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Too Much Free Software
An anonymous reader writes "The plethora of Free Software applications available today, none working perfectly, is a problem which stands in the way of major adoption of Linux on the desktop. In order to conquer the desktop, we have to stand united. Read the article on Freshmeat."
OSS only ever gets better. It never ever stops.
It'll be catching up sooner or later, probably later.
It's Christmas everyday with BitTorrent.
none working perfectly
I'd like to see any software, free or otherwise, that does. If software worked perfectly, programmers would be unemployed.
Trolling is a art,
hog wash.
If you want a bunch of people to work on one thing until completion, PAY THEM.
Otherwise you get what you get- a sea of productivity that comes and goes in fits and spurts. you also get a lot of different ideas on how to approach the same problem.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
that they think is just the coolest EVER, because it does the one thing they do. What we need are some integrated packages with commercial quality, which are readily available and which are known to work. The "have to fiddle with it" factor really kills alot of potential linux users, because they either don't have the skills to fiddle, or don't have the patience.
The old saying of "Free software is only free if you put no value on your time" applies here.
and many on freshmeat have already pointed out that it is not much more than a poorly thaught out and poorly researched troll.
-... ---
Nothing will work perfectly. Don't expect it to.
Ah am not a crook! (\(-__-)/)
The plethora of Microsoft applications available today, none working perfectly, is NOT a problem which stands in the way of the stranglehold Bill and Steve maintain over the desktop.
Grr.
-buf
This all doesn't mean that there is too much free software. I think it is very good that people are developing new software. Linux could chose specific well-working software from all this free software and build a good system. I thought that's what a linux-distribution usually does. Still, free software must be available, maybe with a rating system.
...is never enough
IMHO I think that free softwarte isn't what's damaging Linux, it's the release of something to early or without open source that makes thigns unusable. Hell, I don't remember paying for WinZip (shareware I know but good for my point) but it is essential if I need to get something from that damn .zip extension
Business \Busi"ness\, n.;
A scam in which all people involved perceive as beneficial...
Like someone said at Digital Illusions: "when 90% of the work is done, 90% remains". Maybe he's not that good at calculus, but he has a point.
It's much more fun to start on a new project, or to add extra features, than to make those existing ones work perfectly.
Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even if you take into account Hofstadter's Law
"The plethora of Free Software applications available tday, none working perfectly, is a problem..."
What about all the proprietary software that doesn't work perfectly (you know what I'm talking about). It hasn't prevented a certain software company from dominating the desktop market.
sig
explain to be how mplayer isn't a "decent" movie player? I haven't had a single problem with it and it plays all the stuff I have thrown at it.
I actually prefer its UI over WMP (although I use WMP only because of the TV-out being easier with Windows)
In order to conquer the desktop, we have to stop making solidarity speeches and start pushing code.
I really think its great to have a large number of apps to choose from but its true that sometimes an application is worth trying to compile/run. Some apps are great, others are shall we say worthless.
This is one reason I like debian as if you stick to the default packages anything you install you will at least know that the application is stable and featured. If not you can download the unstable which normally has more functionality but, by nature, might be slightly more unstable.
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
One of them will have to go. Choose which one should die, and merge all the good bits into the other one.
I've always called it the 90-10 rule. 90% of the work takes 10% of the time, 10% of the work takes 90% of the time.
Where do these people get their information?
There are millions upon millions of applications for other operating systems, mainly windows. A broad search on download.com will prove my theory.
The slight difference is that Linux distros happen to want to include all of the few hundred applications that are available for Linux all in one, who cares?
The REAL issue here is for the big corporations to adopt and make software for linux, it has nothing to do with the enthousiast who writes a small text editor, that guy should get his facts straight.
Posting useless rant since 2003.
Most of the article seemed to be space-filler but one good point I have to agree with is
Sourceforge should start removing projects with less than 1% activity for the last six months (every week, they could propose several projects to be removed, and allow a month for the activity to increase)
I'm sick of so many going-nowhere projects cluttering up the categories. Most were probably a spark of an idea that didn't go anywhere - and never will - because its originator has decided to concentrate their attention elsewhere.
It should be a case of good housekeeping on Sourceforge's behalf if nothing else.
- Welcome the coming of the New World Odour
Every so often yet another article like this comes along. They all make some wrong fundamental assumptions. Namely (1) All Open Source/Free Software can be lumped together and treated like the output from a traditional company, (2) that no one should develop their own programs for the fun of it even if another already exists and that (3) all such software is governed by some sort of committee (or shoukd be) that decides what should be writtem and who should write it. Face it, it's up to the Linux and *BSD distributions to pick and choose which applications, utilities, GUI's etc. get provided and it's up to the users to pick and choose what they like and what suits them best. This article completely misses the point of freedom, Freedom and the Free Market.
Stick Men
Finally a article that has enough in it to start another Gnome-GTK+/KDE-QT war. I allready had cold turkey symptoms.
Now I just wait for the first reply from oGALAXYo.
I agree whole heartedly. I understand the draw of making your own software, hence everyone trying to make thier own apps. What we need is a core of applications that are focused on and used by the majority, mozilla for example. I've been using linux since someone gave me a redhat 5.2 CD. it has come leaps and bounds since then but it still needs focus to strive and survive. too much of anything is no good, there need to be a focus on one or two apps for each category. I love gnome, and others love kde, fine let there be two major window managers, as long as those developers work together to make things cross compatible. A good example is fluxbox/blackbox do we really need both? They are pretty much the same friggin thing. We need to work together not in little groups, otherwise we go nowhere. As much as I will get flamed for this I think redhat is on the right track windowmanager wise anyway, one dektop that is setup and easy and ready to use, applications right there for you. Tinkerers can still change it, but joe average is all set to go.
.02
as always just my
Ubuntu- Linux for human beings.
Nooooo ... its about the children :-)
All you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be
Its bad that anyone can write software, because everyone that can writes software. Clearly to make this authors vision work we must eliminate not just free software but the freedom to write more software. Perhaps all software developers should be certified by an industry board. That will reduce the pool of authors. Perhaps all software should come with a certificate enabling it's installation and non certified software would not be allowed to run. That is after all Microsoft's ultimate vision, with them the arbitritrator of who will get what installation certificates.
The freedom of free software is not too different from the freedom to vote. Certainly not everyone exercises this right fully or well if they choose to at all, and certainly some do so very badly. However, that hardly seems a basis to deny most people the right to vote because only some can do it right.
In order to "conquer" the desktop, a concerted effort would be required. The OSS model by design is more collaborative in nature, which goes against the mindset of having the single, dedicated focus of achieving desktop dominance.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Motif, Tcl/Tk, wxWindows? Die!
...You can't just tell people to drop these toolkits, or anything else for that matter. I know people that use fvwm because they like it better than everyone else. OSS isn't a democracy, people can use what they want. You can't make some people give up what they like for somebody else.
I don't understand what this fab is with bringing linux to the desktop. Let people use what they want. Your not going to force people to use it. If they feel like trying it, fine! If not, fine! I'm not going to give up good software, or control over my system (aRTs, gnome-control-center, nautilus), my favorite software (centericq, irssi), just because some prick wants a buncha people I don't know to use linux.
You seem to be missing an include statement.
Look at the number of disks that most Distros now have, Redhat is up to what 4 CD's?? what the hell, I remember when it all fit on one CD, and if they can get a distro that fits on a floppy then what is the other 2GIG of stuff? With all the crap that a distro installs it's over a GIG of software, and this is just getting close to the Base OS as an End user can with the menu system. Microsoft isn't even this blotted!
.. you are all fighting against eachother... If there was a distro for Linux that was on par with OSX, I would buy it in a heartbeat.. truth is .. most suck ass.
This is the reason for the great success of OSX, great OS, and useful applications, there might be a few that do almost the same thing but you don't have hundreds of crappy little programs that do very specific tasks. The Opensource community should start to get together and build one really fucking amazing interface, that is fluid for everything (seems like all the environments are about 1/2 done as far as look and feel, work great for a few things then look like total shit for everything else). Then work on some really great core apps... that's pretty much what Apple did.. build a great interface, then release some good core apps that everyone wants to use.
OSX is what Linux wants to be when it grows up.. problem is everyone in linux is on a holy crusade and that their distro and packages are the best
This is an issue that keeps a lot of people off the Linux platform. Do you really want to use an APP that is still in alpha? Or something that is updated every few days?
I don't. If it's not a 1.0, I never trust it for anything. I have made that mistake a few times.
that on the surface it would be nice if everyone picked one standard
-GUI
-editor
-filesystem
etc. etc. because it would make commercial adoption of linux much easier. In that case you would only have to know one or two apps for any given task. (Kind of like in the windows world.)
On the other hand, I like tweaking, playing around, trying new software. Do you really think most developers of GNU software care about commercial viability or user friendliness?
No - because the ywrote the software for themselves, and there's nothing wrong with that.
I read the troll on Freshmeat last week. It's the usual:
:)
* There's too many choices and ways to get things done.
* OSS software isn't as easy to use as commecial software.
* There's not unified desktop, MS Office Killer (yet) etc but there are a half million text editors...
Open Source's strength comes from diversity, not from untiy. That's why numerous ways to conquer any given task. There's also 25+ years worth of software, much of it still being maintained or can still be run on modern systems. In the commercial, closed source world you'll find:
* A limited set of tools to address a given problem. If they don't work, you have to create from scratch.
* Rapid appearance of new software and equally rapid disappearance.
* Limited migration to new platforms. This stems from closed source software often (NOT ALL THE TIME) being written to proprietary, arbitrary or hardware based libraries. When MS, Intel or whoever change their standards, the software dies. (yes I know good software engineers wouldn't do this, but it happens)
* A wide variety of text editors for your various text editing needs.
$G
-- $G
Cubase/Logic Audio. AutoCAD maybe. I'm sure there are plenty more.
Jon Erikson, IT guru
While I disagree with much of what the article says, dislike its angry tone, and realise it is a troll, it does make a few valid points.
Open-source development relies on people doing what they want to do, and the result sometimes also being useful to others. So you can't force people to develop what you think is best.
However, some thought of how to help the free software community would be nice. A few bugfix patches to a project with a large installed base is going to help many more people than starting yetanother$PROGRAM_TYPE on freshmeat. Probably with much less work too. It may not get you 'fame' on freshmeat, but you're probably doing more good that way.
After reading that article, I nod my head in complete agreement. What linux needs for the masses (besides a little conversion and persuasion) is a working, fast and stable GUI + apps, a working sound architecture (such as the one that the XFree86 team has with 4.3!) and a working sound recorder/playback libaries. OOo needs to be a hell of a lot faster in load time (bloated)
This is a VERY easy goal that takes cooperation, and a few people/teams of developers to suck up that "not made here" syndrome and just HELP. seeing your name in the credits is all some people need.
Lets get behind this, can we? or is the crowd of penguins a little too cold to move?
just my 0.02c
ps. re-read the post before you mod.
The everyday average user isn't going to download, compile and install 15 different movie players to try them all out. The average everyday user is going give up, because it's confusing to them, and go back to windows. I think that was the point of this article. If not that's one that should be made. You can sit there and argue all day about how free software works for you, if it doesn't work for the average moron, it's not going to get out of the server market. If the belief is that the average user will eventually wise up, you're only fooling yourself.
Like too much software was ever a problem. Or is this a call for some sort of software communism?? "Lets all work together and I will tell you how!"
The problem is much simpler: there is none. Only because Microsoft - and many others - give their products single version numbers, they appear much more solid in the first place. Internally, they have proper versioning and the developers have goals to meet.
Those who use Freshmeat to advertise their new software development, are often too short-sighted and forget to set themselfs goals. And even then, they don't dare to set them higher. In the end, they die off. That is called evolution and only the fittest survives.
Sven
I myself have preferences and biases a-plenty. But the last thing I'll ever do is try to enforce them onto others. (And it just so happens that most of my preferences and biases are against the "leading free packages and distros". Vixie-cron? Ughhh!)
And with regards to Andreiana's admonishments about participating in open-source development: it's a lot easier to get started being the big fish in a small pond rather than the other way around. His article only looks at the big ponds, unfortunately; IMHO a lot of the interesting stuff can only be found in small ponds. Mozilla is a very, very big pond!
Is to get GnuStep operational. Then we will have a great desktop/API to build from.
...is that someone will follow this advice.
This idiot thinks by abandoning the creativity inherent in decentralized software development, we will magically be able to redirect all resources to a single project.
He obviously has no concept of the reality of software development, and I sincerely hope his ignorance doesn't dissuade someone from following his own ideas.
none working perfectly
Right... I would like to know in which desktop OS the article writer thinks any positive integer number of apps work perfectly.
Washington, DC: It's like Hollywood for ugly people.
... but I have to disagree with the article. It makes some valid points, but I think they're pushed in the wrong direction.
The thing about free software and OSS in general is that very often people release or allow downloads of nightly builds of software that is not really a stable release. This leads to the impression that OSS doesn't work, simply because the build downloaded doesn't work.
But there are too many successes, too many properly released stable builds out there to say that OSS has failed.
"Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised."
-Marilyn Manson
What we DO need is for the ones that exist to be working properly and have all those useless developers (who are wasting time forking new projects and reinventing the wheel) adding their features to existing projects. It's not about fame and having your name as the author. It's about the world!
Contrary to many users' expectations, for most authors it's not primarily about the world. Free software is about having fun writing what you want to write.
It's kind of gross to come along and find all these end users demanding foo, blah, and blargh.
"We need more integrated software". "Free software authors need to combine GNOME and KDE so that my desktop is nicer". "Blah blah blah me me me". You want that, buy a non-free program. Then you're paying the developers, and can tell them what to do.
Free software is about developers, not users.
May we never see th
What about all the proprietary software that doesn't work perfectly (you know what I'm talking about). It hasn't prevented a certain software company from dominating the desktop market.
That is because there is a default, standard choice. I am not saying this is right or wrong, but I get the author's point. "Working" is used too generically in this article. Mplayer works, but not to some people. I can use it to play clips, but I can't resize them to play fullscreen. You have to figure out and compile in certain features. That is all a part of "working", IMO. Maybe by "working" he means "right out of the box, and the same for everyone".
Don't get me wrong, I love Linux and it is my environment of choice, but it has problems. I still have problems with my font server crashing on my Redhat 7.3 box. When it dies, apps like Opera and ImageMagick don't run. I, as a computer user, should not need to even know about the font server. But I live with the ideosyncracy of Linux because I still prefer it.
All that being said, I do think that for Linux to "succeed" on the desktop for the general public, there needs to be standard choices for various tasks, and those choices need to work. What the author suggests, picking something and making it THE standard, is easier said than done. All of this assumes, of course, that Linux needs to be accepted on the public desktop. I am not so sure it needs to be. Why can't it stay the "geek's choice", just like Mac is the "non-geek's choice"? (tongue-in-cheek, but generally true) It is like arguing that Google should IPO. It assumes that going public is the ultimate goal, which isn't necessarily true. I am happy with the path Linux is on, and it would be perfectly fine with me if it stayed on that path. The general user's desktop is not the ultimate goal.
There is no spoon.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
GTK
re-write file_dialogue.c so it's actually useable
let me choose the colour scheme of my widgets without hacking the theme engine!
GNOME
Yank out gconf and replace it with a real configurator like kde's control centre
Support for split pane file management in nautilus
re-arrange the button order so i don't have to read backwards!
KDE.
Speed it up
Fix the tabbed browsing
fix the broken arts package
One thing I would like to see is reduction in functionality duplication in distributions.
There is no need to have 2,3 or more implementations of the same thing in a distribution.
I am not saying all should be done at once (GNOME vs KDE), but this should be a goal.
I'd like to see 1CD linux distributions again.
Maybe it's just me, but the feel of the article reminded me of a memo from my boss. Let's focus on the basics people. Don't be doing unproductive things. If you have questions, ask. We have to look like a team out there, let's play like one here.
The main difference: my boss pays me. So, unless this guy is hiring, he must be coming from one of the other groups that believe they should be able to direct your energies without providing compensation. He's either running for office or he's a spiritual leader. So much for his negative comment about preaching.
Our Lady of the Open Source....it has a nice ring to it.
--
Was it the sheep climbing onto the altar, or the cattle lowing to be slain,
or the Son of God hanging dead and bloodied on a cross that told me this was a world condemned, but loved and bought with blood.
This article definately borders on paranoia. Granted that the open source software scene tends to look chaotic, but it is this very environment that has brought us software such as Linux, Apache, and other greats. Trying to put order on this chaos is a risky venture, and might play the part of taking away the same romanticism from it that draws so many talented developers. Its a given that open source developers are working not for money or for a corporate goal, but for creative release, and personal ego gratification (I dont mean that in a bad way), and trying to instill discipline in this environment is akin to asking artists such as painters and poets to work 9-5 wearing a business suit ... eeks!
All you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be
Yes. Granted there could be a little more availability in linux. I happen to like mpg123 for my music. The problem is the availability of the software. When my grandpa buys a Dell and plugs it in. Windows starts, ask him what time it is and he ready to go. Why use nestscape when internet explorer is a click away. theres virtually no difference between the two. what we need is to make free software like linux, and mozilla easier to come by, instead of 1000 hours of free AOL at wal-mart get a Mozilla Cd.
too much software a problem?
think selection...if the one you want doesnt work perfectly...contribute in some way...even if its just with bug reports.
I see this as a good thing...the kinks will work themselves out later
Could Jesus microwave a burrito so hot that he himself cou
As developer, I don't care to run some 0.7 alpha version and eventually get it crash on me. After all, I knew the risks I was taking. I would also read TODO, README and others and discover that some of the expected features are missing.
But Joe Six Packs would not. He would curse the distro (or even Linux as a whole) when SomeApp 0.31 alpha crashes, or when he realizes, after running it a couple hours, that the features he needs most are not yet implemented. That's a bad thing that could hurt Linux reputation, and maybe scare a potential user.
Most "famous" distros avoid to put unstable software in their packages, but incomplete apps still are out there. Maybe a separated disk (or directory) with "incomplete" software could be added, to clearly draw the line between "production-ready" and "take a look, it will be cool when ready".
If you can read this, thank an english teacher.
I can't help but agree with this a little bit, and I think a lot of it is personality driven.
My take on it is that geeks are too willing to argue over technical differences. In some cases the differences are meaningful, in many cases they're only superficially meaningful and ego prevents pursuit of the greater good (ie, a really good widget) in favor of some fuzzy technological benefit that doesn't really impact the user.
There's also the issue of personality and control. Established projects have leaders (defacto or otherwise) that control what goes into these projects, and some of them are willing to deny good ideas just to keep control of the project.
The personality and control thing also comes into play with people who want to start their own projects. I think a lot of them get started because someone wants to be in that postition -- I admin the sourceforge site, the www.myossproject.com site, the IRC channel, yadda yadda. The project itself is almost secondary to achieving the status symbols of open source development.
