OfB Open Choice Awards 2002: KDE 3.0 Best Desktop

Open for Business has held its first annual

OfB Open Choice Awards
and KDE 3.0 has won in the category
Best Desktop Environment:
"If the KDE Project had been content to stick with KDE 2.x, this may very
well have been GNOME's year to shine. Unfortunately for the younger project, KDE
moved forward at such a rapid pace this year, some people thought the project's
development process might crumble under its own weight. It did not, and KDE 3.0
emerged as the most polished, professional desktop available for Unix and
Unix-like systems."

The KDE mail client KMail won in the category
Best E-mail Client and KDE's integrated development environment
KDevelop won in the category
Best Development Tool.
Kopete, KDE's multi-protocol messaging client, won an honourable mention in the category
Best Communications Software.

Dot Categories: 

Comments

by Spark (not verified)

"i take exception to this. the response from Charles was "sure, if you'll reciprocate by showing some KDE in your booth and provide us with a system to show Redhat on with the latest stable KDE as we don't have such a system available". the wording was a little different, but we're not all poets. it wasn't arrogant, however."

I didn't meant this answer but the answer(s) after RedHat's rejection.

"when redhat replied "no, we won't show kde and now we won't give you a demo system. but hey, you could STILL use redhat, right? right? media matrix!" that! was arrogance. well, actually, it was ignorance. because apparently the guy who wrote it was something of a marketing cluefuck who had no idea what KDE was."

Not just that, it was probably also a misunderstanding. Note the wording was quite unclear when KDE asked for "KDE to be present". Maybe this was understood as KDE people showing KDE at the RedHat booth. Either this or the marketing guy really had no clue as RedHat obviously planned to show KDE anyway.
But you can't blame the marketing guy for repeating his offer, after all this is his job! And it was not really a _lot_ he asked for and it was also just a friendly offer that KDE wanted to decline anyway (this seemed to be the general idea on the mailinglist).

OK fair enough - you've admitted you don't like Redhat. However i read it thinking it was supposed to be a new article - it was in the big box on the front page, and unfortunately on this win2k laptop that i'm currently using the font and size of the word "commentry" make it near impossible to read (i have anti-aliasing turned off, because they seem to make it look even worse in win2k on an lcd screen, i never thought i'd say this, but the fonts in linux - especially gnome 2 - aren't that bad). If you want to make it clear it's opinion i'd suggest making it a bit bigger.
Personally i like Redhat - they are the only distro i have tried which has always been stable. Last time i tried Suse (7.something) i got random crashes for no apparent reason - i would like to try it again but they don't have downloadable iso's, and their ftp install is painful (it makes a debian install feel like fun), in fact when i tried it i was left with a non-booting half installed suse system. So suse may or may not have caught up with redhat in terms of reliability - i'll never know unless i spend money on it (which i won't because at the moment i don't trust it). I have also tried mandrake, and it just seems to fall apart after a few weeks, configuration utilties stop working, updates fail etc - no crashes though, so better than suse. So understandably i prefer redhat, and they're the only distro i could currently recommend to people.

by Spark (not verified)

"I will try Ximian GNOME2 once it comes out, however I do consider it a mark against either D.E. if one can not use it without lots/some/a few problems directly from a distro CD."

