Interview With Ximian's Nat Friedman

Sheepish writes "OSNews features a long and interesting interview with Nat Friedman, of Ximian fame. Nat tells all and talks about the upcoming Ximian Desktop 2 and its differences from Gnome 2, the difficulties of developing the MS Exchange Connector, Linux as a desktop, Mono and plans for Gnome integration, the hundrends of OpenOffice.org changes made to make OOo like a Gnome2 app, and how Ximian feels... about Apple's business. Four screenshots of Ximian Desktop 2 are included too."

Comments

MS Exchange Connector

[blogeasy]

It's too bad there even needs to be a MS Exchange Connector.

Most scary Ximian OOo change

[twener]

Quote: "- Uses MSFT file formats by default, reflecting the reality of most of the documents you will receive. No longer tells you you're about to lose all your data when you save in an MSFT format. "

Re:Most scary Ximian OOo change

[pr0c]

Whats scary? The fact that they admit it or the fact that its true?

Re:Most scary Ximian OOo change

[twener]

The discreeted possible data loss. They at least should have based their import/export on 1.1 trunk.

Re:Most scary Ximian OOo change

[chetohevia]

Well, given that you don't actually lose the data, it's reassuring.

Since .doc ends up being the underlying file format, the dialog is just needlessly alarming, and they just took it out.

Re:Most scary Ximian OOo change

[El Pollo Loco]

I dunno, it could go either way. When OO does become more widespread, and MS does change the format substantially, then Ximian could always say that it was microsoft screwing up the format. That would just piss off a lot of customers. But on the other hand, if the OO users see the office users still using them perfectly, it could drive them away.

Re:Most scary Ximian OOo change

[pr0c]

I agree! I use 1.1 and wouldn't think about going back.

Re:Most scary Ximian OOo change

[mijok]

Remember one thing: MS themselves are locked into their formats too. They are forced to maintain compatibility with older versions of their own programs - if they broke that with newer versions people wouldn't upgrade.

Re:Most scary Ximian OOo change

[quiklilo71]

I loved XD1 back in the RHAT 7.3 daze, but since I never seen a supported 8.0 version I gave up on it.
I loved it but I remember that whenever I wanted to update by version of Redhat I had to format seems the rpms used by Ximian were diffrent than Redhats.
I'm going to give XD2 a shot, I'm sure it will be great, I'll just put it on a box I don't care about before I put it on my main Linux machine.

About oo...

I can't speak for the entire suite but oowriter has been great to me until recently.
I attent the University of Phoenix online and was working on a major paper. Of course everyone else in the class uses the ms office suite.
I was about to submit my paper when I fired up rdesktop to view it in XP... it came out hacked in symbols (@#![])... I had to retype it in ms word!

I still think it's almost as good as abiword, but abi doesn't seem to get much press so it may even be better...

We're getting close!

Re:Most scary Ximian OOo change

[iabervon]

The OpenOffice format isn't really preferable to MSFT file formats for any practical reason (aside from not including random secret information, which OpenOffice presumably doesn't put into the MSFT files anyway). Any other supported format you're likely to want, you'd use a more suitable program to create. Everyone I know who uses OpenOffice only uses it to deal with MSFT files and writes their books, papers, and web pages in plain text or LaTeX with emacs or vi.

(In fact, most of the documents you're likely to receive are plain text or HTML email, judging from the spam I get, but you won't use OpenOffice with them)

Re:Most scary Ximian OOo change

[michrech]

I was about to submit my paper when I fired up rdesktop to view it in XP... it came out hacked in symbols (@#![])... I had to retype it in ms word!

Why didn't you do something like export it from OpenOffice (assuming you still had an origional copy) to something like plain text and then just do any touch-up's once you had the exported file in Word? That would have saved you a butt-load of time and effort.

Just my two cents.

Re:Most scary Ximian OOo change

[rgmoore]

You haven't been paying very close attention, have you? One of the biggest complaints about Microsoft file formats is that they seem to change with every version of the software, and the new versions always default to saving things in the newest format. This causes problems because people who have the newer version of the software send out files that users of older versions can't read without upgrading. Meanwhile, the new version can still read files from the older versions, so there's no trouble accessing your old documents. That makes it easy to upgrade and hard to avoid upgrading.

Some of the file format incompatibility is natural. After all, if there are new features in the software they may require new features in the file format to support them. At the same time, though, it should be possible to make file formats so that they remain readable by older versions of the software so long as they don't incorporate any new features. I thought that one of the attractive features of XML formats is that they're supposed to behave this way very easily. That MS makes no effort to do this, or to automatically save in the oldest format that will support all features used in the document, is a sign that they're using file format incompatibility as a way of forcing upgrades.

Re:Most scary Ximian OOo change

[tzanger]

I just wish (and I've logged feature requests in both SO and OO) that they'd include a "Save Copy As" menu item so that I could rattle off a .doc format without have to go back and run Save As again to get back to OO format.

Re:Most scary Ximian OOo change

[mijok]

According to Microsoft:"Office 2001 for Mac uses the same file format as Office 98 for Mac, so it's completely compatible. It's also completely compatible with Office 97 for Windows and Office 2000 for Windows. They all use the same format to save files."
(IIRC OpenOffice only has the "Save as Microsoft Word/Whatever 97/2000/XP" option).
But yes, I'm fully aware of the fact that opening older formats in newer works better than in the other direction, however; my point is that MS is forced to take into account that users that upgrade still need to be able to share files with those using older versions and thus they cannot completely break compatibility. And MS also realizes that they need to ensure that people use their formats as the obvious, default choice (and thus not ask too much "which formats can you read/write"), so albeit OpenOffice.org (etc.) have the disadvantage of being forced to reverse-engineer the formats MS isn't able to change them absolutely freely either, which was the concern the parent poster had.

Re:Most scary Ximian OOo change

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, given that you don't actually lose the data, it's reassuring.

Well, actually it can loose data, but with the continous improvements Sun and the OOo community make, these occasions are admittedly getting rare.

Since .doc ends up being the underlying file format, the dialog is just needlessly alarming, and they just took it out.

And no, they didn't take it out. It's a configuration option in standard OOo to switch the default file format, and in that case the dialog isn't displayed. Ximian only changed this option by default.

What bothers me as an OOo developer most about the Ximian changes is that they still haven't fed anything back to the OOo tree. Not even bug fixes. For months now they keep finger-pointing at OOo and claim how much better their OOo derivative is, even though the vast majority of the work is still being done by Sun and the OOo community. This is legal as far as the OOo license goes, but it definitely isn't fair play in an open source world.

And before I forget, ob Most scary Ximian OOo change: Yes, I fully agree. Replacing a proprietarry (and fairly expensive) OS with a free OS, and replacing a proprietary (and fairly expensive) application with open and free counterparts is great, but doing so by forcing a proprietary (and fairly expensive from an engineering perspective) file format on everyone when a better replacement is readily available is a rather strange strategy. I can only wonder...

Re:Most scary Ximian OOo change

[ReelOddeeo]

the OpenOffice format isn't really preferable to MSFT file formats for any practical reason

Not true. I write Java programs which read and write OOo drawings. Do you think I could do this easily with Microsoft Visio? Since OOo docs are just a zip file of xml files, I can use the java.util.zip.* classes and the jdom.org classes as a foundation for my own library to read/write the OOo docs.

For instance, I have a maze generator in Java. It creates OOo drawing of mazes. Eventually to have crossword and word search puzzle generators.

Some of my tools use UNO to talk to a running OOo and produce drawings. Some read and write the doc formats. Eventually, others will run as a component within OOo (if I can ever figure out how to do that!).

There are many ideas for program produced drawings that have me inspired with more than I can implement right now. Nice drawings of calendars (holidays, vacation days, meetings, etc.), drawings of org charts. A library that takes a nice xml style set of tree structured nodes and produces an org-chart like tree structured multi-page drawing.

Back to your remark. Basically, I see the openness and ease of access to OOo's doc formats as a major practical benefit.

I don't do much with Writer, but with just standard tools, you could script the unzip of a Writer file, and then XSLT that into any other useful format, such as DocBook. All without even having an installed copy of OOo on your machine. All with off-the shelf tools.


Everyone I know who uses OpenOffice only uses it to deal with MSFT files and writes their books, papers, and web pages in plain text or LaTeX with emacs or vi.

I do not. Your experience may be limited to your environment. I use none of the tools you mention (except for plain text). I do not even know how to use the tools you mention. Many times I've started to learn either Latex, emacs or vi. Never actually had enough motivation to overcome the inertia. Many other modern tools are available. (Jed for SSH based remote editing of config files, for instance.) I write documents in OOo Writer and save them in the native formats. When necessary, I export to both ".doc" and ".pdf" for exchange with others.

Re:Most scary Ximian OOo change

[iabervon]

Am I right in thinking that you just said that you use OOo formats primarily in programs you wrote, and do not generally use OpenOffice itself for most of the stuff you do? This is very interesting, but does not quite invalidate my point.

It seems to me that you use other tools to generate and use OOo files and use OOo to write documents, save them locally as OOo files, but use other formats to distribute them. I had neglected the possibility of people using the native format and PDF but not MSFT, I suppose.

The thing about OOo is that it is a WYSIWYG word processor, which has the fundamental issue that you are editting formatted text, and therefore have to do a substantial amount of formatting yourself, and cannot interact with formatting instructions for an automatic system. If you are not Douglas Hofstadter, you'd probably be better off telling the system your general ideas about formatting, and letting it arrange the text to suit the page when you're done and select an output medium. The messing with layout that you have to do in Word is similarly required in OOo, but is not in LaTeX.

Also, the thing I'd really like to do with a document format is put it under version control. Unfortunately, OOo format doesn't work that well with CVS.

Incidentally, if you know jed, you actually know enough of emacs to use that, since jed is essentially a rewritten specialization of emacs, and emacs behaves almost exactly like jed if you do only things that jed supports. The advantage of using emacs over jed is that it lets you find out about and enable lots of nice things that jed doesn't support. Also, you can get nice results out of LaTeX by putting a little header and footer on a plain text document; from there, you can start learning LaTeX features as needed (if you actually need any; for most documents, all you need to do is separate paragraphs with a blank line).

Re:Most scary Ximian OOo change

[ReelOddeeo]

Am I right in thinking that you just said that you use OOo formats primarily in programs you wrote, and do not generally use OpenOffice itself for most of the stuff you do?

Not quite right.

I write programs in Java that do things related to OpenOffice.org. Sometimes I use the Java UNO runtime to make a UNO connection to a running OOo, and then make it generate drawings. Other times, a Java program simply reads or writes an OOo document format, but does not require an actual running copy of OOo. Of course the purpose of reading or writing the OOo document format is for the purpose of compatibility.

For example, run a Java program, enter the number of teeth in the outer ring, number of gear teeth on an inner wheel, pen radius on inner wheel, and it produces a flower-like drawing similar to a plastic toy you might have had as a child that used gear tooth wheels and rings with colored ball point pens. :-) A toy whose trademarked name I won't mention here.

In this case. The drawing produced is for the purpose of viewing / editing / copying / pasting / printing / resizing, etc. using OpenOffice.org.

My programs are for use with OpenOffice.org.

Aside from that, I use OpenOffice.org as my primary productivity suite. Word processing (writing documentation for the aforementioned programs before I eventually find a site to host them as open source projects). I save everything in native OOo formats. No need to save as ".doc", even though I do have access to Word.


The thing about OOo is that it is a WYSIWYG word processor

Yes, but I don't think you understood my meaning. I like to use WYSIWYG word processors. But if needed, I can use standard off the shelf tools to manipulate the OOo document format into other useful current, and future formats. In other words, one big feature of the openness of the OOo doc format is that I will never suffer "bit rot" again or loose documents to obsolete software.

I have abandoned work from several generations of computers, from the TRS-80, Apple ][, Apple ///, Lisa, MacWrite, ClarisWorks, etc. So I'm pretty anxious to have an office suite that runs everywhere I want to be, and that will NEVER render my documents inaccessible. No matter what, I can convert my OOo documents into any other future open source productivity suite that may be in vogue this decade or next decade.


Incidentally, if you know jed, you actually know enough of emacs to use that

While technically true, I still find emacs difficult to use and jed easy to use. For whatever reason, jed conforms to fit me, a longtime Mac user and only 4-years ago convert to Linux.

4 years ago, I was pretty much resigned that I would have to learn ancient school tools either vi or emacs. Last summer I suddenly realized that this will never ever become necessary with the state of modern distributions, rescue disks, etc. With jed, via. ssh, I get a nice colorized display with pull down menus. I have not yet found it necessary to use the extensibility scripting capabilities of jed, but I very much appreciate that they are there when and if I need them. From several false starts learning emacs, I definitely recognize the similaraties to jed. This is one of the several things that attracted me to jed. But emacs, like any seldom used, but complex skill, is very difficult to learn.

I could give you piano lessons. But if you only tried to play every few months, you would never quite seem to be able to pick up the skill, even though you could converse well about it.

Re:Good one

[Anonymous Coward]

If you liked that interview, then you will also like many other interviews.

But you don't have to take my word for it!

UI Consistency

[Rura Penthe]

I'm pleased that XD2 is striving for complete UI consistency. This is something I've always felt was lacking in the overall user experience for linux. Having a coherent set of human interface guidelines ala Apple's materials for OS X can do nothing but help.

Re:UI Consistency

[Anonymous Coward]

Fucking pathetic that it's 2003 and this is what is being strived for.

Re:UI Consistency

[ksheka]

Only works if everyone else follows your guideline, though.

Re:UI Consistency

[StAugustineLovesYou]

The problem is that with such a large percentage of the desktop market, there is a consistent UI, MSWindows (2000, XP, whatever). It's hard to get away from the "it doesn't look like windows" complaints and appeal to larger than niche markets.

