KDE Is the "Best Open Source Project"

Moments ago, at LinuxWorld Expo being hosted in San Francisco, CA, the KDE Project was honored as the winner in the "Best Open Source Project" category. On hand to accept the Open Source Product Excellence Award on behalf of the KDE development community were KDE developers Charles Samuels and Rob Kaper, as well as yours truly. Congratulations to the KDE developers, and thanks to IDG for recognizing the excellence of the KDE desktop! Update, Thursday August 30, @1:15AM: Rob Kaper has posted pictures of the award.

Comments

by Daniel (not verified)

Have you seen www.stardock.com ? its fantastic! Why kde doesnt have a total change of the look&Feel of the menu bar for example, and add the MAC menu bar look&feel ? i mean, i would like a total GUI personalizer apps. Anyones knows if there is a proyect of an app to create a theme ? i think using XML will no be very difficult. You only have to set the colours or the xpm for the buttons, rules, menus, etc.. and it will be copied into an XML form and converted into a theme packet.

Excuse my english :)

by Aaron J. Seigo (not verified)

all of this works today. what is missing in KDE is an easy way to access it. most things are scattered across several kcontrols and not very well integrated. therefore many people don't realize the customizability available to them.

object desktop is simply a program to allow MS Windows to work like X Window. now who's leading? =)

by Daniel (not verified)

With Object Desktop you can customize ALL the desktop. On KDE or Gnome you cant.

by Aaron J. Seigo (not verified)

really? what haven't i configured on my KDE? well, here is what i _have_ customized: widgets, window borders, panel colours and background, panel arrangement and behaviour, icons (mac+kde2 blend of an icon theme), desktop background (w/pattern blending, though i could have used a program's output too), sounds, desktop menus (and the mouse buttons), window behaviour, global keyboard shortcuts, application launch keys, application keys, notifications (this is going to be better in kde3, btw), taskbar behaviour, ...

i could also have messed around with fonts, but i haven't.

i'm just not seeing what i'm missing. nothing on my desktop looks like how it was when KDE first started up. in fact, many things don't even _behave_ the same. so, care to share some specifics of what i can't change under KDE that i can with object desktop, Daniel?

by sUpeRGR@sS (not verified)

As I wrote: try to set blue color for menu in kicker while the rest of KDE menus are set to red... impossible..

I wrote that KDE theming needed few tweaks... and for the beginning kicker was what we needed most.

Making KDE theme is really an easy task!
And thx to the developers for such nice engine... (any1 who tried to make skin for Mozilla, knows what I mean).

I don't think that applaying new Theme/Style is hard now.. all you have to do is click few times in Style, Theme, maybe sounds &icons,... but that way it's really flexible!
You can have sounds from one theme and look from another, etc... and this is cool, don't change it ala M$+...

I agree with Mikael H. Kjær - the kicker components should inherit the kicker style, and/or it should be possible to skin them separately...

The Kicker is THE FACE of KDE and you can't just leave things like they are now.... we need kicker to kick winblowz morons asses.. ehkm... eyes!

by theman (not verified)

News like these just some act of masturbation by KDE peoples...
Keep masturbating and feel good about yourself.

by Janne (not verified)

At least we have a good reason to feel good about ourselves. Unlike some other projects, KDE progresses fast and keeps on getting better all the time.

by geekster (not verified)

Oh yeah, let's all hush hush this news under the carpet.
Don't let it slip out or the people behind KDE might feel good about them self... shock! horror! horror!
You sound like a jealous fool from another project or one of those types who whines about slashdot posting about a new linux kernel.

Your theman! or whatever...

by tobs (not verified)

well ... what's wrong with masturbation ?
;-)

by ... (not verified)

that you made me to start using Linux.
Now I'm the happy user KDE and Linux(Debian).

Best Regards and Run KDE Run ;-).

by Orphée (not verified)

Bravo ! Félicitations !

by Tyrand'O (not verified)

Tu pourrais pas causer englais ?
Ah, au fait, bravo pour les développeurs de KDE !

by Orphée (not verified)

Ok, ok... I just say only a few words in french, and I choosed very known and internationnaly known words... :-)
So I repeat : Bravo KDE !

by Prashanth (not verified)

KDE has Konquered !!!
Congratulations

Congratulation to all the KDE developers. It is a very impressive job.

