Domain: newsforge.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to newsforge.com.
Comments · 949
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Re:Sun will sell Java to the highest bidder
Java is already open-source. It's called GCJ.
Even RMS knew better than to claim that GCJ "is" Java.
"Java" is a trademark for a whole suite of related software products. It includes programming languages, libraries, compilers, and virtual machines.
GCJ is just an incomplete (but useful) replacement for only one of those components. -
Sour grapesand lasts gasps of a dying business model, and a dinosaur company that fought against a superior business model. The embedded RTOS companies that have embraced the GPL will very shortly wipe out Green Hills, just as the dinosaurs were wiped out. Hopefully taxpayers won't be on the hook for too much Green Hills expenditures, so that future migrations to the GPL are kept to a minimum. I hope the public servants in charge of purchasing are paying attention to the situation.
Too bad Sun has the same opinions:
Unix will be back. Really, it will! Everything is beautiful! Don't worry! Be happy! Customers will return to Solaris one day! After all, if schwartz said it, it must be true.
Schwartz, however, sees the fad of Linux wearing off in big businesses.
"There will be a transition back to Solaris," he said
and even scott is a believer:
The "fad will wear off, and big business will come back to solaris".
Sun, don't worry, everything is great. Everybody else should wake up and smell the java
Extinction is a natural result of evolution. Companies go extinct when they are unable to adapt to changes in the business environment or compete effectively with other companies.
Sound familiar?
One last observation. -
Sour grapesand lasts gasps of a dying business model, and a dinosaur company that fought against a superior business model. The embedded RTOS companies that have embraced the GPL will very shortly wipe out Green Hills, just as the dinosaurs were wiped out. Hopefully taxpayers won't be on the hook for too much Green Hills expenditures, so that future migrations to the GPL are kept to a minimum. I hope the public servants in charge of purchasing are paying attention to the situation.
Too bad Sun has the same opinions:
Unix will be back. Really, it will! Everything is beautiful! Don't worry! Be happy! Customers will return to Solaris one day! After all, if schwartz said it, it must be true.
Schwartz, however, sees the fad of Linux wearing off in big businesses.
"There will be a transition back to Solaris," he said
and even scott is a believer:
The "fad will wear off, and big business will come back to solaris".
Sun, don't worry, everything is great. Everybody else should wake up and smell the java
Extinction is a natural result of evolution. Companies go extinct when they are unable to adapt to changes in the business environment or compete effectively with other companies.
Sound familiar?
One last observation. -
Re:Sun's Going to Cut 30% of Its Staff Not 9%
O'Gara's predictions have often proven to be on the money - one wonders whether this has leaked from newly-resigned Rich Green, now that - after 14 loyal years at Sun - he's jumped ship to join Bill Coleman at Cassat.
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Re:At least SOMEONE is concerned about this
You, sir, are an idiot.
No linux company (that I've ever heard of) copied another companies code and used it as their own.
No linux company (that I've ever heard of) has created a 'free' web browser to undercut another like MS did.
No linux company (that I've ever heard of) has been convicted of software piracy.
No linux company (that I've ever heard of) has been convicted of being a monopoly.
(I didn't read through all of the above link about NS vs IE article, but the skimming I did seems to cover much of it).
I could keep going, but you get the idea. MS *IS* an evil corporation. There are many *many* valid reasons to hate them.
Do us all a favor and crall back under your rock. Thanks for participating. -
Re:Even a 100% tax is ok
Ah, but it's not 100% of free
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Sun musings on LinuxWhat Sun, thinks of GNU/Linux:
Customers will return to Solaris one day! After all, if Schwartz said it, it must be true.
Schwartz, however, sees the fad of Linux wearing off in big businesses.
"There will be a transition back to Solaris," he said
and even Scott is a believer:
The "fad will wear off, and big business will come back to Solaris".
Sun, don't worry, everything is great. Everybody else should wake up and smell the java
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Sun musings on LinuxWhat Sun, thinks of GNU/Linux:
Customers will return to Solaris one day! After all, if Schwartz said it, it must be true.
Schwartz, however, sees the fad of Linux wearing off in big businesses.
"There will be a transition back to Solaris," he said
and even Scott is a believer:
The "fad will wear off, and big business will come back to Solaris".
Sun, don't worry, everything is great. Everybody else should wake up and smell the java
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Re:Probably been asked before...
