This week's LinuxWorld Conference and Expo showed the first software tools in the effort, called Project Portland. Using them, a software company can write a single software package that works using either of the prevailing graphical interfaces.
OSDL and a cooperating group called Freedesktop.org that's already working on unifying interface issues plan to release a beta version of the software in May and version 1.0 in June. Ultimately, advocates hope it will be part of a larger but separate effort called the Linux Standard Base, which is designed to make the operating system easier on software companies.
The Project Portland began as a meeting among developers at OSDL in Portland, Ore., in December, organizers said. KDE and GNOME both endorsed the project. Unlike Windows and Mac OS X, Linux has two major sets of graphical interfaces, presenting people with different items such as control panels, complicating cut-and-paste operations, and requiring programmers to be aware of what underpinnings they're using for elements such as dialogue boxes or pull-down menus. It's common for software packages from both to be installed on Linux machines, letting programs created for either to run smoothly, but that circumstance isn't guaranteed.
News source: CNetThe Portland Project is working on two ways to gloss over the differences, a set of command-line tools and an application programming interface called DAPI. OSDL, a nonprofit consortium founded in 2000 by computing industry heavyweights and employing Linux leader Linus Torvalds, began working on desktop Linux issues in 2003.
"Portland is promising because the historical lack of uniformity across KDE and GNOME has made it difficult for ISVs to build a single application that integrates well in both environments," Linux Standard Base chairman Ian Murdock said in an interview. But, he added, the Portland Project is just one step of many that are needed.
The Linux Standard Base plans to add the software libraries of KDE and GNOME, called Qt and Gtk, respectively, to version 3.1 of its standard. That version is scheduled to debut in early May, while version 3.2 due in early 2007 will incorporate the Portland Project's work, Murdock said.
