Qt/Mac KDE Call For Help

Now that the patches to make KDE build on Mac OS X are, for the most part, in KDE 3.2 CVS, it's time to move on to more drastic measures. I'm looking for help working on making KDE compile using native Qt/Mac rather than X11. We're still organizing, but if you'd like to help out, please join the discussion list and say "hi".

Comments

by Datschge (not verified)

Translations for those who have no clue:

> you don't have the freedom to close your source when using kde (qt/gpl)

As long as everything you write is completely your own without relying on others work you are free to choose the license yourself. As soon as you are relying on or taking stuff from others you have to respect their rules. If you rely on works of others which is available under GPL license you are free to either use GPL as well or ask every single person involved whether you can use their code under another license.

> you have that freedom with gnome (gkt/lgpl)

Not really, this only affects linking libraries, you are still not able to take over any code. Considering that all KDE core libraries are LGPL as well it boils down to companies wanting to use an existing working framework for their commercial products and earning money with it while being either too greedy to give the source back to the community which made the framework possible, or too greedy to paying the company which made the foundation of the framework possible. I don't have merci with greedy people so I don't see any problem with this "issue".

> you have that freedom with windows and mac

As soon as you use Windows and Mac (and any of the supposedly free included programs) the companies responsible for developping them were already paid for you being able to do so. Neither Windows nor Mac is available for free. So no, you don't have the freedom to start with. As soon as you are at a point where you think you have the freedom you already moved a lot of money. Are you too greedy to spend a little part of that for open source instead?

by Debian User (not verified)

Why do you need to have the "freedom" to close your work when you build it on top of others?

And who says you have not. Just keep whatever you create for yourself and it's fine.

You make it look like GPL would disallow privacy. That is untrue.

And what is your motivation anyway. Are you scared that your "best desktop OS" could get concurrency? If so, you are right.

Like GNU won over when it didn't have a kernel, KDE can as well. Just a new user group.

Yours, Kay

by fault (not verified)

> office, photoshop, flash, corel, etc which are build for mac.

hello, as a poor student... I don't have the money to buy and upgrade every few years office, photoshop, and corel..

If you are willing to buy me a copy, please reply for a email address :)

by Eric Laffoon (not verified)

> -On mac you can run office, photoshop, flash, corel, etc which are build for mac.

And while the Mac used to lead on these they have fallen behind. in fact Office is being critisized for not keeping up and even having compatibility issues with windoze. Which one is more popular? The Mac has only taken a small portiion of the market. In fact pundits are currently predicting Linux will exceed it shortly. It's true you have more commerical apps, but if that's your argument you may have to find a new one in a year or two. BTW if you're into movie production you pretty much end up running Linux because in that area it already has taken the lead in commerical apps.

> -Mac is UNIX (not linux), you have console, apache, perl, php, java and anything else one UNIX has

So what!? Are you telling me the average user with a touchy feely interface is going to notice the small differences in a few Unix utilities? You're naming off apps that are natively developed on Linux by most of their development teams.

> -Mac has unique best user interface. Apple are pioneers in UI guidelines. Everybody imitates them - XP, KDE.

Oh make me laugh!!! You must be kidding! Apple bought the Xerox Parc interface and copied it with very little innovation even using the Xerox terminology like "mouse". If you want to gush then tell me how wonderful the folks at Xerox were. As for the UI my personal experience was that it was really bad if you didn't know it... Tell me that dragging and dropping a floppy on the trash to eject it is intuitive. To me it was terrifying because it looks like it would erase it and stupid because it was a sycophantic adherance to a visual UI that went over the top and wasn't productive.

BTW while we're at it let's not forget the reason windoze has a double click program actuation causing people carpal tunnel syndrome is that Gates and company did such an unimaginitve job copying the one button mouse. It wasn't until they studied the OS/2 interface that they discovered a use for the second button on the right. If Apple were truly visionary they would not have copied this so precisely from Xerox.