Gnome is a desktop environment, not just some application so it somehow depends on careful integration by the distributor. GNOME provides the "base" for distributors to create their desktop systems just like Mozilla provides a base for browser developers. Many distributions have had _excellent_ Gnome integration in the past like Redhat, Progeny (RIP) or even Mandrake (although it was extremely colorful and fancy ;)). So the reason I suggest Ximian is simply that in this case the review won't be influenced too much by distributor specific implementations. If you review Redhat GNOME 2 (which would be possible in an early beta with Redhat Limbo) or Mandrake GNOME 2 (which should be there in Mandrake 9.0 Beta but I don't think the integration is quite finished yet), you should specifically make this clear in your review because problems could be problems of the distributor or (taking Limbo as an example) the default panel layout could be different so if this sucks, the distribution is guility, not GNOME. =) Ximian is just known to provide a GNOME distribution of awesome quality because they focus on this task.
There is not really anything they do that other distributors can't do, they even have a patch page now that conveniently sorts all the special patches they use for their distribution so other distributors can take them.
This just shows how different the philosophies of those two projects often are and a reviewer should be aware of those, otherwise it might happen that he compares apples to oranges (not that this would be a bad comparision, but there is no point in complaining that apples are less juicy than oranges ;)).
The GNOME way has just as much advantages (one of it is that GNOME can concentrate on develpment and usability while distributors can concentrate on packaging and integration with their system) and disadvantages as the KDE way. You should respect both.

Sorry for nitpicking so much on this issue, but I wanted to make my point clear. ;) I will shut up now.

by Timothy R. Butler (not verified)

Good information Spark, thanks. I will be - time permitting - testing both Limbo and Mandrake 9.0 Beta 2 soon, and I will give GNOME2 a try while using them. I will also give Ximian GNOME a try once a GNOME 2 version comes out, and keep in mind your points.

Best,
Tim

by ac (not verified)

What if I told you that Miguel and Nat were gay lovers. Would that make GNOME non-Christian enough for you? Sheesh.

by dc (not verified)

> Gnotices Ghost Town

Hilarious burn!! What the hell is up with GNOME anyway? It's all but dead and now they are coming here. Did the rest commit mass suicide or something?

by Aaron J. Seigo (not verified)

no, i think they moved to those web forums they created (http://help.gnomedesktop.org/forums/). it seems they spread out their readership over so too many sites so that none are able to keep "critical mass" going.. i've been watching the # of post on the web board and its steadily decreasing. it was ~100/day for the first 10 days or so and now it has slowed to a crawl. gnotices has also fell sharply in the same time frame it seems. feedback based websites need enough users feeding back, otherwise they get feeling rather empty and collapse. *shrug*

by Spark (not verified)

Smartboy.
Comments on Gnotices are stagnating because they have turned on some kind of moderation feature, it can take up to a day until your message appears. Of course this doesn't lead to very active discussions and flamewars. =)
That doesn't mean that GNOME readers are spread out. I wouldn't know about any webboards other than the official Gnome.org and Gnomedesktop.org (including it's new forum).

by Aaron J. Seigo (not verified)

yerf! why did they do that?

by Spark (not verified)

Good question. =) It really gives the impression of a ghost town but it's not true. Maybe there were too much flames so they decided to moderate _before_ things get too heated.

by dc (not verified)

GNOME has always been a closed community. It could be Sun asked them to stop the comments.

by Spark (not verified)

Oh my god...
You aren't serious, are you?

Aaaw fuck it, I should better leave this "friendly" place or I won't be able to stay calm any longer.

Read this for a clue: http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-web-list/2002-July/msg00025.html

by ac (not verified)

I see. So Ximian is in charge, not Sun.

by Anon Man (not verified)

That is wrong in so many ways I'm tempted to lose my cool.

Your comment shows *incredible* lack of understanding and a willingness to troll that I find...'breathtaking'

If you are so confident of your comments please present substantiated proof. I suspect you will be remarkably unable to do so.

by Stof (not verified)

Let me guess... your aliases are "ac" and "Aged Person"? You sure like to troll about GNOME.

by Aaron J. Seigo (not verified)

that would be double strange IMO, because i realy haven't seen much in the way of flames over at gnotices in a long time. yeah, you get the occasional annoyance posting, but it was pretty clean. as clean as theDot has been in any case (though this article has more than its fair share of trolling on both sides). was there a really bad flare up or something that i missed? i usually only go there one a week or so to keep up with that hap's in GNOME, so perhaps i missed it?

by Stof (not verified)

The reason you haven't seen flames for a long time now is because they began to moderate it.

by Stof (not verified)