Another contributing factor may be that more established projects are complex software development efforts. Good ideas are relatively easy to come up with, but implementing them within the scope of a large project requires mroe experience and skill than a lot of newer developers have, so they do new projects instead.
Diversity is a good, but sometimes I think that too much diversity just weakens what's out there without providing any benefit.
I agree with a lot of what the article has to say. One thing that could help a lot is if GnuStep matures to the point that porting apps from Mac OS X starts to happen en-masse. If that were to occur then the Gnu world could end up being the beneficiaries of a whole lot of high-quality Mac OS X programs. This could go a very long way to producing a fantastic desktop experience.
No its about doing what you like.
Programmers that write as a hobby (most FS programmers) should choose/create whatever they like. Don't try to force them unless you will pay them for it!
I used twm for years and only recently moved to ctwm because I like having more then one workspace...
I don't want to use the other window managers because their philosophy doesn't match mine, and it probably never will.
Another program to do almost the same thing isn't bad... just look at the amount of software available for windows, I bet there are 380 text editors for windows to. Just one is the default and most used. But that doesn't mean that the others don't have a right to exist.
Jeroen
Secure messaging: http://quickmsg.vreeken.net/
The people writing this software, the ones doing it for fun, are the ones who value choice and the ability to poke at source.
The ones who just don't want to drop $99 on Windows...well, they may not care about diversity or choice and just want a cheap replacement for Windows, but they also aren't writing code. So their voices are veeeerrrry veeeeerrry quiet.
May we never see th
Hello.
.docs and .ppt files fine, however under linux it is painfully slow to load, and has problems with fonts.
I am mainly a developer, so most of my apps tend to be i console, hence I don't boot straight into X, and dont run it very often.
However, I also have a windows install, which I presently *need*, to use openoffice at a reasonable speed(I have a modern machine, less than 1 month old, p4 etc, but OO just chugs under linux), watch dvd's, browse the net..
See, No doubt some will disagree, but i view mozilla as bloat, and phoenix still has a while to go before it as useable as opera or IE.
As for DVD playback, mplayer is just to slow, it goes out of sync every 30seconds, no menu support, artifacts etc
No, this is not due to my display adapter, it is mplayer code, arfi(head devloper) admits as such.
And..for some reason OO under windows works fine, reads
OO version 1.0.1
Mplayer version 0.90rc3
Slackware 8 with relivant upgrades
kernel 2.4.19+rsbac
Video card is savage pro, 16mb..but plays dvd's fine under windows.
> is a problem which stands in the way of major adoption of Linux on the desktop.
Don't run GNOME, trash RedHat and install a Distro which installs KDE as default. The problem why people belive that Linux is not ready for the Desktop is that one of the leading Distros (RedHat, which get bought mostly by Customers and Business) has a mixture of unfinished GNOME + other applications and sells it as "fullworthy" (but still half working) Desktop OS to their customers. These people mostly have the first contact to Linux that way, they start what RedHat offers them as default and play around with it. They are not significantly impressed of whats offered there and trash it in favor to Windows again and mark it - 'Linux is not ready for Desktop'. I think they would have made a better impression about Linux and the Desktop if they first met KDE because it comes really close to what they are used to on Windows and because it already offers a lot of applications that you search on GNOME List of KDE apps. I came from the GNOME plattform and using KDE these days because I belive it to be a cool Desktop and I belive it to be supperior in many cases. I do respect GNOME and KDE as Desktops and I do respect the people working on it but we should also face the reality and see the requirements for business and if we compare both Desktops then the answer is obviously clear that KDE fill that gap perfeclty because of it's OO design, because of it's seamless integration, fast development, cool applications and RAPID development. I know I will heaten this conversation again but GNOME should face the reality and stop 'marketing' GNOME as THE Desktop on Open Source. If people met it the first time (specially customers and business people) they get a wrong impression and this won't help the Open Source Desktop that fills their requirements because they had the first contact with the wrong Desktop. Linux and Open Source is indeed ready for the Desktop. Sad that Distros sell them the wrong one. Think about my sentences before replying and think about it clearly. GNOME is progressing slowly and they are missing a lot of applications that may be interesting for business. For hackers it may be the cool Desktop but not for business, they have other requirements.
And before I get flamed: greets,
oGALAXYo
Look man, if I wanted to see news from last year, I can find it myself. Stop posting events or articles from two months ago. Post something new new. If it's old, then it's not news. Catfish?
I don't think that there are too many free software projects out there. Have you ever gone to download.com and just looked around at all of the thousands of Windows applications? Many many of them perform the same function. Some better than others, some are innovative, some are not. That doesn't seem to stop people from downloading and using them.
/opt! :) Not to mention the lack of automated installers for most projects. The installers exist, people just don't use them. I'll admit, some of them are a little lacking (a scriptable installer ala InstallShield could be helpful), but I have plenty of Linux games that use those simple installers, and they work great, despite kernel upgrades and distribution changes.
./configure too much these days. I've always felt that build scripts like ./configure were useful for the developers and hackers, but the general public really shouldn't have to have gcc installed just to install new software.
:)
Quantity isn't the problem. The problem is quality. Well, percieved quality anyways. Unix has a different paradigm when it comes to software installation. That's a fact. There is no 'Program Files' folder that everything is installed to. Of course, there's always
IMHO, people just rely on
It also doesn't help that we still don't have a hard definition of what a useable base installation of Linux entails. Yes, we have LSB, but it really doesn't seem to cover enough ground. They waste a lot of time documenting exported functions, when really they should simply state library versions, and maybe even keep a copy of the appropriate source (even a precompiled copy?) available on their site so there is no question about what version they are referring to.
In addition to fixing the LSB, distros really should start obeying it. It certainly would make things easier for us end users. Is RedHat 9 even LSB compatible at all? I never see anything on their website about it, but I've continually heard from various sources that "the next version is LSB compliant".
I'm sure my remarks have pissed more than a few people off, who will undoubtedly attack my credibility. So for the record, Linux could stay non standardized for all eternity, and I'd still have no problem using it myself. I'm only putting these arguments forth since I feel that they are the real reason that free software isn't as mainstream as we would all like.
Rebuttles and counter arguments are, of course, always welcome.
Cheers!
Just another bullshit article that wants to make linux monolithic like windows. To hell with that. The whole point of open source and Linux is freedom of choice. If I wanted someone else (besides me) making decisions for me, I would have stayed with microcrap. No I would rather there be to many (as the article puts it). At least in this case, the better ones will float to the top because of TRUE popularity and not because some knucklehead/governing body/commitiee/etc made the decision.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
...software? Or should it be a location for developing software. One can argue if it is stable and no new work is being done on it then it should be hosted elsewhere. Not sure I agree with that point of view but I can see the merit of it.
Slashdot, home of supporters of free software, free music, and free speech.Except for Moderators that disagree with you.
So if we're suppose to push source code as freedom of speech then this article would basically be saying "shut up everbody except these few".
The software 'out there' is mostly ( because a couple of programs are the exception ) the result of a combination of 'code Cra--ing' and manager/customer 'add-ons'. Design. Good, solid design. Not the case when joe/jill programmer has a bright idea and sits down and codes....... ( 'Code Cra--er') Not the case when a software project is started and the manager/customer comes in after preliminary acceptance with 'just a little modification' or 'just one more good little feature' ('manager/customer add-ons' -- customer-creep) The time-restraints, the budgeting requirements, and the race to the market dont consider that the cost of 'first-to-market' may include the extreme cost of 'service-packs', 'patches', and 'vulnerabilities'. Even the best software engineers ( their opinion-Micro$--- ) dont have time to properly design a product, before the product lifetime is past. Rats-running ever faster-too much change-and not enough lifetime......
Exactly! I also think this brings up a major problem with OSS. With commercial software, I am sitting in an office for 9 hours a day, writing software for pay. This means I HAVE to get all the specification requirements complete, have all bugs that the QA guys find fixed, and meet a deadline.
Now, compare that with OSS. I have no constraints, no managing force to keep me on track. I want to do something cool, I want to write a KICK ASS MP3 player. I know that there are thousands out there, but mine is going to be much better. I get the basics finished, it plays mp3s but it's buggy. Guess what... I get bored and move on. Face it fixing bugs is mind numbing. With out a paycheck as incentive to fix them, 99% of the time, you don't. Especially, when your interests have shifted.
It's the mentality of wanting to create something of your own, not fix something of someone elses. The thing that keeps commercial software on track is that paycheck.
----- "Blame the guy who doesn't speak English." -- Homer J. Simpson
(At least that's what I call this.)
:) I can think of several offhand. And let's face it, a lot of people just want to "stick it to Microsoft."
...
The argument that there's "too much choice" (and people make this argument in a lot of domains, not just software) has a certain merit. Choice is difficult; every day we face a series of tradeoffs. In areas with fewer choices, it's sometimes simpler for that reason to actually select one over the others.
However, it seems that this argument also has an underlying assumption that there is a single, common goal which "we" could all achieve if we would only just let emacs and vi have a final, conclusive deathmatch, and if we could make every GUI user draw straws between KDE and GNOME (and WindowMaker and the various *boxes, too, but they'd get fewer straws) so all this unproductive wheel-reinvention strife would go away. If you think there is such a common goal, name it -- I bet good money that counterclaims would pop up to invalidate the claim
The point (in my opinion, and noting that a more important metapoint is that your opinion may be different) is that the best outcome of having a real marketplace of ideas is not the construction of the perfect widget, but rather the constant, distributed reconsideration of what and how to do things. That means churn, and lots of broken eggs.* Maybe in the end you decide you don't even need the widget, because you've found another way to sufficiently increase your happiness by other means that spending your time in widgetland is a bad investment.
If you think there too many choices in the world of software (leaving aside the question of how open the code is for a moment), there are lots of ways to *reduce* your choices without harming anyone else's ability to wade through them. Example one: here are lots of consultants who would love to trade your money, if you have some, for their time and expertise. You can specify what you want the resulting computer setup to do, and your consultant will attempt to create one in a way which a) makes him money yet b) is pleasing enough to you that you recommend him to your friends. Example two: in the free software world specifically, you can download and use any of several (sorry, choice again) of the stripped down distributions designed for efficiency, like Peanut Linux and ignore other things available. If it does *your* job, it does.
Remember, UNIX was (in part) created because Thompson and Ritchie wanted to play a game. So they did it. What if they'd been hampered by a committee with a lot of predetermined goals about "what the world really needs"? Could be that the world would now be perfect thanks to T&R's Famine Reduction Machine, but I think it's more likely that all the cool things their desire to play a game with has led to (including the OS I'm typing from right now) would most likely just not exist.
That said, there are a lot of dead projects on SourceForge which should probably be spidered and marked for death in as non-destructive a way as possible. Like sending out multiple notices to all listed project heads in an attempt to make sure that dead-seeming projects really *are* dead.
timothy
*Eggs are good scrambled, until you create the ommellette which best pleases you, or egg custard, or goldenrod eggs
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
I have long railed against the unchecked proliferation of open source projects - there is far too much duplication of effort in the community.
:-)
There are too many projects for what are effectively the same things - there is such such a thing as too much choice.
Last time I looked there was something like 27 different ICQ clients available and that wasn't counting all the clients that support the other IM protocols. There are god knows how many editors, shells and window managers out there.
This sort of thing leads to other serious issues like a plethora of applications that don't present in a consistent and user-friendly manner or that interoperate only by getting the user to jump through hoops. Oh for X-apps that use consistent keybindings no matter what WM you've chosen! (Fat f*cking chance of that happening...)
It would be nice for a change to see projects actually merging rather than forking all the damned time. Even better would be if a few more folk checked that there was a program out there to do the job already rather than to do it themselves, re-inventing the wheel in the process and diluting the pool even more. Especially if there is a pre-existing program that they could conrtribute to or even (in some cases) resurrect.
Of course I could just be crazy...
He's right - whenever I search for an OSS solution, I usually find 5-10 half done applications. Seldom do I find finished polished product.
And, on the subject of stability; The OSS crowd has got to get off the soap boax that OSS code is more stable and secure. It is not. Microsoft has billions of dollars in the bank, they can make their product however stable they need to be. The quality of their released products is calculated and managed. The arguments that OSS is 'better' is only hurting the movement. As soon as OSS software starts to infringe on MS becusause of stability, then MS will change their tragets and OSS is back to playing catch up again.
What OSS needs to succeed is complete and functional applications with complete documentation. Perhaps if OSDN would step up and manage the submissions of near identical projects rather than blindly accept all (quanity not quality), OSS could make some headway.
slashdot troll = you make a compelling argument I do not like the implications of.
The fundamental problem with Linux gaining a bigger market share is that people think once it does gain a significant share on the desktop -- say even 25% -- you're going to lose this whole free-software-free-choice spirit. You're just going to turn into another commercial OS, even if it is free. It means you're going to have a lot of applications in use by a lot of different types of users (now primarily at least somewhat computer-savvy folks, by necessity), and you're going to have to provide them not only more solid applications (a small subset of the available apps that actually work, as he mentions), but also good support, guaranteed bug fixes, dumber user documentation, a central hub for users to turn to when they need help and information, (there's a lot of those now, too) all these types of things that are core to Windows, Mac OS, and even Solaris users. Also by necessity you'll have to stifle the "other apps", the alternatives to the big heavily-used ones. You might say, this is exactly the point of the article, but think about it -- Linux is about choice, about letting you do what you want to. However, you don't want your new 25% market share going and installing say, a crappy window manager... it will make their Linux experience terrible and move them away from it again. So, you must stifle the promotion (and eventually, the innovation) of these smaller packages. And like it or not, it's some of these smaller packages that have innovated, even in the form of inspiring the bigger players to borrow some features from them. The growth of Linux's market share will also be its death, at least in the form that we know it now. It will become another commercial OS, and not what Linux has come to be these days. Such is the conundrum of such an open and varied software community. Ryan
"All your base are belong to this file I send in order to have your advice."
I'd hate to see them removed. Maybe it would be better to have a filter option, that way for the person that wants to see those, they can and possibly start a new fork and pick up where the project was left off.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
of the world unite!
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
Whether you agree with the article or not, there are some great references at the bottom. If Friday is a slow-code day for you, read 'em!
--
jc
I've found that it'd really like a well publicized place that LISTED what all was installed in Distro DuJour. Case in point, Redhat 8's almost a gig, and yet there's no real way, short of taking the initiative and executing each program with find out what everything does. You've heard of a joke-a-day? It's be GREAT to have an app-a-day. Just make sure that the dialogbox has 'Next', 'Cancel', and 'Uninstall'
On the other side of the coin is NetBSD. NOTHING MUCH is installed by default. I _like_ that. It's _good_. That way I don't have to worry about apotential compromise in an application I didn't even know was installed on my machine.
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
I propose that a distribution be made that takes the best of each type of application and packages them together. Sort of what Knoppix does, but goes a step further.
One of the major problems as I see it, is that the major distributions try to include everything. Red Hat, Mandrake, Suse... all of these try to distribute a huge list of appllications, many of which are redundant.
What would be more effective is a distribution that includes the best in each category. Microsoft does this and it works fine for them.
A lot of people will take the defaults if the defaults are good enough. Including 15 text editors in a distribution is a waste of time. The current major distributions are rather bloated because of this.
Choice is great, but it becomes ineffecient when all you have are choices and no recommendations. This is a personal experience based on several years of consulting for a software company.
If someone doesn't like the 'defaults' then they can simply go and download their favorite software package that doesn't come with the standard distro. This way they projects that are worth while will survive, while the smaller less functional ones will drop by the wayside.
Poof.
You end up with a program that is very special purpose and not of much use.
I carefully use peons to keep my perspective.... :)
This guy has a very good point - there's a lot of free software entropy out there, and it might benefit all of us to stand behind the projects that have the most potential.
Most computer users are not sophisticated enough to see beyond the "mainstream" applications for a given platform. That's probably half the reason why Microsoft Word is such a popular piece of boatware in the Windows world: people use it like you or I would use a text editor. They do this, even though it's overkill, because Word is the mainstream editing program. I have even seen people write a paragraph in Word and then e-mail the resluting document, rather than simply writing the paragraph in an e-mail. Insane as this may be, it's evidence of how non-techies perceive and use software. In order for free software to thrive it needs its own set of "mainstream" programs.
A couple months ago I encountered an article here in which it was revealed that Microsoft was making changes to the XBox system that would make it harder to run rival software like XBox Linux on it. I replied with, who cares? XBox Linux is probably a fun and stimulating project, but it's waste of programmers. Ditto for the dozens of new text editors and new MP3 players that get churned out on a regular basis. Free software needs focus.
GINP is not Photoshop
i completely agree with the idea in the article. More effort should (IMHO) be put into making each 'segment buster' application the best in all Computerdom (TM). For instance, look at the "diversity" of Instant messangers for GNU/Linux. There are millions (search for msn, icq, yahoo, jabber) on Sourceforge to see all these projects.
;)
The "best" way (IMHO) for GNU/Linux to pull into the lead is to follow the 'apache' (gimp) (sorta) idea: central core builds versatile framework, places emphasis on extensability (to draw in help by plugin/module writers) and the synergy happens... because Apache is the 'leading' opensource app in its sphere A) people write the mods B) people deploy it so C) see A.
M$ is going to have a VERY hard time busting in the webserver market unless it employs some famous monopoly tricks (.net, passport renders 'webserver' un-usuable/un-necessary/???)
A good example is IMHO the tact taken by the KDE team with Kopete. Here we have the "official kde IM client". Developed with interoperation with KDE at its core. With extensability as a central design imperative. Ive actually spent time writting messages in the forums of freshmeat to 'competing' im clients asking to look at Kopete and implement their features THERE instead. I forsee Kopete becoming the best GNU/Linux IM client because of these design goals AND this 'official' status.
Im running a little here, but I cannot AGREE MORE with this article, its assumptions and the goals described. GNU/Linux needs to cast off some of the 'also rans' (not banish them--not tell them they arnt invited etc) but sorta "PICK A LEADER" and try and get people to rally around and run with it. Writing it from the 'ground up' to encourage this (facilitate quick uptake by new/passing developers) is necessary, but having projects like FSF picking Official GNU Applications, GNOME picking "official IM" or "official sound server"*, KDE picking "official IM"* only helps highlight and lend credibility (proving "staying power" (no one likes to see there work dumped - so people who fix bugs, add features would want to ADD them to something that has a future (...like apache modules ))).
I would like to see this meme develope into a War Cry for GNU/Linux.
*only until GNOME/KDE merge.
Are you kidding!?