Re:UI Consistency

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually if you've been using KDE its been pretty consistant as opposed to Gnome where the file dialog varies between apps and many gtk apps make up their own UI styles. In KDE if its Ksomething chances are it looks like it fits with KDE, that's not the case with Gnome yet. Of course you go out of version and you get what you get, but overall KDE is better about this.

What I'd personally love to see Ximian do is rip out and fix that mess which is Natulius. Why did Eazel build a file manager that can't even manage files?

For a good bit a fun do something most users need to do every day. Browse to smb mounted share that has more than 100 files in it. You'll reach retirement age before the files are displayed.(Yes that's with file count and picture thumbnails off!). Compared to Konq Natuilus is a bloated piece of crap.

I say this as a full time user of Gnome so its not like I have an axe to grind here. I love Gnome, I just avoid Nautilus like the plague. Why do the Nautilus devs keep adding functions before fixing the basic flaws that have been around for years now?

Re:UI Consistency

[binner1]

People are always going to complain. Half of most people's working hours are spent complaining about 'this and that'.

They'll get over it and move on. They always do. This is largely due to short attention spans and the next big crisis in the office.

Once they're able to send all of their emails to the printer, they'll be perfectly content!

-Ben

Re:UI Consistency

[lewp]

Well, compared to NFS in general SMB sucks the big one for performance on Linux. That said, I've got a directory with a couple hundred large video files in it and it comes up perfectly fine over SMB in Nautilus.

they must read slashdot

[adamruck]

One of the big problems we solved was the printing UI. Using CUPS as the backend, most printers are now automatically detected and configured, even if they're on the network. We also added a simple printer configuration wizard. Configured Printers show up in your file manager and can be easily reconfigured to change things like paper sizes, using a familiar interface. Small things matter: your printer jobs appear on the panel until they are done, so you know when to pick up the results. Large things matter too: when printing from an application, just click on the printer you want to print to. For most people, this solves the Linux printing problem pretty well.

they must have read the artice on cups that was just posted a little while ago

Re:they must read slashdot

[zero_offset]

Or maybe they just looked at Windows. Again. Seriously, this puts Linux printing roughly where Windows printing was about 9 years ago. Not a flame, just an observation.

Re:they must read slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

I am finding CUPS to be a god send myself. It makes migration off of UNIX a snap and just works sooooo much better than anything LPR/LPD related. I still find it humorous when reading the docs for LPRng where they talk about "the System V print spooler and other less advanced" printing systems. Eat your heart out guys. A System V clone is putting you out of business.

CUPS rules!

too much???

[Anonymous Coward]

well it isn't a dupe, but this got me fooled the first time i looked :). but still it's a good interview.

I'm salivating

[esconsult1]

The reason why I bought an iBook to admin my Linux servers was because of immature user interfaces.

I was left salivating after viewing the screenshots and reading about the far reaching changes that were made, especially integrating OpenOffice with the rest of the desktop.

And they're looking into migrating several hundred thousand desktops, especially in Europe. Damn!

Goodbye Bluecurve, Hello Ximian Desktop!

Re:I'm salivating

[axxackall]

The reason why I bought an iBook to admin my Linux servers was because of immature user interfaces.

I am confused. Do you mean immature user interfaces of OSX? That's why you run Gentoo on your iBook, right?

Re:I'm salivating

[bogie]

Yea because you really need more then ssh to admin your linux servers.

Re:I'm salivating

[bogie]

Its not a troll its the truth. Who uses more than ssh (which forwards X11 if you actually have a gui tool on the server you need) to admin a linux server?

You certainly don't need a "mature interface" to admin a server like the parent mentioned. Drool over your IBook, but not because it does a better job at "admining" linux servers than any linux box would do.

I guess whoever modded me down doesn't know anything about adming linux boxes.

Re:I'm salivating

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure they mean that it's nice to have a pretty desktop wrapped around that ssh window. And it's nice to have a pretty browser too. And it's nice to have nice stuff.

Re:I'm salivating

[Anonymous Coward]

> And they're looking into migrating several hundred thousand desktops, especially in Europe.

I don't believe that until I see the announcements about it.

No Slackware download?

[TheDefunctMunky]

Why is Ximian not supporting Slack?

Re:No Slackware download?

[gradedcheese]

its not an rpm-based distro

Re:No Slackware download?

[SLot]

From their desktop support general info:

Slackware Linux is a well-respected Linux distribution, and has a dedicated, fierce following. It is possible that Ximian may support Slack in the future but we have no idea when that might happen. Slackware support is likely to come after BSD support, Debian PPC support, and SuSE PPC support. Right now, we have plenty of work supporting the distributions we already support.

The things that prevent Ximian from supporting Slackware are partly technical, and partly market based. Technically, Slack has a package management system which has substantial differences from other distribution's package management systems. Dependency checking, for example, is absolutely necessary for certain Ximian services and features (the installer and the updater, in particular), and is not fully supported by Slackware. Slackware's architects have a well-defended disdain for dependency checking, and we can understand their arguments. But without it, Ximian Desktop can't figure out what to install, what to upgrade, and what to leave alone.

That means, basically, that it's a lot more work for us to add really good support for Slack than it is for us to add good support for, say, Conectiva, which is based closely upon the Red-Hat model. Not only that, but there aren't a lot of distros based upon Slack. From our support for Red Hat, it's a quick jump to other rpm-based distros. If we support Slackware, it's working with an entirely new package system just for one Linux distro.

Another market force is the profile of the typical Slack user. Slackware users often compile stuff themselves. They know how to install software at the command line. They know their dependency trees themselves, and don't trust or need package management systems. They're hackers in the best sense of the word, and we respect them deeply for that. They don't need things like the Ximian Desktop update service, or the graphical installer. Ximian is about making free software easier to use, and Slackware users don't tend to need any help.

So, what can you do, elite Slackware user, ignored by market forces and business types, if you want the prettiest, bestest desktop in the Linux land? You can download pre-rolled tgzs from the variety of Slack software mirrors, or get the binary rpms or source rpms from the Red Hat directory at our ftp site, and install by hand with rpm. Or you can convert them to slack packages with rpm2tgz. And, in a brave trick of hackery, you can fool the graphical installer into thinking you're a Red Hat user. The command:

echo "Red Hat Linux release 7.2 (Enigma)" > /etc/redhat-release

has been reported to make the installer work, although you're likely to have difficulty with one or another dependency somewhere. Official Ximian support of this method is not available, and we cannot give you any guarantees.

Re:No Slackware download?

[fiiz]

Well, slackware has dropline gnome, which is specially optimised for slack.

Re:No Slackware download?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because slackware fucking sucks and is only used by retard zealots stuck in a 10-year old packaging timewarp?

Re:No Slackware download?

[ajs318]

This is totally backwards. They should have started with the simple ones first - a generic .tar.gz - then moved up to the RPM based distros.

I've used Debian, Slackware and Mandrake (which is basically RedHat with different graphics). Everything supports .tar.gz files - Slackware packages are .tar.gz, but not all .tar.gz are proper Slackware packages. Debian has its own (IMHO superior) package management system and, if a .deb isn't available then you can bet someone will create one.

Anyway, Slackware 9 comes with KDE3.1, so what do you want Ximian Desktop for? ;-)

Ummm ... as if ...

[SuperDuG]

Why would I use outdated Ximian 2

When KDE is already on version 3

obviously newer and better.

Re:Ummm ... as if ...

[Squareball]

Because with that logic why aren't you using Windows 2000

Re:Ummm ... as if ...

[Strike]

Feh, my Atari 2600 walks all over that Pentium 4 AND your Windows 2000 - combined!

Re:Ummm ... as if ...

[AvantLegion]

Geez mods, get a sense of humor.

Re:Ummm ... as if ...

[michrech]

Feh, my Atari 2600 walks all over that Pentium 4 AND your Windows 2000 - combined!

Yea, well my Atari 5200 walks all over anything you've got!

Re:Ummm ... as if ...

[damiam]

It would be funny if it wasn't posted several times in every story mentioning a product with a version number.

Re:Ummm ... as if ...

[Gleng]

Yea, well my Atari 5200 walks all over anything you've got!

Not my MITS Altair 8800.

Clearly a far superior machine.

Re:Ummm ... as if ...

[michrech]

Not my MITS Altair 8800.

Clearly a far superior machine.

DOH!

Re:Ummm ... as if ...

[Gleng]

Come to think of it, an Amiga with a Motorola 68000 cpu in it would be pretty shit hot ;)

Or...

[mhore]

why not Windows XP....errr...umm...damn.

Ximian Desktop on Red Hat?

[Chicane-UK]

Well I gotta be honest and say.. from the shots I have seen, and from what I have read, I can't really see what the Ximian Desktop offers Red Hat users over the superb BlueCurve front end on the most recent versions.

Antialiasing, clean & well organised style, custom icons, and specially developed management tools. I really really rate what Red Hat have done, and I could never see myself paying for something like Ximian Desktop to replace BlueCurve.

Re:Ximian Desktop on Red Hat?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you stop reading when the changes to things like OpenOffice were made or the Printing system?

Re:Ximian Desktop on Red Hat?

[Anonymous Coward]

XD2 is free dude

Re:Ximian Desktop on Red Hat?

[MS_is_the_best]

When the first Ximian Desktop was released it was certainly better than Redhat's Gnome. With XD2, compared to Redhat 9, I think the difference is smaller.

Nevertheless I still like what Ximian does. Their Open Office and Gnome patches are still good. I will just wait for Redhat to include them. This because running a distro and Ximian Desktop and upgrading packages from different sources gave me a lot of nasty problems in the past (Redhat explicitly tells to uninstall Ximian in their release notes). However I do not know how that will be with this release...

If you read the interview it was clear that the main advantage for using Ximian will not be for the home user, but for large corporations. Better application management/more consistency and real user problems solving.

Nevertheless I think Ximian is a nice open source company, providing the communuity with good patches and Evolution and help adoption of linux. So props to them anyway!

Re:Ximian Desktop on Red Hat?

[Anonymous Coward]

> the main advantage for using Ximian will not be for the home user, but for large corporations.

Ah, that's the reason for including XMMS and other stuff. :-)

Re:Ximian Desktop on Red Hat?

[mydigitalself]

"and I could never see myself paying for something like Ximian Desktop to replace BlueCurve..."

well you have two options here then. the first is to, well, download it for free. the second would be to close your eyes when you did pay for it.

i started using Ximian desktop about 4 years ago when evolution was around 0.6. i continue to use it for the sole reason of INTERACTION CONSISTANCY. gnome 2 is great and *sigh* hats off to RH for a well packaged disitribution - but it is still very geeky focused with a great deal of options. ximian provides a much simpler experience.

Re:Ximian Desktop on Red Hat?

[Mark Wilkinson]

I want to be able to run the Oracle database for my work, and I've got a multi-head setup that Gnome 2.2 is supposed to handle much better than Gnome 2.0. I run Red Hat 8.0 at the moment; I could move to Red Hat 9 for Gnome 2.2, but Oracle doesn't work with the new threading system they've brought in.

I'm hoping XD2 gives me Gnome 2.2 on Red Hat 8.0 - anything else is a bonus.

Rock on, Ximian...

[rainmanjag]

It's kinda strange... OSS with it's release-early-release-often idea almost makes it seem like improvements come so slowly, because they flow in a discrete trickle rather than the major leaps that come much further apart (emphasis on "seem")... Ximian's been working behind a black curtain for so long, it makes XD2 seem like such a gargantuan improvement...

Though significantly delayed, XD2 was released when Ximian got everything right... and they have... finally I have a desktop environment that I can proud to show to my consulting customers as a viable option...

-jag

Re:Rock on, Ximian...

[TheRaven64]

Though significantly delayed, XD2 was released when Ximian got everything right... and they have... finally I have a desktop environment that I can proud to show to my consulting customers as a viable option...

However, the flip-side of this is that they have pulled support for fresh installs of Ximian Gnome (1.4). For home users, waiting a week before being able to install Ximian would not be a problem, however, I have a room full of Linux boxen I'm admining for the university in my spare time, all of which run Ximian Gnome 1.4. I just came to install a new one, and found that the only way to do this is to leave it with a standard gnome install for a week (during which time people's desktop will be different if they use that machine) and then install XD2 on all of them next week. Thanks Ximian.

People complain about Microsoft and RedHat discontinuing support for a product shortly after a replacement is released, but discontinuing support for one version before rolling out the replacement is astonishing. They should have at least a month of overlap, so that admins can do the upgrade in their own time, rather than on an external timetable (after all, it's not like it's a security patch). In future, I think I will stick to official gnome releases, and wait for the stuff from Ximian to be merged back.

Re:Rock on, Ximian...

[Ed Avis]

You mean Ximian deleted the 1.4 packages from their FTP site? Are they not mirrored anywhere?

Ximian and money?

[ceswiedler]

Sorry, I'm behind on my distros. Is Ximian free-as-in-beer, i.e. downloadable? Do I get all of the features he's talking about, or do I have to sign up for a channel subscription?

Up to now, the best desktop distro seemed to be RH9.0, but this article impressed me a lot.

Re:Ximian and money?

[mhore]

Last I heard, you only had to pay for their Evolution connector (to connect to Exchange server)... and I think certain portions of their Red Carpet update service (if memory serves).

The actual desktop was (is, most likely) a free download -- and in my opinion, well worth it, except that it conflicted with some Redhat RPMs so that up2date/RHN had a fit.

Re:Ximian and money?

[chetohevia]

Ximian Desktop 2 is not a complete distro. It's software for a variety of operating systems.

It is (or will be, upon release) available for download free-of-charge. Source is/will be available for all open/free components. Patches are being and will be submitted upstream to maintainers.

