
KDE makes Qt - emilsedgh
http://pusling.com/blog/?p=362
======
emilsedgh
Now that this story is on front page and is getting attention, I'd like to
remind you guys that KDE is having a fundraiser [0].

If you use Plasma Desktop, Okular, Kate, Krita, Amarok , Calligra suite or any
KDE product, consider donating.

[0]
[https://www.kde.org/fundraisers/yearend2014/](https://www.kde.org/fundraisers/yearend2014/)

~~~
anonbanker
Donating now. Thanks.

------
istoica
I love KDE,I like QT, why is GTK the preferred toolkit on Linuxes these days ?
I would really like to see an objective analysis, I am not in the camp of
KDE/QT against Gnome/GTK, but in modern times, what makes GTK a better goto
choice in respect to other frameworks(QT, FOX, FLTK)? Is it inertia, is it
philosophy, is it technical details, is it licensing policy ?

~~~
gioele
> what makes GTK a better goto choice in respect to other frameworks (QT, FOX,
> FLTK).

I do not have an answer but I would like to show a different angle to this
question: why do Qt applications often feel overly complex and GTK
applications are usually much simpler to use?

Concrete examples:

* Transmission ( [https://www.transmissionbt.com/images/screenshots/GTK-Large....](https://www.transmissionbt.com/images/screenshots/GTK-Large.jpg) ) vs. KTorrent ( [https://www.kde.org/images/screenshots/ktorrent.png](https://www.kde.org/images/screenshots/ktorrent.png) )

* Rhythmbox ( [https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Rhythmbox/Screenshots?action=Att...](https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Rhythmbox/Screenshots?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=Audio_CD_Tab.png) ) vs. Amarok ( [https://amarok.kde.org/sites/amarok.kde.org/files/Amarok2.7s...](https://amarok.kde.org/sites/amarok.kde.org/files/Amarok2.7screenie.png) )

* Simple Scan ( [http://i1-linux.softpedia-static.com/screenshots/Simple-Scan...](http://i1-linux.softpedia-static.com/screenshots/Simple-Scan-Ancell_1.png) ) vs. Skanlite ( [https://docs.kde.org/development/en/extragear-graphics/skanl...](https://docs.kde.org/development/en/extragear-graphics/skanlite/main-window.png) )

* GNOME Maps ( [http://www.gnome.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/maps-3.12-11...](http://www.gnome.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/maps-3.12-1150x863.png) ) vs. Marble ( [https://marble.kde.org/img/gallery/marble-desktop-atlas-dist...](https://marble.kde.org/img/gallery/marble-desktop-atlas-distance-route.png) )

* Brasero ( [http://www.novell.com/documentation/opensuse103/opensuse103_...](http://www.novell.com/documentation/opensuse103/opensuse103_gnome_user/graphics/brasero_dataproject.png) ) vs. K3b ( [http://digitizor.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/k3b-1-70-0.p...](http://digitizor.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/k3b-1-70-0.png) )

* Shotwell ( [http://ubuntuportal.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/ubuntu-14...](http://ubuntuportal.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/ubuntu-14.10-Shotwell-Picture-Manager.jpg) ) vs. Digikam ( [http://www.flickr.com/photos/digikam/2603789332/](http://www.flickr.com/photos/digikam/2603789332/) )

Please also compare the default theme for Gnome (
[http://blogs.gnome.org/mclasen/files/2014/06/adwaita.png](http://blogs.gnome.org/mclasen/files/2014/06/adwaita.png)
) with that of KDE (
[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6d/Plasma_De...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6d/Plasma_Desktop_4.4.jpg)
).

I appreciate the configurability and power of most KDE applications, but I
cannot stand the lack of design and ergonomics that pervades the KDE world.

~~~
jstanek
In your examples, you are comparing KDE apps with GNOME apps. Though the KDE
ones are all Qt and the GNOME ones are all GTK, it's not really a fair
comparison since GNOME and KDE have different design objectives (KDE strives
to be more feature-complete and configurable while GNOME wants to be simple to
use and have a clean UI). The design choices in your comparison aren't
dictated by the toolkit, but rather the HIG of each desktop. There are a lot
of clean and simple Qt apps, like the official implementation of Tox [0].

[0] [https://tox.im/assets/ss.png](https://tox.im/assets/ss.png)

~~~
gioele
You are right, but almost all the GTK applications I know are designed by and
for people that use GNOME. The same holds for Qt/KDE.