I use the following free programs and they are much more stable than many commercial applications:
Winamp, Workrave, CDex, Pheonix (I've not had any issues with it, despite it's being half way done)AbiWord (I admit I've only used this a few times, but I didnt have any issues with it) DivX codec, Ogg Vorbis codec, a little firewall app, and I'm sure there's some other ones that I use...
AND I'M NOT EVEN A BIG GEEK!
-Derick
I love my open source OSes (Linux and the BSDs.) If a piece of software doesn't work, I usually hack it until it does. While some of the inconsistencies may be hindering the desktop adoption by the masses, I can't say I'm worried about it myself. Yes, I'm in the minority, but others like me know what it's like, regardless of what OS they use. We don't mind using getting our hands a little dirty to get something done, or go uphill when something easier is avaiable simply because we want to. Sometimes the very community oriented system like the Linux distros and BSDs are about simply using and working on a box for the sake of learning and overcoming, and not simply about getting something finished (and notice how easy is it to actually *do* the stuff after you've dealt with it from obtuse and difficult angles, or have read up on potential problems, or written your own patch for the app.)
This is the system I use, and I wouldn't have it any other way. I support those who are working on consistency issues and GUIs and end-user apps, but to suggest that the whole thing is coming down because mom&pop can't grok the GUI, well, I'm not in that area and it's not my concern. Just don't destroy all the stuff I like in the process, please.
... 6 months later ...
agghhh my project has been deleted
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
But for other, the definition of "perfect" and "software" could be different. Of course, if I say that i.e. "cut" is perfect he could say that it don't have a GUI interface, that it could cut separating fields based on regular expressions as field separator and so on. But if I define perfect as "it do what is intended to do", well, it, and most of Open Source software IS working perfectly, afaik.
On what architecture are you programming ?
Are you sure you have enough room on the stack ?
What about the 0 in exit(0), should'nt you use a predefined constant instead ?
Well, I think even the shortest program brings us a lot of question... Sure it'll work most of time but isn't it the real problem ?
They usually remain at a low level of features, as Free Software developers are a limited resource. There are exceptions (GIMP), but they usually have major companies behind them (Open Office, Mozilla) which know what the users want and what to ask from their developers.
Oh, so they usually have companies behind them, huh? You mean like Apache? Or NetBSD? Or the Linux kernel? Or Perl (which constantly seeks community donations)? How about the GNU software suite? Did you know that the lines of source code from GNU exceed the lines of source in the Linux kernel and the X Window System, and that's not counting emacs? How about XFree86; what company is behind that? What company is behind KDE? PostgreSQL has a company behind it now, but didn't for years, and that company still seems to be somewhat on the sidelines. And if you don't think PostgreSQL has features, start comparing its MVCC concurrency control system to Oracle's row-level locking, and ask yourself which supports more language in the database.
Actually, other than the two you mentioned, plus GNOME, most large free software projects seem to be done without a formal company backing them. The ones I listed above have plenty of companies driving them, as community members, just like everyone else, but none of them is identified with a particular company in my mind.
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
perfect. We must only drive Model-T's.
Sincerely,
Henry Ford
I don't want it conquering.
The desktop I use is the one that's right for me.
What use a standard haircut ?
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
As a relatively new user of Linux I see what he is saying.
[rant]
Last week I decided I needed a video player to play my music videos under Linux. It would need MPEG-1, MPEG-2, and a play list. MPEG-3 would be a bonus.
After HOURS of working I had nothing. MTV has nag screens and mplayer was just plain awful.
Xine seemed like an option, but I couldn't APT it, so I was stuck downloading package after package to fit the dependencies.
I still have no video player, and as a newbie to Linux I find it frustrating.
With so many options, users new to Linux don't know which one to use. And with so many bad programs many of them will become fed up and boot into Windows before they find a program that works for them.
[/rant]
This same thing has been said before, typically with a reference to Sourceforge or Freshmeat. The reply remains the same:
Quantity and quality are not the same thing. Think of Sourceforge as the primordial ooze from which life is occasionally sparked. Simply putting all the primordial ooze into one pile will not make a great application. Software development is not like the output from an industrial machine, developers are not interchangable. The Mythical Man Month pointed this out decades ago - applying more developers to a project has decreasing returns. Furthermore, in a system where noone is compelled to work, the belief that you can increase focused development by reducing the number of projects is dubious at best.
So that explains why limiting the number of projects in Sourceforge would probably not help. What abou t the flipside? Is there any benefit to the large number of projects? I would argue yes. While there may be some projects which never released anything (I think I created at least one of these), primordial ooze is not supposed to be pretty.
I worked on CipherCore for a few months, then realized that cryptography is hard and decided to move on. While it is not a secure crypto system, and should not be used, I still occasionally get email from people who are poking through the source code to see how the JCE (Java Cryptography Extension) works. While CipherCore is not a good product, it might help some more motivated developer to build something similar and better, or at least to get his or her feet wet.
Reducing the number of projects would only reduce the volume of primordial ooze. It is not logically consistent to believe that it would necessarily lead to more focused development on the remaining projects, but it is a certainty that it would reduce the amount of example code (good, bad, and ugly) available to experience.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
While many "geeks" may not care whether the average Joe or Jane uses Linux or not, they should.
I'd label myself an above-average Joe when it comes to computers.... I can program some C, I can install and configure Apache and I can build a decent system for a couple of hundred bucks. Yet, I still struggle when I want to install or use a piece of OSS. I find that I often have to get into an "engineer mindset" (which is tough when you are not an engineer) to figure out what the developer means or wants me to do. Sometimes I get the impression that because OSS is "free" and there is no warranty, that developers think they can half-ass the install instructions or that they write them as if somebody with their acumen in programming is installing it. I wish all developers would (if possible) make an install like Phoenix's install... unpack the damn thing and drop the folder wherever you want!
I frankly just don't understand why distros insist on having two desktop environments on a basic install, and two Office suites (Open Office and (Gnome or KOffice)), Kate, Emacs, Mozilla and Konqueror (and Galeon) and two of a bunch of programs. I mean, jeez, how many friggin web browsers do ya need!?!
I look at my Red Hat "Start Menu" and there is a Preference option and a "System Settings" option... who the heck came up with that!?! Add to that "System Tools" and the average user has no idea where to go to do basic stuff... it took me a few months to even get comfortable with three different places for these things. I'm not saying "Make things like Windows or OS X", I'm just saying that the amount of software and the fact that distros feel the need to install doubles of a lot of stuff makes it difficult for the average user to understand (and thus fear) OSS.
The thing is, if the Open Source movement wants more "clout", it has to have more people using the software. There are a limited number of "geeks" in the world, but there are quite a few "quasi-geeks" (like me) and a lot of people just "want the damn thing to work!". So Slashdotters, Developers and everone involved in the OSS movement should all care about getting the average person using OSS, making sure they can install it, understand its interface, and can get help without getting flamed, etc.
Unfortunately, my (completely) anecdotal evidence suggests that until OSS is streamlined and made usable for the masses, it will be hard to get outside of the enterprise environment (not that the desktop user is necessary, but it does provide more "market clout" for OSS).
-A
Add a category "Complete" for projects that are considered complete by the writer, and functionally manages to do the job required.
I.e. if there is a UI for an old ISA video capture card, it will necessarily be "abandoned", but if this is becaue the program now does all that it is meant to do, then it needs to be diffferent from ones where the author is no longer botherint.
Could be used when the author created=s "Version 2", or when someone forks the old code.
- The plethora of Free Software applications available today, none working perfectly, is a problem which stands in the way of major adoption of Linux on the desktop. In order to conquer the desktop, we have to stand united.
Yes, because we all know that the reason for proprietary software's acceptance and success is perfectly working software that stands alone in its own categories.Bollocks.
Rather the most success software company in the world has a policy of "3 times a charm" and this company also enters markets where established competitors already exist.
Don't tell me to read the article after presenting an erroneous supposition as an introduction.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Uh... how about every freaking PC game ever made, except Quake?
Don't take it so personally. The point is write all the software you want, but there are some good apps out there that need improvement, and there are some talented programmers dinking around on piddly projects that could really make a difference in the future of linux if they could focus their energy.
I'm an end user, not a developer of any kind, and I can tell you from the user standpoint it's frustrating as hell. Why can't openoffice read WordPerfect docs for example? It's frustrating I can't do anything about it. There are tons of people who can however that spend their time on one of these many little text editor projects instead.
Of course many linux developers don't care about end users and would prefer to keep linux in their elite little clutches. But the developers need to realize that their end users have the same goal to become independant of the MS monster. It's time to team up and knock out some real killer apps. Can't we all just get along!!!!
later../.
Amen. The story totally ignores the way open source works.
If you want a bunch of people to work on one thing until completion, PAY THEM
Which can be to be on an Open Source project. However, the fact remains -- they need to be paid.
This wave of users coming in, demanding a clone of Windows, not really caring about functionality, choice, the ability to see source, and just saying "I want idiot-proof editor! I want idiot-proof file browser! I want idiot-proof web browser! I want GNOME and KDE combined because they sound the same to me and I don't understand their internal structure! All developers should drop everything else and work on that, because that's what I want! Me me me me me!" piss me off.
Most developers are working on their software because it's *fun* for them to write something the way *they* want to write something and try out their own ideas. Maybe learn something. Fulfilling the needs of a whiny end user who doesn't give a damn about anything but "cheap and Windows clone" is really far down on the list. If you submit some code to a project, you're *much* more likely to be listened to.
I mean, seriously. Open source is about developers. It's generally not about users. And this misunderstanding is producing a lot of discontent. "Why are people writing all these stupid command line programs when I want a GUI program!"
Here's the deal. If you want a feature and no one else is doing it, especially if it's been suggested over and over before already (merge GNOME/KDE, clone InstallShield), you're pretty much responsible for doing it yourself. If you can't write code, sorry. Open source developers are not a bunch of little "code fairies" that grant you your every wish. If you write *some* unrelated code for their project (or for other projects), developers are more likely to listen to requests. If your sole contribution to the OSS world is telling everyone on Slashdot that "Linux rules" or whatever, yes, you may get ignored.
Now, do developers sometimes go out of their way to fulfill random end user requests? Sure, especially if they don't take too much work to implement. It *is* a source of pride to be more popular than commercial alternatives. However, it comes down to the fact that users frequently don't seem to understand that they're going up to talented people who are already volunteering their time and (very skilled labor) for particular goals and then trying to tell them what to do.
As for "it's not about getting your name as the author in the credits", that's also false. Lots of people have had fun analyzing open source, because it's a weird social phenomon and in the news a lot. It's a gift-based culture, where you get fame in exchange for your work (in addition to other things). There's a *reason* volunteer OSS people don't like doing plumbing-type work on code. Recognition in exchange for code *is* important to most OSS developers.
Finally, while coding is important to get respect and influence in the OSS world, it's not the only path. Artists are quite scarce, and folks like the free WorldForge project desperately want you. If you're maintaining the website for a project, that's going to grant you some influence in that project and others. If you do translations, that's good too. Not many people translating to Swahili.
But if you just want to play Icewind Dale and don't want to pay anything for your software...well, the Open Source world probably isn't really a place that's going to be all that pleasant for you. Maybe, maybe one day. But not now. BSD and Linux simply don't fit you very well.
May we never see th
Every time open source software gains new ground (first as toolsets for proprietary OSes, then as geek-toy-desktop, then as hidden services servers, then as public services servers now on the desktop) I keep hearing people say that the number of applications and the number of choices are bad things.
This is hooey.
It will continue to be hooey as open source software continues to gain ground in every sector of software usage.
The useless assertion that there's somehow a need to consolidate because Microsoft is coming up behind us with the Palladium-bat is even more silly than most arguments I hear.
The correct response to Paladium is to give large gobs of money to the EFF and then get active to make sure that no matter how hard MS and various other parties push DRM, it's never required by law.
Laws can kill OSS (well, at least commercial OSS), and if that happens, it will have nothing to do with Microsoft's assertion that forking is "unhealthy".
I really expect to see an article like this coming out of Microsoft, not Freshmeat. For shame.
The whole point of OSS is that nobody actually tells (as in commands or orders) anyone to do anything. The success of Linux, Apache, BIND etc. are testament to the fact that successful software can be developed this way. Given, there are projects where I wish the developers would put more effort into one feature or into making it work at all, but the interesting thing is, that I can tell them (email or bugtracker etc.) and often enough they have listened.
But, the main reason why the community shouldn't, or probably couldn't change is because it just simply works. And this is all due to the fact that it is a self-organised network. These kind of networks have a enourmous capacity of stability and work rather effeciently (for more info on SO networks).
"Choice should not only be limited to two or three options, but all of them should also have a common code base."
Says who? And more importantly, why? Commercial companies don't (always) use the same methods, processes or technologies. Why? Simply because there is no one best way, as there is no one best code base on which to build the other options.
IMHO we should embrace the diversity of the different projects and enjoy the creativity the developers put into them and generate in others. Where necessary, the developers of competing projects are working together to interface their systems. If someone would make a case that we need "yet another senmail" or what have you, let them work on it. It's their time and nobody (or at least very few) pays them. It'll work in the end, maybe just not the way you expected.
I feel so sig.
No software is bug proof the only difference is what the price is free or not. Free software has a good future and more chance to grow.
Most free-programmers are prima-donnas and most free-project-leaders are ALSO prima-donnas.
when you get personality or idea clashes you get a fork or a parallel product development. Gnome Versus KDE and the recent XF86 fragmentation.
I personally believe that Yes we would get there faster if KDE and Gnome were merged a long time ago when it was still possible, and all the office-app writers jumped in the Open Office fray.
same as everyone working on NLE linux apps got together and made something like Premiere.
but we dont. and this may slow development way down but i am GLAD I can choose between KDE and Gnome and E! and Blackbox and the million others. I am glad that Abiword exists (and is 90,000,000 times smaller and faster than OO Wordprocessor)
This is what makes up diverse and much more powerful than anything that Apple or Microsoft can ever accomplish.
I just think everyone need to focus more on throwing out features and bloat for speed/accuracy instead of following the downward sprial that is Commercial software feature bloat philosiphy.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Its a fact. Just think - when you have to get something done in like 3 minutes - do you really have the time to look up man pages etc??? A few clicks - there you are. We need to realise the virtues of windows too, without them it really would NOT be where it is. Lets give up living in false security, its sad that windows is more useful than any unices - to a average user, but its true!
All I have to say is coughmiscrosoftcough. Someone posted already (sorry can't remember the name) that. "If all software worked perfectly, programmers would be out of a job."
Is that it evolves like a biological system. The best parts get recycled, and the rest gets forgotten. Over time you get incredible products, far better than anything closed source could produce, simply because their software is stagnant. There is no new blood.
It is short-sighted to see the early stages of a developing tech to be imperfect or incomplete. (And yes the stage is still early.) Instead you need to measure it against the fitness of other products on the market (where it measures up well.) or against previous versions (where it measures up well.)
The thing that hurts linux on the desktop is lack of popular acceptance. It's still considered radical among grannys and baby boomers; they're worried that they won't be able to use aol on Linux, and that thus, their digital existence will come to an end. This acceptance will only come with time.
Just my opinion.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Right. People need to stop pushing so hard for linux on the non geeks desktop. The average end luser is not a geek and they would more than likely hate linux (or Amiga, or Mac, or anything other than windows). Trying to shove linux on end users desktops at this early stage will only serve to leave a bad taste in the mouth of the general public. Keep linux where it is strong; servers, embedded devices, stuff like that.
Being a longtime Windows user and developer, I have tried installing Linux on countless occasions, trying to take into consideration the user-friendliness for people less techno-savvy as myself.
While setup and terminals are not foreign to me, specific packages are, and the arcane names given to some of these packages makes it very difficult to determine the best of breed. As a result, the chances I, or anyone else, will pick a package that is less than user-friendly increases, and in turn increases the chances that my perception of Linux software will be that it's difficult to install, understand, and use.
I think Linux suffers from several things against businesses who are dedicated to writing OSs (all one of them):
a) Unity: I often see 6-7 packages doing the same thing in an ok way, when the effort involved could have made 1-2 packages doing something in a great way. Evolution is about the only software I can look at and say "wow, if everything were written like that, Linux desktop adoption would skyrocket". Thank goodness for sites like TUCOWS which at least rates the packages, gives you links to the homepage w/screenshots, etc.
b) Installing Packages: Face it, if you ask a Windows user to go to DOS, change to an admin user, unzip something, change to a directory, and run the installer, they won't make it past step 1. I think Linux needs a standard (as many have started down this road individually) graphical installer for installing packages, and I especially think Click-N-Run is a step in that direction.
c) Font rendering. Appearances do matter, and the best software can be ill-received if the looks detract from the functionality. OpenOffice has nice tools, but the default fonts and font rendering in Linux makes me think I need a new pair of glasses. Consequently, it hurts to write a long document because the fonts are so bad.
We're 7+ years beyond Windows 95, yet I still see Windows 95 as more usable for non-techies than Linux is today.
OSDir.com on the O'Reilly Network is a nice showcase to users of what is out there that's good, stable, and beyond 'beta' project wise.
I started OSDir as a showcase to end-users and now that it's on O'Reilly it is beginning to get a lot of eyeballs from folks who want to become familiar with open source and want to try stuff out.
Too much Free Software? And you thought people were complaining about a lack of applications which makes them stick with Microsoft Windows. Well, they're right. On Linux, there's no decent movie player and no working sound recorder (like the one in Windows 95) shipped as the default by GNOME, but hey, there are more than 385 text editors! Choice is good, but it's frustrating when none of the alternatives works properly.
There are two gross misrepresentations here, one that all text editors are as broken as sound recorders and the other that there's anything that can be done about hardware caused problems.
First, let me say that I'm quite satisfied with the state of free text editors. All the versions of VI, emacs, GNOME, KDE, ash, nano, in fact any text editor I've ever used worked perfectly. I've never had a text editor fail, seize my computer, or in any other way malfunction besides Microsoft Word. Hey, I'm even typing this post in a text editor! How about a call to ispell or aspell, Slashdot? Mozilla? Hmmm, should I stand in line at the big comitte meeting or fix it myself? Ah, ha! Now I see something, do you Marius who favors big "united" efforts and corporate sponsorship? In any case, the text editor like all others work because text is within the control of the programer.
There's nothing the programer can do about the multitude of propriatory sound cards. This is a land mine that Microsoft and hardware vendors laid long ago. Microsoft knew it would be imposible for another software company to "support" all the sound cards in the world but had the power to make them all support Microsoft. Hardware vendors knew that their hardware would only sell if it worked with Windoze and wrote drivers for Microsoft. A percieved side benifit was that they could sell new cards by not writing new drivers. The side benifit has worked to a certian extent in that perfectly useful sound cards get thrown out with "obsolete" PCs. In any case, no reasonable hardware standard exists for sound cards and so no programer at the GNOME level can know what to expect. Oustide of the hardware there's all sorts of fantastic software to analyze and manipulate the sound in ways that comercial software should be very afraid of. The situation will change radically as soon as hardware makers see the futility of supporting Microsoft, and that is already happening.
