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Here are two clear examples of hostility coming directly from Mono project leader Miguel de Icaza:

• This slashdot posting is one of several instances in which Miguel has publicly spread FUD against Portable.Net, attempting to cast a shadow of legal doubt on that project because it was started before the ECMA specs were published. According to our lawyer (Eben Moglen) what was done back then was perfectly legal, but even if that wouldn't be the case, it wouldn't matter because all the old code from back then has long been removed from the codebase anyway. These matters have been explained to Miguel, but in spite of that he has continued to spread this FUD. I think this is totally unacceptable. He also calls me and the other DotGNU coreteam members "kids", and makes other false statements that however are not so significant, hence I won't discuss them in detail.
• In response to my last proposal of collaboration, Miguel first said he's interested but when I shared some more thoughts, he responded by attacking me, calling my view "intellectual dishonesty" and "an exercise in deception". Of course Miguel is free to have his own opinions, and Mono is free to respond with "no" to proposals of collaboration, but he could have said "no" without attacking me like that.

Here are two clear examples of hostility coming directly from Mono project leader Miguel de Icaza:

• This slashdot posting is one of several instances in which Miguel has publicly spread FUD against Portable.Net, attempting to cast a shadow of legal doubt on that project because it was started before the ECMA specs were published. According to our lawyer (Eben Moglen) what was done back then was perfectly legal, but even if that wouldn't be the case, it wouldn't matter because all the old code from back then has long been removed from the codebase anyway. These matters have been explained to Miguel, but in spite of that he has continued to spread this FUD. I think this is totally unacceptable. He also calls me and the other DotGNU coreteam members "kids", and makes other false statements that however are not so significant, hence I won't discuss them in detail.
• In response to my last proposal of collaboration, Miguel first said he's interested but when I shared some more thoughts, he responded by attacking me, calling my view "intellectual dishonesty" and "an exercise in deception". Of course Miguel is free to have his own opinions, and Mono is free to respond with "no" to proposals of collaboration, but he could have said "no" without attacking me like 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.

You're totally missing the point, somewhat purposely it would seem. Mono is not aiming for total world domination where it doesn't make sense, nor in the scenarios you cite. It aims to be the bread and butter of middle tier web applications (displacing Java) as well as in *NIX desktop applications (significantly easing the very steep learning curve currently needed to develop GNOME applications in C). Miguel blogs about this here

Sounds like FUD, but I am not a lawyer (even on /.). These things were addressed, informally, on the Mono-list at Ximian a while ago. The questions were asked here, and the relevant responses are here and here.

Sounds like FUD, but I am not a lawyer (even on /.). These things were addressed, informally, on the Mono-list at Ximian a while ago. The questions were asked here, and the relevant responses are here and here.

Sounds like FUD, but I am not a lawyer (even on /.). These things were addressed, informally, on the Mono-list at Ximian a while ago. The questions were asked here, and the relevant responses are here and here.

Especially when the guy running the whole show thinks that returning integers is better than throwing exceptions, (really, who needs traceability or exception handling?) and you need the guy on the other team to explain it to you.

Jeebus. Looking at those, it's no wonder that the Mono people are imitating, instead of innovating.

Especially when the guy running the whole show thinks that returning integers is better than throwing exceptions, (really, who needs traceability or exception handling?) and you need the guy on the other team to explain it to you.

Jeebus. Looking at those, it's no wonder that the Mono people are imitating, instead of innovating.

Because Darwin blows chunks? For instance, on a Mac laptop that is faster than a PC laptop, compiling Mono still takes 3 times as long

If you're company has an exchange server they should also have a terminal server in app mode so you can log onto it and run outlook 2k3. Where I'm at, I can do this, but I choose to run evolution instead, if someone sends me a meeting notice, I manually enter into my calendar. Oh the horror of manual entry. Did you ever consider spending $30 to get the Exchange plugin for Evolution? (And yes, it works with Exchange 2003)

Ximian doesn't publish announcements for every beta release on their web site like most volunteer Open Source projects do. However, Evolution *is* under heavy development right now. The next major release (evo 2.0) is supposed to coincide with the release of Gnome 2.6, which should be out in a month or so. It will include a spam filter, better integration with gaim and the Gnome desktop, and a lot of little UI improvements. Unfortunately, it's losing the summary page, so no more reading RSS feeds in Evolution.

