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Interview With Shawn Gordon of TheKompany

Posted by Hemos on from the making-cash-money dept.

Gentu writes "OSNews features an interview with Shawn Gordon, president of TheKompany. Shawn talks about version 1.0 of Aethera and Kapital coming out in September, porting a lot of their Qt apps to MacOSX, the future of Linux on the desktop, how the embedded Linux market was surprisingly successful financially for them, as well as selling well their desktop apps. It is really encouraging to read that a desktop-oriented company actually made real money from Linux this year!"

105 comments

  1. AHAHHHAAHAHAHAHA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    first *5* posts were AC.

    fuckers!

  2. embedded Linux by RobertNotBob · · Score: 1
    Remember that embedded linux is another way of saying' Linux that people don't know they're using'.

    Yea, it's cool that people are making money at it. But I don't think that it is as hope-generating as some people might first believe. Wide scale acceptance is where a stable market will come from, not 'sneaking it in when they're not looking'.

    --
    ___ I don't respond to Anonymous Cowards, and I Never Mod them UP.
    1. Re:embedded Linux by GigsVT · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Who cares? The people you are talking about, the average user, is probably only dimly aware they are using Windows. It's not like they chose Windows, it's what their computer came with, it's what their apps run on. They would never do anything so radical as to change OS unless they a) had someone else to install it for them and b) had a compelling reason to change.

      Sneaking it in when they aren't looking is a pretty safe bet, it's what allowed MS to succeed.

      --
      I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
    2. Re:embedded Linux by yatest5 · · Score: 1

      Can someone explain to me why you guys actually *care* so much what OS other people are using? If windows is so shite and the people who use it such lusers, why don't you leave them to it?

      --
      • Mod parent up! [a] by Anonymous Coward (Score:5) Thurs, June 31, @13:37
    3. Re:embedded Linux by Zapper · · Score: 0

      Yes, but if it works well and looks nice people are going to want to know more about it.
      except perhaps for "the average user, is probably only dimly aware they are using Windows" sort of user.

      --
      So much to do, so little bandwidth.
      --
      Try Mozilla
    4. Re:embedded Linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You don't get it do you, I used to do freelance consulting, so I know what it's like. People call you with "Computer problems" and when you ask them what operating system they run, they say "Uhhhhhhhhh", and I am like "Windows?" and they are like "Yeah that sounds right".

      The average user don't give a fuck about their operating system, they want to do things with their computer. Linux is perfect for these kinds of people.

    5. Re:embedded Linux by Marc2k · · Score: 1

      But I don't think that it is as hope-generating as some people might first believe.

      Wrong. Just plain wrong. You're assuming (as a home user) that the only front Linux is fighting is on the desktop. It's a huge boon for the industry, that a freely-maintained, open operating system will run a lot of the tech average joe uses at home. Linux is (in most people's opinions) the next big thing® in embedded technology, why make blanket statements about it that only refer to the Desktop war?

      --
      --- What
    6. Re:embedded Linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh yawn. Another interview with Shawn Gordon. Does he bash Ximian and GNOME in this one? Does he spend half the interview slagging off de Icaza because he got VC money, and does he claim to have thought of everything Ximian has done first?

      I don't know, since I can't be arsed reading more drivel from this pathetic self-publicist. I'm not surprised to find an interview with him here... KDE sites seem to run interviews with him regularly - they are short of real "business" intervees, obviously.

    7. Re:embedded Linux by GoatPigSheep · · Score: 1

      Support for enbedded Linux is good for linux as a whole. It's putting money into the OS, and it might encourage companies to use linux as well if they see it being deployed successfully by other companies.

      The real issue with linux being accepted on a widescale is that it still is not user friendly enough for most people. I think it would be worth it if linux companies invested in some interface designers with real credentials, as it seems most open-source programmers don't know how to create programs that can be easily used by non computer oriented people. Mandrake and Corel linux have made inroads here (and of course many tech-oriented linux users complained that corel linux wasn't versatile enough, do you expect grandmothers to use slackware???)

      --
      GoatPigSheep, the 3 most important food groups
    8. Re:embedded Linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The average user don't give a fuck about their operating system, they want to do things with their computer. Linux is perfect for these kinds of people

      What a complete contradiction. Using Linux comes with a considerable time investment. When it comes to usability and hardware support KDE and GNOME are still light years behind OS X and Windows XP. Now don't get me wrong, I love Slackware on my server because it gives me nearly 100% uptime but after trying several "friendly" distros (SuSE, Mandrake, Redhat, etc.) my desktops are still firmly rooted elsewhere.

