Slashdot Mirror
Learn About Ximian and Gnome From Nat Friedman
This week's interview guest is Nat Friedman, co-founder and vice president of product development for Ximian. Nat is also co-chair of The Gnome Foundation, and an all-around nice guy. Post your questions (one per post, please) for Nat below. We'll forward 10 of the highest-moderated ones to him, and will post his answers (verbatim except for HTML formatting) within the next week.
What are you doing to further intergrate code with KDE?
Of gun-control laws? George Bush?
Note: this is a joke. It's funny in context. If you don't get it, here's a different one:
Nat is also co-chair of The Gnome Foundation
That's the beauty of gnomes: you can fits lots on a single chair. Reduce expenses and,
Bah! Do you still want to moderate me down?
All right, serious question:
"You use KDE 3.0, admit it."
Er, rather, I'll choose to phrase this as,
"What's the exact version of the desktop you most frequently use?"
There. Now GO AWAY, moderators!
The global answer for open source projects is always "when it is ready", but even developers have rough ideas around timeframes whether they are a decade, a year, a month, or a day.
So, I would love to know, "When will we see OpenOffice and Mozilla integrated into Gnome more effectively?"
GPL'd web-based tradewars themed space game
OK, this is three question marks, but I figure they go together in one answer:
What are your feelings regarding Miguel's stated preferences for future integration of Mono and Gnome? Since you're a major part of Ximian, does it automatically follow that you're in agreement?
How do you resolve the potential conflicts of interest over issues such as this one between your role at Ximian and your position with the Gnome foundation?
PenguiNet: the (shareware) Windows SSH client
Hi Nat:
From the release of Ximian Connector and the agreement between Ximian and Sun for GNOME under Solaris. Do you feel that Ximian is the same in spirit that the enterprise founded by Miguel and you (Helixcode, some years ago)?
Regards & Thanks,
There are a lot of failed business models that begin, "we can give away software and charge for ..." How is Ximian's business model different
"What is the hardest part of working in such a hard-core, community driven work sector?"
The idea for this question came with that article about Lindows and not releasing their source. I ask this here because of the hard core community that seems to side so staunchly on this KDE vs Gnome idea.
The ultimate network admin tool needs HELP!
Do you like KDE 3?
How does Ximian intend to leverage the Open Source movement for continued economic growth?
Currently the Exchange Connector seems to integrate quite well, are there any plans to create a standalone server with similar capabilities to Echange Server?
Eddy.WriteLinux.Com
How will MONO project affect GNOME project in the future?
Are you looking forward to an increase in private-sector uptake as Microsoft makes its licensing arguably less attractive, or do you feel there are still 'holes to fill' WRT the feasibility of Linux desktop usage in business?
What can you tell us about the future of the Nautilus file manager as it relates to Ximian Gnome? Is Ximian planning to continue development where Eazel left off, continue using and maintaining it, or replace it with something a little more ...uh... lightweight?
Miguel has stated that he believes the GNOME project should stop putting its effort into gnumeric, and instead concentrate of openoffice. Can we take it that this is an official Ximian position? I believe it's the wrong one, and while the code will remain available for anyone to pick and and modify thanks to the GPL, it's hard to see a long term future for gnumeric if its lead developers are advocating switching to something else...
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
Ximian has explained that it is developing the Mono .NET runtime and C# implementations to provide a modern development environment for the GNOME / Linux desktop. Of course, a pleasant side-effect of writing future applications in C# will be that it's easy to make them Windows compatible. Do you see a future in producing cross-platform software solutions or will Ximian remain devoted to the Linux desktop? Will Ximian use Windows.Forms (in conjunction with a GTK# compatibility layer) or will GTK# be used directly by Ximian programs? After all, the two toolkits have fundamentally different philosophies behind widget packing/placement etc.