If you're feeling adventurous, you can get the latest version from Gnome CVS. If you just want to know what they're working on, read this.

Actually, Evolution is in its 1.5x (unstable) series. You can check out the latest news from the evolution front here. There is also a roadmap at here. I have been using the unstable branch (from CVS) for quite sometime now, and it is quite stable for me. It is now integrated by default to Spamassasin - so it does spam filtering quite nicely.

The roadmap is also available at webcal://www.gnome.org/projects/evolution/roadmap. ics.

1) The file dialog. KDE 0.x ALPHAs had a better file dialog than gnome! Today, the KDE one is the best file dialgog in existance, with influence from all desktops.

See this screenshot for the fileselector for GNOME 2.6.

And about the KDE file selector: horizontal scrolling is a bug, not a feature. Even if it is configurable, it's still a bug.

2) More apps! KDE comes with over 150 Apps in the full install, with applications for all fields, plus its sleak integration with non kde apps (eg gimp, openoffice) make things more consistant.

Remember, it's a d-e-s-k-t-o-p. And a standard desktop must be shipped with a minimum of apps (one for every task), just to keep it simple. A whole application suite is something different, something that scares off most people. GNOME's got Epiphany for web-browsing, and if you're a power user you can install Galeon. It's got Gedit because you'll use Vim or Emacs or some IDE anyway if you're serious about editing.

3) Configureable as hell. The KDE control center has loads of knobs/dials/sliders and boxes to fiddle with, yet keeps things elegent. In gnome, half the options don't exisit and you are rudley told "use gconf-editor n00b by gnome zealots" (not joking about this, telling the truth gets you a -1, troll and footnotes).

Or: Not enough knowledge to know what's good? GNOME doesn't have all these options, but I don't need them because the default is just usable. In return I get menu's that are clean and easy to read, speeding up my experience with the desktop. Even if I had taken the time to fully configure KDE, that wouldn't take the overload of options away.

4) I-kandy! The Kde eye candy is really powerful, with styles such as dotNEt, mosfet liquid, kermamik, Crystal and more. Looking at art.gnome.org [gnome.org] reveals the same old theme in different colours. Since gnome dosen't provide a colour changing dialog for its widgets most "themes" are just colour changes. The Crystal from CVS is an Aqua killer, your eyes will want to love it.

My eyes hate crystal-like themes with too many colours, but that's personal. Like I implied before, I like a desktop to be really on the background, not overwhelming me with options and colors and styles and configurabilities. I install a desktop to run applications, not to run the desktop itself. And btw, when I tried KDE 3.2 last week, I saw the same old icons as KDE 1.x for the control-center, and I could still choose between two old KDE1 themes (but that didn't work anymore afaik)

"clean your mouse" - Yeah but that won't fix your interface usability.

It happened here when a guy mentioned how in Evolution it's too easy to accidently move a folder: evolution-hackers thread. (I've had same problem with evo -- it's not the mouse.)

Not to pick on Evo's crew, it's just an endemic attitude problem with OSS developers.

Kinda like how in 1950's movies a boss might give his secretary a condescending pat on the behind. Today we know that kind of thing just isn't OK.

Oh - and non-OSS devs have the same attitude, but users can't interact with them. Feedback goes through sales/support/marketing droids before hitting the non-OSS devs.

Miguel de Icaza has some interesting comments on the Extremadura deployment.

Without a Microsoft monoculture, he said, most of the recent progress in information technology could not have happened.
Really? Could someone more familiar with Microsoft and their products kindly give me examples?

• Samba
• FreeDOS
• WINE
• The XBOX Linux Project
• Ximian Evolution
• Open Office
• Mozilla
• etc...

you can read Robert M. Love's Linux Kernel Development , authored by the person who brought us kernel pre-emption, and is now working at Ximian/SuSE on kernel-desktop integration. Can you say Utopia ?

I have always felt that Linux is a nice operating system (for
hobbyists and geeks), but there are some areas where it is seriously lacking, especially when compared to its main competitor, Microsoft Windows.

* File sharing. Windows has long been superior when it comes to making large
amounts of files available to third parties. Even early versions of Windows
automatically detected and made available all directories thanks to the built in
NetBIOS-powered file sharing support. But Microsoft has realized that this
technology is inherently limited and has added even better file sharing support
to its Windows XP operating system. Universal Plug and Play will
make it possible to literally access any file, from any device! I think
universal file sharing support needs to be built into the Linux kernel soon.