    9. Re:embedded Linux by Unknown+Bovine+Group · · Score: 1

      Remember that embedded linux is another way of saying' Linux that people don't know they're using'.

      This would be an interesting comment if it weren't completely wrong.

      The majority of the "embedded" space from which the Kompany makes its license sales is the Zaurus 5x00 line of PDAs. I'd wager that over 99% of Zaurus users are aware they're running Linux, as it's touted all over the box.

      Gordon even mentions the 5500 by name, almost seeming to plug it.

      --A happy Zaurus user

      --
      m00.
  3. I find it hard to believe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    that a company that can't even spell "company" correctly could make money. Did they go through a "Venture Kapital" firm to raise enough "Kash" to for initial operating expenses?

  4. Re:COMMON SENSE WARNINGS WHEN DEALING WITH A UFO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    11. To aid future human/alien dialog, attempt to communicate the rotation period of an electron in a hydrogen atom, using dance. This is the intergalactic Roseta Stone.

  5. Resources taken for these apps by USS.Spock · · Score: 1

    One thing which does get left out in these kind of reviews/articles is about space/resources taken by that particular app. Lets say i'm running aethera (just an example) , I find that there are a lot of processes running in the background. What is the logic behind using something that's hogs down resources and shows nothing but "eye candy" ?. Will like to know people's view on this :), of course there are some tradeoffs but is it worth it (no hard feelings to the Kompany of course)

    --
    -- Live Long And Prosper
  6. Re:COMMON SENSE WARNINGS WHEN DEALING WITH A UFO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    12. Attempt to sneeze on the aliens. This is just to show that "War of the Worlds" was a CROCK OF SHIT!

    13. Explain to them about area 51, and how we shot down, and experimented on one of their own. Offer to show them an anal probe (if you have one handy)

  7. Capatalist pigs! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "It is really encouraging to read that a desktop-oriented company actually made real money from Linux this year!"

    Oh yeah, it's cool to make money. Give me a break, you Linux guys hate for people to get paid for work. Unless it's you, then you won't touch a job for less than 100k a year.

    1. Re:Capatalist pigs! by yatest5 · · Score: 1

      "It is really encouraging to read that a desktop-oriented company actually made real money from Linux this year!"

      Yes, and even more encouraging that it is greeted with such amazement - not!

      --
      • Mod parent up! [a] by Anonymous Coward (Score:5) Thurs, June 31, @13:37
  8. no... by bsDaemon · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    they're just krauts

    1. Re:no... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Three cheers for German engineering!

    2. Re:no... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      'Twas the night before Goatse, when all through the house
      Not a penis was stirring, not even with mouth;
      The Giver was hung by the chimney with care,
      In hopes that St. Goatse soon would be there;

      The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
      While visions of anal-sex danced in their heads;
      And Katz in his 'kerchief, and I in my cap,
      Had just settled down for a fuck in the sack.
      When up in my anus there arose such a clatter,
      I sprang from the bed to see Katz start to splatter.
      Away to the bathroom I flew like a flash,
      Tore open my anus and looked at the gash.

      The moon in the glass had a vibrant red glow
      Gave the lustre of sunset to my nutsack below,
      When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
      But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer!

      With a little old driver, so lively and quickse,
      I knew in a moment it must be St. Goatse.
      More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
      And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;

      "Now, TACO! now, JAMIE! now, MICHEAL and TIMMY!
      On, CHRISD! on HEMOS! on, PUDGEY and CLIFFY!
      To the top of the ass! fronts to the the wall!
      Now pound away! pound away! pound away all!"

      As faggots that before the wild hurricane fly,
      When they meet with a hetero, mount the next guy,
      So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
      With the sleigh full of sex-toys, and Goatse pics too.

      And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
      The moaning and pawing of each little poof.
      As I drew in my ass, and was turning around,
      Down the chimney St. Goatse came with a bound.

      He was dressed as a furry, from his head to his feet,
      And his clothes were all tarnished with urine and shit;
      A bundle of sex-toys he had flung on his back,
      And he looked like a hooker just flapping his sack.

