from the will-the-coconut-fund-also-donate? dept.
KDE e.V. is announcing today it has received a donation of 200,000 USD from the Pineapple Fund.
With this donation, the Pineapple Fund recognizes that KDE as a community creates software which benefits the general public, advances the use of Free Software on all kinds of platforms, and protects users' privacy by putting first-class and easy to use tools in the hands of the people at zero cost. KDE joins a long list of prestigious charities, organizations and communities that the Pineapple Fund has so generously donated to.
"KDE is immensely grateful for this donation. We would like to express our deeply felt appreciation towards the Pineapple Fund for their generosity" said Lydia Pintscher, President of KDE e.V.. "We will use the funds to further our cause to make Free Software accessible to everyone and on all platforms. The money will help us realize our vision of creating a world in which everyone has control over their digital life and enjoys freedom and privacy".
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @01:18AM (1 child)
https://pineapplefund.org/ [pineapplefund.org]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @01:20AM
Anonymous behind the Pineapple Fund seems interested in psychedelics, free software, and life extension. Both the SENS Research Foundation and Methuselah Foundation got cash.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @01:20AM (1 child)
The donation is in cash, not cryptobits. Bitter internet commenters (redundant I know) who lost money on cryptobits can shut up please.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @03:48AM
I'm a bitter internet commenter who missed out on getting in on cryptobits early and could have been a millionaire, you insensitive clod!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Wednesday February 21 2018, @01:33AM (44 children)
KDE can really use the financial help, since the mainstream distros doing their best to push the dumpster fire that is GNOME 3 on everyone. Linux is supposed to be about choice, and power for the user, not a piece-of-shit dumbed-down user interface that makes Macs look like tools for power users.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @01:51AM (10 children)
I read this:
And I thought: "Not gnome then."
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday February 21 2018, @02:16AM (8 children)
Most Open Source is not Free Software.
It's not the choice of license but why that license was chosen
Someone on Linux-kernel suggested that the kern was free software. Linus threatened to put the posters head on a pike in his front yard
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by Arik on Wednesday February 21 2018, @02:45AM (7 children)
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday February 21 2018, @06:39AM (5 children)
... to someone who claimed that the Linux kernel was free software?
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by Arik on Wednesday February 21 2018, @07:00AM
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Wednesday February 21 2018, @10:46AM (2 children)
Isn't it? It's GPL2, which is a Free Software licence. Don't like blobs? Use a pure distro.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday February 21 2018, @07:53PM (1 child)
He will tell you that the kernel is not free software
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Wednesday February 21 2018, @09:40PM
No, he would not. [gnu.org]
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday February 21 2018, @04:55PM
I'm going with the likelihood that he doesn't get along with the Free Software Foundation.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by letssee on Wednesday February 21 2018, @09:44AM
NEGATIVE. DEFINITIONS MATTER. INCONSISTENCY SPOTTED. PROBABLE SOURCE OF CONSISTENT REASONING: HUMAN ERROR.
:-)
A license could (theoretically, I don't know if any such license exists) be Free software and not OSI approved. The other way around is very much true as well. Not all OSI approved licenses are Free Software as per the FSF's definitions.
Free software licenses are about the users rights to *re-use* and *modify* code, adn to make sure you in turn do not deny the users of your modified code the same rights.
OSI licenses are about the users rights to *view* and *check* the code.
the FSF is a political organisation, the OSI is a technical organisation. While there is a lot of overlap (And one can be a proponent of both at the same time) they are not identical at all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @07:53PM
which is exactly why they should have given the money to gnome instead. fuck the slave platforms. it's just a waste of dev resources and donation money. why legitimize those piece of shit platforms? projects that cater to these other platforms are just whoring their projects out for the users, under the guise of helping them. you're not helping anyone you liar. you're enabling their victimization for money.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday February 21 2018, @01:55AM (17 children)
I'm glad it's not just me then,
I kind of thought there must be something wrong with me for hating Gnome 3 because I kept reading it was the "most popular" Linux desktop, but I just couldn't use it.
Luckily there is plenty of choice and if I don't want to use LXDE I am quite happy with Cinnamon (at the moment anyway).
