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The Original Yama writes "In the world of user interface design there are two main schools of thought. The former maintains that the environment must be flexible and configurable enough to adjust to a user's needs. The latter takes the opposite perspective, arguing that many of today's user interfaces have become bloated and overloaded with features, and consequently have become difficult to maintain and use. KDE developer Mosfet shows how the KDE Project has managed to bridge the gap between the 'highly configurable' and 'less is more' camps."

Lots of updates, amplifications and followups in tonight's Slashback. Clones are on the way, the Agenda Linux-based PDA isn't quite dead, Gates' testimony is online, (surprize!) Hollings' so-called privacy bill could have a very different upshot, and much much more. Read on below for the details.

I can't be dead -- I still have batteries! Bill Kendrick writes: "Just when you thought the first Linux-based PDA was dead and gone, someone announces a compatible version, the STVR3 from Softfield Technologies (who actually did the hardware design for the original AgendaVR3). Only $105 for the 8MB, and $135 for a new 16MB version. Not bad if you want a bash prompt in your pocket, and can't afford the $500 for a Zaurus!"

De gustibus non est disputandum. An Anonymous Coward writes: "Mosfet has posted a reply to Bart Decrem's interview regarding Bart's comments on KDE and its looks. Mosfet explains how KDE has a very elegant system for users and developers using the flexibility of C++ and Qt, which creates a more consistent look and feel. He makes many good points that developers and users often disregard when considering desktop environments and their toolkits. Good read, expecially for those who participate in the 'Desktop Wars.'"

Borrowed at gunpoint, but spent much more freely. blankmange writes: "CNet is carrying a followup to a story that was posted here not too long ago. The State of California apparently ordered too many licenses for Oracle's database software: 'A top official in California Gov. Gray Davis' administration has resigned in a growing controversy over a $95 million software contract with Oracle. Barry Keene, director of the state's Department of General Services, quit after a highly critical state audit said the contract--awarded without competitive bids and for software that is little used--could cost taxpayers $41 million.' Sounds like there may be more resignations and a further investigation."

I wish Gary Trudeau would run a few strips skewering these presumptuous bureaucrat wastrels, prodigal even by the standards of the public trough.

Welcome to my secret underground lair. ceswiedler writes: "Salon is running a story that Sen. Hollings' new Online Personal Privacy Act 'would place a congressional stamp of approval on precisely the kinds of practices that purveyors of spyware are eager to engage in.' The writer is particularly concered with the 'nonsensitive' information clause, which is 'a huge gaping loophole' for companies like KaZaA and Brilliant Digital."

Science greatly ups my odds of reproducing. Transcendent writes: "I just recently read an article at SpaceDaily about how there are three women due to give birth to clones. Italian Professor, Severino Antinori, told reporters that two of the women were from the former Soviet Rebublic, and one from an Islamic country. They're keeping specific details from the public, but it's still a huge shake to an ever-changing legal, scientific, and moral society."

A bedtime story for very, very bad children. tulare writes: "Microsoft is hosting Bill Gates' written testimony online. At 42,000 words, it's not neccessarily light reading, but to their credit, it is nicely indexed. Probably a must-read." Also good for European insomniacs to start boring through.

Lobby your library. Lots of readers inquired where they could find copies of The Computer and the Skateboard . Filmmaker Paul David writes: "DVD copies of this movie will be ready to ship in mid-may. The Cinema Guild website will be e-commerce ready by June 1. If you would like to order a copy before June 1, The Cinema Guild will take your order over the phone: (800) 723-5522 or (212) 685-6242. dvds for home use are $59.95. vhs copies (for home use) are available for $79.95."

davidsmind writes "Former KDE hacker and creator of the much acclaimed Liquid theme, Mosfet(AKA Daniel M. Duley ) is back in the spotlight. The Dot was the first one with the story. 'Many in the KDE community are aware of some rocky history between KDE hacker Mosfet and other KDE developers. Fortunately, it looks like things have taken a great turn for the better: Mosfet wrote in to tell us that "I've decided to donate 20 effects I ported to KDE/Qt for PixiePlus to KDE3." Waldo Bastian promptly added them to CVS.'" The list of effects is long, impressive, and under a BSD-style license. Mosfet has done a lot of the work that makes my desktop pretty, so I'm very happy to hear about this.