They consider the BSD settlement to be invalid and will probably go after BSD at some point. Found one link here. Trying to find better details.
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Re:One word for you...
GNU/Linux is more appealing to the mainstream in that it is easy to use and set up.
Oh good an religous war. :(
Simple FreeBSD installation yields functional desktop system
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Novell has chosen to standardize on Qt!
Novell has chosen to standardize on Qt as development environment.
More Details on Novell's KDE/GNOME Desktop -
Mailmerge
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Re:UnconvincingActually OO.org *does* have dedicated support.
If a business or pesrson wishes they can get support from Sun's Star Office team
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told ya so!
I'd just like to say that I predicted
this ages ago. This is another TIA project, under a different name. "Terrorism database" indeed.
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Disney and the RIAA -- you're not too far off.
Anyone who hasn't seen the "EZ-Jackster" episode of "The Proud Family" that Disney aired, should definitely try to hunt it down. (you can probably find it on your better P2P services
;))
It portrays a girl using a P2P service (EZ-Jackster) to effectively bringing down capitalism as we know it. Even the news anchor loses her job and subsequently blames the girl and EZ-Jackster for it.
The entire episode touches on a controversial subject with subtlety of this satiric image.
See this NewsForge article for more information. -
Some other Sun musings
Unix will be back. Really, it will! Everything is beautiful! Don't worry! Be happy! Customers will return to Solaris one day! After all, if schwartz said it, it must be true.
Schwartz, however, sees the fad of Linux wearing off in big businesses.
"There will be a transition back to Solaris," he said
and even scott is a believer:
The "fad will wear off, and big business will come back to solaris".
Sun, don't worry, everything is great. Everybody else should wake up and smell the java.
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Some other Sun musings
Unix will be back. Really, it will! Everything is beautiful! Don't worry! Be happy! Customers will return to Solaris one day! After all, if schwartz said it, it must be true.
Schwartz, however, sees the fad of Linux wearing off in big businesses.
"There will be a transition back to Solaris," he said
and even scott is a believer:
The "fad will wear off, and big business will come back to solaris".
Sun, don't worry, everything is great. Everybody else should wake up and smell the java.
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Adobe nuts, Mac conquering the world
So, from where I am viewing the market from the perspective of an end user, Apple's market position is looking pretty good to me.
Yeah, real good.
And what about all those announcements?
Microsoft asks Mac users, "How can we get your business?'
Merrill Lynch, whose technology group recently began coverage of Apple, noted in a research note last week that "open source and Mac adoption is still in infancy in the enterprise market." However, "we should see explosive growth in the years to come as corporations look to achieve cost savings within their IT departments."
Using IDC's own estimate for G5/OSX server shipments through 2007, as well as its internal data on OSX operating system attach rates and server pricing, Merrill reckons that the enterprise G5 market could be worth $529 million by 2007. "This represents a [compound annual growth rate] of 61 percent over the 5-year period from 2002-2007," the note said.
Japanese telco to aid Mac phone development
Mac, G5 systems move out enterprise's mainframe
New G5 chips, but no 64-bit OS X
for at least two years (too late).
"We're saying that OSX/G5s will eat Unix," Gantz said
Is Computer Associates contemplating dumping Windows?
If you have been following Microsoft attempts to hold onto counties, cities, states, governmental bodies, governments, corporations and people, you know the headlines have gone from talk to action.
The governments that are starting to move over tend to be mostly poorer countries, or ones with large, largely computer-free populaces. Brazil and China are good examples of this trend. In those places, OSX/G5 adoption has been picking up steam to the point that if a second world country told MS to take a hike, it would hardly rate a Slashdot story on a slow day.
THE NATIONAL HEALTH Service is considering using the OSX operating system; G5s in a 2.3 billion deal that could affect as many as 800,000 PCs if a pilot is successful.
Nine German cities poised to adopt OSX/G5
Official: China to invest in OSX/G5-based software industry
The US Army has abandoned Windows and chosen OSX for a key component of its "Land Warrior" programme, according to a report in National Defense Magazine. The move, initially covering a personal computing and communications device termed the Commander's Digital Assistant (CDA), follows the failure of the previous attempt at such a device in trials in February of this year, and is part of a move to make the device simpler and less breakable.
According to program manager Lt Col Dave Gallop this is part of a broader move towards OSX/G5 by the US Army: "Evidence shows that OSX is more stable. We are moving in general to where the Army is going, to OSX/G5-based OS."
