Re: [tlug] Desktop Wars Query

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Niels Kobschatzki writes:

 > Eh, actually KDE was "constructed" in a way that it performs similar  
 > to Windows by default.

Actually, KDE is a misspelling of CDE, which like Motif and MS Windows
is supposed to implement IBM's CUA standard, IIRC.

 > I think ppl have chosen Gnome because of the old QT-license-issue  
 > with KDE and Gnome is GTK which is "really" open-source.

At least in some cases, it was not a question of open source; it was a
question of a knee-capping by FSF Legal.  This happened to XEmacs; we
were warned by rms that we might be subject to legal action if we
distributed our Qt port and it got used on Windows (where the Qt
license was not then, and may still not be, compatible with the GPL).
We got 行政指導 from him that it would be OK if we added some hacks to
the Windows Makefiles to prevent building on that platform (ie,
require the user to do something explicit to enable the link) and
documented loudly that redistribution of hacked Makefiles or linked
binaries was illegal.

The TrollTech people promptly lost all interest in the port, so it's
there in a CVS branch but has never been included in the mainline.