Purchasers ($99) get extras including 3rd party (proprietary) software, PLUS 30 days support, PLUS a year's Red Carpet Express high-speed updates.

a.

Re:Ximian and money?

[Jellybob]

and I think certain portions of their Red Carpet update service (if memory serves).

I believe they have a "high-speed" update service, which also includes a few apps not included in the standard Red Carpet set.

They also sell an enterprise edition of Red Carpet, which allows system administrators to define their own software sets for Red Carpet on their clients - looks rather like MS Systems Management Server (or more likely the Software Installs section of group policies, since I'm assuming you'll have to build the RPMs by hand.)

Re:Ximian and money?

[larry bagina]

Ximian subscribers get to test alpha releases.

Slashdot subscribers get to check stories for typos and dupes.

I think the Open Source business model needs more work...

Re:Ximian and money?

[stalinvlad]

$99 Wow, CUPS for printers, no-nag straight MSFileFormat, Nice semi-modern fonts

Integrates with Exchange!

Oh man, BSD sure looking dead!

Re:Awe screw you!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

um.... Ximian has NEVER AFAIK been /.ed in the past and it isn't right now.

You sir, are an Idoit.

No mention of when the source release of XD2.

[mgpeter]

Hopefully the week of the June 9, they will also release the complete source code to everything they use to build XD2.

I have 1 Gentoo system at home and 2 Built from scratch machines, and it would be soooo cool to have a ebuild for Gentoo, or at least a Garnome type build script. Especially for their OpenOffice.org version.

After reading this interview I really Can't wait.... Even tried their ftp site, but the XD2 directory is not browseable by an Anonymous Coward!

Re:No mention of when the source release of XD2.

[Skeezix]

Source code will be released the same week of June 9. It's mentioned in their faq.

Re:So..

[Anonymous Coward]

No - it's Gnome's last hope.

Maybe I'm in the minority

[Anonymous Coward]

I think since RedHat has made a concerted effor to make their distro much more "desktop friendly" the whole Ximian desktop loses a bit of it's shine.

I recall back when Ximian first started to come out with some slick looking stuff they were much nicer, asthetically speaking, than any linux distro out there. With Bluecurve and the maturation of Gnome 2.xx it seems the need for Ximaina is greatly diminished.

By the looks of things here I see no need to upgrade from RedHat 9.0 with the exception of getting Evolution 1.4. (And actually if it's faster than the butt slow 1.2 version that would be a good upgrade, now that I think about it.)

Re:Maybe I'm in the minority

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this modded up? He's talking about Ximian like it is it's own distro!

Re:Maybe I'm in the minority

[Anonymous Coward]

Moderators == Fucktards

Believe me, it's a good thing. The more time these people spend moderating web pages, the less the chance is that they 'll manage to procreate and spead the fucktard genes to a new generation of fucktard brats.

Re:Maybe I'm in the minority

[evilpete]

Ximian's artists work full time and contribute to a lot of projects outside Ximian Desktop, including doing a lot of work for the core gnome project. It's rare to see a major gnome project that doesn't credit jimmac or tigert.

Pretty much all the stock gnome 2 icons were produced by Ximian - so gnome's default good looks are down to them.

Ximian are a major Gnome community player and are pushing it fast in the right direction. Red Hat are doing the same. For Gnome development to carry on at the current rate we should wish both companies success with their plans.

Get with the times...

[moreati]

Quote: KDE has way more options (the clock properties dialog has five tabs!),
Actually it has 6 in KDE version 3.1: General, Timezones, Plain Clock, Analogue Clock, Fuzzy Clock.
For some reason I find that amusing. If you're going to drop some FUD, at least get your facts straight.
I'm guessing 3.2 will have 12 or 24 depending on it's mode.

Re:Get with the times...

[Anonymous Coward]

1. General
2. Timezones
3. Plain Clock
4. Analogue Clock
5. Fuzzy Clock

So what is the sixth?

Re:Get with the times...

[Anonymous Coward]

Digital Clock

Re:Get with the times...

[moreati]

Oops, I appear to have fudded in a sarcastic fudding actually meant to defud.

OK, as the other AC correctly noted, the sixth is Digital Clock.

Re:Get with the times...

[Nat Friedman]

I was looking at 3.0.3, which only has five tabs. Good to hear the tab momentum continues apace in new versions of KDE :-).

(Also, I wasn't really trying to FUD; just to illustrate the different value systems.)

Re:Get with the times...

[Ed Avis]

6. Profit!!!

Re:Get with the times...

[Anonymous Coward]

True conversation.

Husband: Why not switch to Gnome? All the apps you use are Gnome or gtk. Ximian rocks.

Wife: What about Shisen-Sho?

Husband: It has Mahjongg.

Wife: I like Shisen-Sho.

Husband: No problem, we won't wipe KDE, you can still play Shisen-Sho.

[wife logs into Gnome, sets it up....]

Wife: Where's the fuzzy clock?

Husband: Fuzzy clock?

Wife: Heh, you know, the fuzzy clock. You set it to like day/night, evening, afternoon. You know, a fuzzy clock.

Husbad: Uh....

[...click...click...Wife logs out of Gnome ..]

Just wondering...

[ElGuapoGolf]

Just wondering, but has Ximian made a KDE version of their new industrial theme?

Ya see, the beauty of the KDE/Gnome thing is that some KDE apps you can't live without, and some Gnome/GTK apps you can't live without. Gaim and K3b/Kmail spring to mind right off the bat.

I like KDE themes like QTCurve and Keramik/Geramik because it makes the GTK/Gnome/KDE applications look the same. If using this Ximian desktop means that my KDE apps will look out of place, then it doesn't really seem that appealing.

A theme like this seems like it'd be simple to do, so I'd be very curious to see if Ximian has really done a complete job of it.

Re:Just wondering...

[apachetoolbox]

ximian is a WHOLE lot more then just a theme. its an entire gnome distribution with a ton of apps. redcarpet alone makes ximian worth it.

Re:Just wondering...

[Anonymous Coward]

If using this Ximian desktop means that my KDE apps will look out of place, then it doesn't really seem that appealing.

I hear ya brother. Who cares if things work or not! I don't care how interopable they make XD2, if I can't have my pretty RainbowBrite Apps then I ain't a' gonna be using it!

You sir....(scratch that) WE are Idiots!

Re:Just wondering...

[ElGuapoGolf]

Usually I don't reply to ACs, but this somehow seems worth it.

If I change a font in the Gnome CC or KDE CC, I'd like it to change across all apps (IE, default text font, etc.). It's sometimes handy like that. QTCurve and Geramik will do that.

Re:Just wondering...

[ElGuapoGolf]

What does redcarpet offer that a nice apt repository doesn't?

Not asking as a troll, just curious.

Re:Just wondering...

[diamondc]

the Ximian packages have more polish and include their patches (Debian ships vanilla GNOME)

Re:Just wondering...

[Wesley Felter]

The answer to that is in the article (sort of). People don't like things that look alike but work differently. You can make KDE and GNOME apps look alike, but a theme won't make them work alike.

Re:Just wondering...

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you should use Windows instead.

Re:Just wondering...

[damiam]

The question was, what would the difference be between downloading Ximian Gnome with Red Carpet and downloading Ximian Gnome from a (hypothetical) apt source.

Re:Just wondering...

[mallie_mcg]

Well... (I'm going to answer this from the POV of someone who is lazy).
Red Carpet provides a nice GUI that will enable you to install packages (and resolve the dependancies automagically). If I recall correctly as well as the Ximian packages, it was able to update/pull needed packages from your OS too. Its main differences between an apt source is that it has a nice GUI which displays a name and version number along with a tickbox [maybe a description]. Perhaps there is a nice X apt program that will allow you to browse a repository just looking, I dont know of one, i only know of the command line tools, and personally I find red-carpet brilliant when you want to install something on a local box. [note: i use apt on boxes at work and love that too, red carpet is not for everything, but for a Ximian desktop, it truly does rock!]

Does KDE even have something like this?

[teamhasnoi]

UI Guide

Re:Does KDE even have something like this?

[twener]

Sure, even older.

Re:Does KDE even have something like this?

[MS_is_the_best]

Nat admits his mistake in the interview in the comments:

I wasn't lying, but I wasn't very clear either. What I meant was that GNOME was the first project to have a documented set of human interface guidelines, *and* to have a usability team that enforces those guidelines across the desktop. This has given us a pretty high level of UI consistency, which I think shows. (Now, if this happens to be wrong, I'm still not lying -- I'm just wrong, but I don't think that I am :-).

Re:Does KDE even have something like this?

[FooBarWidget]

But the GNOME HIG is not just a "UI guideline", it's a complete book about designing good user interfaces. It's a must-read for every GUI developer; yes, that includes KDE developers! Even if you don't follow the GNOME UI guidelines, you should still read the GNOME HIG because it can teach you a thing or two about designing good and usable user interfaces in general.

Re:Does KDE even have something like this?

[Anonymous Coward]

balls. the whole cancel/ok subject proves
pretty quickly to me that gnome's "usablity"
team should be thrown away, and fast.

Alex

Re:Awe screw you!!!!

[Aknaton]

It's an OSNews link, not a Ximian link.

Re:Does it run on linux?

[El Pollo Loco]

Linux on linux. Infinite recursion much?

Actually...

[Anonymous Coward]

The KDE style-guide is a bit different. It can't exactly be called a predecessor of the GNOME Human-Interface Guidelines, because it has a different aim.

Diversity vs Singularity

[Anonymous Coward]

Diversity attracts but people tends to stay, if possible, at singularity.

Go figure that.

Will you pay 99$ for...

[twener]

... fonts of undefined quality and quantity, 3rd party plugins freely available (Adobe Acrobat Reader, Real Audio Player, Flash Player, Java run-time-environment), 30 days installation support and 1 year "high-speed" download (you could also use mirrors)? Or will you continue to use StarOffice, if it's still included for this price, if there is an integrated Ximian OOo? And for only 69$ more you could read your exchange mails. Pricy.

Re:Will you pay 99$ for...

[twener]

Forgot: Are these per-seat licenses? I guess at least the 69$ is one.

Exchange connector

[Anonymous Coward]

I read somewhere that the Exchange connector is non-free. I don't know if that's free as in beer or speech however my question is this: How much does it cost? I was going to go to Ximinian's homepage to check but for some mysterious reason it's not responding...

Re:Exchange connector

[huhmz]

Q: How much does Ximian Connector cost?
A: Ximian Connector software is available as a free download. However, Ximian Connector will not operate without a valid Ximian Connector license file, which may be purchased at the Ximian store. Individual Ximian Connector license files will be sold for $69 dollars/seat. 10-license and 25-license packs will retail for $599 and $1449, respectively. Volume purchase agreements are available. Contact our Sales department for more information on education and corporate programs.

Re:Exchange connector

[ElGuapoGolf]

Make sure to mention that unless your company has outlook web access turned on, exchange connector just won't look.

Crossover office is a better alternative at that point.

Re:Exchange connector

[rkhalloran]

And if your company hasn't upgraded to Exchange 2000, you're equally hosed, since it won't work with earlier versions...

File Dialog

[twener]

How it is possible that nobody yet asked if they again include their own file dialog different to Gnome vanilla's?

Re:File Dialog

[matthewn]

Mod parent up. Fantastic question. The standard Gnome file dialogs are good enough for geeks (tab completion, hell yeah) but are simply dreadful for standard users.

Re:File Dialog

[Nat Friedman]

We don't have a fundamentally new file selection dialog, but we added some quickbuttons to the stock Gtk one that jump you to your desktop, documents or home directory. This makes it a bit easier to use.

Owen Taylor is allegedly developing a new file manager in Gtk 2.4 that should be much easier to use, and that we expect to see adopted across GNOME very quickly.

Re:File Dialog

[nitehorse]

Is Owen working on a new file manager, or file selection dialog?

Replacing Nautilus will be kind of silly for you guys, won't it?

-clee

Re:File Dialog

[IO ERROR]

My big complaint about the GNOME/Gtk file selection dialog is it looks almost exactly like the Motif file selection dialog, which I hate. I haven't heard a good reason for separating directories from files, and neither does the dialog explain to a new user just what a directory is, anyway. Add in a generic "folder" and "document" icon to each side of the dialog, and it will be a lot easier to use. Then remove the "./" entry, and replace "../" with something like "parent" or "up one folder", or get rid of it entirely.

KDE 3's file selection dialog looks almost identical to the dialog in Windows 2000/XP, and it's blatantly obvious what's what, when you look at it.

Gtk/GNOME still has a lot of catching up to do in the usability field. Ximian's new release will help a lot, but the problems go all the way to the core, and I haven't seen anything here that indicates that these problems will be addressed.

Re:File Dialog

[Nat Friedman]

File selector dialog. Not file manager. The wrong word came out :-).

Re:File Dialog

[nitehorse]

Damn. I was hoping that you guys were going to come up with something that sucked less than Nautils, too. ;)

Although, honestly, even though it has been a long time coming, I really don't think that the file selection dialog is that big of a deal for the desktop. It's annoying in its current state, sure, but I don't think that anyone is going to say "OH! Look! GNOME has a superior file-selection dialog now! WE MUST SWITCH TO GNOME!" ::grin::

However, you guys are definitely doing good work - please keep it up. I like using software that sucks less, and (if nothing else) I can honestly say that GNOME sucks less now than it used to... so by my book, at least, you guys are cool.

Re:File Dialog

[Des Herriott]

Then remove the "./" entry

Actually, the "./" entry isn't entirely useless (though it is very poor UI design... Motif has a lot to answer for!). Double-clicking on it rescans the current directory, which is useful on occasion - if you've dropped some new files in and want to open those with your app.

