Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
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...
And thats usually the difference between commercial software and free software.. with commercial software, you have customers who may refuse to buy a product that they have to fiddle with extensively to get it to work, or which have major bugs that require workarounds. Free software authors (Bless them, this is not a slam) fix it when they have time or when they feel like it.. which can mean alot when you rely on the software to get your job done or to do tasks in personal life.
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
What would really be of interest to me would be more modular software packages. Start out with some core functionality, but instead of integrating other features by adding to that core, just make add-ons that are easy to add to and remove from that core.
That way people (and businesses too!) can use as much or as little as they want, with the flexibility to adapt to their needs.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
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.
I find it remarkable when a critic of OSS comes along, there are posts like this denouncing his points, whatever they were.
In this case, I think he has a strong argument. OSS should be about makeing what you have better, not creating the same stuff from scratch. Wilst its more than acceptable to have new projects created, its not a good thing to re-invent projects that are already existing. "Make them better" should be encouraged more than "make a new project". I think SourceForge should try ways of strengthening this attitude.
It may be a troll, but its a good one - raising the awareness and discussion of OSS quality and coverage. Dont knock it because its criticising something bad (after all, 385 text editors can't be all right)
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.
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.
Please feel free to do so.
May we never see th
Does the Gimp support adjustment layers; provide compatibility with the scads of available Photoshop plugins (or existing equivalents); 16-bits/channel processing; histogram adjustments, including automatic color balancing and adjustment based on photograph "temperature"; color calibration based on monitor and printer; unsharp mask; automated noise reduction... ?
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
why don't you give us some examples?
n office
mozilla
gaim
pan
gftp
rsync
evolution
ope
these are but just a TINY sampling of apps that work well enough for me.
on the other hand i have dat files that open up in office 98, and office xp on my mac, yet in office 2001 on any mac, on those very same files, only the first row of data gets imported.
that's a serious flaw, and patching has not helped. and there are butloads of people who use office2001.
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
- 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
I have not found anything on Linux that resembles Dreamweaver MX on windows. I tried to run Dreamweaver on linux through Wine, but it is not stable.
This is the only reason for keeping my windows partition.
There are 10 kinds of people. Those who understand binary and those who don't
A question from a non-programmer: does a distinction need to be made between, say, the core software architecture (the... Operating System? The Kernel? Helping we the relatively smart and eager to adopt understand these distinctions would be a good side project for y'all...), and specific applications on the other side? From my unenlightened viewpoint it seems like the challenge is to keep the open, flexible, community developed nature of the core while seeking the happy medium and point of mass agreement to create a basis of reliable, interoperable applications.
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
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
(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.
There's something to be said for economic constraints: they make you finish things so you can sell them and put food on the table.
Argh, I have it somewhere. Oh, here it is. One of the best rants from Jamie "Rant" Zawinski.
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you
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...
The above program will not link correctly on the cc65 compiler when targeting the Commodore C16-Plus/4, as there is no stdio at *all* in the C16 runtime.
/* Hello World program for cc86 */ /* may need to be cpm.h on the current version */
/* newline translation */ /* put char to console */ /* CP/M */
/* XXX: how to pass argc/argv in start86? */
It also won't work with my cc86 project (Turbo C++ 1.01 to CP/M-86 cross-compiler), because cc86 has *no* runtime at all, except for the startup code that calls main(). See below for an example of how to use cc86 to write a hello world program.
-uso.
#include <8088.h>
int lputc (int c)
{
if (c==0) return 0;
if (c=='\n') lputc('\r');
_CL=2;
_DL=c;
geninterrupt(224);
return c;
}
void lputs (char *s)
{
while (lputc(*(s++)));
}
void main (void)
{
lputs ("Hello world\n");
}
Dreams, dreams, don't doubt dreams, dreaming children's dreaming dreams. Sailor Moon SS
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
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.
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.
no.
but if you actually know how to use them AND create something worth a shit, you would be one person out of every 10 million.
you are just like one of those people who claim you have to use Maya or Softimage to be a pro.
then some nobody using blender or shareware creates something beautiful, and creative and blows away 99% of the work of softimage/maya users.
it's just a tool. the person counts more.
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.
Actually you can use Photoshop plugins (not just the Filter Factory ones either). I successfully used photoshop plugins (3rd party, I haven't tried the stock filters, but then again, why would anybody want to?) Script-fu, Perl-fu, Python-Fu are all way better than Photoshop's "Actions" Plus its open source so if you don't like it, modify the fscking source. And yes, there is unsharp mask, and histogram adjustments, plus there are many Gimp counterparts to the Photoshop plugins (you have Gaussian blur in Photoshop, in Gimp you have 2 types of Gausian blur, each meant for different situations). While yes, the Extract feature might not be in gimp yet, who is going to stop someone from making one.
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
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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.
First of all, I'm not sure that you can say that I despise someone per se. I despise their actions. I don't care if someone can't program, but if they aren't willing to contribute at *all* and they expect free attention from the developers...yes, I suppose I consider that act despicable.