* Intelligent agents. With innovations like Clippy, the talking paperclip and Microsoft Bob, Microsoft has always tried to make life easier
for its customers. With Outlook and Outlook Express, Microsoft has built a framework for developers to create even smarter agents. Especially popular agents include "Sircam", which automatically asks the users' friends for advice
on files he is working on and the "Hybris" agent, which is a self-replicating
copy of a humorous take on "Snow-White and the Seven Dwarves" (the real story!).
Microsoft is working on expanding this P2P technology to its web servers. This
project is still in the beta stage, thus the name "Code Red". The next versions
will be called "Code Yellow" and "Code Green".

* Version numbers. Linux has real naming problems. What's the difference
between a 2.4.19 and a 2.2.17 kernel anyway? And what's with those odd and even
numbers? Microsoft has always had clear and sophisticated naming/versioning
policies. For example, Windows 95 was named Windows 95 because it was released in 1995. Windows 98 was released three years later, and so on. Windows XP
brought a whole new "experience" to the user, therefore the name. I suggest that
the next Linux kernel releases be called Linux 03, Linux 04, Linux 04.5 (OSR1),
Linux 04.7B (OSR2 SP4 OEM), Linux 2005 and Linux VD (Valentine's Day edition).
Furthermore, remember how Microsoft named every upcoming version of Windows
after some Egyptian city? Cairo, Chicago and so on. I think that the development
kernels should be named after Spanish cities to celebrate Linux' Spanish
origins. Linux Milano or Linux Rome anyone?

* Multi-User Support. This has always been one of Microsoft's strong sides,
especially in the Windows 95/98 variants, where passwords were completely
unnecessary. Microsoft has made the right decision by not bothering the user
with a distinction between "normal" and "root" users too much -- practice has
shown that average users can be trusted to act responsibly and in full awareness
of the potential consequences of their actions. After all, if your operating
system doesn't trust you, why should you trust it? (To be fair, Linux is making
some progress here with the Lindows distribution, where users are always running as root.)

With Windows XP, Microsoft has again improved multi-user support. Not only
does Windows XP come with a larg

With stuff like : Easy to use installers Office compatibility Easy to use productivity software It is just a matter of time

In Mono we took a different approach, we created, integrated and built our own standalone stack ;-)

Look at: http://primates.ximian.com/~miguel/tmp/map2.png to get an idea of what we have to offer today

It's called Red Carpet

I assume grand-parent is referring to Ximian's Evolution: http://www.ximian.com/products/evolution/

MultiSync is a free modular program to synchronize calendars, addressbooks and other PIM data between programs on your computer and other computers, mobile devices, PDAs or cell phones. MultiSync works on any Gnome platform, such as Linux.

Currently MultiSync has plugins for

• Ximian Evolution synchronization, supporting calendar, ToDos and contacts.
• IrMC Mobile Client synchronization (supported by e.g. SonyEricsson T68i/T610/Z600, Siemens S55 phones etc.) via Bluetooth or IR on Linux, or cable connection.
• Windows CE / Pocket PC synchronization. This plugin is part of the SynCE project, and can be downloaded there.
• Opie and Zaurus synchronization.
• SyncML support (supported by e.g. SonyEricsson P800/P900 and many other phones and devices, for example the SyncML server Sync4j). SyncML also allows you to do remote connection of two MultiSync programs via an encrypted connection over the net.
• Palm synchronization.
• LDAP synchronization.
• Backup of your PIM data.

More detail about Multisync supported devices

I have always felt that Linux is a nice operating system (for hobbyists and geeks), but there are some areas where it is seriously lacking, especially when compared to its main competitor, Microsoft Windows.

* File sharing. Windows has long been superior when it comes to making large
amounts of files available to third parties. Even early versions of Windows
automatically detected and made available all directories thanks to the built in
NetBIOS-powered file sharing support. But Microsoft has realized that this
technology is inherently limited and has added even better file sharing support
to its Windows XP operating system. Universal Plug and Play will
make it possible to literally access any file, from any device! I think
universal file sharing support needs to be built into the Linux kernel soon.

