On Jan 2, 2008 12:11 PM, Brian Cameron <Brian.Cameron at sun.com> wrote: > Orvar: > > > As I understand it, JDS is Gnome. > > Note quite true. JDS is the "desktop". This includes GNOME, but also > includes other desktop applications and interfaces which are not a part > of the GNOME umbrella. For example: > > - Firefox, Thunderbird > - RealPlayer > - SourceForge applications like gtkam, gphoto, gthumb > - FreeDesktop interfaces such as D-Bus, GStreamer, cairo, etc. > - Other dependencies which are used by the desktop, but are not a part > of GNOME, such as Xiph.org codecs. > - JDS also contains quite a bit of branding changes (themes, and code > changes to enable branding). > - Other things I'm sure I am not thinking of. > > So, it isn't completely accurate to equate JDS with GNOME. > > > And as I understand it, OpenSolaris will be using newer versions of > Gnome > > whenever it will be available. Hence the beta status of Open Solaris. > > There is paperwork associated with getting new versions of GNOME into > OpenSolaris. At times, this does slightly delay getting new versions > of GNOME into OpenSolaris. The delays have been quite small the past > few GNOME updates, but I wouldn't say that this will always be the case. > > For example, when GNOME interfaces change significantly in a way that > causes things to break on Solaris/OpenSolaris, this can cause delays. > This happened, for example, when HAL and D-Bus were added as a hard > dependency to GNOME. I think it took us a few months to get all the > related issues sorted. > > > The reason Solaris is not using KDE is because KDE is changing the > > API and stuff, making it hard to support KDE. Gnome is better in > > that aspect. This is what I heard. > > The original reasons why Sun chose GNOME over KDE are: > > - At the time Sun made the decision GNOME was free software, and Qt was > not. Now Qt and KDE is also free, but this change happened after Sun > already invested quite some time integrating GNOME into Solaris. > > - KDE uses C++, which is not binary compatible across compilers. This > causes more problems for Sun than other GNOME distros since Sun ships > its own Sun Studio compiler. So, going with KDE adds complication in > that you either support just one compiler or you provide a set of > libraries built with all compilers you want to support (probably gcc > and Sun Studio are the most popular). > > - Sun has invested a lot of effort in making GNOME accessible, support > Solaris interfaces, and meet Solaris distribution requirements (such > as documentaiton, translation, etc.). KDE would probably require a > good bit of work to meet these requirements as well. > > There is a community working to make KDE available for > Solaris/OpenSolaris. I would imagine that Sun would consider accepting > KDE into OpenSolaris if people were interested in going through the > processes. Based on our experience with GNOME, I'd imagine that getting > KDE through ARC, and making sure it meets all OpenSolaris distribution > requirements would be a fair bit of work, though. > > http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/desktop/communities/kde/ > http://solaris.kde.org/
I believe licensing still remains a concern for Sun as well. Currently, developing applications with Qt so they integrate *fully* and *natively* with KDE requires the use of Qt. This means that you either have to license Qt, or release your code under a GPL-compatible license. Trolltech previously had a note on their website allowing any OSI-approved license to use Qt under the QPL, but has since changed that text to require GPL-compatible licenses. Thus, GNOME's choice of toolkit and licensing, I suspect, is still a consideration as well. GNOME also has a very predictable release schedule that makes it easier to schedule integrations, test, etc. -- Shawn Walker, Software and Systems Analyst http://binarycrusader.blogspot.com/ "To err is human -- and to blame it on a computer is even more so." - Robert Orben