Sun Microsystems is the odd man out. It has an impressive array of powerful enemies: IBM, Microsoft, Intel, HP, Red Hat, Apple, Novell, and more. It has only a weakened Oracle as a friend, and Oracle too has made a "bet the company" move to OSX/G5. OSX/G5 threatens many of Sun's traditional products as sharply as it threatens -
Newsforge ArticleHere is the Newsforge Article about the new GIMP that appeared a couple of weeks ago.
The screenshots look simply awsome.
Going to install that now.
Moderate this comment
Negative: Offtopic Flamebait Troll Redundant
Positive: Insightful Interesting Informative Funny -
Just did this with an iBook, works greatI saved about 300 Euros / 500 Dollars a few months ago by buying an iBook in the United States. The voltage is not a problem -- Apple's transformers are 110/220, and if you take off the "corner", you can plug in any normal electronics cable. The DVD drive is not a problem -- it picks up the first regional code you use (I haven't checked about getting rid of the RC altogether yet, though; Apple still enforces it in hard- and (!) software, I'm told, which would be dumb thing to do). The warranty is not a problem, as Apple's standard one-year is worldwide on portables (not, however, on desktop computers). The keyboard is not a problem -- if you can touch-type (and you should be able to), the trick is to never, never think about what you are doing. It's just like climbing a mountain: As long as you don't look down, you're fine.
Customs was not even a theoretical problem in my case, as there are no duties for importing computers to Germany. If you bought your iBook in a U.S. state that doesn't have sales tax [yes, my European children, there are whole states in the U.S. where there is no VAT. Remember this when your politicians try to tell you why your national sales tax has to be raised to 18 percent], you might have to pay a certain amount so they are satisfied you paid at least some sort of tax to somebody. This is the Einfuhrumsatzsteuer and German customs describes the details here. In my case, the Euro was high enough that it was still well worth it.
Other advice: Go on Apple's website (come on, you don't really want a loud, heavy, ugly Dell, do you), find a store in easy distance of where you are going to be, and email or call a few weeks ahead. IBooks are currently assembled in Taiwan, and take five to ten days if you want anything but the standard model (larger harddrive, for example). Remember, too, that America might have the most advanced stock market on the planet, but its bank system still hasn't gotten beyond the stage of sending little slips of paper around by mail: Most Americans have trouble understanding how an EC card even works, and happily go throught an 18th Century ritual called "balancing the check book" once every few days without complaint. You will have to pay cash (don't worry, these amounts in cash are not considered unusual in the U.S.), or better, get yourself a credit card.
German readers will want to take a look at this article about importing iBooks from the consumer test group Stiftung Warentest. Note that there are some minor mistakes in there, however, like the need for an adapter for the plug.
In my case, there was no question that it was worth it: In fact, I could have probably flown there and back just to pick up the computer, and still saved money. And best thing: With 220 volts, my iBook is twice as fast as it was in the States. No, really. The trouble is, it sends my fingerprints to Donald Rumsfeld every time I touch the escape button...
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No, it wasn't *that* letter, it was this one
"SCO sent the letter to every member of the Senate and House of Representatives, said Blake Stowell, a SCO spokesman." No, no, they did not send the extortion letter to congress. This refers to Darl's letter warning congress about the danger to our way of life posed by the and their GPL.
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Pretty good indeed, especially server growth
So, from where I am viewing the market from the perspective of an end user, Apple's market position is looking pretty good to me.
Yeah, real good.
And what about all those announcements?
Microsoft asks Mac users, "How can we get your business?'
Merrill Lynch, whose technology group recently began coverage of Apple, noted in a research note last week that "open source and Mac adoption is still in infancy in the enterprise market." However, "we should see explosive growth in the years to come as corporations look to achieve cost savings within their IT departments."
Using IDC's own estimate for G5/OSX server shipments through 2007, as well as its internal data on OSX operating system attach rates and server pricing, Merrill reckons that the enterprise G5 market could be worth $529 million by 2007. "This represents a [compound annual growth rate] of 61 percent over the 5-year period from 2002-2007," the note said.
Japanese telco to aid Mac phone development
Mac, G5 systems move out enterprise's mainframe
New G5 chips, but no 64-bit OS X for at least two years (too late).