(Score: 2) by Arik on Wednesday February 21 2018, @02:28AM (2 children)
Slack doesn't ship it, Gentoo will allow you to exclude it globally. Ubuntu is for grannies that couldn't find the checkbox to avoid Windows 10. Redhat is for PHBs that want more leverage with Microsoft.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by letssee on Wednesday February 21 2018, @10:11AM (1 child)
> Clueless Noobs.
*And* people who just want to *use* their laptop, instead of customizing the heck out of the desktop. I agree KDE is more fun. It has more bells and whistles and is more customizable. But every time I use KDE I get lost in the myriad customization options. Also, for day to day (boring) work it has a very distracting cluttered look (IMHO of course).
If you take a moment to learn gnomes keyboard shortcuts, it mostly just gets out of the way.
So I actually *like* gnome (though I don't agree with everything the gnome devs decide, I like it overall). I like KDE as well, but I'm just less productive in KDE. But then I used to be a Windowmaker user, and I liked Unity as well, so I appear to be the exception to the rule.
As for *noobs*, my first distro was Slackware in 1994 and linux has been my main OS since then (windows strictly for gaming), so I consider myself not-noob :-)
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday February 21 2018, @05:55PM
But every time I use KDE I get lost in the myriad customization options.
Who exactly is standing over you with a weapon and **forcing** you to open up the System Settings dialog and customize things?
If you don't want to customize it, don't.
Honestly, I read this every single time someone has something negative to say about KDE, and it's simply stupid.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Gaaark on Wednesday February 21 2018, @03:09AM
It's because at one past time kde was not 'free' software: it was later freed, but gnome was the de facto desktop by then.
Later, gnome got fecked with when fecking wasn't needed.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Wednesday February 21 2018, @03:45AM (7 children)
The GNOME3 devs and sycophants keep *claiming* it's the most popular, and keep pushing it as "the standard" DE for Linux. The devs are generally rude and condescending, and their attitude can be seen especially with the posts by "LvS" in /r/linux.
But according to this article [cio.com], KDE is actually the most popular, and Xfce the 2nd. Of course, this is from a survey on linuxquestions.org with less than 600 votes; in reality, there's no good way to know which DE is the most popular since there's no reliable survey, and Linux doesn't have sales stats like proprietary OSes do.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday February 21 2018, @03:48AM
https://www.reddit.com/user/LvS [reddit.com]
ez link
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday February 21 2018, @03:56AM
GNOME3 is the most popular, in the minds of GNOME3 users....
I've semi-switched from KDE to Xfce for some applications (like and embedded system's desktop interface), but for others like my laptop I'm just eating whatever dog-food comes as default with Ubuntu (15.10 on this machine, 14.04 on many others...)
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @04:00AM (4 children)
Don't take this the wrong way. I think that if we're going to see a year of a Linux desktop, Gnome has the right idea.
On the other hand, I've also thought that if that's what's necessary for the proverbial year of the Linux desktop, we'll do find without one of those.
On the gripping hand, I'd rather live in a world where the desktop everybody uses is built with free software, even if it absolutely has to be systemd-gnomed, instead of being closed-source, user-subjugating, proprietary software.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @04:03AM
Before I get modded to oblivion, wanted to clarify that I sure as hell will not be running systemd-gnomed on any of my boxen.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Wednesday February 21 2018, @04:00PM (2 children)
Don't take this the wrong way. I think that if we're going to see a year of a Linux desktop, Gnome has the right idea.
How so? They have a UI that's stripped-down, yet is not really like the other two dominant proprietary desktops (Win10 and Mac), and like most other UIs these days has a lot of undiscoverable features, so it's not exactly easy to switch to for users who have years of experience with one of the others. So it's limiting, but in ways that "refugees" are not used to, so it's not going to appeal to them much. The Gnome devs seem to think they're somehow the world's premiere experts in UIs however, so they don't seem to understand this, and also the fact that all UIs rely on a certain amount of familiarity.
On the gripping hand, I'd rather live in a world where the desktop everybody uses is built with free software, even if it absolutely has to be systemd-gnomed, instead of being closed-source, user-subjugating, proprietary software.
