That GNOME-Only Thing? I Was Just Kidding

Published: Nov 14, 2005
Updated: Feb 2, 2021
1 minute read
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Well, that was fast.

When Novell gave up supporting KDE, I expected something to happen.

But what I didnt expect Novell to do, as one KDE supporter put it to me, “was to cave in so fast.”

What did we know?

In a handful of days, Novell did a 180 degree turn and began supporting KDE again.

/zimages/7/28571.gifClick hereto read more about Novell doing a 180 on KDE support.

Im not surprised that Novell has decided to support KDE again in its enterprise Linuxes. I had a sneaking feeling with so many KDE supporters in the SUSE division, it would be more or less formally supported sooner or later.

I also would not have been surprised—in fact I was expecting—to see some SUSE alumni launch a SUSE-based distribution with a KDE interface. I mean, OpenSUSE would continue to do the heavy lifting of integrating KDE and SUSE anyway, so making one would be trivial.

Heck, even I could do that!

Still, that said, I think Novell made the right move.

Besides just liking KDE better myself, I dont see Novell as “caving in.” I see Novell realizing that it was making a mistake.

/zimages/7/28571.gifRead Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols full column on Linux-Watch.com: That GNOME-Only Thing? I Was Just Kidding

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

I'm editor-at-large for Ziff Davis Enterprise. That's a fancy title that means I write about whatever topic strikes my fancy or needs written about across the Ziff Davis Enterprise family of publications. You'll find most of my stories in Linux-Watch, DesktopLinux and eWEEK. Prior to becoming a technology journalist, I worked at NASA and the Department of Defense on numerous major technological projects.

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