[ Thanks to Linux User &
Developer magazine for this link. ]
“Linux’s path to mainstream
acceptance owes a lot to KDE and GNOME. While both have contributed
enormously towards the ultimate Linux dream,
they’re also heated competitors. Who will win
the war? Read on and pick your side wisely…“There was a time when UNIX desktops were developed by big
corporations. It took not just one but many large firms to come
together to build a desktop for the UNIX OS. The end result was CDE
(Common Desktop Environment), developed jointly by Sun
Microsystems, HP, IBM and UNIX Systems Laboratories. To its credit,
it was a popular desktop environment used in almost all UNIX
systems, but it was (and still is) not even close to being a decent
desktop for most users. CDE was announced in June 1993. Windows was
already available and CDE looked quite primitive by comparison. In
1996, the KDE project was started, followed a year later by GNOME,
and the world of UNIX desktops changed for ever. It was quite
surprising back then because neither KDE nor GNOME was a commercial
project. Both started as open source, and both shared the same
goal: to make Linux the best desktop operating system. But the
philosophy was different. The KDE project
wasn’t concerned with open source idealism
— which is why GNOME was born, to create a desktop
environment with fully GPLed software. This philosophical
disagreement led to two completely different and innovative desktop
environments for Linux.”