If living in that world means having no real choice (because I can't exactly maintain a whole DE by myself) and being stuck with a crappy, slow, stripped-down DE run by devs who are arrogant, condescending asshole who tell me "you're holding it wrong", then I'd actually rather use proprietary software where the company at least tries to give me some of what I want, and isn't rude about it. Win10 may suck in many ways, but there are (proprietary) third-party extensions you can get for it, and unlike GNOME3, Microsoft doesn't intentionally break the APIs at every release, causing your extensions to not work.
Finally, your statement really doesn't make that much sense: what good is "free" software if you're forced to use GNOME? That's not freedom. That sounds more like the Soviet definition of "freedom". (Actually, it's worse: from what I've heard, in the Soviet days, if you wanted to buy some tennis shoes for instance, there would be perhaps 5 different styles you could choose from; even they didn't believe in only having 1 choice. But the GNOME devs do.) But what's bad is that, in my view, this isn't even a failure of free software development that much, it's really caused by corporatism: if it weren't for heavy corporate support, mainly from Red Hat, GNOME3 would have much less influence, or perhaps not even exist. Why RH funds these guys is really a mystery too; it's not like they're doing huge business with deploying GNOME3 on corporate desktops across America. It's just a money sink. It makes me wonder what their real motivation is.
(Score: 2) by everdred on Thursday February 22 2018, @01:01AM (1 child)
I'm not OP, but I think I have an idea of what they're getting at with "if we're going to see a year of a Linux desktop." I think that for normal people, wrapping their heads around what this Linux thing "is" and what it looks like is a confusing concept. (Pretend that explaining GNU, BSD and distros shouldn't also be part of the conversation.)
"What does it look like?" is a reasonable first question that a plurality of people might have.
"Well, it varies. There are different window managers and desktop environments to choose from…" is the kind of answer that makes eyes glaze over.
If the conversation continues and the Linux newcomer is interested in hearing more about the pros and cons (and politics) of various GUIs, you have a truly special individual on your hands. Thing is, for "the year of Linux on the desktop," you need great masses of people to make it past step 2, not just folks who only need a nudge to become enthusiasts. And in order to achieve this, you need to be able to actually show it to them.
(Aside: I'm not suggesting that the lack of GUI standardization is *the reason* Linux on the desktop hasn't taken off, but if the circumstances were such that it could take off by some other means, it's the kind of thing that could hold back adoption.)
If standardization is important and you're going to standardize on something, Gnome 3 is… reasonably elegant and modern looking. Pretty much works. Doesn't have a lot of scary options, and less-technical users might not even realize what useful options they're missing. You could do worse than giving people Gnome 3.
When I started using Linux on desktop, Ubuntu was just emerging and I gave that a try. I already had a pretty developed geeky attitudes, and had developed a curiosity about Linux over the course of a couple of years. LiveCD distros like Knoppix and Damn Small Linux helped too — seeing something not-Windows run on my own hardware had been mind-blowing. I took the plunge and installed Ubuntu alongside Windows on my main computer because a lot of people seemed to consider Ubuntu a solid choice for beginners, if not also for themselves. It was a good gateway at the time.
I'm not saying that standardized desktop future, or a default that is difficult and painful to avoid is something I'd be personally welcoming, even if it means more Linux market share. I'm sitting over here with my Xfce desktop customized to look like a weird mix of WindowMaker and BeOS.
Oh, and I gave Gnome 3 a serious try… spent a couple of months with it as my default a few years back. The difficulty customizing and the amount of customization I felt it needed suggested that it just wasn't for me. But it if we hope for "year of Linux on the desktop" it might very well be for people who don't come in with expectations of customizability, specific UI aesthetic tastes and such.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Thursday February 22 2018, @01:54AM
That would be fine if:
1) the Gnome devs weren't so hostile to working with other DE devs to have some common standards, make applications interoperate well between them, etc. Instead, the Gnome devs are outspoken in their disdain for other DEs, and absolutely refuse to lift a finger to work with them in any way.
