrow path of success.
>
I believe you're missing the major reason for the possible demise of
GTK+ and that is - no business model. They have no marketable product
thus, no funding. The funding that they did get was largesse from a few
companies that wanted to use GNOME/GTK+. When the money got tight, that
funding disappeared. Trolltech has a product that is marketable. IBM
and other companies are dumping a bunch of money on them, not as a tax
write off or charity but for the use of QT (under their proprietary
license) in proprietary packages and devices. Qtopia appears to be a
fairly large portion of their revenue stream. The funding that they
receive from their commercial activities allows them to support the GPL
version of QT. This is a two-way street though since they get very
valuable beta-testing, feedback, and bug fixes from the GPL side. You
can pick any WM you want but if it's not based on a toolkit that has
long-term viability it will always be in danger of disappearing. From a
more personal perspective, having used GTK/C and QT/C++ (both GPL and
proprietary) I can say that the QT package is much easier to use and has
better documentation and support. Not that GTK is terrible, it's just
not as polished or professional.
<snip>
> FWIW, I have no intentions on giving up on Linux audio, for as long as I am
> able to run it. I am simply hoping that my rant (apart from wasting
> everyone's bandwidth and for those few brave souls who opt for reading this
> long e-mail, for wasting their time) may at least get us to start thinking
> about these challenges (or perhaps should I say opportunities?).
>
I'm with you there. I see absolutely no reason to go to Windows or
Mac.
Jan
--
Jan 'Evil Twin' Depner
http://myweb.cableone.net/eviltwin69
"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of
arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to
skid in sideways, chardonnay in one hand, chocolate in the other, body
thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and screaming 'WOO HOO, what a ride'"
