From: ettr...@ti-ibm03.informatik.uni-tuebingen.de (Matthias Ettrich)
Subject: New Project: Kool Desktop Environment. Programmers wanted!
Date: 1996/10/14
Message-ID: <53tkvv$b4j@newsserv.zdv.uni-tuebingen.de>
X-Deja-AN: 189378121
summary: Hopefully not yet another project to create a nice and
free desktop environment for UNIX/X11
organization: InterNetNews at ZDV Uni-Tuebingen
keywords: desktop gui filemanager qt
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.os.linux.misc,
de.comp.os.linux.misc
-------------------------------------------
New Project: Kool Desktop Environment (KDE)
-------------------------------------------
Programmers wanted!
Motivation
----------
Unix popularity grows thanks to the free variants, mostly Linux. But still a
consistant, nice looking free desktop-environment is missing. There are
several nice either free or low-priced applications available, so that
Linux/X11 would almost fit everybody needs if we could offer a real GUI.
Of course there are GUI's. There is the Commond Desktop Environment (much
too exansive), Looking Glas (not too expensive but not really the solution),
and several free X-Filemanagers that are almost GUI's. Moxfm for example is
very well done, but unfortunately it is based on Motif. Anyway, the
question is: What is a GUI? What should a GUI be?
First of all, since there are a lot of missunderstandings on this topic,
what is NOT a GUI:
- the X-Window-System is NOT a GUI. It's what its name says: A Window system
- Motif is NOT a GUI. They tried to create a GUI when they made Motif, but
unfortunately they couldn't really agree, so they released Motif as
Widget-Library with a Window-Manager. Much later they completed Motif with
the CDE, but too late, since Windows already runs on the majority of
desktops.
- Window-managers are NOT GUI's. They are (better: should be) small programs
that handle the windows. It's not really the idea to hack a lot of stuff
into them.
IMHO a GUI should offer a complete, graphical environment. It should allow a
users to do his everyday tasks with it, like starting applications, reading
mail, configuring his desktop, editing some files, delete some files, look
at some pictures, etc. All parts must fit together and work together. A
nice button with a nice "Editor"-icon isn't not at all a graphical user
environment if it invokes "xterm -e vi". Maybe you have been disappointed
long time ago too, when you installed X with a nice window manager, clicked
on that beautiful "Help"-Icon ... chrk chrk (the hard disk)...an ugly,
unsuable, weird xman appeared on the desktop :-(
A GUI for endusers
------------------
The idea is NOT to create a GUI for the complete UNIX-system or the
System-Administrator. For that purpose the UNIX-CLI with thousands of tools
and scripting languages is much better. The idea is to create a GUI for an
ENDUSER. Somebody who wants to browse the web with Linux, write some letters
and play some nice games.
I really believed that is even yet possible with Linux until I configured my
girlfriends Box. Well, I didn't notice anymore that I work with lots of
different kind of menues, scrollbars and textwidgets. I already know that
some widgets need to be under the mouse when they should get the keyevents,
some sliders wants the middle mouse for dragging and some textwidgets only
want emacs-bindings and don't understand keys like "pos1" or "end". And
selecting some text is different everywere, too. Even the menues and buttons
(for exampel Xaw, Fvwm, XForms, Motif) behave completely different.
One word to the Athena-Widgets: Although there are a few nice applications
available that uses these "widgets" we should really get rid of them.
Thinking that "Athena is a widget-library" is a similar missunderstanding
like "X is a GUI". Athena is an very old example how widget libraries could
be implemented with Xlib and Xt. It's more or less a online-documentation
for Widget-Set-Programmers, but not a tool for application-programmers.
Unfortunately, the old Unix problem, a so good online-documentation that
people used it for applications.
So one of the major goals is to provide a modern and common look&feel for
all the applications. And this is exactly the reason, why this project is
different from elder attempts.
Since a few weeks a really great new widget library is available free in
source and price for free software development. Check out
http://www.troll.no
The stuff is called "Qt" and is really a revolution in programming X. It's
an almost complete, fully C++ Widget-library that implementes a slightly
improved Motif look and feel, or, switchable during startup, Window95.
The fact that it is done by a company (Troll Tech) is IMO a great advantage.
We have the sources and a superb library, they have beta testers. But they
also spend their WHOLE TIME in improving the library. They also give great
support. That means, Qt is also interesting for commercial applications. A
real alternative to the terrible Motif :) But the greatest pro for Qt is the
way how it is programmed. It's really a very easy-to-use powerfull
C++-library.
Qt is also portable, yet to Windows95/NT, but you do not have to worry about
that. It's very easy to use UNIX/X specific things in programming, so that
porting to NT is hardly possible :-)
I really recommand looking at this library. It has IMO the power to become
the leading library for free software development. And it's a way to escape
the TCL/TK monsters that try to slow down all our processors and eat up our
memory...
It's really time yet to standarize the desktop somewhat. It's nonsense to
load 10 different widgets into memory for the same task.
