[lsb-discuss] KDE representation
Olaf Schmidt
ojschmidt at kde.org
Sun Aug 7 16:23:02 PDT 2005
Hi!
Today I subscribed to three of the LSB mailing lists as one of probably two
people representing KDE in the LSB.
My name is Olaf Schmidt. I am a member of KDE e.V., co-maintainer of the KDE
Accessibility Project and founder of the freedesktop.org accessibility
initiative. I participate in the FSG accessibility working group, working
closely together with the Gnome Accessibility Projects to define common
standards for accessibility.
I live in Europe, so it will be difficult for me to attend meetings and phone
conferences, but I hope that I can contribute via email.
When will the desktop topics be discussed at the LSB Plenary Meeting tomorrow?
The problem is that the meeting will be from midnight to 4am (German time).
If the desktop is discussed at the beginning of the meeting, then I will call
in. Otherwise I hope my email comments are of help to you.
I am especially interested in giving feedback to the plan to include a single
toolkit in the next version of the standard. The reaction to this has been
very negative in the KDE community.
I am aware of the libQt FAQ. I understand that the reasons not to include Qt
are political objections the copyleft idea and not opposition to KDE for its
own good. My impression is, however, that the LSB is not fully aware of the
results that the political decision to standardise only a single toolkit
would have.
By including a single toolkit in the next version of the standard, the LSB
would make itself a very strong force in the KDE/Gnome debate. It would
alienate itself from large parts of the Linux desktop commmunity, and turn
itself into a powerful weapon of toolkit zealots. It would destroy much of
its credibility.
My suggestion is to include no toolkit in the next version of the LSB
standard. Instead we should only standardise libraries and protocols that are
used for interoperability between the desktops. This would give us time to
work out a better solution and prevent danger to the LSB's credibility.
Cooperation between the KDE and Gnome projects vastly improved in recent
years. My impression is that the toolkit wars are over, and that both KDE and
Gnome will play important roles in the Linux desktop of the future. I don't
want this spirit of good cooperation to be poisened, as would happen
if the LSB restarts the desktop wars by siding with one of the two popular
Linux toolkits.
Olaf Schmidt
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