* Intelligent agents. With innovations like Clippy, the talking paperclip and Microsoft Bob, Microsoft has always tried to make life easier
for its customers. With Outlook and Outlook Express, Microsoft has built a framework for developers to create even smarter agents. Especially popular agents include "Sircam", which automatically asks the users' friends for advice
on files he is working on and the "Hybris" agent, which is a self-replicating
copy of a humorous take on "Snow-White and the Seven Dwarves" (the real story!).
Microsoft is working on expanding this P2P technology to its web servers. This
project is still in the beta stage, thus the name "Code Red". The next versions
will be called "Code Yellow" and "Code Green".

* Version numbers. Linux has real naming problems. What's the difference
between a 2.4.19 and a 2.2.17 kernel anyway? And what's with those odd and even
numbers? Microsoft has always had clear and sophisticated naming/versioning
policies. For example, Windows 95 was named Windows 95 because it was released
in 1995. Windows 98 was released three years later, and so on. Windows XP
brought a whole new "experience" to the user, therefore the name. I suggest that
the next Linux kernel releases be called Linux 03, Linux 04, Linux 04.5 (OSR1),
Linux 04.7B (OSR2 SP4 OEM), Linux 2005 and Linux VD (Valentine's Day edition).
Furthermore, remember how Microsoft named every upcoming version of Windows
after some Egyptian city? Cairo, Chicago and so on. I think that the development
kernels should be named after Spanish cities to celebrate Linux' Spanish
origins. Linux Milano or Linux Rome anyone?

* Multi-User Support. This has always been one of Microsoft's strong sides,
especially in the Windows 95/98 variants, where passwords were completely
unnecessary. Microsoft has made the right decision by not bothering the user
with a distinction between "normal" and "root" users too much -- practice has
shown that average users can be trusted to act responsibly and in full awareness
of the potential consequences of their actions. After all, if your operating
system doesn't trust you, why should you trust it? (To be fair, Linux is making
some progress here with the Lindows distribution, where users are always running as root.)

With Windows XP, Microsoft has again improved multi-user support. Not only
does Windows XP come with a larg

You must have never looked at the Mono project.

I believe that once Mono gets to 1.0, along with MonoDevelop (a SharpDelevlop port to Mono and GTK#), there will be MUCH interest in the open source community for releasing libraries and entire subsystems.

I'm personally amazed by the pace of development the Mono team have been jugging along at, and there are already a lot of good things coming out of the Mono community; for instance, mod_mono is already capable of running a number of full-blown ASP.NET applications written for the MS.NET CLR.

I have always felt that Linux is a nice operating system (for hobbyists and geeks), but there are some areas where it is seriously lacking, especially when compared to its main competitor, Microsoft Windows.

* File sharing. Windows has long been superior when it comes to making large
amounts of files available to third parties. Even early versions of Windows
automatically detected and made available all directories thanks to the built in
NetBIOS-powered file sharing support. But Microsoft has realized that this
technology is inherently limited and has added even better file sharing support
to its Windows XP operating system. Universal Plug and Play will
make it possible to literally access any file, from any device! I think
universal file sharing support needs to be built into the Linux kernel soon.

* Intelligent agents. With innovations like Clippy, the talking paperclip and Microsoft Bob, Microsoft has always tried to make life easier
for its customers. With Outlook and Outlook Express, Microsoft has built a framework for developers to create even smarter agents. Especially popular agents include "Sircam", which automatically asks the users' friends for advice
on files he is working on and the "Hybris" agent, which is a self-replicating
copy of a humorous take on "Snow-White and the Seven Dwarves" (the real story!).
Microsoft is working on expanding this P2P technology to its web servers. This
project is still in the beta stage, thus the name "Code Red". The next versions
will be called "Code Yellow" and "Code Green".

* Version numbers. Linux has real naming problems. What's the difference
between a 2.4.19 and a 2.2.17 kernel anyway? And what's with those odd and even
numbers? Microsoft has always had clear and sophisticated naming/versioning
policies. For example, Windows 95 was named Windows 95 because it was released
in 1995. Windows 98 was released three years later, and so on. Windows XP
brought a whole new "experience" to the user, therefore the name. I suggest that
the next Linux kernel releases be called Linux 03, Linux 04, Linux 04.5 (OSR1),
Linux 04.7B (OSR2 SP4 OEM), Linux 2005 and Linux VD (Valentine's Day edition).
Furthermore, remember how Microsoft named every upcoming version of Windows
after some Egyptian city? Cairo, Chicago and so on. I think that the development
kernels should be named after Spanish cities to celebrate Linux' Spanish
origins. Linux Milano or Linux Rome anyone?

