When open source projects close the process, something's wrong

[smartboyathome]

If anyone thinks that open source projects are the best thing for development, they will be surprised by reading this article. I am afraid this alone will keep me from using KDE4's Oxygen theme. :(

http://www.linux.com/feature/120635

Also, because of the attitude of the GIMP, I would theorize that someone will have to make a fork from it in order to really change the GUI and add features until GIMP is ready to support it (like what was done with Beryl and Compiz).

[popch]

While the two episodes at first seem somewhat strange, I do not see any cause for concern.

Firstly, open source projects need not be 'best for development'. I do not know where that claim has been made.

In the Oxygen episode, the authors of the original material wanted to have the chance to complete their works before it was reused in another context. They should have completed it first and put it under an open license after. Since they apparently did not, discord ensues.

In the GIMP episode, the GIMP team wanted to discuss its plans for important enhancements. It is at the sole descretion of the team who they want to let participate in that process. Nothing to do with Open Source. You would not object to a single author thinking long and hard within his own premises before doing a serious amount of coding. Or would you pester him about your right to contribute to 'his' development project? It being open source does not give you any right to become a member of a development team.

End alarm. No harm done.

[Dimitriid]

To me ths is really simple:


The Oxygen icon set was available under two licenses: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, or GNU LGPL. Both permit reuse by others. The icons themselves were available via public Subversion repository

Thats it, close the source if you want the glory next time. Otherwise these people need to shut up. I really hope this is not a representative of all the people behind KDE cause we would have greedy bastards on KDE, Gnome aiding microsoft....

Pains me to say we might be looking into xfce or one of the boxes if it deteriorates.

[p_quarles]

Yeah, I don't see much of a problem here either. The beauty of the GPL is that developers can be greedy jerks and start pointless flame wars on their blogs if they want to. As long as they don't try to circumvent the terms of the license, it doesn't actually affect the openness of the code. If they do try something, there are legal remedies.

[Dimitriid]

Yeah, I don't see much of a problem here either. The beauty of the GPL is that developers can be greedy jerks and start pointless flame wars on their blogs if they want to. As long as they don't try to circumvent the terms of the license, it doesn't actually affect the openness of the code. If they do try something, there are legal remedies.

I personally wouldn't blow it off as quickly, where there is smoke, you might find fire...

All im saying is that if the attitude starts spreading around and gets enough "support" from other developers they can try to create a different License that its a bit more closed and so on.

[SunnyRabbiera]

this is stupid,
Its supposed to be open development, what are they working for Microsoft or something?
If they didnt want people to mod it they should have never posted the original material...

[p_quarles]

Fair enough. That could certainly affect something like an icon set, I guess, or anything that was being built from the ground up. But with a project like the GIMP, that would be next to impossible. I mean, theoretically, if everyone involved in the 12 year history of the project agreed to the licensing change, they could do it. It still wouldn't change the terms of any already available GPL'd version, and there are plenty of people who'd be willing to take on a fork.

[kentl]

They shouldn't have released their code using a free license if they couldn't take the consequences. But perhaps they have? Shouldn't we be allowed to whine a little, as long as we follow the legalities we've agreed on when releasing it under the free license.

Spreading around unfinished work could change what people expect in terms of quality of the project. It might be unethical, even though it complies with the license? The license certainly can't cover every possible situation.

[Dimitriid]

Fair enough. That could certainly affect something like an icon set, I guess, or anything that was being built from the ground up. But with a project like the GIMP, that would be next to impossible. I mean, theoretically, if everyone involved in the 12 year history of the project agreed to the licensing change, they could do it. It still wouldn't change the terms of any already available GPL'd version, and there are plenty of people who'd be willing to take on a fork.

Well you are correct, the direct development of this app would not affect it, but it would set up a very important precedent. If a project as important as gimp would close it source it means many other smaller projects would rapidly die off and affect open software development in general.

To me its like saying "even if the Linux kernel closes source somebody can fork it and continue it". In theory? yes. In practice? Nobody wants to spend that kind of time and/or money if they know they can eventually fail.

[SunnyRabbiera]

the gimp thing also has me mad.... by hearing crap like that I wish Krita was more stable then it is or I would use that...
Well maybe a fork of the GIMP is feasible, after all I don't think a lot of good progress has been made on the gimp since the version 2 series came out...
Just rip apart gimps source code, redesign the app so it can do things like being a single windowed app and stuff...
the main gimp source code is still out there, if someone were able to remake it and give it a truly open direction then its good...
This is similar to the firefox issue, but even that is being resolved... I just wish debian didnt go the extreme with Iceweasel as I dont find it as good as firefox...

[bruce89]

AFAIK the GIMP UI is being worked on by a commercial company, do that's probably why they said "we don't have any positions".

