KDE and Gnome are the two biggest and most popular desktop environments for Linux. Even if the large distributions have a tendency to favor the second one at the moment they are both in similar situations. In a column at OS News Thom Holwerda presents an interesting angle to the situation. While he mentions that neither Gnome nor KDE have released a major revision update for many years, 4 to be precise. He mentions that Apple, which also work in similar ways with minor revision updates, has a higher frequency. He has a point though that it has taken both Gnome and KDE a very long time to present the next step.
Your’s truly had a chat with one of the KDE camp members about its upcoming KDE4 a while back and it was hardly flattering to hear what he had to say. Just as Holwerda mentions in his column there is a lack of consistency and the goals are not that clear. This isn’t unique to KDE though, but very much indeed applies to Gnome as well, if not more.
Both projects are powered by people with burning desires and dreams, but unfortunately thins have a tendency to stay dreams. It’s hard to make dreams come true, anyone knows that, and many times the actual updates are far from as exciting as they first seemed. the next big updates of both Gnome and KDE will take many months and when we will actually see the Gnome 3 or KDE4 he discusses remains to be seen.
Except from Gnome and KDE there are a number of desktop environments whereof Xfce is one of the more popular. Even if they may be smaller projects it’s the same kind of visionaries that power them. If they will end up in the same mess as Gnome and KDE we won’t know for sure until we see it.
Update:
Holwerda has posted an update and reply to the many comments he received for his first article. He clears some of the misunderstanding that appeared after publishing of the first article.
We also wants to point out that while there are two ways to approach the development of an application, may it be an operating system, desktop environment, media player or whatever; there is the evolutionary and the revolutionary approach, but none of the two excuse the lack of plans for the future. While we do agree that both Gnome and KDE are progressing nicely as the current versions they are, as they are evolving, we do feel that the lack of consistency and plans for what the next big revision will contain is not a good thing.
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