Mosfet Contributes Code To KDE (Again)

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

Comments

Wonderful news

[i_am_nitrogen]

I for one am looking forward to installing KDE3 when it's all good and ready. Both KDE and Gnome have made incredible progress in the last few years. I think that the Open Source desktop systems are advancing much more quickly than any proprietary system. It's only a matter of time before KDE and Gnome surpass (if they haven't already) all proprietary GUI systems as far as appearance and usability go. My only complaint about KDE is that it's all C++, and it takes forever to load on an older computer. As I recall that's a problem with the dynamic C++ linker, and not KDE itself, though.

It would seem that "The Dot" is already fallen under the Slashdot effect.

Re:Wonderful news

[bero-rh]

My only complaint about KDE is that it's all C++

A matter of perspective - my only major gripe with gnome is that its API re-invents the wheel over and over (C is not an object-oriented language, and gtk's attempt at emulating an object oriented language just isn't as good as the real thing, IMO).

It would seem that "The Dot" is already fallen under the Slashdot effect.

Currently working on it... The machine's load was temporarily up at 33.8, it's starting
to enter acceptable values (10.33 ATM) now, after some tweaking.

Re:Wonderful news

[Arandir]

Using object oriented programming techniques in C is not a sign of delusion, it's an attempt to do more with less.

You can always do more with less. So why not write your OO program in assember? Just because I can build a house armed with only a screwdriver does not mean that's the way it should be done. I have only myself to blame if my neighbors think me delusional for hammering, sawing and spackling with only a screwdriver, especially when my toolbox includes hammers, saws and putty knives.

There are some OO like things you can do in C easily. But most of them are very difficult. It's not worth the effort when you can do the very same thing, and more, with a real OO language. C++ may not be the perfect OO language, but I would rather hammer in nails with an imperfect hammer than with an elegant screwdriver.

Re:Wonderful news

[Arandir]

Er... isn't C++ written in C?

In the GNU world, yes. But so what? So is fortran, ada, objective C, java, and every other language that gcc supports.

If C++ compilers were standard on all Unix platforms, then it would make sense to write a compiler in C++. But a lot of platforms don't. I don't see how you could bootstrap a C++ compiler written in C++ using only the default C compiler. Compilers aren't written in C because C is better than C++, but rather because C is the lowest common denominator language on Unix.

Why can't you have a nice toolkit written in C that uses a nice clean OO-like interface?

GTK+ is a nice toolkit. But it stretches things quite a bit to call its OO interface "clean".

Re:Wonderful news

[pclminion]

A matter of perspective - my only major gripe with gnome is that its API re-invents the wheel over and over (C is not an object-oriented language, and gtk's attempt at emulating an object oriented language just isn't as good as the real thing, IMO).

Exactly. The biggest problem, I think, is that calling a method is done differently depending on whether that method is virtual. If object Z has standard method A and virtual method B, then to invoke A you must say A(Z), but to invoke B you must say Z->B(Z). This disparity is ugly and would be solved by using C++ which they should have done in the first place.

What's the story?

[Gogo Dodo]

Many in the KDE community are aware of some rocky history between KDE hacker Mosfet and other KDE developers.

For those of us not in the know, what's the rocky history?

dot.kde.org is totally /.'ed.

Re:What's the story?

[Nevrar]

http://slashdot.org/search.pl?query=mosfet might help...

Re:What's the story?

[ThatComputerGuy]

I'm not exactly sure of the specifics, but I do know that mosfet had a falling out earlier with the rest of the KDE developers.

He's done some cool stuff for KDE, but from what I heard, he appeared to not work well as a team and could possibly have been a hindrance to KDE's progress. This is mostly what I read from KDE's other developers.

Mosfet took his code and began developing separately from KDE, and KDE developers allegedly began forking his code, sometimes even claiming that mosfet's code was forked.

He then had some trouble with FutureTech, but that's not directly related to the KDE team at all.

So, that's what I know. Basically some stuff I've read from mosfet, kde developers, and 3rd parties.

Re:What's the story?

[ThatComputerGuy]

No, dude, you're mistaken by the images he's always had on his site. No, I don't know what's up with those either.