One thing is for sure, code sharing happens and works. While some readers may not be impressed by the text manipulation, most people are impressed by graphics and there free software shines. Marius noticed the GIMP. How about Eye of GNOME, Electric Eyes, XPaint, Data Explorer, FreeUSP, and the hoards of other graphics and image manipulation programs out there? How about their shared libraries such as Imagemagick?
Bah! Free software rocks because there is no freaking central comitte governing who works on what. People simply solve problems and share the results. It's getting to the point where ordinary users are able to understand and the tipping point is not far away. Hopefully, developers will continue doing as they do and ignore siren songs like Marius has.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I've been saying this all along! :)
I've said this for years. Having used Linux since RH 4, there is too much software variation in the Linux world.
The majority of the computing world wants standard software that works MOST of the time. Computer users want to be able to easily exchange files, and install software without worrying about compatibility. Most computer users are realists; they realize that software is not perfect. Software fails....just like cars, and other complex things. People understand this.
Corporations want standards. And most of all they want predictable standards. Sure MS screws up a lot, but corporations have gotten used to the predictable nature of MS software...imperfect though it may be.
RedHat seems to be the closest thing to a predictable release of Linux. The community must put petty squabbling and ego aside and decide on a "standard" way of doing things if it is ever going to challenge the commercial software industry.
-ted
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I think we should just have one computer language too. Make that C. We should do away with all other languages and become more efficient. The same with human languages too. Lets do away with all of them and only use Cherokee. Too much dirversity is bad.
Jefe: We have stuffed many pinatas for your birthday celebration!
El Guapo: How many pinatas?
Jefe: Many pinatas, many!
El Guapo: Jefe, would you say I have a plethora of pinatas?
Jefe: Yes, El Guapo. You have a plethora.
El Guapo: Jefe, what is a plethora?
Psst... one unknown secret of free software's relative success is that people are always thinking that they are in a 'community'.
This is, of course, not a advantage of free software itself. Proprietary systems like BeOS and Amiga have similar communities. It is not a result of the software's license, but of the community's size. When you have 10000 users personal contact is easier then with 10 million users. It is physically not possible in the Microsoft world that 1% of all users of a particular app or feature write a mail to a MS developer and get a personal answer.
Another problem is that major functionality is quite often rewritten from scratch. It's not unusual to see freshmeat announcements like "What's new: completely rewritten". Don't throw away all tested and working code and documentation to start all over again, introducing new bugs which annoy users and waste time.
Boy, if I didn't throw away and re-write stuff, it'd be even buggier and harder to maintain than it is. Sometimes I feel like my most productive programming days are the ones where I delete more lines of code than I write.
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
(Think: large machine/small machine; user with good/bad eyesight;
Choice is bad because:
Choice and standardisation are opposites, each has its own benefits.
In the past, choice has been seen as a ``good thing'', us techies were happy to put the work in and learn the choices and make transitions as standards changed.
Aunt Tilly doesn't want that. She just wants to: surf the net; write letters; ... she wants just one tool for each task, she wants them to all work together; she doesn't want to learn new tools every 2 years.
As computers become commodity items and computer use becomes de-skilled, the needs of the non technical population need to be appreciated by us hackers. We keep on wanting world domination, so we need to pay the price.
This is what the author was saying.
But, you say, what about the next best thing ?, well - maybe we need to play with that in private (or at least where Aunt Tilly doesn't see), until it is polished & ready when she will look at it, but only if it is so much better that it is worth her learning the new way.
Go to this site and look up what the "accepted" standard application(s) is/are for whatever it is you're trying to do with an in-depth list of problems, strengths and weaknesses.
The key is to keep the list small and the keep the perspective that of the ordinary business user. There could also be similar lists focused on academic, personal, or scientific applications on the same site.
Anyone with some credibility willing to take this on? Maybe it has to be someone from the Windows side of the universe.
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
I've thought for a long time that in this sea of OSS projects and various hype surrounding them (which is only bound to get bigger and messier), the experience and knowledge of which ones are good is a very valuable skill. Rather than paying a lot for software, companies should (and many do) pay for people who know software.
It used to be that you start writing a program from scratch (I'm tallking commercial/IT here), but in the last few years it turned into looking for suitable OSS to start with (e.g. lets use Apache as the web server, Postgres as db, now I need to look for some graphics libs, oh and is there an OSS spell-checker out there?... Let's see what license is this under... Looks like this this piece of functionality I will need to write myself... etc..). And the success of the end result seems to be largely depndend on how thorough this decision-making process is. In fact a good real-life example of this is the Safari browser - someone did their homework and chose KDE's engine even thoug Gecko is widely known as *the* engine out there.
As a sidenote, this is also one of the things that might differentiate experienced old-timers from young new-comers. You may be a brilliant 20-year old programmer, but the 35-year old dude in the next office can put a better solution together faster because he knows where to go to look for good source code, what's hype and what really works.
grisha.org
There are some valid points here that should not be lost. Unfortunately they are being overlooked, while people complain about the author and his lack of tact.
:-) but I've been working with software for 20 years and been an SQA Engineer for the last 10. I've seen a lot of useful code go to rot (tho others have seen much, much more)
Controversial statements around here tend to get classified as trolls and flamebait, even when there's a point behind the ill-worded rant.
Key point:
Is there a LOT of overlapping, functionally incomplete and unpolished UNIX software? I would say without a doubt the answer is YES.
Just consider the point and answer this question for yourself, without clouding the issue in emotion or the author's irritating language.
Why do people start new projects, where one existed?
How often do "new" free software projects (legally) "borrow" code and ideas from other projects?
Do people learn MORE doing all the coding themselves, vs. learning to find a niche in an existing project?
Assuming the main argument against consolidation is "fresh ideas" (not to under-represent other concerns or minimize this one..), assuming this, what steps could protect this ideal while at the same time minimizing code waste?
Can this issue be put to rest *without* discouraging new ideas?
People can blame this on GTK vs Qt, but the problem's more widespread than that. You can see this in the "mp3 jukebox" class, as well as "ad blockers", file-sharing clients, etc.
I think part of the problem is ego, and I don't mean that in a BAD way (not entirely). If you disagree with a project design, why offer to rip the guts out and clean the code, all for someone who ultimately gets most credit?
Another problem is immature (or missing) libraries. If someone is writing an ad-blocker, they need to: a) write their own proxy or plug into an existing one, b) create a table of regex's to block, c) create exception tables for allowing images that match the regex, but shouldn't be blocked, d) define a file format for the regex and URLs.
It seems to me that there's an opening for a blocker-library that defines a common format. Then the ad blocker authors can focus on differentation: distributed/collobarative sharing of custom-block lists, user-management, language-of-choice, etc.
Gphoto took this strategy and made a general-purpose library for cameras. It is used bt GTK/GNOME applications, -and- by *text* apps. A pity there are no KDE applications using gphoto. I haven't formed an opinion why this is so because I *don't* want to assume it's due to the "dirty name" (g-something).
Another problem is KDE and GNOME themselves: they both lost focus on the core desktop, and are competing for a wider goal of "the UNIX API" for all desktop applications. It seems there's hope in the form of freedesktop.org defining small improvements in interoperability, but it's maddeningly slow progress. Furthermore, my understanding is these desktop libraries are not well supported for non-GUI applications: if you want to develop a curses-driven GUI for a GNOME or KDE-targeted library, good freakin luck to ya. The functionality doesn't always need to be bound to the widget/GUI stuff but mostly it is.
Lastly, people can learn more by forming their own project and going it alone. That's perfectly valid to practice your coding skills, but there's also benefit in learning teamwork and diplomacy by joining a project (not to imply these are exclusive goals).
(More examples?)
"Back in the day" there were two main Napster clients for GNOME: Gnapster, and Lopster. There doesn't seem to be library (GNOME-specific or not) for general-purpose "nap/opennap" communication. These authors each poured long hours into usability and back-end functionality. The gui's were unique, but the back-end can't differ by very much. It would have improved things if GNOME and KDE shared some neutral libnap library.
Just my thoughts. I'm not a real developer (I script
Linux on the desktop?
Linux on the desktop is a pipe dream until the dependency problem is solved.
Unless the application comes bundled with the distro, there are dependency problems more often than not.
Need an updated application? It's ridiculous that you have to upgrade the distro to update an application.
I haven't booted into windows for many months, so I'm fully a gnu/linux user now. I've had others respond by saying that windows has the same problems. One joker even went on to tell me how he had just today installed 4 different applications in windows, and they all failed due to dependency problems.
Bull
Windows has its share of dependency problems. But when I buy (or used to buy) an application for windows, or downloaded freeware/shareware for windows, as long as it was endorsed for my specific version of windows, it worked. Or I had to locate and install a library. Big deal.
And ms has announced that they will be attempting to get a better handle on their dependency problems. Their solution sounds like a good one under the circumstances.
The major gnu/linux distros want the desktop? Fix the dependency problems. Until then, linux on the desktop is a pipe dream. And they will actually be doing damage to the market by having possible newbies try it out, then go back to windows when they get the dependency failures for applications they believe may replace what they used to use in windows, but they can't figure out how to load the application because of the dependency problems.
windows days are numbered. ms will implode in the next few years. The drop in the price of their stock, and the speed of the drop will be breathtaking, and will have people jumping out of windows (hah! pun not intended). But we shouldn't be subject to beta releases of distributions because the distro companies won't solve the problem with dependencies
And don't mention debian. When I want a fire, I don't rub two sticks together to start the fire when there are lighters around.
First I tried Xine. I always try Xine first because the scaling works, while mplayer doesn't. The disk drive started spinning and Xine locked up. I've found that it does this with about 20% of the DVDs in my collection. I think it is a font issue, or maybe it doesn't support some extra menu features or something.
I switched to MPlayer. Like I said before, I don't get scaling with mplayer, but it plays almost any DVD I throw at it. Half way through the movie, my crappy (Aureal) sound card started corrupting the audio ever-so-slightly. The sound would vacillate between working perfectly and just being slightly annoying. Xine has never done this.
The movie was viewable, but not perfect. Don't get me wrong. I think Linux is fantastic. I can't even count the number of stupid problems I used to have with Windows and I'm not going back. I can, however, understand the argument presented here that there are too many 'slightly-less-than-perfect' solutions and no '$100 but it will work' solutions for Linux.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
I think the "none" work perfectly argument can be made about all software. All software has bugs, and there is no software out there that pleases everyone all of the time.
The only reason the same complaint can't be made about "closed source" applications is because of Microsoft's near-monopoly on the desktop. With the exception of Adobe's products, Microsoft's software is the first thing you think about when you need an application under Windows. In many cases, many things are already there, even if you do not want them.
On Linux, there's no decent movie player and no working sound recorder (like the one in Windows 95) shipped as the default by GNOME
Isn't this really based upon the distribution? Even if your distro doesn't come with a good media player, you can easily download something like Xine for most of your media needs. The important thing here is that you can choose to NOT have a media player if you don't want one.
On the Windows front, you have media player by default... loaded with tons of "features" that nobody ever uses, "internet usage reporting" (whatever THAT is), and all sorts of other crap.
Like IE, I'm not sure if you can safely remove it if you don't WANT it.
Which leads to a huge problem of closed source software: bloat. There are tons of applications with way too MANY features. And since many of these are the "standard" applications (MS Office, Adobe Photoshop) for their use, people end up sacrificing huge amounts of disk space for these applications when perhaps a smaller application will suit them just fine.
Do many open source programs have the "full features" of their closed source counterparts? No. But I find open source easier for finding applications that fit MY needs better. Not everyone's needs plus some.
Microsoft's desktop environment is far from perfect, but when you get Windows, you get their desktop... and only their desktop. They were nice enough to let you go back to the old Windows 95-2000 style desktop in XP, but really it is the same WM with a different skin.
Some people download Lightstep, but that is not the "default." Is Lightstep wasting its time by existing... since hardly anyone uses it? (See Below)
GNOME and KDE for the majority, Blackbox and Window Maker for modest hardware. The rest are simply wasted time, both for the developers and for users who try them and then delete them in disgust
Why are new "desktop environments" a waste of time? Who knows what kind of innovations and ideas will come from different, new, approaches? Sure, most of them do suck... but that doesn't mean a good, new desktop won't crop up.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
ITYM "read the troll on freshmeat".
Mod parent and grandparent up!!!! Excellent ideas.
"Pulling together is the goal of tyrants and despots. Free men pull in all directions." -- Terry Pratchett
... just so long as when someone asks me to help them fix a problem they're having, I can get to the underlying base configuration files/tools (ifconfig, modprobe, etc) to do things "the hard way".
If there is a riotous variety of applications for the desktop, it's only because of the vast differences in the way people operate. The reason that you don't see this on the server application side is that these are often longer-term projects, leading people away from writing Yet-Another-IRC-Client to Yet-Another-Apache-Module (or configuration option).
There is absoluely nothing wrong with Linux having six (or sixteen) different graphical system configurators
Do you like Japanese imports?
10 REM Perfect program
20 GOTO 10
There you go!
People who waste their time with text editors are usually beginners who don't have any experience... i wouldnt want them to write something as complex as a WordPerfect filter :)
Besider that it is their spare time, and I wouldnt dictate them what to do with it...
Tips for interacting with OSS developers:
* If a developer says he doesn't want to implement something, that's it. Arguing is pretty much certain to not convince him that he wants to implement it, and may tick him off towards you. If the developer isn't the maintainer (and hasn't said "my project will *not* contain this feature", just "I'm not going to write this"), you can try suggesting it to another or (far more likely to get code in) write it yourself.
* Be *nice* to developers. They're smart people that are making good stuff that they're letting you use for free. People that jump on a project mailing list and say "Your program sucks because it doesn't do foo and bar and I'm not going to use it because of that...so your only chance to get me to use it is to add these features" *are* going to be ignored. The author is *not* going to help these people. If an author adds a feature you asked for *thank him*, no matter how trivial it is. The work, had you *paid* to have it done, would have cost a bundle, and the thanks is only another few lines of typing. If you've been using a piece of software for years, and email the mailing list or a developer for the first time, start out with a brief thanks for the software, and compliment them on whatever it is that you really like about it. Volunteer OSS developers aren't getting money, so their only pay is appreciation and the enjoyment of coding. The only pay you have influence over is appreciation. Don't stiff them. In the same vein, do not personally attack open source developers -- "You're stupid because you don't support postgres as your back end". If anything, it just discourages them from making more software. Everyone loses in that case.
* If you have a question, first look at the FAQ, search google, and check the docs. Really. Definitely do not get angry if you just get flamed if you ask a FAQ on a mailing list. You may be able to get away with simply going to the vendor if you're paying money. Then some paid schmoe gets stuck on the support line listening to you. Open Source developers are generally interested in coding, not in doing support. Generally, support is not tons of fun. It also helps only a single person, whereas them writing even one line of code can benefit hundreds of thousands (or millions) of people -- generally not an efficient use of valuable developer time. Don't post to -devel mailing lists in the hope of getting developer attention and faster support. That *definitely* will get you ignored.
* Don't use ultimatums. It doesn't help you, and it pisses *everyone* off. With software you're paying for, you are a customer. You have clout. In most cases, a volunteer open source developer doesn't give a damn whether Joe Blow uses his program or not, especially if Joe Blow wants extensive support. Saying "Change this feature or I'll use MySQL instead of Postgres to the Postgres developers is not going to get you anywhere." Actually, ultimatums are a stupid tactic even in conjuction with paid developers -- look at Larry McVoy constantly getting shit on the Linux mailing list. Regardless of whether you like him or not or want BK to be used, the constant threats to stop using his software just piss him off. If you don't want to use some software, don't.
* If you can code at all, sending in a patch will get you lots of goodwill from developers.
* Never send in bug reports that say "foo crashes" or "foo crashes randomly". You'll get ignored. If you get a segfault, hand in a stack trace (run gdb and then type bt). "Foo crashes randomly" isn't going to help a programmer a whit. If he hasn't seen the symptoms, he's going to consider the possibility that you might have bad hardware or a broken setup. If he *has* seen the symptoms, it doesn't add anything new.
* Most mailing lists are English. This can be hard for non-English speakers, since they may not get the nuances, but be polite. If you're asking for something, use common courtesy. Say "please". Don't lots of exclamation points. Don't use all caps. Don't use "HELP ME!!!" as your subject line -- be descriptive. Indians posting to English mailing lists always seem to come off as quite rude to me, though I assume it's simply a lack of experience with English.
May we never see th
I don't know about you, but when I'm writing code that other people are going to see, paid or not, I am extra anal about how it looks/runs. It bloody well better not have any bugs because I actually take pride in what I do. So, paid or not, I'm going to put a _lot_ of effort into making it right.
The thing that ought to keep open source software on track is the pride. If you're doing it because you like it (as everyone here is saying) then you ought to like it enough to do it right.
Is car pooling communism? Most people would say "No" immediately because they can imagine a capitalist market surviving even if people decide to car pool. However, Open Source seems to test the limits of many people's imaginations.
The user is an integral part of Open Source, and I am not just talking about debugging. If you find a program or distro that you think "sucks less" then SUPPORT IT. No, Open Source is NOT communism (or, at least it is as close to communism as car pooling). It NEEDS user feedback, whether in emotional support, advertisement, or just cold $. You will pay less than you do for proprietary software because there is no monopoly associated with Open Source, but that still does not mean you don't need to support it.
A major problem is that too many end users are such POOR CAPITALISTS that they cannot imagine a free market existing around Open Source. However, Open Source will respond positively to public feedback just as much as any other software development model out there.
Mandrakeclub really makes this easy (rpm voting), but there are infinite other ways you can make Open Source better as an end user. Complaining about it is not one of them (leave the complaining to the developers since they actually have the ability to do something about it).
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
This "give me, give me, give me" attitude is exactly what has prevented me from getting involved in open source software. I am always shocked at the audacity of some end-users who aggressively request this feature or this bug-fix. I put in 50+ hours a week cutting code professionally while dealing with demanding PHBs an unrealistic deadlines; no way I will do it for free.
Just for the record, there is NO "off the record" record.
Make a record of that.
This is obviously bogus. Do we have too many scientists, just because most of them never produce a breakthrough on the level of Einstein or Tesla? Of course not. Do we have too many open source applications because they aren't all successful? You can't get all of those open source developers to work on the same software package anyway...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
That can't be right. It's like judging programmers on lines of code per month all over again...
Cheers,
Ian
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Why We Should All Test the New Linux Kernel
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Using Test Suites to Validate the Linux Kernel
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Use Validators and Load Generators to Test Your Web Applications
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Free Hosting Service HTML Validation Test Page
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Pointers to C++ Member Functions
I welcome articles on how or why to achieve software quality from anyone who might like to submit one.Thank you for your attention.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
Finally! I GOT IT!
