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SGML's "takeoff" is pretty well established, friend. You would be hard pressed to find a professional, hot-type emulating typesetting system which does not speak SGML. And as a basis for solid, enterprise level document management system, it's fundamental constructs (and by extension XML's) are unparalleled.
...
The balance of your critique is specific to the desktop platforms and Linux in particular, where the demand for professional-quality type layout and DMS are somewhat limited and, as you say, the popularity and quality of the TeX tools have discouraged innovation.

I think it would be fair to say that all of my critique is specific to desktop platforms, and not just to Linux, either. SGML and XML clearly have a role to play in the world of professional publishing and ``enterprise-level document management systems'', and I acknowledged that role up front. But the specific question asked by Cactvs142 dealt with whether he should write his lab reports using DocBook or TEI, which hardly falls into the areas you describe.

In the world of professional publishing, I suspect that you have either proprietary (and expensive!) software to make creating SGML/XML content not much more complex than writing with a standard word processor (I'm thinking of tools such as Frame, or newspaper systems that provide the user with a terminal complete with specialized function keys to apply styles, etc.) or professionals who are both well versed in and happy to use the raw interfaces. I imagine the same is true for people who have to work with ``enterprise-level document management systems''.

But working with SGML and XML on desktop systems today means working with their raw forms: what tools there are require users to get intimately involved with the internal structures of the systems -- applying tags by hand in a text editor and running obscure command-line tools to generate usable output.

In the world of the average user (corporate or home), however, even command-line interfaces can be scary. People want (and rightly so) an interface like Word's. Users don't want to (or can't) remember obscure tags; they want to write their memos, letters, essays, or lab reports and have the look the way they want; and to not have to do anything more complicated than click on a few buttons and choose some menu items.

Even in the world of the hacker, the current tools for SGML and XML make it harder to use than it needs to be (for instance, it would be nice if psgml-mode switched to a DocBook mode when the DTD in use is DocBook, with a menu containing DocBook tags).

The only tool I'm aware of for editing XML that looks like it might be heading in the right direction (based on the screenshot alone -- the demo isn't much different, given that it doesn't allow you to actually change a document you're viewing) is Conglomerate, and it isn't even close to being ready for public release. If you know of other user-friendly tools, please tell us -- the tools I see at xml.apache.org are all server-oriented, not authoring tools by any stretch of the imagination, and the same seems to be true after a quick search on freshmeat.

When it comes to separating content from appearance, I'm all for it. I do so with both my HTML and LaTeX code. But if SGML/XML editors are rare, tools for creating and editing the style sheets that govern the appearance of those SGML/XML documents don't even seem to be on the drawing board. (Editing text files doesn't count as a user-friendly interface.)

Finally, as for the existence of ``professional, hot-type emulating typesetting systems [that] speak SGML'', it's great that those systems are out there, but just because such systems are available doesn't mean they're universally (or even commonly) used. I'm wrapping up the editing of a book to be published by a fairly well-known technical publisher (a division of a very well-known publisher). The book was written using LaTeX, but the publisher doesn't even want to see PostScript, let alone the LaTeX source; instead, they want the author to print the book out and send them the printed copy. For his last book, the author only had access to a 600 dpi printer, and the quality of the finished book shows that lack. This book will, at least, be printed using a 1200 dpi printer. If a major publishing house is still publishing commercial books in this primitive way, can anyone seriously expect the average business or home user to switch to using SGML or XML for managing far less complex documents?

OK, I'm sick of /.ers assuming that everyone who reads /. must be some kind of American, white, male Linux user without a life.

I am a white, male, American, Linux user. And I have a life. I know there are others on /. who have different attributes, either they're not white, or not male, or not American. You aren't a Linux user.

And as the title says, "News for Nerds. Stuff that matters". There's nothing about open source in there at all.

So what matters to you? How come you haven't submitted any stories about it? I occasionally submit a story I think people on here will be interested in. And I maybe read 1/3 or less of the articles that do get posted. Not everything on here is going to appeal to everybody. The idea is you can choose what you're interested in!

I do not represent the open source community. I do not run Linux. In fact, I was curious about it before I came here, but a year's worth of zealotry and bigoted postings have pretty much put me off of ever running Linux at all. Why should I associate myself with such a narrow-minded group of people? Trust me, zealots do nothing but put people off. Linux could do without them, and /. certainly could.