Imagine this desktop:
- fvwm (own widgets)
- rxvt (own widgets)
- tgif (own widgets)
- xv (own widgets)
- ghostview (athena widgets)
- lyx (xforms widgets)
- xftp (motif widgets)
- textedit (xview widgets)
- arena (own widgets)
One may argue that a usual UNIX-Box has enough memory to handle all these
different kind of widgets. Even if this might be correct, the really
annoying thing is, that all these widgets (menus, buttons, scrollbars, etc.)
behave slightly different. And this isn't only an academic example, I've
really seen such desktops :-}
I know we couldn't get rid of this chaos at once, but my dream is a
coexistance between Motif and Qt.
The Kool Desktop Environment (KDE)
----------------------------------
I don't have the time to do this all alone (also since LyX is my main
project). But a thing like a Desktop Environment can easily be cut into lots
of parts. There is very probably a part for you, too! If you want to learn
some X-programming, why not doing a small, neat project for the KDE? If you
know others who like to programm something, please pretend them from writing
the 1004th tetris games or the 768th minesweeper clone ;-) Think we also
have enough XBiffs yet...
So here is my project list so far. Probably there are even more things to do
that would fit great into the KDE. It's a very open project.
- Panel:
The basic application. Run's as FvwmModule (at the beginning). Offers a
combination between Windows95 and CDE. I think about a small taskbar at
the bottom and a kind of CDE-panel on the top of the screen. The panel has
graphical icon menus on the left (similar to GoodStuff) to launch
applications, 4 buttons in the middle to switch to other virtual desktops
and few icons for often needed applications on the right. There is for
example a mail-icon that also indicates new mail, a wastebasket to open
the delete-folder (that also indicates when it isn't empty and is capable
of drag'n'drop). Maybe a analog clock with date at the very right. Also a
nice special icon for exiting the environment or locking the screen. All
the stuff is completly configurable via GUI. I'm also thinking about
solutions, that only available applications can be installed on the
desktop and that new applications appear on the desktop automatically.
I started to work on this panel, but would of course love some help. There
are also lot of smaller things to do, like a tool to chose a background
pixmap (for each virtual desktop) etc.
Also nice icons are needed!
- Filemanager
Another major application inside the KDE. The idea is not to create a
powerful high-end graphical bash-replacement (like tkdesk tries to be),
but a nice looking easy-to-use filemanager for simple tasks. Simple tasks
are mainly deleting some files, copying some files, copying some files on
the disk, starting applications by clicking on a file (for example
ghostview for postscript files or xli for gifs, etc).
I'm thinking about nice windows, one for each directory, that shows icons
for every file. It should be possible to drag files around (either copy or
move), even between different windows. Another important point is the
support of the floppy-disk, so that mounting/umounting is done
user-transparent.
Dragging of icons should be done in a nice way, that means moving around a
special window (see Qt's xshape example), NOT like xfm or xfilemanager by
setting another monochrome bitmap for the cursor.
So it will also be possible to put files as icons on the desktop. This is
IMO a very nice feature. Since applications are launched by the panel,
it's even clear that icons are real data-objects. With fvwm-1 and the
FvwmFileMgr it wasn't really clear wether an icon is yet a file or an
iconified window.
Drag'n'drop inside a Qt application isn't really difficult.
The filemanager is IMO a very nice and not too time consuming project.
Who wants?
- mail client
A really comfortable mailclient. IMO the most comfortable mailclient for X
is yet XF-Mail. And the author is willing to port it to Qt when the
KDE-project will start! But he asks for some assitance (for example for
coding the small popups, etc.)
- easy texteditor
Very small but important project. An editor that fits the needs of those
who have to edit a textfile once in a month and didn't find the time yet
to learn vi (and don't have the time to wait for x-emacs to start, and
don't have the memory to use a motif-static-nedit, and don't have the
cpu-power and memory to use a tk-monster like tkedit,...)
Unfortunatly the Qt multiline-textwidget isn't available in Qt-1.0, but
Troll-Tech already announced the beta-testing. So the texteditor can be
started in a few weeks, too.
- Terminal
Similar to the CDE terminal program. A kind of xterm with nice menu bar to
set the font, exit, etc. Nice project, get the xterm sources and add a GUI
with Qt!
- Image viewer
The application that will be launced as default from the filemanager for
gifs, jpegs and all this. Well, xv is shareware and really needs quite a
long time for startup. But there is a plain Xlib programm without any
menues or buttons called "xli". Get the sources and make it userfriendly
with Qt!
- Lots of small other tools:
* xdvi with Qt-Gui
* ghostview with Qt-Gui
* xmag with Qt-Gui
* whatever you want
- Hypertext Help System
A complete desktop environment needs a nice hypertext online help. I think
the best choice would be HTML (>= 2.0). So a free Qt-based html-viewer
would be a great idea. It might be possible to use the Arena-sources, but
arena needs very long for startup. Maybe it would be best to start from
scratch. Qt offers excellent functions for dealing with different fonts.
For a help system HTML 2.0 is more than enough, some nice search function
added and that's it. Since it is also possible to convert the obsolete
troff man-pages to HTML, we can also integrate the original UNIX help
system.