Second, what "vision" is this that they're supposed to be buying in to?
Third, this illustrates another issue that I'd like to bring up. There is much mention of "public good". People feel that once someone's demonstrated a hint of altruism, or at least lack of selfishness, they must be good to hit up for more. Just because a programmer didn't hold his source close to his chest doesn't mean that he wants to spent hundreds of hours that he could spend programming or with his family or painting or hiking doing tech support for unappreciative users. You're talking about public good? What about the efforts of the noncontributors to the public good? What have *they* done? Are *they* out donating their time to the public? Yet they expect the developer to donate more time to them because he's shown a flicker of what might be percieved as interest in the "public good"? The developer writing a line of code can benefit many people. Has this user sent him money to assist him in writing lines of code for many people -- for the public good? Has he assisted in writing code? Documentation? Anything? No? Then this user demanding attention in the name of the "public good" may be a bit hypocritical. But worse -- if they do not *help*, do they at least avoid *hindering*? If this noncontributor eats valuable developer time asking FAQs because he won't even look at the documentation, he is *hurting* the public good. If he simply criticizes the developer's work, he discourages the developer from producing anything more, hurting the public good. Developers that generously and freely give out time and effort and then are met by selfish criticism tend to get rather bitter over time.
The arrogance that permeates this statement is sadly too common in Open Source.
If wanting to not be met with a kick when giving something freely away is arrogance, then I must plead guilty. I'm only human.
Remember that, while Joe User is playing games on his X-Box come the weekend, Mike the Open Source Developer is writing software that Joe can freely download and use. Mike's done his part. If Joe hasn't done his, has he at least avoided hurting Mike's efforts?
May we never see th
...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
In reference to the audio programs, that's what Mac OS X is for, methinks.
Someone had a sig that read like this:
Unix for servers
Macs for productivity, graphics and audio
Windows for games
Something to that effect, and I agree. Windows is useless to me, except for game playing. But for high end audio and graphics I'd choose Mac OS X every time. So does 99% of the design and recording studios as well. Linux/BSD/Unix is great, but I think its strength is firmly entrenched in the server market, and not the desktop market. At least that's my opinion.
Of course, one could argue that Mac OS X is unix, so one could do all the server duties, graphics and so on altogether on that one machine. The GUI is rather memory intensive so for high traffic sites it'd probably be better to run Darwin or *BSD, without the GUI front-end.
I just love all the posts in this thread that say, "Well the GIMP doesn't have it, but you can always write your own..."
Who said that? I mean besides the one sarcastic post.
Do y'all have any idea who uses Photoshop? My graphic designer gf would laugh her pretty little ass off if I sugguested that she just whip up a patch in C or whatever-fu.
So what does she do if she needs some functionality that Photoshop doesn't provide? I would guess that she just goes through the steps to re-create the effect manually. You can do that in the GIMP too, you know.
Open Source kicks ass, but come-on guys. Most people just want to use software, not write it.
So use it. I've never had to write code to use any open source program. If something doesn't have the functionality I need, I'll just find another program that does. I don't see where that requires me to write code.
For every post, there is an equal and opposite re-post.
Like hell it does. Must we resort to bashing other image editors to make our own look better?
... CorelDRAW, Canvas, Photoshop, Fireworks, and even the GIMP. They've all got their markets. But to state unequivocally that an application sucks (without any reasons, besides!) is just bloody stupid.
I'm a professional designer, and I prefer PSP to any other editor merely for its near-flawless integration of vector and bitmap tools. Yes, I've used them all
I also own PaintShop Pro too, but it is flawed badly on handling layers and vector objects (Ulead's paint program is many times better at that, but the trial version of #8 I downloaded recently is SLOW now and not worth the cash).
My new favorite paint program for vector & bitmap is REAL DRAW PRO3. The pure wonderfulness of this program is that you can paint directly on a vector object and add multiple effects and there are some great vector editing tools (though for some reason it lacks a SMOOTH vector object command AND it lacks a basic "Draw spline" to draw a series of points and connect them with a rubber band curve AND for some inane reason doesn't change vector lines to "curve" or "line" at the line corners but at points ending or starting the line which makes editing awkward). The greatness of this program cannot be stated easily here so I recommend a visit to the website and download the TRIAL version.
mediachance.com/realdraw/
It could use better paint tools, some basic bitmap tweaking functions (smear, blur, smooth, etc..) for the paint tools, and some options I've already suggested to the programmer along the lines of more direct effect map editing as is already done with direct transparency map painting (painting on the bump maps directly, painting on the lens maps, adding in height map painting and vector fills) and adding in a flood fill option, object hierarchies, fixing the rotate option to allow rotation of grouped objects, fixing the magic texture tool to allow mapping rotation and perspective options, making the menus a bit more consistent, etc...
Otherwise it is one damn nice proggy.
It is nice to use a program that acts like I want it too overall.
An overview of what the program can do from the REALDRAW PRO3 history page
"Face it, a nation that maintains a 72% approval rating on George W. Bush is a nation with a very loose grip on reality.