Linked by on Wed 1st Feb 2006 19:53 UTC
Permalink for comment 92060
RE[4]: segedenum
by thebluesgnr on Thu 2nd Feb 2006 14:35 UTC in reply to "RE[3]: segedenum"
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I'm not Miguel, but I'd like to point out some things to you.

First of all, you mention "all this money is poured into gnome", and that's not exactly what happens. The main reason distributors like Novell and Red Hat hire people to work on a piece of software (GNOME, X, Linux, GCC, Glibc, binutils, OpenOffice, etc) is that it gives them a better position to support that software. They can more easily fix a problem, and they can more easily add a feature that their customers request.


"and many ex-windows users seem to prefer KDE anyway..."

Maybe it's because it' more similar to Windows, heh? The thing is, that may not be the best way to sell a product that competes with Windows. Maybe Novell wants their customers to feel like they're using an exciting different system when they switch to their products, and not like they're using a system that reminds them of Windows. Of course it's important that Windows users will be able to use the software without a lot of problems, and that's why these companies do usability testing with their products.

"just on technical merits, KDE seems ahead"

We covered that already, but I'll mention another thing you seem to be forgetting.
Novell offers Mono and Gtk# with their products, which makes it easier for them to sell them to companies that have software written in .NET; these companies can more easily port their software to GNU/Linux. Novell could also have developed Mono/Qt#, but then their customers would have to pay license fees to Qt, making the Novell offer less interesting. This could even possibly kill the advantage of costs of GNU/Linux compared to Windows.

"i might be mistaken, but it looks like KDE 4 is gonna leave gnome far far behind anyway,"

There's another mistake, indeed. While KDE 4 is being developed and may not be released for another year, GNOME is getting a new release every 6 months with new features and bug fixes. Is there a particular, factual, reason you're so convinced KDE 4 is going to be that much better?

And another thing...
"also considdering Red Hat is and has been throwing money on gnome, too - it would set Novell apart from the competition. "

You're also forgetting Sun. For example, if it wasn't for them GNOME would not be accessible, which you may or may not know is pretty important for Novell and Red Hat too (out of the box GNOME is more accessible than even Windows). Novell would have to duplicate all the work done by Sun and Red Hat if they went with KDE, and for what? They want to be ahead of Microsoft, not Red Hat. The market is a lot bigger for them there.

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