Slashdot: Stallman meets KDE team for tea (barf)

[dep]

begin  collins's  quote:
| Trying to imoprove relations, the french KDE team invited RMS to
| tea at Linux Solutions 2003. From the piece: 'He asked whether KDE
| people were saying "Gnu/Linux" or just "Linux", and Open Source or
| Free Software. I told him some of us are using KDE/Gnu/Linux which
| pleased him as an answer.'
|
| Ah well, at least I've never heard of Gnu/FreeBSD!

http://www.linuxandmain.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=152

when the secret plans of the kde guys to call the thing "kgx" were 
revealed.

after which: 
http://www.linuxandmain.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=155

which said, in part:

One of the week's stranger stories was the disclosure of something 
called "KGX" that was on track to be championed by the otherwise 
seemingly moribund KDE League. The idea is to promote KDE atop Linux. 
The reason it hadn't been heard of before is that like other things 
involving the KDE League, those involved were sworn to secrecy to the 
point of having to execute a non-disclosure agreement. (Whether this 
is in keeping with generally accepted notions of openness is a 
discussion that has so far not taken place.) The secrecy wasn't well 
kept, though, because a lot of the planning was online, for those who 
knew where to look.

How does one take KDE plus Linux and cause it to equal "KGX"? The K 
stands, of course, for KDE. The X presumably derives from Linux. And 
the surprise is the G, which comes from the GNU tools included in 
Linux distributions and used among other things to compile KDE for 
Linux. This may surprise observers, because relations between the KDE 
camp and the GNU camp have not always been harmonious; even after 
Trolltech allowed users of Qt to do so under the GPL, GNU founder 
Richard M. Stallman said that he was still cheering "for the home 
team," meaning GNOME, which had been begun in response to the 
perceived non-Free-ness of Qt and therefore KDE. So the G in "KGX" 
may be an effort to salve and ultimately heal old wounds.

What does RMS, who has long proffered the view that Linux should 
instead be called "GNU/Linux," think of all this? Linux and Main 
asked him.

"I don't see anything offensive in that," replied Stallman. "It's much 
better than calling the whole combination 'Linux'."

For its part, the KDE League changed the KGX web page following its 
disclosure, so that it is now labeled as being an April draft and not 
for general consumption.

-- 
dep

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