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...are available here

http://developer.gnome.org/dotplan/

mmmmmmmm pretty.

Does HancomOffice have open file formats, so that other office suites (e.g. Star/Open Office, KOffice, GNOME Office) can easily create import/export filters? As a completely side note, it would be nice if the above office-suite projects would get together and form a unified file format spec. That way there would only be one format each suite would be targeting for word-processors, for example. Just a thought...

It is obvious to me that you haven't spent much time around the GNOME Usability Project (aka GUP) or the Usability Lists. First, the GUP folks tend to head in a more Mac-like direction than in a Windows one (e.g. instant-apply preference dialogues, menu-bar at top of screen). Secondly, these guys think *a lot* (some say too much ;-) about what makes a usable, intuitive desktop. Just check out the lengthy debate about whether to include a close button in an instant-apply dialogue, if you want to see an extreme example. In short, the GUP people are doing lots of work (including a Human Interface Guideline) to make the desktop a more usable experience for the end user, and GUP is not blindly following anyone (though they tend agree more with the Mac people). Check out GUP. It's pretty interesting (and exciting).

It is obvious to me that you haven't spent much time around the GNOME Usability Project (aka GUP) or the Usability Lists. First, the GUP folks tend to head in a more Mac-like direction than in a Windows one (e.g. instant-apply preference dialogues, menu-bar at top of screen). Secondly, these guys think *a lot* (some say too much ;-) about what makes a usable, intuitive desktop. Just check out the lengthy debate about whether to include a close button in an instant-apply dialogue, if you want to see an extreme example. In short, the GUP people are doing lots of work (including a Human Interface Guideline) to make the desktop a more usable experience for the end user, and GUP is not blindly following anyone (though they tend agree more with the Mac people). Check out GUP. It's pretty interesting (and exciting).

It is obvious to me that you haven't spent much time around the GNOME Usability Project (aka GUP) or the Usability Lists. First, the GUP folks tend to head in a more Mac-like direction than in a Windows one (e.g. instant-apply preference dialogues, menu-bar at top of screen). Secondly, these guys think *a lot* (some say too much ;-) about what makes a usable, intuitive desktop. Just check out the lengthy debate about whether to include a close button in an instant-apply dialogue, if you want to see an extreme example. In short, the GUP people are doing lots of work (including a Human Interface Guideline) to make the desktop a more usable experience for the end user, and GUP is not blindly following anyone (though they tend agree more with the Mac people). Check out GUP. It's pretty interesting (and exciting).

I think InformIT still do free online books -- they purchased Macmillan Press' old stuff and used to have many titles online.

Numerical Recipies - Numerical Recipes in C, 2nd edition is the numerical methods book.

Autobook - GNU Autoconf, Automake and Libtool.

GGAD - GTK+/Gnome Application Development by Havoc Pennington. I'm not sure which is better, the book or the authors name!

WGA - Writing GNOME Applications by John R. Sheets. Not complete, which is a pity. I'm sure that will change though.

Docbook - The definitive guide to SGML.

CVS book - Open Source Development with CVS by Karl Fogel. It is not quite the complete book, but it is the interesting bits.

FreeBSD Handbook - FreeBSD documentation.

Maximum RPM - Documentation for the RedHat package manager.

Based on that list, can anybody suggest further online books that I may be interested in? (Don't bother telling me about the old O'Reilly books, I know about those)

I'm not so sure that big packages would help (they'd only really be useful for the initial installation, for incremental upgrades you'd need to find the individual packages that had changed since your last one, especially if you are on a modem).

What would be nice though would be if the latest sections of the GNOME ftp site would be well maintained, free of multiple entries and kept up to date or culled (xchat 1.2?).

• I am also concerned about the Ximian fork, (even though I use it) How long till XImian hack up all the libs to work for their effort and how compatible will it be ?

I've understood that actually, ximian gnome is not a fork when it comes to the code, its just packaging and compilation of different versions of programs thats supposed to work well together. I might be wrong thou.

