Resignations

["Greg S. Hayes" <sdc choice net>]

	I have found my experience with the Gnome Project since it's
incarnation to be quite profound. However, I do remember the reason WHY
I, in fact, caught-on to Gnome development. It was because there was a
lack of a truly open-souce desktop for linux. Before this project
existed I and many others worked diligently on a desktop called KDE,
some of us here today were responsible for the initial central inner
workings of that project. Yet we abandoned it because of the two
following reasons stated on the first incarnation of the Gnome web site:
a) Qt will never be open source b) It will be too time consuming to
clone Qt into an open-source toolkit. These statements as well as
growing hostility from the community left us with no alternative... we
rethought our work and abandoned it for political, and to many of us,
ideological reasons. This painful decision, which resulted in on-going
flame wars between the open-source advocates and KDE enthusiasts, was
halted this morning by the announcement of Troll Tech that their toolkit
will indeed be open-source by EVERYONE'S definition. 
	We were proved wrong. Qt did open the source enough to cause ESR
himself, the biggest KDE antagonist, to set aside his differences. This
new turn of events has caused myself and many others to reconsider the
role of Gnome. No longer does it seem that we are fighting the good
fight for a free desktop... now, unfortunately, it seems that we are
re-inventing the wheel. No developer likes to hear those words, but it
is time to put selfish pride away and consider what you know is the
right move. It is for this reason that many of us are parting. We are
not doing so for detest of the Gnome desktop, biased favor for Qt, or
hatred for any of the developers/project co-ordinators/companies that
have worked to build Gnome. Those individuals, like us, KNEW that they
were doing the right thing. We are leaving for the firmly established
fact that KDE is currently the most advanced desktop so far and NOW with
it's new found redemption it will be easier to build it to be everything
Gnome dreamed of and more. Some of you will undoubtedly scoff and bring
up failures in KDE, but those failures are the very reason we are
leaving. We want to take the project that is furthest along and make it
the best... rather than playing catch-up and re-doing what has already
been done. Perhaps, even you who are reading this letter right now are
questioning why you are working on this project. You are undoubtably
reasoning that it will take far less time to fix the problems with KDE
(window manager issues, language bindings, corba implementation) than to
create a WHOLE new desktop environment. Seek to create the best desktop
environment NOW whatever it may be. 

Many thanks to those who have helped to create Gnome, you did the right
thing. But, don't let selfish pride get in the way of what some of know
in your heart is the right move. Consider what steps can be taken to
make KDE a better environment before you recend to what was once called
"the only alternative" of Gnome.

If you disagree with this letter, don't start a flame war. Think about
the issues adressed and understand that people are doing this out of
what they believe is a good move for the entire linux community, and not
out of any mallice.

Signing Off...

Greg Hayes