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If GNOME did not exist, KDE would have been commercial ( Qt at least ). To prevent that, an alternative to GNOME would have arisen. If KDE had not started with

If GNOME did not exist, KDE would have been commercial ( Qt at least ). To prevent that, an alternative to GNOME would have arisen. If KDE had not started with this flaw, I would agree with you. For the most part, the Linux Desktop has been a majority using some variation of GNOME with a dedicated minority using KDE. I have not used “GNOME” since the 2.x days but I have always been in the GNOME world. Even XFCE is really another base for GNOME. I have not used KDE since the 2.x days either but current Plasma is pretty good and I do not mind it. I put Big Linux on a laptop and have not taken its version on KDE off yet.

still_grokking 4y ago
> If GNOME did not exist, KDE would have been commercial ( Qt at least ). To prevent that, an alternative to GNOME would have arisen. KDE wouldn't be commercial. Qt didn't have the ideal license back than but you could use it free. At the point KDE would be the de facto standard Unix desktop there would have been enough power behind that to arrive in the end at the exact same compromise regarding Qt that we have now, I'm quite sure. There was no need to split the Unix desktop forever, and cause infinite pain as a result, by invoking the nuclear option, which the Gnome people did! And given the further background story of one of the most prominent people behind that whole story you can even construct a reasonably believable "conspiracy theory" around the things that happened… ;-)