Removing it, and replacing it with a "Refresh" button is what's needed.

Re:File Dialog

[Makarakalax]

Removing it, and replacing it with a "Refresh" button is what's needed.

I would have said removing it and making it so the dialog automatically updates itself when the directory's contents changes is what is needed.

KDE does this.

Re:File Dialog

[cakoose]

It's convenient to have directories separated from files because then you can do directory navigation without the mouse. If there's only one text box, then you often end up overwriting the filename that is given to you by default.

The file selection dialog in Gnome 1.4 sucks because when you create a new directory, it doesn't automatically place the focus on the text box. Also, after you manually click on the text box and type in the name of the new directory, pressing enter wont trigger the "create" action either.

Yes, I'm a Debian/testing user stuck with Gnome 1.4. Well, I have the Gnome 2 libraries and GDM2 (which is slower than the original GDM2 and has the location of the Yes/No buttons reversed) but all my other stuff is Gnome 1.4. That's thanks to Debian's smart "dist-upgrade", which also uninstalled a bunch of other crap without replacing it with equivalent programs. I also don't have an application to configure the theme for GTK2-based apps (anybody know which package to download?).

Re:File Dialog

[daniel borgmann]

You will still need the reload button for remote directories unfortunately. AFAIK this is also the reason why Nautilus still has a reload button.

I thought...

[Anonymous Coward]

That NAT was illegal in Michigan.

Re:I thought...

[Anonymous Coward]

She looks a bit like a bloke, and all. But not so much so that you'd get mistaken for a poofter.

OSX

[minus_273]

With all due respect, I strongly disagree with what he says about OSX. I say this because it justy so happens i switched to OSX yesterday. Ive used Linux for years and used gnome, window maker and finallys ettled with kde 3.1. It was so annoying doing all of thw software updates all the time (new GLibc, new libpng, new qt aaagh!) that i swallowed my pride and looked into OSX.
guess what? I got a G3 266 mhz 256 mb ram 4 gig hdd for $100 off ebay. hook that to my vga monitor with an adapter ($10) and get jaguar wt my univ store for $69 and i have spent $180 on a new OSX desktop and $20 for teh shipping total $200.
One day, just one day and i have no desire to even use linux on my desktop anymore. The consitency of the interface, commercial softweare support (Office, explorer etc) and the ability to use X and all my favorite linux apps with fink. And bet of all no RPM hell, no new library or dependecy almost everyday.
What really pissed me off was when the new version of some software that is 2megs or so (say gaim) requires a new perl , gtk, glibc and X windows! sheesh. it was so hard to keep the same desktop (mandrak 9.0 in my case) since the stuff would be outdates so quickly. Even if iam a CS major.. i dont like constaly updatiung my OS for every new app and no i dont want to compile everything
That is why i switched and that is thereality of using linux . The biggest reson why people will still use windows --linux is fucking hard to use and maintain on the desktop.

Re:OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it THAT hard to stick to ONE distribution? If you use Redhat 8, just STICK to the RH 8 packages. You won't go into dependency hell, then.

Once you download and compile stuff yourself, you're on your own.

Re:OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

And no spell checker...bummer

Re:OSX

[minus_273]

sorry if this reads like flamebait to some. It is not. I am not trolling. I wrote it after reading the article becasue what is said there is false. OSX is not on expensive hardware only and OSX is the same cost as the Ximian connector. (academic) for k-8 schools IIRC it is free.

My point is Dont dismiss OSX if you havent bothered using it. When you do, you realise what Linux should have been like.

Re:OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

[Rant warning]

OK ... Even though the last sentence shouts it out loud - "troll in progress ...", I'll bite.

Except for the harsh language in the last sentence which ruined a perfectly good article, it's a pretty good observation. Or, rather ... Exactly what I've felt the last couple of years.

It's not possible in no way to keep up with the different releases of everything! OK, since I've been working with Linux (being the 68K maintainer for a couple of years, ago) I feel it's really frustrating to have to update most parts of the system everytime I update a single component.

But ... I guess that is what to be expected from the "free" world, who wants to use old and approved versions when there are new features just waiting around the corner?

No, I have not - in no way - have any arguments about that, but since everyone seem to have some comment about that Redhat (for instance) is slow to adapt, I'd rather give them a feather in the hat (pun intended, not upgradeable).

Alright, I don't have to upgrade my system every evening but if I want to install a new program it will take hours to download an upgrade every single component before I actually have the opportunity to install what I was looking for.

I really, really, tried to get my wife to use a *nix machine but since she's used to "what I do will happen, no need to upgrade" I had to give her a WinXP machine instead. Every evening was spent locating, installing and testing her machine.

It's still (so far) my system for server related tasks but for ordinary users who wants to print a letter and perhaps play a game? No way. We shouldn't try to fool ourselves. 10-15 new desktops, window managers with different opinions will work in the direct opposite direction.

[Love and hate. My choice but I would not recommend it to anyone except geeks and administrators. Just like in the "good" old days]

To much stuff written on a tuesday, I'll stop here. Final words ... *Some* standardization doesn't hurt.

[End. Also troll warning about what you just read, just ignore, but I got carried away ...]

Re:OSX

[Knife_Edge]

I'm not sure if this is related, but I just discovered how easy it is to do X-forwarding with Apple's X11 Beta, running all the graphical applications I wanted from my linux system, but using OS X as my desktop. I honestly feel that this is the best of both worlds. I understand that this is not a new technology, but I am so amazingly primitive that I still think it is a pretty neat idea.

That way I can have an officially supported IM client, iChat. This is the real reason using Gaim was so frustrating for you. You were forced to update if you wanted to stay compliant with any changes AOL made to their proprietary protocol. Well, generally Apple has taken care of dealing with issues like this for me, so Microsoft software and AOL instant messenging is possible. But I can also use any free software applications that I want, especially in cases where I cannot afford commercial software to do something. Also, unless you insist on having the latest version of everything, or are forced by outside circumstances like the Gaim case (which is a pretty unusual one, honestly), Linux software generally does not become outdated nearly as fast as you imply. I'm perfectly happy using Debian 3.0 (stable), and that is hardly known for being super up to date. However, the package management system is nice, and the software works. I don't have to keep updating it all the time, and when I do, apt-get takes care of the real work for me.

I generally find that I like individual applications, and certain utility functions of linux like the ability to use it as a router/gateway with highly configurable settings, a print server, etc. The desktop environments for it, while not terrible, are uninteresting since I already have that taken care of with OS X. X-forwarding has set me free to do the things I like with linux on OS X.

The only drawback is that you need two machines to be able to do this. But I do so it is fine. ;)

Re:OSX

[TheRaven64]

I couldn't agree more about OS X. After only a few hours of using the G4s in our department I was asking the technicians if the CCTV cameras were actually connected to anything, and if they would mind leaving the keys to the anti-theft locks lying around. For the record, yes they were, and the techs have first dibs on any Apple kit that goes 'missing'. Oh well.

I think that the main problem is that the average /. reader (and probably OSS developer) has a different view of what a computer is for. They view it as a tool (an incredibly powerful, and almost indispensible tool, to be fair), which is interesting in its own right, while for me (and I think most computer users) the computer is a tool which is doing its job best when you don't notice it's there. I consider any UI element which forces me to conciously think that I am using a computer to be a bug.

If you're looking for a UN*X to run on x86 hardware, take a look at FreeBSD. It is a lot easier to admin than Linux (coming from a Linux background...) and doesn't suffer from dependency hell. On the other hand, you will want a fairly wide pipe to the Internet, or a DVD distribution for installing software, since it will auto-fetch dependencies, which would be painful over a modem. Still not at OS X levels of ease, but not so hard to admin as Linux. Oh, and if you're using OS X you'll already be familiar with the FreeBSD userland (noticed how everything is in a logical place, instead of randomly scattered across the disk?)

Re:OSX

[primus_sucks]

Mac hardware is more expensive relative PC hardware. I'm sending this email on the low end iMac (800Mhz G4, 256M Memory), price $1300. My other computer is a P4 2.4Ghz, 768M memory that I paid ~$700 (no monitor) a year ago. The P4 is about a billion times faster and less expensive. If I want to import pictures from my digital camera, hook up my camcorder, or burn a dvd iMac is awesome. Most businesses, goverments, developers, and lots of schools IMO will be switching to the cheaper linux hardware (like the article says). Anyway who would pay for a different desktop for OSX when the one it has is already awesome?

Re:OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, if you like it great. My brother visited for a couple of weeks and I played with his OSX iBook. Did I like it? No. I found it slow and confusing and unstable and I was happier with my Gentoo/Gnome 2.2 workstation. But that's just me.

Re:OSX

[elbobo]

Nat was talking about OS X in corporate environments.

So whilst it sounds like you've managed to get a sweet setup for little cost, it doesn't really have much bearing on what Nat was saying or where Ximian is trying to go.

And as an aside: Ximian quite neatly solve those software update issues you complain about, with their Red Carpet package manager.

Re:OSX

[alienw]

[rant]

Sure, trade RPM dependency hell (which is really bullshit if you use a modern distribution) for the apple monopoly / shareware hell. Right. With macs and osx, you are forced to either shell out $30 to $100 to do _ANYTHING_ remotely useful, like encoding video, burning DVDs, or backing up your files, or pirate the abovementioned software. Sure, you can use free software, but then you have to mess with porting it and compiling it for PPC and OSX -- a major pain in the ass. That's pretty much the reason why I dumped Windows -- it's not stability or security. I'd say that XP is about as stable as OSX. Both are less stable than my Linux box.

Also, the simple solution to your Linux problems would be to either use packages compiled for your distribution (which is rather simple with URPMI) or to download and compile the source or source RPMs. I don't think you've used linux "for years". More like a week. Anyone who used Linux even for a month would know that packages built for Suse won't work well on Mandrake, which is probably what you were trying to do.

Besides, I would much rather use windows than go for vendor lock-in with apple. I thought people had enough of that with proprietary unix boxes. I have a severe problem with having to buy all my hardware and most of the software from one overpriced company that also actively prosecutes anyone selling compatible hardware. I don't know what planet Apple is living on, but a 1GHz machine with a small hard drive, outdated video card and hardly any RAM should not cost $1500 in this day and age.

[/rant]

Re:OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

Sound like what you wanted was Gentoo Linux or a BSD.

RedHat and it's ilk may be hard to upgrade, but any system running a port-like installer is a breeze to not only install, but upgrade as well.

Does it have something to do with them being source based? Maybe, but on a FreeBSD system, you could get by with just updating and installing using packages as well, and have as much success.

On Debian there is apt-get, which makes these tasks easy as well, but there is the unfortunate delay for things entering the stable tree, as well as a relatively high level of expertise expected to run it, but RedHat has apt-get now as well for it's RPMs, so even that is making it "easier" to add apps to your system.

So while running a desktop on only RPMs is a task I'd never want to undertake, it is easy to run a GNU/Linux or BSD desktop with relative ease if you are willing to find out how.

Re:OSX

[IamTheRealMike]

It was so annoying doing all of thw software updates all the time (new GLibc, new libpng, new qt aaagh!) ... The consitency of the interface, commercial softweare support (Office, explorer etc) and the ability to use X and all my favorite linux apps

I just had the BEST idea! It works like this:

1) You send me $129 via PayPal. In return, I'll send you a Linux distro made only of GNOME HIG compliant apps, so everything is very consistant, and I'll throw in a copy of CrossOver and WineX so you can run ALL the commercial software, including Office, IE and games, that your heart desires. I'll call it MinusLinuxOS X 10. It will be locked down so you can't change anything, for reasons explained below.

2) You send me $129 every year, and in return you get a CD with 129 new features, one for every dollar you send! Just stick in the CD and it'll update itself for you, complete with all the new software.

3) Profit!

See how easy this is? All you have to do is send me money, and I'll give you an OS that you can't ugprade yourself so you'll never have dependancy hell (we only upgrade it for you when we feel like it), a bunch of apps chosen for consistancy (sure, there won't be as many as if you used all the software out there, but hey, MacOS doesn't have many apps either) and a shiny box with the CD in.

You don't have to worry about things being getting out of date quickly, because you'll always be about a year behind the cutting edge - but hey, just for you, I'll keep it all under NDAs and threaten people who leak info about what's new with lawsuits so you need never know! Just ignore the rumour sites, they know nothing.

You know, you and me, we'd make a great partnership. My email address is mike@theoretic.com, so off you go, send me the cash and you'll be a happy man ;)

Re:OSX

[dvNull]

I have been using Linux ( many flavours - redHat, Mandrake, debian, gentoo ) and i dont have dependency hell. Maybe try packages for your system ?

I also have a Mac OS X box on my G3 350Mhz with a Gig of RAM. Its quite slow on that box. Also i have had other wierd issues with OS X which other users have also reported as in corrupted permissions after using Software Update.

This is not to say Mac OS X sucks, far from it. But it isnt the utopia you make it out to be.

dvnull

Re:OSX

[minus_273]

you are kidding right? ive used linux since the early kernel days. before that i used minix on a 286.

ok do this try installing the mandrake gaim on the gaim site with mandrske 9.0 (not very old)
you will see that the only thing you dont have to upgrade in glibc. everyting else is useless.

now try installing aim on versions of windows 9x,me,200,xp..

notice the difference. i serisouly dont want to upgrade and install obscure libraries for everything.

the situation has improved recently with standardixation in libraries esp in kde . 2 years ago you couldnt installa piece of code without having to install a million differnt libraries doing teh same things. One reason i ditched balsa as a mail client afew years back was that it needed a differnt version of gtkhtml than every other program on my computer (pan etc) thats plin wrong.

oh and try using libpng2 and libpng3 on the same computer.. or having divx5 and xvid ... ugh

Re:OSX

[minus_273]

heh you do realide most linux apps work on osx with X11 just fine.