[Erunno]

Oxygen already had to deal with a failure due to being developed outside the public domain in order to ensure the novelty of the style and icon theme. After the first iteration was pretty much dropped and new developers started Oxygen from scratch (at least the window decorations and widget style) it was decided to develop it inside the KDE subversion repository where it would more likely get the benefits of peer reviews. But KDE requires that all files are licensed under one of this (http://techbase.kde.org/Policies/Licensing_Policy) licences in order to be accepted in the repository.

Although the licenses permit free copying and distributions I can understand that the Oxygen developers don't want other people to steal their fire before they had the chance to finish it and release it with KDE4 first. After all, the decision to put the files under a free license was motivated by KDE requirements and the urge to improve the end product and although technically legal I can understand why the developers thought it rude to distribute it prematurally. This is all volunteer work and instead of telling them to "**** off" if they don't like the license and lose some valueable developers in the worst case I'd prefer a more peaceful solution which also respects the artists plans for his creation. It's not like they intended to prohibit distribution of their work after all and I'd hate to think that licenses and regulations have to spell out the most trivial things of inter-human behaviour because people can't come to an agreement of their own.

[bruce89]

The Oxygen thing sums up KDE to me. They don't want people to see WIP icons in case people think it's not good, so they are putting looks before everything else here.

Flames welcome.

[kentl]

The Oxygen thing sums up KDE to me. They don't want people to see WIP icons in case people think it's not good, so they are putting looks before everything else here.
Well in their little sub-project of KDE looks is all they are concerned about. So it's not surprising that Oxygen prioritizes looks, it's all they have. :)

[happysmileman]

I don't see the problem, no-one ever suggested that a law or binding contract was being broken, and no legal action was taken.

It was merely requested that the icons were removed and strongly suggested that it was not the intent of the artists, obviously a flamewar was bound to erupt, but everyone's keeping it legal and no-one's getting in much trouble.

I'd be annoyed too if after 2 years of work someone else would release it just months before I do, despite knowing exactly when it was to be released and why it wasn't released before then.

[bruce89]

Well in their little sub-project of KDE looks is all they are concerned about. So it's not surprising that Oxygen prioritizes looks, it's all they have. :)

True enough, but oh well.

Having a public SVN repository seems a bit daft if you want to keep things private.

[Erunno]

The Oxygen thing sums up KDE to me. They don't want people to see WIP icons in case people think it's not good, so they are putting looks before everything else here.

Flames welcome.

In what way does it sum up KDE as a project? You'll probably not find many other projects where it's easier to participate than in KDE (usually just asking is sufficient to get commit access as long as you have *something* to contribute). Plus, the Oygen developers don't want that the icons are distributed as a whole, you can always get them from the svn repository and the artists blog regurarly about the progress of the whole Oxygen theme with examples and even question the public about their opinion.

[happysmileman]

Well in their little sub-project of KDE looks is all they are concerned about. So it's not surprising that Oxygen prioritizes looks, it's all they have. :)

It's not surprising that Oxygen prioritises looks because it's a THEME and set of ICONS.

If a theme and a set of icons can't look good then pretty much the entire DE will look crap, in fairness I've yet to see GNOME release many of the things KDE4 will have. Not starting a flamewar (well trying, it's hard not tom sometimes) but accusing a theme project of trying to look good is like accusing a policeman of trying to arrest people, or accusing a programmer of trying to make a program.

[bruce89]

In what way does it sum up KDE as a project? You'll probably not find many other projects where it's easier to participate than in KDE (usually just asking is sufficient to get commit access as long as you have *something* to contribute). Plus, the Oygen developers don't want that the icons are distributed as a whole, you can always get them from the svn repository and the artists blog regurarly about the progress of the whole Oxygen theme with examples and even question the public about their opinion.

It's my opinion that KDE regards looks and bling above everything else.

Leave it, I'm not changing my mind.


in fairness I've yet to see GNOME release many of the things KDE4 will have.

Examples would be nice.

[Anessen]

It's all very simple. If you don't want people to use it, don't put it out under a free license. Whining when people do use something of yours WHEN YOU HAVE ALREADY SAID THAT THEY CAN IN THE LICENSE is just plain idiocy.

[Frak]

It's Open Source, if nobody gets a say, then the original devs miss out on a grand opportunity when the opposing party forks it.

Meet Beryl and Compiz, all over again.

[happysmileman]

Examples would be nice.

Of the main new features:

Phonon seems better, though I won't argue the superiority of it against gstreamer since I don't know, but at least seems easier for the developer.

Plasma I don't think is matched in GNOME, not without additional programs at least, but again I'm not going to compare it, it definitely seems much better.

