[Desktop_architects] Portland: The Linux Desktop IntegrationInterface

[George Staikos]

On Monday 05 December 2005 01:01, Brooks, Phil wrote:
> As an attendee at the ISV session, the ISV issue of two widget development
> environments was certainly a point of contention between the ISVs (there
> should be 1 widget set like on Windows and Mac) vs. reps from the two
> desktops (there isn't any way to do that).

   Again, I have to point out that it's completely untrue that there is only 
one widget set on Mac OS or Windows.  I said it so many times at the meeting, 
and clearly I have to restate it -again-!  There are many:

Mac:
- Carbon
- Cocoa
- Java
- Qt
- wxWidgets

Win:
- Win32
- MFC
- .NET and associated things
- Qt
- Delphi
- wxWidgets

And:
- GTK+ on some of those I think

  Most of those adjust their look and feel to the platform they're running on, 
or extend existing widgets on that platform.  Some are shipped with the 
platform, some are extra downloads, some are ISV products.  Note that on 
Linux, all the widget sets use the same underlying implementation: X11.

  Do ISVs complain to Microsoft that they have even more choice than they do 
on Linux right now?

  What you're doing here is defining an answer to an unspecified question, 
then complaining that this answer isn't a reality.  The question is most 
important, and we will solve it appropriately.

  I think it goes something along the lines of: "What is the interface for 
Linux applications to interface with desktop functionality and services, 
independent of what environment is running?"  The answer to that, is there is 
none yet.  One of the primary goals and outcomes of the meeting we had was to 
define and develop one.

> I wonder in retrospect if the ISV issue would be more accurately voiced as
> there being two second class widget sets.  I mean not that the widget sets
> themselves are in any way flawed, but there is the distinct flavor of the
> development libraries being firmly attached to one or the other desktop and
> being in some way second class on the other desktop.
>
> I wonder if it would be possible, from both a marketing viewpoint, and a
> technical viewpoint, to remove the widget set preference for the desktops
> as far as hosted ISV applications are concerned.  That way, an ISV could
> choose between the widget sets on their own technical merits, and
> (eventually) not worry about that widget set providing a better user
> experience for one desktop and not fitting in well with the other.
>
> What would that take?

   It would require a complete rewrite of both desktops, which is for sure not 
going to happen for a multitude of reasons.  Technically what you ask for is 
already there, it's just that it's not the answer that you, or anyone, want 
to hear.  It's plain Xlib, and that's just not useful. :-)
  
-- 
George Staikos
KDE Developer				http://www.kde.org/
Staikos Computing Services Inc.		http://www.staikos.net/