KDE+M$=?

I have been pondering as of late about KDE being able to run on the M$ Kernel. What are the benefits of this upcoming capability? What exactly does it mean to the KDE FOSS community? What changes in the KDE community are going to take place as a result? What brought these questions to the forefront of my mind was two separate events.

The first thing that got me thinking was a comment that a friend of mine made on IRC while we were working together. He had said I can’t wait until KDE runs on M$ then there will be so many talented people who will contribute to our project. This in it’s self did not cause me to take pause or even feel compelled to create this blog. It was something else ever so subtle that I read in aseigos blog post entitled “thoughts on framing “kde.”“(ironic title IMO.)

Once Aaron Seigo proudly took his job at Trolltech he became their most influential and flamboyant spokesperson they have in the KDE community. This is not to say that this is a good or bad thing. It just is what it is. After reading this lengthy and obviously prepared statement posted by Aaron to his blog. My thoughts returned to the statement my friend made on IRC. Then on how this subject of separating the applications from the core was brought up during akademy 2005. If most of the applications from the KDE base have been successfully removed how exactly will they gain this huge exposure? The developers of existing “KDE” applications seem to be expecting this massive influx of contributors and if their apps are in fact still bundled rightfully so? Unfortunately this does not look like it may be the case! So this got me wondering. How might a move like the one outlined in the statement Aaron posted coupled with the movement to remove apps from the base effect the greater KDE FOSS community?
KDE is in the rawest state Trolltech’s Qt demo-ware. It always has been. KDE and the apps included are meant to say look what you can do with Qt. You can create anything you want with Qt for free! Unless you want to sell it, then it’s gunna cost ya. It is a very successful and sound business model that has worked very well for Trolltech. It made perfectly good business sense to bundle as many examples as they could into KDE while it was a Linux only DE. It truly was a win win situation. So why would they now propose to separate the examples out of the base?
They want to make a bunch of money on this ability to boot on top of the M$ kernel. Who wouldn’t? They want to sell Qt licenses to developers of proprietary software. Software that may even do similar if not the same things that the FOSS examples already do. The M$ user base will welcome these new programs that are able to interconnect so easily and pay the developing companies for them. Ta Da! Trolltech and their stock holders will be rolling in the dough. In the end the KDE FOSS community will get the shaft and struggle to make sure their GPL’d code is kept out of the proprietary programs. Now that is the real change that the KDE FOSS community may be facing with this port to the M$ Kernel. Not an influx of willing contributors! You can expect the push to remove the apps to come to a boiling point in the near future. For the time being Trolltech probably will turn up the heat just enough to make everyone cozy and comfortable with the idea. Just wait until there is a gentle proposal from one of many to change the name of KDE to something more “marketable.”