"We're saying that OSX/G5s will eat Unix," Gantz said
Is Computer Associates contemplating dumping Windows?
If you have been following Microsoft attempts to hold onto counties, cities, states, governmental bodies, governments, corporations and people, you know the headlines have gone from talk to action.
The governments that are starting to move over tend to be mostly poorer countries, or ones with large, largely computer-free populaces. Brazil and China are good examples of this trend. In those places, OSX/G5 adoption has been picking up steam to the point that if a second world country told MS to take a hike, it would hardly rate a Slashdot story on a slow day.
THE NATIONAL HEALTH Service is considering using the OSX operating system; G5s in a 2.3 billion deal that could affect as many as 800,000 PCs if a pilot is successful.
Nine German cities poised to adopt OSX/G5
Official: China to invest in OSX/G5-based software industry
The US Army has abandoned Windows and chosen OSX for a key component of its "Land Warrior" programme, according to a report in National Defense Magazine. The move, initially covering a personal computing and communications device termed the Commander's Digital Assistant (CDA), follows the failure of the previous attempt at such a device in trials in February of this year, and is part of a move to make the device simpler and less breakable.
According to program manager Lt Col Dave Gallop this is part of a broader move towards OSX/G5 by the US Army: "Evidence shows that OSX is more stable. We are moving in general to where the Army is going, to OSX/G5-based OS."
Sun Microsystems is the odd man out. It has an impressive array of powerful enemies: IBM, Microsoft, Intel, HP, Red Hat, Apple, Novell, and more. It has only a weakened Oracle as a friend, and Oracle too has made a "bet the company" move to OSX/G5. OSX/G5 threatens many of Sun's traditional products as sharply as it threatens Micr -
SCO-proof, too
Plus every HP Mandrake PC comes with free indemnification against SCO lawsuits!
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Re:Tell the truth, dammit
This is interesting because NewsForge are now saying Vulcan have no further interests in BayStar.
BayStar Capital is not owned by Vulcan Ventures, founded in 1986 by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, as has been reported elsewhere. Allen, who owns Seattle's Seahawks and Mariners sports teams, still owns a large stock position in Microsoft, but there is no known connection between him and SCO Group at this time. -
"News"forge? How about Conjectureforge.I think SCO's tactics are as despicable as they come, but let's keep it fair. Somehow I doubt that this story belongs in the "News and Trends" section of Newsforge. Try the "Conjecture and Hypothesis" section instead.
What news are they reporting? It's not news when you whine about why phone numbers didn't work and why you could get in touch with attributions (Anderer, Sontag, etc.). It's not news when you start a paragraph with "That leaves us, for now, with a couple of major unanswered questions." News reporters answer questions; they don't ask them. And it's not news when your story is speckled with "imagine all the partnering," "Anderer appears to be" and "what you smell cooking in the kitchen is usually what is served."
Give me a break. I'm all for Linux advocacy, but let me know when you have some real news.
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Update the Article!
Yes, this article is both misleading and old news. You can find this from CA on Newsforge:
CA senior VP of product development Mark Barrenechea says that Bench's claim is nonsense. CA has not paid SCO any Linux taxes, he said.
Drawing up short of calling SCO a liar, Barrenechea claims that SCO has twisted a $40 million breach-of-contract settlement that CA paid last summer to the Canopy Group, SCO's biggest stockholder, and Center 7, another Canopy company, and has turned it into a purported Linux license.
As a "small part" of that settlement, Barrenechea said, CA got a bunch of UnixWare licenses that it needed to support its UnixWare customers. SCO, he said, had just attached a transparent Linux indemnification to all UnixWare licenses and that is how SCO comes off calling CA a Linux licensee.
You'll also find this on news.com.com.com.com:
Computer Associates, which has begun making its management software available on Linux, acknowledged it had the license, but took pains to distance itself from SCO's methods.
"CA disagrees with SCO's tactics, which are intended to intimidate and threaten customers. CA's license for Linux technology is part of a larger settlement with the Canopy Group. It has nothing to do with SCO's strategy of intimidation," said a statement from Sam Greenblatt, senior vice president and chief architect of CA's Linux Technology Group.
Greenblatt has been an outspoken Linux fan. "The whole world is going to unite around a single operating system, and it's going to be Linux," he said in a keynote address at the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo in January.