* Multi-User Support. This has always been one of Microsoft's strong sides,
especially in the Windows 95/98 variants, where passwords were completely
unnecessary. Microsoft has made the right decision by not bothering the user
with a distinction between "normal" and "root" users too much -- practice has
shown that average users can be trusted to act responsibly and in full awareness
of the potential consequences of their actions. After all, if your operating
system doesn't trust you, why should you trust it? (To be fair, Linux is making
some progress here with the Lindows distribution, where users are always running as root.)

With Windows XP, Microsoft has again improved multi-user support. Not only
does Windows XP come with a larg

Seems like Robert Love is looking into getting X/GNOME up faster (skip to after first picture). Obviously he's focused on GNOME but with any luck the techniques he uses and general X bits can be pushed to or KDE directly for wider usage.

I have always felt that Linux is a nice operating system (for hobbyists and geeks), but there are some areas where it is seriously lacking, especially when compared to its main competitor, Microsoft Windows.

* File sharing. Windows has long been superior when it comes to making large amounts of files available to third parties. Even early versions of Windows automatically detected and made available all directories thanks to the built in
NetBIOS-powered file sharing support. But Microsoft has realized that this technology is inherently limited and has added even better file sharing support to its Windows XP operating system. Universal Plug and Play will
make it possible to literally access any file, from any device! I think universal file sharing support needs to be built into the Linux kernel soon.

* Intelligent agents. With innovations like Clippy, the talking paperclip and Microsoft Bob, Microsoft has always tried to make life easier for its customers. With Outlook and Outlook Express, Microsoft has built a framework for developers to create even smarter agents. Especially popular agents include "Sircam", which automatically asks the users' friends for advice on files he is working on and the "Hybris" agent, which is a self-replicating copy of a humorous take on "Snow-White and the Seven Dwarves" (the real story!).
Microsoft is working on expanding this P2P technology to its web servers. This
project is still in the beta stage, thus the name "Code Red". The next versions will be called "Code Yellow" and "Code Green".

* Version numbers. Linux has real naming problems. What's the difference between a 2.4.19 and a 2.2.17 kernel anyway? And what's with those odd and even numbers? Microsoft has always had clear and sophisticated naming/versioning
policies. For example, Windows 95 was named Windows 95 because it was released
in 1995. Windows 98 was released three years later, and so on. Windows XP
brought a whole new "experience" to the user, therefore the name. I suggest that the next Linux kernel releases be called Linux 03, Linux 04, Linux 04.5 (OSR1), Linux 04.7B (OSR2 SP4 OEM), Linux 2005 and Linux VD (Valentine's Day edition).
Furthermore, remember how Microsoft named every upcoming version of Windows after some Egyptian city? Cairo, Chicago and so on. I think that the development kernels should be named after Spanish cities to celebrate Linux' Spanish origins. Linux Milano or Linux Rome anyone?

* Multi-User Support. This has always been one of Microsoft's strong sides, especially in the Windows 95/98 variants, where passwords were completely
unnecessary. Microsoft has made the right decision by not bothering the user with a distinction between "normal" and "root" users too much -- practice has shown that average users can be trusted to act responsibly and in full awareness of the potential consequences of their actions. After all, if your operating system doesn't trust you, why should you trust it? (To be fair, Linux is making some progress here with the Lindows distribution, where users are always running as root.)

With Windows XP, Microsoft has again improved multi-user support. Not only does Windows XP come with a large library of user pictures that are displayed on the login screen, su

GNOME Foundation's Tim Ney describes some of the project's efforts marking the Lunar New Year of the Monkey with a tip.

Huh? Year of The Monkey can only be good for Ximian Desktop.

GNOME's logo desn't look like a monkey's print anyway.

Available on GNU/Linux.

"hotplugging" is already a feature of linux.
once you've shoved your usb pen/mouse/kb into the port, the kernel will see it(try running tail -f /var/log/messages and watch the output as you add/remove devices).
the problem here is implementing the interface in userland(Gnome tools for example).
The next version of gnome will support this through "Project Utopia".
Read Robert Love's blog for more info on that:
here

I have always felt that Linux is a nice operating system (for hobbyists and geeks), but there are some areas where it is seriously lacking, especially when compared to its main competitor, Microsoft Windows.