Shocking...

[snofla]

A side note:

It's probably fair to say that the ratio of time our Connector developers spend in the debugger versus the Emacs buffer is higher than with most software. It's not as high as with Wine; Jeremy White from Codeweavers will tell you that his hackers spend very close to 100% of their time in gdb.

I first thought he talked about GNOME hackers using gdb to develop on GNOME, which shocked me. Then I realized he was talking about reverse engineering MSFT software: The only single valid reason to spend >90% of your time in a debugger.

Re:Shocking...

[Bluesman]

I was more shocked they're using Emacs.

No wonder they don't want to spend a lot of time there.

Answer

[Anonymous Coward]

No one really knows. No linux user has actually gotten laid, so it's anyone's guess if they lust after penis or vaginia.

Value Proposition?

[Sean80]

Perhaps I'll get modded as a troll, but I'm still not clear on what the value proposition is for Linux desktops which essentially attempt to copy Windows and Apple. Or is ultimately built just for the fun of it?

With Windows I get support for almost every application under the sun, gaming support. Everything. With Apple I get a long heritage of usability and user-interface innovation. With Ximian, I get what? Something for free? Is that enough to make me up and change my desktop? For me, not likely. For somebody else, perhaps, but I'm not convinced.

So ultimately, what's the elevator pitch for Ximian?

Re:Value Proposition?

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm.. ok. If you go with Apple you have to pay 200 bucks more for hardware comparable to a PC. You're deluding yourself if you think businesses are switching to Apple (consumers, students.. yes). A lot of foreign governments, and even corporations here in the US are wary of Windows licensing and who knows what future restrictions Microsoft might pull on them. Hence, the switch to Linux (Ximian, RedHat).

Re:Value Proposition?

[Jellybob]

With Windows I get support for almost every application under the sun, gaming support.

From reading the article (for once, I actually did) it seems like Ximian are aiming at the corporate market, rather than home users. Corporates couldn't care less about gaming support, since if you're on one of their machines, you're not being paid to play games.

With Ximian, I get what? Something for free? Is that enough to make me up and change my desktop?

With Ximian you get a consistant desktop, with an office suite that's very usable - I work for a charity that does basic computer training, and we're the process of moving from MS Office to Open Office (hacked to look like as much like MS as we can), arguably the best PIM for Linux, and for the larger types software distribution from a central location.

I'll certainly be taking a look at XD2 once it's released.

Re:Value Proposition?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Free" might not be enough for you, but for somebody who has to fund hundreds of desktops to do word processing, email, java and browsing, it just might be. Plus there's that little issue of vendor lock-in that government procurers are taking a hard look at.

So, How Does One Pronounce "Ximian"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Would it be more like:

"Zimmian" - as, for instance "xylophone".

"Shimmian" - as in the romanization of some Chinese words, like "Xinhua".

"Khimmian" - as in the Russian word for "good", "Xopo(sh)o". (Sorry, don't know how to do Cyrillic here)

"Ksimmian" - with the 'X' as in "exit".

Enquiring minds demand to know!!!

Re:So, How Does One Pronounce "Ximian"?

[Mark Gordon]

"Zimmian" - as, for instance "xylophone".

There was some discussion of possible translations of "Ximian" from Chinese, back when the name was being considered. Most of them were nonsensical, and none was offensive. My favorite was "western noodle", which suggests the slogan, "the fastest way to send pasta".

I already don't like this guy.

[Leebert]

My little sister looked at This picture and commented on how cute he was.

Now I'm jealous. Nerds aren't supposed to be cute. :)

Re:I already don't like this guy.

[metacosm]

You are jealous that your sister is looking at other guys?

Creepy +1!

Re:I already don't like this guy.

[Leebert]

Touche. :)

Re:I already don't like this guy.

[Anonymous Coward]

you haven't seen his sister.

Re:You better look in a mirror.

[Anonymous Coward]

You'r use of

I see you attended the punctuation lecture. However you seem to have skipped the spelling lecture. Eh?

Still on the .NET path to Hell

[Col_Panic]

As long as those GNOME fools continue down that insane path to hell that is .NET and Ximian is leading the way to "freedom by enslaving ourselves to MicroSoft Standards" there is no way I'm touching either GNOME or Ximian. Miguel, et. al. are just a bunch of opportunists that are using Free Software and Free Software developers to make a quick buck. And lets face it, even with Ximian trying to clean up the mess, GNOME still is one big freakin mess. The one line about the desktop theme thats "also a Nautilus theme, a Galeon theme, an XMMS theme, an OpenOffice.org theme, a Metacity theme, and an Icon theme" made me chuckle.... god forbid in their rush to shove all their heads up Bill Gates' arse they ever go back and fix the fragmented hideous cludge that is GNOME.

Re:Still on the .NET path to Hell

[diamondc]

Mmm.. I wouldn't say Miguel is an opportunist using Free Software to make a quick buck. He used to work on Sparc Linux a long time ago. Plus Ximian hires a lot of GNOME hackers.

You also don't know anything about GNOME themes. A GNOME theme includes a GTK & Metacity and Icon theme for *consistency*.

I say get off your high horse and enjoy the Free Software Ximian provides.

Re:Still on the .NET path to Hell

[The Bungi]

I can't believe posts like these continue to be idolized and modded up. What Ximian, GNOME and friends (your "bunch of opportunists") are doing is bringing open source to the real world in a better package than it is delievered now. The problem with folks like yourself is that you subscribe to the "death to infidels" POV that unfortunately permeates so much of the OSS world. I bet you're one of those people who can't stand seeing RH or companies like Lindows making a buck. Only "absolutely free" is acceptable, eh? "In bed with Microsoft" indeed. Do you even understand what Mono is about? Here's a free hint: Absolutes don't work well in the real world, regardless of how attractive they are in those lofty whitepapers you find in gnu.org.

You people talk about freedom so much - why don't you excercise that freedom and just ignore them? Those of us who enjoy using Ximian, GNOME and Mono day after day side by side with commercial software will be so much happier if you just keep your flamebait to yourself.

Re:Still on the .NET path to Hell

[Col_Panic]

I never said there is something wrong with Red Hat, et.al., making a buck from Free Software, you just ASSUMED that. And I doubt you have had had much experience with the "real world" you pretend to know about if you haven't seen what happens to anyone that gets in bed with MicroSoft. Sure, Bill & co have played nice so far with the Mono fools, but we all know that the moment it becomes a "standard" they will be squashed. If you think any differently then you are living in some fantasy world and should get a clue about what Mono is REALLY all about... Miguel taking yet another shortcut ... but this one leads right to hell...

Re:Still on the .NET path to Hell

[alext]

But there was a serious point in there - that Ximian are encouraging people to risk cloning a substantial portion of Microsoft's IP.

Don't forget that Miguel and co. have never been particularly clear about why they are doing this, and what precisely was wrong with established OSS efforts such as Parrot, Guile, Kaffe etc.

What many people have noticed is that

a) baiting MS makes headlines

b) Miguel and co. were too late to appoint themselves leaders of the other projects

Re:Still on the .NET path to Hell

[The Bungi]

you just ASSUMED that

Well, you seem the type.

what happens to anyone that gets in bed with MicroSoft

Define "in bed". Microsoft released the CLI specs, an implementation that runs on *BSD/OSX and then submitted C# to ECMA. I'm sure these little details escape you, but do explain how is Miguel "in bed" with Microsoft for coding a CLI that works in Linux?

they will be squashed

Go read the CLI license (oh, you haven't?) as well as Mono's position statement (you haven't?). Then come back and tell me how they will be "squashed". By Microsoft changing the language specs? The .NET CLR/CTS/CLI specs? I hate to break this to you but they can't do that. They'd be shooting themselves in the foot as well.

you are living in some fantasy world [...] what Mono is REALLY all about

Seems to me that you live in said fantasy world and you have absolutely no idea what Mono is about. But that's fairly obvious by now, I think.

but this one leads right to hell

Let me give you another free clue. If you refrain from using phrases like "path to hell" then maybe people will ignore your paranoid posts and you won't look so foolish.

Re:Still on the .NET path to Hell

[Jellybob]

god forbid in their rush to shove all their heads up Bill Gates' arse they ever go back and fix the fragmented hideous cludge that is GNOME.

Admitedly it could use a bit more work to integrate things like XMMS, but I really like the Gnome themes system... it has the right combination of power, and simplicity.

For the casual user (for example a secretary running XD2 on her desktop at work), you can have complete themes, that will change your Metacity/Icon/GTK themes all at once.

For the user with a little more time (for this one read "the helpdesk guys, with nothing better to do") you can change each of them to find the perfect mix.

I'll re-emphasise that more integration would still be nice though (developers: how about allowing application to add themselves to the themes settings... so you could have Controls/Icons/Windows Borders/XMMS for example.)

Re:Still on the .NET path to Hell

[alext]

Unfortunately, the casual reader might gain the impression from your post that Microsoft have made the whole of Dotnet public (around 1200 C# classes) rather than just C# and the CLR (around 150 classes).

I'm sure you will be as anxious as I am to clarify the true position, perhaps by mentioning Steve Ballmer's comments from March last year where he states that MS holds patents on Dotnet technologies and that free implementations will not be allowed, or by comparing the MS position with that of Sun and Java, which, under the JSPA explicitly permits free implementations.

Re:Still on the .NET path to Hell

[The Bungi]

that Ximian are encouraging people to risk cloning a substantial portion of Microsoft's IP.

I can't believe how many times I've had to repeat this. This is not "Microsoft's IP". The CLI and C# have been submitted to ECMA. Mono is as liable for producing its own .NET CLI as anyone else is for creating a Java compiler or JVM.

have never been particularly clear about why they are doing this

I think they've made it sufficiently clear, but that's just me.

what precisely was wrong with established OSS efforts such as Parrot, Guile, Kaffe

I don't know. Maybe they suck? Why are there 26 window managers for X11? Why write Ruby and Python if there's Perl? Why do we need Linux if there's BSD? Why is there OpenOffice if there's StarOffice? Am I getting myself across yet?

Miguel and co. were too late to appoint themselves leaders of the other projects

Isn't that quite the rational conclusion.

Re:Still on the .NET path to Hell

[The Bungi]

the casual reader might gain the impression from your post that Microsoft have made the whole of Dotnet public

The "casual reader" can Google, I'm sure. I never said ".NET is open source".

I'm sure you will be as anxious as I am to clarify the true position

That patent is too broad. It will never be granted. It affects just about everything from client server computing to Apache and J2EE. And Mono is prior art in the face of the patent itself.

Re:Still on the .NET path to Hell

[TheRaven64]

Why do we need Linux if there's BSD?

A question I keep asking myself. Please let me know if you get a sensible answer...

Re:Still on the .NET path to Hell

[kingkade]

zing! ;^)

Re:Still on the .NET path to Hell

[TheRaven64]

You people talk about freedom so much - why don't you excercise that freedom and just ignore them?

Well, obviously people like that don't actually believe in freedom. If the did they would stop bleating the 'GPL good, commercial baaaad' line, and release (assuming that they actually create anything, rather than just installing Gentoo, and saying how 1337 they are) code into the public domain, and give people real freedom, instead of freedom to do what they want them to do. But they don't, because they know if they did, then someone would release a superior commercial version of their software, and this would rather shatter their illusions about how the world works.

Re:Still on the .NET path to Hell

[TummyX]

that Ximian are encouraging people to risk cloning a substantial portion of Microsoft's IP.


I guess you totally hate the WINE project then huh?

Re:Still on the .NET path to Hell

[The Bungi]

Please let me know if you get a sensible answer...

I heard it was dying =)

Re:Still on the .NET path to Hell

[alext]

Oh dear, are you sure you were concentrating before?

What we are referring to here is the Dotnet Framework. Not just C#, not just the CLR or CLI, but the whole platform - the APIs that people write real applications on. Nobody is disputing that for Mono to be useful, it has to go beyond what has been made public and clone those parts that are private and patented.

The word "liable" is well chosen regarding Mono's position with MS - and those using it will be in just the same position legally as those creating it.

The situation with the Java Platform (to include J2SE, and J2EE if you like) is quite different. Not only are there already multiple vendors and dozens of separate implementations, but the legal position has been set forth in the JSPA (that link again, for the hard of memorizing). No equivalent exists for Dotnet whatsoever.

Thanks for the link regarding Mono's rationale. I encourage everyone to visit this page and evaluate the reasons stated. I'm afraid that when I looked I could only find the following rather contradicatory statements:

There is not really a lot of innovation in this platform: we have seen all of these concepts before, and we are all familiar with how these things work.

What makes the Common Language Infrastructure development platform interesting is that it is a good mix of technologies that have been nicely integrated.

The .NET development platform is essentially a new foundation for program development that gives Microsoft a room to grow for the coming years.

Now, regardless of whether the Mono people think that Dotnet is or is not an innovation, I think we are obliged to observe the rationale for their enthusiasm is less than one sentence long and rather vague. Given that Perl and Java could equally well be described as an interesting mix of technologies, that they were around a long time before Dotnet, and that the Mono proponents themselves admit that there is not a lot of real innovation in it, it is very hard to see how this aspirational fragment can add up to a convincing manifesto.

Regarding your analysis of other open source VM efforts, I again find myself unable to discern nuch of a coherent argument in your statements, despite your earnest entreaties. You appear to be against a multiplicity of similar efforts where Perl and Python are concerned, but apparently for multiplicity where Java, Mono and Dotnet are concerned.

I'm not particularly disappointed that you are unaware of original, innovative and preexisting OSS work in this area - the problem is that the Mono developers are unaware of them too, and prefer to subject themselves to Microsoft's leadership rather than work with those that share more compatible goals and methods.

