Re: [gtk-list] Re: To GTK, or not to GTK - that is the question

[Dave Cole <dave dccs com au>]

>>>>> "Ulric" == Ulric Eriksson <ulric@edu.stockholm.se> writes:

Ulric> On 9 Nov 1998, Dave Cole wrote:

>> sets.  As time passes, one of the good widget sets reaches critical
>> mindshare mass and emerges as the defacto standard.  This is called
>> innovation.

Ulric> It is also called forking and duplication of effort.

In the commercial software market there is enormous duplication of
effort.  They do not have the option of forking, so there is no
sharing of code at all.  With OSS, if you want to go off in a
different direction, you can take bits of code from other OSS
projects.  To me this is a huge advantage, it minimises the amount of
wasted effort while providing the basis for competition and progress.

Ulric> It took years and years for a widget set to become the de facto
Ulric> standard for commercial software. With the supply of ego and
Ulric> talent in free software, I would be very surprised to *ever*
Ulric> see a de facto standard.  Eric Raymond's Homesteading the
Ulric> Noosphere has some good explanations for this.

In my mind, there will be two competing alternatives for OSS GUI
environments/applications; KDE and Gnome.  I understand that both of
these projects have been sharing code and ideas for a while.  There is
a duplication of effort there, but so what.  People like to compete.
It gives them goals and the incentive to try harder.

Ulric> Anyone for making an Xt port of Gtk? ;-)

Go for it.

I am not sure what you think you will get out of the effort.  Sure you
will be able to use Gtk/Xt widgets in programs with other Xt based
widgets.  If those other Xt widget sets were worth using, you would
not need to use Gtk widgets to flesh them out.

- Dave

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