Over the past few years, there have been plenty of dependencies and what not in GNOME. One package upgrade seemingly shatters the entire setup. Now Gnome is many years older but doesn't seem to have approached the capabilities of the KDE. In this day and age when people are choosing KDE for their distributions in order to attain user-friendliness, what do you think Ximian can do to catch up? How do you plan on bridging that gap?
Nat,
.NET? Do you think that, over the long term, Microsoft will grow to love, ignore or loathe (and perhaps seek to undermine) Mono?
Have you gotten a sense of how Microsoft views the existence of an open source alternative to
"Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?"
Why do you adore KDE so much ?
Despite its relatively short lifetime, Gnome's been really great about embracing all sorts of different technologies -- gtk, ORBit, bonobo and now Mono. However, it's sometimes difficult trying to figure out how this all ties together (if it's supposed to at all). Generally speaking, if someone's going to want to develop for Gnome in the future, how should they prepare themselves? What should they want to learn?
--------
Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
One of the big problems facing GNOME and other open-source software is that of ease-of-use. Microsoft and Apple spend millions of dollars when developing new operating systems or UIs in order to ensure that their product is easy to use for the non-geek end user. What kind of useability studies has Ximian conducted? What is Ximian doing to correct any problems that the research has brought to light?
I would like to know:
What is your take on the apparent paradox resulting from:
1. the goal of uniformity on the Linux desktop, and
2. the many, many, groups who have this as their own special goal?
Mandrake and RedHat work toward this on the OS level, and Gnome and KDE battle it out on the desktop integration level, and many others espouse some sort of a "grand unification theory" of Linux.
Do you subscribe to the theory that less is more, or that multiple groups with a common goal will result in the goal's earlier acheivement?
It's all going according to
Is it frustrating to see potential revenue lost due to offering the same products for free? Do you ever run the numbers to see what your income potential might be if you stopped giving away the same software you sell or do you believe that the Linux community, as a whole, cannot and will not support companies who only sell Linux software?
'Same speed C but faster'
Does Ximian believe (as I do) that the Internet is a fad, much like the hoola-hoop or really low baggy pants worn by skate kids? After people throw this "Internet" in the back of their closets along with copies of their Back Street Boys CDs what will they do with their reclaimed free time?
Hi, Red-Carpet seems to offer functionality similar to up2date/redhat network. However, there seems to be a very substantial lag between packages made available via Ximian's redhat channel and up2date.
An example being (till now, RPM 4.0.4) is not available via the Redhat 7.2 channel. Is Ximian going to ever make a policy statement as to what is the maximum duration their userbase will be diverged from receiving the latest updates of their respective distributions.
If there are specific packages which are likely not to be made available via red-carpet, can their be an official statement on this so that users are aware of the pros/cons of using multiple update mechanisms
What do you think about the future of Gnome in the usability arena. With the advent of Sun donating the usability team that worked on CDE and tiny little things (ie: not being able to manage the menu system without being root) where do you see Gnome fitting in amongst users. Will Gnome be only for power users, or experts only or for that matter users in transistion? (By the way I know who's working on the menu system and I'm currently trying to help figure something out). KDE has it's niche defined but Gnome seems to be in a little bit of a haze as having a defining role in the OpenSource desktop movement lately. What is it's defining niche and target audience if there is any at this point?
.NET as a language affecting/detracting/helping opensource and Gnome in general. As MONO is a Ximian funded open source project there must be some plans to use it in Ximians' version of Gnome. If I might ask whats coming down the pipe from Ximian in the aspect of MONO/.NET and Gnome?
Also if I can squeeze another one in; With MONO being cooked and simmered in the pot how do you see the usefulness of the Compiler and
Question for Nat: "How do you cope, on a personal level, with all the negative and sometimes ill-informed comments that people make about GNOME and Ximian?"
People reading this: I am a GNOME user, and I love it. I understand that you may prefer KDE and that it does do somethings better than GNOME. It's just that GNOME suits my needs better.