BTW: There is a Troll Tech Qt-competition (look at their webpages). The
best application (not only functionallity, but also design counts. Just
porting an existing great application to Qt won't probably be enough :-( )
wins $2000 and a few Qt on NT licenses (worth another $2000). They also
mentioned a browser-project as an example. So a nice HTML-browser in Qt,
ready in Janurary may be worth $4000 (This includes selling the unneeded
NT licenses ;-) )
- Window Manager
At the beginning, the KDE panel will work as an Fvwm-Module. When this is
done, a lot of stuff can be stripped from the bloated fvwm window manager.
We don't need anymore fvwm-menus, icon handling and zillions of
configurable things. We need a small, realiable windowmanager. So maybe
stripping all unncessary stuff from fvwm will make sense in a while. But
this may come very last.
- System Tools
Whatever a user, or you, might need. A graphical passwd comes to my mind.
But probably there are a lot more! Maybe this will lead to a little system
administration tool someday.
- Games
We have yet a nice tetris game (an Qt example program). What is needed is
a nice set of small games like solitaire (please with nice cards that can
be really dragged!). There are several nice card games available for X,
for example xpat2. So why not take the cards from them and write a real
solitaire games, very similar to MS-Solitaire. I really had to install
Wine sometimes just to play solitair, what an overhead! But other games
are needed, too. Take xmris, pacman, etc. add a nice GUI. Or write some
from scratch. Whatever you want :)
- Icons
A set of nice icons. 3D-pixmaps are quite a good start (but why should the
button be inside a pixmap, if we use a toolkit with buttons???)
- Documentation
A documentation project is always a good thing to have. But before we
should clearify how the hypertext help system should look like. We can
then start with documentation pages in the chosen HTML-subset and for
example use arean as help browser. Anyway we need some application to
document first.
- Web-Pages / Ftp Server / Aministration
We need a server for the files and webpages that inform about the state of
the project. Especially what projects are currently worked on and what
projects still wait for somebody to do them. I set up a preliminary
homepage on
http://www-pu.informatik.uni-tuebingen.de/users/ettrich
that just contains this posting yet and a few links. I may setup real
webpages for the very beginning but I would be very happy if I could
concentrate on discussion and coding. So if there is someone out there in
the net who likes to design and maintain webpages, here is a job for him
:)
- Discussion
The most important topic :-) If you are interested please
join the mailing list
k...@fiwi02.wiwi.uni-tuebingen.de
Subscribing can be done by sending a mail with in *Body*:
subscribe
to
kde-requ...@fiwi02.wiwi.uni-tuebingen.de.
- Applications
When the KDE gets widely accepted, new (free) applications will hopefully
be based on Qt, too, to fit with the comfortable and pleasant look and
feel of the desktop.
We may for example port LyX to Qt, so that a comfortable wordprocessor is
available. But that is still in discussion in the LyX Team.
A nice vector-orientated drawing tool would also be fine. Well, Xfig is a
powerful but ugly monster. But there is "tgif", a very powerful, easy to
use but ugly program. The author don't like the idea of adding a Qt GUI
for the menus, icons and scrollbars, since Qt is C++ and he wants to keep
tgif plain C, since on some sites no C++ compiler is available. Well, the
KDE doesn't really aim on these old and weird UNIX boxes (also I think a
g++ is almost everywhere available). But maybe the tgif-author agrees when
somebody else adds a nice GUI to tgif (the sources are free, don't know
wether this is GPL). Since tgif yet implements its own GUI this shouldn't
be too difficult. It's really easy with Qt to access plain Xlib
functionality and functions, so not very much will have to be rewritten.
Also C++ makes it very easy to include plain C code.
What about an easy to use, nice newsreader similar to knews? Could also be
integrated into the KDE. ... and ... and ... and.
So there is a lot of work (and fun) to do! If you are interested, please
join the mailing list. If we get about 20-30 people we could start. And
probably before 24th December the net-community will give itself another
nice and longtime-needed gift.
The stuff will be distributed under the terms of the GPL.
I admit the whole thing sounds a bit like fantasy. But it is very serious
from my side. Everybody I'm talking to in the net would LOVE a somewhat
cleaner desktop. Qt is the chance to realize this. So let us join our rare
sparetime and just do it!
Hopefully looking foward to lots of followups and replies!
Regards,
Matthias Ettrich
(ettr...@informatik.uni-tuebingen.de)
BTW: Usually these postings get a lot of answers like "Use a Mac if you want
a GUI, CLI rules!", "I like thousands of different widgets-libraries on my
desktop, if you are too stupid to learn them, you should use windoze", "RAM
prices are so low, I only use static motif programs", "You will never
succeed, so better stop before the beginning", "Why Qt? I prefer
schnurz-purz-widgets with xyz-lisp-shell. GPL! Check it out!", etc. Thanks
for not sending these as followup to this posting :-) I know I'm a
dreamer...
BTW2: You might wonder why I'm so against Tk. Well, I don't like the
philosophy: Tk's doesn't have a textwidget, for example, but a slow
wordprocessor. Same with other widgets. In combination with TCL the programs
become slow and ugly (of course there are exceptions). I didn't yet see any
application that uses Tk from C++ or C, although an API seems to exist.