Btw, Mosfet's real name is Daniel M. Dudley. Does Daniel sounds like a chick's name?

I propose a Mosfet section on Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

But the icon may frighten off the readers :-)

Re:I propose a Mosfet section on Slashdot

[ThatComputerGuy]

If you think that one's bad, check out mosfet2.jpg.

And the weird thing is, the dude's got m4d skillzZz, but he claims he likes these images!

Re:I propose a Mosfet section on Slashdot

[burtonator]

Could someone PLEASE answer this for me? I am confused.

Is this what Mosfet looks like? Is this him in drag? Who is that in the picture!?

I mean, if Mosfet wants to dress in drag, that is cool I don't care (heck, I live in San Francisco). I just want to find out what the deal is!

Is this just something the is into? Men dressing like crazy aggressive women?

There are some more pictures in his PixiePlus screenshots.

Anyway...

Kevin

Re:I propose a Mosfet section on Slashdot

[Otter]

Is this what Mosfet looks like? Is this him in drag? Who is that in the picture!?

Yes, that's him.

There are some more pictures in his PixiePlus screenshots.

The pictures of the blonde woman in a dress? That's his girlfriend, IIRC. So if you single guys out there were wondering what you're doing wrong, you might want to consider long green hair, green lipstick and periodic feuding with the core KDE developers. Apparently there's more to know than just what's in Eric Raymond's sex tips HOWTO...

Not just a large contribution

[jonathan_ingram]

Mosfet writes some good code, but don't go away thinking that KDE is lost without him (particularly not because of this recent contributution of some effects ripped from imagemagick). This is so far away from the truth as to be laughable.

One of the biggest things to happen to KDE in last year has been the rewrite of KDE's printing support, by Michael Goffioul. No-one goes around proclaiming Michael as a coding god, because he just got on with it and produced something very impressive (and that has got even more impressive in KDE 3).

Similarly for the developer(s) of Kate, KDE's text editor. Or the developers of Konqueror, who have equalled Mozilla with a twentieth of the personnel and a thousandth of the money.

Similarly for all the people that don't code, but instead translate KDE into 15 million languages.

KDE is a true team effort and can do without coding primadonnas.

Re:Not just a large contribution

[nathanh]

Or the developers of Konqueror [konqueror.org], who have equalled Mozilla with a twentieth of the personnel and a thousandth of the money.

Without belittling Konqueror, as it is truly an excellent browser, it is not in the same league as Mozilla.

Re:Not just a large contribution

[anfloga]

I work professionally as a GUI developer, and can add one more reason why it's probable that Mosfet is getting so much attention, relative to the other equally worthy programmers out there.

You can see what he's done. It's obvious, it just jumps right out at you, because it's GUI work. For better or worse, GUI programmers have this extra responsibility.

Erik

Re:Not just a large contribution

[RickHunter]

Well, that's curious. Konqueror renders twice the pages correctly in half the time that Mozilla does. And loads faster. And has a more appealing default interface. And browses the web, as opposed to reading mail and news, providing an IRC client, and making my morning coffee.

Re:Not just a large contribution

[krogoth]

"particularly not because of this recent contributution of some effects ripped from imagemagick"

Are you saying that he used Open-Source code in an Open-Source project? *gasp*

If he didn't credit the source that's understandable, but if this is brought to his attention and he fixes it, it could be a mistake (although since I'm sure you've never made any, you wouldn't understand).

Re:Not just a large contribution

[Yosho]

I don't believe he said what you think he said. Konqueror is fine for an everyday web browser; Mozilla is as feature-rich as one could imagine, including reading mail and news as well as using IRC. Believe it or not, some people like that.

He didn't say one is better than the other; for what they were intended for, they're both excellent. Nonetheless, they *are* in different leagues -- to further the analogy, Konqueror is a flyweight to Mozilla's super heavyweight. Saying that the Konqueror coders have created an equivalent to Mozilla is pure fallacy.

As a sidenote, the interfaces are even more up to opinion than the rest of the features -- I, personally, find Konqueror to be quite ugly compared to Mozilla. However, that's just my opinion, and has no place in a qualitative comparison of the browsers.

