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In the past I've had a lot of respect for this guy. But in the last year, it's been nearly completely eroded. He seems to think that it's still the 1990s, and you can run a business by jumping from one buzzword to another every couple of months.

Michael, here's a clue: concentrate on one thing until it's done, before you jump on to the next thing. And keep your personality out of it!

I've drunk the Lindows/Linspire Kool-Aid. It seems like a worthwhile project. I actually went out and bought copies, and I've installed them on friend's and family's machines. It's a nice distro, as far as it goes. Few Slashdotters would be happy with it, but for someone whose whole world has been Windows-based, it's perfect. And CNR is darn near brilliant.

For a couple of months, a lot of the Lindows developers' focus was going into one of Michael's pet projects, NVU, which was going to be a free, open-source replacement for MS FrontPage. Great idea, right? Well, it got to version 0.2, which almost-works but appears to be completely stalled. The announced 1st-quarter release date has long since come and gone.

This month his focus seems to have shifted over to this silly "shootout" between distros. Hey Mike, another clue: Lindows is a pretty nice thing, but you haven't got a chance in Hell of competing with Fedora or Mandrake. They're aimed at a much different target audience, and that audience doesn't need a pre-installed GUI. And your average Lindows user is going to take a look at Mandrake and run away fast.

Last month it was his VOIP startup, SIP-phone or whatever it's called. It sounds like a great idea, but I'm not buying it, because I don't know if his focus is going to shift to something else while this one falls by the wayside in a month or two, half finished.

This makes this move possibly dangerous for OSS, because they could fuck up netscape, and then when people hear "mozilla is the core technology behind netscape" they will vomit.

Firefox is good for this reason to keep the "brands" disabiguated.

And hell, all we need is firefox, thunderbird, a standalone html editor (wasn't lindows working on one derrived from mozilla?.. got it http://www.nvu.com/) and xchat and you have a set of programs WAY more powerful than the mozilla suite. Put all the bookmark and settings "flat" files in the one place and have the binaries for windows and linux up front and you could run everything off a USB thumb drive.

I used to use my thumb drive for carrying firefox around, it was quite nice.

1) This is not the unix way of doing things. Small individual apps that can be combined in powerful ways.

ImageMagick is great. So is The Gimp. I'd say ImageMagick is more the unix way of doing things, but there is still definitely a place for The Gimp.

Mozilla should break into separate apps to handle separate tasks.

That sounds like a great idea! I seem to remember reading that the other parts (chat) were being made into separate apps as well, but a quick googling showed nothing.

AFAIK most work on that last I heard was moving towards Nvu (which might theoretically get properly folded back into the Mozilla project once Lin* gets lawsuit-ed out of existence)

Nvu!

I'm reading: which could have impact on desktop Linux and struggling to see how you transmogrified that into: this will probably maybe most definately finally be the tipping point for desktop linux?

Given past generosity/support from Mr Lindows, presumably more $$$$ for Lin---s will result in more projects like Nvu: I don't think we can really expect - or claim we were promised - more than that.

Linux OS. I probably should have switched a year earlier, but it's definitely ready for most business users now. Wars have been fought over which distro to use, but Xandros can definitely help a small company be productive right now.

OpenOffice for word processing, spreadsheets, and even HTML authoring (until Nvu becomes available soon). OpenOffice has a good user interface, ease of use and interoperability. Like most open source products, it just keeps getting better.

Mozilla for email and web browsing. I'll switch to Firefox soon. From what I've read, Outlook refugees (poor bastards) would like Ximian Evolution.

Fax via email. I chose MaxEmail, but there are others. Way cheaper, better and less hassle than a fax machine. I strongly prefer email. MaxEmail allows technoweanies to send a fax and we can still handle it as email (choice of PDF or TIFF). They also provide voice mail systems, but we don't use them.

Cell Phones. This sounds a bit cheesy at first glance, but the world is moving to wireless, almost forcing employees to have a cell phone anyway. Unless you're running a call center, cell phones meet all the phone needs of a typical small business. Voice mail is included. The concept of a receptionist, or worse an automated attendant system, is outdated. Putting customers on hold and transferring them three times is not a "feature" anyone should want in a phone system. VoIP and hacking together open source voice mail systems are neat technologies, but they're overkill for typical small business. If you need a small phone system, Siemens makes the GigaSet line that is well engineered with voicemail and wireless. When I last looked, they were about $350 + $80 per handset, maximum of 8 users. New models include routers and other cool stuff.

