Begin small, end big. That works for everything when learning something new. So, with that said, go for Linux Mint Cinnamon.
I begun my Linux journey with elementary OS which is more for macOS users. I was a Windows user so I switched to Linux Mint Cinnamon. After a few years of exploring and learning, I am now using EndeavourOS.
Doesn’t the Linux version of Resolve only read/import (or export? I can’t remember) .mov or something that makes it more or less unusable? Has that changed?
Yeah. On Win and Mac, it imports anything. But on Linux, the paid Studio version will import x264/x265 with mp3 or PCM (wav) audio. Not AAC. People don’t like that. Lol
But you’d be insane to edit with these interframe formats. And most commercial editors would auto-convert ingested x264/265 to an intraframe format like Apple ProRes or Avid DNxHR anyway. They’re essentially containers for jpeg or png frames instead of compressing collections of frames. Much easier to scrub the timeline that way, though the files are huge.
On Linux, Resolve (both free and Studio) imports DNxHR with PCM audio and edits that like butter. ffmpeg easily converts prosumer camera x265/aac output to DNxHR. Or Shuttle encoder, if you want a GUI. And most pro cameras output ProRes, ProRes RAW, or DNxHR directly.
Also, Resolve on Linux will ingest all Blackmagic RAW file formats, if you have a Blackmagic camera. And the little BMPCC 4k is still a steal at $1200 or so. As long as you light your subject properly, that little camera shoots gorgeous photography.
Resolve is a pro tool. But a project takes time to set up. For little things, I’d go with Blender’s VSE, which is full featured but has a terrible interface, or kdenlive, which is a Windows Movemaker like toy, but has a normal interface you’d expect from an NLE.
Sadly even Resolve Studio doesn’t support h264 all-intra as used in Sony’s XAVC-I and XAVC-S-I on Linux, which sucks.
With XAVC-I CineEI Slog footage the metadata is enough that Resolve treats it as Raw (in fact, it’s more flexible than braw). So losing this functionality really hurts.
You could use gpu passthrough with iommu and qemu to a virtual system and run Win. A real PITA. I know.
I’d bitch about that on the blackmagic Resolve forum. That’s a serious hit to your workflow. Call out Dwaine, he works there and does Linux support. Nice guy.
I mean, I dunno about you but for me this is money. I make money with these tools. I prefer Linux for privacy reasons, but I’m not religious about it when it comes to money. We all gotta eat.
The Blackmagic folks might help. Especially if you paid for Studio. I don’t work there and can’t make promises, but I’d definitely make a stink about that. At least get a formal statement from them on Sony support in Linux.
My in-house is an old GH5s w/ a Shogun. But if the client pays, I prefer to rent an URSA mini. So I haven’t hit this.
Thanks for the writeup, that’s far more advanced than what I need to do in my work sometimes ^__^ But cool that it looks like there are options on Linux.
I do this for a living. Most people shooting family vids or youtube vlogs/video essays would find Kdenlive perfectly well suited to their needs. It does simple transforms, titling, adjustments, etc. And it looks like a normal NLE. When you hit a wall with it, the move to a commercial program will be easy.
Fusion is what I hate most! Lol I come from Ae and the Adobe suite before I switched. And while I’m comfortable with node based systems, Fusion just isn’t all that compared to all the plug-ins for Ae. Or Blender, which is also fantastic for motion graphics. Fusion does a great job animating titles though.
Resolve requires a whole production pipeline to use it properly. From ingest, organization, cutting, and post for audii, color, and graphics. It’s best suited to broadcast or features. Or, advertising.
There is a pre built distribution, you need to configure binary cache to get it. Refer to the “Substitute for nonguix” section: gitlab.com/nonguix/nonguix
Guile and Guix is way better documented than Nix. The language have more features, so you don’t have to use a hack to load packages, can actually know what is accepted in a function instead of blindly copying what others do, and it comes with a formatter.
