Late Night Linux
Late Night Linux – Episode 319
Feb 3, 2025
Imagine if Qt had been friendlier licensed—would KDE have been the top desktop choice instead of GNOME? Dive into a debate on IBM's impact after acquiring Red Hat and explore innovative tools like Tailscale’s VPN and a user-friendly systemd manager. The discussion also covers the need for better screen comfort with Redshift and the importance of security in managing app credentials. Finally, they reflect on the dwindling Linux news landscape and its broader implications for the open-source community.
31:08
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Quick takeaways
- The licensing of the Qt toolkit significantly influenced the emergence of the GNOME desktop environment over KDE, shaping Linux desktop dynamics.
- The discussion reveals that if IBM hadn't acquired Red Hat, similar strategic shifts in open-source development would likely have still occurred regardless.
Deep dives
The Impact of Licensing on Desktop Environments
The discussion delves into how the licensing of the Qt toolkit influenced the rise of the GTK framework and the GNOME desktop environment. Originally, Qt was not released under an open-source license, leading developers to create Gtk and subsequently GNOME due to concerns over potential changes in Qt's licensing. This fork allowed the GNOME project to flourish and become a standard in many Linux distributions, primarily because developers were wary of the proprietary optimizations that could arise from the Qt license. The conversation suggests that if Qt had a friendlier licensing framework, KDE might have dominated the desktop space, but it also implies that this could have limited innovation by encouraging toolkits duplication.
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