Basicly ximian works on many OSS projects and actually contributes back to them, not just making "their own fork" ... For example, read release notes of of Gnumeric, quite a few ximian dudes are warmly thanked there.

Anyway, even thou the codebase is same, that doesnt mean all gnome distributions will work with each other. So, if you are using ximian, will stick with it or change it totally if the times comes ...

(and yeah, i dont claim these are the absolute facts)

People are using the API's. Much of the improvements to Gtk+ and GNOME for version 2 involve making the platform and desktop accessible to more users. This includes better internationalization and rendering of text, accessibility (a major project being headed up by Sun Microsystems). This has been a very important emphasis of this release. Other improvement in the configuration system, component model, etc. allow developers to write more powerful applications quicker. And these are being used.

Making the GUI easier for first-time Linux users, which was the whole point of GNOME in the first place, wasnt it?

This has been a major focus of the GNOME Project for GNOME 2 and beyond. Check out the GNOME Usability Project and the GNOME Usability mailing list.

People are using the API's. Much of the improvements to Gtk+ and GNOME for version 2 involve making the platform and desktop accessible to more users. This includes better internationalization and rendering of text, accessibility (a major project being headed up by Sun Microsystems). This has been a very important emphasis of this release. Other improvement in the configuration system, component model, etc. allow developers to write more powerful applications quicker. And these are being used.

Making the GUI easier for first-time Linux users, which was the whole point of GNOME in the first place, wasnt it?

This has been a major focus of the GNOME Project for GNOME 2 and beyond. Check out the GNOME Usability Project and the GNOME Usability mailing list.

Which strides is KDE making that are more useful than the ones GNOME is making? I'm curious.

I am also concerned about the Ximian fork, (even though I use it) How long till XImian hack up all the libs to work for their effort and how compatible will it be ?

Ximian does not produce a "fork" of GNOME. Ximian packages a "distribution" of GNOME and makes it easy to download. They tweak some minor things such as artwork, splash screens, etc, but it's not a fork of GNOME. I don't think you understand Ximian's relationship to GNOME. I suggest you spend some time on irc.gnome.org in #gnome and spend some time getting to know folks better.

Does it seem to anyone else latley Gnome is becoming a throw in everything and if the kitchen sink dosent work its OK, or is it just me.

That is not at all how it works. We're very particular about what we put in the release. I suggest you spend some time reading the archives of mailing lists such as desktop-devel. Much work has gone into making GNOME 2 more usable, accessible, functional, and a better development platform while keeping it solid.

Admittedly Gnome 2 has some nice stuff but how much will be functional by first release

We won't release if it's not functional :)

-jamin

That's coming...

The release notes would be useful.

Check out Achtung. which is the 'official' presentation program of the GNOME office suite.

All we need now is full VBS support so we can program some cool virii in Gnumeric.

Check out Achtung. which is the 'official' presentation program of the GNOME office suite.

All we need now is full VBS support so we can program some cool virii in Gnumeric.

I suspect you mean guppi the graphing program, not the graping program that Emory University offers.

So... go work on Gnome or KDE or something...

A couple of replies to statements made. Let's see if this makes any sense :)

Granted there may be a gui app installed in that particular distribution, but can you guarantee that if you move to a different distro? The consistency is not there.

So if a single distro provided kick ass utilities to tweak on X settings this isn't good enough unless anything labeled Linux has it? Because Suse and Mandrake might do something differently is by no means a hit against it. Is OSX that much less on OS because it put settings in different places than OS9? What about comparing 98 to XP? Settings for all kinds of things moved to entirely new places.

I like this idea, but it means that every single unix GUI setup has different settings and applications, and this is not a good thing for the end-user.

So why not set up a new user on a single window manager and leave him/her there for a while? When you are in KDE, KDE is in control of all aspects of the visual display. Set the newbie up, and leave them there. The paradigm is only different because on Linux a user actually has a choice if they wish. If the user decides they don't like KDE, they haven't far to go to change their environment.