I only ask as I personally don't deal with these sorts of things well.
nic
Bus error in your favour. Collect 200kB
It's been, like, a year already!
I am trying to decide whether I should extend my $499/month lease on my TRS80 or start using Mono.
The first step in the installation instructions for upgrading to Red Hat 7.3 was to remove all Ximian components. How are ya'll going to resolve this issue so we won't have to jump through hoops to keep Ximian updated and Red Hat Happy?
load "linux",8,1
Why do you even bother working on this GNOME thing when KDE is so much better?
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
Gnome does have a usability project. What is your opinion on its actual impact on Gnome? Do you feel the open-source movement can attract non-programmers -- like usability experts -- with the same intensity it attracts programmers?
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you
Nat, when will you free your simian sex slave? Mistreating monkeys for sexual favors (i.e. paw fisting) is highly inhumane.
Are there any plans to increase the amount of documentation on GNOME internals? While GNOME seems to have plenty of trivial documentation (such as the GNOME User's Guide, there's virtually nothing that explains what's going on underneath. Are there any plans for a "GNOME Administrator's Guide"? I'm thinking of something that documents usage of files in $HOME/.gnome, what session management is and how it works, what controls the contents of the GNOME menu, and so on. For example, when GNOME fails to correctly save session information, I'd like to be able to check the documentation to see what should be being written to .gnome/session. At the moment,
I just have to guess. Some of it is reasonably
obvious from context, but it's the sort of thing
that really needs formally documenting.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
You, sir, are an embarrassment to all ACs. You didn't even make it into the top five. In the name of all ACs, I kindly request that you kill yourself. Thank you.
I would love to know how Ximian expects its products to integrate MS .net strategy. Will Ximian products integrate with .net? If so, how Ximian is planning to do it? When it is planning to do it?
Thanks
Fabio - Sumare/Sao Paulo/Brazil/South America/Earth/Solar System/Milky Way/Universe
http://www.morroida.com.br
What plans do you have to improve compatibility with the non-GNOME world?
For example, do you think it's practical to implement Xaw as a front-end to GTK? That would get OpenOffice integration real fast, among others. What about a unified theme format with KDE? Or a common protocol for copy/paste?
It seems like this sort of stuff would be really helpful -- what's actually in the works?
Sig:Why copyright isn't a fundamental human right
Just replace Morann with Sharon and Delenn with someone with a conscience that I know exists inside the Israeli cabinet.
Gnome is great for the overpowered computers of today, and I am glad your group brought us Gnome (just like I thank the KDE people for KDE) but I have a very important question....
Is there any plans to make a Gnome lite or an embedded Gnome? something that would work on minimal hardware (P133 as a target)? Having available a "desktop" that is very similar to the workstation desktop on embedded or small devices would be a huge advantage for linux in general (look at winCE and PocketPC os or whatever microsoft calls it today)
Is it possible to release a mini-gnome?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I was considering subscribing in order to improve the performance of downloads (which have gone to a snail's pace since the subscription program began) but two out of three of my last update attempts have ended in file not found errors. This type of error doesn't give me confidence in how well RedCarpet setups are tested. So why shouldn't I just forget about subscriptions and go with KDE?
"Love is a familiar; Love is a devil: there is no evil angel but Love." --William Shakespeare ('Love's Labors Lost')
Try google dumass.
How Ximian can be so slow by publishing compatibility to Mandrake 8.2? This cannot be the way to work because Mandrake is one of the major distros! Shame you! You will lost many possible clients if you wont bring compatibility to latest versions asap. Is this gonna be same on Red Hat v7.3???
The KDE project is attempting to develop a version of KDE/Qt that does not require X.
They've been at this for awhile, and I don't know their status, but have you any thoughts on similar work?
When will GNU ROPE be released? A few years ago you (Nat) and Miguel made a lot of noise about the fact it would speed up the loading times of Mozilla by 30%. However it never came out. Did the project die?