> -Apple builds quality apps that are unique for their OS and one cannot dream to run on another platform

Sorry. I can't help but think of where they have gone. Not just apps, but an OS. Do you know why they went to OS/X? Because their OS versions going into 8 and 9 were so bad that users would go check with other users to get consensus if a new OS version would even run. Never run a x.0 version was a standard rule. In fact recent versions didn't have any multi tasking at all!!! I remember using one in Kinkos to scan and asking the staff Why I couldn't do anything else while it was scanning or sending.

Now I understand that Apple has done a pretty good job with OS/X and it's something one can feel good about recommending to grandma. However your glowing ad copy here is little more than irradiated fertilizer. It would also be worth keeping things in perspective. I noted with OS/2 that all the new stuff was coming from the Linux camp. Apple couldn't pull off a decent OS... BSD to the rescue. (M$ uses their TCP/IP stack for the same reason.) Apple didn't have a decent browser and in comes KHTML. The office suite could be next. I happen to like Apple and how they are working with OSS now. I'm glad to be partnering with them... but let's not get confused about the value of OSS here.

by Anonymous (not verified)

> UNIX OSX already has the best desktop ever!

You don't expect sympathy for such statements on a site such this, or?

> There is lack of apps for linux and most are buggy.

Not talking about apps like Safari which delete your complete home folder when you download a file...

> But this is not the situation on UNIX Mac, there are good commercial apps that really work.

Same is true for Linux.

> I suggest that you guys focus on making linux better

You suggest what already happens? Sensational idea.

by Anton Velev (not verified)

Well KDE does good stuffs example is KHTML/KJS.
If you are not happy with something on mac report them the bug.

Can you guess one commercial app for KDE?

by Anonymous (not verified)

> If you are not happy with something on mac report them the bug.

And they will fix it? Ok, I just reported them that I can't get their desktop free of charge and I'm lacking the sources to be able to adapt it to my wishes.

> Can you guess one commercial app for KDE

Sure, visit http://www.thekompany.com

by Anton Velev (not verified)

> And they will fix it? Ok, I just reported them that I can't get their desktop free
> of charge and I'm lacking the sources to be able to adapt it to my wishes.

Well it's ridiculous to ask a closed source app vendor for the source. But on the free market you can always choose another vendor and buy from it, this is how the free market works, the best wins.

> Sure, visit http://www.thekompany.com

These are QT apps not KDE. If you were reading the dot often you would read what the president of the kompany said about it, and why the kopmany will never write again software for KDE.
So you are pointing to wrong opposite example.

by Anonymous (not verified)

> Well it's ridiculous to ask a closed source app vendor for the source. But on the free market you can always choose another vendor and buy from it, this is how the free market works, the best wins.

Your postings here are ridiculous. Your free market is also possible and happening on Linux. Let's talk again when Linux has got a higher desktop market share than Apple (prognoses differ from this year to in two years). Then more commercial companies will offer Linux applications like Corel, Softimage, Alias, Main Concept, Sun, Hancom, Applixware, Borland, IBM, Metroworks, Rational, Samsung, Novell, Lotus and others already do.

> These are QT apps not KDE.

Kapital? KDE Studio Gold? Do you want to now decline that they exist?

by Anton Velev (not verified)

There should be a reason for that you don't like Macs.
May be you have bad experience and/or some bad nightmare with 8 bit Apple II.

I had happy experience with Apple II and I am happy that Apple is still on the top in terms of quality of their hardware and software.

by Anonymous (not verified)

> There should be a reason for that you don't like Macs.

Only Mac zealots like you. I never used Macs.

by :-) (not verified)

then dont post about something u dont know about!!!!!!!!!

by Anonymous (not verified)

What was wrong what I said about MacOS? I didn't visit a Mac news site and post wrong stuff for cheer-leading Linux/KDE like Anton did with visiting this site and posting about Linux, KDE and OpenSource for cheer-leading Apple.

by Anton Velev (not verified)

Hey, you are taking me wrong. I am not against kde. I like it and I use it when I boot to linux.
Also when i have to show someone what is that misterious thing called "Linux" i show them kde, and they like it.