      His eyes -- how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
      His ass cheeks like roses, his cock like a cherry!
      His cute little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
      And the beard of his scrotum as white as the snow;

      The stump of a blunt he held tight in his teeth,
      And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath;
      He had a broad face and was a bit smelly,
      He shook, when he wanked like a bowlful of jelly.

      He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
      And I laughed when I saw him beat off himself;
      A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
      Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;

      He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
      And filled all the stockings with smelly big turds,
      He layed a big log right under my nose,
      And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;

      He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
      And away they all flew like a fucking great missile.
      But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,
      "HAPPY GOATSE.CX TO ALL, AND TO ALL A GOOD-NIGHT!!"

    3. Re:no... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh my god! There are tears in my eyes right now. I am trying to keep from cracking up at work! I've not seen something that funny for a long time!

    4. Re:no... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your abuse of the company bandwidth has been detected by the techical staff and the management has been alerted.

  9. Aethera? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... Bovary? ... Gipple? ... Mulva? ... Loleola? ... Dolores!

  10. Quality of Programmer by Zapper · · Score: 0
    "The beta for Kapital... so a few months ago I put some really top notch programmers on it full time..."

    As opposed to what sort of programmers were working on it before? ;-)

    --
    So much to do, so little bandwidth.
    --
    Try Mozilla
    1. Re:Quality of Programmer by jbolden · · Score: 1

      Most programmers working for most companies are mediocre. Remember in any given thing 1/2 the population is below average. For lots of work you don't want good programmers: good programmers are creative, good programmers are expensive, good programmers get bored easily. For lots of programming you want stuff done the same way its being done today with a few slight changes.

    2. Re:Quality of Programmer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Remember in any given thing 1/2 the population is below average

      That behaviour characterizes average as a function of many variables, and only if all of which are random with a normal distribution. It doesn't characterize the population itself. And it's not even true in many trivial non-normal-distribution populations (which may still be random!!!!!!)

      Say you've got following grade lineup in a test for a group of 10 people (0-fail, 5-excellent):

      0 3 4 4 5 5 5 5 5 5

      The average is 4.1. Exactly four people fall below it. Not to mention that if the group got following grades:

      0 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2,

      only one person would get below-average grade. So the fact that only one person is below-average in a group doesn't say much by itself. If the average is high, that person may still get a very good grade. If the average is low, that person is even worse than the already bad group.

      I wish people didn't just repeat out-of-context phrases out of stats books. The concept of normal distribution is overused and applied to everything even when a grade school kid, if asked properly, would be able to tell you that the distribution of this-or-that is definitely not normal by the virtue of underlying phenomena. In fact, a lot of measures of human intellectual performance have non-normal distributions. School grades are one thing that everyone believes has normal distribution, when in fact it almost never has in a real setting. It has when you'd average over the whole world's population, and that's to be expected from the law of large numbers. But you don't have half a billion pupils in one school, and that's the face many people oversee.

      Most programmers working for most companies are mediocre because the average is mediocre, not because half of them are below average. That's the whole thing that escapes jbolden.

      A side note The way that programmers are educated and accepted for jobs shapes the whole programmer education field. Nobody is going to over-educate programmers if by doing less work, they still get accepted. Better programmers don't really pay off: if all programmers were top-of-the-notch, nobody would really pay them more. That's how the market works: abundance of good programmers doesn't necessarily generate enough money to pay them the high wages. Maybe they would hire less programmers, because supposedly less top-notch programmers can do the job of many more mediocre ones (as long as that job is still interesting for the top-notch ones), but that still wouldn't increase the wages -- after all, you could always fire your top-notch progrmr and hire from another 10 top-notch-ones waiting outside. So there would be many more unemployed programmers :-)

  11. Re:COMMON SENSE WARNINGS WHEN DEALING WITH A UFO by scotch · · Score: 0, Offtopic
    11. If you a wound or illness, present it to the aliens in a manner that shows you are hurt. Many aliens have healing powers in their appendages.

    12. If the alien seems upset, offer to rub its head gently. Not only will this ease a tense situation, it will bring you good luck.

    --
    XML causes global warming.
  12. Good article; good news. by sirinek · · Score: 3, Interesting


    It is indeed refreshing to see that a Linux-based software company is making quality applications, and more importantly, making money.

    The other thing I enjoyed seeing is that they are starting to get their products into retail stores and that Linux and Windows versions are "one box, one price", allowing people to migrate between the two and keep the app they paid for. Nice! :)

    Hopefully they keep up the good work, come out with some very nice apps and make the transition to Linux that much easier.