* File sharing. Windows has long been superior when it comes to making large
amounts of files available to third parties. Even early versions of Windows
automatically detected and made available all directories thanks to the built in
NetBIOS-powered file sharing support. But Microsoft has realized that this
technology is inherently limited and has added even better file sharing support
to its Windows XP operating system. Universal Plug and Play will
make it possible to literally access any file, from any device! I think
universal file sharing support needs to be built into the Linux kernel soon.

* Intelligent agents. With innovations like Clippy, the talking paperclip and Microsoft Bob, Microsoft has always tried to make life easier
for its customers. With Outlook and Outlook Express, Microsoft has built a framework for developers to create even smarter agents. Especially popular agents include "Sircam", which automatically asks the users' friends for advice
on files he is working on and the "Hybris" agent, which is a self-replicating
copy of a humorous take on "Snow-White and the Seven Dwarves" (the real story!).
Microsoft is working on expanding this P2P technology to its web servers. This
project is still in the beta stage, thus the name "Code Red". The next versions
will be called "Code Yellow" and "Code Green".

* Version numbers. Linux has real naming problems. What's the difference
between a 2.4.19 and a 2.2.17 kernel anyway? And what's with those odd and even
numbers? Microsoft has always had clear and sophisticated naming/versioning
policies. For example, Windows 95 was named Windows 95 because it was released
in 1995. Windows 98 was released three years later, and so on. Windows XP
brought a whole new "experience" to the user, therefore the name. I suggest that
the next Linux kernel releases be called Linux 03, Linux 04, Linux 04.5 (OSR1),
Linux 04.7B (OSR2 SP4 OEM), Linux 2005 and Linux VD (Valentine's Day edition).
Furthermore, remember how Microsoft named every upcoming version of Windows
after some Egyptian city? Cairo, Chicago and so on. I think that the development
kernels should be named after Spanish cities to celebrate Linux' Spanish
origins. Linux Milano or Linux Rome anyone?

* Multi-User Support. This has always been one of Microsoft's strong sides,
especially in the Windows 95/98 variants, where passwords were completely
unnecessary. Microsoft has made the right decision by not bothering the user
with a distinction between "normal" and "root" users too much -- practice has
shown that average users can be trusted to act responsibly and in full awareness
of the potential consequences of their actions. After all, if your operating
system doesn't trust you, why should you trust it? (To be fair, Linux is making
some progress here with the Lindows distribution, where users are always running as root.)

With Windows XP, Microsoft has again improved multi-user support. Not only
does Windows XP come with a larg

Linux already works fine as a desktop; what most potential switchers need are a few good apps

Linux already works fine, as long as you are a Linux guru, or if you never need to change the hardware configuration at all.

Would you like to read CompactFlash cards? Okay, plug a CompactFlash reader in to a USB port. Let's say your kernel was set up correctly, and lucky you, you don't need to run modprobe or edit modules.conf. But you still need to (for KDE) manually create an icon for the desktop to let you mount the CompactFlash reader, or (for GNOME) edit /etc/fstab so that the reader will show up in the "Disks" submenu when you right-click the desktop. Then you need to mount the CompactFlash chip manually.

The stuff that RML is working on right now would make it work like this:

You plug in the CompactFlash reader to a USB port, and it appears on the desktop. If your system is set up for it, GNOME then asks you "Would you like to import these photographss into your photo album?"

This is the sort of ease-of-use that Apple brags about. And I think it's really cool.

steveha

Project Utopia is going to glue a whole bunch of stuff together. Meanwhile, some of the pieces look interesting.

Is udev ready for use by typical Linux users (as opposed to kernel hackers)? How about sysfs -- that is just part of 2.6 and is completely ready, right? How about D-BUS?

Meanwhile, on a flamefest^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hdiscussion about KDE and GNOME, I saw a claim made that "hardly any GNOME applications use Bonobo". Is that true? If it is true, is it changing? (Wasn't a Network Object Model one of the fundamental things about gNOMe?)