davidsmind writes "Former KDE hacker and creator of the much acclaimed Liquid theme, Mosfet(AKA Daniel M. Duley ) is back in the spotlight. The Dot was the first one with the story. 'Many in the KDE community are aware of some rocky history between KDE hacker Mosfet and other KDE developers. Fortunately, it looks like things have taken a great turn for the better: Mosfet wrote in to tell us that "I've decided to donate 20 effects I ported to KDE/Qt for PixiePlus to KDE3." Waldo Bastian promptly added them to CVS.'" The list of effects is long, impressive, and under a BSD-style license. Mosfet has done a lot of the work that makes my desktop pretty, so I'm very happy to hear about this.

pwagland submitted a rant by Mosfet on file system standards. I think he's sort of over simplified the whole issue, and definitely wrongly assigned blame, but it definitely warrants discussion. Why does my /usr/bin need 1500 files in it? Is it the fault of lazy distribution package management? Or is it irrelevant?

Once in awhile a story comes along that warrants mention just so that people know to be careful. Mosfet is a KDE coder (who has had tension with KDE in the past and left some ill will over there). He was hired by Future Technology to continue work on his Liquid KDE style and theme (my personal favorite). But they never paid him, so he removed their name and mentioned it in the Changelog. Now FT is threatening legal action to get the Changelog off the net. But it's more bizarre because MandrakeSoft is the host, and the site remains up. Keep reading if you're interested in a few more bits.

I've been a huge fan of Liquid for some time. I've been compiling releases and using on my laptop. The project isn't nearly as ambitious as Enlightenment, but it has some interesting UI ideas and it looks good. I was really pleased when I found out that Mosfet was going to have a shot at continuing the development of the program for FT under the KDE License. At this point, FT ("The Total Linux Company," according to their website) mentioned a few of the features in Liquid as being part of the benefits of FT's distribution. This was to set them apart from "Other" distributions, although even at the time I found it funny, as The final decision in selecting one RPM based distribution over another would rarely be tipped in favor of the one with translucent menus ;)

Anyway the Changelog contains the following line:

* Future Technologies' name has been removed. They hired me to do KDE development, but failed to pay me after promising to do so three times over the span of several months :( I still haven't seen any of the paychecks they said they would send me, and they even went as far as sending me a fake FedEx number. Now they are saying they can't afford to pay their employees.

And soon after Mosfet's website announced that he was leaving Linux and Liquid was dead. Unable to afford to develop Liquid for free, he was seeking work in the windows world.

According to the site, on 10/28, Dr. Giovanni asked Mandrakesoft, the host of Mosfet.org to take down the site, under threat of legal action. But since I see the site still there, it looks like they are standing their ground which is a good thing.

Anyway, I don't know what the moral of the story is, beyond a warning to keep both eyes open. There is a lot of questionable stuff that goes on in this world. Be careful.

(I've emailed Giovanni from FT but have yet to hear back from him.)

Once in awhile a story comes along that warrants mention just so that people know to be careful. Mosfet is a KDE coder (who has had tension with KDE in the past and left some ill will over there). He was hired by Future Technology to continue work on his Liquid KDE style and theme (my personal favorite). But they never paid him, so he removed their name and mentioned it in the Changelog. Now FT is threatening legal action to get the Changelog off the net. But it's more bizarre because MandrakeSoft is the host, and the site remains up. Keep reading if you're interested in a few more bits.

I've been a huge fan of Liquid for some time. I've been compiling releases and using on my laptop. The project isn't nearly as ambitious as Enlightenment, but it has some interesting UI ideas and it looks good. I was really pleased when I found out that Mosfet was going to have a shot at continuing the development of the program for FT under the KDE License. At this point, FT ("The Total Linux Company," according to their website) mentioned a few of the features in Liquid as being part of the benefits of FT's distribution. This was to set them apart from "Other" distributions, although even at the time I found it funny, as The final decision in selecting one RPM based distribution over another would rarely be tipped in favor of the one with translucent menus ;)

Anyway the Changelog contains the following line:

* Future Technologies' name has been removed. They hired me to do KDE development, but failed to pay me after promising to do so three times over the span of several months :( I still haven't seen any of the paychecks they said they would send me, and they even went as far as sending me a fake FedEx number. Now they are saying they can't afford to pay their employees.

And soon after Mosfet's website announced that he was leaving Linux and Liquid was dead. Unable to afford to develop Liquid for free, he was seeking work in the windows world.