I think the language is harder but more powerful than Nix’s.
Imo a better manual and examples would help a lot.
I’d say one of the biggest issues is the one with proprietary drivers - you can’t really find examples and guides on how to get drivers working because it’s kept hush-hush, and to install them yourself requires knowledge on how to set things up, knowledge which beginner users don’t have ofc.
I’m a big fan of Guix and Guile but atm I couldn’t switch over due to this.
Are u trying to install on x86 or ARM? ARM has images u can use. As for x86 I didn’t find distro with out of the box bigscreen configured, however there are AUR recipes - makes it easy to use it on Manjaro.
I have an a770. The only issue that I’ve had with what little gaming I do, is that CS2 ran pretty terribly, although I tried again last night and it seemed much better.
Appreciate it. It sounds like with the new announcement they’re putting quite a bit of support behind it so I’m optimistic improvements are made quickly
Intel have just released a driver update to combat this. Its somethimg to do with a transition layer implemetation that has been massively improved giving 500%+ performance boost.
Once x86 macOS became stable around snow leopard I switched from Linux to macOS full time on my mobile machines. For years home brew was a shining light to get a decent tool chain installed to be able to do development. But somewhere around the time they changed to naming macOS releases after places in California, both home brew and macOS started changing in ways that made it harder to maintain a stable development environment. Why and when did it start deciding to upgrade every package I have installed when I try to install a new package? It regularly broke both mine and our developers’ machines and I finally had enough of both. Stay away from home brew if you want your working development environment to continue working 6 months later. It WILL break when you need it most and cost you hours if not days of work to fix. I’ve never ran home brew on Linux but it’s honestly not anything I would ever consider even when it worked well.
Thanks for the insights! Do you know if these issues continue to persist?
Why and when did it start deciding to upgrade every package I have installed when I try to install a new package?
Is this perhaps related to how for most non-LTS distros (but especially on something like Arch) one is recommended to update all packages before installing a new package in hopes of preventing issues related to dependency hell? I don’t know if Homebrew’s model of packaging is similar enough to Linux’ to make sensible comparisons between the two, but this was just something that came up to me as a thought.
Glad I’m not the only one with this question. Feels like it’s difficult to find up-to-date information on the performance of these Arc cards on Linux; I’d like to support Intel’s move into this space but it’s hard without knowing how drastically it’s going to affect my gaming performance. 😅
I’m glad to hear the situation seems to be rapidly improving. I may pick up an A770 yet.
In my view, the “community” reaction was terrible. Regardless of if you agree with them or not, the response should be honest and rational. I found the reaction, emotional, political, and frankly dishonest. The response was that Red Hat was suddenly going proprietary, that they were violating the GPL, and / or that they were “taking” the work of untold legions of free software volunteers without giving back. They were accused of naked corporate greed by companies whose whole business is based on using Red Hat’s work without paying ( peak hypocrisy ).
Let’s start with what they actually did. Red Hat builds RHEL first by contributing all their code and collecting all the Open Source packages they use into a distribution called CentOS Stream. Once in a while, they fork that and begin building a new release of RHEL. That requires lots of testing, packaging, configuration, documentation, and other work required to make RHEL above and beyond the source code. Previously, they made the output of all this work publicly available. What they did was stop that. So, what does it look like now?
Red Hat now only distributes the RHEL SRPM packages to their subscribers ( which may be paying customers or getting it free ). The support agreement with Red Hat says that, if you distribute those to others, they will cancel your subscription. That is the big controversy.
What you cannot do now is “easily” build a RHEL clone that is guaranteed “bug for bug” compatible with RHEL and use it to compete with Red Hat. You will notice that those making the most noise, like Rocky Linux, want to do that.
So, are Red Hat violating the GPL? No.
First, Red Hat distributes all the code to make RHEL to the actual people they “distribute to” ( to their subscribers ) including everything required to configure and build it. This is everything required by the GPL and more.