The entire problematic goes away if "Desktop" is redefined as "command line". Granted, you can still fsck up that one, but it's a bit more difficult.
this guy has missed it, I mean truly missed it. The point of freesoftware is that people contribute back what THEY want to use. His treatment of various projects, Enlightenment for one (a waste of time) and Gaim, HERE WRITE YOUR PROGRAM HOW I WANT IT! Sir to quote ESR, you don't get it.
Why must everyone adopt linux? I quite frankly don't want to have to deal with the 200 morons and 10 clued people I work with all adopting linux and then having to answer all their questions. I'd be quite happy if they'd simply switch from IE to Mozilla so I don't have to keep removing virii from their desktop.
The foolish push to get everyone to use linux for everything is misguided. Quite honestly if I was a developer in any project he mentioned, I would be incredibly insulted. Fortunately I'm not but I still find this prevailing attitude that the sheep need to use linux on the desktop misguided.
What the hell is wrong with you people? While slashdot may be a forum for the open forum for the exchange of ideas, but PLEASE, stay on topic. In this thread we are talking about Free Software and wether or not there is too much of it. If you can't say anything about THAT, then don't post. If you think its newsworthy, submit it as an article or an Ask Slashdot, don't clutter the threads with your political rants, at least don't clutter non-political threads with your political rants. I for one, don't appreciate it.
Marius Andreiana is a software engineer who was enlightened in 1997 by Free Software. He is the founder of Galuna S.R.L., a Romanian provider of Linux-based IT solutions. He believes in freedom and art, spending his free time with friends, discussing, listening to music and the sound of growing grass, contributing to the Free Software community, biking, and contemplating the beauties of the world. He welcomes comments at marius at galuna.ro.
Who wrote this bio? You're a freak!
It's widely known in the software engineering field that Maintenance of a software product constitutes op to 80% of it's cost.
(source:"OO and Classical Software Engineering", S.R.Schach)
This is because the further a program has developed, the harder it
get's to maintain and to prevent regression fault intoduction.
From experience I know it's easy to whip something up esp. in a RAD
environment quite fast. But getting from a product that does what it
has to do most of the time, to a product that includes:
manuals, error-handling, fault tollerance, user-friendly GUI,
help-files, consistent clear code and design, well documented code,
is very hard, and takes a lot of effort. A lot of coders are not even trained
to take these points into account when programming in my opinion.
In my view that's why a lot of OS projects never get the above list
completed, even if they do have most of the desired core functions.
Adriaan Renting.
RogerWilco the Adventurous Janitor
Why is "conquer the desktop" a goal? Is it actually a goal for anyone?
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
I would agree with Marius Andreiana. --Freshmeat editorial-- Linux is doing great on the server end, but if they want to put Linux on the desktop mainstream its gonna have to get some polished apps. Putting developer effort behind a few projects would be a great idea. Hopefully, one of the distros will make a big push in this direction. Organization and some carrots will be in order!
Total rubbbish!
;) ]... but I would strongly argue that in all cases the diversity and multitude of the free software world is one of it's greatest strengths. Emacs vs. vim vs. etc, gdb vs. ddd vs etc, mencoder vs. transcode vs. etc...
The competition of multiple attempts to approach the same thing is nothing but healthy. Let's not forget the rampent cross-pollination that takes place in the even moderately succesfull software products. I just set up firewire for my new miniDV camcorder the other night, and I couldn't help but notice examples of it everywhere. One utility used a version of quicktime4linux [from heroinewarrior/cinelerra fame]. FFmpeg [and it's libavcodec subsystem], which started out as a streaming server [and still is] has been adopted all over the place in video land. But I still like to use xvid with mencoder, cause it's artifacts are somehow preferable to my own personal psychvisual aesthetics. I don't mean to ramble [very little sleep, what with my new toy last night, and having to get up for work this morning
I find myself wondering if the currently prevalent conformist patriotic meme running about these days has somehow begun to infect people in more bizare respects.
Battle for the desktop? Pshaw. The honest fact is, that linux is -far more- usuable on the desktop to a serious computer user. Has been for a good while. As for the lusers out there who buy $40-$60 ieee1394 cables at best buy, and have learned to pop in a disk and see an installation wizard pop up, so they can dutifully click OK and I ACCEPT a few times... That is the beloved desktop, that we think linux should strive towards?!
There will be some companies, lindows or whomever, who will encapsulate the marvelous sophistication and subtletie of linux, into a comfortable and homogonized straitjacket world of user-friendly bliss. I have no problem with that, indeed, the multifarious oppurtunities of open source encourage all manner of repackaging and redesign. Which is a Good Thing.
---
the pen is mightier than the sword, the sword is mightier than the court, the court is mightier than the pen.
I view Free Software as being driven by Natural Selection. Lots of startups, lots of failures, and only those projects with genuine leadership, insight, and luck will succeed.
For this reason, most software sucks. Actually, it sucks and blows. Most software (commercial included) is so bad that I am ashamed to use it and, occasionally, ashamed to have played a part in its creation. Okay, point made.
However, I am not suprised at how bad most software is. What would you expect after only fifty years of evolution? Only fifty years of learning and cultural penetration?
The fact that certain big corporations say we can have our cake and eat it all thanks to them has made the public delusional and impatient. Right now, I think the public is in denial about software quality, because it is not yet public knowledge that software is among the most complex things ever devised by mankind.
Do we run to the neighborhood fix-it man and say "build me a fast car in six months...oh, and make it silent and brain-dead intuitive to work with. Oh, yeah, I have only $750 to pay you." Do we ask the same of bridge contractors? How about NASA? Would you ride in a submarine to the bottom of the ocean controlled by software written by you or someone you know? How about using software written by (gasp) Microsoft?
Face it, we're still in the dark ages and in denial about it.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
One of the biggest problems with expecting people to contribute to projects is that the simple act of unpacking the code and looking at it is unnerving. I mean some small packages which I expected to have a very simple structure turn out to have loads of C files and are very hard to understand.
The irony is that the newbie developer wouldn't understand why all the structure was necessary until after they had developed their own program of this type - and of course that's what we're trying to avoid.
What is desperately needed in Linux is much better overview documentation of projects. If I want to get into gaim and fix a display bug, or get into up2date and fix a download bug, right now it takes me about 3 hours just to grok the code before I even try my first edit... and even then I'm probably still a tiny bit fuzzy on what does what.
Could we come up with a standard language-independent way to document classes, functions, files, and data structures? Can we encourage more projects to have a readme file for new developers?
Or perhaps most importantly, can we encourage all projects to adopt someone who is a good programmer as a Project Documenter, who won't write any code but will just create (and UPDATE!) documentation and readme files and maybe even the project web site (God forbid I find a Linux project with an up-to-date web site! The horror!).
Another thing that would help, if the distributions out there are listening (e.g. Red Hat), is to keep the number of projects that each paid programmer is assigned down to a bare minimum. Almost all the projects for Linux are new, could use a lot of polishing, and need to keep up with very fast-developed library dependencies. Having a couple developers who round-robin to fix the problems on a lot of packages is really not good enough, they need time to really adopt a pacakge or two.
..something.
;))
Frankly, every major distribution sucks raw arse of CowboyNeal for 'newbies'.
Vi? Emacs? Pico? Joe? Ed? Oh my!
Mutt? Pine? KMail? The Gnome mail client? Sylpheed? A thousand others?
StarOffice? KOffice? OpenOffice?!?!?!
SuSE's 300 install discs?!?!?
Yeah. A newbie is going to have a clue. No, he isn't. Rather, he'll install everything by default as the distributions insist he does, and as a result, he'll likely have rampant security holes in his thousand programs that are never used.
I'd like to see distributions take a 'best of the best' stance. Include one or two of everything, and one or two only. (It'd be nice if different distributions picked different things, of course.)
People switching to Linux aren't stupid. They likely know how to download other software, if they want it. But as it is, it seems like any install of a Microsoft operating system is ridiculously less bloated and a default install of any Linux distribution.
(Okay - Maybe not Knoppix, but that doesn't count!
The pletora of software is a symptom of how hard it is to pick-up someone else's code and start coding for it and fixing it.
I know I do it often to try to re-use a piece of code and each time the philosophy in design/code is so different then mine. The the value of re-use is limited to the algorithms. The code itself has to be re-written to be consistent with mine.
The solution is for someone to create a set of guidelines that get people to think about the following design criteria: maintainability.
Maintainable code is a lot of things: readable, consistent, logical, etc.
If I find a bug, I look a bit at the code and it's easy to follow. I'll fix it, I'll modify it, I'll improve it. If not... well... it might be easier to write my own.
I program for a living, a lot of people think they know what good code looks like. They don't. They are good at seeing the trees, they don't know how to look at the forest.
If even the largest, most successful OSS project is only seen as a viable option by a small percentage of users, how can a myriad of smaller projects even have a chance at attracting users to Linux?
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
so what if some knob can't figure out how to .. it works for me for every
compile mplayer?
thing, and in all cases better than windows
media player. i'm a linux user from waaaay
back, but don't consider myself part of the
linux community because i don't see the need
to make it just like windows. linux isn't
windows. if you have the brains and the
tenacity, you can make it hop and sing and do
exactly what you like. you can't have unlimited
freedom of choice without bearing the burden
of having to choose. let the ignorant and lazy
have their microsoft products. those that want
to put forth the effort, let them reap the
benefits. the sense of entitlement people have
is amazing.
The more choices 'we' offer only serves to help out the cause.
However the quality of the offerings can make or break the deal.
Offering OSS solutions to customers on a daily basis shows this. They *want* choice, that is why its being discussed in the first place. But the 2nd question they ask is 'how good'..
Coordination of a *unified* look-and-feel is also paramount for future advancement. While a lot of techies disagree, it makes the daily life of Joe-user much easier.. Its why suites with a 'desktop' such as K-office has such an appeal in the business world.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The purpose of Free Software is not to replace Microsoft Windows. Individuals and companies that are involved in Free Software may have that goal, even me, but not the developers of the niche software he criticizes. There is no point in his telling them not to work on another editor. They want to make editors, not MS Windows killers. They are motivated to do for free what they want to do, not what he wants them to do.
Our diversity is our strength, not our weakness. Free Software's strategic marketing paradigm is a massively parallel drunkard's walk filtered by a Darwinistic process. We make gains because we can bypass the failures of a more narrow strategic marketing directon, which would have us work on only one solution to any problem. The problem with one solution is that marketing has no crystal ball, strategic marketers are no more accurate in general than stock-pickers. Their chosen direction is rarely the best. It's better to let coders control their own multiple directions. One of them will get it right.
He also gets into the dreadfully common error of considering window managers to be GUI desktops.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
I don't disagree with anyone who says that OSS programmers should be able to pick and choose what they do - no matter how futile it may be for anyone else.
:)
I think the article points out the uselessness of having 380+ text editors for instance. Maybe you don't code for average users (this isn't Windows after all), but I wonder how many code this stuff out there thinking it will be the next MS Word.
I think there's room on both sides, but I have another suggestion to the flailing userbase out there. How about PAYING for some of this stuff? Yes, it's OSS, but there's time being spent here. If you want a feature bad enough, why not send the guy 50 Euros?
I did this recently with a guy who wrote an awesome little filter for Exchange (ORFILTER). I wanted a feature and he put it in there. I asked him to put up a Paypal link and I sent him some beer and pizza money (I've never sent Euros before).
Now here's the kicker: I sent him the money from my BUSINESS since this is where it was needed. We looked at a 50 Euro expense as miniscule compared to the $2000+ packages this has helped us replace.
Anyway, maybe more cohesion in projects would happen if there was some reward associated with the project as well.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
The problem with modular packages in linux is the lack of standard interfaces; you need a common interface to make modules interchangable.
For example, suppose I use KDE as my window manager. I later decide I want to install some third-party program - and perhaps it wants to use GNOME. The problem is, now I have to go back and spend half an hour downloading and installing all the GNOME libraries - even when they don't do anything that KDE doesn't.
In every other graphical OS I can think of (Windows, BeOS, MacOS) all of the basic functions are well-specified (though not modular); I could conceivably replace, say, the GUI functions with a different library so long as it defines the same functions.
Aside, it would also be _really_ nice if a given RPM included, say, all the modules it requires that are uncommon. It doesn't _have_ to install them, but they are present in case you don't already have them. (eg. when was the last time you installed a program under windows where you had to track down half a dozen other packages first?)
This guy is an idiot. One would think he had just recently installed Redhat 5.2.
"On Linux, there's no decent movie player and no working sound recorder (like the one in Windows 95) shipped as the default by GNOME, but hey, there are more than 385 text editors!"
Why the hell should there be a "default" video and player that come with Gnome? Seems to me like he has the idea that those are part of a the desktop. He however, goes on to say that there are 385 text editors. There are not 385 text editors included with Gnome. He needs to learn the simple distinction between packages like gnome, gmplayer, enlightenment, and X. What comes as "default" on distro A will not be the same as Distro B. If he was saying there was just no decent media player, then he really is mentally deficient. Mplayer beats out everything I have ever come across, regardless of platform.
Choice is good, but it's frustrating when none of the alternatives works properly.
"A good example is Mozilla. There are lots of browsers available for Linux today, but most of them are based on Mozilla. Therefore, they work."
Since when are most browsers based on Mozilla? I think he's thinking of the GECKO engine, which is not Mozilla.
"Please stop developing and using some obscure application when there are better alternatives. Not happy with them? Fix what's wrong, or if everything looks wrong, work at separating the functionality into a UI-independent library, then develop your own graphical interface.
Why the hell should I stop using ANY program I enjoy just because someone else deems something to be "better". I guess I should drop vi for emacs... or is it the other way around? Depends on who you're talking to. At any rate, one of the MAJOR advantages of free software is the amount of choices we have.
"Reusing and improving existing code, not making your own, is the way.""
Thank you, oh benevolent deity, for showing us all "the way". I will cease to write any of my own code, or innovate and develop any new ideas, I'll just reuse the same old obfuscated cruft, and spend just as much time or probably more hacking it do be what I want.
"Another problem is that major functionality is quite often rewritten from scratch. It's not unusual to see freshmeat announcements like "What's new: completely rewritten". Don't throw away all tested and working code and documentation to start all over again, introducing new bugs which annoy users and waste time. So what if there's a lot of refactoring?"
Thanks for proving you're not at all a developer in any way. Nobody just decides "Hey I should rewrite all this past year of work just for fun!" When code is rewritten it is usually because bad practices have led the project to be unmanagable, or another language would get the done job better. So what if there's alot of refactoring? What kind of dumb statement is that? Who cares that PhpNuke is a garbled peice of insecure software that takes half the time to rewrite properly than it does to fix? Drop all other CMS' and work on PhpNuke, because someone said it ws the best, and others are more "obscure".
This guy wants to use Windows. He wants to not have an option, have everything laid out for him as what he "should" be using. The only benefit he sees in free software is not having to pay for it. That's exactly the kind of people we could do without in the *nix world. The kind of people that think Linux should just be a free MS clone. Linux is a different OS, a different environemnt, a different user base. The point is not to beat out those MS guys. Linux can easily be turned into expensive crap that any idioit can use, which is why we have Lindows.
Ok I'm ranting, but this attitude really irkes me. One of the first lessons I learned when making the Windows->Linux switch was how powerful simply having an option is. Whne people can't get over their own personal dislike of Microsoft and make Linux out to be some sort of crusade against the evil giant. It gives all open source a bad name.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that yours is stupid.
"Fulfilling the needs of a whiny end user who doesn't give a damn about anything but "cheap and Windows clone" is really far down on the list. "
The arrogance that permeates this statement is sadly too common in Open Source. How can you despise people and then expect them to buy in to your vision? Unfortunately the impression it leaves is that Open Source is a self-serving ego trip for individuals who really aren't at all interested in the public good.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
I've been around linux for a while, but I am barely worthy of the title "script kiddie." I use linux at work for a SMB fileserver and print server, as well as to host some intranet applications. The main problem I have with linux is that too much software is installed with distros.
The real beauty of open source is the competition in addition too the sharing of ideas. There's nothing to stop someone from looking at a project, snipping parts of it for their own use, and releasing a better piece of software in a matter of weeks instead of months. Take a look at ARIA, which noticed that NOLA dev wasn't going anywhere, and now they're fixing bugs and adding features. Perhaps in a few months someone will take ARIA and integrate it into TUTOS. Any way it happens, you can be assured that the best functioning program will be the most popular.
The only problem with this is all the forking has lead to a top-heavy tree. Linux distros come absolutely loaded with software, and most of it goes unused. Sure, you can roll your own, if you're literate enough. I think to get people away from Windows, you have to start looking at why it's successful. It's because a) installing new software is easy, b) there are a lot of fully functional, well supported office/financial applications, c) the user is completely seperated from low-level configuration. Once you can install a linux distro simply by selecting the time, network settings, and username (pretty close in RH8.0), then boot into it with a bare minimum of visible configuration utilities, you will have won the battle. People want to turn on their computer, start and use an application (without reading a fucking manual), and then print, e-mail, or publish their results.
The first victim will be customization, but look at QuickBooks for christ's sake. It's a shit program, but it's popular because it gets the job done.
-Dean
Everything in the above comment is true and correct, yet misses a wider truth of the slashdot mantra. Many times on many threads, I hear it argued that linux is a viable alternative to windows. Threads proclaiming that Linux *should* replace Windows in the world are not uncommon either. It is easy to proclaim a revolution, but it is another thing to take the responsibility to run a civilization. My two cents, -Iowa
"He who laughs last, didn't get the joke."-Cap
What part is not working in EMACS, VIM, GCC, bash, perl, mozilla, gaim, cdrecord, xchat, xcdroast, abiword, openssl, open sshd, expat, XFree86, nmap, apache, lynx, links, bitchx, ircii, naim, GIMP, xhextris, xbill, xcdroast, iptables, xmms, xine, mplayer, tcsh, ksh and xv?
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
don't support the int type.
After using Linux for about a year, I have found that the plethora of applications is often a big detractor. Example: I want software to rip my CDs onto mycomputer. So I go onto sourceforge and search and search for one and end up installing 3 and deleting the two that are not as functional or easy to use. Actually, the best way I found to get a good application is to search for what I want on google, and whichever comes up with the most results is likely the best application. I'm sure the purists would disagree with me, but I beleive that consolidation of development on applications is a good thing. Once we have an easy to install and use desktop system with high quality applications, average users will flock to Linux. Here's my vision: think a distribution as easy to install as Redhat, but with a gui-frontend for a gentoo-style ports system. This would include pictures and descriptions of all applications, and also be user-searchable. Proper menu items should also be created. Imagine searching for what you want, reading a description, checking out screenshots, and clicking one button to install it. i386 binaries should also be availible for those who don't want to wait to compile from source on their machine.
