Time for an open-source rumble?
Summary
Topics
It's pointless (and ultimately counterproductive) for vendors to takesides in "support" of developer groups who don't need this kind of help.(Red Hat, VA Linux and Sun are behind GNOME, while SuSE, Caldera,MandrakeSoft, Corel, Siemens and Fujitsu are behind KDE.) There are toomany similarities between this strategizing and what happened 20 years agowhen the Unix world started to polarize in a similar way. Sun and AT&Tadvocated the Open Look desktop; IBM, HP and Digital (now Compaq)championed Motif.
Back then we also had PR engines masquerading as foundations andalliances. The end result was the CDE desktop compromise, which functionsfar more like Motif than Open Look but has failed to gain momentum despitea decade of trying. I have yet to hear from anyone who thinks the Unix disputeproduced any technical innovation of widespread and lasting value. But itcertainly produced its share of noise, and may have retarded Unix growthenough to give Microsoft's Windows NT an easier entry into Unix turf than it wouldotherwise have had.
Some claim that the KDE League and GNOME Foundation are different kinds oforganizations, and to a certain cosmetic degree they are. The GNOMEFoundation describes itself as a democratic board of developers andexplains that the big companies are simply invited to participate asadvisors. But let's not kid ourselves -- if the Foundation makes adecision that the GNOME community won't follow, grassroots developers willvote with their feet and choose other projects to work on. In other words,the important GNOME decisions are made byconsensus of its army of volunteer developers, and the foundation haslittle role to play beyond the persuasive effects of board members'opinions.
For their part, the KDE League folk are up-front about the fact thattheirs is just a PR play -- it's topic number one of their One of the most noticeable differences between the current Linuxdesktop dispute and the old Unix wars is the number of fence-sittersthis time around. Nobody was neutral in the Unix battle. This timesignificant names such as IBM, Compaq, TurboLinux, HP and Borland are trying toplay Switzerland by putting their names behind both the GNOME and KDEefforts. Such a play makes no sense; each camp seeks to make its project thedefinitive Linux desktop, and an organization that supports both would-bestandards appears more ignorant than one that stays out of the fray. Thisdivided support is akin to sending arms to both sides of a war; it may bea neutral action, but it intensifies the confrontation and makescoexistence that much harder to achieve. Vendors could have more effectively shown theirsupport for free and open-source software by simply donating staffand resources without fanfare and without strings. Fortunately, most developers on both sides don't appear to be gettingcaught up in this dispute. I can only hope that common sense will prevailand that this will be the last marketing salvo for a while, if notforever. Let's get back to the way the Linux world has always evaluatedits options and its software -- on the merits. Just put the software outthere and let implementors pick what best suits their needs. Are you taking sides in the KDE-GNOME battle? Let me know in the TalkBack below.
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