I like Ximian but it is only GNOME Desktop distribution. It "sits on" some Linux distribution. Unfortunately the integration with the leading distros is poor (I explain it later).
So the qestion is: Are you going to cooperate with some Linux distro more?
Explanation what concerns me (I currently use Debian, RedHat, Mandrake on different comps for different purposes -- all with Ximian desktop):
With Ximian I have basicaly two sets of config tool -- one from distro (in distro menus) the second one from GNOME/Ximian (in Ximian menus) -- neither of these sets is complete. This is the main Ximian stopper for me.
Two different menu systems. Some application are accesed from distro menus another from Ximian menus.
It seems to me it would be logical if RedHat and Ximian cooperate. (but I'm gonna to change distro if Ximan chooses somebody else :)
I have just finished a computing degree where I devoted most of my final year to studying the methodologies used in different open source projects... I looked at a lot of the things which are being used to make larger open source projects work, such as python's PEPs, apache's voting structure, the enlargement of the CVS writing and code review heirarchy etc. What other technical or non technical methods are you thinking of implementing (or are already doing) with regard to the gnome project, and the way software is built within ximian, to allow for it's continued growth?
Also, are there any suggestions you could give towards getting smaller projects to bridge the gap and grow to optimal sizes?
Thanks
Ale
Can you tell us more about your efforts with the assbarn project?
Thanks!
Years back at ALS you presented GROPE, a tool for reordering functions at
link time. You presented tantalizing results: it works, and it makes
programs load twice as fast and consume half as much memory. Sounds
great! What became of it?
Look at the size of horse cock.
Consider how loose horse cunt must be.
Think about it for a minute... you should be able to figure out the answer to your question on your own.
Considering the many divergent tools most users end up having to learn to manipulate system settings especially if they use multiple or try out multiple distros of linux, I found the Ximian Setup project very exciting.
_ __ __
Where does Ximian as a company see this component fitting into its list of priorities?
_______________________________________________
ACK
You will be defeated by Richard Pryor and that chick who turns into a robot.
Ximian Evolution seems to be Outlook KILLER but how to improve it against other email clients? Many users are using Mozilla because of support to news (usenet). Have you planned to include news support to Evolution? On that way you can get more people to change their email- and news softwares to Evolution. "One software which handles all users needs" ;-)
How about this question:
Mr. Friedman,
Do you think that people should be free to run their own website however they want, or are the pathetic 14-year-olds here justified in all of this pissing and moaning about editor moderation?
Enquiring minds want to know...
dinner: it's what's for beer
Answer quickly.
I am using Ximian for Solaris as my only desktop at work. However, My experience has been very painful. Bugs still seem to be plentiful. When I report bugs with the bug report tool, the response team seems to think I'm from outer space because I'm running it on Solaris, and they have never been able to help. Red Carpet upgrades seem to always bring new bugs (the most notable ones have been ones which prevent Red Carpet from working). The Evolution mailer will no longer launch, even though I have removed and added back in the package.
Considering all the problems with the Ximian desktop for Solaris, the fact that Solaris is going to make Gnome 2.0 the default desktop, and the lack of profit potential in the Solaris desktop market, isn't it best to knife the baby?
Most operating systems, Mac and Windows in particular, only support one flavor of desktop. Linux currently supports at least two, GNOME and KDE. Some contend the competition is good. I contend it is the single factor most likely to cause Linux to fail on the desktop. Not only does it causes massive duplication of effort, but more importantly it fragments application development and support. You get applications that integrate properly with only of the two desktops, or neither, or developers who have to build two applications which is wasted effort. How do we justify two competing desktops. Would the Linux desktop be more likely to succeed if someone like IBM bought Qt, open sourced it, and we move to a single standardized desktop where all applications ran properly out of the box?
@de_machina
What kind of GUI elements would you have?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
How are ya'll going to resolve this issue so we won't have to jump through hoops to keep Ximian updated and Red Hat Happy?
