Aaron Seigo Interviewed on LugRadio

In this week's episode of LugRadio KDE developer Aaron Seigo discusses usability, freedesktop.org, groupware and Get Hot New Stuff. Start 28 minutes in to hear him debate with England's most famous non-KDE users.

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Comments

by Kevin Krammer (not verified)

They might not have a Qt licence for Unix/X11, maybe they only have Windows licences.

by Michal Kosmulski (not verified)

LOL. If they can't afford a Qt license, who can? (especially if they really have only one single developer for the Linux/Unix platform).

by aleXXX (not verified)

If they have only one developer, maybe it's more an initiative of this one developer, and his boss' only accept it as long as it doesn't cost any additional money.

Alex

by Kevin Krammer (not verified)

They have licenced Qt/Win32 for Photoshop album.

Qt's main advantage is using it for crossplatform development.
If Adobe uses something different on Windows for the reader, they won't have the opportunity to use a shared codebase across platforms.

Licencing Qt/X11 for just one tiny project might not be worth it, especially considering the fact that the important functionality of the application is the PDF rendering and that is very likely handled by some Adobe internal library.

by Aaron J. Seigo (not verified)

Acrobat Reader is not a tiny project, and given the price of the devel license it would well be worth it. it's less about the rendering itself and all the widgets and other ease you get with it.

of course, the developer rolled all their own widgets (poorly) themselves so ...

by Morty (not verified)

Isn't the old Acrobat Reader for *nix mostly Motif, with custom widgets to display the document/pdf part? If they use the old application as base I think it makes even less sense not to chose Qt, with the Motif to Qt migration tool and all.

by Aaron J. Seigo (not verified)

yes, it was all motif. and yes, it looked as ugly as v7 looks. at least v7 has a lot more functionality.

personally, i'm happy with KPDF. it even lets me decide to play the DRM game, or not. huzzah.

by Kevin Krammer (not verified)

I didn't want to imply that the reader is a tiny project, but I guess that the greater part of the application is already implemented using Adobe internal tools/libraries and the new GUI is only a small part.

Using Qt for just the GUI might have looked more expensive than necessary (not my opinion either)

My main point was that Qt spares you from developing/porting a Linux version, because it enabled you to deploy your application on multiple platforms right away.

That's why we see Qt on Linux when the vendor is also newly implementing a Windows version or is really implemeting from scratch.
In the latter case all the other nice features of Qt (like networking, etc) save you lots of time and trouble.

by Paul Koshevoy (not verified)

Where can I see this 110 MB behemoth? I've just gone to the adobe website and downloaded linux-5010.tar.gz - it's only 9.8 MB in size?

Paul.

by Aaron J. Seigo (not verified)

it was a "closed" beta (you had to sign up for it) and the bzip2 tarball was ~40MB IIRC. uncompressed it was much larger, obviously.

the 9.8MB download you refer to is verion 5. the version that uses Gtk+ is version 7 (they skipped version 6 on Linux/UNIX), which hasn't been officially released yet.

they are still working on it though. i saw a version of it that uses the ATK/SPI accessibility framework in January, for instance, which had been added quite recently at the point. the person showing it had built it from a CVS pull.

by ac (not verified)

I don't mind the toolkit, or the size. The app works well, generally speaking.

What I do mind is the button order! I'm thinking most Linux users may get a more consistent user interface experience by running the Windows version under Wine.

by Birdy (not verified)

When will GTK make the button order selectable? It's on their todo-list (as far as I know). Switching the button order was one of the worst ideas of GTK...

by Anonymous (not verified)

It's configurable in Gtk+ 2.6+.

by Waldo Bastian (not verified)

It is selectable already, sort of, search for "gtk-alternative-button-order" on http://www.moeraki.com/pygtkreference/pygtk2reference/class-gtkdialog.html

by Birdy (not verified)

So it seems to be selectable by the developer but not (yet) by the user - am I right? Would be nice to set the button-order of GTK-applications to the "normal" order when they are used "within" KDE or Windows.

by Aaron J. Seigo (not verified)

> The app works well, generally speaking.

unless you care about usability or accessibility.

