“While Linux has been an unquestioned success, most of that
success has come on the server. Success for the Linux desktop,
despite significant advances, is still a long, long way from
challenging Microsoft Windows on the desktop.”
“Part of the problem, no doubt, is Linux’s desktop diversity.
The same broad range of choices that Linux users find so valuable
among their server products and suppliers looms as a weakness as
Linux seeks approval by the world’s non-techies. Most of the
computerphobes I know want as little decision-making as possible —
they just want tools that work and they don’t mind entrusting
Microsoft or Apple or anyone else to make the decision for them.
Which choice to make is less important than the fact that a viable
(and supported) choice exists….”
“In what may be (we can hope) one of the most significant events
to happen in the history of Linux desktops, folks in the GNOME and
KDE camps are talking to each other about integrating some of the
low-level modular functions. These subsystems — called KParts on
the KDE side and Bonobo in the GNOME world — have different
underlying technologies, but they serve generally the same purpose.
They allow developers to make components that are highly re-usable
between applications, similar to Microsoft’s Component Object Model
(COM) architecture. The good news is that Kparts and Bonobo
developers are being encouraged to combine their efforts — or at
least provide some framework that lets apps written in one system
maintain all their component functionality on the other.”
“It all started when a troller entered GNOME and KDE
developer areas and goaded them all for not doing more to
interoperate. This resulted in GNOME developers joining a KDE chat
area where the discussions started. From there, enthusiast
Casey Allen Shobe (who prefers to be known as “Rivyn”) started a
publicity campaign to encourage the talks to continue. He started
collecting names for an online petition of sorts, to show parties
on both sides how much support exists.”