Re:Not just a large contribution

[SCHecklerX]

In addition to all the comments the above poster made, Mozilla is designed to be a web-browser, and excels at it. Konqueror tries to be a file manager too...and fails miserably as an overly bloated piece of elephant dung (please, let me tell you how I really feel :). I wish they would have stayed with where KFM was headed, but they scrapped it all for the konqueror crap.

Thank goodness I discovered ROX-Filer.

Re:Not just a large contribution

[Zapman]

Or the developers of Konqueror [konqueror.org], who have equalled Mozilla with a twentieth of the personnel and a thousandth of the money.

All preferences asside, both are fantastic browsers, however, saying konq has equaled mozilla is like saying a pear has equaled an orange because they are both fruit. Konq has a goal of being a fantastic browser for kde. This it has done. Mozilla has a goal of being a fantastic CROSS-PLATFORM browser. This it has done. It's quite accurate to say that they arn't in the same league, so long as you realize the leagues you're talking about are the NBA and the NFL, for example

Re:Not just a large contribution

[dbarclay10]

Well, everything that Moz does, Galeon does. More or less, anyways.

Try loading up chrome://navigator/content/navigator.xul in Galeon some day.

Re:Not just a large contribution

[nathanh]

Why have I been moderated as flamebait not just once, but twice? Konqueror is an excellent browser (KDE is my default desktop and Konqueror is my normal web browser) but I'm not naive enough to believe it's achieving the same scope as Mozilla.

Is this more proof that the anti-anti-KDE league is now much more vocal than the anti-KDE league? Both of them seem to be more vocal than the pro-KDE league! It seems they're flaming the people who support KDE (eg, myself) for daring to be objective!

Re:Not just a large contribution

[Jagasian]

At least someone has gotten my point. Stating something like the parent of my original post did without backing it up is just as silly as stating the opposite proposition without any proof.

Re:oh boy!

[Kwikymart]

When was the last time you tried kde? You could argue that it is slow, but saying that it is buggy is completely untrue.

Re:oh boy!

[jonathan_ingram]

slow, buggy overengineered window manager

'kwin' is actually a fairly lightweight window manager. Or do you not know the difference between a window manager and a desktop environment?

No, it cannot

[Anonymous Coward]

Another /.er said:
"KDE can do without coding primadonnas".

Sorry, I think I disagree.

Primadonnas are a pain in the ass, ok.

But in the final count, you must kneel and ask them to come back on stage (hear the fine music about primadonnas from Webber's "The Phantom of the Opera").

Some primaddonnas have a contribution, a good contribution for that matter -- and *we* cannot afford being egocentric -- even and mainly if they are!

In the famous Lee Iacocca autobiographic book, he tells about having colleagues who complained about hardtimes with other people. He used to say, jokingly I guess, "Too bad, this company doesn't hire monkeys, or gorillas or tigers, we just got people!"

And that's it, to put it simply.

KDE is not just about technology. Ok, it is a very advanced project and what I like in the Linux world is that we progress faster than most other alternatives, be it commercial or not.

But KDE _is_ about people, too. Don't throw away competent people. Instead, put some buffer around their idiosyncrasies.

Heck, keep them in an asylum if you need, but don't disregard their work. We lost too many geniuses because they were gay, and now we regret it.

So, get two people, the primadonna and someone who can interface him/her to the world.

Now, to Mosfet and Rasterman, you can sing very well -- but what is a singer without an audience.

Have patience with those who must have patience with you.

From a friend.

Re:No, it cannot

[CAIMLAS]

Where do you get the idea that they're self-assigned stars? All I see is a couple geeks doing things they enjoy - writing code, participating in an online community, etc. I really don't see where you get this primadonna idea from. AFIK, neither Mosfet nor Rasterman have proclaimed their own superiority. You, and other people like you, seem to have done a good even job.

Re:No, it cannot

[Patoski]

Another /.er said:
"KDE can do without coding primadonnas".

Sorry, I think I disagree.

Primadonnas are a pain in the ass, ok.