Re:Still on the .NET path to Hell

[alext]

That's a good point. It's true I haven't worried about WINE but then I haven't had a cause to use it in my 10 years or so of working with Linux.

The bottom line is that I hate getting sued, particularly over dumbass patents. WINE, like the Win32 API, is really old technology. Yes, MS may still claim IP in it and make life difficult but it's not really where the action is.

Mono / Java is critical for Linux - most people don't realise this but very quickly most big apps will be targeted at VMs - simple commercial expedience will ensure this regardless of the technical merits.

Mono therefore risks putting MS in the Linux driving seat. There are alternatives, but the Linux community's reluctance to embrace Java could mean a shotgun wedding with Mono. And that way we're all worse off for the forseeable future,

Re:Still on the .NET path to Hell

[Anonymous Coward]

>
Admitedly it could use a bit more work to integrate things like XMMS, but I really like the Gnome themes system... it has the right combination of power, and simplicity

You obviously haven't seen the direction gnome applications are heading. Lots of config options are being removed and stuffed inside the shitty gconf (a windows registry style hide-the-conf app). Bad bad move.

Re:Still on the .NET path to Hell

[IamTheRealMike]

The one line about the desktop theme thats "also a Nautilus theme, a Galeon theme, an XMMS theme, an OpenOffice.org theme, a Metacity theme, and an Icon theme" made me chuckle.

Nautilus themes no longer exist, so I dunno why he said that. I'm not sure where the theming is in Galeon, I don't remember it. XMMS, OpenOffice are outside the control of Ximian, and the OO theme was an icon theme anyway, which is a duplicate of the last item and "Metacity theme" just refers to the window borders which are part of the style of the desktop.

So I don't see what your problem is.

The stuff about Mono is crack. You think cloning .NET is optional? I can tell you from my work on Wine, that it is not. MS lockin is going to get worse before it gets better, and down the road when an app you don't just want, but NEED runs only on a .NET implementation, you won't be so quick to blow them off.

Re:Still on the .NET path to Hell

[IamTheRealMike]

Don't forget that Miguel and co. have never been particularly clear about why they are doing this

Yes, they have:

• .NET is a nice platform to work in, for large projects better than Python/Perl/Ruby/C++/C/Java/whatever
• It's necessary for compatability

Those reasons seem pretty clear to me.

and what precisely was wrong with established OSS efforts such as Parrot, Guile, Kaffe etc.

Miguels opinion on Parrot isn't exactly a secret - how many opcodes does it have by now? I've suggested that he publish an FAQ on these things, but he hasn't got around to it yet. Basically he believes the design of Parrot is pretty flawed and it'd be too hard to optimise the bytecode. Guile is an embedded scripting language, based on Lisp of all things - it's not even in the same ballpark as .NET. Kaffe is cool, but they are way behind the latest from Sun, in fact I don't think they ever intend to implement Java 2.

"Doing" Java would seem an attractive option, but Java was never really designed for multiple languages and to be frank, the developer momentum simply isn't there. .NET is being used to write desktop apps (the majority of apps out there I'd guess), whereas Java is not. The Mono community is easily over 100 developers, compared to that of GNU Classpath/GCJ which is more like 4 or 5.

Re:Still on the .NET path to Hell

[AndyS]

I wonder how much of this is due to the ease of developing and how much is due to the nasties of the GNU licensing? I wouldn't mind writing a quick and dirty implementation of the sun.io framework (which various things need to link against) - which, while it might not be perfect, would potentially work, but I don't want to have to fart around with the annoyances of the GNU copyright assignment. Plus I imagine it would be far harder to get by my boss.

This isn't to say I disagree with the GNU copyright assignment, but I think it reduces the number of people who will work on a project like this.

That said, I think GCJ is doing a generally quite good job - it seems to work quite well, and the code seems to run at a fair lick.

Re:Still on the .NET path to Hell

[Jellybob]

The idea is that options are just *saved* in the gconf database - there should still be a way of changing them in apps.

Re:Still on the .NET path to Hell

[alext]

A "nice platform to work with"? I see. This sounds about as convincing as the Mono Rationale document, which reduces to the same kind of vacuous assertion.

I would be very interested in studies comparing Dotnet against Java for large developments. Given the undeniable similarity of the basic technology, the existence of VS.NET-like tools for Java and not forgetting of course the minor detail that Dotnet is useless for anything not running on Windows, it's pretty hard to see what great advantage Dotnet is going to offer a typical enterprise.

I've no idea what we're supposed to make of the bald assertion of "compatability". Compatible with what? And necessary for whom? Your method and reasoning, never mind motivation, remain very far from being clear.

I trust it will not come as too much of a surprise to learn that, outside the world of Mono hype, justication for substantial projects is generally required before they start. But, as you have deigned to offer some ex post facto rationale, it's worthwhile examining this in detail:

Parrot is or was intending to support the CLI bytecode set in addition to its own. It's therefore hard to see how Miguel's criticism can be of this bytecode set - or is he concerned about those he'll never use?

Guile is bytecode VM targeted at Scheme and as such is relevant. In fact, there are plenty of good arguments for the use of a Scheme-based intermediate language on a VM, as the botched 'meta-data' implementations of Java and C# are starting to reveal.

Regarding the Kaffe Java VM, it's interesting to see that you switch arguments here to complain about its slow development rather than any technical flaws. The reason for this is of course that there are no less than three major, high-quality implementations of Java 2 for Linux on Intel, plus the possibility of licensing the source for other platforms. Regardless of this, naturally the Mono crew were free to start with this rather than start from scratch, but that would be assuming that they're focused on delivering capability rather than hype.

Your last paragraph seems almost desperate in its attempt to deny the momentum of Java. A glance at SourceForge, job listings or a wander around any large corporation would show that the growth of Java continues unabated, and is leagues ahead of Dotnet, never mind the Mono knock-off. It is possible that some major desktop apps will be written for Dotnet, but I shall not be holding my breath for Photoshop on Mono.

Re:Still on the .NET path to Hell

[The Bungi]

Oh dear, are you sure you were concentrating before?

Oh, look. Sarcasm. I fear.

and those using it will be in just the same position legally as those creating it

That's nice. I wonder how this fits into your response to the Wine question somebody called you on? Didn't use much sarcasm, there.

Now, regardless of whether the Mono people think that Dotnet is or is not an innovation, I think we are obliged to observe the rationale for their enthusiasm is less than one sentence long and rather vague

That's even nicer. For all our slow readers out there, this means "I don't agree with what they stand for, so they must be full of shit".

it is very hard to see how this aspirational fragment can add up to a convincing manifesto.

I don't know that it's meant to be "inspirational", but apparently you just think it's garbage so the whole idea is lost on your small mind anyway.

Regarding your analysis of other open source VM efforts, I again find myself unable to discern

ROFL! So I took a couple of similar projects as examples and you take them literally. Is that the best you can do?

not particularly disappointed that you are unaware of original, innovative and preexisting OSS work in this area

Irrelevant. Hopefully even you can understand that, in this case.

BTW - you display an admirable grasp of the English language - however, pig shit is still just that, even when sprinkled with rose petals. The same goes for FUD, which you seem to enjoy spreading with unabashed gusto. Very impressive.

MOD DOWN PLZ

[The Bungi]

The biggest reson why people will still use windows --linux is fucking hard to use and maintain on the desktop.

We can't have that around here, now can we?

OpenOffice source

[Newtonian_p]

Do you know if they make their source code for their modified version of OpenOffice.Org available?

The relevent directory on their ftp is empty:
ftp://ftp.ximian.com/pub/openoffice/redhat -70-i386/source

The Interview does mention a openoffice-1.0-0.ximian.1.src.rpm.

Mono and Viruses

[Fembot]

"What is pretty likely to happen in the near future is that we'll ship C# bindings for key things like the Evolution backend data stores -- your mail, your calendar, your addressbook, etc. -- at some point soon. This means the community can use Mono to extend Evolution and the desktop without all the hassle of diving into the web of C-based GObjects."

And presumably write more damm email viruses, making them cross platform even in the process :-(

The Mono revolution?

[alext]

Some interesting claims made for Mono:

1. Mono can be the universal component hub, allowing you to use C objects from Python, C++ objects from Perl, and so on.

We've certainly been here before. As has been pointed out on /. a number of times, ActiveX, CORBA, DCE etc. have all made claims like this and have met with limited success.

First there is the inefficiency introduced by constantly translating data (where equivalents exist at all), second the impedance mismatch of languages with quite different call models.

Yes, there's some capability here for scripting code written in low-level languages, but that's quite a different thing from claiming to provide universal, peer-level interoperability.

Note that this isn't the same argument that says that bytecode level interworking is doomed - one is still limited to a rather C#-like subset of features, just as one is to a Java-like subset in a JVM.

Nat goes on to give an example of how Mono is changing things:

This is possible because C#'s language features make it trivial to automatically bind C# objects into other languages. Check out Python Scripting for .NET: http://www.zope.org/Members/Brian/PythonNet/FAQ.ht ml.

OK, let's see what Brian thinks this new Python Dotnet is bringing to the table:

" While a solution like Jython provides "two-way" interoperability, this package only provides "one-way" integration. Meaning, while Python can use types and services implemented in .NET, managed code cannot generally use classes implemented in Python.

A Jython-like solution for .NET would certainly be doable and useful - but it would also be a lot more work than the current approach."

Hardly a ringing endorsement of Mono here. Perhaps the last reference will be the proposition that we can't refuse?

Nat says:

There's also a Mono-based JavaScript compiler in the works (MS already has one, of course).

Doesn't the Java world have one of those too? Yes, in fact, it's had one for five years. Rhino is a full Javascript compiler, interpreter and debugger, released by Netscape in April 98 and still developed under the Mozilla banner. Not some also-ran knock-off here, but something used in quite significant products such as the Resin web app server.

So, draw your own conclusions about what real new capabilities Mono will bring to the OSS world.

And don't forget that there is at least one company that will definitely gain from this all this free marketing and "innovation".

Re:The Mono revolution?

[IamTheRealMike]

We've certainly been here before. As has been pointed out on /. a number of times, ActiveX, CORBA, DCE etc. have all made claims like this and have met with limited success.

Actually I would claim that ActiveX (which is built on (D)COM->RPC->DCE RPC) has been a huge success. COM objects and ActiveX controls are widely deployed throughout the Windows platform. CORBA has also been successful but more in the server room, rather than on the desktop.

First there is the inefficiency introduced by constantly translating data (where equivalents exist at all), second the impedance mismatch of languages with quite different call models.

.NET has no marshalling penality for language crosscalls as the ABIs are standardised in the CIL/MSIL documents. The downside is that you sometimes have to extend or alter the languages a bit (but I'd note that this can be done in a backwards compatible manner). You aren't necessarily restricted either - you are free to use lots of C++ specific features in Managed C++ as long as that object doesn't need to be exposed to other languages.

Note that this isn't the same argument that says that bytecode level interworking is doomed - one is still limited to a rather C#-like subset of features, just as one is to a Java-like subset in a JVM.

Not really. Yes if you want to do interop with other languages, but this has been true of every semi-automatic language binding method, including COM, even including simple things like UNIX pipes.

Hardly a ringing endorsement of Mono here. Perhaps the last reference will be the proposition that we can't refuse?

You've misunderstood a crucial point. That software lets you use .NET objects in standard shipping Python - not Python.NET. If you wanted 2 way objects, then you'd want to compile Python down to CIL. As it is, this means you can write an object in a .NET language then plug it into an existing base of Python code without changing an interpreter for a compiler, without hosting your app on Mono etc - ie with minimal disruption.

Doesn't the Java world have one of those too? Yes, in fact, it's had one for five years.

Again your understanding is flawed. Rhino does not compile JavaScript to java opcodes as a Mono-based JavaScript engine would, so it cannot take advantage of lots of VM features. The two are completely different under the hood.

So, draw your own conclusions about what real new capabilities Mono will bring to the OSS world.

How about a language for developing GUIs that doesn't suck? Yes, I like Python too, but horror stories of large apps getting extra-buggy when written using Python due to its heritage of being a scripting language haunt me. Java is dead on the desktop basically, it had its chance (for years!) and blew it. Now it's the turn of .NET

Re:The Mono revolution?

[TummyX]

Again your understanding is flawed. Rhino does not compile JavaScript to java opcodes as a Mono-based JavaScript engine would, so it cannot take advantage of lots of VM features. The two are completely different under the hood.


Well actually...Rhino can compile JavaScript directly bytecode.


How about a language for developing GUIs that doesn't suck? Yes, I like Python too, but horror stories of large apps getting extra-buggy when written using Python due to its heritage of being a scripting language haunt me. Java is dead on the desktop basically, it had its chance (for years!) and blew it. Now it's the turn of .NET


The Windows Forms API looks like it was designed by a 12 year old. Not MVC based making it horrible to work with if you want to do anything complicated.

Re:The Mono revolution?

[DigitalCH]

The Windows Forms API looks like it was designed by a 12 year old. Not MVC based making it horrible to work with if you want to do anything complicated.

Makes me wonder if you even understand what MVC means? You as the developer should implement the MVC pattern for your app. The Forms API is great. In my opinion it still doesn't really have an equal in Java. I would even put forth that linux doesn't have anything better... maybe equal... but not better...

Re:The Mono revolution?

[TummyX]

Makes me wonder if you even understand what MVC means? You as the developer should implement the MVC pattern for your app


Makes me wonder if you know what it means. I'm not talking about applying MVC to a web application. I'm talking about applying the MVC pattern to GUIs. Windows Forms doesn't support the MVC pattern. "Hacking" on MVC by wrapping all the controls isn't sufficient because you lose many of the advantages of MVC. For example, the ListView control *STORES* the data it displays. A clear violation of the seperation of the data and the view. Making a model-aware ListView based on the Microsoft ListView would still mean that the underlying UI control stores the data (albeit more transparently). This has serious performance issues. Try making a JList in Java and display 2^32 items. It takes *no time* and it's fast. Try doing that with Windows Forms and tell me when your computer memory runs out.