    Maybe they should come up with a QT Office suite (KOffice?) with for-pay MS Word filters and then migrate people over to Linux cause their software will still run. :) It'd be cheaper than MS Office, and still read the documents they need to read *and* run on Linux! :)

    siri

    1. Re:Good article; good news. by jbolden · · Score: 1

      They make parts of KOffice. For example KIVIO -- Visio for KOffice is theirs.

    2. Re:Good article; good news. by twener · · Score: 1

      They made Kivio. But only continued to develop their commercial Kivio MP later.

  13. Portability to OS X is a "Good Thing"[tm] by Yonder+Way · · Score: 1

    This addresses one of my major gripes about switching to OS X; there are few apps to choose from, and they all cost an arm & a leg.

    I never knew The Kompany was selling OS X stuff so I am definitely going to have to go check them out. If this allows me to standardize on apps between Linux and OS X then I will be a happy man. Also if I get a good QuickBooks alternative (Lord, I hate how they nickle & dime you to death for simple stuff like emailing invoices to your clients) I would be able to permanently power down my sole remaining Windows box.

  14. TheKompany Demos by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    TheKompany has great demos for all of their products (including what looks to be a CD -> Ogg ripper) at ftp://ftp.rygannon.com/pub/ (sorry only 6 users at a time).

    I'm looking forward to Rekall to be a cross-platform MS Access replacement (python as the scripting language over VBA rocks).

  15. Re:COMMON SENSE WARNINGS WHEN DEALING WITH A UFO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    thanks for a great suggestion. it has bee added to the guide

  16. Two things I like by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I really like how everything that this kompany does has a kool name and always spellz their stuff. It's like those poseurs who think that writing Amerika is some how kounter kulture.

    Fucking sellout.

  17. META: What does it do? by RobotWisdom · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Is it too much to ask that the blurbs on Slashdot's frontpage should explain what a software package does, instead of just citing the name as if everyone should magically be familiar with them all?

    1. Re:META: What does it do? by The+Droek · · Score: 1
      If you have not heard of the packages, then you haven't investigated much into those sort of applications... and you probably don't care anyway. So why post?

      FWIW, Kapital is a personal finance manager. Aethera is PIM/groupware.

    2. Re:META: What does it do? by RobotWisdom · · Score: 2, Troll
      "If you have not heard of the packages, then you haven't investigated much into those sort of applications..." Absolutely true.

      "...and you probably don't care anyway. So why post?" Absolutely untrue. There are thousands of topics that interest me, that I haven't had time to investigate. Basic communication skills are about supplying the extra three words that bridge that gap.

      "FWIW, Kapital is a personal finance manager. Aethera is PIM/groupware." Bueno-- you got it now.

    3. Re:META: What does it do? by billnapier · · Score: 2

      Google is your friend. When I don't know what something is, I put it into google.

    4. Re:META: What does it do? by RobotWisdom · · Score: 2
      "Google is your friend. When I don't know what something is, I put it into google."

      Let's analyse it in terms of economics:

      X% of Slashdot readers know what the names refer to. So (100-X)% don't. The X% that do can immediately decide if they want to click for more info. The (100-X)% have no way to decide, because all they see are the names, not what the packages do.

      So you're suggesting each one of those (100-X)% of Slashdotters visit Google (or click the links themselves, of course) to discover whether or not the topic is even of interest to them. I'm suggesting the blurb-authors add three words to each blurb to save those (100-X)% the effort.

      ...Who's lazy again?

  18. Re:COMMON SENSE WARNINGS WHEN DEALING WITH A UFO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    thanks for a great suggestion. it has bee added to the guide

  19. QuantaGold? DataArchitect? Give me the Connector!! by imac.usr · · Score: 3, Interesting
    The lions share of requests have been for QuantaGold on OS X so far.


    The number one most useful product they could offer OS X users right now is a port of the Connector!


    Microsoft has stonewalled on delivering a native Exchange client for Mac OS X. In fact, according to a recent posting on Macintouch (scroll down to the second or third message), their official recommendation is that you set up a separate PC and use the new Remote Desktop client to access it!


    Here at NIH, we want to move to OS X soon but the lack of a native Outlook client is really going to hurt us. If Evolution+Connector were available instead, we would likely take a serious look at spending some serious money on it.