Well about a year ago (or two; it's been a long time), alot of people began to abuse Gnotices. All kinds of trolls spread FUD (even after so many people had proven them wrong), call people names ("Ximian is GAY!") and posted gross pictures (like those from Goatse.cx). Finally, the Gnotices admins had enough of the abuses, so they started to moderate all posts.
Remember, this is all because of the abuses. I'm quite happy about that they did, since the number of trolls exceeded the number of "good" posts.

by Anon Man (not verified)

Actually I would attribute this more to users being excited in the first week that they had a place to go. Many people still rely on their distributor to provide GNOME pacakges and most have not supplied GNOME 2 stuff. I think we'll see it increase as soon as GNOME 2 starts to get out there.

Spark points out another good reason why there aren't 100 posts immediately. The tone is kept civilized. Honestly, when I'm reading parts of these messages (making no reference to a specific person) its like a free for all! Off topic comments generate more offtopic comments etc etc etc...

by redtux (not verified)

Re: gnomesupport.org

The other reason is that the site has not been widely announced as yet (only announced on fairly low volume sites such as the parent and gnotices)

And please no-one submit to slashdot

by AI (not verified)

>What the hell is up with GNOME anyway? It's all but dead and now they are >coming here. Did the rest commit mass suicide or something?

We are all wondering the same thing.
Maybe GNOME is not that cool anymore.

by Spark (not verified)

WTF, do you think every GNOME user hates KDE with a passion? Not everybody is so narrowminded.

by lemon (not verified)

good reply dude :)

by Timothy R. Butler (not verified)

Chris,
I see you've been busy investigating me. I'm an interesting choice to pick for a "devout" KDE user. Let me provide evidence against that idea. Certainly, if you asked someone who actually follows KDE Cafe (btw, I'm on the GNOME mailing list too), you would notice I wrote this - http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-cafe&m=102512520406384&w=2 . The article referenced in there was also linked to on OfB at http://www.ofb.biz/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=132 .

You would also have noticed my recent editorial on LinuxandMain.com, in which I was accused of extreme anti-KDE bias - http://www.linuxandmain.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=131 . Trust me, these are not the writings of a devout KDE user.

What does this lead one to conclude? (1) I'm not fond of RedHat, so I reported on a major PR blunder they caused over the weekend. (2) I use KDE right now and prefer it, but I see some flaws in it, that keep me highly interested in GNOME 2. (3) I clearly mark items such as the RedHat report under commentary so that you know what is opinion and what is reporting. I refuse to mix the two any more then I can help.

Finally, you are incorrect about who is helping with OfB. While I am the primary contributor, I have two other collegues and many who participate in advising editorial opinions on the site.

Just because I didn't give RedHat a great report today doesn't mean I'm biased. Its an easy excuse to disqualify the awards, but it would be wrong, especially if you value integrity. Also, notice the awards include one to Gaim (a GTK/GNOME app) and OEone (a GTK/Mozilla based distro).

Hopefully this should go a long way to convincing you I have opinions that are both pro-KDE and pro-GNOME. On some issues I'm more pro-KDE, on others I'm more pro-GNOME. In the end, it all evens out quite nicely.

Best,
Tim

by someguy (not verified)

Kopete? "Best Communications Software"?? Ohhhhh, I get it...it's a joke! Of course Kopete, which crashes constantly and doesn't work properly with blocked MSN users (which is a documented bug that the developers "don't have time to fix") beat Gaim, which is a fully featured and *stable* IM client.

Who the hell ran these awards?

by ac (not verified)

You are an idiot.

by Stof (not verified)

Try out Kopete and judge it yourself.

by Aaron J. Seigo (not verified)

i think the reason that ac called someguy (ah, anonymity) an idiot is that kopete didn't beat out gaim. gaim took the category and kopete came in second (or honorable mention, whatever). kind of makes someguy's little rant a little silly.

by Evan "JabberWok... (not verified)

I think Kopete pretty much got a nod as a really promising application. That pretty much fits - I used it for a couple weeks, but it's not quite ready for prime time - no Yahoo, and AIM is not perfect. I use Psi, FWIW.

