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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."
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.
Whats scary? The fact that they admit it or the fact that its true?
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.)
Did you stop reading when the changes to things like OpenOffice were made or the Printing system?
Well, given that you don't actually lose the data, it's reassuring.
.doc ends up being the underlying file format, the dialog is just needlessly alarming, and they just took it out.
Since
... 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.
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.
Some interesting claims made for Mono:
/. a number of times, ActiveX, CORBA, DCE etc. have all made claims like this and have met with limited success.
.NET: http://www.zope.org/Members/Brian/PythonNet/FAQ.ht ml.
.NET, managed code cannot generally use classes implemented in Python.
.NET would certainly be doable and useful - but it would also be a lot more work than the current approach."
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
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
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
A Jython-like solution for
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".
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.
I do security
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.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
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.
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?
:) 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.
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.
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.
-- dieman - Scott Dier
Yea because you really need more then ssh to admin your linux servers.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
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.
Karma. Moderation. Is my
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.
[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]