Re:The Mono revolution?

[TummyX]

In my opinion it still doesn't really have an equal in Java


In terms of power and being brilliant to work with Swing kicks Windows Forms' ass. Try making a TreeView that's synchronized with the FileSystem or an XML DOM in Windows Forms and tell me you don't have state problems.

And Windows Forms layout management SUCKS LIKE HELL. Try this: Anchor a control on the left. Anchor another control on the right. Now resize your window and notice how on of the controls overlaps the otherone when the window is too small. Looks very, very ugly. With Swing the controls would resize dynamically until their minimum size is reached at which point a scrollbar would appear.

Re:The Mono revolution?

[TummyX]

Makes me wonder if you even understand what MVC means? You as the developer should implement the MVC pattern for your app


I still can't get over how thick this statement is. Aparently MVC is only for application developers and not GUI API developers?

Re:The Mono revolution?

[DigitalCH]

I still can't get over how thick this statement is. Aparently MVC is only for application developers and not GUI API developers?
Yes. V = View after all. The GUI is the view. What should the GUI api also implement MVC?
MVC isn't the solution to everything. There are other patterns out there more appropriate for other types of software design. I would put forth that MVC might not be the best way to design a GUI api... Design a GUI yes... and API? no...

As for forms you make a good point about how many of the form controls store the data... but just as many have a databinding model where you can bind them to your model. Even if they didn't you could write the control code to clear the state and update.
I think the ASP.NET forms rock. Much better than JSP.(Although JSP plus Struts is about equal. MSFT tools are more efficent right now for that type of development but some of the stuff coming from BEA and IBM are correcting that.)
I found you comments amusing about how layouts suck in windows forms... That has always been my feel about awt/swing. Why the hell should I align things left and right? Top/bottom? I want direct placement... I don't wont to align it to anything... Then just drop one of those controls in that automatically scales the distance and size correctly and your done. There is a reason that windows UI's kick ass... and it ain't swing... Take a look at any office 2003 application and tell me it isn't beautiful to look at... Windows forms rock...(and yes I know you can reimplement that look and feel in swing but it's insanely slow, memory intensive comparatively and quite difficult to do besides.)

Re:The Mono revolution?

[TummyX]

found you comments amusing about how layouts suck in windows forms... That has always been my feel about awt/swing. Why the hell should I align things left and right? Top/bottom? I want direct placement... I don't wont to align it to anything...


I guess you don't like HTML eh? All that top/bottom placement stuff must be too confusing for you! You should stick with your fixed sized dialogs.

If you look at *ANY* UI you will notice that things almost *NEVER* need to be placed absolutely. The OK button for example is placed on the bottom-middle-left of a message box. The absolute pixel position is irrelevant. If you're writing fixed sized dialogs and UIs I seriously recommend you reconsider.

Think of all the times you've had to deal with fixed sized dialog boxes. Remember how sucky it was when the windows open/save dialogs couldn't be resized??

Every tried to type in change the PATH environment variable under NT? The text box they provide fits like 100 characters ...and the dialog ISN'T resizable for absolutely no reason except that windows doesn't support layout management. The text box could have easily been defined to be 90% of the width of the dialog instead of 300 pixels (or whatever).


Take a look at any office 2003 application and tell me it isn't beautiful to look at... Windows forms rock...(and yes I know you can reimplement that look and feel in swing but it's insanely slow, memory intensive comparatively and quite difficult to do besides.)


Take a look at OSX and tell me it isn't beutiful -- and it supports proper scaling and dynamic layouts.

Office 2003 looks great until you start to use it and realise that opening the options dialog locks you out of the rest of the application (because it's modal).


I know you can reimplement that look and feel in swing but it's insanely slow, memory intensive comparatively and quite difficult to do besides.)


When was the last time you used swing? It may be memory intensive (memory is cheap as dirt these days) but it's certainly not slow. In fact, Java2D is far faster than the hideous GDI+ based System.Drawing APIs.

PS. Are you or have you ever been a VB programmer?

Re:The Mono revolution?

[TummyX]

Oh, and FYI (because you appear to be very ignorant wrt anything non-MS) Swing supports absolute layout management for those people who still need that kind of thing.

Re:The Mono revolution?

[DigitalCH]

You give fairly bad examples. The path thing was bad application coding on MSFT's side. Modal dialog boxes are also bad application coding.(has nothing to do with the API) I was mearly talking about the UI. OSX UI wasn't implemented in JAVA so you have still failed to show me a Java alternative.(I freely admitted there were other linux based api's that were as good.)

Also you critized my use of direct placement when I told you my solution to your very criticism. My solution(using a layout control that auto resizes/moves every control on the form) resizes correctly and I never had to worry about aligning left + x amount of space, etc... Its just faster and less hassle in development.(I hate writing GUI's so anything that makes it easier is better for me)

Haven't used swing in over 18 months. It was a great improvement over AWT which was useless but it is still slow for many things.(albeit that could be the sheer amount of ram it needs and all the paging). Don't know about you but I'm tired of the fact that every time I use a swing based app(like some of the popular IDE's) I need a minimum of 512mb of ram. I use a lot of differnt machines and some of them I can't alter the hardware config on.(like machines at work, and no I can't just demand a new machine).

PS. Don't be snide... Any developer that has used windows forms for any length of time has used VB. It was the ultimate tool for banging out windows UIs. Doesn't mean I didn't write ATL based COM objects or that I haven't written a lot of java. (I'm mostly write middleware so you have to be flexible in languages)

Re:The Mono revolution?

[DigitalCH]

You wouldn't want to use absolute layout management in java. Since you can't tell where the window and its state relative to the desktop... (which is a nice feature of MSFT... although one with certain security implications. ;-)

Re:The Mono revolution?

[TummyX]

You can do "drag'n'drop" with Swing layout managers too. Check out Forte or Sun ONE. I don't see how your layout manager control is any better than Swing's layout management system.

The Windows API not supporting layout management is partially (if not mostly) responsible for the modal dialog boxes and non-resizable dialog boxes.

The same thing is happening with Windows Forms....You'd think with all that time inbetween J++ and C# they would have upgraded the UI toolkit to use more modern techniques.


Don't know about you but I'm tired of the fact that every time I use a swing based app(like some of the popular IDE's) I need a minimum of 512mb of ram.


Hmm...price you pay I guess. Wait until Windows .NET. You'll need 512MB of ram and a new 3D card.

PS. Sorry about being snide. Been dealing with far too many idiotic VB programmers recently.

Re:The Mono revolution?

[TummyX]

Do you mean you can't tell where a window is on the desktop? JFrame.getLocation would do that...

Re:The Mono revolution?

[DigitalCH]

PS. Sorry about being snide. Been dealing with far too many idiotic VB programmers recently.

Funny thing that... You would think that with all the fallout from the dot com era that most of them would have gone and found another industry to work in... that so many are still around just defies common sense... and I agree that can justify the most idiotic things... "I can too write a native NT service that transimits data using completion ports in vb6...." agh!!!

Re:The Mono revolution?

[DigitalCH]

I meant you can't tell the windows location in relation to other windows(not created the thread). For instance maybe I want to add a tool box(separate application) that is aligned directly to the side of the IE browser but not actually in the same window.(just one example.) The above is actually a security flaw. I can use the same trick to read data off any window which I shouldn't be able to do. It is nice though that use can use the windows apis to get access to any forms based control any any window regardless of wether you wrote the application or not... makes it handy as hell when you need to write a program to extract data from some proprietary application. It's also easier to get screen resolution, add items to sys tray and some other things...(all of which can be hacked around in java).

Re:The Mono revolution?

[TummyX]

Ahh....I see what you mean now.

Re:The Mono revolution?

[TummyX]

Apologies again. I thought you were yet another VB programmer who thinks that everything remotely different from VB is wrong. All my fault. *sigh*

Re:The Mono revolution?

[Miguel de Icaza]

Mono in GNOME, not likely at all I'm afraid... now if I had only kept my dumb mouth shut about reading the ECMA specs...DOH' CURSES!

many thanks for all your kind support

Baysan filtering for Evolution

[Gyorg_Lavode]

Now will they include baysan filtering in evolution or will I be forced to use tricks to route the mail around in circles? If MSN and netzero can use spam filtering as a mainstay of their advertising and it makes a lot of big press here and is able to be integrated into mozilla, I think it would prove worthwhile to have it integrated in Evolution as well.

Re:Baysan filtering for Evolution

[damiam]

Evolution 1.4 is pretty much feature-for-feature identical to 1.2, the only real difference is GTK2. Filtering in Evo 2.0 wouldn't surprise me, but they're really aiming at corporate clients who are likely to filter at the server level.

Re:Baysan filtering for Evolution

[Mr.Ned]

Baysan filtering would be low on Ximian's priority list. Evolution is designed as an Outlook replacement. It's main features aside from e-mail, like calendaring and contact management and optional Exchange integration, reflect that it isn't targeted toward the home user but rather towards the corporate desktop. It makes more sense to do the spam filtering on the server side in the corporate setting - that way, if the user is roaming or using web access or whatever else the filters and forwarding still work and are not dependent on the e-mail client.

Re:Baysan filtering for Evolution

[elbobo]

I believe the plan was to use the 1.4 release as a way to shift to the Gnome 2 framework whilst maintaining feature parity with Evolution 1.2.

So now that that's done, I guess the Evolution team will go into feature add mode again. Unless of course they're going to let Evolution sit for a while, and shift onto a new project.

But yea, my vote would go towards baysian filtering too. I've been finding Spamassassin has been fallen behind in the spam war lately. Baysian filtering might be the answer.

But to take this tangent further: Is the client really the right place for spam filtering? There's plenty of server side baysian filtering solutions out there. Although I guess that's largely dependent on your environment. If you've got no control over the mail server, then the client's your only option.

Re:Baysan filtering for Evolution

[Gyorg_Lavode]

Yeah,I'm using fetchmail to send mail through spamassassin, but I'm using the mandrake packages (1.25ish) which aren't baysian). I tried installing 1l55ish src rpms but I didn't meet some perl requirement, (which I'm almost absolutely sure I met), so it didn't work. Right now I'm trying to figure out if I cavn cause spamassassin to train an email every time I manually send one to my trash folder.

Re:Baysan filtering for Evolution

[elbobo]

Spamassassin doesn't require training though, because it doesn't do baysian filtering.

When I was still using Spamassassin on the client side, I just setup an Evolution filter to pipe the email through Spamassassin, then move/delete the email based on Spamassassin's exit code.

There's a few client side baysian filtering solutions out there though. Someone else mentioned POPFile, which seems to be a popular solution.

Re:Baysan filtering for Evolution

[fc-gp-00]

Evolution allows you to pipe an message to a shell command. This allows you to pipe each message to a spam filter.

I use spamprobe as a spam filter.

I pipe each message to the following shell command /usr/bin/spamprobe-receive | grep "SPAM"

Will be interesting to see where Ximian goes

[curtlewis]

I firmly believe that the strongest reason for Apple's longevity has been in consistency in the UI. There is a bible with laws and you follow them. Command-P is ALWAYS Print. Command-F is ALWAYS Find. Not like on MS products where Control-F or Alt-F-F or F5 or nothing but mousing up to the Menu is Find. Simple, consistent rules makes operating the computer intuitive and lets you focus on what you got the darned thing for in the first place.

I skimmed the interview and other than that, know relatively little about XD2. But they seem to get it. I'll probably install it before too long and check it out. I love Linux, but it still shows it's roots. That it's created by a loosely organized, widely separated community. Consistency lacks in that environment, which makes the overall system prone to productivity loss.

XD2 may well go a long way in addressing this. While I rarely print, the description on auto discovery and config of printers sounded pretty dang slick if you ask me. If you have a powerful OS and system, shouldn't it do alot of that kind of thing FOR you? It shouldn't prevent you from changing or customizing things, but basic setup can often be automated in a manner like that. All it takes is some foresight and vision.

I look forward to this and future releases to see if XD can bring a highly functional and intuitive GUI to Linux.

Re:You better look in a mirror.

[Anonymous Coward]

You'r use of punctuation, makes, you an idiot!!

Good job! You spotted one out of four mistakes.

2.) There should not be a comma after 'punctuation'.
3.) There should not be a comma after 'makes'.
4.) There should never be two exclamation points.

Way to miss the point!

zealots?

[Anonymous Coward]

Both moderates and zealots are on their own tacks; both valid, both fitting their own apparent wind. Unfortunately, those on your reach assume that only one option is the viable option, the other, you brand as bunk. This I find interesting: you, an aspiring "moderate", are so bloody quick to label persons with a not-so-moderate POV 'zealots'. We've room for all, and we, the collective community, have our own feelings, perceptions, and what-have-u regarding these issues, but we can all stand to look about some, appreciating the extremes.

yaddah, yaddah, ...

So, please, you STFU, with your STFU. Allow the rest of us to blather on; let the mod system rule; and appreciate the vast diversity of opinion.

Re:Does it run on linux?

[TheRaven64]

Linux on linux. Infinite recursion much?

Well, actually, Linux does run on Linux...

Re:C Sharp comments...

[TummyX]

You do realise that they aren't just writing a compiler right? Do you think they're idiots?Sheesh.. they've even got a working version of ASP.NET.

yeah - tell it to the Motif and CDE developers

[Anonymous Coward]

UI guidelines are nothing new on UNIX.

This is just another in a long line, which no doubt will be ignored, since the entire "community" suffers from severe NIH.

no.