--
Evan

by Timothy R. Butler (not verified)

Too bad there isn't a way to mod down trolls in Squishdot. As Aaron already noted (and anyone who read the article would know) Gaim won, Kopete got an honorable mention ("runner up") for the progress it made.

by AI (not verified)

I love KDE, we all love KDE, it is the best that has
happened to Linux. Here at dot.kde we talk about
nice things that happen to KDE such as awards.
If you want to talk bullshit about KDE or stuff
that we KDE-lovers won't like, go somewhere else.
I just hate to see all anti-KDE loosers on this forum,
do you seriously think anybody gives a # about you?

by Spark (not verified)

Not everyone who disagrees with something and actually doesn't hate GNOME is a anti-KDE looser. Can you imagine?
This place seems very hostile towards "outsiders". Sad.

by Anon Man (not verified)

First, on behalf of all those who 'have' trolled - I apologize.

But your comments are equally hurtful and close minded. Let me break this down:

1) Not everyone likes or prefers KDE. Some people like/prefer GNOME. This does not make us losers. Notice that there are quite a few people making *valid* comments. I noticed only two obvious trollers (of course, they posted multiple times...) Your opinion (or those of others here) is not necessarily the right one. You should be open to other viewpoints.

2) Yes you should give a # about us because we use Linux - just like you do.

3) "KDE is the best thing that happened to Linux" At the risk of fanning the flames here I will ask what your justification for that statement is. If KDE didn't exist - something else would take its place That's life.

by Aaron J. Seigo (not verified)

there is a middle ground between what you said and what Al said. i can't get myself to agree with either of you, but if i squash what you both said together, i think i can =)

liking GNOME does not make one a loser. disliking KDE does not make one a loser. (and vice versa, for that matter). posting rantingly pro-GNOME or anti-KDE posts on a KDE discussion board (or vice versa) does get one close to loserdom though. judging by some of the posts in this discussion, there have certainly been some losers in the woodpile. there have also has been, as you note, some good discussion.

i do wonder though: if gnotices were to post a congrats to GAIM for taking the award for messenging software and there were a bunch of "but kopete shoulda won!" posts, long threads about the implicit GNOME bias of timothy, and repeated encouragements to try out KDE from GARNOME for themself, would you consider them to be on topic? how would you feel reading that on gnotices? one might be inclined to say, "arg! kde fans! always on about KDE-this, KDE-that. why can't they just let GAIM have its moment?"?

i understand that it's a really hard line to tread; you don't want to shut up and say nothing about something you feel strongly about, but at the same time you proably don't want to encourage the thought that people who like GNOME troll around looking for opportunities to shamelessly pump GNOME in forums where the topic is KDE.

as the two projects move towards interoperability and maturity, hopefully the same can happen between the user groups as well. perhaps when someone wins an award, the best thing to do is give them some props, shout out some support to your favourites that didn't win to keep improving so they can take an award next time and move on. there probably isn't much need to turn every award or comparison or review into a "but we swear ours is better!". it just rubs people the wrong way.

in the immortal words of rodney king: "why can't we all just .... get along?"

by Anon Me (not verified)

I can only speak for myself.

But I'd like to know how many people here who have said that GNOME 2's usability is bad etc. have *actually* tried out GNOME 2. I also notice you mention 'pro GNOME' and 'anti KDE' posts. Have you noticed no 'anti GNOME' posts?

PS. If you do want to see plenty of those, feel free to hop over to Slashdot when ever a GNOME/KDE story comes out.

I point people to GARNOME so that they don't get their GNOME opinions from second sources but from their own experiences. *That* is called exposing people to other opinions. I guess that *is* called "shamelessly pumping" GNOME.

Also, one interesting thing. You mention the GNOME trolling, but you do not mention one pertinent fact: Not a single comment here is directed at KDE 3's win of 'best desktop environment'. Actually, wherever I've gone, I've seen 'no' comments about this. People do not say anything, because at this point and time it is true. What did concern people though was that Evolution was not chosen over KMail. There were genuine questions asked.