TCL/TK is very usefull for prototyping. Ideal for example for kernel
configuration. And since Tk looks little similar to Motif, the widgets are
also quite easy to use. But I really don't like any TCL/Tk application to
stay permanantly on the desktop. And Qt is much easier (at least as easy) to
program. Check it out!
BTW3: I don't have any connections to Troll Tech, I just like their product
(look at the sources: really high quality!) and their kind of marketing:
free sourcecode for free software.
From: kcab...@freenet.columbus.oh.us (Kevin Cabral)
Subject: Re: New Project: Kool Desktop Environment. Programmers wanted!
Date: 1996/10/14
Message-ID: <53u4s3$mc4@login.freenet.columbus.oh.us>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 189397981
references: <53tkvv$b4j@newsserv.zdv.uni-tuebingen.de>
followup-to: comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.os.linux.misc,de.comp.os.linux.misc
organization: The Greater Columbus FreeNet
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.os.linux.misc,de.comp.os.linux.misc
Matthias Ettrich (ettr...@ti-ibm03.informatik.uni-tuebingen.de) wrote:
: -------------------------------------------
: New Project: Kool Desktop Environment (KDE)
: -------------------------------------------
:
: Programmers wanted!
: Motivation
: ----------
: Unix popularity grows thanks to the free variants, mostly Linux. But still a
: consistant, nice looking free desktop-environment is missing. There are
: several nice either free or low-priced applications available, so that
: Linux/X11 would almost fit everybody needs if we could offer a real GUI.
Matthias,
I think that nice looking window managers are wonderful, but a
more worthwhile project for programmers in the Linux community would be to
create a FreeCDE system. I personally would much rather have a unified
print and drag-and-drop API than another pretty window manager.
BTW: I hope you will consider porting LyX over to Qt in the future, and I
hope that The Gimp will also join it in moving to more open libraries.
Kevin
From: nall <n...@spike.cs.duke.edu>
Subject: Re: New Project: Kool Desktop Environment. Programmers wanted!
Date: 1996/10/14
Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.3.93.961014153239.24004A-100000@spike.cs.duke.edu>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 189401822
references: <53tkvv$b4j@newsserv.zdv.uni-tuebingen.de>
content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
organization: Duke University Department of Computer Science
mime-version: 1.0
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.os.linux.misc,de.comp.os.linux.misc
>
> I really believed that is even yet possible with Linux until I configured my
> girlfriends Box.
was 'configuring your girlfriends' "box"' really that traumatic? <grin>
nall.
--
jonathan n. nall n...@cs.duke.edu
they say your eyes are the same color as they always were.
that kind of information just floors me...
http://www.duke.edu/~jnn/mountain_goats/mg.html
From: Brian Kimball <brian_kimb...@hmc.edu>
Subject: Re: New Project: Kool Desktop Environment. Programmers wanted!
Date: 1996/10/14
Message-ID: <3262B49F.3F019EA1@hmc.edu>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 189608404
references: <53tkvv$b4j@newsserv.zdv.uni-tuebingen.de>
to: Matthias Ettrich <ettr...@ti-ibm03.informatik.uni-tuebingen.de>
content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
organization: The Claremont Colleges
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x-mailer: Mozilla 3.0 (X11; I; Linux 2.0.22 i686)
Matthias Ettrich wrote:
> IMHO a GUI should offer a complete, graphical environment. It should allow a
> users to do his everyday tasks with it, like starting applications, reading
> mail, configuring his desktop, editing some files, delete some files, look
> at some pictures, etc. All parts must fit together and work together. A
> nice button with a nice "Editor"-icon isn't not at all a graphical user
> environment if it invokes "xterm -e vi". Maybe you have been disappointed
> long time ago too, when you installed X with a nice window manager, clicked
> on that beautiful "Help"-Icon ... chrk chrk (the hard disk)...an ugly,
> unsuable, weird xman appeared on the desktop :-(
Wow. That brings back memories of my first X experience. <shudder>
> Since a few weeks a really great new widget library is available free in
> source and price for free software development. Check out
> http://www.troll.no
Also check out http://www.mlsoft.com/xml/xml.html for some cool motif
add-ons.
The widget library is free for linux.
I seem to remember people working on the fvwm95 project also doing some
kind of integrated file manager that resembles the win95 file windows.
I think this included possible file-icons on the desktop.
My impression is that a bunch of people just recently realized that the
current linux/X situation really bites and they all decided to start
their own little projects. It would be nice to see people buckle down
and focus on one common project (like the KDE). I think this would add
a lot of value to linux. Good luck dude.
Brian
From: ettr...@ti-ibm01.informatik.uni-tuebingen.de (Matthias Ettrich)
Subject: Re: New Project: Kool Desktop Environment. Programmers wanted!