Continuing the old refresh rate theme, what happens if the user's monitor isn't detected properly and the horizontal refresh range is set too high.

Indeed. So what exactly happens if for some reason OSX can't bring up a GUI at all? How about XP or even Win2k for that matter? No GUI, no way to edit the system. Reinstall. With a *nix system a user at least has a chance to correct something gone horribly wrong.

The differences between OS X and Linux are huge: The Linux GUIs are programmed (mostly) for hackers by hackers.

I'm sure the groups who are dedicated to usability issues within both KDE and Gnome might take some exception to this.

They're based on the huge estoteric heap of junk known as XFree. Whether it's the appropriate solution is not the point.

Not the point? Huh? How can you not judge a solution based on whether it was appropriate? Should Linux have used an inappropriate solution?

The point is, it's yet another layer of complexity onto an already complex OS.

Complexity? You want complexity? How about an OS that's got an OS on top of it, a translation layer in the middle, and a low level system that's otherwise unrelated to the other two. Oh, then to get the vast majority of key apps to work under it you have to install it's previous version to ride along side that as well. Every interaction is going through all kinds of translations and emulations on there. OTOH, KDE is running native on this machine here.

And most importantly, it's designed so the user should never see the command line, unless they want to. Oh, and it's bloody gorgeous :)

So are as talking about the pure look of the environment I would still put KDE using Mosfet's tweaks well above what was done with Aqua. I did rather like the notion of drop shadows for windows though. Outside of that, there were a ton of effects that were very cool to look at for about 20 minutes. After that, when it got time to do some work having warped magnifying glass views got real old, real fast.

I would have to say that it is easier to write the GUI for an OS X application since it doesn't involve writing any code.

GTK+ User interface builder

Use it all the time. Pure painting.

On the other hand, there is connectivity to GNOME for Palms; GNOME includes a Palm Pilot conduit to gnomecal, gnomecard, file system, and sendmail (among other things).

Of course, I don't have a PDA, so I haven't experienced this firsthand, but it seems to me that it shouldn't be extremely difficult to sync Palm with GNOME, and sync GNOME with KDE, assuming reasonably interchangeable formats.

I'm not sure what the situation would be in the case of PDAs running GNU/Linux... it might be possible for them to run a light version of whatever normal desktop apps are being used (much as is the case with Windows PDAs), which would make interfacing with the desktop much easier. Or do they already do that?

Solutions to the problem are in the works:

objprelink
ELF prelinking by Jakub Jelinek
See a discussion on why Gnome is having similar problems

People say "I want benefit X, what hardware, Y, do I need to accomplish that?" And that's why Windows will continue to exisit.

I'm not sure I understand; you're saying Windows will continue to exist because of hardware compatability?

Windows will not be dying anytime soon (unless MS just renames it, not likely). And like it or hate it; people look at an OS based on a command line and say: "ick, why would I want that?". Granted, a modern distro hides most of that; but when the tough gets going the command line is the place you really have to go.

Ok, in a post talking about waaayyy out in the future, this comment is just trolling. I encourage you to take a look at what Linux was like 5 years ago, and plot some growth curves, especially relating to percentage of commands having a GUI interface (since that's what you're talking about). I'll even let you get away with stock distros, ignoring the many projects on SourceForge.

Linux/Wine will not dominate Windows anytime in the next 5-15 years. Its not going to happen.

I don't like getting into the prediction business, but there's one thing that I can say with a lot of certainty: predictions for more than 2 or 3 years out are complete bunk. We can make some pretty good predictions for Linux over the next two years, as that time frame includes finishing a lot of projects currently under way. Of course we're still going to miss a lot of things. Do you have any idea what the kernal team will be working on 3 years from now? Me either. Same goes for KDE, GNOME, WINE, StarOffice, Mozilla, Apache, etc etc etc. But whatever they're starting 3 years from now will likely finish in the 5 year time frame.

