About

Why Mocka exists

Mocka is a GTK desktop built for FreeBSD and GhostBSD first.

Most desktop environments are designed on Linux and ported to the BSDs afterward. They work, but they carry assumptions that don't belong on a BSD system, and those assumptions show up as missing features, workarounds, and patches that downstream projects have to maintain. Mocka starts from the other side: FreeBSD and GhostBSD are the target platforms, not a port.

Why a reimplementation instead of a fork

The obvious path would have been to fork MATE and change it. We chose not to.

A clean license. Forked code keeps its original license. Every Mocka component is new code, released under the BSD-3-Clause license, the same family of license as FreeBSD and GhostBSD themselves.

No inherited assumptions. A fork carries its history with it, including the Linux-specific design decisions. New code can be designed around how FreeBSD actually works from the first line.

Compatibility without dependency. Mocka reimplements MATE's components so they work with MATE's public interfaces, such as its panel and settings. You can run Mocka and MATE components side by side while the transition happens, and move over one piece at a time.

One component at a time

Mocka replaces MATE gradually until every part has been replaced. The first component is Mocka Dock, a taskbar-style dock for the panel. The application menu and a settings tool are next.

The name

MATE is named after the South American drink, and one of its forks, Café, kept the tradition going. Mocha is the project founder's favorite treat, so it felt like the natural next cup. While researching whether any projects were already called Mocha, he misspelled it with a "k" instead of an "h". The typo stuck, and Mocha became Mocka.

Part of GhostBSD

Mocka is developed as part of GhostBSD and ships with it. Development happens in the open on GitHub, and everyone is welcome to test, report bugs, and contribute.