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Linux Development Call To Arms
Hell O'World writes "This ZDNet Article points to the direction that Linux developers need to follow. Many people think that Linux needs an Office clone to gain acceptance, but the truth is that monolithic software is not the future. To get all of the functionality that anyone could possibly need in one place, the Office paradigm is to have everything there at once, and that takes a huge amount of resources to load, and years to learn. Linux will not gain converts by giving users the same thing, that they will then have to relearn. The power of UNIX is in connecting small, fleet-footed tools. What we need now is to create an environment, where users can easily create customized tools for the way they work, and developers can easily add new functionality."
I agree whole heartedly, but that doesn't seem to solve the problem. When people ask me if Linux has a replacement for Office, what do I tell them? Use vi?
I use Star Office, but I can't honestly tell Windows people that soffice will replace their MS-Office suite (because it won't!)
Microsoft killed all other word processor/spreadsheet vendors by having a more integrated package.
What makes anyone think people don't want bundled software?
Plus what he's talking about has already been done. Office is basically a consistently skinned collection of COM controls.
Im sure microsoft would love us to stop working on office clones. Linux, coupled with star office, koffice, or whatever, might be the only force capable of dethroning microsoft on the desktop.
It's true our clones will never be as full featured as Word, or as monolithic as office, but that defecit is easy to overcome when you add "FREE" into the mix.
And this little peice is even more BULLSH*T because what the hell does this guy presume? That we are all working to make linux the #1 OS, to make it a Super UNIX? People hack on shit that they want to. Including free word processors and office components. I think it's pretty arrogant to presume you know what's best for people's volunteer time. Keep up the good work office hackers. This kind of shit is pretty worthless.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I still can't understand why all these people try to make Linux like Windows? It seems to me after reading such articles, is that windows is some kind of a standard. Every OS 'should have an xxxx... [...] like microsoft's xxxx...', no it doesnt! The microsoft-like OS is not what we want!
That is a novel idea. The fact about linux/unix the "User" tends to be more knowledge able so he can get around things the "avereage user" might not. The way to Linux more mainstream is for people to start studies on the features the user really need and want. The GUI designs that really work. What is needed input back from users on what works and how things can be improved. We are doing some of these things now. I hope this research continues
Just a few weeks ago I used to think that it was important to figure out how to get Linux to compete with Microsoft, so that Microsoft's dominance might be broken, so that those of us who use Linux wouldn't be stuck with people sending us things in proprietary Microsoft formats, and telling us to boot into Windows to configure this or that piece of hardware. I would have thought that strategic questions of what sort of office aps free software developers were working on was very important.
And they are important. But that's not the primary call to arms any more. The issue is no longer whether Linux can compete with Microsoft. The issue is how long those of us in the USA will still be able to legally use Linux at all. The front has changed. It's not dominance; it's survival.
See the article on slashdot a few days back about the SSSCA. See this week's Linux Weekly News (September 13). There's a law out there about to be proposed which would make it illegal for those of us in the USA to continue to use Linux (at least connected to the internet) or any other free software as we know it.
To heck with the Microsoft monopoloy. It's a terrible thing, but at least we can use Linux now. We have to make sure we don't lose that. This is the call to arms that every Linux, BSD, Perl, Apache, or other free software has to heed. Write your congressmen. Write your senators. Don't sit back and let apathy win the day, as it did three years ago with the DMCA. We have to fight this fight, and we have to fight it now, or soon we won't have the luxury of debating what sort of office software will be best to strategically position Linux.
-Rob
No. Not any more than we need to create an environment where users can easily create customized furniture, cars, or whatnot. The mass users you need to attract to make Linux *really* popular want these things built for them and delivered to them--they are not do-it-yourselfers like most of us who read Slashdot are. That is why, despite all their bugs, Microsoft continues to sell.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
.. why Linux needs all those desktop users? They won't develope anything, they just complain about things that aren't as usual. We don't have to fight M$ because we are free and don't depend on money.
It is inappropriately worded. Period.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
This is the kind of statement that needs to be explained to the business types who make purchases. But...
The dollar cost argument is easy to make; the free speech argument often is harder for them to get. And the notion of GPL usually scare the vinegar out of them.
But something like a solid MS-like (yes, it DOES have to be) Office suite, coupled with the free beer argument is something they can comprehend.
---
Information wants...you to shut your pie hole.
Corel tried it commercially, and it failed.
Say what you want about it, but the WordPerfect office suite for Linux was fairly complete, and a worthy competitor for similar tasks usually accomlished by MS Office.
The future of Linux as a desktop does not rest soley on this "Killer App". The widespread use of Linux as a desktop needs buy-off from management that is not ready for change, some inprovement in UI and in system management for maintainability by low to mid level IT staff, hardware vendors that fully support and endorse Linux desktop machines, IT management willing to make a major, major change, and other software packages that replace already installed propritery software.
Yeah, a good Office clone will help, but the rest isn't quite there yet. I have faith that the day may come, but there is far more to the equation than Office.
Linux needs more GUI innovation. We should not try to be a windows work-alike. That would be a mistake.