Basically Canopy threw in the licenses as part of a settlement with Canopy's Center7 company. I wonder if SCO broke any confidentiality agreements regarding the settlement by announcing that CA was a Linux IP Licensee.
;) -
Re:That would be Linux.
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That would be Linux.
This link shows Linux on a chip.
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If you think there's potential fraud, tell the SECIt appears that public comments have convinced the SEC to look into this issue. However, what's not clear is the priority the SEC is giving to the case.
If you think the SCO case is an important case for the SEC to investigate, you should contact the SEC, telling them to investigate SCO and why you think the SEC should be involved. You should reference specific points from Halloween X and/or Groklaw if you're going to make your point. Most government organizations prioritize in part by whatever wheel squeeks the loudest.
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The FTC is respondingt to MS/SCO link
Groklaw is reporting on a Newsforge article that the FTC is investigating the apparent SCO/MS link exposed in the Halloween X document. I guess that some things are too obvious for even the Bush administration to totally ignore.
The FTC will not officially acknowledge it, but their comments made by officials indicate that the deal (possibly among others) is definitely on their radar. -
SEC investigation according to NewsForge
According to Newsforge there is likely already an SEC investigation ongoing.
Also, to plug my own horn, I've written up a few things on the financial dealings. Most are from August 2003, but the most recent relates to the Anderer memo. -
SEC investigation underway?
An SEC staff member told NewsForge that complaints and tips about suspected under-the-table funding, stock-kiting, illegal insider trading, and money-laundering involving Microsoft or Microsoft-connected individuals to the financially struggling SCO Group have been coming into the agency with regularity since last August. Newsforge
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Re:Who cares? (No really! Who cares?)
Newsforge is the Slashdot of 5 years ago. Try them for "Borg" bashing.
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Re:Disney
I suppose "lots of money" is a relative thing when we're talking about corporations but it looks like Disney paid $15,000 for their share of the work. An inconsequential amount for a company as large as Disney especially when considering the breadth and scope of Photoshop.
-Pato -
SCOsores hall-of-shame inductees
No. 1 is EV1Servers.net who announced SCO lied about how much they were paid (Microsoft is a fan of EV1)
(little did the CEO know when he made the deal that SCO planned to 'worth' him out of seven figures)
No. 2 is CompterAssociates who announced SCO lied about "linux licenses" which are really from an unrelated settlement
No. 3 is Leggett and Platt say SCO lies and they don't have a license and "would not have an interest in doing so"
No. 4 is Questar Gas said they just wanted to get things over with and also runs Apache/1.3.26 (Unix) on Windows 2000
Make sure *you* are Legally Unencumbered(tm) by getting a SCOsores license
and don't forget to head over and sign your Clean Slate contract with the RIAA -
Three new "real" SCOsores hall-of-shame inductees
No. 1 is EV1Servers.net who announced SCO lied about how much they were paid (Microsoft is a fan of EV1)
(little did the CEO know when he made the deal that SCO planned to 'worth' him out of seven figures)
No. 2 is CompterAssociates who announced SCO lied about "linux licenses" which are really from an unrelated settlement
No. 3 is Leggett and Platt who shockingly is running Microsoft-IIS/5.0 on Windows 2000
No. 4 is Questar Gas who just wanted to get things over with and also runs Apache/1.3.26 (Unix) on Windows 2000
Make sure *you* are Legally Unencumbered(tm) by getting a SCOsores license
and don't forget to head over and sign your Clean Slate contract with the RIAA -
newsforge article
Here's a newsforge article posted by the first comment to the kde quality team article.
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Re:Of course
If the ILECS want to hold on to their monopoly on POTS phones, they'll just monopolize themselves into irrelevance. A POTS phone is useful, but it's not the necessity it used to be. Wireless phone plans are cheap enough to use as an only phone. For broadband, cable is the only viable alternative for most people, but there'll be more on the way. Qwest is unbundling DSL from phone service. FTTH, powerline, and community wireless are all possibilities.
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Re:This is what Open Source needs
What you say makes sense, but if you read my article that I wrote to explain the effects of the project in more depth, you'll see that (hopefully) you're wrong.
The point of the project is not only to bring in this heretofore unused resource, and then train it, so that you get a growing number of people with little or no technical background becoming competent with things like Bugzilla, CVS, translation tools, promotion work, etc. These people can then act as a gateway between the developers and the users, to try to improve the quality of communication between these two groups.