    --
    I use Macs for work, Linux for education, and Windows for cardplaying.
  20. A Long Hard Road by XNuke · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I was an early adopter of Kapital. Seems like over a year now, I am not sure. I had been using Linux exclusively since 1996 and only used windows for Quicken/TurboTax since it had all my financial data since 1993. The early beat versions of Kapital were very encouraging but the most amazing thing was the damn near heroic effort to get a program like Kapital to work on the ZILLIONS of different Linux distributions. Anyone who thinks Linux has a chance on the mainstream desktop needs to look at the mailing list logs for kapital, and the many replies from Shawn regarding difficulties in those areas. Simply amazing. Linux isn't going to Fork like the major Unices did in the 80's, it already HAS.

    1. Re:A Long Hard Road by pointwood · · Score: 2

      Can you say LSB?

    2. Re:A Long Hard Road by airyk · · Score: 0

      does kapital support syncing with a palm device?

    3. Re:A Long Hard Road by pbur · · Score: 2

      I too am an early adopter. And the mailing list (especially recently since the push for 1.0) has really shown how hard the different distros make it for companies like TheKompany. According to them, Mandrake used KDE 3.0-rc instead of the final KDE 3.0 and it has caused some conflicts for them packaging it up. And as for myself, I use the source version of Kapital, but I haven't been able to test it because I can't get Korelib (one of their standard libs they use) to compile with gcc-3.1. So it is truly an Herculean effort to make things work on the Linux desktop.

      Pbur

    4. Re:A Long Hard Road by jbolden · · Score: 1

      Back then the goal was lock in. I haven't seen any distribution do stuff to try and lock users in. I think its fair to say: RedHat, Mandrake, Gentoo, Debian, Slackware, Suse... all consider each other "part of the family". They aren't all the same but they can take advantage of each other's work.

      Debian spends a great deal of time getting packages on GNU/Linux to work well. This results in better tar balls which result in better rpms.

      RedHat spends a great deal of time getting specific kernals to be very robust. This feeds into Mandrake directly and others indirectly.

      Mandrake worked hard on unifying interfaces (like getting the same menus to work) which has migrated to most distributions. They also help with KDE.

      I don't see forking I see choice. Supporting so many distributions is hard for software, NQA but this isn't 80's style forking. After all we all agree that "porting" between different versions of Linux is almost always at worst changes to the make files not changes to the C files.

  21. Re:COMMON SENSE WARNINGS WHEN DEALING WITH A UFO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    thanks for a great suggestion. it has bee added to the guide

  22. Blackadder by swagr · · Score: 2

    Blackadder has been in the works for quite a while......... Still waiting to see how it'll do as a Ruby IDE.

    --

    -... --- .-. . -.. ..--..
  23. Desktop Linux Viability Study by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    I think this is a good example of a company that has successfully brought products to Linux and has made money on the platform. It demonstrates that there is infact a market for commercial software on Linux and *hopefully* will cause other software companies such as Macromedia, Adobe, Intuit, etc al to invest the money necessary to port their applications to Linux.

  24. Made money? by NineNine · · Score: 3, Insightful

    How do we know they made money? The article said nothing about profits, and it's not a publically treaded company.

    1. Re:Made money? by perrin5 · · Score: 1

      >and it's not a publically treaded company

      So why would they lie about profits?

      --
      hmmmm?
    2. Re:Made money? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How do we know they made money? The article said nothing about profits, and it's not a publically treaded company.

      If it were a publically traded company, I'd be on the lookout for lies every time I have heard something about them.

      Since they are not, either they are making profits, or are in deepening debt, but I don't see them lying.

  25. Aethera Screenshots... by GiorgioG · · Score: 1

    The Aethera screenshots remind me of the dreaded Lotus Notes interface. I'm hoping it doesn't suck like Notes does from a UI/usability standpoint.

    1. Re:Aethera Screenshots... by digerata · · Score: 2, Insightful
      I'm a little nervous about it:

      The other way we differ is that we didn't set out to make an Outlook clone, as a matter of fact the UI designer has never even seen Outlook.

      That's great and all. But how can you be a decent UI designer if you have never seen some of the best examples of User Interfaces. Despite not wanting to make a clone of Outlook, there are wonderful UI elements MS created for Outlook and MS Office in general.

      You can't just read a book to develop excellent User Interfaces. You have to experience what is out there and build on that with your own and other's insight.