1. It sounds right to me that competition is the best driver for non-free software, while uniting effort is a good driver for free software.
2. Most developers might not see this, but companies and users often see open-source and free software as a single company... By this I mean two things: a) Once you've got burned, you are reluctant to try again; b) because of the huge selection you elect not to start looking for such a software - imagine if the company Microsoft had tens/hundreds of the same type of software, like company Free has...
3. Besides this, developers should remember that they are not developing for themseleves - if they were, they could do it via email or their own website, and not announce on Freshmeat.
execSubmitLoop(-1, "Troll")
The most irritating (and IMHO most damaging to OSS) thing is that so far OSS produces only clones or varying quality. GIMP, OpenOffice, Mono etc are trying to re-implement and imitate functionality of their commercial analogs. This is a chase for ever changing target, and obviously it is doomed to fail. We need more original software... more original ideas..
The plethora of proprietary applications available today, none working perfectly, is a problem which stands in the way of major adoption of computers on the desktop. In order to conquer the desktop, we have to stand united!
,,, Like the little stats example there is some hope. If a million open source programmers bang away long enough, eventually a coherent, full featured product will surface. Of course no way of telling when, where, or what. And of course there will be a new release of it a few months later.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
The intended result is the output of "Hello world!" to stdout. If stdout is not available, printf will return an error code (which is ignored here) and the program will exit normally (it should have used return(0), by the way), which is correct behaviour; after all, if you don't give it a stdout, it can't pring "Hello World!" on it, can it?
I do not understand why people think that every item in Windows is golden and the linux desktop is a piece of shit. I use it everyday. I know new users who use it everyday. It is fine. Granted the you cannot play a dvd easily on a linux system, but whose fault is that? MPLayer is not the only video player around and the distros ( like Mandrake 9.1) have a version of MPlayer that plays videos. Xine is better than Mplayer in some ways and in some ways worse. But how many vidoes does a person generally play on a computer. I have an iMac and I have played 0. I have a linux box and I have played 1 or 2 clips.
The biggest roblem is damn windows proprietary crap that linux cannot use.
No windows stuff is fine. Mozilla works. Konqi works.
Gimp works!
My first or second project on sourceforge was inspired by a severe lack of functionality in the 1.0 version of a particular piece of software. So I wrote a replacement; it went through a couple of revisions, then it achieved its purpose and stopped.
Since then, the other piece of software has been rewritten. Version 2.x does everything that I had originally wanted, and is official GNUware now. The last thing I did for the SF project was to change the homepage to read, "this is outdated, you really should use ThisOtherPackage 2.x, but here's the old stuff if you really want it."
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
1st error: stdio.h is not included.
2nd error: the C standard requires to define main() as returning an int (supposed you have an operating system running outside your program).
Moreover, you should explicitly tell the compiler that your main function won't accept arguments;
the correct declaration would be int main(void).
Plus, if someone wants software that works perfectly, then they shouldn't use a computer. Or at least not one running Windows.
pay the s/w developer to install it for ya. Also ask hime to write up a dumb down version of user manual and follow it strictly. :)
All this article seems to me to say is that perhaps a little more unity and commonness of purpose might be desirable if Linux is to achieve certain ends.
The notion that any kind of channeling of efforts is tantamount to telling people "you can't do what you want" is just childish (and is not what you were saying). Why can't "what someone wants to do" also include talking with other developers about what would be a good direction to move in?
Indeed, it can and does, as the story about Linux audio development proves. There's nothing monolithic about the plethora of audio applications that are being developed, but on the other hand, there is a kind of uniformity, whereby developers are agreeing to develop in accordance with certain standards (ALSA, LADSPA). Standards appear to limit freedom only if they are considered in a very short-sighted way; in fact, they increase freedom by allowing people not to have to re-invent the wheel and not to have to negotiate with others about how to communicate.
Agreeing to standards is a way of being intelligent about both history and innovation; it acknowledges actual achievements (rather than ignoring them and reinventing them) and clears the way for the future (by providing an extensible set of guidelines that responds to the actual demands made by the sphere of development under consideration).
Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
Hear, hear! Some suggestions to get it right, from one of those 'outside' commercial developers:
1. The average slashdotter is politically committed to Free Software, and asks whether application X on Linux is good enough yet that he can stand the pain of switching from Windows to it. The person you are trying to reach is looking for something enough BETTER than application X on Windows to make it worth the pain of switching. Raise your conceptual bar-- and that will force you to focus resources better.
2. Wrong list of software. Honestly, guys, you should have an absolute ban on any more work on MP3 players until you have a Microsoft Project clone. And the Gimp IS better than Photoshop. And so forth. THINK about the list-- Acrobat, AutoCAD, backup software for Palm devices, PowerPoint, etc. etc. Ask real people what they run, now what YOU want to run. Heck, think about providing Visual Basic if you want to get some momentum going!
3. Right on re. GTK. (Except you need to solve the C++ problems if they aren't yet.) I like the idea of Qt, but resent the effort to drag me (and my company) into Open Source faster than we're ready to go. And ask any marketer-- reducing choice makes it easier, not harder, for the customer to come to a decision.
4. You've got to get some people on the specs committee who DON'T think system administration is fun.
5. The "RTFM" attitude is not doing any good. The implied objective in the Windows app community-- to produce software that a reasonably knowledgeable person can operate WITHOUT a manual-- understands the folks you need to reach much better.
Please take the above as encouragement, not criticism-- I'd love to see Linux win on the desktop, but it's a little off course.
Anonymous Real Person
TeX will actually be defined to be correct when Don Knuth dies. That's the same time the version number gets set to \pi.
Ditto for Metafont.
I don't think this article is a troll. I think its just sadly misguided. I appreciate much of the sentiment though: for the average computer user (who is not technically inclined) the variety of choices offered by OSS is intimidating, and the perceived (or actual) poor quality (or state of completion) of much of this software is effecting efforts to bring OSS to the masses.
This is, however, not the fault of developers. OSS is doing what it was always intended to do, and doing it better than ever. Developers are encouraged to experiment, build and contribute, in whatever way they like. The fault lies in the presentation of OSS software by distributors and major hosting sites, for example RedHat and SourceForge.
RedHat comes on 4 CDs. A first-time user is given more than ample opportunity to shoot themselves in the foot with options, and to choose to use software that is "sub-standard" by general commercial standards. This makes the software look bad, and that reflects on OSS as a whole.
SourceForge and FreshMeat, in searching and browsing, do not by default filter out pre-release software. Worse (IMHO) they do not have a facility to rate software (as is common on shareware sites). That makes it difficult to chose a stable, functional and quality piece of software for a particular purpose. The filtering mechanisms (other than rating) exist, but are not newbie-proof by default.
The message here is that OSS needs to prevent a user- or market-friendly outward appearance, instead of defaulting to hard-core developer modes.
To address two particular issues in the article to which I take exception:
Why gTk? Qt is older and more complete, Wx beats Qt in maturity and comes close to matching it in functionality. Wx also supports many more platforms than gTk, making it far more suitable for cross-platform development -- something OSS needs to support if its platforms are to attact commercial attention. The Wx license is also far more friendly to commercial development than gTk (or Qt).
I am making the implicit statement that commercial == proprietary, because this is how most of the world operates, and that isn't going to change any time soon. Sure, there is software that doesn't follow this model. But not a lot of it.
Next, the idea that all editors should support the OpenOffice format. Besides the fact that many of these editors predate OpenOffice, again have the question: why? What makes the OpenOffice format superior? Is it because it is based on a sucky data encoding failure called XML? Why not use a mature and powerful DTP standard like Tex?
Years of experience has shown that the golden goal of application interoperability is just not going to happen. Innovation demands going beyond standards and what has been done before. This is the only way that software -- OSS or proprietary -- has been able to progress over time. Linux's attraction compared to traditional Unix platforms comes from its differences.
i-name =twylite [http://public.xdi.org/=twylite], see idcommons.net
Hold on. You didn't mention the desktop. I don't think Linux is weak on the desktop, I just think it is the wrong fit for the average user's desktop. When most people say it is weak on the desktop, they mean for the average Windows user. It is great for me, because I like the technical side of it. "The Desktop" is not a generic term that applies the same to everyone. My desktop is different than my parents. On my desktop, I have multiple text windows up, virtual desktops, a system monitor running, a browser, a tail of my webserver log, etc. I'll bet these are common on several techie's desktops, but they aren't on most peoples. I rarely use a word processor or spreadsheet at home, but my wife uses them all the time. She prints things constantly, I don't. My parents browse the web and read email, that's it.
"The Desktop" shouldn't mean "Universal Desktop". Just keep that in mind when you think or say that Linux isn't ready for the desktop. It is ready and is in use as a desktop system. It may not be at the Windows level of desktop friendliness, but I am not sure if that is necessarily a bad thing.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
My intent was to point out what is happening in many cases, I'd say the majority.
I have a software engineering background, so the "boring" process stuff (design, documentation and defect management) something I get into. As it seems you do as well. So, I too would never want to release something that I wouldn't be proud of.
However, I think that attitude is in the minority from the small projects I've seen. Most appear to be hacked together things that would ashame displined programmers. It is these projects that are flooding the OSS community and these that most seem to be the most glaring.
----- "Blame the guy who doesn't speak English." -- Homer J. Simpson
The reason there are millions of started programs and few finished (forget perfection the argument is specious at best) it because getting to alpha release is the easy and the fun bit.
The problems after that are all about bug fixing and dealing with other people weird configs, detecting different platforms and dependency's and all that boring stuff. After all I bet any alpha programs you've written work perfectly on your box, I know it is true for mine.
Graphical Toolkits
GTK+. That's it. Qt still has licensing problems, being non-Free for commercial applications.
Wrong! QT has the SAME license as GTK+, the GPL. It ALSO is licensed under the another licence that LETS you do commercial work, but then you have to pay for the product. So what's the problem here? Use the GPL QT and you have to release your product under the GPL. Use the commerical QT and you don't, but now you have to pay for it. I don't see the problem. If anything QT is LESS restrictive than GTK+ since it lets you sidestep the virus nature of the GPL if you want to.
What's wrong with that exactly? It's free! You
don't HAVE to use it. It may surprise you to know
that a lot of developers aren't interested in
"world domination" or "beating up microsoft". They
just had a specific need that they addressed with
some code, and decided to unselfishly share it with
the world. If that's not good enough for you, go
buy something that is.
For every annoying gentoo user, are three even more annoying anti-gentoo crybabies. Take Yosh from #Gimp for example.
The plethora of Free Software applications available today, none working perfectly
Two letters: vi.
Yeah... I said it. Game on.
What is music when you despise all sound?
But there are also a lot of us that simply don't
give a rats ass about world domination. Linux
doesn't really HAVE to compete with microsoft.
Linux/OSS isn't going anywhere. Ever. The fact that
it is directly competing with microsoft is not only
amusing, it's gravy. An interesting extra that gives
me hours of amusing things to read. Linux/OSS is not
afraid of microsoft and doesn't have to be. It's
free. It can't be bought out. It's too deeply
entrenched at this point to go any direction but
up and sideways fast. The type of user that wants
a more fine grained control over their computer
is always going to have a better option than
expensive commercial solutions. Period.
For every annoying gentoo user, are three even more annoying anti-gentoo crybabies. Take Yosh from #Gimp for example.
Anyone use any?
In My Experience, I've been finding free software alot like commercial software: alot of it is drek, some of it is ok, and a few apps are excellent (Postnuke, for instance, works very well for a web portal), as does MySQL for a database. O and Apache, is it working ok for you too?
The decision to use is about the same, gently pry the slick brochures from the boss's hands, research reviews, comments on industry forums, opinions of friends, colleagues, etc., and if all checks out install and test. Obviously you probably don't want free software where there are few posts/changes/sourceforge updates in the last year, similarly with commercial software, except with most free stuff it's much easier to tell how many developers are currently working on the project.
Since I very rarely have found even very expensive software that had company support worth a dang, I've gotten used to getting support off of web forums and google searchs, so supporting free OSS software is about the same as supporting most commercial software.
One big difference of course is price, but another huge difference is that when there is a problem/missing feature in OSS, I can write it in or have it written in, and/or if it is a big problem in an OSS with a large user base, I have found that it gets fixed very quickly, esp. where the core code programmers are using their own product.
You'd better get used to it, because that wave is getting bigger and bigger. These people are not now, nor will they ever be, programmers. They are users. And you can't unseat MS as the King Of The Desktop without them. If Linux can not do what they want they will not use it. No amount of "M$ is teh devil!!!" rhetoric will change their minds. They don't care. All they care about is that the software they get works.
I have tried Linux seven or eight times in the last ten years and I have always eneded up abandoning it because it simply does not do what I need. Half the aplications in most of the distrobutions I've tried are either unfinished or broken. I don't have the skill or time to finish or fix these programs. I DO have the money to pay some closed-source company for a copy of their comercial software that does work, that is (more or less) finished. And I always end up using their functional tools over the non-working tools in Linux.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
This wave of users coming in, demanding a clone of Windows...piss me off.
I have a single question for you: do you want Linux to succeed on the desktop? You probably answered yes. Now, I ask, why? What purpose does Linux serve over and above Windows? Lots. I think the most important and significant issue is DRM/security/privacy. Now, does the average person really care about this stuff? No. Ok, so if they don't care, why should they follow into linux oblivion where things might work, and where no ones there to call if you can't get something to work? I think the article is spot on, people don't care about the back-end of an OS -- face it! When you get into your car, do you care that you only have a 4 cylinder Hyundai? No, you just care that it get's you from point X to Y.
As cars have progressed, we've been able to care less and less about making sure they run and instead focus on other tasks. Automation is important in today's society, becuase we want to use that time to do something else. I still hold fast to my belief that an OS should do whatever it takes to get out of the way of the user. It is the transportation device that allows us to do so much more; whether that be developing applications or simply using a word processor. I don't believe that one task should be considered more important than the other, just as driving to the store to get groceries and doing a cross-country roadtrip don't change the car any.
So I think that linux is a better car than Windows. However, if we truly want linux to contend for the desktop, we need to support those efforts that do it best. If that means donating some cash every once in a while to an effort -- so be it. As a linux community, we need to encourange people to try it out, and stop screaming RTFM.
This is my digital signature. 10011011001
In one of my favorite albums ever:
Freedom of choice
Is what you got
Freedom from choice
Is what you want
and they were talking about all of us, not just some of us. Honestly, not a bad article though. Well written and it bothers us partly because it's partly accurate, just like the song.
For examples where better consolidation is important, he picked areas that are already mostly well consolidated, though. Like, how many of us are fighting for a desktop other than KDE or Gnome? Some, but not too many.
I know that this article has major problems, and my feathers got ruffled when I read "Motif, Tcl/Tk, wxWindows? Die!" Those are all great toolkits (except he meant to say Tk since Tcl is a programming language).
BUT, did no one here actually get the author's point? Seems like everyone just fixated on the details and ignored any possible value in the article. I don't think many people disagreed that there are too many audio interfaces in Linux that are (nearly) equally capable. Research is fun, but should every single Linux *user* need to spend hours trying to figure out why sound works in one program but not in another, and research the complete configuration of and relationships between OSS, aRts, ALSA, etc.? I have things basically working on my computer now, but I still don't completely understand it all.
Maybe the point of the article is that developing an alternative piece of software instead of working with existing code is a matter that should be seriously considered, because the cost of doing this is much larger than one might imagine. To the extent that you are successful, you would be detracting from the existing alternative software.
Probably there are two bad reasons why new projects are started when they should not be. One is that people would rather write code than read it. I guess that's psychological -- when you're writing code you feel like you're making progress, but not when reading code. The other reason is personal glory. "This is MY project!"
So, we need to be sensitive to these bad reasons, and deeply consider if what we want to have is really funudamentally different from any other OS project out there? If the differences can be overlooked or overcome in any way, then it's better to work on an existing project and/or with an existing toolset.
That said, there are also good reasons for starting from scratch, but often an existing project can do that on its own. If a change of paradigm or code structure makes sense, as the project is becoming unwieldy, that can (and does) happen. But this process is motivated by the growth of an existing project, so again even if you have some fundamentally new ideas and really want to write "Ans" by yourself, try working with sendmail first, and maybe your contribution might be the impotice for another healthy re-design.
Just a followup:
Does Photoshop have anything like Resynthesizer?
How about Tileable Blur?
How about the Solid Noise plugin?
Is there native warping functionality in Photoshop, as IWarp provides in the GIMP?
How about the gorgeous Supernova?
IIRC, Xaos makes something (expensive) like GIMPressionist. Of course, Photoshop doesn't come with this functionality.
Lots of other things -- I haven't used Photoshop for a long time, so I'm not going to be much good at pointing out the things that it lacks...just pointing out that the functionality sword cuts two ways.
For output intended for print, Photoshop is better. For output intended to be digital, GIMP is better. Pretty simple.
May we never see th
Jeezus! I submitted this the day it came out, and was rejected. WTF?
I had better text and links, too. I'm way disappointed in the "Editors". They chose the VCR entry over the Betamax entry, and way late to boot.
From now on, I'm submitting stuff like 5 times until one of the dozen numbskulls there actually reads the submission before he killfiles it.
Not that it's even a good story, but hell, it would have been better if it wasn't already a week old dead issue on their forum.
He complains about too much free software, then complains about qt because it is not free.
No software is ever finished. Really.
OK, there are two exceptions: TeX and METAFONT. They're finished, done, as far as anyone can tell bugless, not changing any time soon. Oh, and most commercial games tend to stop improving after a while, because they're no longer selling enough copies to make updates worthwhile--though even in games, there are exceptions, like the Civilization and SimCity series.
Every other piece of software is changing, constantly, and will never be finished. This is particularly true for business software.
That's the way the software industry is these days. You don't buy software, you buy an ongoing relationship with the software vendor. For a fee, he sends you periodic snapshots of the evolving software ecosystem. The latest Windows snapshot is called XP, the next one is coming soon.
Sure, you can opt out and run the same version of all your software indefinitely. But if you do, you won't get any bug fixes, including fixes for all those security holes in old commercial software. (Still running NT 4? You have holes that Microsoft will never fix.) You also likely won't be able to start doing new, better things with your computer, because new, better software will require up-to-date snapshots of your OS. And if you install the latest snapshot of your OS, chances are some of your old software will break.
Now, don't get me wrong, I hate the upgrade treadmill as much as the next guy. (I skipped OS X 10.2 until I got it free with a new machine.) I'm just telling it like it is. Software is never finished. Doesn't matter if it's free or commercial. There will always be newer and better versions that still aren't finished, and have dependencies that break existing stuff you were using or require that you upgrade other stuff.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Isn't freedom of choice supposed to be the whole point to Open source software? I always thought that the potpourri of software was a plus. Of course, I understand that the newbie would have trouble with some of this, but I don't want our choices to go away so that we are locked into one format, one way of doing things (ONE TO RULE THEM ALL!) like you-know-who did.