Solid is definitely unmatched, and while you could argue that it's not going to be used by the end-user, making it easier for developers to integrate hardware support will definitely mean that developers have more time to work on other parts of the program, or at least release earlier.

Decibel is another nice technology, while it's not something that couldn't be managed in GNOME fairly easily, it's nice to have that integrated, though personally I'm not going to be one to use it much.

Sonnet will definitely be useful, especially for people who don't speak english and don't want to have to change the settings for spell-checking.

And of course Kross is going to make plugins and such easier.



I'm aware of course that the majority of these will mainly benefit developers, and is just a simpler way of doing things that could already be done, not new things, but a lot more organised and integrated, and since it's mainly development related(except plasmoids) they also have a team working on Oxygen and a Human Interface Guideline, but of course overall I think it'd be easier for most users to just set their settings once (for sounds, spell-checking, themes, plasmoids) and have them used globally.

And of course making it easier to develop for KDE will of course make more developer want to do it, and more programs released for it. (and of course GNOME will probably quickly make themselves compatible with these changes, like they've done in the past, so GNOME guys will win as well.)

While I'm not stating that KDE4 will appeal to everyone, it will appeal to a lot of people, and development on it and GNOME have been going kinda slow until now, and as much as everyone likes to say they're not competing, GNOME will obviously try to keep up and keep compatible and so everyone will benefit.

If any of this is wrong please correct me and I'll try to change it, just don't try and make me change my post because you just disagree with my opinion, debates are what threads like this are for :P

[Ireclan]

Honestly, I agree with the author of this article. What the artists in both projects did flies in the face of open-source.

[Erunno]

It's my opinion that KDE regards looks and bling above everything else.

Leave it, I'm not changing my mind.

Now that's an surprising opinion to be honest as I was always under the impression that KDE is ill-reputed as being ugly in its default configuration and that it has to be forced into anything which is aesthetically pleasing. And opinions have to be backed up with facts or at least well-reasond arguments otherwise I'd call your opinion slander.


I'm aware of course that the majority of these will mainly benefit developers, and is just a simpler way of doing things that could already be done, not new things, but a lot more organised and integrated

Well, since the magical Stallman fairy doesn't create free software out of thin air it's in the best interest to the users to make working with a desktop environment as pleasing as humanly possible for the mostly voluntary developers. A well-designed development framework should assist the developer in trying to implement functionality, not get in the way by being overly inconsistent and elevate his application by offering standard solutions to many problems (e.g. spell checking). That's what KDE was always about and KDE4 makes great leaps to ensure that it remains a developer friendly platform.


Honestly, I agree with the author of this article. What the artists in both projects did flies in the face of open-source.

Yes, it's really a slap in the face of open source that those artists have been spending months and years of their free time to work on free software projects so that users might benefit from that. How could they, better call Den Haag right away. They also didn't branch Oxygen and continued to work on it in private. They simply requested to not give away too much of Oxygen icon theme by making it accessible to a broad audience via packages before the KDE4 release. No, they have no right no enforce it and it's perfectly legal to disregard their wishes but you're dealing with humen here and again it's in the users best interest to not undermine their enthusiasm.

EDIT: Minor corrections.

[bruce89]

Phonon seems better, though I won't argue the superiority of it against gstreamer since I don't know, but at least seems easier for the developer.

How can you comment on something's easiness if you've never tried to use it? Phonon is just a front end to gstreamer (http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/) (and others) anyway. It seems to add an extra layer of complexity.


Plasma I don't think is matched in GNOME, not without additional programs at least, but again I'm not going to compare it, it definitely seems much better.

I'll give you that one. I suppose Gimmie (http://www.beatniksoftware.com/gimmie/Main_Page) might be an equivalent.


Solid is definitely unmatched, and while you could argue that it's not going to be used by the end-user, making it easier for developers to integrate hardware support will definitely mean that developers have more time to work on other parts of the program, or at least release earlier.

Sounds like YAFE (Yet Another Front End), this time to HAL (http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/hal).


Decibel is another nice technology, while it's not something that couldn't be managed in GNOME fairly easily, it's nice to have that integrated, though personally I'm not going to be one to use it much.



Seems to be the same as Telepathy (http://telepathy.freedesktop.org/wiki/), which can use libpurple (http://developer.pidgin.im/wiki/WhatIsLibpurple) (meaning ability to use any protocol that Pidgin can do).

http://telepathy.freedesktop.org/wiki/Sonnet will definitely be useful, especially for people who don't speak english and don't want to have to change the settings for spell-checking.

Enchant (http://www.abisource.com/projects/enchant/) seems to be the same type of thing.

Most of the things that GNOME uses is fd.o things, whereas KDE 4 stuff is fd.o stuff abstracted for some reason.