Matt’s Blog of Truth

Nokia announced recently, that it plans to release it’s newly acquired Linux Free and Open Source graphics library under the LGPL. (Lesser General Public License). Previously, Qt was developed and owed by a small company called, Troll Tech. Troll Tech sold Qt under restrictive corporate licenses, therefore, stifling it’s potential wide acceptance in the Free and Open Source Community that builds Linux and thousands of other Applications under it’s development model.

This is VERY good news, because Qt is the graphics library that KDE (the K Desktop Environment ) uses. KDE is second in popularity only to the GNOME Linux Desktop.

KDE developers, over a year ago, did a complete over haul, mainly to exploit Qt version 4’s amazing, newly added graphics capabilities and cross platform support. As a result, KDE 4.0 has a beautiful polished look and feel, making Desktop Linux shine brilliantly.

However, all was not rosy getting to this point. Initially, KDE 4.0 was intended to be a developer release, which contained known bugs and incompatibilities. Unfortunately, the major Linux Distributions (Ubuntu, openSUSE, Mandriva and more) did not take note of this, and released their KDE4.0 Linux Desktop, as being 100% End User ready. This created an up roar of ‘KDE 4.0 Sucks’ and endless blogosphere comments and slanders about the state and future of KDE 4.0, as a result of this mistake. In other words, KDE 4.0 was not intended (by the KDE release team) to be released as a 100% stable version.

But, now that KDE 4.2 RC was released this week, it is the version that KDE developers are saying ‘End users SHOULD use’ and the KDE version the Major Distros SHOULD have used in their initial Official release, to replace the older KDE 3.5 version.

Also, with the great news, that Nokia has released KDE’s graphics library (Qt 4.5) as completely Free and Open Source, KDE 4.2+ is expected to explode in size. Both in terms of contributions (developers and artists) and End Users.

For years, GNOME Linux Desktop Environment has been the top Linux Desktop, for many reasons. One reason being that GNOME’s graphic library (GTK) was released as true Free and Open Source Software, resulting in a lot of community backing. GNOME however, has been pegged as ‘too plain and simple looking’ and not up to par with modern looking Desktops, to stand side by side with Apple Mac’s and Microsoft’s Vista shiny modern look.

Not any more… KDE 4.2+ is set to replace GNOME as the top Linux Desktop Environment. KDE 4.2+ looks damn good. Not only that, but it is also easier to use than KDE 3.5, with a focus on making the configuration options and menu system, easier to navigate and manage.

GTK (GNOME’s graphic Library) is also pegged as not being sophisticated enough, in that, it is programmed in strait C and not C++. C++ is a modern ‘Object Orientated Programming’ language. Qt is programmed using C++. C++ reveals it’s power, with complex software, by making it easier to program complex programming concepts, which C lacks. Others argue that strait C is more efficient, than C++. But, it can not be argued, that C++, if done right, can make a programmer’s life easier.

Look out Apple and Microsoft… KDE and Qt are on their way to making some major heads turn.

On September 27, 1983, 25 years ago, a man named, Richard M. Stallman started his own foundation and project, called the GNU Project. The FSF or Free Software Foundation acts as the foundation for the GNU Project.

GNU stands for GNU is Not Unix — a recursive acronym — which aims to complete a 100% free Unix like operating system.

GNU never was able to complete a kernel, so Linus Torvalds Licensed his Linux Kernel under a GNU License, called the GPL or General Public License.

Since than the world of software and in general changed forever, and never looked back. Today, GNU and Linux, have now been taken seriously as an alternative to proprietary software. It runs major Financial Institutions, NASA missions, embedded in everything from toasters to cars, but GNU tools and the Linux Kernel are best known for being the platform that the Internet is built on.

You can read the official announcement here.