First, the applications are not there and won't be there because developing for the Linux Desktop is difficult.

I'm starting to wonder, (this is an honest question because I think you were serious) do you know what a growth curve is? We, as the Linux developer community, are right at a nexus: the tools, the platforms, and the libraries have started to mature. Developing for the Linux Desktop is getting easier as time goes by. 2002 will see major advances in both KDE and GNOME, as well as developer libraries like wxWindows, and Mozilla will emerge as a development platform. Hordes of new applications will be started during this time. Of course, many of them will fail or suck (or both), but that's true everywhere.

Second, fundamentally Linux has been designed and continues to focus around flexibility over ease of use.

I call bullshit. Fundamentally, Linux hasn't been designed at all! Read some of Linus's comments about how Linux has evolved. About flexibility over ease of use, I think that you are way over generalizing. Did you see the recent article about GNOME 2.0? Check out this link for the GNOME Usability Project.

And Third and Finally, Microsoft owns the desktop OS market, has a vast mindshare (how many newbies do you know think MS is the computer?) and continues to improve it's products.

I think that over time and across a large segment of the population, consumers have shown again and again that a) they are very price sensitive, and b) that brand loyalty is finicky at best. I do believe that when the next version of Windows comes out, that MS will actually have to compete. About MS continuing to improve its products, I encourage you again to examine growth curves. Examine the difference between WinXP and Win95. Then look at RH 7.2 and say RH 4. Look especially at the differences in how much you can do, how easy it is to install, and how easy it is to use with a default install. Ok, now project out along these same growth trajectories for a gut level sense of where we'll be five years from now. Now, Linux will continue to be Free (and a distro cheap). All I can say is that it's going to be fun to watch and that there's no guaruntees.

No, it actually is a left foot, see: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/bugzilla.gnome.org/bugs. jpg

Hi there,

Not only did Sun provide their usability study to the GNOME community for review and reflection, the GNOME Usability Project has been working very hard on both our Human Interface Guide and some basic changes they feel are essential for the GNOME 2.0 Desktop release. You can find these on the GUP website.

These have certainly not been ignored, in fact, they have spawned an incredible amount of discussion and development work. The screenshot you see of the new control centre is a port of the 1.5 version that Ximian have been shipping as a preview component of their GNOME 1.4 desktop.

Many of the superfluous options have been removed from GNOME's user interface, which is a very important step in the right direction for usability. Don't worry, all those crazy options that we geeks love will be still be around, they'll just be harder to get to (so umpteen million options don't crowd our preferences dialogues).

Indeed, the concept of configuring so many seemingly disparate parts of the desktop, such as GTK+ themes, window manager themes, backgrounds, etc., will be simplified with the new Metatheme system, which integrates all of these into a simple dialogue. You can very easily make your own metathemes too.

I hope these address your concerns about GNOME developer's desire to improve the usability of our desktop. :)

• December 10: KDE 3.0 Beta1 release
  
• January 14: KDE 3.0 RC 1 release
  
• January 16: Gnome 2.0 Desktop Beta 1
  
• January 30: Gnome 2.0 Desktop Beta 2
  
• February 20: Gnome 2.0 Desktop Release Candidate 1
  
• February 25: KDE 3.0 Final release*
  
• March 15: Gnome 2.0 Desktop Final
  

http://developer.gnome.org/dotplan/images/gnome2-w ith-launchers-1207.png

The lame lameness filter inserted a space in your url, so I made it into a link so that people can go check out that sweet screenshot.. I can't believe how nice gnome2 looks with AA fonts!!

Well, this is a developer link, not for people who don't enjoy building it themselves, but here are some nice screenshots.

Think of the linux community as being totally fragmented, with each person (or company) working on his or her own project. Linus Torvalds works on the linux kernel for example, but doesn't work on anything else really. A linux distribution ("distro") is basically when someone takes all those diseparate projects and throws them all together as a coherent product.