But I'm still a gnome and window maker user. I think that KDE is just a copy of the MS Windows desktop for Linux. It doesn't give a different approch to the computing experience. I use linux because it is a great OS and also because I want something different, a different desktop, a different approach. So I prefer to support projects that invent and create something different.

I have always wondered what makes KDE a "windows-clone" while Gnome is not? I mean, for everyday user they look similar, all three even have a "Start-button" in the bottom-left corner.

So do tell me why KDE is a windows-clone while Gnome is not?

by Aaron J. Seigo (not verified)

rose coloured glasses

The widget behavious, the "sluggish" look and feel, the colors, the windows style ;) the integrated Filebrowser/Webbrowser (no, Nautilus is not a Webbrowser although it can show HTML pages), etc.
Of course everything is a bit different, but the style is pretty much the same.
Even the menustructure is very much the same.
I mean things like "view" and "windows" menus.
Heck, KDE even copies the confusing and absolutely NOT user friendly settings/configuration mess of Windows. :)
Windows may be some of the worst systems concerning usability, it really shouldn't be the thing to copy.

Besides of that you are right, Gnome is pretty much a Windows copy as well. But at least Gnome is not that integrated. You don't HAVE to have a start button in the lower left, you can do whatever you want with your panel. :) You can make it floating in the middle of the screen and showing only your ICQ applet, while another Panel hides to the left of the screen and shows the pager if you want to.

And the Toolkit does not even come close to the "sluggish" Windows look&feel. ;)
That's a matter of taste though.

What a bunch of BS.

> The widget behavious, the "sluggish" look and > feel, the colors, the windows style ;)

All widget behavior can be styled/themed. The look AND feel can be changed.

> the integrated Filebrowser/Webbrowser (no, Nautilus is not a Webbrowser although it can show > HTML pages), etc.

I agree with you partially here. Konqueror is a file browser/web browser. In fact, Nautilus really should use gtkhtml (port of khtmlw), or gtkhtml2 (port of khtml), AFAIK it'd speed loading local html pages up.

Konqi is much more than a Filebrowser/Web Browser tho. It really shows how awesome the various kde2 technologies are (kparts, dcop, kio_slaves, etc..). For example, you can rip an audiocd while looking at a webpage, while using a terminal, all from the same konqueror window :). In fact, sometimes, instead of loading a window manager, I just load up konqueror. Split some views, and you are done :).

> Of course everything is a bit different,
> but the style is pretty much the same.
> Even the menustructure is very much the
> same.
> I mean things like "view" and "windows"
> menus.

???? /me notices "windows" and "views" menus in many MacOS apps. Yeah, I'll have to admit, I'm writing this from my new ibook :). Both of these menus are present in Photoshop (version 5.0), and GraphicConverter(equivalent to imageMagik on Linux).

> Heck, KDE even copies the confusing and
> absolutely NOT user friendly
> settings/configuration mess of Windows. :)

No, it absolutly does not have something like the registry. KDE uses a system called KConfig. It uses easy-to-edit Key/Value pairs. In fact, it is somewhat similiar to Windows 3.1.

In fact, it is GNOME that copies the Windows Registry. GConf is exactly that. Maybe that's why there are flame wars every 2 days on Gnome devel mailing lists over using GConf versus bonobo-config :).

> Windows may be some of the worst systems
> concerning usability, it really shouldn't be
> the thing to copy.

right.

> Besides of that you are right, Gnome is pretty much a Windows copy as well.

right.

if you want to talk about Window's copy. Look at Evolution. Totally Microsoftesque. ;)

> But at least Gnome is not that integrated. You
> don't HAVE to have a start button in the lower
> left, you can do whatever you want with your
> panel. :)

Hmm, this makes me think that you have never used KDE for more than 5 minutes. To remove the Kmenu, right click on it and click on remove. Heh.

> You can make it floating in the middle of the > screen and showing only your ICQ applet, while > another Panel hides to the left of the screen > and shows the pager if you want to.

