Hello, Honestly, I don't know what the big deal is. It's opensource, so they can do whatever they want with it as long as there's no violation of the GPL, yes?
RedHat is doing a Good Thing (tm) here. And if you don't like what RedHat is doing, there are always other distros: there's your freedom of choice right there. Cheers, Ed Michael Peligro mumbled: > On Wednesday 02 October 2002 8:21 am, Reynald I. Ngo wrote: > >> Please refrain from distro bashing. We're all on the same >> boat >> for OSS... each and every distro contributes to the community. > > > I'm not distro bashing, just pointing out there are alternatives > especially when Linux distro like Bad Hat have been behaving quite > badly and limits our "freedom to choose whatever desktop we like with > full functionality intact". Thanks to Bad Hat developer Bero for the > guts to stand by his ideals and the ideals of freedom at the cost of > losing his job. > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------> List: kde-devel > Subject: New address > From: Bernhard Rosenkraenzer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Date: 2002-09-25 7:36:31 > > [Download message RAW] Hi, > > Effective immediately, I've left Red Hat (mostly in mutual agreement - > I don't want to work on crippling KDE, and they don't want an employee > who admits RH 8.0's KDE is crippleware). If anyone needs/wants to > contact me, please use the addresses [EMAIL PROTECTED] or > [EMAIL PROTECTED] For any RH specific KDE issues, please contact Than Ngo > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. > > LLaP > bero > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------> > > Yes, Bad Hat contributes to the community. But must they cripple KDE to > get "a unified desktop", or "a uniform look and feel"? Bad Hat's > long-standing animosity to KDE developers is really unhealthy. If they > are for choice, then they should allow the other desktops to flourish, > like Window Maker, Fluxbox, IceWm, and not give preference only to > Gnome and break the functionality of other desktops, particularly KDE. > Users should be allowed to run their desktop of choice in Bad Hat, > with full functionality intact. I don't want Bad Hat interfering with > my freedom of choice. > > Bad Hat's mutilation is not just about unified themes (See below -- > www.mosfet.org), but goes deep to KDE's libraries and programs as well. > Is this a positive contribution to the open source community when you > mangle their work? Bad Hat is not yet LSB certified, and this > complicates things even more. If Bad Hat really cares about the > community, they should work towards better interoperability for all > programs and strive for LSB certification. > > Bad Hat can unify the desktops without breaking functionality! KDE will > let you choose what program to open what file, even if that program is > a Gnome app (Me, I open jpegs, pngs with Gqview instead of KView > because Gqview's dithering algorithms are superior than KView's). Bad > Hat can install default themes that makes both environments look the > same. Bad Hat can reorganize the Control Center of Gnome and KDE to > look the same. Bad Hat can make files open with preferred programs of > their liking without crippling libraries. > > I hope Bad Hat doesn't get away with this circus act. I know that > admins here who use Window Maker, IceWm, or Fluxbox in their servers > and desktops will also be up in arms should Bad Hat decide to castrate > functionality from their desktop of choice. > > By the way, I also hate it when anyone (let's take Jijo as an example) > cannot download ISOs from Bad Hat and sell it as Red Hat 8.0. Bad Hat > forbids Jijo from doing it that way. Jijo can sell other Debian, > Slackware, or whatever GPL distro that he likes without running into > silly "name games". > > We can vote with our wallets and support distros who promote our > freedom of choice. For me, Lindows and Bad Hat are two distros I > wouldn't care about. > > > -- > mikol > > "There is no concept more closer to intellectual emancipation than free > software. Freedom to responsibly code and share in its most free and > pure form." -- Floyd Robinson, September 24, 2002 > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------> www.mosfet.org > > As most of you know, I finally took mosfet.org offline some time ago > and have not been involved in Linux since. Many of you know I've been > getting frustrated with Linux for some time, and RedHat breaking KDE > has been the last straw. I'm tired of companies like RedHat crapping > on free software development projects, and KDE is not the only group > that has complained about their cavalier attitude toward people > contributing to free software and glaring mistakes made in their > distribution. This incomplete lists includes several people from Wine, > GCC, MPlayer, and even Gnome. > > Some RH or Gnome advocates have tried to justify RedHat's actions by > either saying, "Hey, they just added a new theme to KDE to make the > desktops look similar - nothing wrong with that!", or by saying, "It's > free software and RH can do whatever they like despite what the > developers think". Both points are wrong. > > RH's crippling KDE isn't just about themes. > > As for the first point, that RedHat has just developed a new theme to > make KDE look like Gnome, this is patently false. Many distributions > have made custom KDE themes in order to make their product unique. > While of course this is a bad idea since it would be preferable to > have KDE look the same by default across all Linux distributions, > nobody really gets upset about it. Of course this behavior makes it > difficult for people to do things like Linux books because everyone is > shipping with different themes, but whatever. When distributions do it > right it actually works out well for both sides: Conectiva redid all > the KDE icons and they looked really nice so now are the default for > KDE3.1. Of course, unlike RH, Conectiva worked with KDE developers > from the very beginning in a very open way. > > But themes aren't really the issue. The issue is they also made several > changes to the KDE libraries and programs, some of which cause > breakage, incompatibilities, or reduce functionality. In some cases > changing code wasn't even needed but RH didn't know better because all > the people working on their customized fork never coded KDE before. > Even their project manager admits they don't know KDE very well. It is > my opinion that when your forking a project you should know something > about the program your forking first... The only person they had > working on KDE and had any experience with it's codebase was Bero, who > was forced to make KDE packages in his spare time because RH refused > to put any resources in KDE. He has now quit RH because of their > crippling of KDE and screwing up the codebase. Take a look at RedHat's > source RPMs if you want to see all the modifications they made with > absolutely no experience or peer review. > > The other problem is switching the default applications for things like > the web browser and email client from their KDE implementations to > Gnome apps while using the KDE desktop. Initially I didn't even think > they included the KDE versions but I found this is not the case. > > Of course it is okay to integrate Gnome apps into KDE and vice-versa, > but by making non-native applications default within the KDE > environment they are crippling KDE. It will take longer to load the > default web browser or email client in KDE than it would in Gnome, it > will consume more memory, and it will not provide a consistent look and > feel with file dialogs, etc... all when KDE has it's own native > equivalents. The argument for this that "we only want to support one > version of these applications". Okay, but then why are you shipping KDE > if you only want to support GTK/Gnome applications? It would be better > not to ship it at all, or ship it as unsupported, which is basically > what RH has done all through KDE's existence. > > What I think would make both parties happy is for RH to integrate apps > across the desktops, but allow each desktops to use their native > applications as their defaults. In this manner you'd still have the KDE > web browser as the default browser under KDE, but users would also be > able to access Mozilla easily through the menus. Let's face it: Gnome > people would have an absolute fit if some distribution replaced > Mozilla and Evolution with Konqueror and KMail in their Gnome desktop, > but people seem to think it's okay to do the same thing to KDE. RH > would still have to support people using the KDE desktop actually > using KDE applications, which they don't seem to want to do, but if > they don't want this they shouldn't be including KDE as a supported > setup! It's not like the GTK/Gnome apps are significantly better - I > tried the latest Mozilla and the latest Konqueror and Konqueror both > renders and runs far faster under KDE than Mozilla does under icewm, > and I haven't found a site it can't handle. The Konqueror in KDE3.1 is > way fast :) > > It's RH's right to do this to KDE! > > As for the second point, that KDE is free software and RH can do > whatever it wants to it, this is also a very unhealthy attitude for > people to take. Remember that most free software is done by volunteers > in their spare time. If commercial Linux companies start disrespecting > the goals of these volunteers too often people leave the community. > Unlike what people like Dennis Powell may think, Linux distributions > are not just normal Linux users who can do whatever they want. They > are depended upon by both free software developers and their users to > deliver free software reasonably intact. RH has broke this trust many > times, with a GCC that couldn't even compile the kernel or many other > Linux apps, and now with KDE. This disrespect of various projects has > caused many problems with RH. People feel like, "why work on free > software if RH is just going to screw it up"? > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------> > > _ > Philippine Linux Users Group. Web site and archives at > http://plug.linux.org.ph To leave: send "unsubscribe" in the body to > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Fully Searchable Archives With Friendly Web Interface at > http://marc.free.net.ph > > To subscribe to the Linux Newbies' List: send "subscribe" in the body > to [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- _ Philippine Linux Users Group. 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