According to the site, on 10/28, Dr. Giovanni asked Mandrakesoft, the host of Mosfet.org to take down the site, under threat of legal action. But since I see the site still there, it looks like they are standing their ground which is a good thing.

Anyway, I don't know what the moral of the story is, beyond a warning to keep both eyes open. There is a lot of questionable stuff that goes on in this world. Be careful.

(I've emailed Giovanni from FT but have yet to hear back from him.)

Once in awhile a story comes along that warrants mention just so that people know to be careful. Mosfet is a KDE coder (who has had tension with KDE in the past and left some ill will over there). He was hired by Future Technology to continue work on his Liquid KDE style and theme (my personal favorite). But they never paid him, so he removed their name and mentioned it in the Changelog. Now FT is threatening legal action to get the Changelog off the net. But it's more bizarre because MandrakeSoft is the host, and the site remains up. Keep reading if you're interested in a few more bits.

I've been a huge fan of Liquid for some time. I've been compiling releases and using on my laptop. The project isn't nearly as ambitious as Enlightenment, but it has some interesting UI ideas and it looks good. I was really pleased when I found out that Mosfet was going to have a shot at continuing the development of the program for FT under the KDE License. At this point, FT ("The Total Linux Company," according to their website) mentioned a few of the features in Liquid as being part of the benefits of FT's distribution. This was to set them apart from "Other" distributions, although even at the time I found it funny, as The final decision in selecting one RPM based distribution over another would rarely be tipped in favor of the one with translucent menus ;)

Anyway the Changelog contains the following line:

* Future Technologies' name has been removed. They hired me to do KDE development, but failed to pay me after promising to do so three times over the span of several months :( I still haven't seen any of the paychecks they said they would send me, and they even went as far as sending me a fake FedEx number. Now they are saying they can't afford to pay their employees.

And soon after Mosfet's website announced that he was leaving Linux and Liquid was dead. Unable to afford to develop Liquid for free, he was seeking work in the windows world.

According to the site, on 10/28, Dr. Giovanni asked Mandrakesoft, the host of Mosfet.org to take down the site, under threat of legal action. But since I see the site still there, it looks like they are standing their ground which is a good thing.

Anyway, I don't know what the moral of the story is, beyond a warning to keep both eyes open. There is a lot of questionable stuff that goes on in this world. Be careful.

(I've emailed Giovanni from FT but have yet to hear back from him.)

Read on for clarification about the alleged Gnome/KDE collaboration reported a few days ago, which ... ain't. And about the project to put Linux on the Royal DaVinci, which promises slow but steady progress. There's also infernally good news for anyone intrigued by the recent open-source Plan 9 release.

Pardon me, sir, are you in the market for a nice strong bridge? Aaron J. Seigo writes: "A letter from Mosfet can be found at knews.derkarl.org which clearly states the official KDE position regarding the recent "news" with regard to Gnome and KDE getting together on a common component model. Which is: It isn't happening. And for good reason.

KDE2 is in the final stages of preperation, so this is not the time to go messing with the foundations of things. Also, KParts wasn't designed on a whim. The KDE team put a lot of thought into it and came up with something that has some very real benefits to it (speed/overhead/etc). While interoperability would be nice, don't expect it on the component level just yet. Be happy with drag 'n drop and the like. For now."

Fair enough. Also on the KDE front, Joseph points you to knews.derkarl.org, which seems like a useful one for anyone looking for KDE updates.

Will a Linux PDA become their strong suit? jsinnema writes "News on the Linux Powered Royal daVinci from Wayland Bruns, CEO/CTO/Chief Geek CompanionLink Software at PDA Buzz Royal: 'Unfortunately, development is not on the timeline originally hoped. What's shaping out is two 16MB ROM/16MB Ram units, one 4 color grayscale for a low price, the other full color for a higher price. Size and weight are about the same as a Palm III. The color unit will have a flash slot.' and
'One of the interesting aspects of the project is that this is the first time we can directly compare performance of a particular app on both PC and PDA. I'm happy to report the PDA units are surprisingly powerful, except to note that memory access is relatively slow.'"

It sure would be neat if Linux becomes the default OS for palm-top computing; will Royal's project, though, stand a chance against the flashier ones which keep peeking like Monty Python animation over the horizon?