Make a new kicker extention panel, add the applet to it, change the panel size to 1%, and click on resize when necessary, chose the position. Make another kicker extention panel, chose auto-hide, add the pager applet to it, and chose the location and size. There you go. Easy wasn't it. Use KDE more than 5 mins next time.

> And the Toolkit does not even come close to
> the "sluggish" Windows look&feel. ;)

Qt 1.44's default X11 theme was quite Window-ish, I agree. Since Qt 2.x, I think gtk 1.2.x's default theme looks more Window-ish.

Besides, that the default KDE2 theme(s) have no similiarty with qt's default theme.

And yes, unlike you, I *do* try GNOME for more than 5 mins every few months to see how it is progressing. I *always* go back to KDE, which I have been using since 2.0, after using GNOME 1.0 and GNOME 1.2 for some time(I didn't like KDE 1.1 much),.

What a bunch of BS.

> The widget behavious, the "sluggish" look and > feel, the colors, the windows style ;)

All widget behavior can be styled/themed. The look AND feel can be changed.

> the integrated Filebrowser/Webbrowser (no, Nautilus is not a Webbrowser although it can show > HTML pages), etc.

I agree with you partially here. Konqueror is a file browser/web browser. In fact, Nautilus really should use gtkhtml (port of khtmlw), or gtkhtml2 (port of khtml), AFAIK it'd speed loading local html pages up.

Konqi is much more than a Filebrowser/Web Browser tho. It really shows how awesome the various kde2 technologies are (kparts, dcop, kio_slaves, etc..). For example, you can rip an audiocd while looking at a webpage, while using a terminal, all from the same konqueror window :). In fact, sometimes, instead of loading a window manager, I just load up konqueror. Split some views, and you are done :).

> Of course everything is a bit different,
> but the style is pretty much the same.
> Even the menustructure is very much the
> same.
> I mean things like "view" and "windows"
> menus.

???? /me notices "windows" and "views" menus in many MacOS apps. Yeah, I'll have to admit, I'm writing this from my new ibook :). Both of these menus are present in Photoshop (version 5.0), and GraphicConverter(equivalent to imageMagik on Linux).

> Heck, KDE even copies the confusing and
> absolutely NOT user friendly
> settings/configuration mess of Windows. :)

No, it absolutly does not have something like the registry. KDE uses a system called KConfig. It uses easy-to-edit Key/Value pairs. In fact, it is somewhat similiar to Windows 3.1.

In fact, it is GNOME that copies the Windows Registry. GConf is exactly that. Maybe that's why there are flame wars every 2 days on Gnome devel mailing lists over using GConf versus bonobo-config :).

> Windows may be some of the worst systems
> concerning usability, it really shouldn't be
> the thing to copy.

right.

> Besides of that you are right, Gnome is pretty much a Windows copy as well.

right.

if you want to talk about Window's copy. Look at Evolution. Totally Microsoftesque. ;)

> But at least Gnome is not that integrated. You
> don't HAVE to have a start button in the lower
> left, you can do whatever you want with your
> panel. :)

Hmm, this makes me think that you have never used KDE for more than 5 minutes. To remove the Kmenu, right click on it and click on remove. Heh.

> You can make it floating in the middle of the > screen and showing only your ICQ applet, while > another Panel hides to the left of the screen > and shows the pager if you want to.

Make a new kicker extention panel, add the applet to it, change the panel size to 1%, and click on resize when necessary, chose the position. Make another kicker extention panel, chose auto-hide, add the pager applet to it, and chose the location and size. There you go. Easy wasn't it. Use KDE more than 5 mins next time.

> And the Toolkit does not even come close to
> the "sluggish" Windows look&feel. ;)

Qt 1.44's default X11 theme was quite Window-ish, I agree. Since Qt 2.x, I think gtk 1.2.x's default theme looks more Window-ish.

Besides, that the default KDE2 theme(s) have no similiarty with qt's default theme.

And yes, unlike you, I *do* try GNOME for more than 5 mins every few months to see how it is progressing. I *always* go back to KDE, which I have been using since 2.0, after using GNOME 1.0 and GNOME 1.2 for some time(I didn't like KDE 1.1 much),.