Date: 1996/10/15
Message-ID: <53vjus$n1j@newsserv.zdv.uni-tuebingen.de>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 189547351
references: <53tkvv$b4j@newsserv.zdv.uni-tuebingen.de>
<53u4s3$mc4@login.freenet.columbus.oh.us>
organization: InterNetNews at ZDV Uni-Tuebingen
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.os.linux.misc,de.comp.os.linux.misc
Kevin Cabral (kcab...@freenet.columbus.oh.us) wrote:
: Matthias Ettrich (ettr...@ti-ibm03.informatik.uni-tuebingen.de) wrote:
: : -------------------------------------------
: : New Project: Kool Desktop Environment (KDE)
: : -------------------------------------------
: :
: : Programmers wanted!
: : Motivation
: : ----------
: : Unix popularity grows thanks to the free variants, mostly Linux. But still a
: : consistant, nice looking free desktop-environment is missing. There are
: : several nice either free or low-priced applications available, so that
: : Linux/X11 would almost fit everybody needs if we could offer a real GUI.
: Matthias,
: I think that nice looking window managers are wonderful, but a
: more worthwhile project for programmers in the Linux community would be to
: create a FreeCDE system. I personally would much rather have a unified
: print and drag-and-drop API than another pretty window manager.
I'm not talking about yet-another window manager. I'm talking about
an Qt-based environment similar to the CDE. Qt yet doesn't have
a drag-and-drop API. I'm not sure when it will come. But of course
this would be a nice project. Join and do that API!
(as a sideeffect and for testing purpose maybe also the filemanager
comes out...)
: BTW: I hope you will consider porting LyX over to Qt in the future, and I
: hope that The Gimp will also join it in moving to more open libraries.
: Kevin
Greets,
Matthias
From: ettr...@ti-ibm01.informatik.uni-tuebingen.de (Matthias Ettrich)
Subject: Re: New Project: Kool Desktop Environment. Programmers wanted!
Date: 1996/10/15
Message-ID: <53vkaq$n1j@newsserv.zdv.uni-tuebingen.de>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 189546592
references: <53tkvv$b4j@newsserv.zdv.uni-tuebingen.de>
<Pine.SOL.3.93.961014153239.24004A-100000@spike.cs.duke.edu>
followup-to: comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.os.linux.misc,de.comp.os.linux.misc
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nall (n...@spike.cs.duke.edu) wrote:
: >
: > I really believed that is even yet possible with Linux until I configured my
: > girlfriends Box.
: was 'configuring your girlfriends' "box"' really that traumatic? <grin>
yes, unfortunatly :-( I needed several hours and the result isn't as
good as I expected. Anyway she now works with it but she doesn't really
believe my claims anymore that this system could sometime be something
for everybody. Well, one might argue that it's enough if Linux/X11 fits
for me. But as a computer-science student who will maybe end up as a
programmer (who knows) I really would like more marketshare for Unix
so that I will not have to write software for strange other systems.
Don't grin, this could happen to everybody. someday. ;)
Matthias
BTW: But I want a nice environment for myself, too, of course.
: nall.
:
: --
: jonathan n. nall n...@cs.duke.edu
: they say your eyes are the same color as they always were.
: that kind of information just floors me...
: http://www.duke.edu/~jnn/mountain_goats/mg.html
From: warw...@cs.uq.edu.au (Warwick Allison)
Subject: Re: New Project: Kool Desktop Environment. Programmers wanted!
Date: 1996/10/16
Message-ID: <5420ac$4ab@miso.cs.uq.edu.au>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 189749982
references: <53tkvv$b4j@newsserv.zdv.uni-tuebingen.de>
<53u4s3$mc4@login.freenet.columbus.oh.us>
<53vjus$n1j@newsserv.zdv.uni-tuebingen.de> <54089i$nnt@news.u-bordeaux.fr>
<gknsp7gns3x.fsf@nortel.ca> <540j1o$s58@newstand.syr.edu>
organization: Computer Science Dept, University of Queensland
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.os.linux.misc
1. Qt DOES have the Motif Look-and-Feel (unless you run your applications
with "-style windows", in which case they ... ... <shudder>, I can't say it)
2. Motif is resource-unfriendly - you have to either statically link (ie. big
ugly slow binaries), or EVERY user pays for the libraries.
3. Qt source is available, and is written in C++, so you can trivially change
the library behaviour WITHOUT CHANGING THE SOURCE. Anyone who disagrees
with this point doesn't have a clue about C++.
4. All Qt-based applications can be distributed freely for X11 on any Unix
environment to which Qt has been ported (all popular variants, and some more
obscure).
Anyway, this has been over and over before - why do so many people in this
group still not have a clue? Probably because far too many just TALK about
what others should do and about the relative merits of various toolkits,
but don't actually DO any programming, so the same old have-heard rubbish
is repeated over and over.
--
Warwick
[yeah, I'm a little ticked]
--
_-_|\ warw...@cs.uq.edu.au ---------------------------------------
/ * <- Comp Sci Department, Hackers do it with fewer instructions
\_.-._/ Univ. of Queensland, ---------------------------------------
v Brisbane, Australia. URL: http://student.uq.edu.au/~s002434
From: G Sumner Hayes <sumn...@CMU.EDU>
Subject: Re: New Project: Kool Desktop Environment. Programmers wanted!