I am going to ignore the entire Redhat thread because it has no basis in the original topic of the post

by Evan "JabberWok... (not verified)

Oh, bloody hell. Is there any possibility we can have a no-gnome-dot.kde.org that simply filters out every message with the word "Gnome" in it?

:: But I'd like to know how many people here who have said that GNOME 2's usability is bad etc. have *actually* tried out GNOME 2.

Why *should* we use it? In case you were not tipped off when you came in, this is a KDE site.

I have not said anything about Gnome 2, nor have I used it. Nor do I intend to. I haven't used Windows ME, nor have I really done more than poke at Mac OSX or Windows XP. Nor do I intend to.

No, my mind is not closed, it's just a simple reason: I'm satisfied with KDE - it lets me do what I want. Yes, the same reason millions of windows users stay with Windows. But I have to work for a living, and I don't have the luxury of switching my entire toolset around.

So I don't really *CARE* about how whizbang Gnome 2 is, how many people use it, how great the applications are, how it'll make you coffee and wake you up with morning fellatio. This is a frikken KDE news site, not "KDE versus the world". I equally do not care about KDE vs. Windows, KDE vs. MacOS, KDE vs. Amiga, or KDE vs. Lemmy from Motorhead other than in the KDE side of it. This does not imply anything other than two simple facts:

I use KDE. This is a KDE site.

And if you keep this up, I swear to ghod, I will start comparing Gnome versus the Daystrom Mark VIII trinary computing core - a system that you stand about as much chance to use as I do of using Gnome in the near term. (And yes, that is the computer system aboard the Enterprise NCC-1701 D in Star Trek: The Next Generation).

At least that would be an amusing conversation that I have some interest in - and about as much relavancy to this site as the current discussion has.

--
Evan

by Anon Man (not verified)

Well...I'm not sure how to respond to this. You took it in such a...personal way. I made no reference to you at all.

These are my points though:
1) Yes this is a KDE site. But this does not give *some* (not all) users the right to bash GNOME without expecting someone to refute it.
2) You may not intend to try out GNOME, but the people who choose to comment on it should.
3) I'm glad you like KDE. I never asked you to switch. I never even compared GNOME and KDE is any *one* of my posts.
4) You may not care about how KDE interacts with the rest of the community. There are people who abuse this though (from GNOME and KDE). I notice KDE users pointing out where GNOME trolls have erred. I will point the same to KDE trolls. If you are not trolling - the comments don't apply to you.

You may not use GNOME (or even want to) but others might.

I do not watch Star Trek, so any conversation of that nature would leave me in the lurch. Ah well.

At any rate, since you do not want me here, I bid you good day.

by Evan "JabberWok... (not verified)

:: I do not watch Star Trek, so any conversation of that nature would leave me in the lurch. Ah well.

Which was my point precisely. Might I suggest you discuss Gnome on FoodTV.com's forums? It would be just as appropriate, and less likely to incite flame wars there.

--
Evan

by AI (not verified)

> Oh, bloody hell. Is there any possibility we can have a no-gnome-dot.kde.org that simply filters out every message with the word "Gnome" in it?

That would be great.

> Why *should* we use it? In case you were not tipped off when you came in, this is a KDE site.

Exactly. We have all already used gnome, enlightenment whatever.
We still like KDE more, that's why we use dot.kde.org

by Aaron J. Seigo (not verified)

> I also notice you mention 'pro GNOME' and 'anti KDE' posts. Have you noticed
> no 'anti GNOME' posts?

i said "vice versa" several times in my post, which you have either conveniently ignored or simply conveniently ignored. ;-P

but the real thrust is that this is a kde discussion board. most of the threads in this discussion have been pretty off-topic for this board. opinions on the latest player transfers in the Premiere League are also off topic here, but there are discussion boards for football where such discussion is on topic.