      --

      1;
    2. Re:Aethera Screenshots... by Psiren · · Score: 2

      I tried Aethera, and it was totally unsuable for me. It was one of the ugliest pieces of software I've ever seen. I don't mean to stomp all over the poor guys work but you're right, he really should take a look at some other stuff first. Maybe things have improved for 1.0 though.

    3. Re:Aethera Screenshots... by Alanus · · Score: 1

      Just take a look at their notes: Somehow I'm not really sure if their designer really never saw Outlook...

    4. Re:Aethera Screenshots... by Samus · · Score: 1

      Speaking of Aethera whatever happened to the open source competitor Magellan? The server for it doesn't seem to be up as I write this. Is this just one more unfinished project?

      --
      In Republican America phones tap you.
    5. Re:Aethera Screenshots... by A+Big+Gnu+Thrush · · Score: 2

      I thought the same thing when I saw it.

    6. Re:Aethera Screenshots... by twener · · Score: 1

      Aethera started afaik as a fork of Magellan. Magellan died later.

  26. Geek uniform? by NineNine · · Score: 1

    Is there a particular reason that *every* geek (including this guy) has to have a goatee, and most of them are overweight? Do all geeks want to look like clones of each other? Do they want everybody to know they're geeks? I can easily pick out geeks in public... overweight, goatees, no clothes style, and usually a phone worn externally. Also, it's got to be really hard to get laid looking like that.

    1. Re:Geek uniform? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I can easily pick out geeks in public... overweight, goatees, no clothes style, and usually a phone worn externally.

      You'd have a hard job picking out Linus, then, as he looks nothing like that. Ditto for Larry Wall. I'm also a geek, and I look nothing like your description, either. So much for your geek spotting ability.

    2. Re:Geek uniform? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Also, it's got to be really hard to get laid...

      This, coming from someone advertising "Free porn" in his sig. ;)

    3. Re:Geek uniform? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      2 out of 4 from me: no goatee (facial burns
      means it will never grow) and no phone because
      I hate them with a passion. Overweight and
      badly dressed scores though - aint got time
      to dress....

    4. Re:Geek uniform? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I look like a government experiment to clone members of the military. Short hair, clean shaven, good shape, very stocky, I run, I dress well, don't own or want a cell phone, I'm young, I have money, I still don't EVER get laid.
      Interesting concept on why

    5. Re:Geek uniform? by spencerogden · · Score: 1

      Would you rather aphone worn internally?

      --

      Spencer Ogden

    6. Re:Geek uniform? by NineNine · · Score: 1

      I don't know about you, but the pants I wear have these things called "pockets". They're designed for holding small items such as wallets, keys, and telephones.

    7. Re:Geek uniform? by Jack+Hughes · · Score: 3, Funny
      Is there a particular reason that *every* geek (including this guy) has to have a goatee, and most of them are overweight?

      You can eat pizza but you can't shave while sat at your keyboard staring at the screen.

    8. Re:Geek uniform? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      why is it that the uniform of the really low iq club is lots of tattoos and piercing everything at least twice?

  27. Re:QuantaGold? DataArchitect? Give me the Connecto by GoatPigSheep · · Score: 1

    Many PC users want a native version of OS X, but Apple hasn't delivered. Native ipod support would be good too, but Apple never delivered there either (although third parties have). Their official recomendation is that you buy yourself a mac in the color of your choice.

    Not much of a difference here, it's companies trying to push their own propreitary products (wether it be windows or mac hardware/software)

    --
    GoatPigSheep, the 3 most important food groups
  28. um, there *is* native windows support for the iPod by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Apparently you haven't been keeping up with the latest RDF emmissions from Cupertino. Maybe you should go check out http://www.apple.com/ipod?

  29. Offtopic: Grammar of this post. by gabbarsingh · · Score: 1

    ... how the embedded Linux market was surprisingly successful financially for them,

    I think it should be "how the embedded Linux market was a surprisingly financial success for them" maybe the author intended: "how the embedded Linux market was surprisingly financially successful for them". The latter just doesn't seem fluent.

    "... desktop-oriented company actually made real money from Linux this year!" I think it should be "real money with Linux this year".

  30. throwing in the towel by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They were *selling* applications based on a beta version of the Qt library.

    Never mind the philosophical debates on software quality, and ethics. Is it even legal to sell an application that uses a beta version of a library? Must be.. - I guess TrollTech doesn't care much about anything, either.

    I absolutely give up. You creatures are completely hopeless.