honestly, this app is a real stinker. it's a great PDF renderer, but beyond that it's grotesque. Luis Villa ripped it nicely on planet.gnome.org recently, and he only hit _some_ of the issues. ug.

by Martin (not verified)

KPDF is great but I need Acrobat nevertheless because some
simple functions just dont exist in KPDF yet. For example
there is no way to find out which fonts are present
in a PDF doc and which of them are embedded.

by Albert Astals Cid (not verified)

Is that feature so important for you? You need to know which font you are looking at to understand the pdf?

by Martin (not verified)

Umm, yes - I'm working in an advertsing agency and need to check
the fonts of created pdfs quite often to find out whether there
are still fonts in there that cant be put to prepress.
These things are absolutely basic needs for everyone involved in digital publishing. And it's digital publishing where PDF (and thus Acrobat) is used quite
a lot. Just ask the folks over at Scribus. There's a reason they still
recommend using Acrobat (Full Version) under WINE which isnt the best
solution IMHO. Of course it's a long way to go until any Open Source PDF
reader is on par with that and my point was that it's often not really
necessary if KPDF supported sth. like transparency flattening but already
a major step forward to be able to do the same things that you can do
with the old-fashioned Acrobat Reader for Linux version.
And to answer my sibling parent: Dont know if this is just trolling but I'm not looking for reasons not to use it, because I'm already using KPDF quite a lot.
I'm just pointing out its major deficiencies in professional environments
that make it impossible to get rid of Acrobat Reader. Probably some
people dont like that. Sad.

by Morty (not verified)

The funny thing is, you have now described a new feature. With both description of what it are used for and reasoned for why it should be implemented. It even sounds rather trivial to implement, if the next version of KPDF has this functionality it would not be a surprise. On the other hand had you done the same in bugzilla earlier, it may already have been there:-) Sometimes it pays to point out those major deficiencies in a clear and reasonable manner, in the correct places.

by Martin (not verified)

I can assure you, I'm doing that quite often. I've filed lots of bugs and
wishlist items - trying to make them short, clear and without repeately
asking developers when they are implemented. Without being able
to write application this is my little contribution to make KDE become a better desktop for us all.
Sometimes, I'm not writing a bug/wishlist item and I'm free to do so
just like Open Source developers are free to not fix a bug or implement
some feature.
Of course, then I cannot complain, that a wish isnt implemented yet.
When you read again my post you will find: I did not complain.
I did not write: "Arrgh KPDF is missing feature x, I cannot use it".
I just stated a plain fact why KPDF is often not useable for me (and probably
many others who have to work with PDF professionally). I thought
this might be interesting to others who feel the same or this might
start an interesting discussion here about OpenSource and PDF.
You never know what discussions come up on the dot and this is what
makes it so great IMO. I think it's OK and in fact not that bad
if discussions sometimes digress _slightly_ as long as it's about KDE.
It's a great way of talking casually about KDE-related stuff
without forcing a fundamental discussion about KDE apps on developers.

by Morty (not verified)

I didn't mean to imply you was complaining. I merely tried to highlight (in a clumsy way), how hard it sometimes are for the developers to include the features users want. Since it was such a good example, with Albert Astals Cid (for those who don't know, one of the KPDF developers) not seeing the need of the feature you described. I'd guess not many did (me included), until you explained it. It's rather obvious too, but I would never have seen it without the explanation.

by m. (not verified)

Info about fonts is necessary to judge document portability.

by VTN (not verified)

No comments, looks like there are people who just dig a lot just to find reasons not to use something.

by VTN (not verified)

Ops... just just...

by Albert Astals Cid (not verified)

Here's the new fonts dialog.
You'll have to wait for KDE 3.5.

by Martin (not verified)

Incredible. If that wasnt fast I dont know what is.
Many thanks - I'm waiting impatiently for KDE 3.5 now.
KDE 3.4? Old-fashioned already ;-)

by Matej (not verified)

pdffonts (from xpdf package). And take a look at pdfinfo as well.

by Marioy (not verified)

I saw here in the dot that Adobe is being build on GTK2. and this for me is very sad. mostly because Adobe allready has a product build on top of Qt. So a question arises: Is KDE losing ground? (is it allright to say market share?)