> What did concern people though was that Evolution was not chosen over KMail.
> There were genuine questions asked.

fine. ask about it over at Tim's web site (which people did), or on a general interest site like Linux Today (which people did). or, god forbid, email Tim directly (which i'm sure people did). but dragging that conversation in here is off topic. is that so hard to understand?

> I am going to ignore the entire Redhat thread because it has no basis in the > original topic of the post

no, don't ignore it, because that thread is typical and indicative of the entire issue. if you ignore all the stupidity, there is no stupidity. huzzah!

by Spark (not verified)

It was indeed quite stupid from me to post my criticism of the quoted article at this place. I just found it here and because I feel familiar with dot.kde, I posted my commentary here. A mistake.
What I don't understand though is why so many people can offend non-KDE people at this place and rarely anybody (of the KDE regulars) steps in. This place really makes a "if you don't use KDE, you most probably suck" impression which is (hopefully) not intended.

I invite some of you people to look by at the new GNOME forum from time to time, I think that would be quite interesting. :) I think (hope) you would find out that there are no bad feelings towards KDE and that _any_ KDE bashing will _not_ be tolerated by the majority of users there (same for GNOME bashing of course).
Well please don't take this as a troll again, I know that there is no _need_ for any KDE user to spend time at a GNOME forum. :) It's just an invitation.

The URL BTW is http://help.gnomedesktop.org/forums/

by ac (not verified)

STFU about GNOME already. GNOME is dead accept it and move on. If you don't use KDE you're a loser, but that's not my problem.

by Spark (not verified)

Ok, now it's too obvious. You are actually an anti-KDE zealot trying to hurt their image. Gotcha.

by Ralex (not verified)

The poor guy who made this review giving a positive impression of KDE gets all the trolling and still keeps explaining his choice ;).

I really don't understand those Gnome trolls: It has been happend a hundred times before: KDE always gets the awards, not Gnome. So this is probably a big conspiracy against Gnome? Or, maybe, the unthinkable has happened and there are more people liking KDE???

by Anon Man (not verified)

KDE does not *always* get the awards. If you notice, GAIM and OeOne were awarded. Those are GTK based...

Being as I was conversing with Mr. Butler, I should point out that I was honestly confused as to why Evolution was not chosen. There are maybe two GNOME trolls. The rest are making non-flaming comments. There are also a number of KDE users choosing to flame GNOME as well - you do not mention this.

I do not know if more people like KDE. I cannot state that with any veracity - and neither can you. But that's neither here nor there.

by Ralex (not verified)

Gaim is not Gnome. It's just, you said it yourself, "GTK-based". BTW, that's, honestly, one of my major problems with Gnome: Every application seems to be "on its own", only loosely connected to a not-so-consistant desktop.

Concerning the desktop awards, it's AFAIK usually KDE getting those. I didn't say that in order to troll against Gnome, I just don't understand why Timothy Butler has to defend himself against accusations because of the decision for KDE, if he definitely isn't the first one doing so.

Concerning evolution/kmail, I understand that here you can discuss the decision. But I also have the feeling that evolution is a bit overly hyped at the moment, as it is considered the killer app for Gnome. I, personally, don't like evolution, and I don't see any advantages in comparision to KMail/Korganizer. For my needs, at least (and don't say MS Exchange connectivity...)

by Stof (not verified)

Gaim is Gnome. It can be compiled with Gnome panel support. And it uses the Gnome stock icons and dialogs.

by Spark (not verified)

"I just don't understand why Timothy Butler has to defend himself against accusations because of the decision for KDE"

I don't think that anybody has complained against this. Only the choice of Kmail over Evolution and Enlightenment over GNOME (as they aren't even comparable) seemed somewhat questionable.

by ac (not verified)

All the GNOMiEs should stop spreading their little anti-Enlightenment trolls, k? You just can't face up to the fact that Rasterman is doing just fine without you and your kind (ie RedHat).

by sheleg33 (not verified)

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