Saw this comment on /. about the Sun/IBM/HP et.c Gnome effort:

Several Troubling Questions (Score:2, Interesting)
by Riplakish on Monday August 14, @10:05AM EDT (#116)
(User #213391 Info)

In no particular order:

1) Is this the death knell of KDE?
2) Is this a move by the big corporate tech companies to 'Bogart' the Linux marketplace?
3) Is this really good for the open-source movement?

Granted, KDE can always exist, but this would probably make GNOME the 'de facto' standard linux desktop. I can't help but think that these major players won't undermine the open-source philosophy by usurping the responsibilty of the direction that GNOME takes. This could lead to the companies directing the development of GNOME not in the best interests of the community, but in there own fiscal interests. Remember, these companies don't give a rat's ass about open-source, but rather how can they make a buck from it. I guarantee this is just a business move to try and topple Microsoft. These companies would be Microsoft if they could. Does anyone want this to become the NEW Microsoft?

"Shop Smart. Shop S-Mart."

Item 3: Good for the open-source movement?

It increasingly seems to me that in the future, the open source movement and community will be led and built mostly by big corpos. Sure, we are the community today, but tomorrow we will only be a (probably named) fraction of it. It isn't more than reasonable that the service businesses of tomorrow (product businesses today) will be the ones who maintain the frameworks (open sourced code) they depend on for their livelyhood.
We should value this short window in history where we are still a community of personal beings. Tomorrow we - the personal beings - will have been replaced by anonymous coporate project leaders. We will be able to look back on this passage in time and proudly state that it was truly good years for personal fulfillment and visionary work that single individuals could pull off.

harebra / Malk