It's the 80/20 rule and is more aimed at economics, but it applies rather well to most significant endeavors.
"It isn't necessary to completely suppress the news; it is sufficient to delay the news until it no longer matters." - N
Why don't we ever heard this argument in relation to cars? Ford, GM, Chrysler, Toyota, Hyundai, Volkswagen, Volvo, etc. Too many choices!
Or restaurants, books, magazines, politicians? The argument is ridiculous.
... redundant software for windows???
Man, check out the TUCOWS archive sometime.
Jeez.
Every DAY at work, at user groups, and at friends' houses, I hear Windows users whining about not having some app they need in a non share/payware form.
We Linux users take for granted the abundance of free FTP clients, CD burning software, download managers, and graphics programs. And Linux's Evolution email client stomps the crap out of MS Outlook.
Windows users are cowering in fear of the BSA, and probably the ASP, to say nothing of the bloody spyware that 'free' apps provide.
I'll take my free software overload over the Windoze user's life, thank you very much.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Well, I believe it is the simple theory that most like working for themselves, rather than working for others. Also, I tend to believe that many who have started a project will want to control the project to the point of being stiffling to those that may want to contribute. And when you are contributing time and energy for free, you surely don't want to have to deal with getting shot down on ideas and implmentations. So I doubt we will see a convergance of efforts on any project. The ones that will succeed are those that are managed by people that have a good understanding of collaborative work ethics, and can manage people and resources effectively. And having contributors that have a common goal in mind.
:
Who is the master of foxhounds, and who says the hunt has begun? -Pink Floyd
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
Thats all I see in response to a pragmatic view expressed in the article. (As usual many responses looks like are posted without RTFA, but thats not new).
I didn't see anything anti-OSS in the article or total ignorance. It is written from a user's perspective.
Most responses are unanimous in saying that oepn source movement cannot be viewed as a company. So? Yesterday someone posted viewers doesn't care what tech is behind the movie theaters, in response to the release of WM 9.0 for movie theatres. Doesn't the same apply to OSS? User's don't care what ideology or methodology is behind the software. They care about whether it works and what it can do for them.
As long as this is not realised, OSS will be an expensive hobby (atleast in terms of time spent).
You are of course assuming that you could applie your parent's argument back on himself, but when he is arguing for something you should not use the whole arguemt to disprove it- its like saying he can't be a murderer because otherwise he would have killed himself.
Furthermore, he was impling that people should stop righting ARTICLES, and said nothing about comments. So all three of us are in the safe, but the ranters are not.
"It'll be like stealing candy from a baby... why, that look like a lark!" - Mr. Burns.
Hey, I am an MCSE! Some of us can code across platforms, use a multitude of languages, hack our hardware, post to slashdot, and flame fools like yourself.
I know you. You write perl scripts and think you are l33t. You are a bad knock-off. A cheap Canal St. special. They smuggled you into the US from Asia in a cargo container with 10k others like you. 6 of you together can form one giant robot dweeb. Your parts don't work. Your instructions are written in ancient Mandarin. When I look on the side of your box I see four "features", three of them are the same feature! You have a photocopied box cover. You were built by forced labor.
You are a wannabe. Prove me wrong. Show me ONE thing you have coded so I can poo-poo it.
Why can't the open source community rally behind specific open source multimedia coedecs, and put all that assembly and optimization know-how to get the best codecs possible? Instead we have a plethora of semi-decemt codecs, with great support on x86 (usually) but lackluster support on any other platform, regardless of how capable or how much potential another platform is. Different projects use different codecs, to where I end up having 3 or 4 mpeg2 codecs and quicktime codecs on my machine. Wouldn't it make sense to all put our efforts into the best codecs and making them run as best as possible on all machines???
If you want a bunch of people to work on one thing until completion, PAY THEM.
Exactly right. If no one wants to pay for the development of a desired app or feature, they shouldn't necessarily expect that the developer wants the same thing.
The author of the article DOES have point, however. We very easily could be running out of time before a great amount of functionality of desktop computing is made illegal under Free software. I'm sure that all of the developers of desktop applications don't want to have their creations made into digital contraband, so it *IS* in everyone's best interest to make a Free desktop as good as possible, as quickly as possible. I think that everyone will agree that the quickest way to "good" is to have a unified front with a common goal. That way, there is enough Free software in the wild that such laws would be untenable.
The developers see this as a long-term benefit: being able to legally use their software at some indeterminate point in the future. The short-term benefit (far more important to most people) is either being paid, or developing whatever they darened well feel like.
The author of the article neglected to address this need. Part of the effort needs to be not only setting/defining the "unified front", but also in setting up a pay structure for those who would accomplish the work.
I propose that someone (far more capable than me) lead an effort to
- define the technical/functional features needed for maximum desktop penetration on both business and home desktops,
- get buy-in on these features by a great number of influential OS developers,
- raise funds from end users and interested corporate users (make sure it can be a tax write-off),
- set up a task list,
- dispurse funds to indivuals/groups/companies who accomplish these tasks.
In other words, we need someone (indiviual or foundation) to be a project manager for the payment of the development of this goal.
Of course, there is no way that the amount paid would be up to an employee's salary: this is still a largely an act of generosity on behalf of the workers. But it does allow the project manager to set a higher dollar value to the tasks that most developers tend to hate, but are necessary nonetheless (such as documentation, rigorous testing, interface cleanup, etc.).
This has probably already been proposed by someone before, but has never been implemented to a great degreee. I hope that someone would like to do this, though, and has influence with the OS community of developers. I really think this could work if planned and backed properly.
Look at the tomato! Isn't it sad? He can't dance! Poor tomato!
I have a new idea. Perhaps what we really need is a greedy monopoly to simplify everything.
Ultimately, Linux, OSS etc. ain't all cool community stuff. It also means, not my problem, don't ask me, I'll do what the hell I like.
Well...it is, for the people in the community. People who contribute to the community are members of the community.
The problem is that non-community members (non-programmers, non-funders, non-artists, non-writers, etc) have come along and expected to freeload off the community -- this in and of itself *still* doesn't cause a problem, but when said noncontributors start complaining that community members are refusing to do free custom work for them...*then* a problem crops up.
May we never see th
"... none working perfectly,"
as opposed to those proprietary apps, our friends make, that work perfectly.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The author mentions GCONF as a tool to use.
OhMYGawd why on earth would Open Source want
to emulate one of the worst ideas on MS Windows -
the registry?!!
Aakkk!
A single point of failure for every scrap of
software loaded on your machine,
and the lowliest program written by the dumbest hack has full access to it!
And every applet is expected to access it,
slowing the system down to a crawl as the registry
grows and grows with information likely
irrelevant to most applications!
I don't know what the right answer is,
but the MS Registry is NOT IT!
The registery has to be the core reason Windows users have to reformat and reinstall windows on a
regular basis, as it gets more and more filled
with crud!
Bad Idea people!
Argggg...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The plethora of applications available today, none of which works perfectly or meets every need, is a major obstacle to the adoption of any one OS on the desktop or the back end.
The author should have linked to one of the several hundred other "Free Software is doomed unless it follows my 427-step personal wishlist!!!" articles.
Instead of starting his own YAWS (Yet Another Whining Session), he should have helped one of the previous authors' to improve their complaining and finger-pointing. Really, does he think his method of finger-pointing is more noteworthy than any of theirs? Are his complaints any louder (They sure don't seem any more sound).
But he just spewed out another article to show up on the news sites to get his 15 minutes of fame. So we poor readers end up with ANOTHER article that's 90% functionally identical to all those others. And still there's no perfect free software tantrum article. Such a duplication of efforts. He should devote his time to something that's more worthwhile to us and our agenda (with our agenda being defined by me of course).
I really hope people see the sarcasm here...
Not only does it seem to ignore how open source works, it seems to me to have missed the whole philosophy. I can easily be mistaken, but I have always viewed Linux in general as an alternative. If you're going to use this stuff, you're going to have to learn a thing or two - something many seem reluctant to do, hence the aforementioned misunderstandings. The more widespread Linux becomes, the more inane requests (ahem, demands) are going to be made. Let MS keep the user base. If it ever becomes the perferred choice among the general population, I think Linux will actually suffer.
In other words, why should Linux want to "conquer the desktop"? Sounds like a Redmond mentality to me...
~PS
__________________________________
"One Penguin To Rule Them All..."
nt (see that part of Slash that doesn't let you make an nt comment would be something I would fix right away if I was using it, and I could because it's OSS:-).
and not even a very good one.
Number one incorrect premise: If everyone only works on one of each type of software that software will be perfect.
This is just wrong in so many ways.
1. Not everyone can all work on a single piece of software all at the same time.
2. Not everyone _wants_ to work on the same peice of software that everyone else is working on.
3. Not everyone works the same way, what works for you sucks for me and visa versa.
4. There is no such thing as perfect.
5. People have amazing new ideas that don't fit into the existing schema of software already out there.
6. People have amazing new ideas about existing software that really doesn't fit into any software project.
7. People hate each other and it would really suck if those people weren't able to fork the code and go work on their own project.
8. We developers know we can do it better, sometimes we are even right.
I really can go on all day about how wrong this premise is.
I will just say that choise is good and we should all work on whatever we feel like working on. The beauty of open source is that the software will always be available for someone else to study and learn from.
We are finally entering the information age with open source programming that is scientifically reproducable and provable and shared with the world.
The cost of entry to the open source world is just a few hundred dollars now and this is why we have so many millions of open source programs available to us. Just because you have ten thousand programs on your install disk doesn't mean that you have to install them all. On a daily basis I use less than a dozen applications and maybe 20 command line programs. So all you have to decide is which program is best of breed for you and use that program for a couple of years until a friend tells you about an amazing new program that does everything you are doing plus more.
Bullshit. Developing software that's not meant to be used by someone is an exercise in mental masturbation. It's rather like building a house and then, when hearing a potential occupant's complaint about the design, claiming that no one is actually supposed to live in it. I'm not saying that OSS developers need to be kowtowing to every schmoe's whim, but I am saying that if you're determined to ignore all user input, you're wasting your time.
Sean
No amount of "M$ is teh devil!!!" rhetoric will change their minds. They don't care. All they care about is that the software they get works.
I have tried Linux seven or eight times in the last ten years and I have always eneded up abandoning it because it simply does not do what I need.
I installed the first Slackware distribution when you HAD to have a 5.25" at A:, and like you, I do a wipe and install every year or so whether I need to or not.
My initial impression hasn't changed. P.J. O'Rourke said it best: Everyone wants to clean up the environment but noone wants to help Mom with the dishes.
dvd, office, decent movie player, browsing, even copy/paste, ALL SUCK!
.docs and .ppt files fine, however under linux it is painfully slow to load, and has problems with fonts.
I am mainly a developer, so most of my apps tend to be i console, hence I don't boot straight into X, and dont run it very often.
However, I also have a windows install, which I presently *need*, to use openoffice at a reasonable speed(I have a modern machine, less than 1 month old, p4 etc, but OO just chugs under linux), watch dvd's, browse the net..
See, No doubt some will disagree, but i view mozilla as bloat, and phoenix still has a while to go before it as useable as opera or IE.
As for DVD playback, mplayer is just to slow, it goes out of sync every 30seconds, no menu support, artifacts etc
No, this is not due to my display adapter, it is mplayer code, arfi(head devloper) admits as such.
And..for some reason OO under windows works fine, reads
OO version 1.0.1
Mplayer version 0.90rc3
Slackware 8 with relivant upgrades
kernel 2.4.19+rsbac
Video card is savage pro, 16mb..but plays dvd's fine under windows.
You know how George Bush went around trying to whip up a cheering crowd for invading Iraq, and then when the MWD bullshit fell flat, he dropped back to "humanitarian relief" and how the U.N. didn't matter in the first place?
I've been watching Linux development pretty closely for over ten years. There was never even supposed to BE a Win2K. Instead, X is exactly where it was when OS/2 Warp was kicking 3.1's ass.
Apache == "regime change". And welcome to it! -- I'm just saying, don't designate Loser U. as your "fallback college" and then start talking about how Loser U. is actually better than your first and second choices when they turn you down.
Is that we are capable of recognizing the need for change and applying it democratically. To assume he system to be flawless is to let it lapse into anarchy.
Wendell Phillips said, "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty."
The freedom of source code and the open source community must be upheld by the commitment of individuals to improve it. If everyone is content with thousands of mediocre implementations all copying textbook examples and each other, then we're not going to get anywhere. There is no doubt that Open Source has problems to its core. But that does not mean it cannot be the optimal solution provided we recognize and address these issues.
...because it's already been done. It's not exactly a disaster to reinvent the wheel to learn. If anything, the OSS nature allows you to take what is good from other projects (copy-paste), and replace what's bad. Personally I've looked at some projects I'd *like* to improve (VirtualDub filter/DirectShow/Libmng wrapper), but it's over my head.
So instead I might read my "[insert programming language] for dummies" and start on something very simple (yam?), maybe put it on freshmeat if I feel it is useful. Even if it's not doing anything revolutionary. Are you telling me I shouldn't? Too bad for you, IMO.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Then there's Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even if you take into account Hofstadter's Law.
How Politicians Lie: http://www.factcheck.org/
You think you have the S3KR3T C0D3Z that reveal that Windows sucks? You don't. Everyone knows. You think nobody knows about free software? Again, wrong. People know.
Think about how you're pushing Linux and I Can't Believe It's Not Office 2000 -- the way Amway people and Jehovah's Witnesses push their crap. People have heard of Amway, they've made up their minds it's a crap system. The harder you push, the less credible you look.
Nobody with any kind of life to lead is going to drop everything and pick up a bunch of '70s-era computer paradigms, any more than a guy having a bad day is going to quit his job, give away his car and join the Hare Krishnas.
The free stuff sucks so bad that Windows and Friends are still the best of a bad lot. This is true. Denial is not a river in Egypt.
Agreed entirely with the author about the malaise in Linux desktopland. Infact, I wrote a not so well proposed article about it almost an year back: Whats Wrong in Linux DesktopLand.
Red Hat has since attempted to do a unifying job, but the question I ask is this: how many of the applications that Red Hat ships will they support? As an end user, why ought I have to deal with figuring out how to install mp3 playing or DVD playing capabilities. Why should I not have good fonts? This is the value add commercial outfits are supposed to provide.
But they cant because they are too busy making too many CD's. Why not, as the author has suggested, pare down the number of applications, and pay a royalty to the author/maintainer of the application for each copy sold? Why must a Linux company follow the same path as a standard company in not renumerating the author? (To be fair, RedHat employs many application or subsystem authors, but why not pay the others a royalty instead. For example, why not pay Ximian for eg a royalty to maintain Evolution to be consistent with RedHat design guidelines?).
The authors suggestion of one toolkit is important too. I applaud Lindows and Lycoris for dumping gnome and making KDE based applications (though I dont applaud everything as root idea..why not use capabilities and gradually eliminate root from most applications). I dont agree with KDE as a toolkit choice as the high licensing cost of Qt screws small developers wishing to develop commercial apps or shareware. The Mac is a thriving desktop platform precisely because of these people, and we need to attract such development if we want to keep the long term viability of Linux..dont forget that windows started out as a poor desktop implementation, and but for linux+bsd's would have largely wiped unix out of small and mid-range installations.
LGPL toolkits are good choices...
Here's one possible plan. Create a new distribution, I like to call it birdbrain because thats all the brain one should need to use it. Elitists not welcome. The basic subsystems are kernel+device, init, basic unix utils, binutils, libsystem(libc, curses, etc), directory services/auth. Thats 6 subsystems..create 6 teams, and assign royalties. Get basic X. Pay royalties. Get basic languages: perl, pythonChoose the basic desktop, say gnome. Get Ximian to package it, and get Ximian redcarpet to distribute it. Pay royalties. Choose no more than 15 gnome apps as part of the basic package..choose teams for each, hopefully including original developers, who are willing to fork, customize to needs of distribution. Needs are for (IMO): browser, instant messager, email/news, news aggregator, editor, wysiwyg html editor, rdesktop, file manager, package manager/installer/redcarpet, media player, pdf reader, terminal. Thats all. Make sure media player can play both DVD's and mp3's. If this requires factoring licensing costs into the distrib, so be it. USABILITY comes FIRST. Then choose personal server apps for fileserving, personal web serving, ssh serving.
Thats it in the basic system. If this sounds like taking a page out of Apple, well, yes it does, except that the whole commercial idea here is to get money directly to the developers who maintain the app for the distribution. Think of it as debian on a much smaller, and thus way more coherent scale.
Now make add on packages with separate royalty and responsibility spheres, for development(compilers), science(plotting, etc), office. Anf of these packages, and also the previous 15 odd apps, ought to replacable by others provided they provide the same task capabilities. Nautilus can then be made more task oriented too, where tasks are done independent of the apps providing them.
Create an experimental distrib in which new things are played with before being dropped into the stable distrib. Examples would include a unified way to deal with data in text form like Apple's plists or RedHat's al
The Inscrutable Gargoyle
If the attitude of Free Software developers towards end user issues will be "quit whining about what you are getting for free" or "Free Software does not entitle you usable interface", then those people need to stop whining about why Free Software isn't used in governments and to quit feeling entitled to Aunt Tilly's desktop.
The problem with you people is that your entire strategy for approaching everything came from what you did on the server, and you stupidly think that server methods of development are going to equally apply equally to an entirely difference set of users with an entirely different set of design constraints and an entirely different definition of what "failure" really is. Looking at applications and UI's as individual little parcels that can be mixed around and changed, no matter how different they look or act, just doesn't work on the desktop. Most UI people understand this, most programmers don't, or rather, don't want to no matter how many times they are told. Sometimes I think that Free Software was never really a bazaar, but a cathedral where programmer arrogance and ignorance are worshipped.
And in regards to the window/manger desktop issue, while they're technically different beasts, from the end-user's standpoint, they're the same damn thing. And if the user can tell the difference, someone's not done their job of integrating stuff. It is so painfully clear that the people who are the leaders (if you can say OSS/Free Software has leaders) have absolutely no understanding at all of any aspect of designing user interfaces and this has dearly cost efforts to produce an open(and better) alternative to Microsoft Windows.
Again, if the goal of Free Software is not replacing Microsoft Windows, that's all well and good. Just please stop targeting Grandma and quit complaining about Microsoft's monopoly.
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
To everyone who is saying that multiple programs are good because they all have their individual specialties: Remember that programs are mutually exclusive, you can (in general) only use one to perform a particular task. If the particular features you want to use together happen to reside in different programs, tough. In the commercial world, this problem is resolved by programs defeating each other through assimilation: A program adds a feature mimicking that of its rival and thereby gains market share. Then the customer wins, because the features now work together under one program and the task is possible.
