[thomasvs: Yes, I should have added to my raw notes that I understood how unlikely/impossible (for reasons technical and otherwise) the notion was. However, I still wanted to raise the idea, for whatever good it might do.]

Watching the Gnome/KDE fuss rage on the UserLinux project reminded me of my belief that having these two independant projects is not an advantage for Linux or open source software in general. I also remembered that I wrote some notes on this subject a few months ago, in preparation for an article I wanted to write on the subject. That never got done, and I have little time for it now.

Now that the topic is hot, I thought that I'd put my notes here on Advogato and that that might spark some discussion of the problem. They are very brief, unformed, inconclusive -- just notes, in other words. I hope they will soon be expanded on.

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Why The Independant Existence of Gnome & KDE is Bad For Linux
=============================================================

 
 
 * Gnome and KDE, to all intents and purposes, do the very same thing
    * this provides not choice, but the /appearance/ of choice
    * this kind of choice is not a help, but a hindrance, overall
        * like a babel of tongues
    * for choice, users have the standalone window managers
        * IceWM
        * Windowmaker
        * Evolution
        * Xfce
        * [Black|Flux|Open]box
        * many more

 
 
 * massive duplication of effort
    * duplication of
        * office suites
            * KDE -- Koffice
            * Gnome -- Gnome Office
        * feature-full graphical email clients
            * KDE -- Kmail
            * Gnome -- Evolution
        * desktop/file manager
            * KDE -- konqueror
            * Gnome -- Nautilus
        * component-sharing system
            * KDE -- kparts
            * Gnome -- Bonobo
    * that effort could be spent elsewhere
    * this is also duplication of functionality that probably confuses new
      users

 
 
     http://linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=6476&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

 
 
 * inconsistent end-user experience
    * often very inconsistent look-n-feel

 
 
 * "The competition is healthy." 
    * We don't need competition in the realm of the FLOSS desktop. 
      We need more cooperation -- there's plenty of real competition out there.
    * The clash of loyalties creates a lot of unnecessary waste.
      Waste of time, energy, good will, etc.