I don't totally agree with you. In some respects, yes, KDE is similiar to windows, but in others, it's view and particularly it's widgets (as opposed to MFC stuff ) are different as well.

I also see how you could see differences between Gnome and windows, but honestly, one of the reasons that Sun is supporting Gnome is precisely because of it's similarity to windows - enabling users to have an easier time converting.

( at least that's my impression! :D )

As it happens, I'm also a GNOME fanatic, if your post has been a normal flame, I would have gleefully joined you (as one person pointed out in these responses - what's the point of cheering for a home team if you have no one to jeer at? ), but since your post seemed to be serious, I felt it worthwhile to reply.

-ron

I think he was talking about the look&feel of KDE, and besides Kicker it REALLY feels alot like Windows.

About Sun using Gnome because it's similar to Windows... nah, not really, Sun used CDE before, so if it's interested in user migration, it would be from CDE to Gnome. Remember that Ximian GNOME has a preconfigured CDE style? I think that has a reason... :)

Besides of that, everything Linux seems to look very much at Windows.
Just recently I took a look at BeOS and was impressed. Not because it's a serious competition (it's quite dead...) but because it's a SO much better thing to copy than MS Windows.

Compared to Windows, (Debian) GNU/Linux(/[KDE|Gnome|Whatever]) already shines, but compared to BeOS, every Linux based system today just sucks on the desktop. :(
It performces poorly and the user interface isn't great either.
That's not intendet as a flame, just as a suggestion for everyone to look more closely at BeOS, than on Windows...

BTW, I think it's just what you should expect that KDE behaves like Windows, think of Qt. Qt is designed to be 100% integrated into the Windows desktop. And that shows... sure, it has other styles, but they don't change too much.
The Windows style is absolutely perfect, the Motif and Motif+ styles are not. And besides of that, Motif sucks, so it doesn't help either to have a Motif Style.
If Qt could come up with a style that looks as clean and non-windowish as Gtk-Raleigh (aka the new Gtk2 default theme) or something similar (in other words, a clean and solid style which is not copied from anything else and does NOT feature fancy stuff like gradients), I would be happy.
Didn't find something like that yet.

Ok, enough of that. :)

kde can import 90% of gtk themes fine (pixmap ones). unfortunatly, the only fast gtk themes are the ones that are based on gtk-engines, and comprise the other 10%.

I personally like kde/qt's widget styles better. It just seems more configurable. I've taken a liking to mosfet's liquid kwin and kstyle as of late. There is really no equivalent to this kind of theme in gtk. And the best thing is that most of the bugs have seemed to disappear, especially with the transparent menus.

Kicker has a lot of things that gnome-panel doesn't have. And vice versa. I think the ability to make panels floating in gnome-panel is great. On the other hand, I think Kicker's extentions are better, especially kasbar :).

Keep in mind that kde2's default style is not the same as qt's default style (motif+).

Also, I looked at a screenshot of gtk-raleigh (http://people.redhat.com/otaylor/gtk/raleigh-ss.png). It looks like a weird combination of macos (the colors, the "spinners", radio buttons, frames), and windows (square buttons instead of round buttons like in MacOS platinum).

As for BeOS, i agree that it was/is great. But, besides the lack of applications, I think the big downfall of BeOS ('s Interface) was that it was not configurable AT ALL (besides simple font changes, etc..).

R.I.P. BeOS

by Anonymous h4x0r (not verified)

No, Nada, Incorrect. Sun decided to migrate to GNOME (instead of KDE) from CDE because:

1. GNOME was C
2. GNOME was lgpl

That was then. Now, there are internal pressures in Sun to quietly switch to KDE, but I won't tell you who I heard that from. ;)

by Dave Leimbach (not verified)

Eh? Too much like windows... I guess KDE 3.0 will have to stop doing the "right thing" when segfaults occur [krash handler] and replace it with a BSOD.

But seriously.... I use KDE because its easy. Sure it may look like Windows to some people but the feel is certainly different. By the way since we are pointing the copycat finger, did anyone notice how much Ximian GNOME looks like OSX's desktop? Rounded corners and everything.