  31. How for back should we go? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is it too much to ask that the blurbs on Slashdot's frontpage should explain what a software package does, instead of just citing the name as if everyone should magically be familiar with them all?

    What is Linux, can someone explain what is QT? And this MacOSX, I've never heard of it. Can you show a little consideration and explain every little detail? I am too lazy to google, or even click the handy link provided in the blurb.

    Sheesh people. If you click the link for the Kompany, the product/project links for Kapital and Aethera are on the front page. You are literally two finger-flicks of the mouse away from the info you want. How can you be so lazy that you can't do your own clicking?

    1. Re:How for back should we go? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      How can you be so lazy that you can't do your own clicking?


      He hasn't had time to investigate, silly. I guess he has time to troll slashdot, though.

  32. Re:QuantaGold? DataArchitect? Give me the Connecto by hype7 · · Score: 1
    Many PC users want a native version of OS X, but Apple hasn't delivered. Native ipod support would be good too, but Apple never delivered there either (although third parties have). Their official recomendation is that you buy yourself a mac in the color of your choice.


    um,

    Apple's iPod site: Pod for Windows
    Good news for the millions of Windows users who own PCs with built-in FireWire (also known as i.LINK and IEEE1394): In response to insistent demand from PC users, the world's best MP3 player now does Windows. iPod fully integrated with the award-winning PC media player -- MUSICMATCH Jukebox Plus(TM). So every song you add or playlist you create will automatically transfer to your iPod.

    Go troll somewhere else with your "mac in the color of your choice" comments.

    -- james
  33. Re:QuantaGold? DataArchitect? Give me the Connecto by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    > The number one most useful product they could offer OS X users right now is a port of the Connector [ximian.com]!

    Nice idea, wrong company. Maybe you didn't notice, but Shawn Gordon works for TheKompany, not Ximian.

  34. Aethera UI designer has never seen Outlook ! by InodoroPereyra · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Very nice and refreshing interview, I wish TheKompany the best. The only part that was really shocking to me was the following:

    The other way we differ [from Evolution] is that we didn't set out to make an Outlook clone, as a matter of fact the UI designer has never even seen Outlook

    He is talking about Aethera, and comparing it to Ximian's Evolution. It really strikes me that their User Interface designer has never seen Outlook, the most used email client. He should IMHO. I heartly agree on not having to clone Outlook, but you need to take a look at what people are used to, just as a reference. And a lot of the potential users of Aethera are now using Outlook.

    That said, I should probably add that I have never seen Outlook myself but I am not a UI designer for an email client ;-)

    1. Re:Aethera UI designer has never seen Outlook ! by gnugnugnu · · Score: 1

      i serious question how good the usability can be if they failed to do a compartive study.
      maybe it will be usable for newbies, but if your target market is former outlook users (which they certainly are in Ximians case) then is a really bad idea not to have even looked at it.

      From my very limited use i hated the inteface to Outlook but it might have done a few clever things and if you study it carefully at least you can learn from their mistakes.

      But what do i know, i am not PIM user and am not likely to change my ways anytime soon.

  35. Re:QuantaGold? DataArchitect? Give me the Connecto by GoatPigSheep · · Score: 1

    I was not aware they were offering ipod software for windows now. This is obviously a new development.

    Claiming my post is a troll though is pretty pathetic, the other points I mentioned still stand.

    --
    GoatPigSheep, the 3 most important food groups
  36. Windows Aethera? by mgkimsal2 · · Score: 2

    In terms of comparing [Aethera] to Evolution, they both are at the heart email/PIM applications. We differ initially in the fact that ours will run on Linux and Windows

    So does he mean 'will' as in 'in the future' or 'it will run today' on Windows? Native version, or this one of those 'install Cygwin' things?

    --
    creation science book
    1. Re:Windows Aethera? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They use Qt which doesn't need cygwin because Qt uses win32 for its windows version. You could use cygwin and run the unix version of Qt, but that's what you'd need to do if you cannot afford the Windows version. Of cource, thats providing they will still release Aethera's source again. There was a SF project and it was a forked KDE-only project at one time, kinda liked Quanta.

    2. Re:Windows Aethera? by jbolden · · Score: 1

      Qt is available for Windows natively. so if you code your GUI in QT it will run under Windows-GUI and not just X. I'd assume there is some work in porting anyway but probably not much.