Depending on the choices that the person creating the distro makes, the distro is geared towards a specific audience. Redhat is one distro, and they're a pretty good all around product, and they're kind of the de facto standard. Debian is another that's a bit more difficult to install, but has the advantage of being totally run by community, rahter than a company, and being very very well integrated. Mandrake is a distro completely geared towards being easy for new users.

As for visual interfaces, think of them as large projects that are still diseparate from the whole. Gnome is one of those, and KDE is another. Both of those would suit your needs, and be fairly familiar. Depending on which distro you choose, one or the othe will be the default, but both should be available to you.

Anyhow, I hope that helped a little. I know it's pretty complex and intimidating, but it makes sense once you start using it.

There are a number of projects in the open source community that address different accessibility issues. The Gnome accessibility project (http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gap/ ) is probably the most widely known and most publicized. However, most of the Linux accessibility projects are, by necessity, focused on the command line interface instead of the graphical desktops.

In general, there are several areas that accessibility focuses on: visual, hearing, mobility, and cognitive or learning impairments. Currently, visual impairment is getting a lot of attention, as many visually impaired users require a screen reader and speech synthesizer (either hardware or software) for output. There are a number of screen readers (Emacspeak, Speakup, and Jupiter, to name a few) available which use either hardware or software synthesizers, but currently all of them work only in console mode (except Emacspeak, which works from within the Emacs environment). The Gnome accessibility project is working on a screen reader for Gnome, called Gnopernicus ( http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gap/AT/Gnopern icus/index.html). Linux figureheads like Alan Cox are helping to write requirements for an adapter-ready kernel ( http://www.speechinfo.org/fdawg/). SuSE Linux automatically detects braille devices during installation, making it possible for visually impaired users to install Linux without sighted assistance. For users who do not require audio output, screen magnifiers, larger fonts, icons, and mouse pointers are available in both KDE and Gnome, in addition to other accessibility features.

For hearing impaired users, the ability to have visual cues, such a visual bell, is crucial. For those with mobility impairments, features like Sticky Keys, Toggle Keys, and Bounce Keys, as well as on-screen keyboards, can make it easier to type. It is also possible to configure a standard keyboard to take one-handed input. Voice recognition systems, such as Open Mind Speech or ViaVoice Dictation may be a more viable option for some. Users with epilepsy, which might be triggered by on-screen animations, must be able to turn off features like window opening/closing animation. For more information on these options, as well as those mentioned for visual impairments above, refer to the Linux Accessibility HOWTO ( http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/Accessibility-HOWTO/ index.html).

In June 2001, the US government enacted Section 508 ( http://www.section508.gov/), which requires that all government IT tools and services be accessible. This means that the government won't buy and IT tool or service unless it is compliant with the criteria outlined in Section 508. Thus, from a purely business perspective, it makes sense for the Linux community to address the accessibility issue. From the user's point of view, it makes even more sense. For example, a visually impaired Windows user might choose JAWS for Windows (a commonly-used Windows screenreader), which is $795 US. Alternative Windows screen reading applications are less expensive, but some require a hardware synthesizer, which can cost in excess of $1600 US. Users must also purchase the Windows OS. However, a Linux user can get the Emacspeak screenreader and ViaVoice software synthesizer (not to mention Linux), for FREE. This is one of the reasons that many visually impaired users, at least, are making the move to Linux.

Also consider those of us who wear glasses and use lower resolution and/or larger fonts/icons so that we can see the screen better - these are accessibility features. Someone with a broken arm could take advantage of dictation apps or a one-handed keyboard - also accessibility features. What about the next time you're in a noisy airport working on your laptop, and you can't hear the audio bell that alerts you to a new email? You'd turn on the viusal bell instead - again, an accessibility feature. Making Linux doesn't just benefit those who are "handicapped," it benefits everyone.

There are a number of projects in the open source community that address different accessibility issues. The Gnome accessibility project (http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gap/ ) is probably the most widely known and most publicized. However, most of the Linux accessibility projects are, by necessity, focused on the command line interface instead of the graphical desktops.

