the new GNOME duality
Submitted by srlinuxx on Fri, 07/18/2008 - 19:08.
First of all, I think that the GNOME project is in a really strange place right now. Others called it “decadence” but I’ve been thinking of it more as a state of transition. Things are changing in GNOME and I think that it’s largely just a reflection of time. GNOME has been around for more than a decade. Leadership is changing. GNOME is evolving into something else. I don’t think that I really understood this until after I was at the advisory board meeting at this year’s GUADEC.
Second, I’ll state what I said to Havoc. That I think that GNOME has evolved into two different projects, each struggling to share code and be successful. One is the “classic desktop” as we used to call it at Red Hat and the second project is built around servicing the mobile and highly-specialized desktop experience market. These are not the same thing, not by any stretch. Different audiences, different goals, different players and different revenue models. As a result you can feel some measure of friendly, but sometimes misunderstood confusion in the GNOME project because the underlying change isn’t fully understood.
A side effect of this change is also that there’s been a major change of the leadership in GNOME.
Gnome, gtk+, Python, ARM, and analog functions ? Progress ?
There is no doubt that mobile world of embedded functions with DSP processors will overrun Boston MIT Gnome initiatives. Novell has no DSP platform experience, nor do RedHat subcontractors to fix codes.
Gtk+ is not for mobile LCDs. Python is sabotaged by Mono. ARM cpu(DSP) is much more than Intel digital branch prediction(8 bit register working as 32 bit core).
So, mobile Gnome will strip down Novell Gnome, and prosper with pixeled video data transfer. But Europeans are not yet moving from ascii codes to fax(pixels) data transfer. So, Gnome progress will just be offshoots and version number confusions.
We are now actively building mobile computer infrastructure(organizing manufacturers along with Google android and Microsoft mobile efforts), so that this form factor will be the most affordable and powerful cloud computing computer used around the world.
Footnote:
To support platform ARM cpu, you have to use the old GCC v3.3 compiler for the new Linux kernel source codes. Newer GCC may not have all the fixes for ARM cpu versions.
Footnote 2:
Intel extreme video uses DSP instead of video processor of hundreds of bits like ATI and Nvidia. It was developed by Analog Devices with less than 25 mb of firmware. ARM can be used for sophisticated video display device, or simple faxed pixeled webpages.