They are not only a pain in the ass but if you've been in open projects for any amount of time you know that they're huge time wasters as well. They're contributions are mitigated by the fact that they're such high maintenance and they eat up other ppl's valuable time.

In the famous Lee Iacocca autobiographic book, he tells about having colleagues who complained about hardtimes with other people. He used to say, jokingly I guess, "Too bad, this company doesn't hire monkeys, or gorillas or tigers, we just got people!"

And that's it, to put it simply.

That quote you're using... It was Iocacca arguing why prima donnas aren't tolerated. He also goes on to say that if the prima dona is sufficiently talented he might be tolerated for a time but eventually their inability to get along with people will do them in. I don't understand your use of the quote as it just undermines your position.

But KDE _is_ about people, too. Don't throw away competent people. Instead, put some buffer around their idiosyncrasies.

Heck, keep them in an asylum if you need, but don't disregard their work. We lost too many geniuses because they were gay, and now we regret it.

Ummm... Being gay and being a prima donna are two very different things. Its a fatally flawed analogy.

So, get two people, the primadonna and someone who can interface him/her to the world.

You mean get them a babysitter? Good luck finding one willing to babysit egos during their free time. =)

That said it appears that Mosfet is playing nicely with everyone in the sandbox now. =)

Re:No, it cannot

[flacco]

Heck, keep them in an asylum if you need, but don't disregard their work. We lost too many geniuses because they were gay, and now we regret it.

There's a difference between being gay and being an insufferable asshole. If you need Primadonnas, use them. But their usefulness should not be used to rationalize derogatory behavior toward others.

And no, I am not referring to Mosfet. I know nothing about him or the Mosfet/KDE thing.

please?

[djocyko]

would someone mind copying the list of contributions he has recently made here? (the article is nicely /.ed)

thanks!

The Odd Thing About Open Source

[quakeaddict]

The odd thing about open source is that the few who get paid doing it can be just as unreliable as a corporation. Its amazing to me watching how people fall over guys like Mosfet, in gratitude, after he basically walked out on the project a few months earlier saying "its my ball and i'm going home."

Let us not forget ...

[ez76]

Nobody doubts the impact Mosfet has had on KDE, but we would be remiss if we neglected the many contributions of Bipolar and Jfet as well.

They too have played a big role in making KDE what it is today.

Hurrah!

[sgage]

Everybody's carrying on as if this is some sort of important event in the history of KDE. The Liquid theme is pretty, but jaysus, it's a friggin' theme! Let's get some perspective.

Re:Mosfet is a woman? :)

[Ch_Omega]

Ehm... Cancel that..

From the Mosfet's homepage: "My name is Daniel M. Duley. I'm a 26 yr/old application developer and system admin living in Indiana, USA."... And I who just loves geekgirls... Damn! ;)

My Opinion..

[JasonKB]

I would appreciate it if people would read my opinion on freekde.org... thanks!

BSD/GPL License Conflicts

[evilviper]

Someone help me out here... This article brought up the point that the code was under the BSD license. However, I don't understand how the BSD and GPL could possibly be compatible. The BSD license states that copyright info must be kept intact, and the GPL has no such stipulation, so it would obviously be illegial to use BSD licensed software under the GPL. Alternatively, the GPL says no software may be released with GPLed code if it imposes additional restrictions beyond those imposed by the GPL itself, so BSD licensed software may not be used in a GPLed program under it's original license.

Did I get something wrong there?

Re:BSD/GPL License Conflicts

[evilviper]

But the GPL does not stipulate that the copyright notice must remain intact as tne BSD does... In other words, an addiotinal restriction which the GPL does not allow.

Re:Nope, you're wrong

[evilviper]

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html

Feel free to point out where it says you may not modify or delete the existing copyright notices in a GPLed program.

I wish we could get the questions...

[Oswald]

...about this guy's sexuality sorted out. How the hell am I supposed to make an intelligent decision about open source GUIs and themes without this information?

Re:Nope, you're wrong

[evilviper]

I don't see how '2.' even relates to this discussion.

'1.' only applies to those wishing to distribute the source without making modifications, so doesn't apply to this discussion.