Your idea of LUG-based QAs is a great one, but it's not something the KDE Project can enforce, whereas the Quality Teams project is viable and will hopefully make a big difference. -
For a social scientist's perspective...
I wrote this article for Newsforge, looking at the productive, social, political and spiritual aspects of the Quality Teams Project.
Some people might find it interesting... :-) -
Re:Amen.
Comparing Free Software/Open Source with Red Cross and Humanitarian Aid is quite a disgrace.
I'll never donate anything to Free Software, because each time someone ask for donation, I realize It would be better to donate to Red Cross or some other Aid Agency.
If you really want to do use your computer skills then go help your local charity with them.
Microsoft does
There are two few Free Software projects geared towards helping people, go and do your share as this guy suggest
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Re:FinallyMy thoughts exactly.
I think this guy may be on to something.
- SCO spokesman Blake Stowell declined to say how much EV1Servers.net paid
Roughly translated through the SCO de-fudifier would be:
- They didn't so much pay us money, as they let us name them to the media
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2002-09-29:Why Linux will conquer the worldIf anyone is going to quote Horace Greeley
...Title: Why Linux will conquer the world - Expanded AntiFUD
EXPANDED DRAFT.
PREFACE
This is an extended version of a reply to John Carroll's article... (http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1107-958923.html) My original reply matched John Carroll's article style and language in a attempt to create a side by side comparative document as a measure of the credibility of each sides argument. This extended edition incorporates my responses to the criticism John made concerning the original reply. It is still a draft, but please feel free to adapt and adopt the content and republish at will.
Why Linux will conquer the world
By David Mohring
Special to anyone willing to publish it.September 28, 2002,
COMMENTARY--. GNU/Linux clearly bears a strong resemblance to Unix. It offers many of the same features, while adding interesting additions of its own ( free licensing, open sourced development, etc).
With the Linux platform the open source/free software community has already created a cross-market software unification infrastructure better than Microsoft has ever had ( or is ). This has result in rapid expansion in Linux's popularity which has eaten into Microsoft server market share as Linux also grows toward taking over the governmental,enterprise, desktop and development world.
There are a number of reasons for this:
1. The breadth of Linux's market presence.
Due to the liberal nature in which Linux is licensed, any real measurements of Linux's current level of deployment is as difficult to determine as the real number computers running pirated versions of Microsoft windows.
Trying to measure the current level of Linux deployment based around the number of computers/servers sold with operating systems installed is flawed. Linux based solutions are often efficient enough to be deployed on pre-existing hardware, whereas Microsoft is dropping support for NT4 and a Windows2000/XP based solutions almost always have a higher level of minimum requirements to do the same job. Also unlike Microsoft OEM license releases, there is no price advantage to purchasing the Linux with the computer, and Evans Data survey discloses that a full 38.9% of new Linux hardware deployments is assembled from parts. (http://www.evansdata.com/computer.htm)
The one exception to measuring the level of Linux based deployments is publicly accessible and query-able Internet servers. In the netcraft September 2001 web server survey. Linux based servers occupy 30% of the market compared to Microsoft's IIS webserver's 27.46% share. As of August 2002, the open source Apache webserver has 63.51% share compared to Microsoft's IIS 25.39%.
Even so, You would be hard pressed to find a software or hardware market where Linux does not have a rapidly increasing presence. Linux works on obsolete hardware (so you needn't throw the hardware away), common modern PC hardware, prototype wrist watchs,PDAs, the Playstation, PlaystationII, Dreamcast and even the XBox consoles, IBM mainframes, massive clusters, and a number of supercomputers . Linux runs on a vast number of different CPU chips, including the x86, Intel Itanium, AMD Hammer, ARM, Alpha, IBM AS/400, SPARC, MIPS, 68k, and Power PC. Linux securely hosts many databases, webservers, file and print servers, from many vendors, scaling both in price and ease, according to need. Linux now has two fully interoperating desktop systems and Libraries, KDE and GNOME, the latters Accessabilty Toolkit with the OpenOffice.org office suite has been singled out in this year's "Helen Keller Achievement Award in Technology". (http://newsvac.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=02/09
/13/1955240) Many vendors are now coming out with Linux based -
Re:First Impressions
Half? No, actually just two. First, let's look at the window title (visible in the second screenshot. "Brushes, Patterns, Gradients, Channels, Paths, Undo, Layers, Fonts, Navigation, Buffers" (there may be more). Yeah, great title. And that window is stretched out to show it, yielding more whitespace than anything else on the screen. Some improvement.