If you were curious about Linux, /. is the wrong place to go. Nobody here knows anything about Linux. :) All joking aside, there are lots of compelling reasons to take a good hard look at Linux besides the zealots, trolls, and OOG THE CAVEMAN.

• It's a rapidly developing yet stable Unix-like platform easily competitive with Windows NT (2000).
• It runs on cheap commodity PC (and Macintosh, and lots of other) hardware like the box that you're probably using right now.
• You don't have to reboot every time you change a setting or install some software.
• The graphic user interfaces are a lot nicer than Windows.
• You can actually get work done with it.
• It pours 48% hotter grits down your pants than Windows.

So if you want to be ahead of the game when Linux emerges as a REAL market force, and have no doubt that it will (yeah, I'm one of the zealots, I guess), then you'd do well to learn your way around it now.

In fact, I'm sick of every single "open source" project getting a whole story here with every release, even when it's 2.999a 0.6pre3 or some other incomprehensible version number.

I think you're confusing /. with freshmeat.net.

This isn't a hardware site is it?

Yes and no. Sure there's a place for hardware. But there's also a place for: (take your pick) The Almighty Buck, AMD, Amiga, Announcements, America Online, Apache, Apple, Be, Beanies, BSD, Bugs, Caldera, CDA, Censorship, Christmas Cheer, Comdex, Compaq, Corel, Debian, Digital, Department of Justice, Education, Encryption, Enlightenment, ePlus, Games, The Gimp, GNOME, GNU is Not Unix, GNUStep, Graphics, Hardware, It's funny. Laugh., IBM, Internet Explorer, Intel, The Internet, Java, KDE, Links, Linux, Linux Business, Linuxcare, Linux Mandrake, The Media, Microsoft, Movies, Mozilla, Music, Netscape, News, Patents, Perl, PalmPilot, Privacy, Programming, Quake, Quickies, Red Hat Software, Science, Silicon Graphics, Slashdot.org, Space, Spam, Star Wars Prequels, Sun Microsystems, SuSE, Technology, Toys, Transmeta, Television, Unix, Upgrades, United States, VA, Wine, and X. So if you don't like what you see, quit whining and submit a story.
---

Sourceforge: 4081 Projects and 25264 reg users
FreshMeat: ~10'000 entries (ok, not all open source)
google search on "open source": ~100'000 hits (linux ~800'000, windows 95/98/2000/NT ~800'000)

definitively insignificant!!

I had a very similar experience. I was given winfiles.com and got the ODBC error with my response: freshmeat.net. ...sigh... Pp.

Especially seems to have some of the less well-known Distro's, but I also see SuSE, RedHat, Debian (2.1), and a variety of BSD's.

and

SecureLinux

No can do. Dreamweaver accomplishes this through a bunch of ungly .LCK files which is spatters through the whole directory structure at will.

I do have a little bit of an idea tho. I realize that most web developers prolly don't want to learn Unix or CVS if at all possible, but realistically that combo is the only viable option. With that in mind, you should explore ways to make CVS easy and convenient to use. There are a few good, intuitive GUIs for CVS available (LinCVS, more on freshmeat). Setup a combo CVS/X/file server and allow people to run the graphical CVS interface over X (there is a free X server for both PC and Mac called TNTlite, check yahoo) to check out HTML into their home directory. Then share the home directory via Samba (or Netatalk, if you're a Mac shop). Voila - people can checkout files over the network, edit them on the server w/filesharing, save the changes, and check them back in. It's kind of a roundabout way of doing things, but it works.

--

(I've plugged it so much, I feel compelled to say I have no vested interest in muLinux, except as a fan.)

Chances are your local cable system is already sending out out this extra content, all you'd need to recieve it is a pc with a $50 tv card and some windows software (wavetop is proprietary and there are no good specs on how to decode intercast) or some linux software.
- MbM

Ija can be downloaded from here.

- A.P.
--

"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad

Better yet, can they be hacked NOT to require the monthly service fees? I'd love just to have a self-contained tapeless recorder, and would happily buy one, but I want to use it JUST LIKE A VCR, thankyouverymuch.