How about selling Ximian to Red Hat?
Will I retire or break 10K?
As we all know most, if not all distributions come with Gnome rather than Ximian. They also come with KDE but I have always been in favour of Gnome (a matter of preference).
We also know that upgrading gnome, even gtk in
Red Hat and other distros is a MAJOR pain due to
dependencies and such. Same goes for downloading
the updates if one does not have DSL.
Now... there are some programs I would like to
have but they all seem to work either with
customazided or enhanced versions of the official
release, or with XIMIAN only. This creates the confusion. Switching your installation to XIMIAN might create problems when you try to upgrade to
the next version of your distribution. This is
also a major pain.
So, why was there this split? why not have the
main distros distribute Ximian if the idea is
to phase out Gnome? I think this fragments the
user base and creates more confusion.
What are your favorite unsung GNOME applications; in particular which ones strike you as clever, original or just plain well-done?
-- Watch the REAL Jon Katz.
As a new user, this was very frustrating, because I had begun using a few of those programs, but was unable to access them after the Ximian install because I did not know the command line phrase to start them. Without the menu I was lost.
Can't you just append your stuff to the menus... maybe in a submenu called "Ximian"?
I am curious what the plan is for keeping up with the various versions. I have Mandrake 8.2 and would like to install Ximian. I can't do it because you don't support that quite yet. I have another box that will go to Redhat 7.3 as soon as that is out of beta (and I can get the hard drive clean enough to do the install). Will that be a long wait as well?
"Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."
I've been trying to automate my system's updates using cron. Since I'm running Red Hat 7.1, I can run up2date nightly out of root's cron, and get the latest patches, but I cannot do this with Red Carpet, which insists on running in X. Would it be possible to add a CLI to Red Carpet to facilitate this? It might even make it worth my while to join Red Carpet Premium! (*grins*)
We're through being cool! Eliminate the ninnies and the twits! -Devo
I use FreeBSD on my desktop as I fell in love with it many years ago. I use Suse on my laptop however for the advanced power management features. About two months ago a friend introduced my laptop Suse install to Ximian Gnome. I fell in love all over again. The interface is the most aesthetically beautiful and yet wholeheartedly functional I've ever seen.
/stand/sysinstall in place of Red Carpet?"
My question for Nat would be "Have you ever thought about making a FreeBSD port with
Sure we wang, can.
I have no idea how much each spent, but, judging by the results, whatever money was spent was much better spent at Apple than MS.
The now classic Fitts's law column on AskTog explains a great number of points that Apple got right and Microsoft (and, for the most part, GNOME and KDE as well) got wrong. Although the column is more than three years old, the majority of the items are still not corrected even in the latest Microsoft Windows. Compare this with the Macintosh which got most of the items right from the beginning, in 1984.
This may sound like an ignorant question, but it has been gnawing at me for the last year or so,
What advantages do I get from running the whole gnome package? Every few months I try out the latest and greatest for a little while (gnome and/or kde), and always find myself feeling a little slowed down -- so I end up throwing out the whole "startgnome" and/or "startkde" thing and replacing it with an X session that consists soley of the gnome panel and fluxbox -- and things feel a little more responsive. The only reason I am asking this question is that after I "trim" down my desktop -- I don't feel like I have lost anything -- or have been forced to make a sacrifice just for the issue of speed. What am I missing?
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
Lately I wanted to check out the new version of Gnome, I went to www.gnome.org and the download page sent me to Ximian where the only option is to download the 'Ximian Desktop'.
.tgz files.
I do *not* want 'Ximian Desktop' (which seems to want to do all sorts of stuff to my system, come on, asking users to su and do a lynx | sh is absolutely ridiculous, and the 'manual install' option is barely more acceptable 'run this executable as root') I just want a bunch of precompiled packages that I can inspect and install as needed: even better if instead of 'packages' you provided bare
I understand the need to minimize dependency hell (see the latest kde, which I wasn't able to install on my redhat 7.1 box) but at the same time there must be a third option besides 'use the source' and 'let Ximian's installer hijack^H^H^H^H^H^Hupgrade your machine'
/me is nostalgic about the good old Slackware days where everything was distributed as tgz archives.