Date: 1996/10/16
Message-ID: <0mN_fs200YUf0=lnU0@andrew.cmu.edu>
X-Deja-AN: 189774532
references: <53tkvv$b4j@newsserv.zdv.uni-tuebingen.de>
<53u4s3$mc4@login.freenet.columbus.oh.us>
<53vjus$n1j@newsserv.zdv.uni-tuebingen.de> <54089i$nnt@news.u-bordeaux.fr>
<gknsp7gns3x.fsf@nortel.ca> <540j1o$s58@newstand.syr.edu>
organization: Sophomore, Mathematics, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.linux.development.apps
If Troll Tech and their lawyers are out there, they might want to read
through to the end of this posting. It describes a number of
relatively large legal loopholes in the licensing agreement; a
combination of these loopholes could possibly (I'm not a lawyer,
though I may be some year) allow the development of commercial
applications for Windows 95 (or NT, or MacOS,...) under the "free Qt
license". Oops.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. All of the below information may be
incorrect. I assume no liability for damages caused by incorrect
information in this message.
warw...@cs.uq.edu.au (Warwick Allison) writes:
>
> 4. All Qt-based applications can be distributed freely for X11 on any Unix
> environment to which Qt has been ported (all popular variants, and some more
> obscure).
Actually, this is not quite true and is something which has always
mystified me. The Qt free-software license agreement specifies the
following (among other things), which has a number of somewhat strange
consequences listed below:
> COPYRIGHT AND RESTRICTIONS
>
> The Qt toolkit is a product of Troll Tech AS. This license is limited to
> use on computers running the X Window System.
It does not specify that the license agreement applies only to Unix
systems; bear in mind that Unix is a trademark, and I don't know if
Linux has the right to call itself "Unix" or not. Certainly there are
things like VMS and the Hurd which run the X Window System but are not
Unix; the free Qt license applies to them. That's not where it ends,
though; there are several bogus factors here that should be cleared
up.
1. It is technically illegal for me to install Qt on my Linux machine
unless I start X first; the computer must be "running the X Window
System".
2. If I start X on one console, but then run Dosemu on another
console and run Windows 3.1 under Dosemu, it is technically legal for
me to develop Windows applications under free Qt. Similarly, I could
use Wine/WABI (if they're ever available and functional) with gcc
(which can cross-compile Win32 apps) to develop Windows apps from
Unix; according to the licensing agreement those applications do not
need to be X applications. The machine simply has to be "running the
X Window System".
3. If I install or MicroX (or another X server) on my Windows machine
or MacX on my Macintosh and run them, it is technically legal for me
to develop Windows or Macintosh applications under free Qt, even if
the applications are not X applications (since the machine _is_
"running the X Window System".)
4. More realistically, it is perfectly legal to develop X
applications if I am running PM/X or XFree86 under OS/2.
I don't mind any of the above except #1, but they seem to be clear
violations of the spirit of the licensing agreement (except perhaps
#4). I doubt it would be easy to implement the Windows-specific (or
Mac-specific) code needed to exploit #2 or #3, but it is technically
legal so long as the Qt core code isn't modified. I really don't see
why free software for Windows or OS/2 or MacOS or the Amiga or any
other platform is disallowed (especially when free software for
Solaris or HP/UX, also commercial OSes, is allowed), either, but c'est
la guerre.
Another bogosity is in the following:
> You may use the Qt toolkit to create application programs provided that:
> - You accept this license.
> - Your software does not require modifications to Qt.
What if my software does not _require_ modifications to Qt, but will
benefit from them?
Example #1: I find a bug in the Qt draw widget. I'm writing a paint
program. I distribute a patch to Qt with my program. The patch isn't
required, but without it the program may be buggy. Obviously I would
send the patch to Troll Tech, but if they for some reason decided to
abandon the free version it would be nice for this to remain an
option. Under the current scheme, it is a legal option; I would like
to see it remain legal.
Example #2: I write Windows extensions to Qt which require a
modification here and there to the Makefile. I write free apps on my
machine using loophole #2 or #3 from above. I distribute the software
and the Windows extensions. The software doesn't require the Windows
extensions, but they do allow it to run on additional platforms.
Hmm... I don't mind this, but the Troll Techies might want to
consider it.
Another problem, this one more alarming:
> You may use the Qt toolkit to create application programs provided that:
[Above conditions snipped to avoid repetition]
> - You satisfy ONE of the following three requirements
> EITHER
> Users of your software can obtain source code for the software, freely
> modify the source code (possibly with restrictions on copyright
> notices, attributions and legal responsibility), and freely
> redistribute original or modified versions of the software.
[Or the GPL is used, or the LGPL is used]
This first condition expressly permits me to do the following:
1. Write KillerQtApp, a super awesome Word Processor/Web Browser/C
Compiler/Spreadsheet rolled into one. Release KillerQtApp into the
public domain, but only upload it to Bob, my partner at KillerSoftware
Inc.