One really shouldn't point out the speck in another's eye....

Uh huh. And Windows was just a Mac clone, and Mac was stole from Xerox, etc. There is a reason that all of these desktops look and behave similar. The reason is that it is most efficient and it is what the user's expect. Much research has been done into designing GUI's and desktops that maximize productivity and usability, and the desktops we see now are the result.

I myself am not so anti-MS that I would use GNOME just because it looks different than Windows, or at least more so than KDE. I'll use the desktop that suits my needs the best. For me right now, KDE2 is that desktop on *NIX systems. I think that the KDE team has done an excellent job in pumping out new applications and improvements to the desktop. Although GNOME also is doing good work, if you would have to say that one of the projects is "winning", I'd have to say that it is KDE. Hence this well deserved award. Congratulations KDE.

by Robin Zarrf (not verified)

Gnome and WindowMaker user?

Look at what these projects innovate in.

1. Gnome - cheap ripoff of Windows. Look at the curious similiarty between Evolution and Outlook Express. :D

2. WindowMaker - cheap clone of the beautiful NeXTStep/OpenStep interface. After using NeXTStep for several years (and falling in love with it), I find WindowMaker to always be off a little bit. It never feels like the same.

I agree that KDE takes ideas from Windows and other OS's. At least KDE took them and actually made a *Pleasent to use desktop*.

Congrats on the award! It's nice to see a desktop environment that is NOT controlled by corporations ;).

I have heard numerous complaints about KDE being too similar to Windows. However, I still have seen no more similarity between KDE and Windows than say, Gnome and Windows.

So, if anybody knows more about that than me, please enlighten me :-) I'd be interested in finding out.

by Amazed of London (not verified)

I think the main reason that KDE is compared to Windows is because the UI design is pretty well thought out, easy to use, and well integrated with itself - just like (most of) Windows.

I don't like Microsoft a lot, but I have to hand it to them, the Explorer interface is really *very* good these days.

In this context, I think KDE being compared to Windows' UI is a real compliment, so I'd like to thank the GNOMEr who suggested it.

People who want their desktop to be arcane and difficult to use can look elsewhere...

I understand that in some cases, it is a compliment to be similar to Windows. However, here is my general impression when I talk to Linux advocates who are not really desktop-oriented:

KDE is the simple, ease to use desktop that looks a lot like Windows.

Gnome is the cool, sexy desktop.

Which would this be complementing?

I don't think that this thread was really meant to say that KDE has a nice blend of features over several desktops. Just take a look at the message that started this thread :-)

by Amazed of London (not verified)

> KDE is the simple, ease to use desktop that looks a lot like Windows.

> Gnome is the cool, sexy desktop.

> Which would this be complementing?

*shrug*

For me at least, KDE is both the desktop that is easy to use and also the cool, sexy desktop.

Cool, sexy things that KDE does that GNOME doesn't right now:

- proper anti-aliased text (no hacks)
- Mosfet's Liquid style (ubersexy!)
- total network transparency (the audiocd ioslave is the best example)
- DCOP (this is just the most amazingly cool thing, and you can have SO MUCH fun messing with your users' desktops and their heads if you're root ;)
- usable and very pretty file manager (Nautilus is nice but totally unusable due to its... how do I put this nicely... lack of speed.. on my home machine whilst Konqueror does more, is more usable and flies on the same machine)

Cool, sexy things that GNOME does that KDE doesn't right now:

- umm... help me out here? Oh yeah, ok - being able to drag windows from desktop to desktop by moving them against the desktop borders, but that's not really a sexy thing, that's a usability thing, isn't it?

I'm really puzzled as to why some users think GNOME is sexy whilst KDE isn't. Can anyone shed any light?

No bad, but I think that Gnome is the windows 9X desktop clone as its best. It's got my computer, similar look to it and lots of things. Even nautilus acts like explorer in most situations. It's allmost as good as explorer panel to crash too. Yeah you gnome people have done a efforts to make it go away from windows and now you have your eyes in Apple OS9, you have started to clone it. While KDE first was windows look emulator(acctually motif but who cares?) in KDE1 kde developers at least thought to do something by themselfs and kde2 was more like it's own than windows 9x emulator. KDE3 has a lots of its own features which makes it whole another desktop than windows it got nothing similar in the end. KDe is a modular desktop as it can be themed to very end. you can make it look and work like windows if you want or you can make it look and work like OSX if you want. Kde is going to be allways that two steps ahead of gnome people if gnome developers doesn't start thinking features by themselfs.