2) the mainstream distros made it very, very easy to pick a different DE either at install time or later, rather than pushing Gnome as the standard, and also doing some kind of work to make the other DEs look good on their distro and work well with it, rather than just slapping the vanilla packages up there and calling it done. This is especially bad with Red Hat since some people get stuck with RHEL at work, and aren't administrators, so they can't easily switch over to another DE there. So RH/Gnome are really doing exactly the same thing Microsoft does: eliminate choice.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday February 21 2018, @03:52AM
I used KDE as a daily driver for years and loved it, until 4K screens came around (2014 for me). Qt widgets, and by extension KDE, have not scaled well to multi-resolution applications. It seems like it shouldn't be that hard of a job to fix, but the last three times I checked, the latest and greatest KDE still sucked at dealing with a 4K notebook screen multi-monitored with a 1920x1080 external monitor.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by chromas on Wednesday February 21 2018, @03:55AM (3 children)
Guhnome's been going downhill since the days of Gnome 2 when the honchos decided configuration was too hard for people and was only used to fix broken defaults; if they just chose correct defaults then nobody would need to configure the desktop. My google skillz seem broken so I can't find the page to back up my running mouth.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Wednesday February 21 2018, @04:45AM (2 children)
They also drastically increased the difficulty of the build system at that point iirc. At any rate I quit building it, quit using it, quit reporting bugs only to see them labeled WAD, and pretty much gave up on the project entirely a little while after that, as it was very clear they were only going to continue going down a road I had no desire whatsoever to follow.
But they did a great bait-and-switch, you have to give them that. Very, very few people had that reaction. Most did not analyze it in the terms I did, they didn't see a project turning firmly in the wrong direction, just some growing pains, some rough patches. Give them a chance, it'll get better, they said.
Well, it went exactly as I expected instead. And by the time GNOME3 came out, it had become too obvious to be ignored, so there was an exodus of technical users. Frankly it's clear they don't WANT technical users, they quite often go out of their way to antagonize us, to drive us off. They want people that don't know any better, that's their TARGET audience.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday February 21 2018, @04:04PM (1 child)
Frankly it's clear they don't WANT technical users, they quite often go out of their way to antagonize us, to drive us off. They want people that don't know any better, that's their TARGET audience.
It's weird; what exactly is their motivation here? Do they really think they're going to attract a bunch of grandmas and soccer moms to Linux?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 23 2018, @08:36AM
"It's weird; what exactly is their motivation here?" [...]
Their motivation is to destroy Gnome, from the inside-out.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday February 21 2018, @03:48AM (1 child)
200K to a "product" like KDE is like tossing a nickel to somebody for their Ferrari...
Granted, every bit (or cent) helps, but to design, build and maintain KDE with paid developers would be millions of dollars a year.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Wednesday February 21 2018, @03:56AM
They accept donations, and I'm happy enough with them lately that I've donated a couple times in the past year. It's quite fast and stable.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday February 21 2018, @05:05PM
Apple computers can be used as tools for "power users". A "power user" isn't defined by what hardware / software he uses. "A power user or an experienced user is a computer user who uses advanced features of computer hardware,[1][2][3] operating systems,[4] programs,[5][6] or web sites[7] which are not used by the average user." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_user [wikipedia.org] I know a few IT Professionals who know their stuff, and they use Macbook Pro Laptops. I love linux, I've hacked my own version of Puppy Linux into a Kiosk for my Library, and I've played around with a bunch of linux distributions. I've mostly kept Apple away with a 10 foot pole, because I don't have a money tree. I can still get around OSX and do what needs to be done to help maintain our small collection of iPad Minis, but it's not my forte.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Wednesday February 21 2018, @07:20PM (8 children)
So you are all for user choice as long as it is not Gnome 3? MATE, which is a reasonably popular desktop environment, is also powered by Gnome 3, but you wouldn't guess to look at it. Not everyone wants to waste CPU cycles on bling, wobbly displays or whatever. Those that just want to get a job done can use whatever tool they think is the best. Or is that not 'choice' in your book?
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday February 21 2018, @08:27PM (7 children)
By almost all accounts, GNOME3 is the slowest of all the DEs. How does it manage that while having fewer features than everything else?