I browsed RML's blog, and some of the screenshots look really cool. I'm really looking forward to this stuff.

steveha

Project Utopia is going to glue a whole bunch of stuff together. Meanwhile, some of the pieces look interesting.

Is udev ready for use by typical Linux users (as opposed to kernel hackers)? How about sysfs -- that is just part of 2.6 and is completely ready, right? How about D-BUS?

Meanwhile, on a flamefest^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hdiscussion about KDE and GNOME, I saw a claim made that "hardly any GNOME applications use Bonobo". Is that true? If it is true, is it changing? (Wasn't a Network Object Model one of the fundamental things about gNOMe?)

I browsed RML's blog, and some of the screenshots look really cool. I'm really looking forward to this stuff.

steveha

Project Utopia is going to glue a whole bunch of stuff together. Meanwhile, some of the pieces look interesting.

Is udev ready for use by typical Linux users (as opposed to kernel hackers)? How about sysfs -- that is just part of 2.6 and is completely ready, right? How about D-BUS?

Meanwhile, on a flamefest^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hdiscussion about KDE and GNOME, I saw a claim made that "hardly any GNOME applications use Bonobo". Is that true? If it is true, is it changing? (Wasn't a Network Object Model one of the fundamental things about gNOMe?)

I browsed RML's blog, and some of the screenshots look really cool. I'm really looking forward to this stuff.

steveha

alright. No Sun bashing intended but somehow I just dont get why the JDS is perceived as such a revolutionary thing. Itsnice and all but I guess there isnt much what I cant do with a stock Slack9.1 and Dropline-Gnome, or name your favourite Distro (Debian, Mandrake or even Xandros etc.) I really dont get why its such a big thing. Just because its SUN and they signed a deal with Walmart? Come on. I personally dont even like the implementation too much. Many different Widgetsets, a substandard OpenOffice.org finish (the ximianized version is MUCH smoother), and not even a chance to run KDE apps out of the box, or a decent enduser autoupdate system, such as RedCarpet. Is this really such a big jump forward compared to other distros?

cu,
Lispy

The KDE project is famous for its funded and organised trolling of weblogs and message board associated with Linux and Free software/open source. Outrageous newbie impressing claims are made for the software and huge quanities of FUD are spread to destroy competitors. If this sounds familiar, then you are correct, most of these tactics were lifted straight from Microsoft's arsenal of dirty tricks. The Windows look and feel is not the only thing the KDE project has copied! In this short article I will address some of the lies and FUD spread by the KDE trolling teams. It is my hope that this, in some small way, will redress the balance and re-introduce two things almost eradicated by the KDE project: Honesty and facts.

Myth #1 - KDE is more integrated than GNOME

The oft-heard cry of the noisiest KDE advocates. No explanation is given, the reader is expected to simply grok the wholesomeness of KDE and the lack of this mystical quality in GNOME. It is nonsense of course. Neither desktop is particularly "integrated" compared to Windows XP, and certainly not compared any version of the Apple Mac. Whatever "integrated" actually means.

Myth #2 - KDE is easier to use

Again, such nebulous arguments are never explained, and the reader is expected to simply understand the truth of the zealots statement. Both KDE and GNOME have user-interface irritations (all systems do), but "ease of use" is not a simple thing to measure. KDE has never been subjected to detailed user testing, unlike GNOME, and the claims of user-friendliness are from crazed supporters and not average users. Furthermore, the KDE faithful rarely look beyond simple-minded copying of Windows, and forget that administering a desktop system is just as important as having widgets in the correct place on the toolbar. For example: What about application installation and removal? GNOME has the excellent RedCarpet by Ximian, which makes the installation, removal and updating of applications trivial. KDE users are expected to fend for themselves with brutal command line driven systems. GNOME also has the excellent Ximian setup tools to handle various tricky cross-platform and potentially risky system configuration operations. KDE offers none of this, only a few small half-assed Linux-only tools, which make no attempt at check-pointing to return to known working configurations.

Myth #3 - KDE is more popular

In what sense? Arguably more people use KDE, but it is a close run thing. Most KDE zealots use the results of online polls as proof of their superior userbase - which is, quite frankly, complete and utter nonsense. Online polls are the joke of the century; it doesn't even require a motivated script kiddie to render then worthless. A single post alerting the faithful on a zealot-ridden site can skew the result so much it makes American presidential elections look fair and well organised. Popularity is also difficult to measure when *both* GNOME and KDE are frequently installed on the same system. The systems can co-exist and even run at the same time, except for certain applications such as panels. Many KDE users actually run GNOME applications for their superior features and stability, not realising that by doing so they are barely running KDE at all.