Second, less than half of the code in RHEL is even GPL licensed. The text of the GPL itself says that the requirements of the GPL do not extend to such an “aggregate” ( the term the GPL itself uses ). So, Red Hat is going quite above and beyond the licensing by providing their subscribers code to the entire distribution. Yes, beyond.
Third, CentOS Stream remains open to everybody. You can build a Linux distribution from that that is ABI compatible with RHEL. That is what Alma Linux is doing now. Red Hat contributes mountains of free software to the world, both original packages and contributions to some of the most important packages in the free software world. Red Hat is not required to license packages they author under the GPL but they do. They are not required to make all of CentOS Stream available to the public but they do. They are certainly not freeloaders.
But what about this business of cancelling subscriptions? Isn’t that a restriction in violation of the GPL? Not in my view.
The GPL says that you are free to distribute code you receive under the GPL without fear of being accused of copyright violation. It says you can modify the code and distribute your changes. It says you can start a business in top of that code and nobody can stop you. Do RHEL subscribers enjoy all these freedoms. Yes. Yes they do.
What happens ( after the change ) when a RHEL subscriber violates the terms of their subscriber agreement? Well, they cease to be a subscriber. Does this mean they lose access to the source they got from RHEL? No. Does it mean they can be sued for distributing the code? No. I mean, you could risk trademark violation if you sell it I guess.
So, what does it mean that RHEL cancels your subscription? Well, it means they will no longer support you. I hope people see that as fair. It also means as bs they will no longer distribute their software to you IN THE FUTURE.
That is it. That is the outrage.
If you give away the results of Red Hat’s hard work to productize CentOS Stream into RHEL, they stop sending you future releases.
Again, that is it.
You can do whatever you want with what they already sent you. You have all the rights the GPL provides, even for software licenses as MIT, BSD, Apache, or otherwise. Nothing has been taken from you except access to FUTURE Red Hat product ( other than totally for free via CentOS Stream of course ).
Anyway, as you can see, they are the devil and we should hope their business fails. Because, why would we want a commercial successful company to keep contributing as much to Free Software and Open Source as they do?
But what about this business of cancelling subscriptions? Isn’t that a restriction in violation of the GPL? Not in my view.
You are just repeating the exact narrow definition that Redhat/IBM’s lawyer leeches found to justify what they did. Yes it’s legal - but by no means in the spirit of GPL or any FSF or OSI approved license.
Starting with the FSF definition, ANY software from OUTSIDE that RH builds on (this includes the kernel and numerous other parts) comes to them with 4 assured freedoms. One of them is the freedom to distribute the software or the modified forms of it. To put it in short, what RH says is - “You’re still free to exercise the freedom - but we will stop doing business with you if you do”. While this is not against the letter of the license, this is most certainly AGAINST the INTENT of the license.
One might ask, if that’s the intent of the license, why does the license allow such a loophole? To put it simply, the creators of the license created it based on certainguidelines. But they couldn’t foresee all the ways in which the license would be twisted, violating its intent. This happens from time to time - causing the licenses to undergo revisions. For example, GPLv3 was created due to what FSF calls Tivoization - a practice that violates the intent without violating the license. Hell, this is against even OSI’s intent.
However, just because there are loop holes in the license to violate its intent, doesn’t mean that it’s ethical or moral to take advantage of it. When some company does so, it’s nothing short of parasitism. In this case, RH managed to suppress GPL after profiteering for decades from it.
In my view, the “community” reaction was terrible.
Clearly, your view is heavily colored. Remember that the community’s reaction was only a response to what RH did. You clearly are not seeing the possibility that what RH did is way way worse and extremely damaging towards the community and FOSS principles.