I'm all for user choice, period. I'm against one group pushing their junk on everyone else using money and politics.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Thursday February 22 2018, @07:48AM (6 children)
Please read what I wrote: the Gnome3 Library is ok
The Gnome 3 environment might be, as you say, the slowest; I will accept that claim although you haven't shown anything to support your assertion. But MATE, which now uses the Gnome 3 library, is much quicker. I suggest that the writers of the Gnome 3 desktop environment need to pull their fingers out - it isn't the fault of the library.
I often use QT for my programs but I can write good fast programs or crap slow programs with the same tools.
So are you arguing that KDE shouldn't accept the donation from Pineapple?
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday February 22 2018, @03:22PM (5 children)
Please read what I wrote: the Gnome3 Library is ok
You keep calling it that, but its real name is "Gtk3". And no, by many accounts, it's not OK at all. There's a reason that not one, but *two* DEs have switched from Gtk3 to Qt: LxDE switched a while ago, and Budgie has announced they're moving very soon. Qt is a much better library for cross-platform and GUI development, and it has actual documentation, and parts of it aren't deprecated on a whim by the devs like Gtk3 does on a regular basis, so it's a much more stable platform for developing application programs.
Whether Gtk3 is to blame for Gnome3 being slow is debatable. Likely not to a huge extent, but LxDE (now LxQt) did report a small performance increase when they switched.
So are you arguing that KDE shouldn't accept the donation from Pineapple?
Are you seriously equating a relatively paltry (but appreciated) $200k donation to the continued years-long (more than a decade and a half now) full-time employment of many devs by Red Hat? Do you have any idea what the fully-loaded yearly cost of a software engineer is these days? And don't forget the effect of multi-billion-dollar Red Hat actively pushing Gnome3 as a vendor.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Thursday February 22 2018, @06:19PM (4 children)
I feel that your argument is based on nothing more than personal preference - which is OK. If you like Qt then good for you. I use it too. But sometimes I prefer other libraries because they do the better job under different circumstances. Both Qt and Gtk3 need to be used correctly, and being an expert in one doesn't make you any good in another. When someone who is competent with a specific library and interface writes software they can produce something that is very good.
Anecdotal data does not make a convincing argument. I can claim that some people think that black is white - it doesn't make it true.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday February 22 2018, @06:31PM (3 children)
When two fairly major desktop environments switch away from one toolkit to a different one, citing the same factors, that's all the argument I need. It's certainly worth a lot more than some forum poster who's never made a DE or anything else of significance.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Thursday February 22 2018, @06:37PM (2 children)
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday February 22 2018, @06:51PM (1 child)
No, but I do know, as I've said 2 times now, that two fairly major DEs have done just as I said. You haven't offered anything to the contrary, other than some vague "any tool is good as long as you know how to use it" type talk.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Thursday February 22 2018, @07:40PM
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @07:49PM
oh stfu. you just need your gui to look like windows because you're a fucking moron.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Thursday February 22 2018, @04:52AM (1 child)
Linux is about choice for the power user, not for the ignorant and/or self-disenfranchised.
I haven't used KDE or GNOME (or XFCE, or LXDE), and even having not used either, have never found myself for want of any component of my desktop computer, whether that be windows manager, status bar, file manager, etc etc.
There's a ton of choice, including the ultimate choice of building it yourself, but if you don't have the skills then don't complain even if that's all you can do.
FOSS is like a workshop with infinite materials and tools for you to use freely, but if you are unable to or insist on not touching a hammer, then your complaints about how said workshop is a piece-of-shit will go ignored. Some kind soul might offer to build standard one-size-fit-most bird houses for you, for free, but all you do is complain.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Thursday February 22 2018, @07:53AM
Er, Linux is about choice for everybody. What on earth makes you think that it is only for power users? That is why there are distros like Ubuntu and Linux Mint - they work out of the box and suit the everyday users, but they can also be used by power users too.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday February 21 2018, @02:11AM
I once jailbroke an iPhone. It required a carrier to activate it but I already had another phone
The very first time it booted it displayed a very well-done pineapple with a bite taken out of it
To my dismay after that the boot screen displayed the apple logo
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]