[ Reply to This | Parent ]

What kind of a position do you take on applications such as Napster?

I discovered there are 15+ different unix/java/perl/etc. implementations of what appears to be the same or equivalent Napster application. I'm sure you're aware of what the music industry thinks of Napster.

Upon doing a quick search at freshmeat.net:

http://freshmeat.net/search.php3?que ry=napster

one finds the music industry will have a hard time fighting something that is already open source and free, not to mention how many different entities there are.

In particular, I see GTK Napster carries a standard GPL. I'd just like to know what happens when someone like Metallica wins a lawsuit against Napster who has a GPL'd counterpart such as GTK Napster? Can they touch it at all?

Your thoughts?

Thanks,
Greg Donald

What kind of a position do you take on applications such as Napster?

I discovered there are 15+ different unix/java/perl/etc. implementations of what appears to be the same or equivalent Napster application. I'm sure you're aware of what the music industry thinks of Napster.

Upon doing a quick search at freshmeat.net:

http://freshmeat.net/search.php3?que ry=napster

one finds the music industry will have a hard time fighting something that is already open source and free, not to mention how many different entities there are.

In particular, I see GTK Napster carries a standard GPL. I'd just like to know what happens when someone like Metallica wins a lawsuit against Napster who has a GPL'd counterpart such as GTK Napster? Can they touch it at all?

Your thoughts?

Thanks,
Greg Donald

IANAL += 1; /* :-) */

I choose to release my library code under the LGPL because it is my intent to allow others to integrate my library code (such as my recently released AVLMAP library) into applications that are distributed in binary-only form. When the application is not intended as a resource of code for developers I see no reason that the code has to be found there. I do not see the distribution of an application as a means to get the library source into the hands of developers. This is especially so when the purpose of the library isn't really related to the purpose of the application. My AVLMAP library could be used in just about any kind of application. I'd much rather have the source downloaded from my web site or one of the mirrors, or found on sites like Freshmeat where they can be exposed to the vastness of open source free software of all kinds.

The LGPL was changed from Library to Lesser because, I believe, RMS wanted to promote having more libraries released as just GPL , as opposed to making a different license available for other programs. You can read about that here . I just happen to not totally agree with RMS on this. But there is a difference and you should read both carefully and decide for yourself which you want to use.

thats funnyI always went here or here for Enlightenment.

freshmeat.net has several listing for rich text.

freshmeat.net has several listing for rich text.

Just posted today: "bookmarker is a WWW-based application for managing bookmarks. It allows multiple users to list, search, maintain, and create bookmarks. It is written in PHP using PHPLIB, which allows support for multiple databases. bookmarker includes functions to store URLs and send URLs via email directly from your browser (quik-mark, mail-this-link) using Javascript functions that link directly to the application. Netscape bookmark import is included as well as public/private settings to allow some/all bookmarks to be shared among users."
it's appindex record is at http://core.freshmeat. net/appindex/1998/11/22/911774014.html

Hmm. If you consider Yahoo to be a solution... There are plenty of web-based calendar programs on freshmeat and CGI Resources Index... If none of these already accepts input from the Palm Calendar, adding this capability shouldn't be too dificult (I'm assuming the Palm Calendar API is published)

========

The recent editorial about the iopener on freshmeat has an interesting comment by the developer of the iopener which was just fired after he just finished the design.

Seems that netpliance may have very bad karma.

Read it here - lookout for the last comment or search for Rohner.

This comment seems to be authentic, at least at another webpage the name 'John Rohner' can be found with a @netpliance.com address.

Here are some quotes from that response:
Once production was set, via a Taiwanese company, and I had put 8 man months work, in 3.5 calendar, into it. I was called in on a Sunday afternoon, I was down with a flu so was home for the first time in months, handed a paycheck to the previous Friday and told I "didn't meet Company expectations".