The idea of stretching out the other windows is ... interesting. Take a look at that second screenshot again. Notice that there's more than one image window open. Now imagine that there are many open. Should all of them be stretched out to accomodate the menu? The new menu adds "Layers, Tools, Dialogs, Filters." Still no Help, and since there is a File I assume that there will also be a help... somewhere. Pity that there's no indication of more options anywhere...
So we have two very minor problems solved - and more problems caused by the wasted real estate - and you still haven't hit on any of the other, more serious points that I made. By the way, I don't think that resizing the window would have had any effect on "Xtns" if that was something that you were responding to.
And, since Paint Shop Pro doesn't put its menus on its subwindows, sizing them to fit their content really doesn't effect its usability as you claim that it will.
Sorry... you fail to convince. -
First Impressions
You know, you can tell a lot about a product from its screenshots. So let's take a look at this one. First, I should say that I am not a graphics artist, nor do I play one on TV. I do some mild photo retouching, web art, icon design, stuff like that. I've used Photoshop and Illustrator, and currently use Paint Shop Pro (hey, its only $89 and it works).
What's the first thing that I see? Well, we have a bunch of little windows with a terminal manager peeking through. Annyoing, but I can deal with it. Hmm - they're all showing up on the taskbar, too. More annoying, but lets move on.
Looking at what I presume is the "new" Gimp interface, on the left, the colored icons are much easier to understand at a glance. The menus, however, leave a lot to be desired. One problem with small windows is that, unless you're using Mac style menus, you have small menu labels. Like these ones. File: fair enough. Help: likewise. Xtns: ...? Xtns? I have no idea.
Looking at the bottom of the docked options window, I can see some buttons. I'd guess that the first one is Save, the second (greyed out) is undo/back, the third is delete (delete my ink options?) and the fourth is... erm... undo again? You've got me. Hope that they have mouseovers, but they really shouldn't have needed them.
Looking at the "Brushes, Patterns, Gra" window. Ooh, nice title. Anyway, these seem pretty reasonable, although the weird icons at the bottom are back, and different. I guess the first one is ... no idea, actually, since I assume that the second one is new. The third is probably copy (why can't I copy a circle(11) by the way?), the fourth is delete, and the fifth is - refresh? How often do you need to refresh your brushes that it gets the bottom-right corner of the window all to itself? That's prime real estate!
Okay, now onto the main window. Heh - they can't seem to draw their rulers correctly so that you can see the stops and read the numbers. Oh, well. Again, we have the problem of the window size - this time the menus are readable, but one of them seems to be "La" - possibly "Lay" - and who knows how many are inaccessible off to the right? Its good to know that I can cancel my picture, however - or could in some situations whenever the button is enabled.
All in all, from a first glance (which is all many prospective users will ever give it), I'll stick with Paint Shop Pro, thankyouverymuch. -
Re:Uh, gone?
Frankly I see nothing new in the GUI that makes me think anything was updated. This looks like GIMP to me
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More info on this
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LINDOWS really means...In addition to the obvious pun, I first thought LINDOWS was one of those recursive acrynoms for "Lindows Is Not DOS Or Windows Stupid".
Hmm, according to Google, only one other person had the same idea. Maybe if we spread this meme around, MS will get the message that it is pointless to defend the generic "Windows" term.
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With friends like these...
If this is the way that Open Source treats its friends
Any friend (and financial backer) of SCO is no friend of F/OSS.
Some past notable utterances from our friends:
Schwartz said:
Schwartz, however, sees the fad of Linux wearing off in big businesses.
"There will be a transition back to Solaris," he said
and let's not forget Scott:
The "fad will wear off, and big business will come back to solaris".
Sun, friends till the end?
Everybody else should wake up and smell the java -
With friends like these...
If this is the way that Open Source treats its friends
Any friend (and financial backer) of SCO is no friend of F/OSS.
Some past notable utterances from our friends:
Schwartz said:
Schwartz, however, sees the fad of Linux wearing off in big businesses.
"There will be a transition back to Solaris," he said
and let's not forget Scott:
The "fad will wear off, and big business will come back to solaris".
Sun, friends till the end?
Everybody else should wake up and smell the java