Okey this is a old thread, but I found it from google and I wanted to reply.

by Brian Masinick (not verified)

I have been looking forward to this release for some time, and I have also been looking forward to seeing its adoption on some commercial platforms (particularly Tru64 UNIX) as well as the usual Linux systems.

I am very pleased to see how well this work has progressed. Congratulations to everyone! Keep up the great work! Perhaps I will get a chance to contribute to this effort. I'd like that very much, too.

The Mas

A bit boring another post congratulating the KDE team ?

NO ! Not at all, you deserve it all, and for users like myself its from the heart too !! No I am not getting all soppy, but thanks to all on the KDE team for so competently and completely showing the World there is another better way than filling the obscenely fat wallets of Microsucks.

Anyhow I don't want to let this become a political post, so I will sign off with a BIG congratulations, and know how proud we the users are for you and of you, the developers, artists etc...

Regards and Admiration

P Sauter
Chief Web Officer
The Operating Room WorldSite

(A Non-profit organisation with a significantly healthier budget for those in need thanks exclusively to KDE/Linux)

by Henri (not verified)

I am more and more thinking IBM makes sometime good choices. Whereas Sun and lots of others jumped in a monkey-business (and I really wonder if they named themselves like this on purpose ;-)), IBM was not long ago the only one to choose KDE.
And, it was the good choice since the quality of KDE is quite amazing now. Bravo !
On the other monkey side, it looks like A.C. is having a good time figuring out how the mess of a code works.

Public recognition to the KDE suite of wonderful programmes on which so many linux users rely and love.Pl add my congrats. too.
The only feature I miss is an offline browsing feature on Konqueror unless it is already there and it is I who have missed it.

by parry (not verified)

Congrats Guys!!! A great job!
Keep it up and take some rest too!!
Looking forward for more such awards and , "Absolute Dominance" !!!

by Stoyan Zalev (not verified)

Congratulations,boys and girls! As a proud KDE 2.2 user and somewhat translator(i18n-BG) I'm very pleased to see that all the efforts were for good. I'm ABSLUTELY sure KDE is the best desktop in the world(I used to think it's Mac OS X,but no longer). But there is a problem,too. I installed KDE2.2 on several computers,all from source. Unfortunately, virtually all of them experience serious hangs and even crashes. I thought it was because of the buggy NVidia drivers,but nothing changed for good after replacing the videocard. No one could tell me what is all about and I came to the conclusion that it has MORE bugs even than the alpha version! WHY???

by Ada 95 (not verified)

Because of languages like C++ and C.

by skieu (not verified)

I like hte design and features esp konqueror, but I have to quit using kde as it
too slow in my Intel celeron 400Mh 128 Mb memory. Just a desktop environment it
consumes a large part of system resourses. It is not worth it.

Just wonder why kde team got this award?

I run GNOME, much faster , albeit not so polished but it is obviously not a dumb
screen.

Wish kde team improve kde so that after start kde I still got 64Mb Free in Memory like I got it now when running gnome :-)

Hey, it's _not_ that slow; but you have _very_ little RAM considering RAM is cheap these days. Upgrade to at least 256MB, but rather more, and you will see that KDE becomes _almost_ as fast as Gnome, and Konqi is much faster than Nautilus. Besides, you'll benefit in all other computing ways too, with a RAM upgrade :-)

If you don't like RAM; then use Blackbox or Xfce...

by Irzadi Siregar (not verified)

Well I use Celeron-400 and 64 MB RAM and I have to saya that I'm impressed with KDE 2.x and it's not that slow, I think my Win98 SE is slower.

Maybe you need a custom kernel or less daemon ?

by general failure (not verified)

you guys have done a great great job.

by infosrama (not verified)

Congratulations to the KDE-team!