-- the cake is a lie
Hi suckass! Suck a lot of cock lately? Faggot.
Evolution is one of the finest email applications I have used, bar none. Unfortunately, as a Windows admin, it sometimes becomes difficult to monitor my email while I'm working (and I absolutely REFUSE to use outlook).
Are there any plans to produce a win32 Evolution build?
what version of KDE are you using?
any plans to move to KDE 3 ?
Has the gnome developers taken a look at the new version of E DR 17 that is currently being develop in CVS? comments on the proposed changes or has the xiamian taken a look at it?
Because Mono will use open source code there is an option available which other CLR's cannot peruse: Complete compilation of the program (so it would not need the CLR.) Simply put, after writing in C# and using the assemblies and features etc... the IL could be compiled to executable code with the needed assemblies because the code will be available and licencing would not stand in the way. Any plans to pursue something like this?
Nat,
... not just for the programmers, but for Q/C, tech support, refunds, documentation, etc.
I don't think that there's any question that Ximian has the vision and talent necessary to produce excellent, extremely user-friendly tools for Linux and Gnome. However, there's no question that such an undertaking is expensive
In three parts:
1. How successful has the Red Carpet Subscription been in funding Ximian development, or at least itself?
2. What other ideas do you have to make people want to pay for Ximian software?
3. Where do you think that you can use the resources of the Open Source community to reduce costs?
I ask because, as a member of the OpenOffice.org project, we are looking to become more independant of Sun/StarOffice and need to answer these questions ourselves.
-Josh Berkus
OpenOffice.org
(No, this is not a troll)
Is there any planned support for KDE in products such as Evolution? I use KDE (out of a matter of preference), and also Evolution (excellent mail client!). I know Evolution works in KDE and all, but I'd prefer some more integration. It can even start by adding KDE menu items when Evolution installs.
Thanks,
Michael Niryanga
Look at the CVS commits. Nautilus was being actively maintained when Eazel was gone. Now Nautilus development has speed up *a lot* because WIPRO joined the development.
I have a low-mem system and run Debian. .xsession, does that make my run GNOME?
Now if i put something like:
panel &
exec x-window-manager
as opposed to
exec gnome-session
in my
Or just the GNOME panel?
It is my understanding that Krotus has had a profound effect on your development in college.
Would you say that it was for better or worse, and why?
Do you have any thoughts about the user interface Mac OS X, or Macs in general?
I've used Ximian's pay-for-play red-carpet service and have been thourougly dissapointed. The pay-for-play service doesn't provide the 'high speed' that it promises, typically maxing out around 150kbps. There's no command line interface. It crashes frequently, and apt-get is far superior and free. What are the plans for red-carpet in the future, and how do you plan on marketing this service to a buisness for multiple users when they can just have one pay-for-play account mirroring on a server and point all of the internal clients to it.
Later,
Phil
This is why the average PC user really likes MS Office/Works. When all they want to do is write a letter, create an invoice, etc., there's a ready made template that does the job. This is what's missing from Openoffice. Templates! Sure, there are great template tools, but no templates. They're not included. You have to create your own. To the average user, this really sucks, and it's the dealbreaker.
No one cares about Bonobo, XML, and the rest of the alphabet soup. Create some nice templates, and the world will beat a path to your door.
Do you think Ximian will make it through these bad times? How do you feel, seeing fellow opensource and linux companies (almost) bite the dust one by one (Eazel, VA Linux,
And, do you think Ximian will still exist after a couple of years, and where will it stand...
Is Ximian profitable? If so, what makes you different than most other companies in this line...
