Why GTK+ vs. GNOME?

[Sean Middleditch <sean middleditch iname com>]

OK, this is really naive question, but its been on my mind...

For the developers who don't want to use GNOME libraries, but DO want to
use GTK+, what is your main reason for not wanting GNOME?

I understand some people don't want extra binaries all over the place,
but isn't have the integration and extra features of GNOME a bit worth
it?  The only time I can think of when one woudn't want GNOME on a
system is on embedded devices, but GTK+ really isn't the GUI for them
either (at least, not without some shrinking).

I mean, I like things to be as small as possible, but why give up things
like applets, gnome-print, bonobo, etc., just to not have to install
some libraries that any intelligent Linux distribution or UNIX system
would include on GUI-based systems?  Are that many people still that low
on or processor speed?  I haven't laid eyes on anything powered by a
processor lower than a Pentium in over a year...

Really, the only thing I can think of would be people who don't want all
the easy-to-use features (and their accompanying bloat) of a desktop
like GNOME, since they never use them.  I'll admit, I guess that's a
damn good reason for those people not to want to add stuff they don't
need to their system...  How do people like that feel about packages
with an optional --with-gnome-stuff option to configure, to allow people
with GNOME to have really nifty applications, and people with just GTK+
to have only normally nifty applications?  I mean, they might not need
the libraries but the source will still be larger.  And how do most
developers feel about having to write code that will compile and run
without GNOME?  Would aiming to please GTK+ only users make the GNOME
part not enough?  Are the additional features of GNOME really not
necessary?

Just to state my opinion, I'm entirely for GNOME, and I want as much
integration, component re-use, and ease-of-use and much as the next lazy
user (you have no idea how weird that sounds to me when I think about
it, I honestly spend 95% of my time on a computer working in a
desktop-size GNOME terminal, the other 5% in Netscape/Mozilla/Galeon).
 Of course, I have nothing against adding GNOME to my system since it
was the standard on the frist GUI-based Linux I tried (RH 5.2), and I've
stuck with it over the year and a half I've been using UNIX.

In case you are wondering, the reason I finally had to ask was when I
read of Inti on a Slashdot article, and was puzzled over the fact that
it only uses GTK+, and doesn't seem to plan to use GNOME.  I remember
the thing with GTKHtml/CSCHtml not too long ago. I read earlier today a
"wishlist" item for Galeon was to remove the GNOME dependency (as if
that depency was worse than needing the whole of Mozilla installed..).

Ack, sorry, I'm rambling.  What I intended to be a one or two line
question turned into a beefy message... Sorry to put you all through
reading it all.. :)

Sean "Etc."