What I do really want to see is that kde is more improved for example if koffice gets more improved Apple could decide to port it to Mac and then you don't have to port it yourself. See? Apple is kicking Microsoft from their platform with the help of the community, they will do the job for porting the really good stuffs.
And of course I will love to run koffice on mac but when it's mature enough. And you should agree that if it's mature enough as khtml was apple will port it.

by :-) (not verified)

o... ok... i just "assumed" :-)

ignorance is bliss...

but still, i prefer freedom for businesses to close the source if they themselves improve it... i mean it should be their choice... ya know? just give credit where credit's due... if credit's due to the open source community... cause developers got feed their children too...

plus, macs arent that bad... u should try em out... u might enjoy them... i mean, they may have been slow at certain tasks for older machines, especially running 500mhz... but, not anymore (thank god for panther)... try em out after panthers released, u may be surprised... no, im not kidding... seriously take a look at it...

tell me your misconceptions and i may help you to clear them :-DDDD

by Datschge (not verified)

I'd like to make you aware of the fact that you are here on a KDE site. Nobody has to tell you anything about Macs here. Rather I'd like to hear from you for what reason you decided to spam this forum with your unfounded assumptions.

by Derek Kite (not verified)

Reason? Because for 1/3 of the money I can get an equivalent powerful machine. And for that reason the only time I've used them is when a friend had one. I tried them, found the interface counterintuitive. And no, I don't use Windows. I disliked the precision movements of the mouse which are necessary to, for example, scroll. I don't like moving my arm as much as is required by the Mac. And, up till OSX, the stupid things crashed even more than MS stuff. They just made it look pretty.

My first experience with programming was with pascal on an apple 2e. Command line. Been hooked ever since, not by apple, but by programming.

Derek

by CE (not verified)

And you are a troll.

by Anton Velev (not verified)

There should be a reason for that you don't like Macs.
May be you have bad experience and/or some bad nightmare with 8 bit Apple II.

I had happy experience with Apple II and I am happy that Apple is still on the top in terms of quality of their hardware and software.

by CE (not verified)

Indeed I like Macs.

by derelm (not verified)

i really wonder why you visit the dot, because its mainly about kde and directly about your beloved mac os?

by Anonymous (not verified)

To try to prevent that KDE will be natively available for MacOS?

by Lee (not verified)

You are using KDE and Linux interchangeably. But yes, there are commercial KDE apps.

by Marc Mutz (not verified)

> Can you guess one commercial app for KDE?

The KDE Kolab Client is a commercial app for KDE. I also suggest to check out the products sections of www.klaralvdalens-datakonsult.se and www.thekompany.com. Hancom Office comes to mind, too. Most of those applications are even _proprietary_ (which is what I guess you really meant instead of "commercial").

by Chakie (not verified)

What will Apple do *for* UNIX? Huh...

If you don't like Linux/KDE then why are you trolling here?

by Anton Velev (not verified)

Well, I like it of course, KDE is good for my Linux.

When I want to demonstrate some winuser the misterious "Linux" i show them KDE. And they like Konqueror, XMMS, OpenOffice, MPlayer, Kate, Korganizer, Klipper and the virtual desktops.

I feel comfortable under KDE, Win and Mac.
But for linux I miss some apps that i have to run wine or vmware sometimes.
For windows I must install cygwin, X server and putty to be in touch with the UNIX.
And for mac I don't need to do anything special, i have the terminal, i have the apps i have the desktop.

Anyway in all cases if one wants can make any environment comfortable for him, it just varies how much efforts you must spent for acheiving it. Linux makes it most difficult because too often you must compile, and also most successfull commercal apps are not available.

I beleive that UnitedLinux consortium can help because once standarts are accepted binary distribution will be easier, and may be the most popular commercial apps will appear too.

by Anonymous (not verified)

> But for linux I miss some apps that i have to run wine or vmware sometimes.

No reason to discourage an native port of KDE to Mac.

> Linux makes it most difficult because too often you must compile

You don't know comprehensive distributions like Debian, Mandrake or SuSE.