    3. Re:Windows Aethera? by gnugnugnu · · Score: 1

      hopefully it is better than Kivio for windows

      for some reason QT sucks ass, sucks donkey balls, sucks great big rocks through a hose on windows 95,98,ME.
      Kivio hardley runs for a few seconds before it crashes.

      Hopefully Trolltech have fixed the problem by now ...

    4. Re:Windows Aethera? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      for some reason QT sucks ass, sucks donkey balls, sucks great big rocks through a hose on windows 95,98,ME.
      Kivio hardley runs for a few seconds before it crashes.

      You saying "for some reason" prompts me to believe that you don't have a clue what you are talking about. QT's stability and Kivio's stability are two different things. Assuming that if Kivio is unstable the QT must be too is almost too lame to expect.

      You can get any toolkit, even if were ideal and bugless toolkit, and make the app crash in a few lines of code. Now tell me, does the overall app's non-quality somehow change the toolkit's excellence? No.

      See?

  37. Not enough by ChrisWong · · Score: 2

    LSB does not cover Qt nor KDE, environments that Kapital depends on.

  38. Re:QuantaGold? DataArchitect? Give me the Connecto by marmoset · · Score: 1

    If you look at the amount of engineering Apple has been throwing at the PIMesque components of Jaguar (namely the substantially upgraded Mail.app, the new Address Book and iSync), I'd say the most likely point of origin for Outlook interopability is Apple themselves. They seem to be doing some of the backend work too, with the expansion of their directory services plugin stuff on at the infrastructure level.

  39. theKomapny is great to do business with! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I just bought Kapital, and when I initially was debating it I had a few questions. Shawn answered them personally ..over the course of a few mails.

    I had some problems compiling under Gentoo ("can't find -lkdeprint"), but their developers have been working with me... and have been very helpful and informative.

    So far I am more than impressed with how they operate as a business, and look foward to doing business with them again...

    If you are considering them, you won't be sorry if you decide to do business with them :)

    -Brendan (http://www.spaga.org)

  40. Aether for Zaurus by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I though they were going to do a zaurus port of Aether... or is that just more marketing drivel? The mail client on the zaurus sucks hard. Lying bitches.

  41. Enough with the K's... by AyeRoxor! · · Score: 1

    Is spelling things wrong supposed to be cool? Becuase if it is, the Kash and Karry down the street is cooler than the Kiddie Kountry day care down the block.

    Enough spelling things wrong. It's not cool. It just looks stupid.

    1. Re:Enough with the K's... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's not about spelling things wrongs. It's about inventing new names just by changing one letter in the words. Names that sound similar, but spell differently.

      I presume you're the one who would like, instead of writing "Coca Cola", to write "Formerly coca-nut-based cool drink", just for the sake of correctness.

      Kiddie Kountry is supposed to read the same, but spell different. It's not supposed to be cool. It's supposed to be different so that it can be a non-common name and so that you register it with USPTO.

  42. Re:QuantaGold? DataArchitect? Give me the Connecto by gnugnugnu · · Score: 1

    I was gonna say that.
    mod the Coward up.

    I wonder why Ximian does not do any cross platform software. I guess they are more of a consultancey than a retail business and they seem to be doing well enough at it.
    Maybe with the move to gtk2 they and other linux only projects will start to do both Gnome2 and GTK2 builds and offer applications for more platforms. (more likely is that people will just get Gnome to run on more platforms).

  43. Blrrp by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    the embedded Linux market was surprisingly successful financially for them, as well as selling well their desktop apps

    Gentu uncontiously slips into Polish Notation/Yoda mode...
  44. Almost open-source is not open-source... by mi · · Score: 2

    I tried to make a FreeBSD port of Aethera, and discovered, it is impossible.

    The Aethera's supposedly source tarball comes with a few binary libraries. At least one of them, according to the Kompany, is not "open-sourced". Since the binaries available are only for Linux/x86, all other platforms are left out...

    --
    In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
  45. Aethera doesn't do IMAP by mgkimsal2 · · Score: 2

    Yeah, this is a day late, but I just downloaded the latest available Aethera, and it doesn't support IMAP. It's part of the configuration setup, but you can see messages in the command line area being passed back and "IMAP4::getMail() is not supported" is one of them (or something similar to that).

    This much-lauded email/PIM thing is about to become 1.0 - still mostly aimed at geeks - and doesn't support IMAP? I don't get it.

    --
    creation science book
  46. Oh Yeah! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Trabalhos prontos

    Juiz de Fora IRC fotos