3 ms·

> Does anyone have insights into the possible motivation behind this? I consider the following as possible reasons: 1. GTK+ is completely (GNOME) community ow

> Does anyone have insights into the possible motivation behind this? I consider the following as possible reasons: 1. GTK+ is completely (GNOME) community owned (QT is a company owned, which companies like to avoid) 2. QT is LGPLv3+/GPLv3+. This, I assume, is to encourage buying commercial license than promoting free software. GTK+ is LGPLv2.1+, a lot of individual/small team developers prefer [L]GPLv2 over [LA]GPLv3. 3. Accessibility is pretty bad in GNU/Linux in general. But if there is one, the only choice is AT-SPI[0]. It's a GNOME project. I think KDE is a bit behind (I'm not sure though). 4. GNOME, GTK+ are GNU projects (Or many people prefer GNOME because it's a GNU project). I have seen many people in our Free Software User Group using GNOME just because of this. > Gnome is approaching a crisis point, stripping away features as the debt comes due for bad design decisions made We have seen a lot of software pieces whose development stalls, just because the code complexity increases way beyond some limit, or the main developer quits. Many (vocal) users prefer well configurable software pieces - but it comes with a high price. Many implement every possible feature to look the application c00l. But eventually as we gain experience, we may eventually abandon the project just because it's bloated (code wise), or even re-write it with less features, so that the code is more maintainable. If we look the code of many abandoned projects, we can see how bloated the code is, with many hacks, and bad designs. I think GNOME is in the path of porting their applications to maintainable pieces, and eventually adding features as the code gets better. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assistive_Technology_Service_Provider_Interface https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assistive_Technology_Service_P...

alxlaz 8y ago
> 1. GTK+ is completely (GNOME) community owned (QT is a company owned, which companies like to avoid) If avoiding commercial vendors is what you want, do not look at the emails in the GTK commit messages :-). Qt is covered by an agreement with the KDE Free Qt Foundation which ensures that even if the company decides to stop developing it (even in case of bankruptcy or acquisition) or to stop releasing it as open source, the Foundation can release it under an open source license. It's in no worse shape than GTK+ in this regard, except it has more paid developers. > 2. QT is LGPLv3+/GPLv3+. This, I assume, is to encourage buying commercial license than promoting free software. GTK+ is LGPLv2.1+, a lot of individual/small team developers prefer [L]GPLv2 over [LA]GPLv3. This is, legit, the other way 'round. Large companies are the ones preferring GPLv2 over GPLv3 because of the tivoization clause. In the services/consulting industry, ensuring that a BSP is free of (L)GPLv3 components is basically a standard statement in SoWs. Small teams and independent developers sometimes stick with GPLv2 because it has fewer legal pitfalls and they don't mind commercial attention, but it's not in your favour :-). The code complexity of Gnome has been steadily decreasing, not increasing in the last 7-8 years. The impending "crisis" has nothing to do with code complexity and everything to do with how design and implementation decisions were made (and, of course, with many of those decisions).

alxlaz 8y ago

> 1. GTK+ is completely (GNOME) community owned (QT is a company owned, which companies like to avoid) If avoiding commercial vendors is what you want, do not look at the emails in the GTK commit messages :-). Qt is covered by an agreement with the KDE Free Qt Foundation which ensures that even if the company decides to stop developing it (even in case of bankruptcy or acquisition) or to stop releasing it as open source, the Foundation can release it under an open source license. It's in no worse shape than GTK+ in this regard, except it has more paid developers. > 2. QT is LGPLv3+/GPLv3+. This, I assume, is to encourage buying commercial license than promoting free software. GTK+ is LGPLv2.1+, a lot of individual/small team developers prefer [L]GPLv2 over [LA]GPLv3. This is, legit, the other way 'round. Large companies are the ones preferring GPLv2 over GPLv3 because of the tivoization clause. In the services/consulting industry, ensuring that a BSP is free of (L)GPLv3 components is basically a standard statement in SoWs. Small teams and independent developers sometimes stick with GPLv2 because it has fewer legal pitfalls and they don't mind commercial attention, but it's not in your favour :-). The code complexity of Gnome has been steadily decreasing, not increasing in the last 7-8 years. The impending "crisis" has nothing to do with code complexity and everything to do with how design and implementation decisions were made (and, of course, with many of those decisions).