> I beleive that UnitedLinux consortium can help because once standarts are accepted binary distribution will be easier, and may be the most popular commercial apps will appear too.

This sentence doesn't make sense with "UnitedLinux" (*one* standard?), try with "LSB".

by Anton Velev (not verified)

> No reason to discourage an native port of KDE to Mac.

It will not be a native port, since QT is some kind of emulation and abstraction layer over the underlaying Aqua and Quartz. Also btw there already is Linux PPC (and KDE on it).
Real Native port would be nice - as Apple did with KHTML/KJS. And if some other part (for example koffice) of KDE gets enough improved Apple will do this job, more than that they will clean it from QT/GPL as they did with safari.

> You don't know comprehensive distributions like Debian, Mandrake or SuSE.

For example I have compiled more than 5 times KXMLEditor, I use SuSE when i boot to linux, and i haven't find a binary package last time i searched.

> This sentence doesn't make sense with "UnitedLinux" (*one* standard?), try with "LSB".

read here please, and find why companies would (and more and more already are) support it, united linux also uses LSB, but UL has the chance that can became de facto a standart linux distribution for commercial support and apps
http://www.unitedlinux.com/

by Anonymous (not verified)

> And if some other part (for example koffice) of KDE gets enough improved Apple will do this job, more than that they will clean it from QT/GPL as they did with safari.

This will not happen (and therefore you can't measure the quality of any KDE part if Apple picks it up or not) because khtml is only loosely coupled with Qt (QT is short for QuickTime!) while other apps/parts of KDE are not.

> For example I have compiled more than 5 times KXMLEditor, I use SuSE when i boot to linux

Your fault, it's included in SuSE: ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/8.2/suse/i586/kxmleditor-0.8.1-58.i586.rpm

> but UL has the chance that can became de facto a standart linux distribution for commercial support and apps

You seem to be a true believer in marketing sayings (of Apple and UL), it's not to be expected atm that RedHat will vanish.

by fault (not verified)

> It will not be a native port, since QT is some kind of emulation and abstraction layer over the underlaying Aqua and Quartz.

Uh, Qt/Mac uses the appearance manager, and thus, is as "native" as something like Carbon or Cocoa is.

> And if some other part (for example koffice) of KDE gets enough improved Apple will do this job

I think it's good for KDE overall. Having more users (and testers), will give new developers. Apple using khtml has done wonders for it's development. If someone were to compile something like koffice or konqueror and post it on versiontracker.com (in the future), I'm quite positive a lot of people would use it.

by fault (not verified)

> UNIX OSX already has the best desktop ever!

Uhm, that's certainly quite debatable.. I currently have a PC running Linux and KDE, a Dell laptop running WindowsXP, a ibook 300 running classic MacOS (too slow to run OSX), and a dual g4 running OSX/Panther (actually my dad's, but I've used it often)

Of these, I like the Linux/KDE machine best, then the ibook running MacOS9, then the XP box, followed by the OSX box.

by a.c. (not verified)

How do you explain the movement of Hollywood away from Windows/Macs/SGIs to Linux Boxes in all aspects?
Well they make perfect sense to move to for rendering boxes (hey you could use Dos, if you do not mind down time), hollywood is also moving the artists desktop to Linux. Some are using Gnome, others using KDE, and I have seen icebox being used (it is actually the artists preference).
In addition, they are busy supporting the movement of their high end commercial software to Linux away from all the other platforms. Yes, I know, Apple is trying to stop that by buying up some critical peices, but my understanding is that several studios have internal efforts underway to now redo those items in a GPL fashion.
and the answer is......?
BTW, I do happen to like the apple desktop, but I prefer KDE due to it being GPL AND its look and feel.

by Richard Jones (not verified)

Sure, OSX is a nice UNIX, but there's a bunch of nits to pick with their bundled apps (OSX Mail and Safari both have many issues that KMail and Konqueror got over a *long* time ago). And KDE offers a lot of really nice stuff that OSX *may* get around to providing *some* day, like kioslaves, kmail and konqueror :)

There's simply not a comparable mailer for OSX like kmail. Or konsole, kopete, ... (some that come close, but are far too buggy or unfriendly)

It'll be so nice to be able to develop apps using PyQt / PyKDE too :)

by Don (not verified)

Yes, I very much agree with the parent post.