2. KillerQtApp is in the public domain. This more than satisfies the
free criterion of Qt's licensing agreement. Bob can now take it
(since it is in the public domain) and release a copy under
KillerSoftware, Inc's highly restrictive commercial licensing
agreement even without changing a single line of code or recompiling.
If I give Bob a binary of KillarQtApp, he won't be using Qt to do any
of the development or creation of the commercial app; he'll just be
changing the licensing scheme, which is perfectly legit. In fact, the
Qt free license implicitly allows this sort of behaviour by insisting
that my users (Bob) be allowed to distribute modified versions of the
software.
I may even be allowed to develop Qt apps in the public domain on
my own hard drive, compile them, then change the licensing scheme
myself; this is much more legally questionable, though.
More sophisticated exploits of this sort which stand an even better
chance of being upheld in court exist, too.
*sigh* American law is so strange. It's really obvious what you
mean, but your legal statements aren't airtight and I think it's
highly possible for the sort of thing I outline above to be ruled
legal by U.S. courts. I could be wrong, though.
I like Qt. I like Troll Tech. They seem to be honestly supporting
free software. I wish them the best of luck in clearing up this sort
of legal mumbo jumbo so they can continue to work on a great widget
set.
Disclaimer: I refuse any legal liability for any damage caused by
misinformation in this post.
TTFN,
Sumner Hayes
sum...@cmu.edu
From: Arnt Gulbrandsen <agul...@troll.no>
Subject: Re: New Project: Kool Desktop Environment. Programmers wanted!
Date: 1996/10/16
Message-ID: <d6wk9sr6npb.fsf@lupinella.troll.no>
X-Deja-AN: 189817957
sender: agul...@lupinella.troll.no
references: <53tkvv$b4j@newsserv.zdv.uni-tuebingen.de>
organization: Troll Tech AS, fax +47 22646949, http://www.troll.no
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.linux.development.apps
G Sumner Hayes <sumn...@CMU.EDU>
> If Troll Tech and their lawyers are out there, they might want to read
> through to the end of this posting. It describes a number of
> relatively large legal loopholes in the licensing agreement; a
> combination of these loopholes could possibly (I'm not a lawyer,
> though I may be some year) allow the development of commercial
> applications for Windows 95 (or NT, or MacOS,...) under the "free Qt
> license". Oops.
When we chose to release the source, we knew that would leave us wide
open. There are some small license holes, there more or less have to
be in order to make Qt usable for free software, and it's very very
easy for the dishonest to simply ignore the license.
If we can make a decent living from the honest _and_ provide a good
GUI toolkit for the unix/x11 free software community, we're satisifed.
> It does not specify that the license agreement applies only to Unix
> systems; bear in mind that Unix is a trademark, and I don't know if
> Linux has the right to call itself "Unix" or not. Certainly there are
> things like VMS and the Hurd which run the X Window System but are not
> Unix; the free Qt license applies to them. That's not where it ends,
> though; there are several bogus factors here that should be cleared
> up.
If you want to use Qt on unicos, the Hurd, QNX, linux or something
else which runs X11 but isn't Spec 1170-certified, that's okay. The
X11 version of Qt is for X11, not for unix.
> 1. It is technically illegal for me to install Qt on my Linux machine
> unless I start X first; the computer must be "running the X Window
> System".
In our opinion, no. If you really want to pick nits about the meaning
of "run": When you install Qt, your CPU is necessarily installing Qt,
not running X.
> 2. If I start X on one console, but then run Dosemu on another
> console and run Windows 3.1 under Dosemu, it is technically legal for
> me to develop Windows applications under free Qt.
>
> 3. If I install or MicroX (or another X server) on my Windows machine
> or MacX on my Macintosh and run them, it is technically legal for me
> to develop Windows or Macintosh applications under free Qt, even if
> the applications are not X applications (since the machine _is_
> "running the X Window System".)
Technically legal, but you'd need the Windows version of Qt to
compile. And there isn't any free software license for the Windows
version.
> 4. More realistically, it is perfectly legal to develop X
> applications if I am running PM/X or XFree86 under OS/2.
Certainly.
> I don't mind any of the above except #1, but they seem to be clear
> violations of the spirit of the licensing agreement (except perhaps
> #4). I doubt it would be easy to implement the Windows-specific (or
> Mac-specific) code needed to exploit #2 or #3, but it is technically
> legal so long as the Qt core code isn't modified. I really don't see
> why free software for Windows or OS/2 or MacOS or the Amiga or any
> other platform is disallowed (especially when free software for
> Solaris or HP/UX, also commercial OSes, is allowed), either, but c'est
> la guerre.
We like the Unix/X11 free software community.
> Another bogosity is in the following:
>
> > You may use the Qt toolkit to create application programs provided that:
> > - You accept this license.
> > - Your software does not require modifications to Qt.
>
> What if my software does not _require_ modifications to Qt, but will
> benefit from them?