In general, there are several areas that accessibility focuses on: visual, hearing, mobility, and cognitive or learning impairments. Currently, visual impairment is getting a lot of attention, as many visually impaired users require a screen reader and speech synthesizer (either hardware or software) for output. There are a number of screen readers (Emacspeak, Speakup, and Jupiter, to name a few) available which use either hardware or software synthesizers, but currently all of them work only in console mode (except Emacspeak, which works from within the Emacs environment). The Gnome accessibility project is working on a screen reader for Gnome, called Gnopernicus ( http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gap/AT/Gnopern icus/index.html). Linux figureheads like Alan Cox are helping to write requirements for an adapter-ready kernel ( http://www.speechinfo.org/fdawg/). SuSE Linux automatically detects braille devices during installation, making it possible for visually impaired users to install Linux without sighted assistance. For users who do not require audio output, screen magnifiers, larger fonts, icons, and mouse pointers are available in both KDE and Gnome, in addition to other accessibility features.

For hearing impaired users, the ability to have visual cues, such a visual bell, is crucial. For those with mobility impairments, features like Sticky Keys, Toggle Keys, and Bounce Keys, as well as on-screen keyboards, can make it easier to type. It is also possible to configure a standard keyboard to take one-handed input. Voice recognition systems, such as Open Mind Speech or ViaVoice Dictation may be a more viable option for some. Users with epilepsy, which might be triggered by on-screen animations, must be able to turn off features like window opening/closing animation. For more information on these options, as well as those mentioned for visual impairments above, refer to the Linux Accessibility HOWTO ( http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/Accessibility-HOWTO/ index.html).

In June 2001, the US government enacted Section 508 ( http://www.section508.gov/), which requires that all government IT tools and services be accessible. This means that the government won't buy and IT tool or service unless it is compliant with the criteria outlined in Section 508. Thus, from a purely business perspective, it makes sense for the Linux community to address the accessibility issue. From the user's point of view, it makes even more sense. For example, a visually impaired Windows user might choose JAWS for Windows (a commonly-used Windows screenreader), which is $795 US. Alternative Windows screen reading applications are less expensive, but some require a hardware synthesizer, which can cost in excess of $1600 US. Users must also purchase the Windows OS. However, a Linux user can get the Emacspeak screenreader and ViaVoice software synthesizer (not to mention Linux), for FREE. This is one of the reasons that many visually impaired users, at least, are making the move to Linux.

Also consider those of us who wear glasses and use lower resolution and/or larger fonts/icons so that we can see the screen better - these are accessibility features. Someone with a broken arm could take advantage of dictation apps or a one-handed keyboard - also accessibility features. What about the next time you're in a noisy airport working on your laptop, and you can't hear the audio bell that alerts you to a new email? You'd turn on the viusal bell instead - again, an accessibility feature. Making Linux doesn't just benefit those who are "handicapped," it benefits everyone.

Statistics are statistics, and are made specifically to represent what the proponent wishes, but:

50 Million disabled Americans? Assume (generously) that there are 300 million people in the U.S. - does this mean that one in six people could benefit from accessibility technology?

No, it means that almost everyone will find some benefit from Assistive Technology, whether they realize it or not. One of the most common misconceptions of AT is that it will only benefit the disabled. The point of AT is to provide a STANDARD BASELINE, as well as EQUAL ACCESS. It's not meant to be necessarily the lowest commmon denominator, but it can be.

Think about lowered curbs at corners. Initially, they were created for people in wheel chairs in mind. Alas, everyone found them handy - people with stroller, bikers, pedestrians, everyone. In the end, it ended up benefitting everyone.

Assistive Technology will benefit everyone.

Currently, the only advanced and (semi) well-supported AT is for the Windows platform.

