Re: Standard (G)UI (was a very long thread)

["Dan Kaminsky" <effugas best com>]

-----Original Message-----
From: Preben Randhol <randhol@dusken4.samfundet.ntnu.no>
To: gnome-gui-list@gnome.org <gnome-gui-list@gnome.org>
Date: Friday, July 24, 1998 3:58 AM
Subject: Standard (G)UI (was a very long thread)


>|
>| Haven't both Redhat and Debian committed to making Gnome the standard UI?
>
>Talking about standard UI. I don't care for a standard UI nor GUI. I
>believe it is more important that the UIs and GUIs available can be
>able to interact.
>
>Of course certain things should be agreed upon like a Drag and Drop
>protocol etc.. Things that makes it easier for the GUIs to interact.


Maybe we need to differentiate hard standards from soft standards.  Hard
standards are those that, by force of market share or necessity, do not
allow incremental innovation by selective replacement of components.  Soft
standards are those that provide a minimum base level of conceptualization
or implementation while allowing innovation above and beyond in an open and
documented manner.

A GUI under a hard standard would *require* that GUI to function.  KDE is a
hard standard--most K apps, as far as I know, do not run without KDE, even
if QT is installed.  Gnome has to be softer, in the sense of GNOME apps
should run without many GNOME components or a standard WM.

Obviously, hardness and softness are a continuum(v.90 and Win32 lie
somewhere on it).  But I think it's fair to say GNOME should have a good
deal of softness, if only to continue the rapid pace of development.

Needless to say, locked source(source that can only be modified by the
owners) is a definite hardener.