:).
.net is going, a VM with a standard for object interfaces plus SOAP calls. I think its where Linux needs to go, too.
I see the basis of change happening in a replacement for X windows. A new graphical layer that makes it easy to create a whole new paradigm of graphical computing. The idea that a screen is equal to a hardwood desktop and applications are pieces of paper that are shuffed around the desktop worked well. Linux can be the foundation for a whole new paradigm. Hopefully something that is always in '3d' mode. Something where visual programming is always part of the UI. UIs have always needed a visual scripting language. I think even 'novices' and 'daily users' will be greatly stimulated and entertained by making small functional changes to their apps as they use them.
At the same time, we need to get behind a distributed object system. You gave some great examples like CORBA and XML RPC. Add to this the 'mobile code' idea. A virtual machine - hopefully Parrot will fill this gap. Then a framework or at least coding standards for distributed objects, like EJB. Then service discovery, like JINI. God, Java does so many things right
I think this is where
Much of the arguments to date seem to stem from the fact that most users will not be willing to string together the tools into a coherent custom whole. I think this is a non-issue, will users do this? no not at all. But this does leave a gap open for other companies/inidivuals to easily pack of the inidividual peaces and produce custom works based on the client/targets area of need. I can see this being a big seller in certain areas. If nothing else it would make development of large systems much simpler
Just my 2cts
I'm a programmer, I don't have to spell correctly; I just have to spell consistently
We need some kind of component framework that lets you string together application components like a prettyprint edit box, a HTML save/load system, and other simmilar components so the end user can make their own applications with the features and components that they need when they need them. A spreadsheet is a grid with a math plugin, a bunch of saving/loading features and wrapped in a toolbar. Why not make all of the components for an office suite with an interface so easy any moron can draw/glue one together the same way they make homepages in frontpage.
I envision a construction utility sike glade, only with links dangling off of the various widgets and "code resources", so the user can control some execution flow, group components for later reuse and quickly throw together new ones. These lines would be different colors for different function classes (red for naving/loading, black for execution, white for event triggers, etc.) The hard part is building wrappers for pre-existing widget libraries so they can be integrated into this system.
If you want an office suite to work like any other unix application, with small, versatile components but wish to make it easy to use and understand, integrated closer than Office allows, try it this way.
"Look at me, I invented the stove!" -- Ben Franklin
Do you know *anything* about COM/DCOM at all?
COM != OOP DCOM != OOP
Unix "programs" have standard interfaces as well. Data is piped via stdin and returned via stdout. The input data is expected in a certain format. The output data is returned in a predefined format.
Hmmm.. sounds like an interface to me!
COM is nothing more than a standard which defines the call stack for any "components" function call.
COM interfaces are supposed to be immutable. This guarantees compatibility with older applications. COM objects can have multiple interfaces. Use the one that suits your application.
COM interfaces can also be "extended" using interface-forwarding.
Those that haven't used COM in a real-world environment shouldn't knock it.
The bottom line is that if you alter an "interface" of a unix "binary/script", caller applications will still break unless they account for the change.
There is no practical advantage to the stdin/stdout method over COM.
All that is in this article and in most comments is just scratching the surface.
We need a new task/object-oriented GUI paradigm. For the average desktop user, the biggest problem is not about customizability, nor is it flexibility. We need something that has everything in place to give a good starting point for every unexperienced user to do what he/she wants without fiddling with files, applications, folders or the like. Customization should be done during the working process.
The notion of files, for example, that reside in a certain folder in a fixed position on disk has its limitations. We should rather have arbitrary groupability of objects, always ordered and grouped appropriately for the task currently at hand.In fact, there is no difference between searching for objects that meet certain criteria and drilling down a tree-like structure like the filesystem to locate an object.
The existence of "applications" is another dead end. An inexperienced user wants to create, edit and deploy documents without first deciding which application to use.
Most modern GUI systems have already gone steps in the right direction, but the nature of proprietary software as it comes today, prevents real progress. As for the "application" example: A software package that has to be sold needs a unique name and a USP, and is somewhat isolated from its environment, mostly for the reason to not expose any internal details of its creation process. Such a thing cannot be integrated into a system to the extent that it appears transparent, as a simple component of the whole environment.
IMHO this is the real potential for innovation that free software has. A commercial software company never can achieve total integration other than in the MS way: Kick competitors out and try to deliver the whole system from ground up, which then, in fact, is integrated, but puts users into the role of drug-addicts and the software vendor being the pusher.
I beg to differ. The COM code I have seen quite remarkably resembles instantiation of and passing messages to objects in an object-oriented paradigm. Let's not forget the giveaway: the acronym itself. Component Object Model. Microsoft has been a big booster of the "object-orientedness" of its component architecture.
Yes, but that interface is both trivially simple and completely transparent. It makes coding and debugging the "components" and the applications which use them much faster and easier. It also allows you to fit the pieces together in new and intriguing ways. You lose a bit of flexibility at the component level (only one simple interface) but gain flexibility when your scope is the overall application.