Screen readers,

screen magnifiers,

Braille boards,

haptic mice,

headset mice,

Braille boards,

Voice recognition,
and so forth. None of these are real options for Linux currently. Since alot of these products are pricey, I would urge open-source h4X0rZ w/big hearts to contact the hardware manufacturers if they can obtain some development-type hardware/software, so that they may be able to port some of these to Linux. GNOME is working hard, and have contacted them personally about contributing to the project. If you were lucky enough to have been blessed with good sight/mobility, and have the l33t skills, I urge you to contribute.

Because in the end, it's not about which OS you prefer, but which OS can you *use*.

bob alvarez
assistive technologies consultant
www.bobalvarez.net

...there really doesn't seem to be that much (at least in the research I've done, I haven't found much)

There is, as others have pointed out, the GNOME Accessibility Project

However, I haven't seen anyone point out Linux AccessX, which was a project at the University of Illinois, and as should be obvious, is for Linux only. It however, hasn't been updated for 2 years, so I don't think there's much hope there...

Pity... accessibility is the topic of my honours thesis, and from the looks of it, it's probably going to concentrate on Windows... (Not that I really expected anything else though)

Some work has been done in that area for GNOME - Here's the GNOME developer info about it.

They are working on getting specialized input/output devices like braille keyboards, screen readers etc. working with GNOME.

Take a look at the GNOME accessibility project to see what is being done under GNOME.

/Janne

They are making some serious headway too, their developers are very active on all of the Gnome development lists.

Can you tell me, with any certainty, when the next version of GNOME will be thrown together, and what improvements the new version will bring?

They keep an impressive and well-maintained development summary which should answer this question for you.

...of avoiding the "corrupting" influence of Qt (a point which is moot today)

No, this point is not moot, if you plan on doing any commerical develpments. Qt is GPL which requires that non-open-source developers pay big bucks in order to do development. GNOME libraries are LGPL and can be used freely by anybody.

I, for one, am glad that both KDE and GNOME exist, as one can choose whichever environment they like better. I prefer GNOME cause its freer and better, but KDE is good too.

JAMES HENSTRIDGE (125 votes)
MICHAEL MEEKS (130 votes)
FEDERICO MENA-QUINTERO (139 votes)
TELSA GWYNNE (139 votes)
JONATHAN BLANDFORD (142 votes)
NAT FRIEDMAN (146 votes)
JODY GOLDBERG (153 votes)
JIM GETTYS (182 votes)
DANIEL VEILLARD (189 votes)
MIGUEL DE ICAZA (191 votes)
HAVOC PENNINGTON (215 votes)

• The right to use the software.
  
  
• The right to redistribute the software: if you have a piece of free software, you can share this software with other people (no license fees are required).
  
  
• The right to learn from the software.
  
  
• The right to alter the software (all source code, data files, images are included). For example, users can improve it, extend it, trim it down, fix problems, learn or experiment.
  
  
• The right to redistribute your modified versions of the software. This means that once you have made changes to the software, you can distribute these changes to your friends, customers or anyone else.
  

The first ballot from RMS was an automatically generated away message:

http://mail.gnome.org/archives/vote/2001-November/ msg00000.html

Too bad he didn't miss being elected by one vote..

---Oh.. oops.. Well, it looks like he did get his vote in later on. But it's still kind of funny that that's the first line.

Apparently, yes... The only vote he received is his own.

Ballot 114:
From:Rhett Creighton <rhett@mit.edu>
Member:rhett@mit.edu
Token:1d95bd7ab3b22c3d8610f91487064af0
Voted for 8 candidates:
RHETT CREIGHTON
MIGUEL DE ICAZA
NAT FRIEDMAN
TELSA GWYNNE
FEDERICO MENA-QUINTERO
HAVOC PENNINGTON
ARIEL RIOS
RICHARD STALLMAN

This was taken from the preliminary results available from http://foundation.gnome.org/elections/2001-prelim- results.txt.