If you give away the results of Red Hat’s hard work to productize CentOS Stream into RHEL,
This is a very myopic, one-sided and biased take. A lot of people who are complaining are contributors to the work RH uses. This isn’t just about some bit of work. This is about trust that forms the foundations of the FOSS movement. People will be hesitant to contribute to any project that RH may take and profit like this. RH is using their code in a way that they were not expecting. What RH did is to fundamentally exploit that trust and then betray it.
Nothing has been taken from you except access to FUTURE Red Hat product ( other than totally for free via CentOS Stream of course ).
The same narrow definitions to justify the malicious intent. Remember that distributing the recipe for ‘FUTURE Red Hat product’ wouldn’t be wrong in any way if RH hadn’t created the new clause - that they will stop supplying if you did. They had to invent a way to override the intent of FOSS.
So, Red Hat is going quite above and beyond the licensing by providing their subscribers code to the entire distribution. Yes, beyond.
They don’t have a business if they didn’t distribute the source code. There are numerous other offerings that give you the same services without the source code. They are doing nothing beyond what it takes for them to make money. So, their moral superiority arguments are based on false premises.
I’m honestly very tired of people shilling the false arguments of corporates that exploit regular folks to make money. The stories of how RH damaged the entire Linux ecosystem for supporting their business is too long for me to even get into. For now, I will just say that RH’s entire business model has been to make the Linux ecosystem too complicated for anyone else to reasonably manage or modify. So, please stop giving this greedy corporation more credit than what it’s worth and stop demonizing the people who complained when their reasonable expectations were violated.
I am not repeating anything Red Hat has said.( even if they said it ). I have not read any of their responses. I am reacting to what I have read and seen myself in the corners of tue Internet that I frequent ( where I have never seen Red Hat post — like here for example ). My thoughts and analysis are my own.
“Starting with the FSF definition” you say and then completely ignore what the GPL itself says about aggregates like RHEL. Again, less than half of RHEL is even software released under the GPL. Much of the software that is GPL was authored by Red Hat themselves. According to the text of the GPL itself, Red Hat is not required to distribute the code to the totality of the RHEL distribution or even to more than half the code. That is not a “loop hole”. The authors of the GPL went out of their way to spell this out. The word “aggregate” is introduced in the text of the GPL to specifically differentiate something like a full OS distribution from an individual work released under the GPL and included in that distribution. Beyond the hand-waving, I have never seen somebody explain to me how RHEL itself is governed by the GPL other than as an example of an “aggregate” that the GPL goes out of its way to point out would NOT be governed by the GPL. I have pointed this out many times and, disappointingly, the responses I get always completely ignore this. RHEL is not governed by the GPL other than as something that is specifically and explicitly excluded from the conditions of the GPL by the text of the GPL itself ( not as loop hole but by a section of the license that does not even need to be in the license other than to clarify this very thing ).
As for the “4 freedoms”, as stated above, you have all 4 of those freedoms for any GPL software from Red Hat. They even extend these freedoms to you for software that does not require it.
Let’s talk about “the spirit” off Free Software here.
The controversy is about Red Hat restricting the ability ( really just making it less convenient ) to piggy-back off them to make guaranteed “exact”, “identical”, “bug-for-bug” copies of RHEL. Why does Rocky Linux want to make “bug-for-bug” copies of RHEL? Why does Orace? Why does SUSE? Well that is simple. It is because they have built a business on providing guaranteed compatibility with RHEL.
What does “bug-for-bug” compatibility with RHEL mean? Well, it means that all that can be done is to rebuild and redistribute the packages created by Red Hat exactly as Red Hat created them. Does “the community” want to use this code as a base for incorporating their own changes and innovations? No. They cannot change it or it would no longer build into a bug-for-bug clone of RHEL. Can they even fix bugs? Again, no. “Bug-for-bug” means having the same bugs.
The people fighting hardest to take the exact packages output by Red Hat are explicitly fighting for the right to take RHEL without paying and with the express plan of giving absolutely nothing back.
And you know what, you can still do that with any code you get from Red Hat. If you are going to do that though, they want to stop sending you their future work. The horror.