Most object-oriented paradigms are simply this: they simply associate this chunk of data with that bundle of operations. This is usually veiled very carefully to force the programmer to think in terms of magical function-data aggregates ("objects") instead of seperate data and function calls (which is how computers work, at least those using von Neumann architecture).
This is not necessarily a disadvantage in itself; sometimes it's desirable. Games and GUI widgets are best expressed in object-oriented style, for instance. However, the disadvantages of the COM approach (bloat, complexity hell, vendor lock) make it a mess to deal with.
I have used it in a real world environment. And there are times when I would have much rather simply piped my data through a perl script.
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
The funny thing is by the time I get X & whatever windows manager and some office program running in my old 486, it is already SLOWER than running old office 95 under win95.
Apparently Linux + X windows managers has gone a bit bloated in the last few years.
The funny thing is that by the time I get Windows 2000 and Office XP running on that old Pentium 1 with 64 MB ram, it is much slower than that Linux combination you are talking about.
Yes, I agree it would be nice if we had office applications for those old computers, but nobody, including Microsoft, has made that their priority.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I take it you've never used TeX.
I recommend trying out LyX, an advanced frontend. After going through the tutorial, I promise that you will be forever annoyed with all other "word processors."
Unfortunately, due to marketing forces, I had to stop using LyX at work some time ago. Every time I write a document now, I feel like I'm using a frigging hammer-and-chisel.
Sigh.
Well, pretty much everything *I* need to use around the office exists in CLI/non-GUI form - I would use these tools extensively if it weren't for those pesky Word docs...
However, my company insists on using an Exchange server. If I could find a CLI Exchange connector and an interface to Pine or exim or similar, it would make my life easier. I may be wrong, but I'm under the impression Evolution is GUI only..
Glenn
The entire philosophy of MS Office (WYSIWYG) is alien to GNU/Linux. If you CAN see what you will get on paper on the schreen, then the result is unacceptable. For paper is a very different medium.
/thus, replacable/ tools to do the job), and browsed through some other theses. The majority was written in MS Word, some using Star Office, some in plain TeX.
I wrote my thesis using LyX (a great document processor that invokes lots of standard
The quality (reflecting the typographical competence of the software's authors) of the TeX stuff was uncomparably higher than that of the rest, but the MS-processed documents were admittedly better than the Starbage.
I think, Linux gains recognition as a desktop system, when the WYSIWYG paradigm will be appropriately challenged (LyX might be something to consider). Office-like proggies are error-prone, and have already caused irreversible damage to the aesthetics of paper-based documents.
Let's abandon the bandwagon and do something ELEGANT.See www.lyx.org
It would be great if the open source community could get behind one standard
This really is the answer, but most people will not follow. Why? Because the very nature of Open Source is void of standards. (a part of the "freedom"). An example of this is the many flavors.
Many people have already mentioned NeXT/Open/GnuStep, and OpenDoc as fine examples of 'the right way' to do things, and Open Source developers are in a unique position that they are not (usually) hamstrung from shareholders demanding profits, marketoids or backwards compatability that tends to stop 'the right way' from being developed elsewhere.
/. a few days ago runs with this idea in a GUI setting.
But one comment struck me, because I have had thoughts on this point for a while:
> There's no GUI equivalent to the command-line pipe/redirect paradigm
To me, this is one of the most elegant things about how Unix works for the user, even if the command line switches make things very cryptic for 'Joe Schmoe'.
The reason it all hangs together it that all the CLI tools use PLAIN TEXT for input and output, and these text streams are not contaminated by error reporting. Plain text is a very simple data format, and therefore the tools are small and simple. The GoodEasy environment detailed on Wired and mentioned on
But the way it does this is to throw away WYSIWYG, on the assumption that 'what you get' only refers to 'when you hit the print button', and in an increasingly paperless world, there's no need for 'rich media'.
But I like rich media, and I bet a lot of you do too. I think HTML email allows for far more expressive messages, and therefore better communication.
So how do we get this 'plug in' idea of tools to work? Well, my thought is a kind of 'live import/export filter'. If you think of possibly the most complex doc type there is, DTP, it has many layers of structure. Chapters, pages, layout boxes, graphics, columns, paragraphs, fonts and formating, right down to the 'plain text'. What if you could 'live export' just the plain text? All a spellchecker needs is plain text, so the spellcheck component would hook into a 'live filter' component, that exposed just the plain text on the spellcheck side, but was exposed to the full DTP dataset on the other. The spellchecker replaces text in what it thinks is just plain text, and the filter passes the changes to the plain text components in the DTP data. Another filter could expose just the layout components of the DTP data to a drawing tool, and so on.
The base document type could change to be a spreadsheet, and a different 'live filter' would again export the plain text components to the very same spellchecker, and so you get code reuse, and consistancy of interface for the user.
Effectively, these filters give our complex rich media formats multiple personalities, they pretend to be a file format that they are not, so that common tools can be used to edit them.
Add this to the component document ideas started with OpenDoc and its 'part handlers', and continuing with Bonobo, and we could have a true 'Unix way' WYSIWYG productivity system.
-- Andy the Webbunny