People make the mistake of thinking this is about logic. Hell
no. I'm making my choice relying on a mixture of bias, prejudice and
ignorance with a dab of irrationality. Personally I liked the sound of
KDE as something like but not the same as CDE. Unfortunately I then
discovered that the K stands for Kool. Sorry, but I'm afraid I cannot
use anything named KoolAnything. There are other really good reasons
to consider either package, but you have to spend 24 hours a day for
three weeks looking into them. I'd rather be drinking beer with my
girlfriend.
Update : 6th March 1999
Ok, well some of the ignorance is wearing off. I've been to the
websites of the two projects. KDE
looks bigger and more professional (I'm sticking to irrationality for
as long as I can) and some people have suggested that the toolkit they
use (Qt) is now free enough (see this) to count as free
software. Finally, the really great news is I didn't spot "kool"
anywhere on their website, so perhaps I will be able to give KDE a fair evaluation. The Apple Mac
look and feel is a very cute touch, just as long as I never get the
bomb icon and have to reboot the whole machine just because some
application threw all of its toys out of the pram.
Created 20 February 1999