Candidates in order of votes received, with affiliations:
1. Havoc Pennington (215 votes) (Red Hat)
2. Miguel de Icaza (191) (Ximian)
3. Daniel Veillard (189) (Red Hat)
4. Jim Gettys (182) (Compaq)
5. Jody Goldberg (153) (Ximian)
6. Nat Friedman (146) (Ximian)
7. Jonathan Blandford (142) (Red Hat)
8. Telsa Gwynne (139) (none)
Federico Mena-Quintero (139) (Ximian)
10. Michael Meeks (130) (Ximian) [*]
11. James Henstridge (125 votes) (none)[**]
George Lebl (125 votes) (none)

(the following candidates were not elected)
13. Glynn Foster (116) (Sun Microsystems)
14. Tim Ney (112) (GNOME Foundation)
15. Bill Haneman (103) (Sun Microsystems)
16. Chema Celorio (102) (Ximian)
17. Jeff Waugh (75) (none)
18. Richard Stallman (50) (Free Software Foundation)
19. Ariel Rios (43) (none)
20. Ian McKellar (40) (none)
21. Andy Tai (24) (none)
22. Chris Lyttle (18) (none)
23. Bastien Nocera (12) (none)
24. Chris Phelps (9) (none)
25. Rhett Creighton (1) (none)

Notes: [*] Per the Foundation's charter, no more than four directors may share a corporate affiliation. Michael is the fifth-leading vote-getter from Ximian, and is thus ineligible to be elected.
[**] This tie would have required a run-off, but since Michael Meeks is unable to serve, both James and George are elected.

Results are actually here.

With the inclusion of non-free software in the official GNOME release, now GNOME is the mixed bag.

Hey there,

Richard's comment certainly doesn't mean that the GNU or GNOME projects are not interested in accessibility. We are *very* interested, and the GNOME 2.0 release will hopefully see many of the benefits of working with Sun Microsystems' accessibility team.

You should check out the GNOME Accessibility Project's pages to see what's going on.

I think the main point is that yes, we do want to replace proprietary systems with Free ones... and that includes incredibly important things such as allowing our software to be used by the disabled.

Your contribution to GNOME's accessibility efforts would be greatly appreciated!

My experience is that the Galeon hackers are very much listening to feature requests, but those should really be reported in Bugzilla so that they can be tracked.

these have been longstanding problems

for 1 and 3 the reason is simple:
I think there is an agreement among most of the team that hacks on top of the standard gtk+/gnome widgets are evil. Hopefully these issues will be addressed in the newer gtk+/gnome releases.

and 2. The problem is sporadic and so far it seems noone has been able/willing to track it in more detail. Insights on why it happen would be much appreciated. bug 60881
The known cure: reinstall mozilla and galeon and remove ~/.galeon/mozilla (the last one kills all your cookies, certificates, passwords, cache etc. so you might want to try without it, only reinstalling)

Troll.

I'll never trust a company that wants to use "Community Good" for its own personal gain (same as GNOME) ..also known as fuck thy neighbor.

I guess that's the beauty of Open Source(TM). I can take a big shit on you, and so what right? Go back to working long hours now so I can exploit your hard work for my gain.

Damien Sandras, the lead for the GnomeMeeting project, has snapshots rolled of the forthcoming 0.12 release of GnomeMeeting.

Ripped from Mailing List
There are a lot of new features :
* ILS rewrite (you can browse several ILS servers at the same time)
* full ILS support
* videograbber support (you can now make changes on the fly)
* gatekeeper support
* docklet support (Miguel Rodriguez)
* image zoom support
* jitter buffer delay support and other advanced codecs settings
* devices auto-detection
* bandwidth control support
* preferences reorganisation

The drivers are the problem. There will hopefully be a user added section for Camera ratings on the site soon.

On the V4L mailing list there have been a lot of discussions about which cameras are best and how to take advantage of a bttv based card to use a camera for video input. The mail list is here. And you have to be a list member to see the list archives. You might also check out which cameras are supported at http://www.linux-usb.org and match that up with something on the V4L list and/or GnomeMeeting list and archives .