I'm sorry, but I'll have to call you back after I set my computer on fire. rpeppe writes "those who were intrigued by the Plan 9 release but don't have the appropriate hardware, or in fact anyone interested in new languages and OS's should be interested in the following:

vita nuova has released a new edition of the Inferno OS, source code and all, under a new licence, which allows distribution of core OS source code to inferno subscribers only, but unencumbered personal and commercial use of the binaries and the rest of the source code (including a javascript capable Web browser).

inferno is a cousin to Plan 9, but includes a virtual machine and a new language, limbo, and can run hosted under linux, free bsd, windows and other OS's, as well as natively on x86, ARM, MIPS, 68000, 68020 processors. because the whole operating system is virtualised, programs written for inferno are completely portable, something it would be difficult to say about java, for instance.

the language, limbo, deserves some attention - it's C-like, and OO in the deeper sense, but avoids the inheritance pitfalls that languages like java fall into. it's a joy to write in.

in my opinion, inferno was the coolest thing ever to have come out of bell labs CSRG - and we've now got exclusive rights to it, and intend to make as much of this excellent technology as we can. i hope others will too!"

Welcome again to Slashdot's continuing education program. Take a seat, say hello to your neighbor (using #slashdot might help), pretend we never said that other stuff. Here's another smidgeon of truth, clarification and equivocation we've spritzed over the usual mishmash of lies, intentional misstatements and strained obfuscation that is the Slashdot home page. Enjoy!

First, a word from our sponsor: We heard from the tireless Richard M. Stallman, nothing if not consistent in his argument, who wrote:

" Would you please post this? It is in response to the discussion of congressional hearings on Napster, but please post it however you think best.

I ask people to think twice before using the term "piracy" to describe sharing published information with other people. That word is a propaganda term used by the owners of information to convey the idea that sharing is wrong; when you use it, you aid their campaign.

Unless you believe that sharing information is the moral equivalent of attacking a ship and kidnaping the people on it, please don't use the term 'piracy' to describe sharing."

Thanks for the note, Richard. Now tell Lars ...

Birth of an island. Regarding the story posted this week about the ongoing study of an emerging island in the South Pacific, Bobity writes "Additional photos are posted at this site." Why can't we embed some networking cable before it cools completely?

So maybe 730 days from now ... In the ongoing battle for hearts, minds and desktops, fingers and livers of free software users, Helixcode and Eazel aren't the only ones to make cool strides lately. Per Wigren writes: "Kaiwal Software (Shane) Co., Ltd. and theKompany.com have just signed an agreement to sponsor two developers for 2 years in order to focus on developing KWord, the free word processor for the KDE office suite. " And since at this moment, KWord is probably the closest thing to DTP for Linux (excepting demo-only FrameMaker), that news makes me smile. But two years?! That's long term thinking.

Red wine? White Wine. Hot towel? Your hard drive, please, sir? Red wine? With all the intrusions of modern life, it's good to know that at least the computer on your desk at home can't be used by your employer to check who you've been writing e-mail to, and about what. Unless they can. tregoweth writes "MSNBC has a story about one of the Northwest Airlines employees whose hard drives were searched by Northwest's lawyers, as previously mentioned on Slashdot. The last paragraph of the article is chilling. " It also makes you think about the significance of all those "give employees free computer" programs from Ford, et al.

Book larnin' on the cheap: carlos_benj writes "I ran across this site today and thought slashdotters who'd had their interests piqued by the ArsDigita free university subject might want to take a look. Their educational philosophy is interesting but may not appeal to those more interested in accreditation than the acquisition of knowledge. The concept would be a definite boon to those with little money but access to the net. The fact that they will be partnering with industry could lend weight to their degree programs to help offset the lack of accreditation. "

From the Mixed Up Files of James Bond And John LeCarre: SEWilco writes "Over at HNN they noticed that the latest UK military laptop theft included non-classified details of how the next generation of fighter aircraft can be controlled from the ground. Oops. Meanwhile, the US State Department says 16 laptops are missing, although only one had classified information -- but that's only one Department.

We discussed the possibilities of remote controlled warcraft earlier, but Her Royal Highness has not participated in the discussion nor have there been any demands from her laywers."

horst writes: "I found this proposal by Keith Packard at mosfet.org. a good article, very interesting." Although it's more than a month old, if you are interested in the state of X, how it got to be that way, and where it's likely to head next, this is essential reading. In fact, you'll practically have to read it to find out why Packard concludes that "[a] new rendering model, designed to solve specific performance and network transparency issues of these new toolkits, has the promise of significantly increasing the power of the X desktop environment."