One of the few solid measures of popularity is commercial use of a desktop, and here, GNOME is far ahead with both Hewlett Packard and Sun committing to using GNOME as the desktop for their Unix systems. This also ties in with the previously mentioned ease of use. Sun's major contribution to the GNOME project is in the areas of user/developer documentation, testing, accessiblity and user-testing. Three of the less glamourous parts of desktop development. The arrival of the GNOME 2.x series will see these contributions reach fruitition and allow GNOME to make a quantum leap ahead of KDE in most of the basic computer/user issues.

Myth #4 - Konqueror is

Abiword has always been the best stand-alone Linux wordprocessor. Sure, OO.o Writer is slightly more featureful, but Abiword is lightning-quick, and does almost anything I'd want it to do (aside from writing major treatises, but you'd use Latex for that anyway).

As for OpenOffice, Ximian has already done some GNOMEification, and more is on the way. KDEification is also happening.

GAIM's ugliness is subjective. I think it's both better-looking and more featureful than Kopete. Your milage may vary.

In the US, people are assumed innocent until proven guilty, especially when they're really nice people who work for respected open-source software companies. Chris Toshok is fairly well-known in the open-source community (I'm amazed the summary didn't mention the he's an Evolution developer). If this happened to someone you knew, and you couldn't imagine them having done it, you'd probably use the same type of language.

FYI, Chris Toshok (toshok), the person who wrote up this experience is also one of the head programmers on Ximian's Evolution mail client.

And with Robert Love now on board this year promises to be another good one for creating an even tighter desktop experience.

Keep up the good work monkeys.

In all the ways that matter Ximian is "the gnome company". Check out some of their products. Unless there's something I am missing, why would Novell acquire Ximian and not intend to have a Linux Desktop plan centred around Ximian Desktop?

The love-sending widget will not be present in the final release of the new file selector, and is included in mockups to demonstrate how developers can add in special-purpose widgets into the window. For example, The GIMP may insert a quality slider in that place for saving JPEG images.

Early mockups used the phrase " Frobnicate the file ," which was changed to " Lart whoever asks about this button " after countless questions as to the use of frobnicating files.

These screenshots are linked from Federico Mena-Quintero's Activity Log, which is really rather fun to read. You may also be interested in Planet Gnome, which aggregates the weblogs of many interesting Gnome and Open Source personalities.

The love-sending widget will not be present in the final release of the new file selector, and is included in mockups to demonstrate how developers can add in special-purpose widgets into the window. For example, The GIMP may insert a quality slider in that place for saving JPEG images.

Early mockups used the phrase " Frobnicate the file ," which was changed to " Lart whoever asks about this button " after countless questions as to the use of frobnicating files.

These screenshots are linked from Federico Mena-Quintero's Activity Log, which is really rather fun to read. You may also be interested in Planet Gnome, which aggregates the weblogs of many interesting Gnome and Open Source personalities.

The love-sending widget will not be present in the final release of the new file selector, and is included in mockups to demonstrate how developers can add in special-purpose widgets into the window. For example, The GIMP may insert a quality slider in that place for saving JPEG images.

Early mockups used the phrase " Frobnicate the file ," which was changed to " Lart whoever asks about this button " after countless questions as to the use of frobnicating files.

These screenshots are linked from Federico Mena-Quintero's Activity Log, which is really rather fun to read. You may also be interested in Planet Gnome, which aggregates the weblogs of many interesting Gnome and Open Source personalities.

Just get the GTK rpm from the Ximian Unstable - don't worry - the GTK in the Ximian unstable is stable enough.
ftp://ftp.ximian.com/pub/xd-unstable/redhat-9-i386 /gtk2-2.3.1-0.ximian.6.1.i386.rpm

Originally I found hints at http://primates.ximian.com/~aaron/doing/evo-osx.ht ml... if you've got the dependencies handled through Fink (fink install bundle-gnome should do it), any recent Evolution tarball should build easily, IIRC.

Umm, you mean like this one?

Or this one?

Or this one?

Just because MS has been dragging it's feet for years doesn't mean other people have.