QuickBooks. Definitely NOT open source, but hopefully someone will create an open source program that can read QB data, or at least a native Linux version of QB. For now, QB Pro 2000 runs under CrossOver, but it's ugly. QB can actually be used for a lot more than accounting. If you like, it'll manage a customer/contact database, track time for hourly employees, provide rudimentary project management, etc.

In the perfect world, there would be one system that did everything. It'd be well integrated, easy to use and open source. That world will never exist, but we can come close. The goal should still be as few systems as possible, less complexity, lowest cost, and maximum ease of use. It should scale well when new employees are added. A small geek company like mine could easily go broke trying to create the perfect system. There are times when close enough will have to do, so you can get to the paying work and the never ending stream of government forms and accounting.

I feel the same way. The lack of Dreamweaver was one thing that kept me on windows for longer than I wanted. Ever since I finally made the move I have been searching freshmeat, hoping that somewhere there was that miracle program that would do what I needed, but no such luck. Dreamweaver is by far the best WYSIWYG HTML editor, and for those who claim notepad (emacs), I can only assume you have never used dreamweaver.

There's a "new" (it's based on Mozilla's HTML composer) program called Nvu that looks to provide the same WYSIWYG functionality as Dreamweaver and Frontpage. It's still really early in development but it's light years better than anything else that's currently available for Linux if you're looking for a Dreamweaver type program.

-Pato

Quanta is a good software, bu not for the graphic designer that works with Dreamweaver and doesn't understand a thing about HTML, CSS or DHTML. There's a new software called Nvu, a fork from Mozilla Composer, which is trying to be a clone of Dreamweaver and is on the public beta stage.

The lack of Dreamweaver was one thing that kept me on windows for longer than I wanted. Ever since I finally made the move I have been searching freshmeat, hoping that somewhere there was that miracle program that would do what I needed, but no such luck.

Keep an eye on nvu. It's still early days, but it's making radical advances quickly. It is based on the mozilla composer, with functionality added to make it useful (frames, forms, tables, css, multiple file projects, ...).

Too bad the current version munges php (which is a real blocker for me), but the next version supposedly will have that bug fixed.

nvu, an offshoot of Mozilla Composer, supports WebDAV. It's not done yet, but it's making some serious progress. it's GPL and it's actually got funding (from Lindows).

No Doubt--having Dreamweaver tie into Apache/Postgre/MySql would send me running to CompUSSR to pick up a copy. Flash? I couldn't care less--.swf is one of the more evil file extensions out there.

Fireworks would be nice too--it's great for doing quick mockups of navbars, etc. Fireworks doesn't write the cleanest code ever, but when you can do a prototype navbar in about 10 minutes, who cares? Not I, at least.

OTOH, I doubt that the developers of NVU are terribly pleased. There will be those out there that are all about a free WSIWYG tool, but they're going to lose a lot of pro designers and others who could potentially contribute to its development. I'm going to keep my eye on Nvu, but until it's stable and will do 95% of what I ask of Dreamweaver, I'm still going to have keep that damn VMWare Win2000 install around.

Linux is the better option. It is cheaper, just not in balmers (thats a currency). When I built my system, I had the choice of Windows (179) or Linux (40 for boxed set), natrualy, I chose Linux, I got all my hardware detected, all the software I needed and of course, all the games I played (some with wine).

Ballmer maybe laughing now, but as more and more organizations switch, it wont be long before Linux DOES cut into Microsoft's profits, and we will see who has the last laugh.

If you havn't tried Linux before, then
Legally get a free copy of Lindows! Lets see Microsoft beat that!

Really, I have been trying to install Windows XP and I have ended up with blue screens of misery and misery. Now I remembered why I left Windows in the first place.

The answers is, there is no barrier. Get a boxed distro, one with printed manuals (because who can RTFM when they CANT RTFM), come with proprreity apps such as Nvidia, flash and crossover (good for those propreitry apps such as Office, Photo$hop, etc). My recommendations would be SuSE 9, Mandrake 9.2, Lindows (latest version no longer runs as root, free version can be grabbed from NvU, but have to pay for click and run), Xandros and Turbo Linux. If you are willing to get a free distro, try Fedora, Ark or Knoppix. But dont go near Debian, Slackware or Gentoo. They are the "3l33tist" distros, the ones that spread the Linux is hard lie.