Two weeks later I copyrighted, applied for patent and published my "Wireless Hub and pad" and Netpliance Threatened to sue unless I "turn over all rights to them" and unless "I provide, FREE, my time to ensure they are "given this patent".

the last msg post at the bottom, or search for "Rohner".
http://freshmeat.net/news/2000/04/08/955252740.htm l

as many other people have already said, selling these at cost (estimated at around $400 us) would make them unappealing. the coolness of the hack is in taking a cheap machine and making it into something useful. that said, there must be some way for netpliance to recoup the money that they're losing while still making their product attractive to hackers. this was the key of the article that has sparked the interest.

the obvious way to recover cost is through leveraging the r&d costs of the open source development model. netpliance should set up a lot of different developer relations and support sites. they should give developers access to time with the engineers who designed the thing and maybe devote an engineer to trying out prototypes and the like. then the $100-$200 they lose on the cost of the items can be made up in free staffing and r&d. the neat things that hackers think of can then be resold by netpliance.

plus think of the positive press (first open source hardware company?) and coolness factor the company would gain (much less possible stock boon).

I hear that http://Proxymate does something similar.

The problem is that most censorware packages that I know of block access to proxy sites for that exact reason.

What you need to do is find a freeware or Open Source CGI proxy server. Run that from a machine sitting on a cable modem or DSL line at your house and there would be no way that the Censorware would catch it. I wonder if there is something up on Freshmeat that will do the trick.

Good luck,

Steve


========
Stephen C. VanDahm

In fact, you should checkout freshmeat today. MP3-howto is updated and is featured on freshmeat's front page. URL is http://www.freshmeat.ne t/appindex/2000/03/26/954079198.html. Here's what's straight from the appindex and I think is really relevant to want you're doing. The Linux MP3-HOWTO describes the hardware, software, and procedures needed to encode, play, and stream MP3 sound files under Linux. It covers encoding MP3s from a live or external source, encoding MP3s from audio CDs, streaming MP3s over a network, and mixing and listening to MP3s.

Have these people ever tried searching for things, or do they just like to have others hand it to him? Go to freshmeat.net. Right at the top is a search. There are tons of streaming mp3 tools, and servers are out there. Search accordingly, find it, use it, read about it. It's not that hard. Ask slashdot should be more complex than THAT

Mike Roberto (roberto@soul.apk.net) - AOL IM: MicroBerto

It's been running on my box for months now, and I get about 4 hits a week, usually from some compromised box in .cz or .ru

Get it at freshmeat, you won't regret it.

Note: No electrons were harmed during the sending of this message.

Good luck... integrating CVS with any bug tracking system is going to be a bit difficult.

Greg Gallagher

Here is the right link to the freshmeat submission.

In related news : GNU Visual Basic was announced at freshmeat. yes..it has its own NDA. and is distributed as binary only. from none other than RMS.

• Microsoft Windows 2000
  
• Gnu Visual Basic

• Microsoft Windows 2000
  
• Gnu Visual Basic

All l33t skript k1ddi3z sh0u1d ch3k 0u7 th1s!!!!

l33t.freshmeat.net

1tz /raD, d00dz!!!!!

freshmeat.net did a much better April Fool's prank..

Check it out. It's better than what we've seen here so far..

freshmeat.net did a much better April Fool's prank..

Check it out. It's better than what we've seen here so far..

Check it out: Link

Did a quick freshmeat search, and found a few. Hotbot returned "fewer than 1000" results for "web-based software management software" (exact phrase). Topclick has 61 results for "web-based project management software" (with quotes included); Google also returned 61 for the same query, although the order was different.

Sorry about just pasting in URLs -- I don't have any first hand experience with any of them.

oh yeah, er, um, first post.

darren

Granted they're not offical, but they do exist.

Search freshmeat.net for 'Desecnt' and see what you get. Beyond that, SourceForge has a Descent 2 X project in their listings, which may or may not be the same as the D 2 X listed on Freshmeat. I can't seem to connect the two.

Just thought I would mention that a cluster of Linux computers is by definition a Beowulf Cluster.

Not completely, there is also mosix.

• "...is Joe Blow linux guy prepared for the intrusion of Windows application economics and is John Doe Windows developer prepared for the linux market?"

Linux users are more used to having tons of different software out there to do any particular task (seen all the CD players on Freshmeat, for example?), so I don't think that an influx of new software, even software ported from Delphi on Windows, is going to have a real impact on the average Linux user's life. Let me rephrase -- the applications themselves will most likely be welcomed and probably get used quite a bit, but the flood of ported apps will not, in itself, be a problem.

