Desktop Environment for Proprietary Applications?

nushoin writes "Gnome and KDE are the two major desktop environments used on Linux today. However, Gnome is growing more and more affiliated with Microsoft's proprietary technologies (Mono, OOXML). Targeting the Gnome desktop environment could prove dangerous in the long run, assuming that one would like its applications to run on distributions other than SuSE. On the other hand, TrollTech is being bought by Nokia, whose commitment to the desktop world remains to be proven. Assuming that one would like to develop a desktop application (either free or closed source), which desktop environment would you target, and what widget tool kit would you use?"

GNUStep / Étoilé by far the most common

[Colin Smith]

You get free portability to the Apple Macintosh built in.

 

Re:Epic FUD

[kripkenstein]

Vala is modeled after C# and compiles directly to plain-ol' generic GObject C. On top of that, the most new code going into GNOME is Python, by a rather wide margin.

+1 for pointing out this neat stuff. Vala [gnome.org] is a pretty brilliant tool, really I have to give the developers a lot of credit. I expect to see more and more GNOME development being done in Vala. Likewise, Python / pygtk is a great setting and a lot of fun, and well worth developing in.

I am pleasantly surprised that most new code is in Python, interesting, how was this measured?

Re:FUD

[nushoin]

First I'd like to clarify, my intention was not to create a flame-war.

My concern with Gnome is not the license (that is, copyrights) but rather patents. I know that Mono is GPL, but that does not protect me from Microsoft's litigations in the future over grounds of patent infringements. Currently only a few distributions (SuSE, Xandros etc.) are 'protected' from such litigations. I know that Gnome is not Mono etc, but they do seem to adopt several 'problematic' technologies.

About Qt, I happen to trust Nokia to continue supporting that platform. This is of course a personal opinion, I'm not affiliated with Nokia in any way. The company does have a history of supporting open source initiatives.

My concern is real, at least for me, and I guess that others are worried as well. The comments below suggested using Java, which is an option for me. I'll also look into wxPython as I develop in Python. However a C/C++ widget toolkit is also necessary.

About myself, I'm using Linux, both Ubuntu and Fedora. I happen to like the Gnome desktop. Currently I develop applications for in-house use in the course of my studies toward a master degree. These applications will probably be released under some open-source license in the future.

wxWindows produces native GUIs.

[Futurepower(R)]

wxWidgets is native to all supported operating systems. GTK was originally designed for Unix-style X Windows. My understanding is that under Windows it still has X Windows quirks and limitations. There is also a difference in grief:

GTK -- Using Microsoft's Compiler: [gtk.org]

It is possible to use these packages with Microsoft's compiler. However, these DLLs use the MSVCRT.DLL runtime library. This means that also applications that use these DLLs should use the MSVCRT.DLL runtime. Specifically, this means that you should not use newer versions of the Microsoft compiler than Visual C++ 6 without knowing exactly what you are doing.

wxWidgets Compiler support: [wxwidgets.org]

wxWidgets supports more compilers than probably any other framework. All popular Windows C++ compilers are supported with the exception of Symantec C++ (this is being worked on), and on Windows you can use the Cygwin or Mingw32 free compilers. Even the 16-bit versions of Visual C++ and Borland C++ can be used. On Windows, makefiles are provided, with project files for VC++ 5 and above.

Just about all known Unix C++ compilers are supported, for the Motif and GTK platforms. If you have a compiler that isn't supported, with help from the wxWidgets team we should be able to fix the problem quickly.

Re:Why not just use Ubuntu?

[aminorex]

The issue is not the copyright on the code. The issue is the Microsoft patents which cover the techniques implemented by the code. Only Suse has a license for those patents. If Gnome depends on patented Microsoft technologies, all other distributions are illegal. Contrast this with QT and KDE. To my knowledge, no one claims any patent rights on any technologies implemented in QT or KDE.

Anyhow, to respond to the original question, I would use wxWidgets or SWT for any new GUIs, due to the native l&f with excellent cross-platform portability. I see no reason to tie myself to Gnome, for example, when I can use wxGTK and wxCL or wxPython, and get satisfactory platform compatibility, while remaining portable to Windows and OSX etc.

QT is fair, but is limited to C++ and ECMAscript (QSA). GTK is better than QT, in my opinion, for portability and language interoperability. But wxWidgets is the ne plus ultra of GUI portability heaven.