[I know it's more than one question, but the way I see it, it's just asking for one answer]
A couple of years ago I came across Gnome and found it to be a
refreshing, creative alternative to the wearisomely familiar look and
feel of Windows and KDE. Which is to say that my tastes run to Asian
women, Italian cars, and Californian wine.
I use Evolution, but only because of my commitment to Gnome and what I
see as my role as technology assessor -- I put myself in my customer's
shoes. I'm not knocking the technology, or the quality. Only the lack
of creativity. Honestly, it pains me to use something that tries so
hard to look like what I nominate as the worst application of the
last, um, ten years: Microsoft Outlook.
I could just push Evolution aside and choose alternatives, but that
would be missing an important point. Ximian has become tightly bound to
Gnome, and Ximian has been chasing after Microsoft. Is there a future
for Gnome in the role of a creative, alternative to middle-of-the-road
environments that will allow me to claim independence from Microsoft?
Gary Dunn
Open Slate Project
On OsNews, I found a link to this really great weblog entry written by someone who does some usability stuff for Mozilla. He does a very good job of describing the current usability situation of the Free Software, and why this current situation sucks currently sucks.
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
Seriously....KDE people also...why does everyone want to turn UNIX into win32?
While all the hype surrounds what Mono will and won't do, and what Microsoft will and won't do about it, I think people miss a very key void that Mono might fill. In the "worst case" (assuming Windows ABI compatibility with Mono is not achievable), won't Mono at least end up replacing Winelib as a porting kit as Windows developers move to .Net as their development platform? If so, then I think Mono is a very important move for Linux in general, at least to those who feel it is important to see popular commercial Windows software ported to Linux. Am I seeing this right? Or am I simplifying it too much? Regardless, I feel Ximian's viewpoints on this and your views of possible scenarios for the future of porting Windows apps to Linux could put a different spin on why Mono exists.
-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith
Independent Author, Consultant and Trainer
> Would the Linux desktop be more likely to
> succeed if someone like IBM bought Qt, open
> sourced it
They dont have to. Its already open source.
Why would someone want Ximian?
I mean what does it bring more to Gnome?
I'm generally interested in concrete areas where
the GNOME project aims to innovate the GUI (as
opposed to merely clone the "competition", be
it KDE, Windows, or whatever).
What can we expect from GNOME that doesn't
exist or have a planned counterpart in other GUIs?
Sure, open source is a powerful concept
(I've recently started to use some source code
to tweak functionality according to my preferences),
but at the level of the GUI user experience, what
features are there that could be reasonably
considered "uniquely GNOME". (I'm asking at the
level of the user, not the developer, as I'm
already aware of many distinctions that can be
made at this level.)
As a somewhat relevant example to the above
question, consider the OpenOffice project.
It is great to have a open source project that
mimics much of the capability found in Microsoft
Office. OTOH, there is an WYSIWYG editor called
TeXmacs that is remarkably innovative and solves
many problems that scientific writers have with
traditional Word-style word processors.
I'd personally like to see TeXmacs (now that a
stable version has been released) be adopted
whole-heartedly by the GNOME project, not
necessarily to replace OpenOffice, but because
this fine piece of software deserves the extra
attention it could attract from being an official
part of the GNOME desktop suite of apps. Of
course there would be some work required to
switch over from the XForms toolkit to GDK, but
this is exactly the kind of software that could
shift GNOME toward the avant-gard, and away from
the image it sometimes projects as trying to "play
catch-up" to other GUIs out there.
It seems that everywhere I look (mailing lists, etc.), developers are switching to KDE for one reason or another. How does the Gnome foundation or even Ximian plan to answer some of their complaints and attract more developers? (ie. lack of documentation, slow to catch up versions of C++ libs, answer to KParts and KDCOP, etc.)
As a technical editor, this one really drives me nuts. People use "methodology" all the time, when simply, "method" should be used. A methodology is a study of methods. And this is the first time I've seen it used correctly! Conratulations!