The fury around these changes from Red Hat is that people ( most loudly companies that want to compete with Red Hat ) not only want to explicitly take without giving back but they also want to ensure that Red Hat is forced to provide all their future work for free as well. The demand is that Red Hat provide their labour and expense for free—forever.
And again, to be very clear, we are not even talking about source code. Because Red Hat does give away the code that they produce not just because they have to but because they want to ( they author stuff and make it GPL when they could choose other licenses ). They founded the Fedora project to create an aggressively free distribution and pay the salaries of many of its core contributors. This is very clearly something they volunteer willingly as they founded the project specifically to do that. Red Hat also pays to make CentOS Stream available which has all the same software and code in it as RHEL and can even be ABI compatible ( as Alma is now doing ). All the code, if that is what you want, is very available. Red Hat is not hoarding code. Red Hat is not taking anybody’s code and trying to close it off.
If this was about the code and the ability to preserve it for “the community” then then there would not be much problem. The problem is that people want specifically to make “bug-for-bug” RHEL clones now and in the future and they want Red Hat to do all the work to make that possible without any contribution from “the community” at all. Again, “the work” here is not authoring source code but all the other work that goes into making a full distribution.
What “community” is being damaged by telling people to use or fork CentOS Stream instead of trying to make “bug-for-bug” copies of RHEL? How is this “extremely damaging to the community and FOSS principles”?
If the right to take without giving back is what people mean by “the spirit” of Free Software then this is the moment that I break with Free Software and go fully Open Source.
For anybody that thinks that Free Software and Open Source are the same thing, Open Source is a pragmatic philosophy about how developer collaboration leads to better software while Free Software ( as defined by the Free Software Foundation ) is a political movement focused on the rights of users ( just user freedoms - explicitly not software author or developer freedoms ). The GPL, specially, restricts the freedom of software developers which is why many other Open Source licenses are often called “permissive” licenses ( because they are MORE free). Not all Open Source software is Free Software by the definition of Open Source provided by the Open Source Institute.
Red Hat, I notice, voluntarily chooses the GPL for the code they author instead of choosing a more “permissive” license. Interesting choice for such a “greedy corporation”.
I am all over the idea of collaboration around software development. I do not see though how anybody can claim to credibly fighting for that in this Red Hat spat though. If this were about collaboration ( not just explicit duplication ), I imagine Red Hat would be on board. Based on “the community” reaction, It seems that “the spirit” of Free Software is more about entitlement and the right to demand continued servitude from the people that create software for you. Ask not what I can do for the software but rather what does my software provider HAVE to do for me. Those are not politics that I care to support. Count me out
Again, less than half of RHEL is even software released under the GPL.
I would be completely shocked if this were true. I’m calling BS here.
I used to be my company’s primary contact for our Red Hat TAM for almost 13 years. Our TAMs were very proud to claim that all of RHEL was FOSS software, licensed under the GPL or sometimes other FOSS licenses.
So 65% of RHEL 9’s packages are under a GPL license.
Much of the software that is GPL was authored by Red Hat themselves. According to the text of the GPL itself, Red Hat is not required to distribute the code to the totality of the RHEL distribution or even to more than half the code.
Half?!? Again, where are these mysterious numbers coming from?
It doesn’t matter if Red Hat authored those packages or not. What matters is if they were distributed under a GPL license. If you’re claiming that Red Hat multi-licensed those GPL’d packages that they exclusively wrote so they don’t have to comply with the GPL, please point those out to me (or at least a few), so I can check them out.
And all the people that provide the free software RH is using and making money with don’t count?! How about RH subscribe to all their projects to be able to repackage and redistribute their code, and if one of them doesn’t like RH then they’ll just cut them off like RH is doing to their customers. Does that sound like a good direction for the OSS ecosystem to you?
