Its sad but true that until recently some of the Linux desktops best supporters were also its worst enemies.
By constantly flaming each other and refusing to work together, the GNOME and KDE desktop developers were ensuring that no Linux desktop would ever get enough customer market share or ISV mind share to become a major desktop player.
Thats now old news.
On April 4, the Portland Project, a working group of all the major Linux desktop players, announced the first set of common interfaces for the GNOME and KDE Linux desktops.
For the first time, theres real, albeit alpha, code that will enable developers to write an application once for both of these extremely popular Linux desktop interfaces.
This really is a giant step forward for desktop Linux.
I remember all too well how the Unix companies tore each other into bits by refusing to cooperate with each other. And, while SCO, Interactive Systems, Consensys and Univel were busy mauling each other, Microsoft was cheerfully picking up their business.
Whats that you say? Except for SCO, youve never heard of these Unix companies? Thats right, unless youre an old fogy like me, youve never heard of them because theyre dead as doornails.