Could you please post other clean Qt applications? This is not a provocation,
just sincere curiosity.

~~~
Shamanmuni
VLC, Scrivener, Skype, Spotify for Linux; I think they all qualify as quite
usable applications.

On the other hand, in GTK you have GIMP and Inkscape, which aren't exactly an
UX expert's dream. In Qt you can find similar counterparts in Krita (specially
Krita Sketch) and Karbon, which I think are much cleaner.

I hope they help with your preconceptions.

------
wheels
From what the article says, it seems to imply that simply being in the KDE
accounts file (a list of everyone who's able to commit to KDE) puts one in the
"KDE" camp. That's almost certainly a bit misleading since many of the early
engineering hires at Trolltech were KDE people who for more than a decade have
been more "Qt" than "KDE". Also, since there are obvious dogfooding benefits
to using a desktop built on the toolkit you develop, there are a good many
people who worked for Trolltech (and later Nokia, then Digia) who used KDE and
would have accounts created to commit an occasional patch.

A more interesting metric would be to see what percentage of Qt commits come
from people who commit more to KDE than they do to Qt (and vice versa). As
such, this just seems to establish what everybody already knew -- that the two
projects are very intermingled.

~~~
Shamanmuni
But that's not what he wanted to point out, at all. It's not about percentages
of contributions. He classified them as coming from KDE or not and wanted to
demonstrate that many important Qt contributors started in KDE. If someone
started contributing to Qt before they contributed to KDE, even if they
contribute 99% to KDE, then they don't count as "a KDE person" for this
metric.

As far as I understand, it's a message to everyone who uses Qt. Even those who
don't use KDE have an interest in keeping it healthy as many valuable Qt
contributors come from there. And the graph supports that wonderfully.

------
MrUnderhill
It's linked at the end of the article, but I think it deserves a mention here
as well:
[https://www.kde.org/fundraisers/yearend2014/](https://www.kde.org/fundraisers/yearend2014/)

------
nnnnni
Wait, this is news to someone? I thought that EVERYONE knew that QT came from
the KDE developers?!

...but yeah, it'd be nice for some money to be thrown their way.

~~~
nknighthb
Qt came from Trolltech, KDE was originally just using it. KDE developers being
major or majority contributors to Qt has been a more recent and gradual
phenomenon. I haven't followed closely, but I imagine it also got a big boost
with the governance changes in the last year or two.

------
giancarlostoro
I love KDE, except when my graphics card doesn't cooperate with it. When I
first tried KDE3 when I installed Slackware the first time I tried Linux it
was perfect. Now years later, Kubuntu with KDE4 is perfect. I really love the
IRC client. I love Qt as well, I wish Qt Creator had a plugin for developing
KDE apps. Great projects that solve many problems.

~~~
Zardoz84
In my personal experience, Qt can handle buggy graphics drivers better that
Gtk . In special with the Radeon drivers, were with GTK you got an unusable
screen with deformed menus, and with Qt was fine. Or that with the SVGA driver
(yep, not acceleration) GTK runs painful slow when with Qt you run soft and
with alpha effects.

------
Nullabillity
The server is down.

~~~
jacquesm
no cache either. found this elsewhere:

"Recently I was trying some statistics on the qtbase-module (where QtCore,
QtGui, QtWidgets and so on lives) and was wondering who made them. Not based
on their current paid affilation, like Thiago’s graphs, but if each commit was
made by a person coming from KDE.

So, I got hold of Thiago’s scripts, a lovely mix of perl and zsh, and a QtBase
git repository. First steps was to try to classify people as person coming
from KDE or not. Of course, I’m a KDE person. Thiago is a KDE person. David
Faure is a KDE person. Olivier Goffart is a KDE person. Lars Knoll is a KDE
person.

By the help of the KDE accounts file, and some of the long time KDE
contributors, I got after a half day of work a good list of it. Then next
steps was trying to put it into Thiago’s perlscripts

All of it kind of succeeded:

qtbase-KDE.graph

So, KDE people makes up for 40-60% of the weekly commits to QtBase. This is
again shows that KDE is important to Qt, just as the reverse is. So, let’s
keep KDE healthy.

KDE is running a end-of-year fundraiser over here
[https://www.kde.org/fundraisers/yearend2014/](https://www.kde.org/fundraisers/yearend2014/).
Go ahead and donate, and help KDE stay healthy. For your own sake. And for
Qt’s."