Of course RH does also provide back to the community, but that is the whole deal! You get free and open code, you give back free and open code. And they are a big company making a lot of money, so of course they should also contribute much more than a handful of devs would. That shouldn’t give them the privilege to unilaterally change this deal.
I get that it’s technically within the bounds of the GPL, but it’s a loophole and not how an “OSS company” should act imo! The whole OSS ecosystem as we know it would collapse if all projects started doing this.
Red Hat does “subscribe” to the software they ship and fully complies with the terms specified for them to do so. Again, rhetoric completely at odds with the facts.
Let’s be explicit about the “loophole” that keeps getting talked about. What is it?
The GPL outlines a bunch of freedoms that you get when somebody distributes software to you. It does not provide any rights to anybody that has not been given software. Is that the loophole?
Red Hat provides CentOS Stream to everybody and so it, along with all its source code and everything else is available to the public. Only RHEL subscribers have any rights to RHEL because they are they only ones that get it from Red Hat. The public has no inherent right to RHEL, code or otherwise. This is of course compatible with the GPL and not in some nuanced tortured way but of course with its core purpose—to grant freedoms for software that you use ( have been given ). Is that the loophole?
The GPL talks about the rights you have regarding software you have already received—that you use—not software you may or may not receive in the future. Is that the loophole?
Importantly though, we are not talking about an individual package covered by the GPL. We are talking about RHEL, which is a collection of software of which less than half is even GPL licensed. On that basis, I submit that the following text ( extracted from the GPL itself ) might be the “loophole” that you are referring to:
“Inclusion of a covered work in an aggregate does not cause this License to apply to the other parts of the aggregate.”
Again, that language is quoted directly from the license.
Is that a loophole? Because it seems like a very specific provision to me. Did the authors of the GPL say that the GPL does not extend to all of RHEL by accident?
The GPL outlines a bunch of freedoms that you get when somebody distributes software to you. It does not provide any rights to anybody that I have not distributed software to. Is that the loophole?
Imo the loophole is that RH is disrespecting the rights people have under the GPL by threatening negative consequences when they use those rights. E.g. you can’t say I have the right to freedom of speech and also break my arm when I do it, just because I can physically speak about whatever I want. Respecting rights includes not punishing someone for using those rights.
Of course technically they are in the right, but imo it still violates the ethos of OSS as I see it.
Look, everybody is entitled to their opinion and I respect yours. I have posted enough that it is just going to look combative and so I think this will be the last one. That said, this feels like the kind of “then why don’t we just allow murder” straw man that gets used when we want to argue emotions instead of facts. Yes, breaking your arm sounds very unfair. Is that a good analogy?
I think a much better analogy would be me signing an employment agreement that places restrictions on my freedoms that I otherwise have as a citizen of my country. Who cares what restrictions. Maybe I cannot drink at work. Maybe I cannot travel to certain countries. Maybe I cannot play video games on the work computer ( even at home ). Maybe I am not allowed to express certain political or religious views with customers. Or maybe there is a public article showing that all our competitors are better than us and I am not allowed to tell customers about that article. Let’s take that last one and assume I am American ( I am not but we need a legal framework we may all know ).
Has my company taken away my 1st amendment right to free speech? If I say something they do not like, they will take away my job and all the income I wanted from it in the future. Is that fair and ethical? It certainly hurts me. How is that not massively illegal under the US constitution? Surely employment law is less important than the constitution. How is it morally ok and not totally against “the spirit” of a free society?
Well, I have not lost any rights. I remain free to say what I want. However, there can be consequences. In this case, they are consequences that I have contractually agreed to. The First Amendment and my Employment Contract are not the same thing and they grant me different rights and impose different obligations. I am free to share the damaging article but, if I do, my employer will stop paying me.
Free Speech Absolutionists may insist that I not be fired for acting against the interests of my employer. Most of the rest of us understand that this os ok as we have to balance the interests of all parties of we want a system that works well overall. We also understand that no rights have been lost.