[Anonymous Coward]

evolutin wont just arbitrarily run executable email attachments. nice try pal

Re:no.

[Fembot]

Yes, but idiot Joe User will if someone tricks him into it.

Yes, well, SuSE just ate RedHat's lunch

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but SuSE 8.2 and KDE will gnaw the pussy lips off of RedHat 9.

Enterprise Carpet all its cracked up to be?

[dieman]

Aside from multiple distribution support, is anyone taken aback about how many companies are essentially peddeling what an admin can do with apt-get/cfengine (with updates to cfengine configs via rsync/ssh) with Debian?

I too support hundreds of machines, and I find my worst experience is making sure i've got a decent, up to date for bleeding edge kernel handy and a discover database to match it. Nevermind X. :) Since I follow woody and roll in some of my own updates alongside other users updates, its quite easy to have a 'modern' gnome2 system that has been updated against major security issues.

Having a nice automatic installer (autoinstall, heavily hacked, ask for source if you care) and good remote mass administration tools are the two things that make my life easier.

Be weary of supporting these companies, I just don't think they have many peoples best interests in mind if you have a clue handy. Ximian is supporting propretiary file formats (doc!) now, redhat is selling 2 year development cycles (wasn't that a debian complaint a ways back?), and many of them are only selling their 64-bit installers for nearly $1k a pop.

Re:Enterprise Carpet all its cracked up to be?

[elbobo]

Your knowledge is expensive.

Often in the corporate world they'll favour going with well integrated brand name products over expensive admins or admin education to deal with a disparate array of technologies.

Re:File Dialog *not* File Manager :)

[Vitriolix]

right you are, he's working on a dialog, not a file manager :)

Re:Does it run on linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

but... can linux run on linux on linux?

Re:still it's a good interview

[ShieldW0lf]

That's because whatsherface isn't doing any of the talking.

I agree 100%

[bogie]

Natulius is worthless as a file manager.

Moderaters are on crack

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny how this is all true, yet modded as flamebait. Don't you dare criticize open source, even if it is valid!

Re:C Sharp comments...

[Kunta Kinte]

You do realise that they aren't just writing a compiler right? Do you think they're idiots?Sheesh.. they've even got a working version of ASP.NET.

Yeah, working if you don't count the windows specific APIs like MAPI, etc.

What I'm saying is that I doubt that users are going to be able to quickly migrate their applications between MONO.NET and ASP.NET like you can between Websphere and JBoss for instance.

What about microsoft's past makes you think they'll let that happen?

Re:mod down, totally uninformed

[Kunta Kinte]

this guy clearly hasnt even *looked* at mono's web site or he would know how stupid he looks right now.

Yes I have. Have you? If so, what did you think of it?

I see a lot of handing waving on this page http://go-mono.com/class-library.html

Is it just me or thing's like

Class Library and Win32 dependencies. There are a few spots where the Win32 foundation is exposed to the class library (for example, the HDC and HWND properties in the GDI+). Casual inspection suggests that these can be safely mapped to Gdk's GC and GdkWindow pointers without breaking anything.

The only drawback is that support for PInvoke of Win32 code won't be available. An alternate solution would be to use portions of Wine, or even to use Wine as our toolkit.

...make you wonder wether this is suppose to be a commercially viable product?

I'm not trying to hate. But frankly, mono seems like a huge hack.

POPFile

[bstadil]

If whatever you have is not good enough maybe do as I. I use POPFile and then use the baysian filter inside Mozilla. PopFile has a feasture where you can hardcode recipient messages ID as Magnets, so you hardly ever have a false positive. I am running at 99+%. Truely excellent. PpFile takes 10 min or so to set-up. Training is a days or so.

Re:Does it run on linux?

[TheRaven64]

but... can linux run on linux on linux?

Can? Maybe. Should? No, it's just plain wrong.

Re: Quick Buck?!

[pi_rules]

Miguel, et. al. are just a bunch of opportunists that are using Free Software and Free Software developers to make a quick buck.

I'm not familiar with Ximian's finances, but I don't reckon they're making a killing for zero effort here. Even if they are making good cash, they sure as hell deserve it! Have you -ever- seen Ximian's development stagnate? I haven't. They've been building up the release of XD2 for a while now, but all the work that's gone into Evolution and the Exchange connector is no small feat. The term "making a killing" usually implies that they're sitting back with the feet up watching the cash roll in from IP sales. That certainly isn't the case here.

Opportunists? Perhaps -- they certainly seized this opportunity and good for them. I'm not too up on Miguel or Nat's bios, but from what I recollect they're both in their 20's yet and have started a pretty big project. My hat's off to them.

As long as those GNOME fools continue down that insane path to hell that is .NET and Ximian is leading the way to "freedom by enslaving ourselves to MicroSoft Standards" there is no way I'm touching either GNOME or Ximian.

You can't be tied to MS standards if MS isn't providing any of the code here. So what if MS takes their .NET framework and breaks Mono compatiblity in a future release? They hang onto the old framework and go to work re-coding it and branch it off from there. They're just taking a smaller VM and the C# language spec and running with it. Good! As much as I like Java I'm glad there's some sort of competition in this area. Assuming that the .NET CLR stays smaller than the Java VM this is really going to push Sun into making a smaller VM with 1.5 IMHO. If .NET apps can be run atop a VM that's reasonably sized we might see more and more of theese in Linux build against GTK# which would port nicely to the MS sytem. GTK apps on Win32 aren't that bad really and I rather enjoy taking my Linux software over to them. Having the same -binary- run against GTK# on Win32 would be a huge bonus in getting more Free software apps running on Win32 and open up more room for migrating Win32 people over to Linux once they realize half their everyday apps run -NATIVELY- on Linux as well as Win32.

Kudos, Ximian.

Hot developer, maybe hot desktop

[straycheck]

That Nat Friedman guy is cute. Who says all hackers are ugly? Too bad he probably doesn't like guys.

XD2 looks cool but I wish window managers would stop trying to round the corners of windows when they can't antialias them. It just looks unprofessional. I haven't used a Ximian desktop before, but it also looks like they might be misusing the top menu bar. Do application menus appear there as on the Macintosh? Doing it that way boosts efficiency quite a bit.

Good luck though, and I hope Ximian contributes a lot back to the community.

Re:Hot developer, maybe hot desktop

[Yort]

Do application menus appear [in the top menu bar] as on the Macintosh? Doing it that way boosts efficiency quite a bit.

Whaaaaaa? Are you being sarcastic? Maybe I'm just missing something in the whole "Mac" thing, but having application menus appear in the top menu bar (as opposed to in the menu bar of the application itself) has, in my experience, long been one of the single most annoying things about using the Mac interface (along with insisting on only one mouse button).

This is especially evident for anyone using a dual monitor setup, as you have to always go back to the main monitor screen to use any of your menu options!

Anyway, I just don't get the advantages. But maybe it's just me.

Re:C Sharp comments...

[TummyX]

Yeah, working if you don't count the windows specific APIs like MAPI, etc.


Since when did ASP.NET have anything to do with MAPI?

Re:C Sharp comments...

[Kunta Kinte]

Since when did ASP.NET have anything to do with MAPI?

MAPI is used both on the server side to access exchange, etc. and also as a means to provide the ASP app messaging services. Web applications using ASP are going to be built around MAPI and it *may* be a task to convert it something else. MAPI was just an example. These ASP apps are going to use ADSI, and other MS hooks. There are lots of them.

Mono isn't the first to take a swipe at porting MS development platform over to UNIX. And the others didn't do much either because of MS "integration" with the OS, but hey, maybe Mono will be different. But between microsoft's moving api's, and a skeptical market, it won't be easy I'm saying.

Miguel admited to wanting a job at Microsoft

[Quietti]

His story goes like this: poor Latino programmer wanting a job at Microsoft but without a chance of landing one spots this thing called Linux and decides to proove his mettle by coding for that. Fast forward a few years later and he's doing an OSS clone of .Net and getting invited by said Microsoft to discuss compatibility issues. What if Microsoft had real reasons for licensing UNIX?

While Miguel seems to have developped into a fine programmer, I cannot help but feel very uneasy about someone whose dream once was to work for Microsoft actually leading one of the two main desktop efforts on Linux. Already, the gconf system reaks of Windows register...

Re:Miguel admited to wanting a job at Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

no one cares. go home.

Re:Miguel admited to wanting a job at Microsoft

[DigitalCH]

Yeah, I can't understand why anyone would like to get paid a lot of money working with a bunch of bright people at a company who can change the world. ;-) Quit being silly...

Be glad Miguel went the route he did. It is one of the best things that could have happened to the open source community.

Oh, and your comment on the windows registry is misplaced... Do you remember windows before the registry???? A million little ini files... Drove me nuts... The biggest problem with the registry is that it should have been implemented as protected XML file. That way you could do fast compare and replaces when you need to. But you can't argue that it doesn't have good structure and that it wasn't desperately needed.

Re:Miguel admited to wanting a job at Microsoft

[The Bungi]

That's some nice bullshit you're spreading there. Miguel was not a "poor latino", his family is upper middle class Mexican. He could have stayed in the UNAM (the biggest university in the country) and had his choice of tenure position teaching CS, yet he chose to come to the US - under a "genius" visa.

I cannot help but feel very uneasy about someone whose dream once was to work for Microsoft

Interesting. Do you feel uneasy when RMS fights on stage and insults everyone? I just ask because he's the father of emacs and whatnot.

Already, the gconf system reaks of Windows register

Gee, this is like those insightful monkeys that claim that Windows crashes every two hours when the last version they installed was 3.1. I suggest you hit the GNOME mailing list archives and read the numerous well-articulated posts about gconf - maybe you'll learn something.

Re:Miguel admited to wanting a job at Microsoft

[Miguel de Icaza]

latino - WRONG!
poor - WRONG!
wants to work at M$ - WRONG!
fine programmer - SUBJECTIVE/WRONG!
gnome in same league as KDE - WRONG!

gconf resembles windows registry - TRUE

please troll harder

nah nah

[Anonymous Coward]

No, wrong, wrong. Gnome has the HIG, the developers for the most part follow it very well... The file dialogs in gnome were never a problem even though everyone thinks its a life-or-death matter... its going to be "fixed" with gtk 2.4, when really, all that needs to be fixed is that silly motif xlock dialog.

Re:C Sharp comments...

[TummyX]

What bullshit. If you use mail you use System.Web.Mail namespace which may or *maynot* use MAPI underneath. It's completely managed and the MAPI api is never exposed. For the record, Mono has a working implementation of the System.Web.Mail namespace.

KDE sort of "looks" like Windows

[TinCanFury]

Also, KDE sort of "looks" like Windows, which people frequently find confusing, since it implies that it will act exactly like Windows, which it doesn't

wait, is he saying gnome looks less like Windows than KDE does? Looking at the screenshots of XD2 in the article, it looks just as much like Windows as KDE does. OK, so the default puts the K task bar on the bottom like windows, but I have mine at the top of my screen, and I have a running apps bar at the bottom too.

As far as options, the thing that pisses me off about Gnome is that I can't or its very difficult to change settings, which just pisses me off and I log back into KDE.

Plus, whats up with Gnome's file save/open box? That thing needed work 3 years ago...

That said, XD1 was awesome, and I'm definitly going to give XD2 a try, as soon as they have a Mandrake build.

KDE vs. Gnome

[Anonymous Coward]

Recently i switched from using mainly windows to mainly Linux for my day to day stuff (games still log back into windows). And have convinced my wife to use Linux and she loves it. I only installed the KDE desktop and like it alot. My wife also finds it easy to use especially since it works like Windows, the only operating system she's ever used.

So having said that, what is so different between KDE and Gnome? and what makes one better over the other? since this XD2 is based on Gnome, i'm wondering if i should even bother trying it out.

-DarDack

Re: maybe hot desktop

[straycheck]

Apple has (supposedly) done a significant amount of empirical testing of user interaction. I think the idea is that it is faster to "throw" the mouse to the top of the screen and expect the menu to be there, rather than the MS way of locating it at the top of the window, which is not always at a standard place, and, even when maximized, leaves space at the top of the screen making it hard to home in on the menu. This is sort of like how, in Windows before Win2k, the corner of the screen wouldn't popup the start menu. I hadn't thought about multiple monitor setups though...

Re: Quick Buck?!

[alext]

You can't be tied to MS standards if MS isn't providing any of the code here. So what if MS takes their .NET framework and breaks Mono compatiblity in a future release? They hang onto the old framework and go to work re-coding it and branch it off from there.

I find this a very revealing line of argument. It seems that Dotnet compatibility is something that Mono proponents are very keen to tout as a major advantage of the platform, but when the real-world difficulties of achieving it are pointed out it suddenly becomes minor and optional.

If the only possible benefit is so much at risk, why subject yourself to all the constraints?

It's rather as if one were advertising an expensive French language school which guarantees that you'll benefit greatly from the course, whether or not French people can understand you.

I disagree 100%

[Anonymous Coward]

The newest releases of Nautilus show tremndous improvements in speed. Also, IMO, there is nothing that great about Konqueror. As a non-kde user I don't like my programs integrated if possible, (I will not be using the bonobo integration for pdfs and stuff like that) because it is too much of a monolithic approach. Actually, I don't think either file manager is "there" yet, so I use the command line. Until an equivalent of powerdesk for windows, or maybe a decent norton commander remake is released for Unix, I'm going to be using the terminal.

GtkHTML: evolute, don't dump

[leandrod]

Nat says he'd dump GtkHTML for Gecko.

I love Gecko, use it everyday all day long in Galeon.

But I don't want GtkHTML to be dumped. I want it to get feature parity with Gecko, so that I can dump Gecko and its portability layer.

I find it preposterous that I am running a program that needs emulation of proprietary COM in standard POSIX...