The same thing can be said from the Windows users point of view -- how many windows users need or want many of the tools that are available on Linux? Many of the tools already have Windows equivalents; I can't think of any major tools (or classes of tools) that do not already exist on the Windows platforms, so, once again, Windows users will mainly gain choice. Which is a good thing -- inevitably a windows user will find a great tool that has been ported from Linux to Windows, become curious about it, and learn about Linux that way.

darren

The market is not a very stable one. My Father purchased a copy of Encore from Passport. It was a fairly well know notation software program and the company well belly-up. It would be great to get some to port existing code such
as encore, fix the bugs and open the source...

Check on freshmeat in the last few days/weeks. I was almost positive I found a package that did musical notation that you are describing there.

I just found Mup at:
http://www.freshmeat.net/appindex/1998/07/01/899 283854.html

MuX2d is in the works:
http://www.freshmeat.net/appindex/2000/01/04/946 988873.html

As well as the very interesting Rosegarden:
http://www.freshmeat.net/appindex/1998/05/06/894 447917.html

Brahms:
http://www.freshmeat.net/appindex/1999/09/30/938 706537.html

Those should get you started.

A lot of people are claiming that Linux's 'stability' will improve the chances of having a nice time recording live sound and whatnot..

I just want to point out that application crashes, even in windows, are often a fault of the application. If you access the wrong chunk o' RAM, yer gonna blow up, linux or not.

Also, no one has mentioned the gimp-like sound editing tool for linux, Glame. It looks perty cool.

Thanks,

--
blue

Also gnapster is my favorite client, list of a lot more if you query freshmeat for napster, and on the server side there's Opennap

...rather than the one central Napster server

The official napster servers are many, more than 10 and less than 1000... (someone wanna narrow it down?), and are not linked yet... so one central Napster server doesn't describe the structure well.

--
linuxisgood:~$ man woman

a) This is an MS Internet Explorer and Outlook Express problem. I use Netscape. Stuff doesn't get automatically executed, here.

b) This is a problem with users. I scan all .exe files I download, be it from Microsoft, the excellent Parsec project, the 3dfx site.
This after YEARS of running without a virus scanner, after which I found win32.cih on my system after accidentally running one file which I didn't scan (deleted itself, and didn't even show me a nude Britney Spears, damnit)

c) This is also a problem with users, though they *are* the problem of many other people, who work tech support (like me) or actually do the work.

It's fairly (sl)easy to change code on a page, then offer it as the original. That's why sites like Freshmeat and RPMfind.net are good. People trust that what they get there is the Real Deal, and not virus infested piece of garbage.

They are also the well-known sites, which means herding users into that direction will be that much easier. -- AC

Gnapster supports opennap servers and their multiple media types, and is already available for Linux. Blessed Debian users can just `apt-get install gnapster' to try it out.

I only use it for music, myself. Have never tried the alternate media types nor an opennap server.

--

I Have the G400 MAX, its run really nicely under Debian 2.1 for a while now. Xfree4.0 will support it, as soon as Precision Insight release their drivers for it RSN. There are Linux clocking utils for these and all the info you need is on matroxusers.com I'm a satisfied user! :)

I need a replacement equivalent for Microsoft Project. Freshmeat turned up with a "not so very useful" list. Could you suggest an alternative.

Don't forget to register your open texts and open web sites: At OpenContent.org there's a database specificaly for works under the Open Content license, and of course you should also register them with Freshmeat.net.

The database at OpenContent.org is pretty impressive but a lot of existing Open Content titles are missing from there.

Thanks

Bruce

Greets.

It's call Unpoison..

I believe that site was foreign in nature if that means anything at all.... (maybe that site uses PHP3's feature??)

Basically, the site Unpoison is made for assigns a unique umpteen-bit hexademcial number to you (and stores it somewhere) that is appended to their site's URL-- then they set up a program that decodes this information automagically (and retrieves all of your data).

The bad thing about how this company does it is you have no way to shut it off. With cookies, you do. That makes me sad.

Anyways, the freshmeat URL here

The author's homepage and description of why he thinks it's a "bad thing." here.

And the company that he dislikes for using it. 7Val.