I see this as very much like that. Red Hat is not adding any new restrictions to the copyright license and, as such, they are granting you full rights as per that license. Legally, Red Hat is granting you the right to redistribute their code when they give you code licensed under the GPL. Simultaneously, they ask me to agree to a subscription agreement ( like an employer asks me to agree to an Employment Agreement ). The subscription agreement outlines what Red Hat will do for me and what I must agree to do in return. I do not have to agree to the subscription agreement. I can CHOOSE to because it offers something I want. In doing so, I may have agreed to some constraints on my otherwise fundamental rights or more general legal agreements.
So, I do not think Red Hat is threatening to break your arm. They do not harm you in any way other than to stop doing nice things for you in the future.
What I see in the reaction to Red Hat is a bunch of people that think they should be able to break their employment contracts but still keep getting paycheques from their employer.
If we still disagree, that is fine. I think this post fairly explains my position.
Honestly I don’t get why Gnome is standard for so many distros, if that’s your thing sure but I feel like KDE makes more sense as a default (unless you’re going for more of an apple feel)
KDE feels like an unpolished Windows desktop to me. I find it difficult to do things the KDE way when everything feels like Windows on first glance, but doesn’t 1:1 behave like Windows. It’s a disjarring experience for me, and probably others who migrate from Windows to Linux. I also think that Gnome has better touchpad gesture support than KDE, which makes Gnome the logical choice for companies that sell Linux laptops.
My recollection mostly had to do with the old way Qt was licensed, which affected how people wanted to include KDE in distros. Gnome managed to step into the void by leapfrogging other choices like CDE (way back!) and it managed to get wired into a few fast growing distros. Most notably, it was pulled into Ubuntu due to the Qt licensing on commercial distros, then many things based on Ubuntu, and here we are.
I’m sure there were other considerations about features, where Gnome had a good set of tools, but used to be lighter duty than KDE. There was also a window of time where Gnome was designed to be more touchscreen/tablet friendly while KDE stayed away from that style (good!).
Different licenses, different styles, different release times. A bit of “right place, right time, now the default” for Gnome.
I like KDE, but I’m mostly a Mint/Cinnamon user, and have been around since SunOS CDE systems, so it’s all better than that! I’ve got a couple of kids on Ubuntu/Gnome, mostly due to driver issues.
Some of this is correct, and some of it is myth. Source: I was there ;)
Qt way back in version 1 was merely “free for non-commercial use” and shipped with the source code. KDE was founded on that version. This was in like 1996, before KDE even had a stable release. Gnome was founded immediately in response, choosing GTK (the Gimp Toolkit) which wasn’t really ready for use as a full fledged desktop toolkit, but existed and the license was friendly. KDE and Trolltech formed a few agreements – the first was the creation of the QPL, an attempt to create an open-source compatible license for Qt, and the second was the creation of the KDE Free Qt Foundation (it said, effectively, if Qt were to become closed, the most recent version prior to that would be released under the BSD license).
However, the damage was done. Stallman and others would never forgive KDE for choosing a not-free-enough toolkit, and the Gnome devs were associated with redhat. That meant Redhat and Debian, the two biggest distros, defaulted to Gnome. Ubuntu just adopted Debian, ergo Gnome.
Qt would shortly thereafter be released under GPL, GPL3, and LGPL. There’s still a commercial license option, and that pisses a lot of people off for some reason. But it was never a risk to KDE or the community – not since before KDE 1.0.
So, gnome is an alternative desktop environment and it’s great that they exist. If they inspired Apple’s UI or the other way around, doesn’t matter but they are the Apple UI of Linux. Mac users switching to Linux can have a somewhat familiar experience.
That said, their “we know better than you what you want, luser” attitude makes it hard for me not to grin when someone rants about their stuff. It shouldn’t, because they are probably mostly unpaid contributors and their work should be valued, but once in a while…
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