I'm not saying this problem doesn't affect commercial software as well, but claiming this is an advantage of OSS is specious. And customers have much more leverage over a commercial developer than any *individual* open source developer ("Add this feature or I won't pay you" as opposed to "Add this feature or I'll send you angry emails"). Downloading software that already works is far more desirable than patching a faulty product even to the most hardcore OSS evangelist; no one writes their own text editor or compiler, do they?
Too many security problems.
My other Beowulf cluster is... er...
You misunderstand what OSS is. OSS isn't a group. It isnt' a corporation. It's not a congolomorate. It's not a religion. It's just a nearly meaningless name used to describe the type of software a person releases for free along with the source code.
You know what? Decentralization is it's strength. The sheer number of shitty programs put out by both commercial and OSS sources is staggering. Crap isn't something a development model can stop or create when the developer has his head up his ass. It's the good programs and the good developers that float to the top. And you can't ask anything of these people either. They're doing these things for their own amusement, pro bono. They don't owe any of us anything. They shouldn't gang up just because you want more quality projects either.
Man... I wish people would stop treating OSS devs like corporate drones. "can I get that winamp clone in cornflower blue?" No, you can't. Go away.
It's been a long time.
Um, YOU seem to be missing the humor of the post you're replying to.
tmp.c:3: warning: implicit declaration of function `printf'
tmp.c:4: warning: implicit declaration of function `exit'
The point is not that "Linux needs to conquer windows"
The point is not that "Linux needs to conquer windows"
The point is not that "Linux needs these things to be better"
The point is, quite simple, "Linux needs a double-digit desktop market penetration to survive"
Did everyone miss the line about Microsoft using legal tricks and lobbyists to make Linux illegal/irrelevant?
Linux is a great system. We all enjoy playing with it. However, we also need to web browse, we need to be able to buy things online, we need to be able to communicate. If Microsoft manages to get more and more companies making websites that don't work with Linux, if Microsoft lobbies and succeeds in getting laws passed that require software to have strange, undocumented backdoors, keys or encryption, then Linux is dead. Period. A few odd people may play with it, it will be a good learning tool, but that's it. The massive development that marks big apps will be impossible.
And, the only way to prevent this from happening is to get MORe non-techies using Linux. The magic 10% of desktops. As the article points out, a company can cheerfully deploy a website that 2% of users can't access. Cutting off 10% is a different matter.
Here's just one example. I own an ISP. I have to partner with Qwest. To test a line for DSL qualification, I need to use a Windows machine or use Konquerer with user-agent spoofing, because they have designed their ISP-interface website to specifically reject any non-Microsoft browser. It's not that the website doesn't work - it fools you by saying, this browser is not recommended, lets you try to proceed, and then kicks you out saying your browser is incompatible. Funny thing, you change the user agent string and the same browser that was "incompatible" 30 seconds ago now works fine. We're going to see more and more of this crap.
If we want to be able to continue to use Linux, or any other OS/software that allows us to modify it, we need non-techies on Linux. Period. We need a non-technical base of people who will protest when poorly-written or MS dependant crap kicks out their Mozilla.
Linux needs:
* to drop the elitist "RTFM" attitude.
* Better cut and paste, in ALL GUI's / window managers, whatever
* Better selection of software - we need some kid's software, better written - we need to be able to do TurboTax or something like that. We need - gasp - GREETING CARD software. Sound goofy? Get a suburban housewife hooked on a greeting card package and she'll stick with it for life.
* Better font handling.
* BETTER INSTALLATION ROUTINES. RPM sucks. Period. Either it's fundamentally broken, or 75% of the people using it to package apps aren't using it right - I can't tell. Dependancy hell makes troubleshooting Windows problems look logical. It is WAY to hard to install most Linux programs.
Developers, you can code. I can't. My skills have atrophied, I haven't coded in years. I love you all for the great software you give us. I love that it's free.
But, I would love it more if I could actually USE it. I'd love it if it would actually INSTALL. I would pay a fee for that. Most people would. I'm a technician, and I can't figure out how to get some of this crap to run, short of compiling from source - and if you want non-techies to install it, forget it. Developers, PLEASE, when you think your project that you've slaved over for months is finished, pause. Pause and spend ust one more week, or even one more day, polishing it. I mean...come on, why does the KDE dialer tell me to delete a stinking PID file when it crashes and I reopen it? Why doesn't the KDE KPPP dialer ust say "Your previous dialup connection may have ended improperly. Would you like me to start a new one? (Click ADVANCED for a detailed description of this problem)"? That would be smart. The end user would mindlessly click yes and it would work. The hacker could click on the advanced tab and find out what's going on with the stupid PID fil
But WHO should say the 'existing software_here' -should- be 'polished/etc'. That way lies danger. Freedom of expression means freedom of expression. Period. If you don't like the way the world is going, cry me a river, build a bridge and get over it. Just because someone isn't contributing to someone else's mythical vision of a perfect world does NOT mean their work is 'wasted'. You may not approve of it, but, oh well.
Well said!!!! And from those many ideas, the best one rises to the top... like... VHS... um. wait a sec.... never mind. LOL!
"In order to conquer the desktop, we have to stop using the software you like and use only the software I like."
What this article fails to point out is that it is the very choice that OSS gives us that breed projects like the ELX, Lindows, Lycoris, and Xandros.
I'm sure these distro's would provide the author just the kind of simple environment they want.
More like "In order to conquer the desktop, we need to have people get paid to work on this". I just dont see how you can get dedicated support and professional, polished results from software made my non-professionals, or professionals working on things unpaid in their spare time.
Personally, if I had a choice between making money doing work, or doing the same difficulty of work for free, it just doesnt seem like the free option would win. OSS just doesnt pay the bills, IMO.
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
In the first case, I've seen a lot of good projects fail. A lot of these projects are very similar to each other. If the project leaders would swallow their pride, more often then not they'd have plenty of resources to share. Shared resources means a better product.
The second case is pretty cut-and-dry. No one wants to use a product that doesn't have a community. Communities grow when the end-user feels (s)he can contribute something. If the developer ignores the end-user and does things that he wants without any feedback, the community never grows. Again, swallow the pride, listen to the users.
You might be implementing features you never though of -- whether you like it or not. But if it results in a stronger community with more people using your product...that makes it worth it. No one develops an open-source project 100% for themselves. If that were the case, they wouldn't tell anyone.
Not that anyone will ever find this so far into the comments, but here I go:
What if project hosting/listing sites such as freshmeat or sourceforge had a system to let non-developers decide to close a project.
It would go something like this:
A person(s) would announce their serious intention to begin a project, for example a linux media player. This is given a lot of notice on these hosting/listing sites to attract other developers. Now since there are already media players on linux (xmms, mplayer, etc) the project would have to prove itself in a certain amount of time. It would do this by having very active development, or lots of inovation, or filling a niche left open by other projects, or just plain being well liked. If it fails this, the project is converted into a new project to be merged into existing projects -- which is subsequently re-announced to try and gain support for that newer effort. The orphaned developers would then be welcome to join the projects their's was merged into.
This way all competing projects would be advancing that entire general arena of development when they didn't do it by themselves.
Am I implying that choice is bad? Absolutely not. However the decision would be made, it should be more than a simple democratic vote. If that were the case, my beloved WindowMaker and Tkdesk would've been swallowed into KDE long ago -- it should be based on how active its community and development is, not the size of its community.
What about those projects with no competitors with inactive development and user communities -- maybe if they're applications they should be made into libraries for general use, or just closed outright.
An example where this sort of organization would be helpful is multimedia on Linux. There are hoards of programs which play hoards of different media types -- but no uniform library to do so. XMMS, xine, mplayer, Noatun each reinvented the wheel to output to different devices and sound servers and to input different files and to display different skins and so on -- it would be nice if (not necessarily one of these, but there are certainly lesser known ones in this same vein) one of these sorts of projects diverted their attention from being the One Media Player to Rule Them All and worked with others to better those projects.
where'd my typewriter go?
Linux is within shooting distance of becoming a real competitor to commercial desktop OSes. The OSS community has the code-fu to compete with commercial developers (and many OSS developers wear both hats), and Linux has made incredible progress in a short time.
However, the devil is in the details. Linux/OSS projects will never become solutions that _just_work_ without FOCUS AND DISCIPLINE that is is currently lacking in many (most?) OSS projects. Passing the finish line will require tedious hours of bughunting, testing, code auditing, etc. Does the community have the resolve to _really_finish_ projects, or is self interest the primary concern (I wanna code what I want, when I want, and only work on the fun stuff)?
There are people out there who enjoy finding and fixing bugs and auditing code. They are (in my experience) an odd breed of people who can be difficult, at best. But IMO we NEED these people. Take a look at what Theo DeRaadt and his band of code cleaners have accomplished over at OpenBSD. This is exactly the sort of focus and discipline I think many OSS projects need. Support your local hardnosed bugfixer, and encourage more like them to join your project!
That's my $0.02. Flame away.
Really. It's the job of the Distro maintainer to make things easy to install and fix dependancy problems. That we are even discussing this tells me they aren't doing as good a job as they should be. That's not to say I could do it better, I don't have the time or the resources to compete in that area. But I think it's our job as "power users" to let our distro maintainers know what we think.
As for apps that are not included in the distro, well, that's up to the package maintainer how easy they want to make it for the end user and how much time they are willing to invest in that. I, personally, wouldn't want to provide a specific package for EVERY linux distro and take the time to fully test it. If I were to release something, I would likely make it work for the latest Redhat, Mandrake, and Debian. After that, I'd call it good. If I needed libs or lib versions not on those distros, I would include everything they needed in the package to make it work. If RPM or DEB can't embed other packages, they should be extended to do so. That way, I can download ONE package for MyCoolApp 3.2.1 that needs MyStupidLib 1.2.3 and get both. What if they allready have MyStupidLib 1.2.3? Just don't install that part, and maybe offer an "advanced user" download that doesn't include the lib for those that know what they are doing.
Or, if the distro has an Apt-Get GUI equivalant, make it so that a user could download and click a "helper file" that would add your FTP/HTTP site to the "sources" list and instruct it to install your app, resolving dependancies. Like the little bootstrap installers that are becoming so popular on Windows these days. Ideally, all the distros would standardize on a format for the helper file. Then the package maintainer would just have to make sure the RPMs/DEBs are available for download. The "Install Software" program would take care of it all with a few clicks of "Next" and "OK" from the user. And maybe requiring the root password as needed.
We are talking about END USERS here, the Win-Weenies, Lusers, creators of ID-10-T errors. If it's harder than download and click, IT'S TOO HARD. If they have to go library hunting, IT'S TOO HARD. And if we want Linux to succeed, we techies need to change it so that it's not too hard anymore.
... it is WRONG.
Qt is licensed with the GPL, GTK+ is licensed with the LGPL.
The LGPL allows you use libraries licensed with it in non-free software, the GPL does not.
They are both free software licenses, and the FSF actually prefers the GPL, but the sad truth is that there are lots of non-free software out there, and it is not going away. The LGPL allows for non-free software to link to the libraries. Only if the libraries themselves are changed, will the authors of the non-free software have to share something (and that is just the changes to the library).
Before you bash someone else for writing something wrong, check out your facts first.
Though the two have a high correlation, the problem technically comes not from open source/freeness, but from software which is developed by individuals to scratch their own itches. Such software will always be prone to asymptotically approaching "done."
Scratching your own itch is great for getting people to start projects, and get core functionality working well, and sometimes put a simplistic interface on them. But once the project has reached the level of "pretty good," it becomes more compelling to scratch a new and different itch than to put finishing touches on something which already basically works.
This is why free software has a tendency to hover around 85% complete. It gets to that point very quickly, and its progress is monotonic, but that's about where it tends to be neglected in favor of some other project that's <85% there.
The solution is to have the last 15% be completed by some different development methodology. The most obvious choice is corporations making finished products out of an individual's personal tools. This is essentially what Apple, IBM, and arguably Red Hat are doing.
It works out well for everyone: individual developers are free to pursue new projects as they desire, corporations get a free head start on products, and users get polished software quickly.
1. 51% of gen1 can vote to kill the other 49%, then 51% of gen2 can vote to kill the other 49% et ceterrra ad infinitum until two are left, one of which will invariably not be registered to vote.
2. 50% could vote to kill the other 50%, and the supreme court could opt to kill everyone as a tie-breaker.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
And dont forget the kernel module!!!
#define MODULE
#include
int init_module(void) {
printk("Hello, world\n");
return 0;
}
void cleanup_module(void) {
printk("Goodbye cruel world\n");
}
CIA Factbook 2002 (US):"Since 1975, practically all the gains in household income have gone to the top 20% of households
Freedom leads to a lack of freedom, therefore we need a dictator like the author to decide what projects are to be continued and in what manner.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
> In order to conquer the desktop, we have to stand
/. speak in terms of "we have to do this" or "we must not do that". "We have to get better documentation written", "we have to improve OOo's ability to import Word documents", ...
> united
There is no "we"!
So many people on
I'm all for rallying behind the OSS warcry, but "we", as individuals, don't have any say over the collective OSS output of the rest of the world. OSS is written by individuals who have itches to scratch; they start scratching their itch, release some code, and maybe other people with the same itch jump in to help out and it snowballs from there.
One potential outcome of this is that this group of people could disband when their product is ready for *them* to use, and that might be before they've written lots of documentation to allow everyone else in the world to easily use their product.
If you think "we" should do something, then maybe *you* should be the one doing it.
-- darnok, grumpy as hell after a very long flight home...
You just don't get FREE SOFTWARE. Go back to Microsoft u lackey!
Of course it's definitely a good thing having lots of choice regarding open source software, but sometimes, especially for larger projects, people should try reusing dead projects instead of trying to rewrite everything from scratch.
If you take for example the example of project management software, you can find half are half-baked ones and the rest have either been in "planning" phase for 6 months or just stopped working on it, leaving the source code abandonned. Instead of rewriting everything from scratch, people should make use of code already written and improve it. Sure it's not as rewarding as writing everything yourself, at least at first, but then this is the way to reach a much higher target more easily.
At my work everybody's using MS Project but if there was an open source USABLE similar tool either running on Windows or Linux I know we would switch right away.
"Naughty, naughty, naughty, you filthy old soomka !"
I'm glad someone's admitting this. The problem with OSS adoption is that very little of it is mature. Sure, there's a lot of apps. But if 90% of them are in a perminant Alpha state, then they're not much use to people like me who demand stable software.
I don't suffer from insanity. I enjoy every minute of it!
OSX is what Linux wants to be when it grows up
Relly? So you mean in 5 or so years linux will:
Be so slow it will be impossible to run on anything below 200GHz CPU
Have a teletubbies gui so ugly you want to tear your eyes out?
Have every application create a thousand windows, forcing you to wade through and manually sorting them every time you nedd to access some toolpalette?
Have a default antialiasing of everything, making you believe you are constantly drunk?
Lets hope Linux never grows up...
Amen
As to the distros including by default a smorgasbord of choices when a smaller selection would be less overwhelming, that's true. Sometimes is makes more sense than others; luckily, the big name distros at least tend to have some mechanisms for choosing more stripped down versions. I may just have paid less attention lately, but I think Mandrake has dropped the excellent slider they used to have (to adjust the total quantity of supplied software). It was limited information (since it didn't tell you *exactly what* was being dropped as you moved the slider toward Zero, but it was at least an intuitive way to do it, and if you trusted the priorities of the packagers it was a great idea. (I found their choices reasonable to the extent I ever noticed them.)
Knoppix includes buckets of software by default, and that's actually a good thing in that case, because it means I can demonstrate buckets of software to (most) anyone with an x86 machine.
One big problem is that there are good reasons and arguments for both KDE and GNOME on "casual" desktops (since there are good apps that rely on each of their libraries), so you're already seeing some duplication likely. I happen to prefer gnome-terminal to theKonsole, and I like certain KDE apps better than their GNOME counterparts.
I'd like to see some trimming in the distributions that I generally install (which of late are Mandrake, Red Hat and Knoppix-as-an-installer. Not that the apps should disappear from the install CDs / isos, it would just be great to have more "stripped down collection" choices.
- functional system with X and blackbox
- functional system with X, blackbox, gnome and kde libs
- functional system with X, full blown KDE, gnome libraries
- functional system with X, full blown KDE, GNOME installs, light on games and amusements
- functional system with X, full blown KDE, GNOME installs, heavy on games and amusements
RH and Mandrake *do* do a credible job at providing a few such descriptions, but it would be great to have a sort of guided-adventure option which would assemble applications for installation based on some questions to which the answers could be multiple choice, T/F, or free-response. Things like:
Q - I program a lot, want a lot of IDEs and languages. (1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9) [default 5]
Q - I like to play First Person Shooter games (T F) [default N\
Q - I would like the following text editors *besides* emacs, vi, nano and joe: ( __________________ ) [default: none]
This would have tend to create a bias towards dominant apps, it's true, and semi-unfortunate
Idle thoughts there
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
There must be (at least) 4 of everything in Linux:
We need an MTA!
Sendmail, qmail, postfix, exim
We need an windowing platform!
GNOME, QT, XFCE, BlackBox
We need a journalizing file system!
EXT3, JFS, XFS, ReiserFS
We need a browser!
Mozilla, Konqueror, links, Galeon
We need an RDBMS!
Postgresql, Mysql, Firebird, SAP-DB
We need email with a gui!
Mozilla, Evolution, Kmail, Chandler
In fact I would say that until there are at least 4 major projects none of them are that good.
In fact once there are 4 major generally at least 2 of them are outstanding.
However there are still projects that need work.
We need groupware!
We need small business accounting!
Code reuse is a great thing. But
- some projects are crap code
- some developers like only certain languages
- some projects are too complex to join part time
- some projects are miss-managed
- and some projects are poorly marketed.
And for them - thats great - let those projects that die lay in waiting to hopefully be reused in another project.
A larger problem that I see is we need to increase the number of contributors to open source projects. Get more inhouse developers working on projects, get more smart high school & university students burning the midnight oil. We need to get more open source developers from India & China. We need people with passion and ideas.
The issue is getting them aware, making employers aware of the benefits of hiring people who work on such projects, making it easier to contribute part time, and making easier ramp up for beginner/internmediate developers.
It should be very clear and very easy to get involved - even on a minor scale.
if you are posting as an AC, you are posting to yourself.
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
First see whether you could join an existing project. This will save everybody's time.
For example, Read This Before You Write a Newsreader
The buffalo isn't as dangerous as everyone makes him out to be.
Statistics prove that in the United States more Americans are killed in
automobile accidents than are killed by buffalo.
-- Art Buchwald
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