There are no barriers, except for inserting the cd rom, click next, next, next and reboot into a complete operating system full of applications, games and utillities all pre installed. Plus no need to reboot about 20 times to get all your drivers installed.

If there is any distro that is hard, it would be Microsoft Windows. Linux has been easy when I tried it (Mandrake 8.1), and still is today. SO WHY ARE PEOPLE STILL SPREADING FUD FROM THE PRE KDE AGES?!?

Nvu 0.1 binary test builds are now available for Linux and Windows. The source code of Nvu will be released when we reach a more complete product in terms of features. The code will be tri-licensed MPL/GPL/LGPL and we'll contribute it back to Mozilla.org at that time.

http://nvu.com/features.html

Downloading, untar.gzippining, looking for the source code among all those x86 dlls, still looking, ... not found!

Hey! Either stop lying that it is 100% open source or publish a compilable source. Now!

There is going to be a standalone composer soon, called Nvu. It is based on Composer and will fall under an open source license, and Lindows is footing the bill. I really don't think we have anything to to be worried about! If you're curious, see their website.

Daniel Glazman isn't hired by IBM, he actually runs his own company, that's contracted to work on various enhancements to Mozilla Composer, including Nvu, funded by Lindows.com

Imagine a car manufacturer advertising their car as being "the latest vehicle for New York!". Sure, NY is a fine state, but what's NY-specific about the car? Nothing. It'll drive fine in ME, VT, MA... Sorry, I just see it as being rather closed-minded for open-source projects.

Although it is the nature of things, I have a real problem with just the inertia of something blinding people to all other possibilities. It results in one member of a large group being catapulted to the spotlight at the top without any regard to its merits compared to the other contenders. This is the same effect that causes the general public to think that OS=Windows, browser=IE, word processor = MS Word. We don't accept it in the Microsoft world... why should we accept it in the open-source world?

I appeal to companies developing open-source projects: I applaud your efforts, but please be respectful when you promote your new application and correctly label it as being "open-source" and not just "for Linux". This can only help you. Linux users will already take notice of it, meanwhile users of other non-Linux open-source OSes won't be prone to passing you by, thinking that you've ignored them.

Thanks

The source and binary will be available here when the development build comes out.

I didn't see what you were indicating there, so here's the nvu faq, which states that it's a branch of moz composer, released under the mpl, with site-management and enhanced table/form support added.

MozillaZine has an article about Nvu with some tasty details.

Michael Robertson, CEO of Lindows.com, has announced that his company is starting a project to build an easy-to-use Web publishing product for Linux. The new application, called Nvu (pronounced 'N-view'), will be based on Mozilla Composer and released under the Mozilla Public License. Lindows.com has contracted Daniel Glazman of Disruptive Innovations to be the lead developer, though the company hopes to attract other contributors. Version 1.0 of Nvu is expected in the first quarter of 2004. See the Nvu FAQ for more information.

So, it's based on Mozilla Composer, the lead of developer of Composer will be on board and it's going to be released until the Mozilla Public License. Could it get any better?

MozillaZine has an article about Nvu with some tasty details.

Michael Robertson, CEO of Lindows.com, has announced that his company is starting a project to build an easy-to-use Web publishing product for Linux. The new application, called Nvu (pronounced 'N-view'), will be based on Mozilla Composer and released under the Mozilla Public License. Lindows.com has contracted Daniel Glazman of Disruptive Innovations to be the lead developer, though the company hopes to attract other contributors. Version 1.0 of Nvu is expected in the first quarter of 2004. See the Nvu FAQ for more information.

So, it's based on Mozilla Composer, the lead of developer of Composer will be on board and it's going to be released until the Mozilla Public License. Could it get any better?

MozillaZine has an article about Nvu with some tasty details.

Michael Robertson, CEO of Lindows.com, has announced that his company is starting a project to build an easy-to-use Web publishing product for Linux. The new application, called Nvu (pronounced 'N-view'), will be based on Mozilla Composer and released under the Mozilla Public License. Lindows.com has contracted Daniel Glazman of Disruptive Innovations to be the lead developer, though the company hopes to attract other contributors. Version 1.0 of Nvu is expected in the first quarter of 2004. See the Nvu FAQ for more information.

So, it's based on Mozilla Composer, the lead of developer of Composer will be on board and it's going to be released until the Mozilla Public License. Could it get any better?

The fact that it's built from the Mozilla code base is encouraging...
Unfortunately (according to the FAQ), it won't be available until the first quarter of 2004