I use terminal.app everyday and I really miss Konsole's ability to have multiple terminals within a single window.

Also I prefer KMail to Mail.app, and think Kontact could do nicely on OS/X as well.

KDE apps are maturing.

Don.

by Benjamin Reed (not verified)

While you wait for a native Konsole, you could try iTerm. :)

by Richard Jones (not verified)

I found iTerm to be buggy when I tried it out a couple of months ago, and switched back to Konsole-through-X. Unfortunately, apple's quartzwm (the X window manager for OSX) sucks a *lot* and doesn't pass some key events through, so the shift-left/shift-right events I have hard-wired in my brain for switching sessions in konsole ... don't work.

*sigh*

Bring on KDE in OSX :)

by Benjamin Reed (not verified)

iTerm used to be pretty buggy, but it's gotten pretty solid recently. I've done a build out of CVS and it's doing very nice.

by Benjamin Reed (not verified)

I never thought I'd see the day there were more stupid flames here than on slashdot. That's quite an accomplishment.

I'm not making you use KDE apps on Mac OS. I'm not making you use Mac OS. I'm not saying Mac OS is better than Linux, or worse. No one's taking away your freedom by making KDE more portable to other platforms Qt runs on.

I'm doing the port because it's fun, and because there are some KDE apps I'd like to not have to start X11 for. Heck it will probably help with other ports. It's not unlikely that making KDE work with Qt/Mac will also make it more likely to work with Qt/framebuffer.

You people need to chill out.

by Sad Eagle (not verified)

> I never thought I'd see the day there were more stupid flames here than on
> slashdot. That's quite an accomplishment.

You don't visit the dot often, do you? ;-)

by Benjamin Reed (not verified)

Oh, I've seen flames here plenty, but this is just silly.

You don't visit slashdot often, do you? (grin)

by Ian Reinhart Geiser (not verified)

Ben the internet is the worlds largest truck stop bathroom stall door. Any idiot with a penknife (or in this area a computer) can spout off their crap. Chances are those who really care will contact you in person.

Besides give me a few weeks and ill chip in, I need to get a bigger drive and ill play too.

Cheers
-ian reinhart geiser

by ex-Solaris (not verified)

You mean, right after you get done with those Solaris KDE packages?

We're happily switching from Suns to OS X (G5's on order), and the one KDE thing that'll be missed is Konqueror as a file manager. Konqueror.app would be a nice power-user tool IF it maintains resource forks where applicable, respects hiding those files which are customarily hidden in the Finder (as a default, at least), can launch apps (e.g. `open /path/to/whatever.app`) and has drag-and-drop interoperability with the Finder and other applications.

Konsole.app would be the second-most-desired port. Interoperability with the OS X clipboard for copy/past would be excellent in both cases.

by Ian Reinhart Geiser (not verified)

you mean these?
http://kde.geiseri.com/solaris/

Granted they are 3.1.1, but they shouldnt be much different from the other fares out there. They work for me (TM) ;) When i get time ill see about new packages, since i only have an ultra 1 builds are slow so i only fix bugs in hopes someone with a faster machine will package them. After things settle down in 3.2 i may do another sweep to clean up braindamages. Maby we can even have real device support for the floppy and cdrom in 3.2 :)

AFAIK Qt Mac already uses the Macos clipboard so that isall setup
but for hiding resource forks... that may be interesting. Not looked into that one.

Never know... but money/hardware offers of food do help ;)

Cheers
-ian reinhart geiser

by someone (not verified)

I wonder if most KDE applications follow the Model View Controller paradigm for their application design? The reason I'm asking, is that the KDE gui guidelines are very different from Aquas(OSX).

An extra application menu and menu-structure, different keyboard shortcuts, what should go into the toolbar/palettes,.. It would be nice if it was very easy to have a model from a kde application like knode (qt/c++), and write the controller and gui in cocoa-objective-c++