>
> Example #1: I find a bug in the Qt draw widget. I'm writing a paint
> program. I distribute a patch to Qt with my program. The patch isn't
> required, but without it the program may be buggy. Obviously I would
> send the patch to Troll Tech, but if they for some reason decided to
> abandon the free version it would be nice for this to remain an
> option. Under the current scheme, it is a legal option; I would like
> to see it remain legal.
(There isn't a "draw widget" in Qt.)
Is there any way we might reassure you that the free license isn't
going away in any future version of Qt, _without_ further endangering
our ability to sell professional licenses?
Statement of company policy: We will continue to release new versions
of Qt for X11 for free software use.
> Example #2: I write Windows extensions to Qt which require a
> modification here and there to the Makefile. I write free apps on my
> machine using loophole #2 or #3 from above. I distribute the software
> and the Windows extensions. The software doesn't require the Windows
> extensions, but they do allow it to run on additional platforms.
> Hmm... I don't mind this, but the Troll Techies might want to
> consider it.
Right. Of course, in real life you'd probably buy a professional
license rather than spend a year writing something which people may
not be allowed to use with future versions of Qt.
> Another problem, this one more alarming:
<alarming problem deleted for brevity>
> More sophisticated exploits of this sort which stand an even better
> chance of being upheld in court exist, too.
Sure - but _is_ there any way to allow free software development in
all its strange varieties while disallowing everything else?
Personally, I think your fictional pal would be flamed to the south
pole by the c.o.l.* readers. If he's rational and wants to make a
profit, he might choose to buy a commercial license. It's not that
expensive, after all.
> *sigh* American law is so strange. It's really obvious what you
> mean, but your legal statements aren't airtight and I think it's
> highly possible for the sort of thing I outline above to be ruled
> legal by U.S. courts. I could be wrong, though.
Right or wrong - lawyers' fees are rather steeper than our
professional license.
--Arnt
From: Ingo Luetkebohle <i...@devconsult.de>
Subject: Its always the same with:
"Re: New Project: Kool Desktop Environment. Programmers wanted!"
Date: 1996/10/16
Message-ID: <32651988.35942519@devconsult.de>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 189861406
references: <53tkvv$b4j@newsserv.zdv.uni-tuebingen.de> <3262B49F.3F019EA1@hmc.edu>
content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
organization: dev/consulting GmbH
mime-version: 1.0
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.os.linux.misc,de.comp.os.linux.misc
x-mailer: Mozilla 3.0Gold (X11; I; Linux 2.0.20 i586)
Brian Kimball wrote:
> My impression is that a bunch of people just recently realized that the
> current linux/X situation really bites and they all decided to start
> their own little projects.
Yes, indeed, that is the fact. There exist (at least) the Linux
Interface Project (http://blank.pages.de/lip/subscribe.html for ml
information), OpenStep (a.k.a GNUstep), the Gtk group (with a slightly
different focus), a project of the Free Software Union, EZWGL and some
others I probably forgot.
And the dicussion is always the same. I have seen a posting from Warwick
Allison which boils down to a pretty good explanation of why people
choose Qt. He and I had some heated discussions about why _not_ to
choose Qt on the lip mailing list so if you need reasons for that, look
at the archive. I also traced the discussion that erupted once Peter
Mattis and Spencer Kimball announced their Gtk toolkit. It was
remarkably similiar to what I see here (e.g. "There are already many
good toolkits: Tk, XForms, Lesstif, Qt, etc").
The bottom line is, I'm rather tired now, from hearing the same
arguments again and again. I consider it especially interesting that
Matthias, for all the good has done otherwise, didn't even consider it
necessary to check if there are already any projects out which do what
he wants to do. I would be perfectly willing to take back my
suggestions, even if I consider them better, if that results in one
common project and I believe that many of the programmers currently with
the LIP are of the same opinion.
Unfortunately, many other people don't see the necessity to have one
common project. As long as that isn't the case, we will probably have to
just go along and chose among the things that evolve. This is rather
similiar to the way things have gone in the past with other standards
(TCP/IP for example) so this might not be the worst way to choose. I
fear, though, that it may be the slowest way to choose.
> It would be nice to see people buckle down
> and focus on one common project (like the KDE). I think this would add
> a lot of value to linux. Good luck dude.
I heartily agree. Lets get together folks and stop bitching.
---Ingo
From: G Sumner Hayes <sumn...@CMU.EDU>
Subject: Re: New Project: Kool Desktop Environment. Programmers wanted!
Date: 1996/10/16
Message-ID: <0mNEgE200YUg0LMrw0@andrew.cmu.edu>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 189920261
references: <53tkvv$b4j@newsserv.zdv.uni-tuebingen.de>
organization: Sophomore, Mathematics, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.linux.development.apps
Arnt Gulbrandsen <agul...@troll.no> writes:
>
> When we chose to release the source, we knew that would leave us wide
> open. There are some small license holes, there more or less have to
> be in order to make Qt usable for free software, and it's very very
> easy for the dishonest to simply ignore the license.
Okay, sounds good. I have no problems adhering to the spirit of the
agreement, but I also have a twisted mind that likes to look for
loopholes. I just thought I'd point them out in case you hadn't
considered this.
TTFN,
Sumner