If kde is more stable, feature rich, mature, etc. and Qt is a more comprehensive development library why are ther more and more applications being build with GTK/Gnome

With Ximian being bougth by Novell, Redhat sponsoring Gnome development and Sun chosing Gnome as their desktop eviroment I fear that no big names will get behind KDE development. and in over time KDE will be a second choise desktop enviroment

I post this question in hope of hope... please tell me I m wrong.

by anon (not verified)

acrobat is gtk1, not gtk2

by anon (not verified)

nvm

by Morty (not verified)

I don't think you should read so much out of this, for several reasons. It sounds like the Acrobat Reader for Linux are more or less a one developer job, and as such there can be several reasons for choice of toolkit(or even bad decisions:-). Adobe's Photoshop Album are Windows only, and most likely the developers are not in the same part of the company as the pdf developers (different locations, managers etc.).

As for Qt/KDE applications, you know there are already several both big and popular ones out there. And according to some rumors you have to wait and see:-)

by Mario (not verified)

Rumors!!!! what rumors???

by Birdy (not verified)

> there are already several both big and popular ones out there

Which ones do you mean (closed source)?
* Opera (do they still use Qt?)
* Skype (not big, but popular)
* ???

by Aaron J. Seigo (not verified)

yes, opera still uses Qt.

and just to answer the question without actually answering it.... Trolltech has 90 on staff, many (most?) of which are full timedevelopers, with offices on several continents (just opened up one in China). add to this that Trolltech is private, over a decade old and profitable.

how do you think they manage all that without a LOT of people using their product for closed source development?

people who doubt the use of Qt in the commercial world either have trouble with business-related math or don't realize that Trolltech isn't a hobby project but a serious company with history and some size.

by Morty (not verified)

Nicely put Aaron.

In addition it looks like most of Trolltech staff are located in Oslo and Palo Alto, California, not exactly low-cost areas. I didn't get very good grades in economics, but even I can see they must have a "few" paying customers:-)

From their careers page they say over 100 employees, and they are currently hiring more. Sadly I don't think I have the right kind of skills needed for a job there:-(

by Derek Kite (not verified)

Don't feel bad. One of the founders of the company said in an interview that he probably couldn't get a job there either.

Derek

by Birdy (not verified)

There is no doubt that there are several commercial customers for Trolltech. But there are only very few widely known commercial Qt applications.

by Aaron J. Seigo (not verified)

one day i'll have to write something really clear about this topic, because IMO it is one of the least understood set of dynamics in the Open Source world in "the community". unfortunately certain people have leveraged the complexity of the situation and the relative lack of useful analysis to sew unfounded seeds of doubt about KDE.

suffice it to say for now that there are big names standing with KDE (did you see how much of IBM's open source desktop red book was about KDE? several sections covered only KDE technologies...), that Novell is not a GNOME-only shop (as convenient as it is to forget, they also bought SUSE remember?) and that Red Hat and Sun are not the most relevant companies in the desktop market. Sun's even been down this road before, and IMO with their promotion of Looking Glass and handling of JDS they are currently going for a repeat performance.

to quote a certain popular American author, "The report of my death has been greatly exaggerated." just because they said Twain was dead didn't make him dead. he was quite alive.

by Derek Kite (not verified)

I absolutely agree.

So far the only desktop business plans that are successful are Trolltech and some smaller players that also happen to contribute to KDE. Novell does servers. Redhat essentially walked away from the desktop (after alienating KDE developers).

Derek

by Mario (not verified)

Yes, please. Write something about it.

Im a kde fan and I know my way arround a computer, but by no means Im a Linux/KDE evangelist so the information I receive is just what is posted in the popular news sites. And right now Im receiving little information on KDE.

by David (not verified)

Nope, I'm afraid you're getting the wrong end of the stick. When companies see the need to buy a Qt license and put some effort into the software, then we'll have arrived. As it is, there is simply no real business case for companies so the use GTK. The buying of Qt license will be an effective barometer.